CHAPTER 292: CHAPTER 292: DON’T CLASH WITH HER HEAD-ON

Duan Wenhu felt baffled and couldn’t be bothered to type. She directly sent a voice message to the group, her tone full of annoyance.

[Stop with the passive-aggressive comments. If you’ve got something to say, say it directly.]

Counting Duan Wenhu, there were ten people in this group. Although the group was named "Sisters’ Chat Group," none of them were truly her friends.

The members were either company CEOs or wealthy ladies. Originally, the group was formed under the guise of shared interests, but in reality, it was mainly about competing with one another.

You couldn’t stand seeing me do well, and I couldn’t stand seeing you do well either. If something really happened, what you’d get in return were always schadenfreude and petty mockery from group members.

[Huihui, people are going crazy on Weibo, and you’re still pretending you don’t know? Keeping a little fresh meat isn’t exactly unheard of. You really didn’t need to hide it from us.]

[Eh, this young guy’s got guts. He actually dared to post intimate photos of the two of you online. What a foolish kid—probably trying to force your hand to give him a title or status!]

[That’s not entirely unreasonable. What if Huihui was the one behind this, coercing the boy to post? Without someone pulling strings, there’s no way he’d have the guts to do something like this on his own.]

[Point taken. Huihui is getting up there in years, after all. She should be thinking about personal matters. Grooming a young guy as her scapegoat isn’t so bad. Anyway, her messy business—who in her circle doesn’t know? Everyone’s just dying to keep their distance from her.]

Every single comment seemed to be expressing concern for Duan Wenhu, but all were filled with malice and ridicule.

Furious, Duan Wenhu’s fingers trembled as she sent voice messages berating this group of people, before decisively deleting the chat group.

Her anger hadn’t subsided yet, and her fingers were still quivering from the rage. She opened Weibo with shaking hands, and as soon as she looked at the trending list, the overwhelming flood of news about her and Qingyue was impossible to ignore.

She only spent a few minutes on Weibo before piecing together the full story.

Even after seeing the posts Qingyue had uploaded with her own eyes, she firmly believed Qingyue was innocent. It had to be Sang Ning behind this mess!

The most urgent priority now was to suppress the trending topic. Duan Wenhu swiped out of Weibo to her phone’s home screen and immediately called her assistant, demanding that this matter be dealt with as quickly as possible.

Hai Chuan Entertainment had the most powerful PR team in the industry. Before long, the matter was suppressed. Qingyue’s Weibo posts now showed as "abnormal" and were inaccessible.

Any user attempting to post tweets with keywords related to tonight’s incident found their posts flagged as violations. Previously uploaded posts were automatically removed by the System.

But Duan Wenhu acted too late. Qingyue’s posts had already been screenshotted by countless people. Even group chats were exploding with gossip.

Though PR kept working to suppress the trending topic, they couldn’t keep people’s mouths shut.

The reverse psychology of the gossiping masses kicked in. The more they were prevented from discussing, the more fervently they insisted on doing so.

Due to the scandal, Hai Chuan Entertainment’s market value began evaporating, and their stock prices exhibited a downward trend. This time, Duan Wenhu wasn’t just facing malicious ridicule from so-called friends trying to take advantage of the situation—there was also a group of shareholders worried over the plummeting stock price, demanding an explanation from her.

Duan Wenhu herself was in a state of crisis, compounded by her inability to reach Qingyue via phone, nor could she contact a single one of the hired thugs tasked tonight with abducting Sang Ning.

Her eyelid twitched incessantly. She sensed something must have gone wrong. With no other choice, she sought help to gather intel, and finally found out Qingyue had been sent to the hospital. The perpetrator’s identity hadn’t been determined by the police.

She also learned that at the same time Qingyue was hospitalized, Sang Ning and her band of hired thugs were taken to the police station, only to be released not long after.

Strangely enough, after all the thugs had safely left the police station, Duan Wenhu tried contacting them again and still couldn’t reach a single one.

Enraged, she slammed her phone down. Tonight, both she and Qingyue had been set up!

As the head of a company, Duan Wenhu, though burning with anger, quickly regained her composure. This matter wasn’t over yet.

Though she had suppressed what she could, the negative effects of public opinion remained. The company’s stock price was still falling. She had to take action.

After mulling it over, Duan Wenhu decided to call the person she despised most. To deal with Sang Ning, she needed them.

"I’ve encountered some trouble. Can you do me this favor?"

"President Duan, anything you need, just say it directly—no need to be so formal."

"I want Sang Ning gone!"

At this point in the conversation, the other end of the line suddenly fell silent. After what seemed like an eternity, the voice finally came through, slow and measured, with a tone that sounded somewhat heavy.

"President Duan, this might be a bit difficult. You know..."

Duan Wenhu impatiently interrupted, "I don’t have time to hear your excuses. This opportunity comes only once. Will you seize it or not? The choice is yours."

There was another brief pause. After deep contemplation, the person on the other end finally spoke, their tone strained: "President Duan, please give me this opportunity. Whatever you need us to do, just let us know. We’ll do everything we can without hesitation!"

"Good. I prefer dealing with smart people who can adapt." For the first time all night, Duan Wenhu relaxed her tightly furrowed brow.

Next, she needed to make a trip to the hospital.

With her connections, it wasn’t difficult for Duan Wenhu to find out which hospital Qingyue had been taken to.

Upon arrival at the hospital, she saw two police officers stationed outside Qingyue’s room. According to protocol, she wasn’t allowed to enter the room.

Duan Wenhu had already gathered information: Sang Ning and the hired thugs hadn’t said anything incriminating about Qingyue, so the police currently didn’t have enough evidence to treat Qingyue as a suspect. They were simply there to monitor him and wait for him to regain consciousness for questioning.

The police surveillance wasn’t particularly stringent. Duan Wenhu managed to pull strings to have Qingyue transferred to the ICU, creating the impression that his injuries were far more severe.

Qingyue had just undergone a surgery and was hooked up to numerous tubes. His condition wasn’t optimistic, yet it hadn’t deteriorated to the point requiring ICU-level care. Nonetheless, his current state was believable enough to convince outsiders that he was gravely injured and possibly fighting for his life.

Inside the ICU, Duan Wenhu took out her phone and snapped photos of Qingyue lying in the hospital bed. She adjusted angles and applied filters to evoke a somber, tragic aura.

Sang Ning liked playing hardball, didn’t she? This time, Duan Wenhu planned to play soft. She was curious how Sang Ning intended to refute this.

Luckily, Qingyue’s phone was still with him. Duan Wenhu took his phone, uploaded her edited photos into it, and downloaded them to his gallery.

She then logged into Qingyue’s Weibo account, chose the freshly downloaded photos, and began crafting her narrative piece.