Chapter 128

Shen Li stayed at the hospital for about an hour before leaving. She had thought that by keeping a low profile, she wouldn't be discovered, but she didn't expect that in less than two hours, the news of her visiting the injured extra at the hospital would hit the trending list, and it went straight to third place.

Shen Li was dumbfounded.

"Was it Sister Kuan?"

She asked Xiaoyun, looking puzzled. Because she was now signed to Sister Kuan, Xiaoyun would report any of her daily schedules to Sister Kuan, including today's hospital visit, which had been approved by her.

Xiaoyun shook her head: "I don't think so. Sister Kuan has always disdained using such things for hype."

A'Pan, however, stared at the trending topic for a while and said, "It was probably snapped by paparazzi. Look at the angle of this photo; it was clearly taken secretly at the door of the hospital room."

As he spoke, he comforted Shen Li: "It's okay, A'Li. Paparazzi are the one thing Hengdian has in abundance. Someone in the crew got hurt last night, and by the early hours of the morning, the news was already trending. I guess many reporters and paparazzi wanted to go to the hospital to interview the injured person today, but they didn't dare to make a scene in the hospital, so they snuck in. They probably just happened to snap us while we were in the room."

After all, the "Destiny as Phoenix" crew had always been very popular, and these media outlets loved news that had natural buzz.

What A'Pan said made a lot of sense, and Xiaoyun nodded in agreement: "That must be it. It's actually quite good; it counts as positive exposure. There hasn't been news like this in the circle before."

To put it bluntly, no one in the film crew would care about the affairs of an extra; Shen Li could be considered the first to set a precedent.

The comments on the trending topic were also full of praise for Shen Li's beauty and kindness. The very few people with ulterior motives who wanted to take the opportunity to smear her by saying she was hyping herself up were quickly drowned out by other positive comments.

Marketing accounts were used to following the wind; seeing so much praise online, they all followed suit, using it to drive traffic to their accounts.

But as Shen Li looked at the content of these news reports, she felt a bit uncomfortable. She had never thought of using such things to expose herself. Now that she was high on the trending list with praise flying everywhere, it made her look like she had ulterior motives.

Shen Li was a very simple person, so her thoughts were easy to guess. Just by looking at her expression, Xiaoyun knew what she was thinking.

"It's okay, A'Li. We just need to have a clear conscience," Xiaoyun patted her shoulder and comforted her: "Even if you don't want to be a traffic star, as an actor, you will often trend because of candid photos. You have to get used to it."

A'Pan smiled and said, "Things that others dream of—some marketing campaigns carefully planned by professional teams might not even have this effect—yet A'Li got it so easily. It's truly a case of the starving being starved and the flooded being flooded."

It was meant to be a joke, but it suddenly woke Shen Li up from her internal conflict. She lifted her head abruptly and said, "Oh my, I shouldn't care too much about this, or if others see it, will they think I'm acting coy after getting a bargain? No, no..."

Her reaction made Xiaoyun and A'Pan laugh. Xiaoyun said with a smile, "That's right. If those artists who crave traffic but can't get it knew you were sneering at this, they would definitely call you a hypocrite behind your back. After all, how many people in this circle really don't care about traffic?"

Shen Li nodded belatedly and muttered softly, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Let these media outlets promote it however they want; we'll just do our own thing."

And just as they said, someone was going crazy because of this.

Ren Jia looked at the third-place trending topic, "Shen Li visits injured extra at the hospital in a low-profile manner," and her cheeks trembled with anger. Her entire appearance had changed due to rage and jealousy.

She had just celebrated her birthday on set yesterday and immediately posted a group photo of the whole crew celebrating with her. She also found some marketing accounts she often collaborated with to push the narrative, and it quickly climbed into the top ten.

As a result, in less than a day, Shen Li suddenly dropped into third place on the trending list, while the topics related to her flew off the charts, and her name was already gone from the top thirty.

Even worse, people flooded into her Weibo post about the birthday celebration to scold her, saying, "An extra in the crew was injured and had a fracture, yet you didn't even know to show concern; you only knew how to celebrate your own birthday on set."

What did someone else's injury have to do with her?

It wasn't like she was the one who injured them.

But that was the reality; once there was a comparison group, people would inevitably make comparisons.

It wouldn't have mattered if other actors hadn't made a move, but since she was the only one who posted about the birthday celebration, she was the only one who got scolded.

"Sister Jiajia, why don't, why don't we delete that Weibo post?" her assistant, Xiaoya, asked cautiously.

Ren Jia turned her head and glared at her, her entire demeanor fierce. The rest of the team on the side fell silent.

"Is this your way of controlling public opinion?" Ren Jia scanned everyone on the team viciously: "What use are you to me!"

Everyone kept their heads down, eyes fixed on their noses, but no one dared to speak. Their boss had a bad temper; if they couldn't provide a perfect solution at this moment, it was best to just shut up and say nothing.

As a result, in less than half an hour, another topic related to Shen Li went straight to number one.

The reason was that someone had found the Weibo account of Tan Yue, the obscure extra, and discovered the photo he had posted with Shen Li's team.

Tan Yue's Weibo was suddenly flooded with a large number of netizens, and he was still earnestly replying to many of them below.

These included—

"I was a complete stranger to Teacher Shen Li before; we had never met face-to-face on set, nor had we spoken a single word."

"Teacher Shen Li came suddenly today; I didn't expect it myself."

"There was no paparazzi hype; only her two assistants accompanied her."

"Teacher Song Anyu's assistant, Little Dragon, also came; I am also very grateful to Teacher Song Anyu."

These replies from Tan Yue truly added fuel to Shen Li's trending topic, further raising Shen Li's popularity with the general public. Tan Yue himself hadn't expected that his first time trending would be at number one, and all because of Teacher Shen Li.

The trending topic fermented across the entire internet, and because of this heartfelt action, Shen Li not only gained a large number of casual fans but also touched the most critical group of people.

That was the extras!

The size of this group was something many outsiders couldn't imagine, yet they were ignored by those in the industry.

And at this moment, Shen Li had seen them!

Because Tan Yue was a microcosm of the millions and tens of millions of extras.

By the time Shen Li arrived at the set in the evening, the extras who usually didn't dare to step forward to greet the leads would happily call out "Teacher Shen Li" when they saw her, and those who were enthusiastic would even chat with her for a few sentences.

Shen Li didn't resist and was friendly to everyone.

It wasn't until she was preparing for a scene that Ren Jia came to her side. Shen Li had just called out "Sister Ren Jia" when she saw Ren Jia speak in a tone that seemed like a joke but was actually a jab: "I saw the trending topic. Congratulations, the praise is overwhelming!"