DLWAV CH79

If by this point they still didn’t realize that everything they had gone through had been carefully arranged by someone, then they would have lived all these years for nothing.

Their first reaction was anger.

Because they had never imagined that after they liked Xia Ruizhe so much, Ao Ruizhe would actually dislike them.

But looking at those aggressive passersby, looking at that thief with the burning stare in his eyes, looking at the Kaoshan villagers sticking close to them every step of the way… they suddenly fell silent again.

And when they saw Ao Ruizhe standing there with the old village chief in the cold wind, waiting for them to come back—just like them, his shoes and pant legs covered in mud, with none of the glossy glamour an idol was supposed to have—their noses suddenly stung.

Ao Ruizhe only smiled and said, “Now that everyone’s back, let’s return. Looking at the sky, it might rain in a bit.”

They nodded hard. “Okay.”

Fortunately, it didn’t start raining all the way until they got back to Kaoshan Village.

And just then, the village brought over dinner.

They all fell silent again.

Soon enough, they moved.

This time, the vast majority of them took the initiative to go over and line up quietly.

The others hesitated for a few seconds, then followed as well.

Seeing this, the manager and the old village chief exchanged a glance and smiled.

After going through all this, those fans really did settle down. Even when a few more little incidents happened later, they were all smoothed over quickly.

And just like that, half a month passed.

The winter camp officially ended on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth lunar month.

Before the camp was formally dismissed, Kaoshan Village prepared a grand bonfire party for Ao Ruizhe and the fans who were about to leave, as well as for the security guards, doctors, and psychologists.

Ao Ruizhe didn’t waste words. He simply raised his cup of drink, looked at the fans, and said seriously, “Once you go back, I wish all of you bright futures, success in your careers, and that everything goes your way!”

The fans’ eyes reddened at once. “Thank you, thank you, Ruizhe.”

“Thank you for keeping us in your heart.”

So the next day, a topic titled “Willing to Be Xia Ruizhe’s Brain-Dead Fan for a Lifetime” shot straight onto the trending list.

The moment the public saw the name Xia Ruizhe, and remembered the storm he had stirred up some time ago, a lot of passersby clicked in instinctively.

The first sentence of that Weibo post was:

[I am one of the so-called brain-dead fans of Xia Ruizhe.]

Scrolling down further:

[I believe many netizens should already be familiar with me. And even if they’re not, they’ve probably seen comments I posted before—
So what if our Ruizhe looks down on rural people? If they weren’t holding the country back, the nation would have achieved complete prosperity long ago.
And rural people’s fingers are all black and filthy; who knows how dirty they are? Forget people—even our dog wouldn’t eat the food they make…
What I want to say now is: back then, I couldn’t even count as a brain-dead fan. I was just brain-dead, because back then I didn’t deserve to be Xia Ruizhe’s fan at all.]

[?????]

A lot of netizens were baffled. [Did the sun rise in the west today? Xia Ruizhe’s fans are actually admitting they’re brain-dead?]

So they hurriedly kept reading:

[And the reason I was able to undergo this change is because—you would never guess what an idol can do for their fans!!!!!
Xia Ruizhe specially organized a winter camp just for us—
And in order to gather us all together, he didn’t hesitate to promise 4,000 yuan in pocket money for every fan who was still a student, and compensation equal to three times the monthly salary of every fan who was already working. He even promised that if any of those fans got fired from their jobs because of this, he would help them find a similar job afterward.
Then he hired fifty security guards and ten doctors to protect our safety, over twenty elite teachers to tutor the fans who were still students, and more than thirty psychology experts to formulate educational plans tailored to our behavior and personalities.
Beyond that, they also hired countless temporary actors, all so we could experience everything as immersively and personally as possible…
…………
And he had only one purpose: to straighten out our twisted values.
For that, he didn’t hesitate to lead by example—wading into freezing water with us in weather below minus two degrees to dig lotus roots, and taking us up the mountain in the rain to gather wild vegetables…]

[真的假的？]
[Is this for real?]

[How is that even possible?]

[It’s true. #Agreement#
This is the contract we signed with Wanhai. Originally, Wanhai required us not to publicize this matter, but all 184 fans who attended the winter camp felt that everyone should know just how good Xia Ruizhe really is.
Most importantly, we should publicly apologize to those we once slandered.
We’re sorry. We should never have looked down on farmers. The moment you pick up a hoe in your hands, you’re already greater than the vast majority of people.
…
We’re sorry. We should never have mocked and belittled Director Chen @ChenFan, Ms. Zhao @Zhao, @Mr. Chen Chen Fulan…
PS. Xia Lewen excluded.]

Before long, the comments under the Weibo post were flooded by other fans too.

[Thank you, Ruizhe, for letting us realize just how outrageous our behavior used to be.]

[Thank you, Ruizhe, for not giving up on us. PS. I’ve already donated all the compensation Ruizhe gave me to charity in Mr. Xia Zhou’s name.]

…

[I just want to say this: becoming Xia Ruizhe’s fan was truly the best deal we ever got.]

[So starting today, we’re going to become Xia Ruizhe’s real brain-dead fans, because he’s worth it.]

[I’m late, because my parents and I spent some time calculating how much Ruizhe must have spent to organize this winter camp.
Guess what number we ended up with?
18 million.]

[?????]

[How much? 18 million????]

[All I know is that normal celebrities can’t avoid brain-dead fans fast enough. Which celebrity would realize that a brain-dead fan is first their fan, and only then brain-dead? So what celebrity would go this far for their brain-dead fans?]

[And that 18 million should only be the direct expenditure. It doesn’t even include the value of his own time and labor.]

[If this is true—what kind of divine idol is this?]

[This is probably true. And my first thought when I heard about it was: just to straighten out a bunch of brain-dead fans, Xia Ruizhe threw out 18 million in one shot? Wouldn’t it have been better to donate that 18 million to poor mountain regions? Did those brain-dead fans deserve it?
But I got slapped in the face very quickly.
Because one of the most unbearable coworkers in our company just came back from leave.
Given that she had just taken more than half a month off, and was a Xia Ruizhe fan herself, it’s hard not to suspect she went to this winter camp.
You have no idea how awful she used to be. Whenever we split the bill on those buy-one-get-one-half-off milk tea deals, she would never AA with us. She would only pay half, saying that she was drinking the discounted second cup.
For a while, our office had a trend of taking turns treating everyone. She was always the most enthusiastic when other people were paying, but the moment it was her turn, she’d play dead.
But when it came to spending money on gifts for her idols, she was unbelievably generous.
And if anyone in the office dared say a bad word about her idol, she’d curse not only their ancestors, but even the cockroaches in their house.
There were countless things like that.
And because she happened to be the most technically skilled person in the company, there was nothing we could do about her.
But what we never expected was that the first thing she did after coming back was apologize to all of us and bring us a whole pile of local specialties. She even voluntarily shared her notes with us—
Honestly, the current her is like a completely different person from before.
And that’s when I realized that Xia Ruizhe’s action didn’t just benefit those brain-dead fans—it also benefited all of us who had suffered from them on a daily basis.]

[…Could this be another publicity stunt?]

[???]

[Spending 18 million on publicity? Do you really think that just because Xia Ruizhe has money now, he no longer treats money as money?]

[If he really wanted publicity, wouldn’t continuing to beat up on the Xia family have been enough? Why would he need to spend this much money and go to this much effort?]

[…]

[To be fair, you’ve stolen all the bamboo shoots on the mountain.]

Bang!

In the Xia family villa, seeing these comments, Xia Yuanzheng slammed his fist heavily onto the desk once again.

At the side, Xia Lewen instinctively covered his left cheek.

Although his face had already healed, the shadow in his heart still remained.

Fortunately, the next second, Xia Yuanzheng smiled.

Though it was only a cold sneer.

Let Xia Ruizhe be smug for a few more days.

Once this wave of public opinion settled down again, it would be his death day.

Because over this past month or so, Xiafeng Group’s stock had already recovered most of its losses.

And because Xia Yuanzheng had acted decisively and directly cut off the mobile screen-protector chain store project, in the end they had only lost a little over 2 billion yuan.

At that thought, Xia Lewen couldn’t help clenching his fists, the excitement and venom in his eyes almost turning tangible.

It was still the same old line: so what if Xia Ruizhe jumped around as high as he could? In front of the Xia family, he was still just an ant.

This time, he was definitely going to make Ao Ruizhe wish he were dead while being unable to die.

And as for Wanhai, Haishi Vocational College of Electronic Technology… not one of them would get away.

And at the same time that topics like “Never Regretted Being Ruizhe’s Fan in This Life” and “How Far Can an Idol Go for Their Fans These Days?” also shot onto the trending list one after another, Ao Ruizhe had already returned to Qianshi.

After being away for so long, the first thing to do after coming back was of course to go serve his sugar daddy.

Otherwise, what if the sugar daddy forced him to repay the money?

So after serving his sugar daddy thoroughly inside and out, Ao Ruizhe even gave him a full massage from top to bottom, then only after that fished him out of the bathtub and carried him back to bed.

Only this time, Qin Xiuyan did not fall asleep in complete satisfaction. Instead, he began idly playing with Ao Ruizhe’s fingers.

Ao Ruizhe: “Hm?”

Qin Xiuyan was silent for a moment. In the end, he still couldn’t hold it back. “What are you planning to do next?”

“Do you still want to continue being a celebrity?”

Ao Ruizhe raised a brow.

Then he immediately guessed what Qin Xiuyan was thinking.

After all, the sourness radiating from Qin Xiuyan was practically about to materialize.

So he said, “As long as President Qin doesn’t hold onto my contract, I can retire from the entertainment industry tomorrow.”

Qin Xiuyan was instantly satisfied.

—After all, Ao Ruizhe was clearly someone he was keeping, yet every day he was being called “hubby” by other people. What kind of nonsense was that?

He had already been keeping score of this in his little notebook for half a month.

Still, he had only wanted to test Ao Ruizhe’s attitude, not really force him to give up his bright future and leave show business.

“Retiring from the industry is unnecessary. Didn’t you used to like acting quite a lot…”

Who would have thought that in the next second, Ao Ruizhe interrupted him. “I did like it before. I don’t anymore.”

Qin Xiuyan: “Hm?”

Ao Ruizhe directly clasped Qin Xiuyan’s hand in return. “Right now, I’ve suddenly become very interested in the profession of secretary.”

Then he let out a low laugh and said, “So, President Qin, would you be willing to hire one more secretary?”

Qin Xiuyan: “???”

Secretary?

Anyone could tell that what Ao Ruizhe meant definitely wasn’t anything proper.

So… was he talking about the kind of secretary who does secretary work when there’s work, and does secretary work when there isn’t work?

Qin Xiuyan: “…”

For some reason, a thought suddenly rose in his mind.

That was: this guy seemed to be getting less and less proper.

So… in that case, he definitely wasn’t sleepy anymore.

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