Chapter 5

In the video, the clean and beautiful teenager was sometimes laughing, sometimes annoyed or sometimes carrying the bossy female president on the grass…

I am a Serious Person: In the face of such a beautiful brother, I can! I really can!

Pear on an Apple Tree: I never understood why the overbearing male president always liked tough little white flowers in novels. After watching this video, I only hate that I’m not the overbearing president.

Baby Bear: There is nothing to say. I just want to ahhhhhhh!

No Fruits on a Plum Blossom Tree: You superficial women, you only know how to look at the face. This fairy disdains you. Don’t you see that the little guy is acting well? Under the shade, he turned back and smiled. I don’t know why but this reminds me of the most handsome boy in school that I was secretly in love with. The way he is eating bread on the roadside also makes me feel bad to the bone. I want to pull out my bank card on the spot and say to him, ‘Son, what do you want to eat? Mother will buy everything for you so don’t starve yourself.

See Two Cents on the Road: I have money, I will raise you!

Song Yu had been holding his mobile phone and looking through the data since Overbearing Female President went live. For the first few hours, there were only a few clicks and pop-ups. It wasn’t until the middle of the night until the audience gradually grew.

Song Yu looked at the barrage area of the video that was gradually becoming more lively. His sleepiness disappeared and he was excited enough to fly. He seemed to see a future filled with countless endorsements and huge popularity.

Then gradually, he found that something was wrong. In his dream, on the day that the drama was launched, a well-known big V blogger praised Li Zhao’s second male lead on Weibo for his charming appearance. This caused numerous passersby to come and watch Li Zhao’s role and this helped the show become popular.

Why was it that no one was boasting about the second male lead Song Yu played? Instead, many people were saying that the male lead was suffering. Song Yu looked until he finally saw something related to himself.

【 The second male lead is truly pretentious. He thinks he can steal the male lead’s girlfriend with his money. The female protagonist isn’t short of money. Why can’t she find a good boyfriend of her preference? 】

Song Yu: ????

In that dream, the viewers didn’t say this. They scolded the male lead he played for being an annoying white lotus with a fake noble and virtuous air and no flexibility.

The plot and even the female lead hadn’t changed. How could the direction be completely different from the development in the dream? At this moment, people should be praising him for being handsome, rich and gentle and moaning that it was a pity the female lead was blind.

【 I said earlier that the female lead shouldn’t leave ahead of the second male lead. My little beauty looks so good that the second male lead dared to taunt him. Where did the female tyrant go? Your boyfriend is being bullied! Come to help! 】

【 Wuwuwuwu, I am crying so loudly. Such a good little cutie, why doesn’t he belong to me? Why am I not an overbearing president? 】

【 Seeing the little cutie being bullied, my heart is broken. Baby, come to Mama’s arms! 】

Pretentious? Song Yu was wide-eyed. In his dream, the audience clearly praised Li Zhao’s handsome and elegant performance, just like a little prince coming out of a dream! He was obviously playing the same second lead, why were these people discriminating against him?

In just two days, Overbearing Female President had many discussions online and the number of clicks soared. This made the broadcast platform overjoyed. They had bought the copyright for a low price and hadn’t expected such a harvest.

The publicity department of the broadcast platform saw this and quickly cooperate to publicize the drama on the Internet. All department members seemed to see the goal of reaching the KPI target.

The plot of Overbearing Female President went against the mainstream route. It was like the male and female leads had taken the wrong script. Unexpectedly, this conformed to the appetite of the female audience. The handsome and overbearing female and the gentle and sunny male, they shouldn’t intersect but they met and fell in love.

The netizens laughed and binge-watched happily. Once they found there were no more episodes they had to recharge membership with Green Pepper Video in order to watch four more episodes than the general audience. After watching, they went to the official Green Pepper Video Weibo to ask when a new episode would be updated.

Green Pepper Video saw netizens paying more and more attention to Overbearing Female President and decided to do an event with the stars. However, they soon discovered that the first male lead had no Weibo and no public relations team. His management company had even collapsed a few months ago.

Green Pepper’s publicity group contacted the crew and wasted a lot of energy to get the phone number of the male lead’s agent.

“Little Xiaoyuan, are you really going to open a store here?” Li Zhao looked at the dusty store and felt it couldn’t make money. This was a university town and the store rents were particularly high. There were all types of stores on the street and the competition was too big.

“I will open the store and you’ll be a staff member. You can read books when you’re free.” Zhang Xiaoyuan paused. “Zhu Xia’s body is gradually recovering and the contract you signed with the company is no longer valid. You’re not popular, have no contacts and can’t continue to mix in the entertainment circle. Don’t go out to work in the next few months. Stay in the store and study well. Next June, you can take part in the university entrance examination again.”

Li Zhao didn’t reply about taking part in the university entrance examination. He just said, “Little Xiaoyuan, I’m just worried that you will lose money opening a store and then you won’t even get a wife.”

Zhang Xiaoyuan, “……”

He suddenly remembered that he was 32 but had no wife or even a girlfriend.

“Touching my sore spot, I will…” Zhang Xiaoyuan was preparing to grab Li Zhao when his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and was confused. Why was the crew of Overbearing Female President calling him? Was there a new role for Zhao Zhao?

The moment the phone was connected, Zhang Xiaoyuan heard the other party’s excited voice.

“What?” Zhang Xiaoyuan was stunned for a long time and stared at Li Zhao after hanging up the phone. “Zhao ah, is today April 1st?”

“Wake up, it’s the beginning of winter now.” Li Zhao saw that Zhang Xiaoyuan’s face wasn’t right. “What’s the matter?”

“Green Peper wants to invite you to participate in the platform’s hottest self-made talk show. You can get an appearance fee. Do you want to go?” Zhang Xiaoyuan faintly remembered that the other side said the drama was on fire right now and couldn’t help laughing. The director of a poor crew might not have too high standards for being hot.

They might not intend to mix in the entertainment circle in the future but they could still earn a profit from the appearance fee.

On the way to the Green Pepper location, Li Zhao was worried about his shirt and shoes worth four figures and specially called for an app-based driver.

After the car arrived, the driver apologized to Li Zhao because she had a two or three year old child in her car. Since her child was asleep and couldn’t be left unattended, she had to take the child with her to make money.

“It doesn’t matter.” Li Zhao looked gently at the sleeping child. “I’m fine sitting in the passenger’s seat.”

“Thank you, thank you.” The driver thanked Li Zhao several times before heading to the destination.

She asked him, “There is a bit of heating in the car. Do you want to take off your coat?” Li Zhao noticed that the child’s cheeks were a bit red and replied, “No, you can turn down the temperature.”

The driver pulled up to the curb, took off her jacket and gently placed it over the child’s stomach.

“Sorry, I’m delaying your time.” The driver started the car again. She looked young and a bit tired.

“It doesn’t matter, I’m not in a hurry.” Li Zhao smiled. “You are a good mother.”

“What is so good? She is the meat that came from my stomach. Her father didn’t want her but I can’t help loving her.” The driver grinned. Her smile didn’t look good but her eyes were very gentle. “I’m not willing when I think of her waking up and crying because she can’t find me. It costs money to raise a child so I have to make money while taking her with me. Once she goes to kindergarten, it’ll be much more convenient.”

Li Zhao listened to the driver talk with a gentle smile on his face.

After getting off the car, Li Zhao gave the driver a five-star praise and walked into Green Pepper Video’s office building where the staff warmly welcomed him. “Teacher LI, welcome. I’m a staff member of Green Pepper Video’s entertainment program group. You can call me Xiao Wang.”

“Okay, Brother Wang.” Li Zhao took off his thick coat to reveal a tailored white shirt.

Brother Wang led Li Zhao upstairs. The two people had just come out of the elevator when an internal staff came to take photos. Brother Wang smiled at Li Zhao. “Bai Xiaodu played by Teacher Li was too successful. Many colleagues in the company are fond of this role so they are a bit excited when they saw you appear.”

“Brother Wang is flattering me.” Li Zhao secretly felt that the employees of big companies did their work really well. They even praised a completely unknown artist like him.

They arrived at the lounge where there was a makeup artist to do Li Zhao’s makeup. Then a staff member brought over a stack of photos for Li Zhao to sign.

Song Yu entered the lounge and saw a few Green Pepper Video staff members around Li Zhao. His face changed and he reluctantly squeezed out a smile. “Li Zhao, you came early.”

“Hello, Brother Song.” Seeing Song Yu, Li Zhao thought of countless delicious nights and his smile was particularly warm.

Song Yu put on a fake smile. Whenever he saw Li Zhao, he remembered those who scolded him for being pretentious and inevitably felt somewhat uneasy. If he had known early on that the dream was so unreliable, he wouldn’t have let Li Zhao play the first male lead. He had given away such high popularity. The female star soon arrived as well. They hadn’t seen each other for a long time and she was particularly happy when she saw Li Zhao, also giving him gifts.

Song Yu rolled his eyes in the corner. Usually, this woman never looked at Li Zhao in the crew. Now that Li Zhao was so popular on the Internet, she acted like they were close. Did she intend to fire up the main male and female leads good friends topic or perhaps it was an ambiguous love?

‘Green Peper Entertainment’ was a network entertainment program. The content was more relaxed and the topics in line with the current netizen hobbies. Thus, shortly after the interview started, the host talked directly about the hot topic.

“Zhao Zhao, your drama has been loved by many viewers since it was broadcasted on our platform. In just a few days, the number of hits has risen exponentially and many viewers said they want to become an overbearing president to love you. How do you feel about this?”

Facing the host’s gentle and sweet smile, Li Zhao answered honestly. “I think… being overbearing isn’t very important. The important thing is being bright, good at communication and if they want to raise someone, allowing them to eat until they’re full.”

The female host looked at Li Zhao’s wet eyes and her smile softened. “It seems that Zhao Zhao is a foodie.”

Li Zhao suddenly remembered that Zhang Xiaoyuan told him not to let outsiders know how much he could eat so he hastened to rescue his image as a little male fairy. “That isn’t it, I mean, as long as there are feelings, nothing else matters.”

“Of course.” The host laughed. “Taking a closer look at your figure, you don’t seem like a foodie.”

The female star and Song Yu turned to look at Li Zhao before opting for silence. Song Yu felt slightly suffocated at the thought of Li Zhao eating chocolate on so many nights but not becoming fat.

“Song Yu and Zhao Zhao are love enemies in the drama but what do you think of each other outside the drama?” There were many comments on the Internet about the second male lead so the hostess brought up the topic.

“Brother Song?” Li Zhao smiled sincerely. “Brother Song is a very good person and took great care of me in the crew.”

Song Yu, “……”

He disdained such a good person card.

The female star, “……”

The entire crew knew that Song Yu didn’t like Li Zhao. Only Li Zhao himself didn’t know it.

The interview continued for half an hour. On the surface, the three main actors had the same amount of time but Song Yu clearly felt that the host was more inclined to Li Zhao.

Holding onto the high while stepping on the low, wasn’t being popular great?

“There is still half an hour of live programming. The three of you can take a break. We will start the live broadcast in 10 minutes, okay?” The female host saw the heat on the Internet and many netizens were waiting in the studio despite the live broadcast not starting yet.

In the entertainment world, every few years there was a dark horse that became popular. It couldn’t be predicted how long these dark horses could be popular.

Wang Xiaohong put her sleeping child to bed before dragging her tired body to the bathroom. She went to the toilet and took out her mobile phone. A video platform’s push up message appeared on her screen, showing that some stars were live broadcasting.

She randomly entered and found a familiar figure on the screen. Wasn’t this the gentle and considerate young man who was just in her car? Was he a star?

She didn’t expect a star famous on the Internet to be sitting in her car with no other people around like an assistant or helper. This was simply being down-to-earth.

The author has something to say:

Li Zhao: Being down-to-earth isn’t important. The important thing is that I’m poor.