TRIGGER WARNING. CONTAINS DARK THEMES. GET PSYCHOLOGICAL HELP IF YOU ARE AFFECTED BY DEPRESSION.
However, what Song Yucheng planned to do needed time. In the meantime, Great Swan Entertainment had a new wave of “cleansing posts” online.
The dirt just kept being piled on Yang Qian. Major verified gossip channels began to follow suit and dig into it. There was no solid basis for all of these, but the excessive exposure itself was a sort of signal to the public.
What happened next was that Yang Qian’s past works were once again put under the spotlight for criticism. His work was torn apart, the logic poked at, and even references to historical books were critiqued as “over borrowing”.
There were also people who mocked him, saying that Yang Qian accused others of plagiarism but he wasn’t squeaky clean himself.
“What? You wrote it as a quote so it’s not plagiarism? Well, even if that’s the case, that line wasn’t written by you, so it’s copying! What’s with your holier-than-thou screenwriting crap?”
These words were a joke to fans familiar with Yang Qian’s work. They knew that the script this was from was a historical parody.
The situation was so confusing, however, that it was irrelevant whether things were explained or not. Things got even worse due to the paid commenters that came out of nowhere. Yang Qian had become a national sensation, and was trending on the hot search terms list every day.
But public opinion was a double-edged sword. The first viral post made people sympathetic, but having the same topic up for a long time made people feel annoyed. In the end, those who sympathised with Yang Qian in the beginning also gradually grew to doubt him. Was Yang Qian creating his own hype like what Great Swan Entertainment said? How could Yang Qian still be in the public eye if Great Swan Entertainment had his publicity channels blocked?
With all of this going on, Yang Qian was completely isolated and helpless. The netizens who knew the truth were being made out to look like silly people too. They could not defend themselves, and anything they said was treated like a joke. Any bit of sincerity was turned on its head.
No one knew exactly how things evolved into this in the end. Yang Qian was a victim but he had been turned into the object of universal rejection.
Yang Qian, the person the whole affair was about, was the one who was most desperate.
He was a screenwriter, as well as a scholar and a man of letters. As a man of letters, he had backbone, and a sensitive mind.
The change of situation in just a few weeks, with the upheaval in his family and enemies at his back, had completely crushed him. And on this day, the summons from the court became the last straw that destroyed him.
His wife had started divorce procedures.
How ridiculous!
Yang Qian squinted and read the words on the summons several times. Then, he changed into his best clothes and took sleeping pills. He went to the kitchen, lit the gas and turned on the fire to the maximum. He filled a glass with water and poured it on the fire.
“Let it all end!” The water sputtered on the fire, putting it out right away. The gas, however, was still being released.
But Yang Qian took no notice of it. He went to the balcony to water the flowers and simply mopped the floor. He returned to the study after that and sat in the place where he worked every day. He quietly waited for the effects of the drugs and closed his eyes.
He was too tired and needed to rest.
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Lucky for Yang Qian, though his heart was dead, his parents’ visit helped him escape a disaster. Just three hours after Yang Qian’s attempted suicide, his parents came over to see him because they wanted to check in on him. As soon as they went upstairs, they smelled the gas in the house through the door. The old couple’s chests tightened and they hurriedly opened the door. They found Yang Qian, finally, in the study, breathing weakly.
“Son!” Yang Qian’s mother almost fainted with fear. Fortunately, Yang Qian’s father was still calm and hurriedly opened the window and called for an ambulance.
Yang Qian was still alive, and after an afternoon of resuscitation, he eventually hung on to his life. However, when he opened his eyes and returned to consciousness, the first words he said made everyone in the ward cry.
Yang Qian said, “Dad, Mom, without you, I would really have nothing.”
Yang Qian’s voice was so faint that it was almost inaudible. This statement of his was not a show, but the result of seeing things from another perspective after dying once.
But there was a meaning hidden behind his words which was too deep, and too sad.
With his wife’s betrayal, he had lost his love. With his friends distancing themselves from him, he had lost friendship. The future was broken, and he’d lost his faith.
And what made him lose everything was the entertainment industry. It was once Yang Qian’s utopia.
But now, he’d lost everything.
Yang Qian closed his eyes tiredly, breathing weakly. It was as if he had not been awake earlier. Yang Qian’s mother, on the other hand, could not help but cry at his side, by his hospital bed.
But even though Yang Qian looked like this, the Great Swan Entertainment CEO was relentless. It was clear that from the beginning to the end, Great Swan had been manipulating things to guide public opinion. All that dirt had been thrown on Yang Qian’s head.
Even the event about Yang Qian being admitted to the hospital to save his life was turned into a supposed scheme to fake his death.
A netizen who knew some details because he was in the hospital too could not help but curse. “Bullshit! Yang Qian was already in a deep coma when he was admitted to the hospital. He was almost brain dead and on the brink of death. He’s still unconscious!”
But this message was soon deleted, and the netizen, too, was IP-banned.
It was one voice against many. Whether in the industry or outside, everyone understood one thing: Yang Qian was finished. It didn’t matter if he was really the victim in the beginning, or deliberately stirring things up. He’s offended Great Swan Entertainment’s boss, and the entertainment industry would no longer have a place for him.
But was this really fair?
Yang Qian was only in his thirties, which is the best time for a screenwriter to create. And Yang Qian was really talented. Winning Best Screenwriter of the previous Ten Thousand Flowers Awards proved his ability. But such a person, previously obscure because he did not know how to market, was known to few. Even if he became famous, he wouldn’t normally be recognised because he hid behind the scenes. Then. he was plagiarised, but could not seek justice because the other party was too powerful. Now, he had to give up on his future because of the so-called entertainment industry bigwigs.
Was this really fair? Was this reasonable?
Yang Qian’s die-hard fans were in despair. Yang Qian was in a coma and could not speak, so they tried to speak for Yang Qian.
Yang Qian’s fans posted sincere pleas for him on the Weibo page of an entity known for being truthful.
“Please, please say something on Mr Yang Qian’s behalf!”
The fans also went to the Weibo pages of several veteran artists, know for their uprightness skill.
“Excuse me, you have worked with Mr Yang Qian before, and we believe you must know his character well. Please put in a good word for him!”
And on the page of a popular budding actress, they wrote: “You became popular thanks to Mr Yang Qian’s script. You know his talent. Please, seek justice for Mr Yang Qian!”
“Just say a word, anything. Even an emoticon will do…”
Yang Qian’s fans begged almost everyone in the entertainment industry who had a relationship with Yang Qian.
But in the end, it was to no avail.
This was the entertainment industry. This was the legendary, most glamorous, entertainment industry. What star-making dream mecca? Liars! All f*cking liars!
These were dire straits indeed. Even the most die-hard fans of Yang Qian had fallen silent and given up on the idea of continuing.
However, just then, an unexpected person spoke up.
Xie Qianchen: The silencing order, huh. Never thought that I would see it for the second time in my lifetime. It is true that trash is trash. It makes people sick to their stomachs no matter how much time has passed.
This line made everyone freeze in shock. The people in the industry thought that he’s gone quite mad!
Xie Qianchen worked under the Picture Domain brand name, and Cao Kun, the boss of Picture Domain, was also one of the reasons why the Great Swan Entertainment CEO had dared to place a network-wide blocking order.
But now, Xie Qianchen, one of the three elite managers of Picture Domain, was criticising the bosses’ actions. This was like slapping Picture Domain in the face!