Wen Ying’s appearance was highly deceptive.
Combined with her invariably smiling, approachable manner during interviews, and her tendency to speak frankly and openly, readers were deeply afraid that she would be taken advantage of.
Little Fish had no guile!
Little Fish needed their protection!
This was the view of the overwhelming majority of her readers.
It was also Gan Tao’s view.
Saturday evening, the Gan family home.
Gan Tao sat glued to the television, watching the interview while simultaneously keeping an eye on the real-time discussions in the QQ group.
For the first half of the programme, the QQ group was a frenzy of celebration, everyone finding new ways to praise Little Fish for her success. Then, without warning, the host ripped away the warm, gentle facade and began questioning Little Fish’s motives for supporting the victims in the recent Silan rights protection incident.
When the host suggested that Little Fish had acted out of personal spite, Gan Tao was furious.
“Little Fish is not that kind of person!”
Father Gan, dragged by his daughter into contributing to the ratings, could not resist muttering, “You can know a person’s face but not their heart. You never saw through the boy you spent every day with, so how could you possibly know a bestselling author you have barely met? And they both share the same surname, Wen…”
Father Gan had never harboured prejudice against surnames before, but now that his daughter was about to be whisked away by a penniless lad surnamed Wen, the surname itself had become an eyesore.
Gan Tao huffed. “Dad, don’t think I can’t tell you’re insinuating something. That’s just prejudice born from stereotypes!”
Just because someone was poor, did that mean they could not be a good boyfriend?
Just because someone was famous, did they have to have skeletons in the closet?
Gan Tao trusted her own judgement completely.
It was judgement honed through countless idol scandals, and she was certain she would not be wrong this time.
Father Gan was about to retort when Mother Gan pinched his arm. “Be quiet. Either watch the programme properly or go to bed.”
He had already been at odds with his daughter for days over her boyfriend Wen Kai. Criticising Wen Kai was one thing, but speaking ill of Gan Tao’s idol “Fish Swimming Against the Current” would only make her more rebellious.
Father Gan subsided reluctantly. Mother Gan spoke fairly. “Others may gossip because they don’t know the facts, but we run a business ourselves. How could we not understand? Little Fish is a writer. Doing her writing well is achievement enough. How could she possibly have the power to bring down a sizeable medical aesthetics company? As for stirring the pot out of personal grudge, if the Silan boss and his sister had a grudge against Little Fish, who’s to say they didn’t bully her first? When their products later turned out to be faulty, Little Fish publicly supported the victims on her blog. Wasn’t that the right thing to do?”
Acting maliciously without provocation made someone a vicious schemer.
But retaliating after being wronged, exposing wrongdoing when the chance arose, that was standing on the side of justice and settling scores with satisfaction.
Mother Gan, worried about her naive daughter’s future, used the opportunity to educate her. “You should learn from Little Fish. A girl can’t be too innocent. Cultivating some self-protection skills does no harm. She’s just an ordinary girl from a small city. How could she fight against overseas-educated investors? In the past she could only endure bullying. She endured until she became famous herself, until the other side exposed their own shady practices through dirty business. Only then did she strike back!”
Gan Tao sucked in a breath. “Little Fish is that formidable?”
Mother Gan scolded affectionately. “Of course she is! You all adore her so much. Would you adore a fool? I think you’re the foolish one. How could she write such captivating stories if she weren’t clever?”
Gan Tao thought about it and agreed.
Little Fish was undoubtedly extremely clever.
If she weren’t clever, she could not have written such popular works. If she weren’t clever, she could not have gained admission to Fudan University with the thirty-first highest science score in the province.
Yet being clever did not mean Little Fish did not need protection.
“I can accept that Little Fish struck back at bad people to protect herself. I believe everything Little Fish does has her reasons. Some of her words and actions may spark public doubt in the short term, but time itself is the best explanation. Those who doubt her will eventually understand her, be won over by her magnanimity, and fall for her completely!”
Gan Tao said this not only to her parents but also posted it in the QQ group, where it was frantically copied and reposted by other readers.
While Gan Tao multitasked, Mother Gan shifted from half-hearted viewing to genuine attention.
This girl was far more than merely clever.
Listen to what she said on the programme. Every sentence was perfectly judged. Not only could few people her age match her, even seasoned social elites many years older could not have performed better.
Her daughter had chosen an excellent idol. There was no loss in that.
“What a pity…”
Mother Gan murmured. Father Gan could not hold back. “What are you pitying?”
“It’s a pity she’s only Tao Tao’s idol, not someone she can meet in real life. Otherwise I would really want Tao Tao to learn how she speaks and conducts herself.”
The Gan family had no connection to Wen Ying, nor did the Leng family.
Suddenly Mother Gan had a thought and nudged her husband. “This Little Fish’s real name is Wen Ying, and she’s also from Chengdu. Do you think she could be connected to that Wen Kai?”
Father Gan rolled his eyes so hard they nearly reached the back of his head.
Just because they shared a surname and came from Chengdu, they must be related?
The surname Wen was not common, but it was hardly so rare that only one family in all of Chengdu bore it.
Before Father Gan could refute his wife, Gan Tao laughed first. “How could Wen Kai be connected to Little Fish? Mum, stop indulging in unrealistic fantasies. I really have found a boyfriend from a family with no money!”
Mother Gan thought about it and agreed.
If Wen Kai had any connection to “Fish Swimming Against the Current,” he would not have kept quiet about it.
Tao Tao adored “Fish Swimming Against the Current” so much. A scheming Wen Kai would surely have dangled that connection to keep her hooked.
Since he had never even mentioned it, there clearly was no connection.
Mother Gan felt a little disappointed. Then she heard Gan Tao cheerfully declare that she had indeed chosen a boyfriend from a poor family, with not a trace of regret but only pride. Mother Gan felt utterly choked.
Just as civil war seemed about to erupt in the Gan household, the interview on television reached its climax.
Wen Ying had finally explained that her support for the Silan victims had absolutely not been motivated by personal grudge. Yet the host then revealed the dagger: another alleged motive, private gain.
“…When Silan was in trouble, did you fan the flames in order to help the medical aesthetics company in which you held shares seize market share?”
“Where did you get that information?”
“Where the information came from is not important. Is it true?”
“It is true. At that time, I was a shareholder in a medical aesthetics company.”
After this exchange, the programme ended.
To find out what happened next, viewers would have to wait a full week.
An eerie silence descended on the Gan living room.
Mother Gan even stammered. “Sh-she was actually a shareholder in a medical aesthetics company? That’s not just clever. That’s clever to an excessive degree!”
The level had suddenly escalated from satisfying revenge to commercial warfare. Mother Gan felt she had completely misjudged.
Wen Ying’s satisfying revenge over the Silan incident had seemed perfectly justified to her.
But Wen Ying, as a shareholder in a medical aesthetics company, using her public influence to steer opinion and deliver a fatal blow to a weakened Silan was rather frightening.
Of course, Mother Gan acknowledged that Wen Ying was right: the essence of Silan’s crisis was faulty products and the owners’ mishandling, which amounted to self-destruction.
Whatever Wen Ying’s reasons for publicly supporting the victims on her blog, her actions had merely accelerated Silan’s demise. They were not the fundamental cause of its bankruptcy and liquidation. That reasoning held. Yet when Mother Gan considered that her own daughter had been one of the “ignorant public” manipulated by this fish, anger rose in her throat.
What was this? Had the Gan family dug up the Wen family’s ancestral graves in a past life? One Wen surnamed poor boy had run off with her daughter, and now another Wen was treating her daughter like a foolish leek to be harvested?
Gan Tao was momentarily stunned.
Fangirls were indeed easily swayed by emotion.
Gan Tao had not expected Wen Ying to be a shareholder in a medical aesthetics company. The revelation caught her completely off guard.
It was not only Gan Tao. The previously lively QQ group fell silent for two or three full minutes.
No one liked being treated as a fool.
They loved Little Fish so much, and that love asked for nothing in return.
Every one of Little Fish’s works, every script she wrote for film and television, every signing event, every piece of merchandise. They willingly supported it all.
Anyone who spoke ill of Little Fish was their enemy.
Yet Little Fish herself had admitted to being a shareholder in a medical aesthetics company. Had she truly used their love, treating them as pawns to attack her enemies?
“How could Little Fish do this?”
“I feel heartbroken.”
“It hurts so much I don’t want to speak. It hurts so much I want to leave the group.”
“If Little Fish really is like this, it’s clearly us fools who need protecting!”
The QQ group stirred again. Gan Tao finally snapped out of her daze.
Noticing the shift in mood, she hurriedly defended her idol.
“Hey, hey, hey, everyone calm down! This perfectly good interview has been split into two parts. Besides length restrictions, isn’t it obvious the programme team deliberately wants to stir trouble?”
Ordinary readers did not have Gan Tao’s wealth of fangirl experience.
She had survived multiple idol scandals. Every time, she had held on until ironclad proof appeared before giving up.
Compared to those previous scandals, Little Fish merely being a shareholder in a medical aesthetics company was nothing. The celebrities she had once adored had done far worse.
They could not completely deny Little Fish’s character just because she had been a shareholder.
They must not fall for the damned programme team’s malicious trap.
They must not distrust Little Fish like this.
Gan Tao held her phone in both hands, typing furiously.
“Focus on the key point! Little Fish said ‘at that time.’ Her command of language is so strong. She would never misuse tense carelessly!”
Gan Tao was not the only one to notice this.
Heartbroken though they were, people instinctively shielded those they loved.
Even celebrities who had crashed and burned still had diehard fans whitewashing them. In the QQ group, Wen Ying had plenty of diehard readers too. Suddenly many jumped in to echo Gan Tao.
“Yes, yes, yes! The second part airs next Saturday. We’ll know the truth in just a few days!”
“I urge everyone not to rush into disappointment and heartbreak. The programme team is deliberately stirring trouble. We mustn’t fall for it.”
“Exactly. Let’s think about controlling the comments first. Some readers aren’t as steadfast and could be swayed by malicious posts.”
Watching the chat, Gan Tao’s heart sank.
The programme team was despicable, splitting the interview and ending it right there, perfectly hooking the audience’s appetite.
The team had won big, but they had dealt Little Fish a terrible blow.
Before the second part aired, a massive wave of haters would drown Little Fish.
