Chapter 42 - Identity Was Exposed

Xu WanZhi's phone rang immediately after she finished posting the pictures. The caller ID showed that it was from Jiang YueXian.

Xu WanZhi didn't really want to engage with him, but she needed to work with him in Plainnessso even though they don't need to be close to each other, they should at least need to be amicable. She picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"WanZhi!" Jiang YueXian's voice was trembling as though he was extremely excited. "I heard that you are finally willing to part with you beloved fox and let me have her? Don't worry. I promise I will be very good to her and give her the best food, best beverage. You will have nothing to worry about. You can come and visit the fox anytime you want and I won't stop you."

"Wait a second… what did you just say?" Xu WanZhi frowned and her eyes widened. "When did I saw you can have my fox?"

"Just now?" Jiang YueXian panicked a little when he heard that. "Chen Jin just sent me a WeChat message that you have agreed to sell her the fox for $2 million. Is that not true?"

"Chen Jin? Like h*ll I was!" As soon as she finished saying that, she heard a notification coming in. She said to Jiang YueXian angrily, "Hang on. Don't hang up. Let me switch over to speaker."

Jiang YueXian was very excited before but he figured from what she had said that most likely this would be a non-starter. He became droopy like an eggplant pelted by hail. "It's really not true huh…"

Xu WanZhi put her phone down and looked at the notification. It was a message from Weibo.

She clicked into it and her AiAi Fox account had received a private message from a profile picture that was not familiar from her. "Hi, page owner, I am a fan of yours and I like your little fox a lot. I would like to offer you $2 million for it. Plus, I will be happy to send you pictures and videos of the fox on a weekly basis for your Weibo account. I look forward to hearing from you shortly. Thank you."

Xu WanZhi read the entire message to Jiang YueXian verbatim. Then, gritting her teeth, she said to him, "This was a message that I just received from one of Chen Jin's account. I haven't even responded back to her yet. How would I have promised her to sell her the fox and have her give it to you? Besides, if I intend to sell my fox, why wouldn't I just sell her to you directly instead of going through her and have you owed her a favor?"

"I guess that make sense…" Jiang YueXian was sounding progressively more disappointed. "She liked to me in WeChat and said that you two had already reached an agreement. That you are willing to give up your fox as long as I don't post pictures of the fox online and send you a set of pictures a week. I can't believe I fell for that… Okay. I won't keep you any longer. Let me know if you ever need anything."

"Hang on." Xu WanZhi stopped him right away. "I need something from you right now. I can't believe she did this to me. Send me screen shots of your conversation with Chen Jin."

"Ugh…" Jiang YueXian hesitated for a second before he said, "Okay. That works. But let me first delete all of my silly talks. Don't worry. I promise I will send you a complete record of every word that she had said."

"Silly talks?" Xu WanZhi was amused. "Okay, hurry up then."

"Oh yeah, WanZhi." It seemed like Jiang YueXian had suddenly recalled something and stopped her right before he hung up. "There is something else. It's not very important, but I think you should know."

"What is it?" asked Xu WanZhi casually.

"Chen Jin.. and Chen Yi are cousins, on her father's side."

Xu WanZhi was very surprised. "Say what?"

Chen wasn't one of the most common last names but there were still many Chen's out there. Even though Xu WanZhi knew both of them, but it had never occurred to her that they were related.

So, the two of them were cousins huh?

Jiang YueXian lowered his voice. "Chen Jin is also a child of the Chen's. That being said, Chen Jin's father and Chen Yi's father, albeit being brothers, never got along since they were kids. They had barely talked to each other after the split of the family fortune some 20 years ago. Even so, Chen Jin and Chen Yi are relatively close to each other. I have run into the two of them dining together several times. I don't know about your relationship with Chen Yi but I have seen him following you around so I am guessing he is bad news. If your relationship with Chen Jin become hostile, you might want to watch out for Chen Yi as well. He just might stab you in the back."

"Okay, I will keep that in mind."

After she hung up on the phone, she fell into deep thought – Xu Tian had mentioned that when his business was in trouble and he had nowhere else to turn to, he had given the original owner to Chen Yi. But Chen Yi sent her back without doing anything to her.

Granted, the original owner was so drunk that she had blacked out. Xu WanZhi had no recollection regarding that day and no way to verify the story.

And now… if Chen Jin and Chen Yi were cousins, Chen Jin very well might know about this.

She must watch out for that.

Ever since she had become Brand B's spokesperson and had conflicts with Chen Jin over the issue of her paying the magazines for her review, Chen Jin had been trying causing ruckus left and right. And now she had further honed in onto her fox. Xu WanZhi doubt that the female lead role in Plainness was the only thing that Chen Jin was after. Chen Jin probably wanted to get the role through Jiang YueXian so she could insult Xu WanZhi when they were on the same cast.

Chen Jin had her mind set to pick on Xu WanZhi. The role was only her first step.

If Xu WanZhi was to do nothing in response, next thing she knew would be her being walked all over.

She pulled out the tripod, prodded up her phone and the lighting softboxes, produced the little fox and planned to made a video clip that would reveal her identity.

Once she had finished the recording of her video, she screen-shot the messages that she had received from Chen Jin's secondary account and sent them over to Fang Lin. Fang Lin called her up not too much later, "Was that Chen Jin's secondary account that you just sent over? There's a lot of dirt in there. And all of them pretty major too."

But of course. Who didn't have some dirt in this circle? Especially one who had become a film empress so early in her career like Chen Jin did. She had climbed to the apex of the pyramid so, naturally, she had committed many ugly crimes in the process of doing so.

"Then, Fang-jie, please have someone sort them out, organize them, and make sure there are enough proof," said Xu WanZhi.

"Don't worry, WanZhi. I saw the most trended searches today. Xiao Chen Jin? How did she even come up with that? She was trying to give you bad publicity all sort of ways and still want to have her names associated with it for some publicity herself. I have never seen someone so evil in my years being in this field. We have enough dirt on her to last us a good six months even if we release one of them a month. That being said, how did you find out about this secondary account? How reliable is your source?"

"She offered it up herself," snickered Xu WanZhi. "Fang-jie, you keep following the most trended searches. You will find out the story behind it soon enough."

Fang Lin knew that as confident as Xu WanZhi was sounding, she must have some major dirt that she wanted to expose personally. She didn't ask any further, only gave her some reminders and ended the call.

Once everything was set, Xu WanZhi double checked one more time to make sure that her video was flawless. Once she was done with that, she posted it through her AiAi Fox account

By now, AiAi Fox's ranking on the most trending list had already fallen to No. 17. #Little Chen Jin Will Not Be in Blossoming Us 2#, on the other hand, had risen to the No. 1 spot.

Xu WanZhi did not spend money to boost up AiAi Fox's on the most trending list and it was unlikely that someone else had done so. The fact that it had fallen so quickly clearly suggested that there was someone acting behind it.

Came to think about it, the fact that Chen Jin would message Jiang YueXian via WeChat promising him the fox suggested that she was very confident that she would be able to purchase the fox for 2 million yuan. She probably never would have guessed that the fox belonged to Xu WanZhi and, more importantly, this move was the last straw for Xu WanZhi.

Ten minutes after Xu WanZhi had posted her video, she regained her No. 1 spot on the most trending list: #Xu WanZhi Little Fox#

"Hi, fellow fans of the little fox, I am Xu WanZhi. How are you all today?" The video started with her holding the little fox and holding onto her two paws waving them up and down at those watching on the other end of the screen.

The little fox nestled in her chest and the corners of her mouth were lifted up slightly as though she knew that she was on camera. She seemed to be mindfully posing for the camera.

"From the very beginning, my intention of starting this secondary account was to share my fox's pictures and videos and exchange my joy and experiences with my fellow pet lovers. I did not want to turn my main account into a pet blog. I would much prefer to share information about myself or my projects on there. Unfortunately, I have received many private messages as of late offering me money to purchase my fox. Some even made shameless promises that it would not affect my ability to make money from my account. I must clarify today that this AiAi Fox account is not for profit. I do not intend to use it to make money, not even a penny."

Having said that, the display in the video began to dissolve. Following that was the private messages sent to her via WeChat and the ones to Jiang YueXian from Chen Jin.

With that on the screen, Xu WanZhi's voice started up again. "What you are looking at right now were those who saw nothing the little fox as nothing more than a tool in helping them achieve their own selfish goals rather than the real meaning of pets to us humans. Please, I am asking you now to leave me and my little fox alone."

The release of this video stirred up a lot of unsettlement.

The most excited ones were Xu WanZhi's loyal fans. Ever since the AiAi Fox account has been created, the little fox's image had always been on the up and up. Its emojis had swept through the entire country. The little fox had arguably earned the title of "everyone's fox". Now that they had found out that Xu WanZhi was the fox's owner, that was like saying that their favorite idol and their favorite pet had come together. Naturally, that brought about ecstasy among this group of individuals.

Shortly after her announcement on Weibo, Xiao Yuan had worked with the marketing department and organized the timeline of all the events starting from Chen Jin accusing Xu WanZhi of paying the magazine for her article to her trying to buy the fox and offer it up as a favor for Jiang YueXian in order to get the female lead role as one big picture and released it through a marketing company.

At the same time that Xu WanZhi had revealed her identity, the profile picture of Chen Jin's secondary account had also been revealed. Xiao Yuan had, naturally, dug out the fact that this secondary account shared the same IP as the account who released the search term #Little Chen Jin will not be in Blossoming Us2#.

In addition, Xiao Yuan had also posted the screen shot of the ranking of #AiAi Fox# being higher than #Little Chen Jin# on the most trending list this morning.

With that, the truth had become very obvious – if Xu WanZhi was the one trying to leech off of Chen Jin's popularity, then all she needed to do was to reveal that fact that she was the owner of AiAi Fox. It was not necessary for her to make up the whole "Little Chen Jin" term at all.

The entire incident was written and acted out single-handedly by Chen Jin. She was the one who tried to set up Xu WanZhi through this incident and accuse Xu WanZhi of trying to leech off of her popularity in an attempt to blemish Xu WanZhi's reputation.

All of a sudden, all of Chen Jin's fans were face slapped and a new search term rose up on the most trending list -- #Chen Jin was a real-life film empress#