237: Internal Knowledge

Recently, gossip appeared on the Internet. Not many people noticed it at first, until an official Weibo published the affiliated list. This gossip then swept through most of the Internet like a whirlwind; in just one day, there was a lot of noise, and six of the top ten news on the topics list was related to this gossip.

Due to the breakthrough of the first season of Extreme Challenge, many netizens were calling for a second season. So, the official plan for the second season began. Netizens had also guessed which guests will be invited in the second season. It was said that a while ago, through polls, some popular stars had been selected. However, it depended on the opinion of ​​the program group in the end.

Such shows were always highly anticipated. As long as one had the opportunity to become a guest and their performance was not too bad, they would basically become popular. In addition to popular stars, many not-popular and low-tiers stars rushed to such shows, willing to smash their heads to attend, and doing all kinds of networking with those backstage in order to attend.

However, it was impossible for the program group to invite many unfamiliar guests, so they pre-appointed some more famous and anticipated celebrities, and the remaining places were naturally for celebrities with backstage connections.

Yazhi failed to catch up with this opportunity.

After Wang Cheng took over the company, the quota for Extreme Challenge had actually already been determined, but the program team had only announced a few people on their list, and the rest of the predetermined guests would be announced later.

However, just when they were about to announce the complete list, Wang Cheng had approached Zhao Jiansheng. With such an intervention, the program team had to kick off two people from the list, of those who had never been announced. What caused them to feel embarrassed was that one of the remaining people on the list was a celebrity with a relatively big reputation who was specifically invited by the program group, and all the others had backstage connections.

The reason why the big star was left unannounced by the program group was to build momentum in the last few days, so that the show would have an increasingly high reputation before filming, and so that after the show was broadcast, higher ratings could be guaranteed to a certain extent. So, this big star would never be eliminated.

However, all of the others remaining had backstage connections. No matter which one was removed, it would be a problem, let alone to remove two. In the end, the program group threw this problem to the sponsor to solve. But the sponsor was not as entangled as they were. The others couldn't compare to the Zhou Groups, so the sponsor quickly eliminated two of them.

The netizens were unaware of these things that had yet to be announced, but the celebrities who were removed from the list still held grudges.

Not all celebrities could easily have backstage connections. Some celebrities could only have this opportunity by sacrificing their own bodies. Their chance to become famous was right in front of them, but they were kicked when they were at the door. Although the sponsor said that they themself would make it up, one of the stars was still very unwilling.

So, she posted a sentence on her Weibo. The content was nothing more than satirizing that some shameless people squeezed her out using backstage connections. At the same time, she mentioned her grievances and lamented the changing world of the entertainment industry and how things have gone wrong.

However, because her reputation was not high, her number of Weibo fans was only in the hundreds of thousands, and that number had been manipulated by her, so there were not many fans who responded. Although she was unreconciled, she couldn’t make a big wave by herself. She thought that this Weibo would sink from now on, but it became popular within a few days.

There was a Weibo account on the Internet, which is famous for its acrimony. Its name was Justice Black and White. They often published a lot of things related to the entertainment industry. Their content echoed their name, they mainly exposed and accused celebrities on the filthier side of entertainment gossip. In general, 80% of the ‘facts’ pointed out by this account were true.

Several rumors that once made a sensation in the entertainment industry had something to do with him. Once, they exposed the gossip of a big star. This big star and his public relations team performed an annual show on the Internet that deceived the public. This big star had never been heard from since. This Weibo account became famous because of this incident, and its Weibo fans had risen to close to six or seven million.

On the day the official Weibo list was announced, Justice Black and White suddenly released a Weibo. The content of the Weibo exposed some shady scenes of Extreme Challenge. Its quota that had been set was replaced, and two innocent stars were shot down. And the celebrities who were replacing the two pointed directly to the recently highly topical Yazhi Media.

Many people in the entertainment industry already knew that Yazhi Media’s chairman had changed. This new chairman was not the same as Zhao Chenlin; he was not a troublemaker waiting for death. After taking over Yazhi, he was committed to developing the company. It was not strange that he would arrange such an opportunity for his company’s artists. There was the Zhou Group as his backer, and many people wanted to give him face.

This kind of thing was normal for people in the entertainment industry all year round, but it was a controversial thing for people who didn’t understand this business.

Those behind the scenes were clearly targeting Yazhi Media.

They used Justice Black and White to provoke this topic, and at the same time, hired many water armies to stir up this topic. After those unsuspecting netizens were involved, they started blatantly discussing Yazhi, and even initiated a storm of calling out XX to kick them out of the entertainment circle!

Not only that, but the other party even implicated other artists in Yazhi.

Those artists with bad reputations were self-sufficient, but what the other party wanted was obviously not this effect. It seemed that they intended to dig a hole for the other artists who were just starting out, so they pulled out a bunch of false rumors, like why such-and-such celebrity originally wanted to endorse this commercial but was replaced by a Yazhi celebrity. There was also a variety show, which featured other stars, but they were all replaced.

Those behind the scenes must have had a lot of time, because they asked the female celebrity who was unreconciled with being replaced, and asked her to post something on her Weibo. For example, she just had to ‘stand up and expose the truth’, in order to let the incident escalate again.

Some netizens ran to the official Weibo of Extreme Challenge to ask for an explanation, but the official only clarified things without mentioning the incident itself, just saying that they would never disappoint everyone’s expectations and that they would do their best. Wang Cheng didn’t go on Weibo, as his computer was only a working tool for him. So, he had no idea what was happening on the Internet.

However, entertainment newspapers quickly published this gossip news. After all, it was too lively and many people were paying attention to it. Pan Zhihai’s little assistant held a newspaper and asked to come in with the newspaper, not daring to say anything. It would be difficult for Wang Cheng to not notice such an expression of wanting to say something but not knowing how.

"Do you have something to say?" Wang Cheng asked.

The assistant was stunned. Thinking that he couldn't hide it anyway, he cautiously put the newspaper in front of him. "Chairman, you can learn of it by reading this newspaper."

Wang Cheng cautiously picked up the newspaper. The headline of the newspaper was based on one of the hot topics on the Internet. He took a look at it and almost completely understood.

Pan Zhihai had not told him, but since he had been following He Zihuan all this time, it was excusable for him to not pay so much attention to this news. But how about Yazhi’s public relations team? They had no reaction at all when such a big thing happened.

The little assistant seemed to see his thoughts and said, “Chairman, these things had been handled by President Pan in the past, but President Pan has been absent these past two days. Yazhi’s public relations team has given a lot of effort, but ever since the water army fired up this matter, it can’t be suppressed. How do you think this should be dealt with?"

"What do you think we should do about it?"

The little assistant didn't expect the chairman to ask him. He was a bit stunned, but he reacted quickly. After thinking about it, he said: "Should we check who is behind this? The other party seems to be deliberately aiming at Yazhi, I don’t know if it’s just my illusion or not."

Wang Cheng said: "Explain."

The assistant said: "I feel that the other party is very familiar with the Yazhi artists. Many of the artists who had been implicated are not well known, so it is logically impossible for them to know so much unless they had followed the artists. However, it would be useless for them to pay so much attention to the artists. They also mentioned the scripts accepted by the artists, some of which were invested in by the Zhou Group. Only we knew whether the roles were predetermined, but the other party did not even let that go. This goes to show that the latter knows Yazhi well, and such an indiscriminate attack seems like it’s meant to break Yazhi."

Wang Cheng didn't expect this little assistant to be so thorough. "You are correct in your analysis, why didn’t you tell me this beforehand? However, we can't let the other party be so arrogant. Let the person in charge of the public relations team come over."

"Yes, chairman." The little assistant happily walked out.

After a while, a man entered Wang Cheng's office, and exited about half an hour later. After an hour, a rumor appeared on the Internet.

Someone reported that the little star who kept posing as a victim was really the one who got into Extreme Challenge through backstage connections. Otherwise, with her reputation, it would be impossible for her to get into Extreme Challenge. It was worth noting that the little star’s family background was ordinary, so with no background and no backing, how could she get a spot? The highlight had yet to come.

It turned out that for this little star to become famous, she hooked up with a gold master some time ago. After spending a night with that gold master, she made an agreement with the other party. The gold master happened to know someone from Extreme Challenge, and wanted to get a spot for the little star. It was said that that place she received had originally been meant for another star. The little star was proud after stealing someone else’s spot, so she showed off to the people around her that she was going to Extreme Challenge.

Later, another star stood up and said that they were the person who was replaced by that little star. Then, someone claiming to be an insider said that the little star had showed off in front of them during that time and was very proud to replace the original star.

This dramatic change of events caused everyone to feel overwhelmed.

The netizens were originally a group of people who wanted to join in the fun. The stars involved were not big stars, so their so-called fans were pitifully few. Therefore, when the wind changed direction, those idle netizens followed.

There is a saying that goes ‘the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind’.

They thought they had taken away someone's place, but didn’t know that there was someone bigger behind them. This might be called payback; they were all birds of a feather, anyway.

Wang Cheng went to Pan Zhihai's office and called up a few surveillance videos on his computer. He first sent the surveillance to his mailbox, then notified the assistant, asking him to check it.

The assistant did not live up to his expectations, and found the surveillance video he wanted in an hour.

It turned out that a few days ago, Wang Cheng had asked Pan Zhihai to install a monitoring system in several places in the company. It had been installed at a time when the company had few people. Some of the monitoring systems were hidden relatively secretly, so even if the company’s employees knew that there was monitoring, they would not realize it was there in hidden areas.

One of them was in Pan Zhihai's office.

The surveillance showed a sneaky figure sneak into Pan Zhihai’s office and flip through his desk three days ago in the evening. He also moved his computer and copied all the information on the computer to a thumbdrive. This explained how the other party knew so much about Yazhi’s artists. This person was very familiar with the company's internals; the other party directly came to Pan Zhihai’s office without looking around, and even cracked the computer's password. Only Pan Zhihai and Wang Cheng knew his computer’s password.

"Chairman, what do you want to do now?" The little assistant asked.

Wang Cheng said: “Someone behind them should have instructed them to do so. Don’t be stunned, just pretend that you don’t know anything. You should deal with the online matters first: let the public relations team pay attention to the trends on the Internet at any given moment, and respond according to the situation. Don't worry about these things, I can take care of it."

After saving the evidence and getting off work, Wang Cheng returned to the Binhai apartment. Once Chu Yifeng returned, he borrowed one of his employees.

***

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