Chapter 33: Rise: The Chicken Claw Limited Group, Everyone is a God of War

He has seen stars fight for resources, and he has seen plenty of celebrities jump into the fray themselves.

But for someone like Chi Ye to personally "Gank the director" to his face, this is truly his first time seeing it!

That’s not right.

If the Chi Ye of the past had this kind of "drive" for his career, given his physical appearance, he should have been famous long ago!

Director Zhang is puzzled, only sighing blindly—he is thinking about how to persuade Hanxing Entertainment to accept this matter.

Chi Ye shakes his head: "You don't understand, the 'Imperial' is just my protective camouflage."

Director Zhang: "..."

He wants to say something, but in the end, he just sighs: "You should sign up for a class to improve your acting skills, that’s not a problem, right?"

Chi Ye thinks for a moment, sincere: "Actually, my acting skills are already okay right now."

Director Zhang: "..."

In just two minutes of meeting, he has been rendered speechless by Chi Ye three times.

You really are something!

"Since it’s already decided, shall we discuss the script now?"

Chi Ye is a person with a strong career drive; coming to the Scream Night this time was mainly for the male lead role in "Cycle".

Now that it’s already settled, he has read the script, and the director is right here, wouldn't it be a pity not to 'Imperial' him... not to discuss it?

It’s just... he is still thinking about how to 'Imperial' the director.

"Cycle" is a project by Hanxing Entertainment.

And after a brief observation, he can clearly feel that Director Zhang belongs to the type of newly graduated, hot-blooded rookie director who happens to have a bit of a background and cares extremely deeply about his work.

For this kind of person, not to mention that he can't 'Imperial' Hanxing Entertainment at all, even if he could, the result probably wouldn't be too good.

Therefore, it must be planned slowly.

"Oh? You actually read the script?!" Director Zhang is unusually surprised, and for some reason, a trace of relief arises in his heart.

At least he read the script.

This proves that he is at least literate!

He doesn't just know how to say 123456!

Chi Ye: "..."

How big of a misunderstanding do you all have about me?

The two immediately began to chat casually.

In the front row, at a round table near the front.

Shang Rouhu gracefully puts down her skirt and sits back in her seat.

A friend at the neighboring table greets her, and she responds with a reserved smile on her face.

Yet, her jade-like hands hidden under the table have already secretly taken out her phone, logged into her alt account on Weibo, and posted a scream-filled message.

@MustCrushToDeathToday: [Who understands, family! When I was caught eating melons, I even thought of my epitaph—here lies a moonlight goddess, shattered in the dead of night for not hearing the big scoop!]

Attached image: A self-made crying panda head meme, with the pearls of the sponsor she endorses carefully photoshopped onto the corners of its eyes!

After posting, the alt account has hundreds of "melon friends," each one passionate and excited.

[What good melon does the melon-master have to share?]

[I, a gossip blogger, only follow your account; you really have the goods!]

[Boss, join the group and tell us the details!]

Shang Rouhu also feels the relief of "surviving a disaster," and turns to enter the WeChat "melon group" she created, preparing to chat in detail with these melon friends she has never met.

But just then, her eyes suddenly light up as she notices a figure she has been "searching" for—Peng Chen is rising from a round table with a gloomy face, holding his phone and walking to a corner.

What is he saying?

Is it about the incident of pooping on the red carpet?

I really want to go listen...

Shang Rouhu forcefully suppresses the desire to eat melons in her heart; she must maintain her persona.

Once seated, she cannot move!

In the corner.

Peng Chen has a gloomy face, his whole body trembling: "What do you mean I allegedly pooped on the spot?! And 'biological weapon'! Is this a normal trending topic? Which idiot bought this for me?!"

He had just entered the inner venue and had calmed down, but upon seeing the glaring "slander" on the trending topics, he was instantly so angry he shivered.

The heat is too high; the first two trending topics have exploded!

On the other end of the phone, the manager also has a gloomy face, grinding her teeth: "Someone is definitely messing with you."

"It’s Jiang Yi! That bastard, damn it, he didn't come to Scream Night this time, otherwise I would have jumped up and punched him!"

Peng Chen is angry to the point of madness: "Ever since we unbound, he has been messing with me; this time he finally caught an opportunity, damn it!"

Manager: "..."

The first person she thought of was also Jiang Yi.

As top-tier stars who rose to fame together with Peng Chen through a boys' love drama, the two initially bundled their marketing as a couple, and after reaping all the benefits, they immediately unbound with tacit agreement.

But for boys' love actors, once they unbind, the couple instantly becomes rivals.

Peng Chen and Jiang Yi are each other's biggest rivals, bar none.

With Peng Chen "pooping on the spot" on the Scream red carpet, how could his "good brother" Jiang Yi let go of such a good opportunity?

"...We have to find a way to suppress the heat."

"Can we spend money to remove the trending topic?"

"The heat is too high right now, it's live-streaming, how can we remove it?"

"Make Shen Qingyu and his manager find a way!"

Peng Chen curses loudly: "He caused this, he must suppress the heat for me, otherwise don't even think about bundling with me to leech off my heat in the future!"

The manager nods: "I have the same thought. Shen Qingyu's manager has connections at Yuenar; since they caused the trouble, let them handle it themselves."

"Sister, please help me handle this, be quick... I'm afraid the negative impact will be even greater if it drags on."

Peng Chen is anxious.

"Okay, no problem, don't worry, I'll go handle it immediately."

The manager soothes him, then hangs up the phone and dials Shen Qingyu's team directly.

In the back row, beside the round table where Chi Ye is sitting.

"Speak? Why aren't you continuing?!"

Director Zhang was listening intently, only to see Chi Ye pick up the milk tea his assistant had just bought back, take a light sip, unhurried and calm, with a faint expression.

"Speak? Speak about what?"

"Continue! You only just started, keep going!"

Director Zhang is impatient: "I previously felt this plot line was a bit redundant, but I didn't expect... eh? What kind of look is that?"

He notices Chi Ye spreading his hands, and his heart goes cold.

"It's gone, what is there to say? Do you think I'm a robot? I just thought of it when I was reading the script."

Director Zhang: "..."

He glances sideways at Chi Ye, clearly seeing that the other party is deliberately stringing him along, but there is nothing he can do: "Fine... I think your male lead is excellent now!"

"It's good because it's right."

Chi Ye responds casually; for this kind of young person who "views their work as everything," this is how one must act.

As the two are pulling back and forth, on the other side, with the final few big stars and Sheng Ning entering, the Scream Night awards ceremony is about to begin.

The host takes the stage, and applause erupts at the venue.

Chi Ye looks up, and while clapping along, his gaze suddenly catches that the two fixed cameras originally facing his side are being dismantled by several Kiwi staff members.

The remaining cameras also pass him by one after another.

Chi Ye: "..."

"You offended someone, they aren't giving you any camera time."

Director Zhang whispers like a devil in his ear: "Don't be angry."

"Why would I be angry?"

Chi Ye retracts his gaze, truly having no emotional fluctuation.

To specifically choose the start of the ceremony, when the big shots are busy, to pull this stunt—one can only say Sheng Ning and Kiwi are overthinking it.

He never intended to rely on Scream Night to "get famous" anyway; this place didn't even set up a participation award for him! Stingy!

As for the others...

Chi Ye looks at the other artists at his table and indeed finds that everyone currently has an expression as if their mother had died.

Seeing Chi Ye look over, they all avoid his gaze; one second-tier traffic starlet even moves her chair, distancing herself from Chi Ye.

—Bad luck!

Although they don't know what happened, they are all thousand-year-old foxes; a little thought tells them that it must be a big shot like Sheng Ning targeting Chi Ye.

Whoever is close to Chi Ye gets no camera time!

"Clatter!"

The host on stage said something, and the many artists in the audience laughed a few times to be polite.

……

Meanwhile.

The Kiwi Scream Night livestream room.

The ceremony began, and fans and viewers flooded the screen with comments, but many trolls also clicked in, each one "looking for fun."

"Where's the flop Chi Ye?"

"Is the one who shat on site here?"

"Came specifically to see the flop Chi Ye, did he actually get in or not?"

"Didn't they say the flop Chi Ye was carried out by security?"

Because of the earlier red carpet incident, plus Chi Ye crashing Scream Night had already hit the trending searches, many viewers who didn't know the truth and gossip-loving trolls wanted to see if Chi Ye had actually made it into the inner venue.

As it turned out, they waited and waited, but didn't get a single shot of Chi Ye; suddenly, the screen was filled with question marks.

"???"

"He really didn't get in?"

"Someone on site said the flop Chi Ye got in, there's a video, he should be in."

"If he got in, why are there no shots of him?"

As the comments scrolled, the backstage assistant who noticed all this looked at the head director.

The head director shook his head at him, signaling him to ignore it.

"Shen Qingyu is here, should we let him in?"

At this moment, a staff member walked in to ask.

The head director’s face darkened: "He’s the only one with so much trouble... don't point the cameras from Group 3 over there, just let him in, Sheng Ning said a word."

"Okay."

The staff member nodded and left.

Having been granted entry, Shen Qingyu hunched his back, passed through the back rows, arrived at the edge of Peng Chen's table, and sat down.

"How is it?"

Seeing that the camera wasn't pointed at him, Peng Chen asked urgently.

"Done."

Shen Qingyu made an OK gesture and glanced at Sheng Ning in the very front: "Bought some black trending searches for Chi Ye; he was already in the top ten, so it was easy to push him up."

Peng Chen was startled and instinctively glanced at Jin Xia, who was also in the front but far away from Sheng Ning: "Is there any problem?"

"No problem, didn't I tell you? Yue Na has given up on him, no one can help him now."

Peng Chen nodded slowly.

Chi Ye was indeed a good candidate.

Rise was supposed to "shine brightly" today and sweep the trending searches, but the others were all small-timers who couldn't overshadow his popularity.

But Chi Ye was different; this person was covered in scandals, and the public's hostility toward him was so great that it was easy to suppress his own black trending searches.

"Alright then, that's it. Remember to remove my black trending searches slowly; I'm afraid people will notice if it's too fast!"

Shen Qingyu: "……Fine."

After the two finished communicating, Shen Qingyu shamelessly sat there and began to openly leech off Peng Chen's popularity.

……

Online.

#Peng Chen shits# was climbing steadily due to his good brother's assistance, and various black trending searches regarding Peng Chen's past were popping up one after another.

But not long after Scream Night began, the trending search terms that were originally at the bottom, such as #Chi Ye crashes Scream Night# and #Chi Ye insults Sheng Ning#, flew to the top.

Because they carried Sheng Ning's name, combined with old grudges, new hatred, and paid posters, they quickly dominated the number one spot with 6 million+ in popularity, actually pushing the #Peng Chen shits# entry right off.

Originally, things were moving in a "good" direction, and the public's attention had shifted to the "heavier weight" Chi Ye.

But unexpectedly, an accident happened in a certain livestream room.

—The three members of Rise were carried out of Scream Night, and the only one who didn't show up, the disgraced Jiang Yi, started an emergency broadcast to leech off the popularity. Not only did he diss Zhang Xianming's "Xianming Chicken Feet," but after seeing Peng Chen's popularity was so high, he actually dropped a bombshell.

He publicly stated on the stream: "Peng Chen likes pets in private; before the group disbanded, he stole Chi Ye's dog! He's still raising it at home now!"

The livestream room, which already had an explosive number of viewers, was filled with question marks.

#Peng Chen steals dog# quickly climbed the trending search list.

Seeing that his senior in the livestreaming prison had so many tricks, Zhang Xianming, who had already been carried out, got anxious and realized the game!

How much traffic could he get by wearing cut-out leopard print in the middle of winter?

He could shake his chicken neck off and still not make as much money as Jiang Yi did in one livestream!

As expected of a senior, Jiang Yi was smart!

He immediately learned on the spot, started his own stream, and opened by dissing Jiang Yi's previous "slanderous" remarks: "I am here to clarify, my Xianming Chicken Feet are absolutely conscientious chicken feet; on the contrary, Jiang Yi... no, Jiang Mou! Not only is the chicken feet at Jiang Mou's place high-tech, but the alcohol he sells is also fake!"

"I have evidence for this!"

He appeared not to be leeching off Peng Chen, but in reality, he was peeling off a layer of his skin, pulling out chat records: "Peng Chen told me before that he bought fake alcohol from Jiang Mou's livestream room, and ended up having diarrhea for three days!"

"Remember that? Everyone said Peng Chen looked thin during that time; was he thin? That motherfucker was literally shitting himself thin! He was dehydrated!"

The livestream audience was shocked.

#Peng Chen shits himself thin#

#Peng Chen's secret to getting thin by shitting#

#Jiang Yi's fake alcohol weight loss#

#Peng Chen is a Trisolaran#

Related trending search terms flew onto the list one after another.

The two great chicken feet war gods of Rise were at war, Weibo was filled with the smoke of battle, and the onlookers were stunned.

"What's going on? The Rise show isn't over yet?!"

"This flop group Rise is killing me."

"Who can understand, Peng Chen is actually a Trisolaran, I'm laughing my head off."

"Is the dog-stealing thing true? Yezi really did raise a stray dog before, but I don't know how it disappeared in the end!"

"Oh, a wild fan of the flop Chi Ye appears!"

"Comparing them like this, I suddenly feel the flop Chi Ye has become cute; what kind of monsters and demons are these in Rise."

"Rise doesn't raise idlers! Everyone is a war god!"

Major forums were gradually flooded, and Peng Chen's popularity increased instead of decreasing.

Meanwhile, Jiang Yi saw his good brother "slandering" him like this, and looking at the surging traffic, he was very sad.

He turned around and started exposing Peng Chen's "scandals"!

"It's common for Peng Chen not to bathe for a month; back then, our dorm was stunk out by him!"

"This Zhang Xianming not only sells fake chicken feet, but he's also especially stingy. When he breaks up with a girlfriend, he even steals her underwear!"

Zhang Xianming then attacked Jiang Yi: "Jiang Mou used to visit prostitutes and always left Chi Ye's name! Before he was taken away by the uncle, the uncle even came over to summon Chi Ye, and that's when we found out he was so insane!"

"……!"

The two brothers, one leeching off Peng Chen and the other off Peng Chen + Chi Ye, went back and forth, fighting fiercely.

They even pushed the Scream Night trending search out of the top twenty!

Even Meng Yixun's downfall was suppressed.

Truly, Brother Meng was not only targeted by rivals while alive, but his popularity after death was also being intercepted!

Many of Meng Yixun's fans broke down on the spot: Rise, act like humans! You're even intercepting the popularity of the dead?! Are you still human?! A bunch of animals!

But the animals wouldn't hear these fans' words.

Zhang Mou and Jiang Mou were still "passionately dueling," and the "three animals" inside the Scream Night venue were inevitably implicated.

At this moment, inside the Scream Night venue.

The ceremony was still being held on stage.

Those off stage couldn't help but frequently turn their heads to look at the table where Peng Chen and Chi Ye were sitting.

Shang Youshu, sitting in the front row, had her neck twisted almost like a twist; for a moment, there was so much gossip she didn't know which to eat first!

"Don't look at me, it has nothing to do with me, I'm really not familiar with them!"

It was rare for Chi Ye to blush.

It was different for Peng Chen; he was almost driven mad by the strange looks from those around him!

"Fuck! What the hell is going on?!"

His face was deathly pale, and his whole body was visibly trembling.

But in front of the cameras, he couldn't show it, desperately suppressing the anger in his heart until the camera moved away, then he lowered his voice and cursed: "Did you handle this with your asshole?!"

Shen Qingyu was also confused at this moment.

He never expected that he would just buy some black trending searches, and these two dead-horse things, Jiang Yi and Zhang Xianming, would come out to join the fun!

Why is today so unlucky!

Nothing good ever happens when meeting Chi Ye!

"No, wait, I..."

"Wait for what?" Peng Chen was anxious: "Am I stuck with shit and piss today? If it's not shitting, it's diarrhea. Can you do anything right? Bundling? After this is over, I'll bundle your dick!"

Shen Qingyu: "……"

Right now, he was both furious and anxious inside.

Previously, he had been slapped hard in the face by Chi Ye, and his appeal to the general public had already been affected; if he didn't latch onto Peng Chen's popularity now...

Then he would soon drop in status.

"It's fine, I have a way!"

He struggled with himself for a moment, pulled his phone out from under the table, opened Weibo directly, and then chose—to join the fray!

Yes, the Rise melee had gained another major general.

Of course, Shen Qingyu’s status was much stronger than that of Zhang Mou or Jiang Mou.

And he certainly wouldn't be so low as to leak information in a livestream; that was only something done by washed-up losers who couldn't make it in the industry.

His method was much smarter—he found the black-PR trending topic about Chi Ye that his team had purchased—the one with the highest engagement, #Chi Ye insults Sheng Ning#, liked it, and then unliked it.

After thinking about it, he feared the impact wouldn't be enough, so he logged into Weibo and posted: [Sorry, my hand slipped, I'm being punished with a day of no internet (laugh-crying emoji)]

As it turned out, this post caused a stir, and #Shen Qingyu hand slip# successfully climbed the trending list.

But... an extremely awkward situation arose—he didn't make it onto the top list!

Yes, because the "battle was currently so intense," the trending list had already been dominated by the other members of Rise; for a moment, he couldn't even squeeze into the top ten!

There were too many naturally gifted players; he couldn't compete!

"Brother Peng, why don't you try having your hand slip yourself..."

"Slip your mother!"

Shen Qingyu: "......"

Peng Chen was so angry his nose was crooked: "Are you an idiot? Buy bots, buy this trending topic!"

Shen Qingyu gritted his teeth in secret, thinking to himself, just wait until I’m more popular than you.

Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west; don't bully a young man for being washed up!

Thinking this, he still took a moment to send a WeChat message to his team, and not long after, #Shen Qingyu hand slip# and the black-PR trending topic related to Chi Ye finally reached the top again.

But the subsequent developments once again exceeded Shen Qingyu's expectations.

"No, are you done yet? It's getting a bit counterproductive; why are there so many black-PR trending topics about this Chi Ye?"

"Hand slipped during the Scream Night? Shen Qingyu, don't be so dramatic."

"A bit 'green tea' of you, buddy. How much must you hate the washed-up Ye to set him up like this?"

"Laughing to death, I just saw four or five of these black-PR topics, and now there are three more."

"This guy really has a constitution that invites drama; even though he's so washed up, he gets dragged into trending topics by people every time."

"Who said this Chi Ye is washed up? This Chi Ye is a top-tier celebrity!"

"Chi Ye, the traffic code for Rise!"

"Can the #Chi-Pan Xia-Yu# CP fans say something? Xia-Xia said—how could I not know if Teacher Chi is a good person? Don't you dare bully Teacher Chi!!"

Shen Qingyu never expected this, because they had always played this game before, and because Chi Ye was now "extraordinary."

Although the first episode of *See You* hadn't aired yet and the show hadn't exploded in popularity, the scale of the #Chi-Pan Xia-Yu# CP fan base was already manifesting.

If it could be said that in the past, apart from his pitifully few die-hard fans, no one liked Chi Ye.

Then the current Chi Ye already had a batch of new CP fan supporters; he was no longer a soft persimmon that anyone could squeeze.

"......Damn! I knew we had to suppress his popularity!"

Shen Qingyu cursed, looking at the "mess on the ground" before him, his head buzzing.