Who Needs a CEO? I Choose Stardom

[Gotta take a picture quick, before it heals up. Foot_Blister.JPG]

It had to be said, Wei Shuojie knew her marketing.

And she’d grown even more skilled after getting to know the marketing genius, Pei Jin.

Within an hour of posting, it was already trending.

This was because she’d expertly ridden the coattails of a trending topic, coordinating perfectly with Pei Jin.

Here’s what happened.

The day before yesterday, a popular idol got a scratch on his hand about a centimeter long. He posted about it on social media, looking all sad, in an attempt to build a ”dedicated professional” persona.

His agency bought traffic, his fans gushed with sympathy, and just like that, it started trending.

But then a random netizen wrote a joke that had the entire internet howling with laughter, turning the whole affair into a huge laughingstock.

The joke went like this:

[XX rushes to the hospital, pointing at the scratch on his hand and wailing, ”Waaah, am I going to die?!” When the doctor arrives, he just keeps sighing over and over without saying a word. XX’s voice trembles in fear. ”Doctor, I... what’s wrong with me? Will I be disfigured?” The doctor lets out one last long sigh. ”It’s a good thing you came in when you did. Any later, and the wound would’ve healed on its own!”]

The young idol was mortified and deleted his post. His fans, after cyberbullying the witty netizen into deactivating their account, still had pent-up anger. When they saw this new post, they collectively snapped to attention!

[Ew... so gross! Who posts pictures of their feet? I can smell it through the screen~]

[Who the hell are you trying to ride the coattails of? Where did this little nobody come from? You think you can just leech off my XX’s popularity?]

[WTF! My idol is handsome enough to shatter the heavens! It would be terrifying if he got disfigured. What are you trying to pull, begging for sympathy with the bottom of your foot?]

...

How could a few blisters on a pair of fair, delicate feet be that disgusting?

The vile insults were enough to disgust even neutral onlookers, to say nothing of Ni Bingyan’s fans.

A war between the two fandoms was about to erupt, but Sister Wei was prepared. She quickly guided public opinion, rallied the neutral netizens, and completely shut down the toxic stans.

After all, the young idol wasn’t an A-lister, so his army of toxic stans wasn’t that big. Ni Bingyan, on the other hand, had two Best Actress awards to her name; her core fanbase was solid.

Once the comments section was cleaned up, someone left a comment asking:

[Where has our Bingyan been? What did she do to her feet?]

Wei Shuojie replied to this comment: [@Ni Bingyan’s World Travel official account, you’ll find out when you watch the seventh episode.]

Pei Jin replied as well: [/laughing-crying emoji Everyone just wait for episode seven! Don’t ask, because I won’t tell. All I can say is, you’d better be mentally prepared before you watch it! Or your entire worldview is going to be shattered!]

And with that, everyone started discussing the contents of the show.

The third episode had just aired, and fans were feeling utterly satisfied after being treated to a ton of sweet moments from the on-screen couple. They were already eagerly anticipating the next one, so when they saw the director mention that episode seven was already filmed, they started clamoring on the show’s official account:

[If you’re not going to release the episode, at least give us a behind-the-scenes clip! There’s still a month to go! How are we supposed to wait?! Are you even human, dropping spoilers like this?]

Pei Jin thought that was a fair point. He replied, [On it!] and actually released a behind-the-scenes clip that very night.

The clip was from their trip back to Beijing from Jiangcheng. The group was waiting for their flight at the airport, where a row of eight burly men were slumped in their chairs, all looking completely drained.

”Hehehe, how are you fellas feeling right now?”

Pei Jin asked in a high-pitched, fake voice, a trollish grin on his face as he shouldered the camera and aimed it at the group.

One of them rolled his eyes. ”I’m not talking to the guy who got to ride in a car the whole time.”

Another sighed. ”I feel completely wiped out. I’m not moving a muscle unless I get a three-day vacation.”

A third man gave a wry smile. ”I never expected someone so seemingly delicate to have this much stamina. I’m truly impressed. I’m going to have to live at the gym for a while after this.”

A fourth pulled at his collar, showing it to the camera. ”See this? There are salt crystals on my collar! In the middle of winter! My clothes were soaked, then dried, then got soaked again. If I hadn’t chugged two bowls of ginger soup, I’d probably have a cold by now.”

...

After each of the cameramen had aired their grievances, they all turned to the camera, gave a thumbs-up, and praised in unison, ”Sister Bing is a total badass! We weren’t prepared enough this time. We dare you to go another round!”

After filming the cameramen, Pei Jin shouldered his camera and went to find Ni Bingyan, wanting to ask for her thoughts.

But he found her wearing an eye mask, already fast asleep on a bench. No matter how loudly he called her name, he couldn’t wake her.

When he posted the video, Pei Jin, being the troll that he was, added a caption: [One versus eight, and she came out on top. What exactly did she do? Find out in the seventh episode of Ni Bingyan’s World Travel.]

It was his classic move, his signature style. Everyone wanted to strangle Pei Jin, but knowing what he was like, they swallowed their frustration and resorted to leaving cute, wheedling comments:

[What happened~~ Don’t leave us hanging~]

[Just tell us~ Why be so secretive?]

[With our relationship, is there anything I’m not allowed to know?]

...

In truth, it was the same in every industry.

The more the fans clamored, the more the production team played dead.

If they revealed everything now, how would they pull in ratings when the episode actually aired?

Ni Bingyan slept for a full day at home, then went for a relaxing massage, before she finally felt fully recovered.

Seeing that she was back on her feet, the production team wasted no time and immediately began shooting the eighth episode.

Ni Bingyan had anticipated being half-dead with exhaustion after filming episode seven. With the idea of balancing work and rest, she’d set the theme for episode eight as ”Slow.”

Slowing down, soothing frayed nerves, and truly appreciating the beauty of ordinary life—one would discover that while a fast pace brought one kind of joy, a slow pace brought another entirely.

To capture the ”slow life” theme, they naturally had to start filming in the morning.

If the show’s runtime allowed, she would have even started filming from the moment she woke up.

Early in the morning, the film crew arrived at Ni Bingyan’s home, planning to see what her morning routine was like.

The heat was on inside. Ni Bingyan, dressed in a thin set of coral fleece pajamas, was halfway through a bowl of beef noodles when she heard a sound at the door.

After letting them in, she didn’t stand on ceremony, simply picking her bowl back up and continuing to eat her noodles while standing by the dining table.

She’d been in this business long enough to have it figured out.

If she didn’t eat her fill now, it would be much harder to find a decent meal once they set out.

She saw the cameras were rolling, but she wasn’t the least bit self-conscious about not having any makeup on. After all, she was bare-faced for most of this show anyway.

While eating, she asked, ”Have you guys eaten? If not, I can make you a bowl of noodles. They’re just dried noodles, but they’re not bad.”

’Back in October, she’d planted some cold-resistant spinach in her yard. It was perfectly tender and delicious right now, and when paired with the fragrant, secret-recipe Ni Family red-braised beef, it was absolutely heavenly!’

They already knew she didn’t really diet, relying on exercise to maintain her figure, but they never expected her to be eating meat, vegetables, and carbs first thing in the morning. Other actresses would probably die of envy when they saw this episode.

’We’re just doing it for the show’s effect!’

The red-braised beef smelled too good to resist. ”We haven’t eaten!” they all said in unison.

They had all woken up extra early to get to Ni Bingyan’s place on time, so they really hadn’t eaten breakfast.

Having worked with her for so long, they knew she wasn’t the insincere type. If she offered to make them noodles, she meant it, so they readily accepted.

”Alright then, just a minute!”

Ni Bingyan slurped down the rest of her noodles, picked up the face-sized bowl to drink half the broth, then put it in the sink before quickly tying on an apron and putting a pot of water on to boil.

She did all this with brisk efficiency, completely free of any ”idol baggage.”

While the water was heating up, she grabbed a basket and went into the yard to pick some spinach.

Picking and washing vegetables was cold work in the middle of winter. Seeing this, one of the crew members immediately went over and took the basket from her.

She didn’t object, simply heading back inside and taking a large container of red-braised beef out of the refrigerator.

The crew divided the labor. One person washed the spinach, another filmed her kitchen—which was tidy but had a cozy, lived-in feel—while a third started chatting with her.

”I heard from Sister Wei that you really like beef noodles?”

Pei Jin prompted her from behind the camera. Ni Bingyan smiled.

”I do! It’s delicious, nutritious, and healthy. The best part is, you can cook the beef ahead of time and store it in the fridge. When you want to eat, you just take it out, and a meal is ready in ten minutes or so. I’m often in a rush to get out the door, so I’ll just make a quick bowl.”

”You eat like this every day? Aren’t you afraid of gaining weight?”

”You either watch what you eat or you get moving. I eat a lot, but I exercise a lot, too. In this business, how could anyone not be afraid of gaining weight?”

As they spoke, the water came to a boil.

After making a bowl of noodles for everyone, Ni Bingyan went upstairs to pack what she needed for the day.

By the time she came back down, someone had already washed the dishes for her.

”Bingyan! The world is so big, don’t you want to go see it? Look at last time—three provinces in three days, two cities in one day. How exhilarating was that! Let’s do it again!”

For some reason, Pei Jin had been breaking into that trollish laugh of his at the drop of a hat lately.

Ni Bingyan waved her hands frantically. ”I’m totally burned out! We’re changing the pace today! Slower!”