Chapter 252: Between Traffic Stars, There Is Also a Gap

Many celebrities treat publishing a book as part of their "multi-platform development," creating synergy with film, television, music, and variety shows.

Most celebrities' motivations generally fall into just a few categories: commercial profit, image crafting, self-expression and commemoration, and PR needs.

The more common type is the photo book—yeah, traffic stars love doing this kind of thing.

Literary value is extremely low; it's a "harvesting the leeks" move—hollow content but a steep price tag.

This thing can't even be called a book; it should be called celebrity merchandise.

Not much different from those magazines with photo spreads—might even have less content than the magazines do.

The book Shuangzi put out, which uses her name directly, isn't exactly ingenious in content, nor does it have any particular literary value.

Still, celebrity autobiographies were never considered serious literary works to begin with; the publishing industry mostly positions them as fan-oriented entertainment products.

The book's binding style is fresh, using handwritten fonts, illustrations, and other design elements—fairly in line with young readers' aesthetics.

In summary: specifically targeting young fans to harvest leeks~

Speaking of which, our very own Sina Entertainment editor-in-chief Xiao Shui is reading it while furiously roasting it.

"Looks like a collection of non-mainstream lyrics."

"Pretty much the same as the posts I put up on my QQ Space."

"And there are even typos, damn it!"

"Not as brilliant or profound as her Weibo posts."

"Her writing coach couldn't possibly be Guo Xiaosi, right?"

"Truly a top student from Elliston Business School!"

"."

The assistant pouring water nearby could barely hold it in—her own editor-in-chief sure has a venomous tongue today!

Xiao Shui took the water, gulping it down while continuing to flip through "Shuangzi's Book."

However, her eyes soon began to widen.

Because she had flipped to the part where Shuangzi wrote about her bittersweet showbiz stories and the details of her romance.

She actually wrote about her own love experiences in the book?!

Good, good, good. Now there's a selling point.

Just as Xiao Shui was about to highlight some key points, find people to fabricate a few articles to set the rhythm, and use Shuangzi's romantic experiences to generate a wave of traffic, her eyes widened once again as she read on!

Holy crap!

How is your name in here too?!

Although Shuangzi used pseudonyms in the book, to be fair, it's actually pretty easy to tell who is who.

Reading the descriptions in the book, Xiao Shui felt as if a certain capybara had already sprung to vivid life right before her eyes.

A face full of gentle smiles.

Damn it, it's definitely you! She didn't even need to flip another page.

Without the slightest hesitation, Xiao Shui directly instructed her assistant, "Quick, find out where Bai Liang is, and book an exclusive interview with his agent at the fastest speed—I'm going personally!"

Since "Wolf Warrior 2" and "Divas Hit the Road 3," Bai Liang has indeed been keeping a much lower profile in the entertainment circle.

Even at that year's Bazaar Charity Gala, relatively speaking he didn't cause much of a stir either; it was mainly Yang Mi and Miss Jing Tian's bidding war that stirred up some controversy.

But the netizens' discussions about the showdown between Reba and Nazha actually had nothing much to do with Bai Liang himself anymore—now even without him, the fans of these two Misses could still tear each other apart until the sky went dark.

He's become a tool.

In any case, Bai Liang during this period seemed to have temporarily "gone into hibernation."

Including the later Golden Crane Awards, he didn't arrange any puff pieces—just went, picked up a trophy, and put it in his studio as decoration.

After all, Sister Yanzi was too embarrassed to brag about it; the value/quality really was just so-so. She felt her own Xiao Bai-ge would definitely win even more impressive awards in the future!

This situation actually made the other traffic stars in the circle breathe a slight sigh of relief.

Bai Liang's debut was very short, but from the moment he started rising, the intensity of his hot-search bombardment was extremely high.

The exaggerated traffic and popularity that could push a newcomer all the way to top-tier just by thinking about it is a bit scary.

The key is that the quality of his hot searches is genuinely high—either they're super pretentious and can reel in fans hard, like all those "treasure chests" that get opened.

Almost impossible for others to replicate.

Or the topics are extremely strong; playing the CP game to the level Bai Liang does without being attacked on a large scale or getting cursed out—the entire entertainment circle has only this one example.

This put a fair amount of pressure on everyone. Always feeling like someone whispering in their ear: Between traffic stars, there is also a gap.

Otherwise, Yang Yang wouldn't have held such a grudge against Bai Liang~

Finally, after waiting so long for him to enter a film crew and start behaving for a month or two, everyone got back to doing their thing—those who should trend trended, those who should pop up popped up.

The entertainment circle "without Bai Liang" seemed so "harmonious and normal."

Everyone felt like they had more hope.

Even Wang Banbi was preparing to release a new album.

Hold on!

The traffic stars in the circle: He's releasing a new album?!

—

"Great Ming Wind" film crew.

"Mmm~ Another day full of energy!"

Bai Liang stretched lazily, feeling that today's weather was pretty nice—chilly, the wind blowing on his face making him feel quite refreshed.

While running and eating breakfast, he habitually opened his phone to check if there was any new entertainment gossip today.

As it turned out, nothing happened.

This habit was actually picked up because of the Misses.

Whenever something happened in the entertainment circle, there were always some bored young ladies on Bai Liang's side who came to him to gossip about it together.

Girls just love chatting about gossip, and they especially love finding Bai Liang to chat about it with.

Sometimes he didn't even know what was going on, and couldn't keep up with the pace when chatting with them.

So he simply followed along in his free time to keep up~

Looks like today is pretty quiet too.

However, after Bai Liang casually refreshed the page, he found that Wang Feng's new album had made it into the top ten of the trending searches.

He instinctively raised an eyebrow—this guy was the entertainment circle's "barometer," after all.

Then a chat window from Xiao Shui popped up in front of him.

This strange Miss who had clearly already been promoted to editor-in-chief, yet always liked running to the front lines of interviews herself.

Xiao Shui: I don't go to the "front lines" for just anyone, you know. Count yourself lucky.

"What's this interview about? The Golden Crane Award?" Bai Liang asked curiously.

Xiao Shui, who was visiting Bai Liang's RV for the first time, smiled without saying a word—neither confirming nor denying.

Then she curiously took in his vehicle, which had been so heavily modified that aside from the bed and bathroom, it barely resembled an RV anymore.

It looked just like a gamer nerd's secret lair, with an overall cyberpunk vibe to the setup inside.

Xiao Shui: Nice taste~

"Why doesn't your RV even have a kitchen?"

"There's a pull-out cassette stove on the outside. It's enough for heating things up on the fly. I don't really feel the need for anything else."

Once the topic turned to RVs, Bai Liang got excited—this little baby of his had been modified to near perfection.

Later on, he might buy an even bigger RV and keep modifying it.

A man's gotta have a few secret bases, right?

And a mobile secret base like this is obviously even better!

He enthusiastically showed Xiao Shui around all the various facilities on his RV, along with the modifications, successfully luring her down the rabbit hole.

However, after playing a couple of games with Bai Liang, Xiao Shui suddenly came back to her senses—she wasn't here to play.

"Can I ask you an impertinent question?"

"How impertinent?" Bai Liang said casually.

"Um, how many girls have been on this RV of yours?

"How would I even remember that? Every crew has a few girls who come up to hang out."

That answer was a bit unexpected, leaving Xiao Shui—who had been hoping for some gossip—deeply disappointed.

When Bai Liang said "hang out," he most likely meant literally hanging out, just like what Xiao Shui had been doing herself earlier.

He had somehow turned a private space like an RV into a social gaming venue—Bai Liang's whole deal was honestly a little outrageous.

Still, it wasn't entirely without reporting value.

It could be filed under interesting tidbits and oddities—his fans and some guys who like this kind of stuff would probably be interested.

Xiao Shui planned to have the photographer take some good shots of the inside of Bai Liang's RV later.

But today, she had come specifically for something else entirely.

After realizing that Bai Liang still didn't seem to know about being written into Shuangzi's book, Xiao Shui prepared to exploit an information gap.

The topic still started from the Golden Crane Award.

"You've won your first film award in your life—how does it feel?

"The trophy looks a little better than a flowerpot," Bai Liang said quite matter-of-factly.

"You can't say it like that. You should say you're very honored and that you'll keep up the good work in the future," Xiao Shui corrected him on the spot.

Bai Liang figured she had a point—after all, they were the ones who gave him the award, so turning around and comparing the trophy to a flowerpot really wasn't very polite. "Can I redo that?"

"For anyone else, definitely not. But for you, go ahead~" Xiao Shui said, waving her hand dismissively.

Trust is a two-way street.

She had merely given Sister Yanzi, Bai Liang's manager, a heads-up, and the other party had arranged the interview without asking a single question.

She hadn't even asked what the topic of this interview was.

The whole point was just peace of mind.

In fact, Yanzi hadn't even shown up for the interview.

Because she knew Xiao Shui would never actually make things difficult for Bai Liang.

Even if Bai Liang said something wrong, it didn't matter—she'd help cut it out.

They're all family here~

And so, both sides were pretty nonchalant—one didn't even need a script, while the other was even teaching Bai Liang on the spot how he should answer.

Not a single mistake, not a single retake—everything in one take!

However, today Xiao Shui also wanted to hear some different "truth."

As they chatted, the topic naturally drifted to that chance encounter on the plane.

"I heard you ran into Unlike Ni Ni and Shuangzi on the plane when you went to Tokyo?"

"You even know about that?"

"The flight attendant posted a group photo—it's already on the trending searches." Xiao Shui waved her hand, indicating that this kind of thing was never really a secret.

As long as you pay a bit more attention and ask around a little, it's not hard to find out.

She had Bai Liang's full schedule in hand. Basically, aside from whatever Bai Liang got up to secretly at night, or that time two girls almost got into a fight backstage at CCTV, Xiao Shui knew practically everything.

If all else failed, she could just call Sister Yanzi directly~

And here it comes—the big one.

"I heard that when you auditioned for 'Love O2O' back then, you weren't the male lead at first—just the second male lead, and the crew's initially-cast female lead, Shuangzi, didn't even like you and wanted to kick you out of the production?"

Hearing this, Bai Liang was taken aback. "This kind of old story, you dug it up too? Sister Yanzi told you?"

"I have my own channels to find out, but you didn't even use this for publicity."

"Can it be used for publicity?

"Of course it can. The whole thing about the female lead of 'Wolf Warrior 2' running off and then Gulinaaz stepping in—didn't that blow up huge before? Guess whether Naaz's team hyped it?" Xiaoshui said with certainty.

Makes sense!

So the question is, why didn't Bai Liang use this for publicity back then?

Was it because he hadn't gotten famous yet, and was afraid of being stormed by Shuangzi's fans?

At this, Bai Liang thought it over carefully—this called for the super brain, after all, it was already two years ago.

In the end he reached a conclusion: "Sister Yanzi didn't know how to back then."

"Huh?!"

"Really, Sister Yanzi had only just started being an agent for how long, and I didn't have much money either—I think I only had about a hundred thousand on me~ What can a hundred thousand do? Can it buy a trending topic?"

Xiaoshui thought for a moment. "Might as well buy some pork and eat it."

"Exactly!"

"Then after 'Weiwei' aired, seems like I never heard this thing stir up any fuss either."

This might be because of Shuangzi's… abstractness.

To this day Sister Yanzi still doesn't understand why, after treating her own Little Bai-ge like that, Shuangzi then turned around and helped promote him.

Of course, the current Sister Yanzi already knows.

At this moment she was also reading Shuangzi's book, and the more she read, the more she felt her own Little Bai-ge was a bit too outrageous!

"A promotional Weibo post and you got 'bribed'?" Xiaoshui said, speechless.

"Not just that."

"It couldn't be because she took a nasty fall right in front of you, right? Felt sorry for her?"

Bai Liang:???

You even know this shit?!

What bullshit mainland China's number-one paparazzi—they're all just blowing smoke!

If you really want to talk intelligence-gathering, you still have to hand it to Xiaoshui.

Leaving that so-called Zhuo Wei not even a speck of dust.

Bai Liang even suspected the other side had planted a surveillance camera on him.

Hold on~

A sudden flash of inspiration struck, his eyes narrowed, and the super brain came online once more.

"What did Shuangzi write in her book?"

"Ah, how'd you guess? No fun!"

"You're way too obvious. Her book is already on sale? What did she write about me?" Bai Liang asked curiously.

Honestly, this was a first for him.

Someone actually wrote him into a book~ that really was too novel!

But Xiaoshui smiled eerily, the expression on her face giving people the creeps.

The next second.

"She said, you are her god~"

"Pfft!"

Bai Liang really couldn't hold it in, cringing so hard his hair stood on end.

A scene seemed to flash before his eyes—

The 2013 Super Boy top-three showdown, Hai Qing publicly 'campaigning' for Ou Hao, kneeling on one knee before Ou Hao, right hand over her chest, saying exactly that phrase.

You are my god.

The cringeworthiness of this thing made Bai Liang feel a bit physically ill even when he scrolled past the clip.

Even more… than those angsty literary lines he used to send Miss when chatting with girls during puberty.

Playing the cringe game?!

Bai Liang somewhat regretted agreeing to Shuangzi's request so carelessly.

She might as well have just cursed him out in the book.

Fortunately, Xiaoshui couldn't hold it either, waving her hand. "That's my summary, not her exact words."

Bai Liang:. If there were a heart-rate monitor at this moment, he probably wouldn't be able to control his heartbeat.

"Falling for someone is like creating a religion, serving a god one believes will never fall."

"Given her hard-to-speak-of life experience, the halo she gilded around someone in her heart is like a temple rising from barren soil."

"."

Any form except poetry is acceptable.

But this was clearly going in the modern poetry direction. It doesn't fit the essay format.

Xiaoshui read it line by line, and Bai Liang's expression gradually shifted from cringing to losing control of his face, then slowly calmed down and started mulling it over.

"I feel like the only part of her whole book with any substance seems to be the stuff about you. Any thoughts?"

Hearing Xiaoshui's question, Bai Liang shook his head, first did a little bear shrug and helplessly cursed: "Crazy."

But Xiaoshui still looked at him with a smile, because she knew Bai Liang very well.

Sure enough.

Then he added with a smile, "If I can help her realize her own worth—even if it's just a moment of worth and joy—then consider it a gift from me."

Xiaoshui: "I think I get why she was like that now."

Damn, as expected of you!

The warm capybara described in the book—wasn't it standing right here, vivid and alive, before her very eyes?

Xiaoshui hadn't planted any surveillance on Bai Liang; the matter of wanting to kick Bai Liang out of the crew was something Shuangzi had written up entirely on her own.

She really did dare! And it really was exactly the kind of thing she'd do.

Yet, taking all these causes and effects together, then looking at the Bai Liang in her book, it truly makes one feel this guy is just too good a person!

So good it almost doesn't feel real!

Bai Liang: Of course it's not real—it's purely something Shuangzi made up in her own head.

The sun looking down from on high brings not only warmth, but also a blinding, unbearable-to-meet pressure.

Xiaoshui: Handsome, tidy yourself up, get ready to trend!

Nothing feels more "real" than a sincere compliment from an "enemy" after they've laid themselves bare.

If Shuangzi had simply been making a plain "confession," that would be one thing.

The key is, before saying all this, she also exposed all the little schemes she'd been up to. And the matter of her later falling out with the "Weiwei" crew.

No normal artist would dare do something like this.

Yet she went and blurted it all out brazenly. The force of that premise is simply too great.

Now there's no choice but to believe—the Bai Liang in Shuangzi's book actually exists in real life!

And don't forget, Bai Liang still has other CPs online.

Those Misses' fans are probably about to finally find out why their own sisters threw caution to the wind like that.

Who wouldn't be dazed by this?

Even Shuangzi, that crazy one, got dazed.

Reasonable—damn, it's just too reasonable!

(End of chapter)