Starting from a Bar to Sign Internet Celebrities

Zhang Ruonan had already posted the video selfie Chen Jincheng sent her to her Moments, adding the caption: "Such a surprise! Ran into a super handsome guy while waiting for my flight!"

Zhang Ruonan had quite a few people in her Moments, so after seeing the video, likes and comments quickly started rolling in.

"Holy shit, Ruonan, that guy is a scumbag! Being seen with him will ruin your reputation. I suggest you delete this video."

Zhang Ruonan was thoroughly unimpressed when she saw that comment.

The commenter was a senior from her university. After graduating, he’d become an executive at some company and thought he was hot stuff. He often pretended to be an upstanding gentleman, leaving comments that were supposedly for her own good and out of concern for her.

But it was obvious what he was really thinking. Even back in college, his lecherous yet pretentious act had been disgusting.

She couldn’t even be bothered to reply to his comment.

"Nannan, it’s actually Chen Jincheng! You work fast."

"Nannan, can you introduce me to Chen Jincheng? You have no chance of getting the Huawei ad, but I have a much better shot!"

"..."

Zhang Ruonan soon saw comments from some of her colleagues, fellow artists at her company.

These comments made her purse her lips in annoyance.

’What do they mean, I don’t have a chance?’

’As if they’d have a chance just because I don’t.’

’How clueless.’

Just then, she received a message from her agent: "Is Chen Jincheng with you right now?"

"Yeah!" Zhang Ruonan replied with a single word.

"He didn’t say anything, did he?" her agent asked.

"He didn’t," Zhang Ruonan first replied with two words, then thought for a moment and answered truthfully, "Actually, he invited me to a Hanfu event. He said he’d send the invitation to the company, and I accepted."

Her agent: "Well done. You absolutely have to go to that kind of event. At the very least, you can get closer to him. Then, when he’s actually shooting the Huawei ad, you might have a chance."

"How is that possible? I’m a total nobody right now," Zhang Ruonan replied. She really thought so, which was why she wasn’t getting greedy. She was only thinking that if the ad had any supporting roles, she would just try to land one of those.

Her agent’s reply came back instantly: "Ruonan, some things don’t necessarily depend on fame. Whether something works out or not depends on whether you can seize the opportunity. You have your advantages. You’re very beautiful, the type that a lot of men find appealing."

Reading her agent’s message, Zhang Ruonan sighed, speechless.

Her agent hadn’t been blunt, but she understood the underlying meaning.

It was one of the industry’s unspoken rules.

’Does everything really have to be connected to rules like that?’

After fiddling with his laptop for a bit, Chen Jincheng finished editing the video he had just shot and clicked upload on his Tiao Yin account.

In his previous life, these kinds of videos were quite popular, especially when the male and female leads were handsome and beautiful. They were always highly entertaining.

Many variety shows would even have celebrities wear baseball caps and masks to record this type of video, then zoom in for close-ups of the passersby’s surprised, incredulous, and shocked expressions.

He did, however, search for Zhang Ruonan’s Touyin Number.

Since he used her in his content, it was only natural to @ her.

Although Zhang Ruonan had signed with an entertainment company back in 2017, she first blew up as an internet celebrity before gradually becoming famous in the acting world.

But at this point in time, she hadn’t gotten popular on Tiao Yin yet. In another world, it wasn’t until a shop-scouting video in early 2019, where her incredibly sweet and charming smile was captured by many people, that she went viral and surpassed one million followers for the first time.

So, after he searched for her Tiao Yin account, he saw she only had 54,000 followers.

This just went to show that on Tiao Yin, being pretty alone wasn’t enough to get famous. You also needed luck, hype, traffic, and all sorts of resources.

A girl like Zhang Ruonan, who was called the "Nation’s First Love" by countless LSPs on Tiao Yin, was still just a nobody despite posting a few videos early on.

Her company clearly didn’t value her much and wouldn’t have bothered getting her resources on Tiao Yin.

After tagging @ZhangRuonan, Chen Jincheng uploaded the video.

He was planning to chat a bit more with the girl, but an announcement came over the speakers. His flight was boarding, and it wasn’t the same one as hers.

He could only say, "Miss Zhang, I’ll have my company send the invitation then. See you in November!"

"Okay!" Zhang Ruonan nodded and even stood up to walk Chen Jincheng to the boarding gate.

Not long after, her flight was called. She passed through the gate and boarded her plane as well.

The hype from Chen Jincheng’s e-commerce phone ad video hadn’t died down yet, and his popularity on Tiao Yin was at its peak. Naturally, the release of his new video immediately attracted a lot of attention.

His old fans, in particular, saw it right away.

’No Longer a Simp’ was one of them.

He was twenty-five this year, a handsome young man, and still in great shape.

After following ’Cheng’, he had turned on notifications, so he saw the video the moment it was updated. He tapped play, and a super pure and beautiful girl appeared on screen.

This was clearly at the airport again.

Then ’Cheng’s’ soft voice could be heard: "Ran into a super beautiful girl. Let’s take everyone along to hit on her."

This reminded him of Xiaoju.

’It seems ’Cheng’ really likes hitting on beautiful women at the airport.’

The key thing was, this beauty was a real head-turner. She was gorgeous and so pure, like seeing your first love.

But what ’Cheng’ did next left him a little dumbfounded.

On camera, the beauty was clearly scrolling through ’Cheng’s’ videos, but listen to what ’Cheng’ said: "This guy’s no good? People online say he’s a huge scumbag? Besides, what decent person would say something like, ’Treasure good girls, and don’t let bad girls go to waste’?"

’So ’Cheng’ knows he’s not a decent person, huh?’

’The question is, why is he so good at badmouthing himself?’

But the real killer was the girl’s series of expressions: the eye-roll, the speechless look, and the disdain.

They were practically a meme, and a very pretty and likable one at that.

’Cheng’s’ taste was as impeccable as ever.

During the video, from what ’Cheng’ said, you could tell the girl had been in a movie.

The girl’s performance certainly suggested as much.

’But I really don’t remember her from anything.’

And at the end, when ’Cheng’ asked her, "You’ve really been in a movie?" the girl’s dumbfounded expression, like she’d just been totally duped, was hilarious enough to make you keel over laughing.

Seeing the girl like this in the video, he even felt like ’Cheng’ was a criminal.

However, when ’Cheng’ took off his mask and the girl recognized him, her look of utter, incredulous shock made him break into a knowing smile.

’This video is hilarious.’

"Darling, are you watching videos of pretty girls again? I’m angry now," a cloyingly sweet voice said as a woman in her fifties, wearing a robe, walked out.

’No Longer a Simp’ immediately felt a sharp pain in his lower back.

’And in broad daylight, too.’

’No way, I have to bolt as soon as the Ferrari is in my name. Otherwise, I’ll be sucked dry sooner or later.’

It wasn’t just ’No Longer a Simp’. Many of Chen Jincheng’s fans saw the video and rushed to like it.

The impact of his recent e-commerce video had already boosted his follower count to nearly 30 million.

With a follower base that large, even if only a small fraction saw it right away, the video quickly started trending and gaining traffic.

Combined with Chen Jincheng’s immense popularity that day, the video went viral in no time. Its heat score increased at an incredible rate, pushing it directly onto the trending list and drawing even more people to watch it.

Everyone who saw the video found it really entertaining, and then they were captivated by the girl in it.

A girl this pure and beautiful was truly a rare sight.

Seeing that Chen Jincheng had tagged @ZhangRuonan, an untold number of people flocked to her homepage.

Many people also followed her and left comments, with a flood of messages like, "Came here from Chen Jincheng’s video. Followed!"

In an instant, without her even knowing, the girl’s follower count began to rapidly increase.

「Time passed.」

Exhausted from the long flight, Zhang Ruonan soon arrived at her destination and deplaned.

The encounter with Chen Jincheng still felt surreal to her.

It was just that her mind was a mess right now.

She knew she had no shot at the Huawei phone ad. No chance at all.

But she really wanted an ad like that.

So, her agent’s message kept replaying in her mind. All sorts of thoughts flashed through her head. Her mind was a battlefield the entire flight, leaving her feeling utterly exasperated with herself.

After finally getting off the plane, she took out her phone to check for any important messages.

But when she turned on her phone, she froze. There were so many unread messages. And what did these people mean?

"Nannan, you’re famous!"

"Holy shit, Nannan, I’m so jealous of you!"

"Xiaozhang, not bad! You’re about to blow up!"

Zhang Ruonan was completely stunned.

’What the hell?’