Chapter 24.1
Editor: Jodi
Mu Nan had never said anything this harsh before, so when people saw his comment, both his fans and passersby were stunned.
[Let me translate this: Stop talking nonsense.]
[Hahaha, sis! Your translation is spot-on! What a simple and unpretentious line.]
[I’m dying of laughter over here! Just imagine how much effort Nan Nan must have put into insulting someone without using a single cuss word.]
After this post went live, it caused an uproar among the melon eating crowd. But oddly enough, it didn’t spark much reaction within the entertainment circle.
The so-called “friends” Mu Nan usually interacted with on Weibo were all conspicuously silent.
Everyone had a natural instinct for self-preservation, so Mu Nan didn’t blame them. After all, no one wanted to get involved in messy situations like this.
The only one who showed any response was Yang Yuzhu, who quietly liked the post. However not long after, Mu Nan noticed Yang Yuzhu’s fans urging him anxiously to stay out of it, warning him that getting involved might leave him tainted by association.
“Ha, people.” Mu Nan muttered with a sigh, rolling over.
However before he could close his eyes to sleep, Cheng Han, who’d been off the radar for ages, suddenly shared his Weibo post. And along with it, he added an annoyingly pretentious English phrase:
[Sweet are the uses of adversity.]
This line, made famous by Shakespeare, translated to “Every cloud has a silver lining” in Chinese.
It seemed like he was trying to comfort Mu Nan, but at the same time, it felt like he was talking about himself.
Seizing the moment while Cheng Han was clearly online, Mu Nan sent him a WeChat message hurriedly. But there was no reply, just like before. It was as if he had logged in just to make that single post and then disappeared.
“Crazy.” Mu Nan was increasingly convinced that Cheng Han’s brain didn’t function like a normal person’s.
[Even if you beat me to death, I’d never in a million years have guessed that the person who would speak up for Mu Nan would be Cheng Han. I thought it’d be a miracle if he didn’t kick him while he was down.]
[This is what it means to have integrity, right? He’s miles ahead of those other so-called artists.]
[I’m suddenly tempted to ship these two. Is this some kind of enemies-to-lovers storyline or what?!]
To deal with the fallout, Mu Nan and the production crew agreed to let him take a day off. Filming was set to resume the next day.
However that evening, the official Weibo account for ‘Internship Lawyer’ posted a lengthy announcement. In short, it started with a few thousand words of hollow platitudes, but the key point was buried at the end:
The production team was terminating all contracts with Mu Nan.
He had been fired. And worse, they hadn’t even informed him beforehand.
When the announcement went live, Mu Nan’s team exploded like hot oil meeting boiling water. Furious complaints and frantic phone calls came from every direction, all eventually landing on Wilder’s shoulders.
This was the biggest crisis Mu Nan had faced since his debut. He’d been kicked off the project for so-called “questionable conduct”, and in the most humiliating, public way possible.
As Wilder pieced together the events, it felt like they’d been walking into a trap from the very beginning. Ever since they signed on to this project, it seemed like there had been nothing but trouble.
When Mu Nan saw the announcement, his first reaction was pure rage. And when insider gossip revealed that the actor replacing him was Xi Qing, he laughed coldly.
He’d never taken a blow like this before, never endured humiliation like this.
Since someone was bold enough to step on him to climb higher, no matter who it was, then he’d make sure that they came crashing back down into the mud.
The announcement blindsided his fans. None of them even knew that he was involved with this project. There wasn’t even a beginning, yet it had already ended, leaving them scrambling for words to defend him.
Meanwhile, the trolls had a field day. Those who had been silenced by Mu Nan’s sharp comebacks in the past now resurfaced, emboldened by the production team’s decision. They praised the crew for having the guts to stand up to a top star, vowing to support the drama when it aired.
There were also some who even said that Mu Nan was just an idol with no acting skills, and insisted that the production team’s decision to replace him with Xi Qing was the right move.