Chapter 409: Side Story (Continued) (1)

Changes in the entertainment industry took place faster than a cell's metabolism. You might see advertisements for an idol all over the place today, but they could vanish without a trace the next day; a nobody today might rise to fame the very next day.

Xue Sijia was holing herself up and her apartment and meekly scrolling through Weibo. She was looking through the top searches and wanted to see if there was any mention of her. After the company swapped out her manager and stopped promoting her, her popularity was now a far cry from what it had once been. If a person were to think of her last time, they'd sigh wistfully and say: "Ah, the Goddess!" But, if one were to bring her up now, many people would just say: "Oh, that woman who really knows how to beat other people up, right?"

Although she still had a following of fans who left messages on her Weibo page every day, there was a huge difference in numbers when compared to the past. How could someone as proud and as arrogant as her bear the ignominy of it all?

Just then, a new message appeared on her home page. It was from an artiste in her company.

"Minshu: #LiebanNewsConference The wedding dress looks so so beautiful! I'm definitely wearing their wedding dress if I get married in the future [Picture] [Picture]. PS: Rumour has it that the models were actually the scions of the Shen and Zhao families who had recently gotten married in secret. All I can say after watching the promo vid is that they're a match made in heaven! I'm just about ready to become their fangirl! Here's a random pic for you guys to get in on the feels too! [Picture]"

Xue Sijia felt a moment of panic before she hurriedly opened the picture.

The first two pictures were images of the wedding dress. They looked almost the same, with only some minor differences, as the one she was supposed to wear when the Shen Group request her to be their ambassador. The last picture was a magazine advertisement featuring a man and a woman. The couple in the picture looked like celestial beings no matter which angle they were pictured from.

But, pictures of the couple had Xue Sijia tossing her phone away in rage!

She'd planned on waiting for Shen Jingbin and the Shen Group to make a fool of themselves. After all, finding a suitable model was no easy task. The reason why she'd had such a catastrophic falling out with Shen Jingbin was because she believed that they wouldn't be able to immediately find a replacement, and they'd end up upsetting that photographer. In the end, they might even end up implicating the entire brand into that debacle, rendering them unable to deal with her and her plotting.

The Shen Group's actions, later on, validated her initial assumption. They didn't take action against her, nor they didn't try to report her. In fact, there was no form of retaliation whatsoever. The only thing they did was send someone over to her company to annul the contract. Her being 'buried' by her own company was just Long Dinghai making the call on his own because he was afraid of the Shen and Zhao families.

So, what was going on with the news conference? Did Shen Jingbin herself step up to the plate?!

F*ck! Why didn't she think of that?!

Brushing away her earlier listlessness, Xue Sijia got up and began madly searching through Weibo for anything related to the news conference. She immediately found the hashtag, #LiebanNewsConference#, blazing its way up to the top 3 most search topics on Weibo. To top it off, the number of clicks it got was steadily rising.

When she opened up the feed, she found that all of it consisted of praise for Lieban! Amongst the most popular posts, she found one made by Abner, the photographer that she'd upset. He was gushing about how much he loved the Lieban's wedding dress and its models. In fact, he even went as far as to volunteer to be Lieben's exclusive photographer!

Following that were praises from numerous fashion bloggers and reposts...

Based on general online sentiment, the news conference was a resounding success!

T-this was completely different from what Xue Sijia had planned!

She just stood there, overcome by the impossibility of it all. It felt like her brain had been twisted into a knot. A long time passed before she finally came back to her senses. With trembling fingers, she dialed Yangshu's number. Although Yangshu wasn't her manager anymore, they did have a long history together. Yangshu wouldn't just abandon her just because she was reassigned.

Sure enough, Yangshu picked up on the very first ring.

"Hello, is that you, Sijia?" Yangshu's voice sounded just as warm as it had always been.

"Yangshu, did Lieban's news conference take place today? Was it the same one that the Shen Group wanted me to be the ambassador for?"

Yangshu fell silent for a moment before she said, "S-Sijia, don't think too much about and have a good rest at home. I'm sure Chairman Long will forgive you if you give him some time to cool down and apologise to him afterward."

"Yangshu, I want your honest opinion: was me going against Shen Jingbin really biting off more than I could chew?"