ITVCFITB CHAPTER 129

Chapter 129 — Extra: If This Were a Modern AU · 3

After rebirth, Luo Shuyu had no intention of wasting time with Li Mingjin.

Their relationship progressed fast. He soon moved into the place where Li Mingjin usually stayed and once hooked, they did everything a couple does.

The famously cool, severe Li Mingjin couldn’t keep up that image around Shuyu at all.

Morning light slipped through the curtains and fell across Shuyu’s cheek. Li Mingjin tapped the tip of his nose; the next second, Luo, half-awake, caught his hand.

A sleepy, nasal murmur: “Mm?”

Heat climbed the tips of Li Mingjin’s ears. That voice was dangerous. “N-no. Don’t you have to go to the office later? Getting up?”

Shuyu yanked the quilt higher to block the light. “No. I’m sleeping more. We were up too late. I’m exhausted.”

Guilty as charged, Li Mingjin got up except Shuyu still held his fingers. He didn’t want to pull away, so he lay back down and, listening to Luo’s breathing, drifted off again. When he woke, both of them had overslept.

Unsurprisingly, the man who was never late… was late.

In the meeting, his assistant kept sneaking glances. What on earth did the boss do last night? Mr. Never-Late showed up tardy, it’s historic!

Work was intense, but Li Mingjin knew exactly what Shuyu did for a living; he kept tabs on his fiancé and quietly helped where he could.

They were in the same boat now. Marriage or not, they’d already crossed the line; of course he would take responsibility.

Newly initiated and already addicted, he licked his lips, switched into work mode, and, here and there, texted his fiancé.

Luo was busy too, busy taking the fight to Shen Mingyun.

Chen Rong and Lin Yuan’s project was a 24-episode modern suspense drama. The first two episodes dropped with little splash, most hot searches had been bought by Shen’s lavishly promoted palace drama.

But from episode three on, their show started gaining “tap water” word of mouth. Shuyu remembered from the last life that this series had real style, only back then, Shen blocked the attention, and it took time for people to discover it.

Not this time. With the show under his wing, he wouldn’t step aside, he’d block Shen instead.

Within two days, short-video feeds and friend circles were flooded with clips from the suspense drama, now titled Bad Fortune. Reviews and ratings surged. Offline chatter was all about the show. Quietly, inevitably, it exploded.

Shen’s palace drama, meanwhile, slid from a high debut into steady decline. Viewers complained about bland plotting, filler, shaky logic, and stale tropes. Hype without substance. Mid-broadcast, someone revealed that the original male lead had been Chen Rong, followed by leaks about Shen’s agency wrangling over contracts and pay. Suddenly, Shen didn’t look quite so “divine.”

Overexposure backfires.

The same troll farms that had smeared Chen reappeared, dredging up every so-called scandal. But Shuyu wouldn’t have hired Chen without vetting his character. He’d already prepared the receipts, sued the leading rumor accounts, and mass-reported the rest.

As the dominos fell, onlookers noticed a pattern: those “marketing” accounts constantly wrote puff pieces praising Shen as once-in-five-millennia perfection.

Laid out under the sun, his “acting” looked suspiciously inflated.

Most of the anti-Chen noise traced back to the same hype machine. With the truth out, people realized Chen really had been cast as the original male lead, and Shen was the one who stole the part.

Some of Shen’s frontline fans struggled to accept it.

On top of that, netizens dug into Shen’s pre-production antics and began posting side-by-side comparisons of the two shows that premiered the same day.

One soared on word of mouth; the other plummeted. Chen and Lin were widely praised, while Shen… spent the whole time doing wide-eyed glares. That “young master of the craft” image? Please. He couldn’t even cry on cue, someone uploaded a full clip of him using eyedrops on set.

All of it moved because Shuyu was pulling strings. In the last life, Shen had done these things; this time, Luo would be the one directing the board.

Shen was at his career peak when he arrived in this world, powered by system props. Now, suddenly, the props didn’t work?

Wasn’t his crying supposed to move the heavens?

Then why was there video proof?

Weren’t the props supposed to auto-beautify his tears?

Wasn’t “just glare” enough to sell anger?

Then why were clips of his eyes nearly popping out going viral?

What was happening?

It wasn’t just the tears and the acting. Photos of him on dates with different men were splashed online too. The shots were merely suggestive, but every frame had a different man in it, how was he supposed to explain that to Li Mingchun?

Call it smear jobs and malicious Photoshop?

He could explain one or two, but not all. There were too many.

His phone lit up non-stop from the very men he’d been using; the device was burning hot, battery down to five percent.

Panic set in.

Why weren’t the props working?

Shen pinged the system, demanding answers. The system didn’t answer because its mall had automatically delisted some props for “unknown reasons.”

Now the system was panicking too. It contacted the Lord God and, meanwhile, scolded Shen for leaning on props instead of practicing. Props could only do so much; some corner cases, like stray surveillance, weren’t always affected. The crash, therefore, had its causes.

In short: Shen relied on cheat items and never learned to act.

Shen shot back: why bother with acting when he had props? Just clear missions, earn points, done.

Points were easy. Dine with big shots, win their favor or make them fall in love. Simple.

Points buy props. Why study anything?

Worse, those same men were now messaging him: what about the photos?

He could only play dumb, act wronged, play white lotus.

If they ever learned he was only using them for mission points, all the goodwill would collapse. Without backers, who would shield him in showbiz?

But the crisis seemed to “resolve” quickly. The men under Shen’s spell decided it was all haters. His foremost admirer, Li Mingchun, simply had the platforms scrub everything, no trace left.

Shuyu wasn’t angry; this was better than he’d hoped.

He had plenty more where those came from. If he wanted to repost, he could, anytime.

Besides, he worked in the dark while Shen and Li Mingchun stood in the spotlight. How could they beat him?

He wasn’t using garden-variety marketing accounts, either; he paid serious money for hackers. When it came to Shen, he wouldn’t spare the expense.

Two goals: pave Chen Rong’s road, and wreck Shen Mingyun’s public image.

With the foundation laid, Shen’s “Best Actor” halo wouldn’t last.

Luo leaned back, twirling a pen. His eyes were cool; a thin smile tugged at his mouth.

What to take down next?

He stopped the pen and circled a name on the page: Li Mingchun.

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