MBFAAO 12: The Entertainment Industry’s Face-Slapping Madman

Lin Liekai, bored out of his mind, lay in his own mansion outside the city in the Yanjiao area, scrolling through the news.

After scrolling for a long time and finding it quite meaningless, he picked up his phone and directly dialed Jin Xun’s number. “Hello, where are you living a life of drunken stupor and illusory dreams¹An idiom literally meaning “born drunk, die dreaming.” It describes living a life of debauchery, completely lacking purpose, and being lost to hedonism.?”

Jin Xun laughed and scolded, “I’m in a meeting at the company, negotiating an acquisition case. How could I have such a good life as you?”

“Asking you for a favor—the specific background info on that little bastard you brought over last time, get it and send me a copy.”

Jin Xun was startled. He carefully walked out to the corridor before asking in a low voice, “What do you want to do? Want to take revenge?”

“Yes, I want to stab back!” Lin Liekai grumpily said.

Jin Xun coughed violently. “Cough cough! A-Lin, don’t be impulsive. For that kind of eighteenth-tier, there are plenty of ways to crush him to death. You don’t necessarily have to… Use his own methods against his own body.”

Lin Liekai impatiently said, “Is it that hard to ask you to give me the info? Fine, if you don’t give it to me, I’ll get it myself.”

Jin Xun hurriedly said, “That person really has nothing complicated about him, he’s just a little contestant participating in that program Voice and Visual Idol. If you search on Weibo, all the info is there.”

After he finished speaking, he added another sentence, “Only eighteen or nineteen, still an ignorant child.”

The dignified young master of the Lin family, fighting to the death with an eighteenth-tier little singer, isn’t that losing face?

Lin Liekai hung up the phone cleanly and neatly. “Fine, I’ll search it myself.”

He searched the contestant list a bit, and at a glance, he saw the two characters “Cheng Yan.” He was in a daze for a moment—it turned out the pronunciation was similar, but the name was completely different.

However, after a short while, Lin Liekai looked at the searched content for “Cheng Yan,” his thick eyebrows knitted into a tangled inverted figure-eight shape.²The Chinese character for eight is “八”. An inverted “八” looks like ” / \ “, which perfectly describes heavily furrowed, angled eyebrows when someone is confused or angry.

What the hell is all this stuff?

This person whose makeup looks like a ghost is that little bastard from that day whose features were breathtakingly handsome, making one forget the mundane upon seeing him—Bah! The little brat that makes one angry upon seeing him?

This fool dancing with the same hand and same foot, stiff as a fool like he was just fed the ‘Half-Step Smile Convulsion’³A famous fictional poison from the classic Stephen Chow comedy film Flirting Scholar (唐伯虎點秋香). Taking it means you cannot take even half a step or smile without dying/convulsing. Using it here compares the dancer’s extreme stiffness to being poisoned by it. poison—is that child from that day whose movements were agile, and who even knew how to do a carp leap?

Oh, at least the singing is correct though. It’s so awful to hear!

No, no, still not right.

Although the singing is unpleasant, this person’s speaking voice in the program is sweet and moving, and it’s also different from the broken gong voice he heard that day.

These are fundamentally two different people, right?

The more he thought, the more confused he got. The more he looked, the angrier he got.

His brain got hot and his hand forwarded a “Cheng Yan cut song and dance compilation.”

“How is it so ugly? Who can tell me what the hell is this thing?”

He’s obviously very good-looking, so has the program team gone crazy?

…One hour later, the Weibo post “Young Master Lin tears into straw-bag⁴Something that looks full on the outside but is actually empty and useless inside. Implying a pretty boy who has looks but no brains or ability. little fresh meat online”—about the head of the Four Young Masters of Yancheng, the entertainment industry’s face-slapping madman, got on the hot search trend.

The two of them, Zheng Qingqing and Qin Xiaofeng, after finishing evening self-study, they returned to their dorm room and tacitly opened Weibo.

These past few days, it was as if they had been injected with chicken blood, running to Cheng Yan’s Weibo every day to clock in.

“Hey, tell me, after the next episode of the program, will our little brother’s Weibo follower count explode?”

Zheng Qingqing resolutely said, “It definitely will, I feel like it could grow by hundreds of thousands in one night!”

What kind of joke is this? When they went back that day, the two of them searched for Cheng Yan’s Weibo immediately. It was simply ‘those who see it feel sad, those who hear of it shed tears’—he only had a measly ten thousand or so followers.

The Weibo timeline started when the program began, and it was all just dry “good mornings, good nights.” Obviously, he didn’t have Weibo before and only opened it in response to the demands of the program group and management company.

Looking closer at those ten thousand plus followers, ninety-nine percent were still black fans and passersby observing the funny videos.

The more the two girls looked, the angrier they got. Starting from that day, they persistently and continuously checked in under Cheng Yan’s Weibo, leaving one message of encouragement and cheering every day.

Suddenly, the girl in the top bunk next to them said “Aiyo,” and added, “Qingqing, Xiaofeng! Quickly look at Weibo! Someone is tearing into that Cheng Yan you two like!”

Five out of the six girls in the dorm were following Voice and Visual Idol, only the two of them went to the live scene last time. After returning, they crazily pushed that ugly freak Cheng Yan like mad, making the other few girls feel deeply uncomfortable.

All this “bare face is stunning,” and “astonishing with one song,” saying it vividly and convincingly—do they think everyone else doesn’t have eyes? That idiot’s eye-burning video is still glaringly floating around.

Zheng Qingqing rolled her eyes. “There are plenty of people tearing into our Cheng Yan, so one or two more doesn’t matter.”

“It got on the hot, search, trend!” That girl said triumphantly, “Do you know who is tearing into him? The head of the Four Young Masters of Yancheng, Lin Liekai!”

Zheng Qingqing was currently gnawing on spicy chicken claws. Hearing this, she almost swallowed a small piece of chicken bone, and coughed violently a few times before recovering.

Oh my god, who!

That super-rich young master with an illustrious background, handsome appearance, single and wealthy, has a poisonous tongue and is tsundere, whose internet traffic is comparable to entertainment industry stars, whose follower count is approaching twenty million—Lin Liekai?

Other families’ big rich young masters all keep a low profile, only this one is different—relying on his good looks to commit crimes.

Relying on being too good-looking and his family being too rich, it would be fine if he doesn’t speak from morning to night, but once he speaks, he can’t be separated from dissing people.

If he’s not tearing into high-traffic young male idols, he’s mocking plastic surgery young female starlets, or otherwise directly forwarding compilations of green-screen copy-paste acting. There was even one time, a little fresh meat, not knowing the immensity of heaven and earth, dissed him back a few sentences. This young master directly replied with “Drug-using trash, get lost,” directly blowing open the other party’s dark material of drug use.

After he blew open that the little fresh meat’s taking drugs, he was angrily attacked by that little fresh meat’s fans for three days and three nights for slander. However, as it happens, what he said was all solid hammer true material. As a result, not long after, the Chaoyang District masses reported a mass drug use gathering, and that little fresh meat was unfortunately right among them.

With this, it made everyone in the entertainment industry turn pale at the mention of him. People gave him the nickname “Entertainment Industry’s Face-Slapping Madman.” In short, he deeply won the goodwill of the people and masses—a massive amount of female fans who love his face gathered under his Weibo, as well as all kinds of masses who love to eat melons.

The two girls swiftly opened Weibo. Sure enough, the third trending search was exactly it.

The title “Young Master Lin tears into straw-bag little fresh meat online,” no matter how you look at it, it exudes a vibe of chuunibyou.

“Ying ying, my husband.” Zheng Qingqing stared at Lin Liekai’s avatar. “Haven’t seen him for a few days, husband got more handsome again.”

Qin Xiaofeng was truly a bit angry. “Stop being boy-crazy, doesn’t he usually only tear into top-tier popular starlets and green-screen movie stars? Why is he tearing into Yanyan today?”

What kind of internet traffic does Cheng Yan count as? Have you ever seen an internet traffic star with ten thousand Weibo fans?

Originally, it was just fans who followed the show laughing at Cheng Yan and it didn’t go outside the industry. Now, being forwarded and mocked again by this true super high-traffic Big V, passersby who didn’t know the context all came over to watch the spectacle. Under Lin Liekai’s Weibo post was entirely a joyous ocean of people trampling on someone.

Watching this happen, little brother Cheng Yan’s Weibo followers increased by ten or twenty thousand, and they were all trolls!

Zheng Qingqing clutched her chest, on the verge of tears. “What to do, my husband is tearing into my son, my heart hurts.”

Looking back again, under Young Master Lin’s Weibo topic, a field of black fans were dancing.

Dongfang Cuihua:【Hahahaha, the entertainment industry’s face-slapping maniac strikes again, aiming at an eighteenth-tier unknown little singer for what reason?】

【Passerby is confused (￣_,￣ ) who can give a popular science explanation. Who is this little brother with unconventional bone structure⁵A classic trope in Wuxia (martial arts) novels used by old masters when they spot a prodigy suited for kung fu. On the modern internet, it’s used ironically or comically to describe someone who looks bizarre, unusual, or behaves in a weirdly fascinating way. and a ferocious appearance?】

【Is it only me in the whole world who hasn’t watched this kind of sand sculpture⁶A phonetic pun on a Chinese swear word. It is widely used to affectionately (or mockingly) describe something or someone that is extremely silly, ridiculous, absurd, or hilariously dumb. survival show? Except for faces, nothing else can be selected, but now, are there not even any watchable faces left?】

【Sand sculpture person upstairs move aside, look at my family’s Tongtong’s beautiful face + beautiful voice!】

【Sorry, this person does not represent the collective standard of Voice and Visual Idol. Dropping a dancing GIF of our Yilun and Xuexue to guard the thread⁷Literally “guarding the building/tower.” In forum and social media culture, it refers to the practice of posting a highly attractive, cute, or striking image in the main post to grab attention and “anchor” the thread so people will click on it..】

The two girls couldn’t swallow their anger, and swiftly found Huang Yi’s Weibo.

The Weibo post that sparked a heated discussion that day had already died down, but was still hanging in Huang Yi’s “Hot” tab. Once opened, the high-definition headshot posted by the little nurse Li Yuanyuan leaped right out.

Zheng Qingqing puffed up with anger, copied that beautiful picture, and “smack,” returned under Lin Liekai’s Weibo.

“This is little brother Cheng Yan’s true face—open your eyes wide and look!”

The time was exactly past nine in the evening, the most active period for Weibo users. Her reply was quickly drowned out by a tide of replies, angering the two girls so much they stamped their feet.

“Not looking anymore, I’m going to wash up, get into bed, and listen to music!” Zheng Qingqing fought strenuously for a while, but couldn’t beat those massive numbers of melon-eating passersby at all. She angrily threw her phone aside.

After washing up, unwilling to give up, she picked up her phone to take a look. She didn’t hold it steady, directly dropping it off the bed.

Oh my god, in just this ten minutes of time, her forwards, @s, and replies exceeded over a thousand?!

“Your husband flipped your name tag⁸Originates from imperial times when the Emperor would select which concubine to spend the night with by flipping a wooden name tag. In modern fandom slang, it means a celebrity or highly popular account has noticed and replied to a fan’s comment or post out of the thousands of others.!!” The girl in the top bunk yelled at the top of her lungs.

Young Master Lin posted that war-inciting Weibo and disappeared without a trace for a few hours, but just now somehow, among tens of thousands of replies, he solely picked the picture of Cheng Yan she posted, and gave a backhanded @.

“Reply @QingqingZijin: Hehe. //@QingqingZijin: This is little brother Cheng Yan’s true face—open your eyes wide and look!”

…

The slightly quieted down hot search was once again pushed up to the top three.

Moreover, the passersby who rushed over upon hearing the news, once again vigorously and dynamically repeated the disastrous mistakes from earlier under Huang Yi’s Weibo.

【This is the f*cking same person? This is a joke, right?】

【No, we are not blind, this is absolutely impossible to be one person.】

The topmost hot comment was liked over three thousand times:

【Reported it in passing, where was this picture stolen from. This is leapfrogging to touch porcelain⁹A term originally describing a scam where people deliberately throw themselves in front of slow-moving cars (or drop fake porcelain antiques) to extort compensation. Online, it means deliberately associating oneself with a more famous person or using fake/stolen content to gain undeserved clout or start drama., okay?】

That female netizen looked triumphantly at the number of likes under her comment, and was just about to post another one, when with another refresh, she was unexpectedly blocked by Lin Liekai!

“Ying ying what did I do wrong, husband tell me!”

In the dorm room, Zheng Qingqing stared dumbfounded at Cheng Yan’s Weibo follower count—it was rising again!

Husband is awesome—directly pushed my son’s Weibo followers to thirty-eight thousand.

At this time, Young Master Lin was lying on the big bed while scrolling through Weibo. His finger was also extending and retracting, retracting and extending, and finally clicked “secretly follow.”

Staring at Cheng Yan’s follower count of exactly thirty-eight thousand, he snorted resentfully.

Jin Xun must be sick. He actually had the nerve to accept that thirty-eight thousand, and even transferred it over to him!

…

Pan Yu was lying on his stomach on the bed in the dorm, currently writing furiously.

Ever since the groupings were confirmed, the places where the contestants lived were immediately adjusted, ensuring that contestants in the same group lived in a double room, to facilitate discussing their works.

There was only less than four or five days of time left to rehearse. Cheng Yan didn’t know anything, so it could only be him—the capable one doing more work. He hurried to write a hip-hop song suitable for a two-person performance.

“Xiao Cheng ah, do you want to… think of a way to add a bit of guitar playing in the intro, so you can show off your talent?” He scratched his head, feeling a bit worried in his heart.

How could this even be added!

Cheng Yan was also lying on his stomach on the bed. Hearing that, he casually replied, “No need to add classical guitar, that doesn’t match.”

“Ah? What will you do then?” Pan Yu felt embarrassed. He couldn’t just only care about what he was good at, right?

Cheng Yan raised his head. His just-washed face carried a slight dampness, and under his long eyelashes, his pupils were black and deep.

“I can do anything—whatever you want to sing, I’ll coordinate with you.” He smiled slightly.

The complaints in Pan Yu’s heart were about to break through the sky, but he was well-mannered and kind-hearted, and felt embarrassed to mock him, so he could only awkwardly stroke his head full of blonde hair. “Ah hahaha… That’s good.”

That’s right, anyway, Cheng Yan didn’t know how to sing anything. How about he write a few repetitive, simpler rap lyrics himself, and tell him to memorize them and mix in a few voices?

“Right, you write first.” Cheng Yan thought for a bit. “Tomorrow morning, I need to take a leave of absence to go out and handle some personal matters.”

Pan Yu casually waved his hand. “Okay, you busy yourself with your things.”

Sigh, he didn’t expect him to be able to help out with anything anyway.

“When you finish writing, I’ll come back and polish it a bit. The arrangement also needs to strive for perfection.”

Pan Yu smiled bitterly and sighed. “The arrangement teacher has been busy to death lately, every group of contestants is looking for him with their tracks.”

Let alone striving for perfection, it would be good enough if he could allocate them average time. After all, there are still popular contestants like Tongtong and them.

Cheng Yan turned his face sideways, his expression focused, a gentle and warm smile escaping into his eyes. “It’s fine, I’ll do the arrangement.”

Pan Yu absentmindedly hummed an “mm,” fundamentally not paying attention to his response.

• 1
  An idiom literally meaning “born drunk, die dreaming.” It describes living a life of debauchery, completely lacking purpose, and being lost to hedonism.
• 2
  The Chinese character for eight is “八”. An inverted “八” looks like ” / \ “, which perfectly describes heavily furrowed, angled eyebrows when someone is confused or angry.
• 3
  A famous fictional poison from the classic Stephen Chow comedy film Flirting Scholar (唐伯虎點秋香). Taking it means you cannot take even half a step or smile without dying/convulsing. Using it here compares the dancer’s extreme stiffness to being poisoned by it.
• 4
  Something that looks full on the outside but is actually empty and useless inside. Implying a pretty boy who has looks but no brains or ability.
• 5
  A classic trope in Wuxia (martial arts) novels used by old masters when they spot a prodigy suited for kung fu. On the modern internet, it’s used ironically or comically to describe someone who looks bizarre, unusual, or behaves in a weirdly fascinating way.
• 6
  A phonetic pun on a Chinese swear word. It is widely used to affectionately (or mockingly) describe something or someone that is extremely silly, ridiculous, absurd, or hilariously dumb.
• 7
  Literally “guarding the building/tower.” In forum and social media culture, it refers to the practice of posting a highly attractive, cute, or striking image in the main post to grab attention and “anchor” the thread so people will click on it.
• 8
  Originates from imperial times when the Emperor would select which concubine to spend the night with by flipping a wooden name tag. In modern fandom slang, it means a celebrity or highly popular account has noticed and replied to a fan’s comment or post out of the thousands of others.
• 9
  A term originally describing a scam where people deliberately throw themselves in front of slow-moving cars (or drop fake porcelain antiques) to extort compensation. Online, it means deliberately associating oneself with a more famous person or using fake/stolen content to gain undeserved clout or start drama.