She had always dwelled upon the upsetting problems and never listened to others" advice. After suffering such a huge loss this time around, she thought through Lin Chu"s words and finally what Lin Chu said sank in.
Perhaps it was the swimming lessons, Lin Chu noticed that Yan Ningbai was getting slimmer.
Yan Ningbai glanced around. "Where"s Chu Xi? Did you bring it?"
"We were out running some errands and came here straight before going home, so we didn"t bring Chu Xi along," Lin Chu explained.
"You can"t always leave Chu Xi behind! It"s part of your family too!" Yan Ningbai exclaimed frantically, outraged by the injustice suffered by Chu Xi.
Chu Xi was such an adorable dog. How could they just leave it at home all the time?
Yan Beicheng snorted in reply. "You"re old enough to use your brain now. We"re moving here soon and when we do, Chu Xi will have the whole courtyard to run around and you"ll be able to play with it whenever you want. You can even bring it home if you want."
"Really? That"s wonderful then!" Finally satisfied, Yan Ningbai put his backpack down and proceeded to unpack everything. There was a pair of swimming trunks, a swimming cap, goggles, and finally, he plucked his handphone out.
"Big nephew, older niece-in-law, let me show you something," Yan Ningbai said as he opened Weibo on his phone.
Lin Chu"s eyebrows arched in curiosity. This little kid"s phone was equipped with pretty much all of the social media applications. Not only did he have Weibo and Wechat, but he also had Instagram too. He was just a child yet did he already knew how to use a VPN?
Lin Chu noticed a certain beauty camera app too.
Speechless, she cast a glance at Yan Huaian. Did he know how vain and in-trend his son was?
Yan Huaian, "..."
Yan Ningbai tapped on his phone a few times before a video popped up and showed it to Lin Chu. "Older niece-in-law, have a look. Is that you?"
At one glance, Lin Chu was shocked. It was a video of her talking to Xu Jiaojiao at the cafe this afternoon.
The cafe was quite crowded at that time so Lin Chu did not notice that someone recorded the entire incident and posted it online.
Fortunately, the person who held the camera was conscious enough to angle the shot so Lin Chu"s face was not entirely visible. Only her back could be seen and a little bit of her side profile, so unless it was someone who knew her well, n.o.body could really recognize her.
That was why Yan Ningbai was unsure as well.
In the video, Dai Minhui was seated back towards the camera and most of the time, she was blocked by a couple of seats behind her. As for Xu Jiaojiao, her hands covered her face as she cried during most of the video, and for the few times where she raised her head to talk to Lin Chu, her face was pixelated.
Lin Chu felt that the video was truly well-shot and of high quality.
Although Lin Chu"s face could not be seen, her voice was still recognizable.
Yan Ningbai turned the volume higher as he played the video and immediately, Yan Beicheng and the others were able to witness her inspiring and encouraging speech this afternoon.
Lin Chu covered her face in embarra.s.sment.
She felt like a hooligan talking nonsense in front of a group of wealthy and intellectual people. Her face instantly turned red and she could even feel the heat of her face from her palms.
She groaned helplessly and urged Yan Ningbai, "Ningbai, hurry up and turn that off!"
Yan Ningbai responded with a soft nod but still let the video continue playing. "Well, older niece-in-law, is that you?"
Lin Chu was almost close to tears as she kept her face buried in her hands. "Yes, yes, it"s me! Come on, turn it off now. It"s so embarra.s.sing!"
With that, Yan Ningbai finally stopped the video.
Lin Chu"s ears were burning from embarra.s.sment as her scalp p.r.i.c.kled. n.o.body said a word and the house fell into an awkward silence. Lin Chu felt so anxious she could feel the tears welling in her eyes.
No matter how long her face stayed buried in her hands, she was still burning from embarra.s.sment.
"Stop covering your face, you"ll just trap the heat inside," Yan Beicheng teased.
Yan Ningbai, on the other hand, took out a mini fan and held it beside Lin Chu to cool her down.
Lin Chu gritted her teeth consciously. She felt utterly embarra.s.sed and as she reluctantly lowered her hands, she noticed Yan Beicheng"s mouth twitching from trying to suppress his laughter.
Yan Huaian kept his head up high with one fist covering his mouth while the other hand was wiping away the tears from his eyes.
Yu Zi could barely hold her laughter. She squatted down with one hand covering her mouth while the other was pounding on the soft carpet.
Yan Ningbai was the only one who was not laughing. He stood beside them with a confused look in his innocent eyes, completely puzzled by their reactions.
Lin Chu covered her face angrily once again. "Just laugh if you guys want to! You don"t have to hold it in! Just let it all out this once and no more after that!" She shouted as she stomped her feet angrily.
Yu Zi and Yan Beicheng were kind enough to still restrain themselves even after Lin Chu"s statement.
Yan Huaian, however, did not bother too much. After Lin Chu"s "permission" to laugh, he immediately let out the laughter he had been holding in the entire time.
When Yan Huaian finally stopped laughing, Yan Beicheng walked towards Lin Chu and reached out to hold her hand. "Wow, I never knew you had such a big ambition," he said with a mocking smile.
Lin Chu"s face had already turned as red as a tomato and by the looks of it, her brain might just get fried by how red she was getting from flus.h.i.+ng.
"I was just trying to lecture Xu Jiaojiao, alright? I don"t wish to see her continue that path so… I just tried to be as motivating as I can so it"s a little bit of "chicken soup for the soul". Fortunately, she"s still willing to listen to my advice so my little speech worked," she mumbled.
"So do you want me to support your career? You can expand your horizons and develop your career too," Yan Beicheng continued to tease with an eyebrow arched.
With her hands covering her face once more, she kicked him by the s.h.i.+ns. "Stop teasing me! I… I don"t have any lofty aspirations or whatsoever. I"ve never thought of developing further in my career pathway. Anyway, I"ve already decided to let you take care of me for the rest of my life, haven"t I?"
Yan Beicheng gently pulled her hands away and held them in his hands. "Hey, don"t worry. I"ll make sure you have nothing to worry about for the rest of your life."
Even if she had always trusted him and knew that he would take care of her, it was still nice to hear him say it aloud and she felt giddy inside. With that, she still cast a stern look at him. "So why do you still keep making fun of me!"
Yan Beicheng remained silent as he could no longer fight back. Yu Zi poked Yan Ningbai, the culprit who started the whole situation and said, "Well, you do make sense. How many people in this world can have a Cinderella story of their own? After all, you and Beicheng are considered a minority. Probably only one or two out of a hundred girls are as lucky as you. Besides, most wealthy families are very particular with the other half"s social status. It"s easy for those rich playboys to play around with famous, young celebrities. It"s fun for them to switch partners every week or so, but when it ultimately comes to marriage, they only have a limited selection. There"s no point for a girl to have unrealistic fantasies purely based on the one or two percent possibilities."
"You"re not exaggerating. Wealthy or poor, it doesn"t really matter as men aren"t exactly reliable, but how many men out there are as good as the men in our family?" Yu Zi continued as she cast a glance at Yan Huaian.
Sure enough, Yan Huaian immediately straightened himself, clearly delighted that Yu Zi did not forget to praise him.
"If a woman can"t rely on a man, shouldn"t she work harder herself? Why are there so many leftover women still single in their thirties nowadays? They"re not what you call "leftover", but they"re just more determined. They don"t see the point of relying on men, and they"re easily as comfortable as they are so, what"s with the need of finding a man to rely on? Why allow themselves to be led on just so they can find a man to accommodate and serve them?" Yu Zi continued, "It"s only because they have expectations and conditions of their own, so they"d rather take their time and choose slowly. There"s no rush if they can"t find one they like because after all, not having one is better than having an irresponsible one who"d just mistreat them."
Lin Chu nodded in agreement. "Yes, that"s exactly what I meant."
Then, she narrowed her eyes at Yan Beicheng. "That doesn"t mean I have big ambitions!"
"No, of course not," Yan Beicheng agreed quickly.
After the whole incident, as embarra.s.sed Lin Chu was, she still could not resist the curiosity in her. When she got home, she picked up her phone and searched the internet right away for the video. Sure enough, she found her speech had attracted many women"s support. There were plenty of praises and approvals from people in the comment section as well.
There were some mean and harsh words too, commenting on how she acted differently from her words and guessing that she was a single woman who was unable to find a man.
At the sight of those comments, Lin Chu merely ignored them with a smile.
Just as she was about to turn it off, she refreshed the page and received a new notification. A new account that just recently registered on Weibo suddenly published a piece of news on Xu Jiaojiao.
In the post, it stated that she was involved in an affair with Cheng Ziming and that she recently got pregnant, and unfortunately, had a miscarriage due to an accident later on. The person who was lecturing Xu Jiaojiao in the video was Lin Chu, Yan Beicheng"s wife. It was stated there too, that Lin Chu was originally an orphan whose biological mother recently showed up in her life, and turns out, Xu Jiaojiao was her long-lost sister sharing the same biological mother.
There was some specific information on the Xu family attached to the post as well, and everything it stated was almost accurate. It was even mentioned how Dai Minhui got pregnant before her marriage back then and left Lin Chu at the orphanage after giving birth to her. At the end of the post, it added that Cinderella was nothing compared to Lin Chu as her background was far more complicated than Cinderella"s.
Due to the information shared on the post, which attracted plenty of attraction, the post was already trending on the internet with a high reshare rate.
Someone even posted a video of Xu Jiaojiao collapsing during the accident which eventually led to her abortion.
In the comment section, a lot of people mentioned how awful Lin Chu"s background was and noted how many dirty secrets she had hidden. Since her mother and sister had done so many dishonorable things in the past, it was suggested that Lin Chu might have used some tricks to snare Yan Beicheng.
Lin Chu was a public relations officer herself so naturally, she was able to recognize it as a move by one of those internet water armies 1 . She got off Weibo right away and made a phone call to Zheng Yuntong. "Yuntong, are you sleeping soon?"
"Nope, Moyan and I are night owls," Zheng Yuntong replied with a laugh, "What"s up? Is something wrong?"
"Yeah, can you help me with something?" With that, Lin Chu explained the entire situation.
"Alright, no problem!" Zheng Yuntong agreed right away.
Then, Zheng Yuntong and Lin Chu began to act on both ends. Lin Chu recalled her conversation with Dai Minhui where she mentioned b.u.mping into Lu Weining at the hospital some time ago, so she knew right away that Lu Weining must be involved in this incident.
Lu Weining was just like a c.o.c.kroach that never went away, but this time around, she did a pretty good job of keeping her involvement hidden and anonymous. She did not leave any trace of evidence so she probably hired a few internet marketers to help her execute this plan.
With everything happening across the network, everything was untraceable.
However, if Lu Weining was able to find her own internet water army, Lin Chu and Zheng Yuntong could easily as well.
In less than an hour, the trend of the internet had changed.
Some comments stated how every family has that few disastrous relatives while some mentioned that Xu Jiaojiao seemed to feel guilty, and was sincere about turning over a new leaf. The person who invaded this family"s privacy by exposing all their stories online was a hateful person who had hostile intentions.
Some also questioned why Lin Chu was brought up at all since she was not the one involved with a married man.
Some mentioned that the person who posted the video in the first place had already pixelated the person"s face, indicating that the person had no intention of causing trouble to the related parties. However, a certain spam account exposed the entire backstory without the related parties" permission. Judging by what the account said at the end of the post, it was obvious that the culprit behind all of it was trying to bring shame on Lin Chu.
Some even left angry comments on the original post saying how disrespectful the person was to post someone"s family matter so publicly.
With that, the person behind the original post finally got annoyed and posted another long text on Weibo explaining how there were no ill intentions behind the post. The person merely felt that Lin Chu"s words were inspiring so they wanted to share it publicly as a motivation for other women. Aside from that, the person reminded that there were no specific mentions of Xu Jiaojiao in the posts so the spam account was the culprit taking advantage of the situation to discredit the family mentioned. It was unethical for one to expose a family"s privacy like that on the internet, was it not?
Just like that, the internet water army and all the netizens were indignant and turned to the spam account, directing their fury and rage toward the spam account holder.
However, the spam account remained silent.
Where the spam account was intended to discredit Lin Chu, many of the feminist audience was inspired by Lin Chu"s speech and had taken a liking to her after watching the video.
Seeing how the situation had panned out, Lin Chu knew that the situation was stabilized and finally logged out of Weibo. Right at that moment, she received a call from Zheng Yuntong.
"It"s all settled now! We"re pretty efficient, aren"t we?" Zheng Yuntong exclaimed excitedly.
Lin Chu responded with a laugh and thanked her.
"Hey, don"t need to be so courteous!" Zheng Yuntong said with a wave of her hand before realizing that Lin Chu would not be able to see her through the phone. Awkward and slightly embarra.s.sed, she immediately placed her hand down, but not before Xu Moyan noticed it. Sitting beside her eating a packet of potato ch.i.p.s, Xu Moyan did not miss the silly action and flashed her silly friend a teasing smile.
Zheng Yuntong moved closer and sat beside Xu Moyan. "Wait a minute, let"s switch to video call on Wechat. Moyan"s right here with me so it"s more convenient if we use video call," she suggested to Lin Chu.
Lin Chu agreed and hung up, just in time to accept Zheng Yuntong"s request for a video call.
She tapped on it and right away, Xu Moyan and Zheng Yuntong"s huge face appeared on the screen altogether. They were staring back at her intently, both their heads squeezed close together to fit into the camera.
The image of it all was too amusing and Lin Chu could not help but laugh out loud. When she saw the obvious eye-roll Xu Moyan gave her, Lin Chu just laughed even harder.
"Oh, stop laughing," Zheng Moyan pleaded as she took out a potato chip from the packet in Xu Moyan"s hands and ate it. As she munched on it, she continued, "What happened tonight on the internet was clearly directed at you. Do you know who did it?"
"I don"t have any evidence but the only person I can think of is Lu Weining," Lin Chu answered with a frown. Both of them were crunching on the potato ch.i.p.s happily and she suddenly had the urge to eat too. "Hey, both of you, stop eating that. You"re making me hungry."
"Hahahaha, are you busy tomorrow? We haven"t seen each other for so long! You should come over our place and have a snack, we can have potato ch.i.p.s together," Xu Moyan replied, another crispy munch sounding from her mouth.
Lin Chu thought about it and replied, "Tomorrow afternoon"s fine. We"re going back to the Family Mansion tomorrow morning. Oh, I haven"t told you guys! We"re planning on moving to Sheng Town and we"ve already bought a villa next to Yan Huaian"s. It"s still renovating so we"re just planning on dropping by tomorrow to have a look. We can drop by your place after, I"ll let Yan Beicheng go over to Yan Huaian"s place so the both of you won"t feel too awkward."
"Eh, what"s wrong with Ding City? You guys have been living there all along, why are you guys moving all of a sudden?" Xu Moyan asked curiously.
With that, Lin Chu told them the entire story of Lu Zhenghang moving to Ding City. "Some time ago when Beicheng was away on a business trip, he came over and hara.s.sed me. Besides that, he"s fooling around with Zhu Hexuan now! The thought of them living a floor above us disgusts me, and since it"s impossible to force him to move away, we"ll move out. Besides, even if Lu Zhenghang isn"t in the picture, Beicheng was already planning on moving out because he"s worried the current place isn"t big enough for when we have kids in the future, which I agree with. Lucky for us, Lu Zhenghang"s moving in earlier than planned. If we had moved earlier, he might just follow us as well and that"ll be worse, won"t it?"
Zheng Yuntong heaved a long, heavy sigh and took a huge bite of a piece of a potato chip. "Only rich people will have such problems!"
Lin Chu laughed at her and continued, "n.o.body knows about this incident yet and I"ve asked Aunt Zhuang to not bring it up with anyone else in case Lu Zhenghang gets wind of it, so both of you, please be careful and don"t bring it up in the midst of any conversation alright!"
"Relax, we won"t," Xu Moyan promised while Zheng Yuntong nodded beside her.
After chatting for a little longer, Lin Chu finally ended the call. She stared at her phone blankly and after long consideration, she pulled up Lu Weining"s number from the list of blacklisted numbers.
In fact, she herself was inspired by the lecture she gave Xu Jiaojiao this afternoon.
Although she was together with Yan Beicheng now, she still did not have to learn to be self-reliant because of Yan Beicheng"s personality, and because of his background, she did not have to strive to be successful in her work field. On the contrary, it was because of Yan Beicheng and his busy work schedule, she needed more time to take care of him.
She was not upset about it either. She was never an ambitious type of strongwoman anyway, and she would much rather stay at home to take care of the household. In China, an Internet Water Army is a group of internet ghostwriters who are paid to post online content with particular intentions of influencing public opinion.