Chapter 253: Abusing Feelings — A Grave Taboo of the Art of War

When *Shuangzi's Book* was first published, it didn't cause much of a stir.

After all, books don't transmit information that quickly.

It's not like posting on Weibo.

Besides, when a celebrity publishes a book, generally no one outside the fans really pays attention.

Maybe just a few industry friends would help shout a couple of cries of support.

For example, Ma Tian Yu, who had worked with Shuangzi many times, posted on Weibo to show support, calling the book's content "authentic" and "worth a read."

Oh right, there were also a few who had recently shown up and worked with Shuangzi, like the two unlucky "victims" from *Divas Hit the Road 2*, Yang Yang and Jing Boran.

The two were asked about their views on the book in a same-period interview.

Views?

What views?

Acting as if they'd actually read it.

Of course they could only say polite things like "I respect her expression" and "I hope she's happy."

But once these two were reminded and found out what was actually written in Shuangzi's book, they instantly transformed into "devoted readers" on the spot.

Damn it, no matter what, they had to buy a copy and see for themselves!

"Holy shit, Da Xian is seriously freaking amazing! This works too?!"

After having someone buy *Shuangzi's Book*, Jing Boran hurriedly flipped through it.

Most of the content really was nothing special, but the part about Bai Liang — in a certain sense, it was freaking brilliant!

Has anyone in the entertainment industry ever done something like this?

Seeing her boyfriend over there thumping the table and exclaiming in admiration, Unlike Ni Ni, who had happened to come see him, was also a bit curious. "What's going on?"

"Come look, Shuangzi's book."

"What's good about her book? She's not right in the head." Unlike Ni Ni said mercilessly.

She actually quite enjoyed trash-talking Shuangzi with Jing Boran in private — after all, they were both "victims."

"It writes about her and Bai Liang."

The moment the words fell, Jing Boran felt a blur before his eyes.

The next second, the book in his hand had already appeared in Unlike Ni Ni's.

Holy shit! So fast!

Like she'd activated Flying Thunder God.

After Unlike Ni Ni also finished reading the part of Shuangzi's book describing Bai Liang, she sucked in a breath of cold air.

"Now I get what was going on!"

"Mm?"

"Ah~ forgot to tell you, I ran into Bai Liang on the plane when I was going to the Golden Crane Awards earlier, and Shuangzi was there too."

Unlike Ni Ni roughly described what happened on the plane, making Jing Boran slap his thigh as he munched on the gossip.

"There's something like this too? So what the book writes is real! But... Da Xian really is pretty great, but I'm a guy, so maybe I don't have Shuangzi's perspective. When he's with me, he really likes to joke around and play pranks — not as exaggerated as the book makes it sound."

Mm. Unlike Ni Ni also felt Bai Liang was a pretty good person.

Otherwise, at this point, Jing Boran's head might very well be green.

Ahem, of course, that's not important!

Something that didn't happen — why insist on imagining it~

Right now Unlike Ni Ni's thought was very simple: "She didn't succeed, did she?"

If even Shuangzi could pull it off, then she might have to start having some thoughts.

She'd have to put Bai Liang right in the category of Lin Lin Xian after a sex change.

Anyone's fine, just not A Fei, right?!

Fortunately, Jing Boran said at this point: "Absolutely impossible she succeeded — you don't know how... how 'passionate' that Zha was acting when we were recording the show!"

Thinking it over, "passionate" was still the most fitting word.

That feeling, like a fresh flower blooming right on the spot — it really was something you'd never forget in your life.

At the time Jing Boran had even thought those two must really be together, so deeply in love they couldn't be separated.

But later he discovered that this "passionate" one freaking wasn't just one person... Da Xian is awesome!

But Shuangzi, forget it — since she wrote it into the book, she definitely didn't get him.

People are just like that.

If they really got a taste, they'd be even more likely to hide it.

Yang Yang, who had also read this book, internally:???

No way, this works too?! You even pulled off Shuangzi?

To be fair, when he was made into a backdrop and a passerby next to Bai Liang at the Bulgari dinner, Yang Yang wasn't convinced.

Watching Li Xin turn away from him without hesitation and run toward Bai Liang, he still wasn't convinced.

When their works collided and he lost miserably, he still wasn't convinced.

Even the outrageous situation he saw backstage at CCTV only made Yang Yang feel that... most likely those two girls were just too foolish.

But by this point he was already half-convinced.

After all, Bai Liang's effortless moves were most likely something he'd never be able to do in his lifetime.

But now, he was truly convinced!

Completely, wholeheartedly.

Originally Yang Yang had only felt his luck was bad — he had been on *Divas Hit the Road 2*, while Bai Liang had been on *Divas Hit the Road 3*.

If the two of them swapped roles and you took out the part about the African adventure, he felt he might not necessarily have performed worse than the other side.

Likewise, if you sent this guy Bai Liang on "Divas Hit the Road 2," he figured he'd also end up "shutting down."

Now he doesn't think that way anymore — Shuangzi, you can handle it?!

Way too ridiculous! A little sun on earth, huh?

But the more he mulled it over, the more reasonable it actually seemed.

Because even he, his so-called "sworn enemy," didn't really dislike Bai Liang that much — when the two met, they'd often just shoot the breeze.

If even a guy could be "turned from foe to friend," then from that angle, it was perfectly normal for Bai Liang to make a "nemesis" of a Miss fall for him.

Only, what kind of doujinshi plot is this.

Of course, Yang Yang's "admiration" could probably only last for a while — given the chance later, he'd still find a way to "get his revenge."

Damn it, I refuse to believe I can never outdo that bastard Bai Liang!

Sooner or later, there'll come a day I win.

As all these industry insiders began paying attention to the book's contents, obviously the media wouldn't let it slip by either.

The hype shot straight up.

A flood of related topics and discussions spread out all at once.

Apart from Shuangzi's own fan base, the biggest reason the hype exploded was because Bai Liang got dragged in!

Of course, it might also be that it tapped into some entertainment-circle metaphysics.

Wang Feng's new song wasn't for nothing either.

Sister Yanzi: Can I go collect some royalties?

Watching Shuangzi's book shoot up the bestseller rankings on some e-commerce sites, she genuinely felt she could pop over and ask for some money.

Of course, that was just in her head — she wasn't that "desperate."

But the surge in hype also brought Sister Yanzi quite a bit of extra work.

She had to keep an eye on this incident, making sure not to accidentally touch a nerve with the most powerful fan-circle force currently tied to Bai Liang.

That's right — the CP fans of Reba and Nazha.

One guy, two girls — three top-tier stars!

What a massive force that adds up to?

To put it bluntly, in their little corner of the internet, these people can take down any celebrity, no matter how big a name.

At the same time, Shuangzi's fans are no pushovers either.

The reason her fans are so sticky is, on one hand, her innocent little-white-flower looks; another very important reason is that they just love that wild, unhinged streak of hers.

With so much pressure in society these days, who doesn't want to cut loose a little?

Fans' worship of the unhinged is essentially a pressure-compensation mechanism for contemporary youth — watching Shuangzi gleefully break the rules in the fame-and-fortune arena is like pulling off a collective psychological jailbreak. So the more havoc she wreaks, the more it filters out the highest-purity die-hard fans.

Of course, the fans themselves call it being true to herself and down-to-earth.

It's actually just a form of emotional venting through projection.

In real life, the vast majority of people face Legalist chokeholds and Confucian rib-squeezes.

When you've been suppressing things hard day in and day out, of course you go absolutely feral when you let loose online.

There's actually some truth to "fans mirror their idol."

Just like how Bai Liang's fan base seems to be getting more and more capybara-like too.

And what Sister Yanzi has to guard against is the all-out war that could erupt between Shuangzi's unhinged fans and the CP fans on Bai Liang's side!

It's not that she doesn't want the two sides to clash — it's how they clash, and what the payoff is afterward.

The whole thing has to be kept within a controllable range.

Likewise, she wouldn't be fooled by Shuangzi's "confession in the book" into thinking this was entirely a good thing.

No errors in any chapter, no missing content — read it all here!

If this had happened behind closed doors, fine, but a celebrity's moves in public are always tied to business!

God knows whether the other side's team, faced with traffic like this, might suddenly lose their minds.

If that really happened, Sister Yanzi — no longer the greenhorn she used to be — would even want to let her own little White Bro siphon off some of Shuangzi's fans, coaxing them to trade their wildness for wholesomeness.

What she really needed to do was steer Bai Liang's camp into becoming the controller of escape velocity from the unhinged gravity well.

Siphoning heat from the whirlpool while making sure the tide doesn't soak the suit-trouser hems.

After all, in this era, the top-tier art of traffic manipulation is making everyone think they're the one playing five-dimensional chess.

For now, Shuangzi's fans were still in self-entertainment mode.

"Dou Xiao Shuang's book is really well-written! I love the view of love in it~"

"Worthy of Dou Xiao Shuang — bold in love, bold in hate. Too bad her story with Bai Liang seems to only exist in the book; it'd be great if they got together in real life — love and war?"

"First she went after him, then she fell for him… I'm not normal, I just love this kind of plot!"

"Bai Liang really does have a great temper — even after all that he didn't snap at Dou Xiao Shuang, and when she fell and got hurt he was still willing to lend a hand. Kinda becoming a fan."

"It feels like a gentle big brother taking care of a little girl, and not minding her little bits of mischief — so beautiful!"

"Not a gentle big brother, actually — Dou Xiao Shuang is a tiny bit older than Bai Liang, but the two really do look perfect together, both are god-tier visuals in the entertainment circle."

"If it's with Bai Liang, I definitely won't object this time — the last one, Hu Yanbing, was honestly a bit abstract."

"Feels like Dou Xiao Shuang threw every beautiful adjective at Bai Liang — a bit over the top, but I get it~"

"."

Because of these fans' constant "digging" and promotion.

The original goal was to get the book to break out more, but by a twist of fate it started building Bai Liang's image like crazy.

The Nazha and Reba fans watching the show: Ooh ooh~ so that's how it is!

If even half of what Shuangzi described was true, then Reba and Nazha tearing into each other like that would actually be completely understandable.

Anyone would have rushed in to grab him!

Still~ the conclusion some people who know Bai Liang reached was: the artistic embellishment in that book is honestly a bit over the top.

Bai Liang didn't exaggerate that much!

The ones holding this view were mainly the guys.

Some of them had even been "beaten up" by Bai Liang~

A warm little sunshine version of a capybara?

Damn it, I can already picture Bai Liang cracking a grin and saying: "I do love to tell little lies sometimes."

But some people felt— isn't this just a true-to-life portrayal!

Shuangzi was just making things up in her own head. Bai Liang never actually gave her any warmth; he simply treated her like a person.

But some girls had genuinely experienced it for themselves.

Reba: Da Bai really is exactly like that, no doubt about it.

Nazha: Isn't this just my daily life with him? I'm used to it~

Li Xin: When I was riding his coattails for traffic, he even encouraged me. Though Bai Liang when the champagne pops is the exception.

Li Yitong: That little white bottle for supplementing trace elements from back then, I still have it with me.

Meng Jie: Hehe, little hedgehog~

Without realizing it, in the entertainment circle these past two-plus years, almost three years, Bai Liang had already spread quite a bit of warmth around.

Some things he himself might have forgotten~ but the girls remembered them very clearly.

From big sisters in their thirties down to underage little sisters.

"Tian Tian, last night I tweaked your character setup a little again, let's run through it."

Hearing those words, Miss Jing Tian's expression turned coy.

The god-tier backpedaling she'd perfected hadn't shown up today.

Lately, she always had to do a backpedal first before she could talk to Bai Liang normally.

Like a little rabbit startled out of its wits.

"Um, is what Shuangzi wrote in that book true?"

"Craving melon again?" Bai Liang looked at her helplessly, yet kept a smile on his face.

Miss Jing Tian bit her lip and nodded, a little embarrassed.

"Is what she wrote true?"

"Some of it's true, most of it she made up in her own head." Bai Liang said it straight.

"Which parts did she make up?" Miss Jing Tian had already dragged over her little stool and was sitting obediently, waiting to eat melon.

"I wasn't that nice to her."

Bai Liang gave a rough rundown. It wasn't exactly a personal secret anymore— after all, Shuangzi had already written it in her book, so naturally he had nothing to hide.

And after Miss Jing Tian got the full picture, her cute brows knit slightly. "She's mentally ill."

Who says she isn't~

Still, if he could "heal" the other party a little, Bai Liang didn't mind.

Just consider it offsetting the merit he'd burned when he was being a little shit before.

But he definitely wouldn't go out of his way to heal her— he wasn't that bored, and besides, he was always the more passive type.

Like with Miss Jing Tian and her mood swings, pulling herself back and forth on her own— Bai Liang couldn't be bothered to do any guiding or take the initiative.

Let alone Shuangzi.

She's so good at making things up, let her keep making them up.

Maybe if she keeps at it, she'll actually come around~

Amitabha.

But in Miss Jing Tian's eyes, the other woman was a textbook mental patient— what kind of bizarre plotline was that.

Treating Bai Liang like that at first, and now acting all lovesick.

Stockholm syndrome doesn't even look like this!

Squandering feelings— a cardinal sin in the art of war.

"What are you so smug about?"

Watching the upward curl at the corner of Miss Jing Tian's mouth, Bai Liang couldn't help but ask.

"Oh, nothing, I'm full from eating melon. Let's run lines."

"Sure~"

In fact, Miss Jing Tian's assessment this time really was a lucky hit!

What a line— squandering feelings, a cardinal sin in the art of war!

No matter what Shuangzi's own mindset and motives were, once certain people with an agenda saw there was profit to be made in this—

The flavor changed in an instant! The marketing-CP-rhythm-stirring crowd showed up.

Sister Yanzi: Good good good! Damn it, knew it, not a single guess off!

She'd been waiting forever!

God knew how much fury she'd swallowed back when she was being "bullied" alongside Bai Liang.

Just waiting for one chance to unleash it all in one go!

(End of chapter)