Chapter 29#

To explain the cause, it wasn’t complicated and could be clarified in two minutes: it was still triggered by the intern recruitment incident.

Although the anonymous post by Yang Baoshan was deleted within a short time due to suspected rumors, afterward, students still individually posted several “thunder-avoidance” threads about Yinghan Group, reminding other students to carefully consider this company when job hunting.

Compliant with the board rules, the forum administrators did not interfere.

Later, the PR team hired by Yinghan conducted comment control on the Nanhua University internal forum. While openly vindicating Ji Chen, they secretly deleted all voices questioning the non-public and unfair recruitment process of Yinghan Group and suspected gender discrimination.

In addition, as mentioned in the report, buying water armies and banning IPs were all common tactics used by these PR teams.

Who knew that among this pile of students, there was never a shortage of rebels and prickly heads.

Overly obvious comment control traces and arbitrary account banning attitudes led to a backlash: the more they tried to gag people, the stronger the rebound.

Whether Ji Chen was kept by a sugar daddy was no longer important, but an explanation must be given regarding how he was admitted to Yinghan for the internship.

Although on the surface, the speed of deleting posts occupied an overwhelming victory, the feeling of injustice intensified in private.

Seeing that the school’s internal forum could be turned into a one-voice hall by the power of capital, some students united and discussed registering a Weibo account. They hid Ji Chen’s personal privacy information but publicly posted Yinghan Group’s arrogant face online.

…

When reminded by his subordinates to see the real-time hot search, the head of the PR department, PR Director Jack, was watching porn at home.

At that time, his head buzzed, and his whole person went limp. After reacting, he immediately grabbed his phone to call Yan Zishu.

After all, compared to recklessly touching Fu Weishan’s bad luck directly, finding the Chief Assistant first seemed more like a life-saving straw.

Yan Zishu had naturally already seen it.

Although it was past ten o’clock at night, there was nothing to say; everyone immediately returned to the company for a meeting.

The group headquarters building was dark throughout, with only a certain conference room on one floor lit by a pale lamp, like a lonely boat floating on the vast ocean, with five or six PR department employees sitting inside with different expressions.

Director Jack had re-contacted the PR company at the first moment, asking them to spend money to withdraw the hot search.

In just this while, the ranking of related tags was already dropping嗖嗖.

But letting the hot search #YinghanGroupGenderDiscrimination# be exposed had already stamped this PR director with dereliction of duty this time.

“This Weibo account ‘Speaking to Yinghan Group’ should be a sock puppet account just registered by a few college students. Logically, the weight of a new account is very low, and it is usually limited in flow. It is not easy to climb onto the square and be seen.” Jack licked his dry lips, “And they posted for many days without a splash. Today, it was suddenly reposted by a Big V, and the heat was fried up all at once…”

“You can get straight to the point.” Yan Zishu twirled his pen and asked, “This hot search was obviously bought, right?”

“That’s what I mean. Someone deliberately bought a hot search to blacken us. This matter is a bit strange, not that simple.”

Jack added dryly, a bit worried that Yan Zishu would put on airs of “hindsight.”

Because when asking the PR team to do things before, Yan Zishu had suggested just extracting Ji Chen.

Regarding the question of how he was recruited at that time, since they indeed slapped their own faces, it would be better to admit defeat when they should.

He was not from a PR background, just saying. Although it sounded like the plot forcibly stuffed Ji Chen into the company with a flashy operation, unknown if it was to highlight their destined love by mistake or what, the HR department making such a mess was really low-intelligence.

Still wanting not to be scolded at all, how could there be such a cheap thing?

It’s just that later, in order to please the boss, and since the money was spent anyway, the PR department cleared all “adverse remarks.”

Now on the surface, it seemed they suffered a backlash.

…

Fortunately, Yan Zishu remained calm and didn’t come up blaming Jack with “See, I told you so.”

He came to the company at the first moment, firstly due to his dutiful professional habit, and secondly because he also knew this hot search came abnormally.

Yan Zishu knew clearly that it was not the original trajectory of the plot.

Jack tried hard to explain to Yan Zishu that the problem was not a few students hanging the company on the wall. Students mostly had no money and wouldn’t buy hot searches; stragglers couldn’t form a climate. The one who could really buy hot searches must be a premeditated attack by a competitor.

A certain suspect who feared the world would not be chaotic immediately appeared in Yan Zishu’s mind.

He nonchalantly changed his sitting posture, taking notes while listening to the discussion.

The PR department urgently studied a set of response plans overnight, in order to carry brambles and ask for punishment in front of the boss the next day.

Sure enough, the next day, the PR team called early in the morning again, asking to look at Weibo. Although the hot search was withdrawn, a Big V just posted, saying that yesterday many fans submitted contributions after seeing the news, exposing more black history of Yinghan Group’s gender discrimination.

For example, the company had used very disrespectful print ads in previous years, with pictures and evidence; or former employees who had resigned came forward to accuse their superiors of sexual harassment during business trips… Putting together a big gift package of black material.

These were enough for netizens to scold “foul corporate culture,” and it was reposted tens of thousands of times in half a day.

During the meeting, Fu Weishan’s cold face made Director Jack’s heart rate soar directly.

Jack peeked at Fu Weishan’s face, waiting with palms up for the big boss to state his attitude. He memorized the S principle of crisis PR, but actually, the only principle for PR people is to look at the boss’s attitude. Fu Weishan’s attitude was: forceful suppression.

After all, Yinghan Group had always considered itself a large enterprise and loved to raise its own status—seeing that it even set up a set of written tests and interviews for recruiting an intern, as complex as other companies’ formal recruitment, one knew how seriously it took itself—whether Fu Zhizhang or Fu Weishan, they were all stubborn upper-class thinkers. If they were willing to bow to the general public, it boiled down to an old saying, “Where to put the face”?

The next two days were completely like charging into battle for the PR director. He had to command subordinates to monitor online speech at any time, communicate with the PR team on how to control comments, and conscientiously report progress to Fu Weishan.

After going up and down the hot search several times, the result of searching for Yinghan Group had now become “not displayed according to relevant laws and regulations.” Of course, it was inevitably mocked even more severely by netizens, something like worthy of capitalists, money can make the devil push the mill, and so on.

*

When Fu Jinchi called, it was past eight in the evening, and Yan Zishu had just walked out of the PR department office.

Jack and the others were still busy under bright lights, engaging in a tug-of-war with netizens. Fu Weishan gave the instructions, but he himself didn’t worry much and went home early. The PR department had to keep pestering Yan Zishu, making Yan Zishu a bit tempered, suppressing it without venting.

Seeing the name displayed on the phone, he paused, dodged sideways into a small conference room, and then asked: “Is there something you need?”

There was a chuckle on the other end: “Can’t I find you if there’s nothing?”

Yan Zishu let out a long breath: “But I’m working overtime.”

Fu Jinchi ignored it: “Don’t busy yourself with that bit of broken matter. Come out and watch a movie together.”

Yan Zishu was silent for a moment, seeming to weigh it.

Then Jack was surprised: “Director Yan, you… are leaving now?”

Yan Zishu nodded: “Yeah, have something to do. You guys continue.”

On the way, Fu Jinchi messaged him asking what movie he wanted to watch, implying that it didn’t have to be one currently showing in theaters.

Yan Zishu searched for “top ten heavy-flavored bloody bad movies” on his phone, picked a name from the top rankings, and sent it to him.

After sending, he stuffed the phone into his pocket. Thinking about it, he felt that Yinghan Group nowadays was also like a bad movie.

It’s just a pity that the actors in it have no choice.

Actually, he was mainly worried about whether the plot going off-script would cause an uncontrollable butterfly storm.

Therefore, no matter what, he should probe what the purpose of the behind-the-scenes manipulator was and whether it would affect him.

Yan Zishu made a draft in his belly, thinking about how to probe and how to get information later.

As a result, as soon as he entered the door, he fell into an embrace and was pressed against the wall by Fu Jinchi for a kiss.

Yan Zishu hesitated for a moment, but his arms still rested on his shoulders.

Various speech techniques were shattered for a time, unable to be recalled.

The place Fu Jinchi called him to was not a public cinema, but a very private high-end private cinema, and a couple’s private room.

In addition to the full set of audio-visual projection equipment, facing the screen was a round red bed. The backrest was thick and soft, suitable for sitting or lying down, looking very comfortable. This was actually no different from opening a room in a hotel, just with the added function of watching movies.

After a while, the two separated. Fu Jinchi sat by the bed, propping up his long legs, reaching out to fiddle with the projection equipment.

On the small coffee table in front of the bed were a large bucket of popcorn and drinks, the classic movie combo.

Yan Zishu also sat over and asked him straight to the point: “The recent hot search… what exactly is the situation?”

Although the sources of black material that Jack and the PR team could find all pointed to Yinghan’s competitors, if not for Fu Jinchi’s phone call, Yan Zishu would have almost thought he blamed him wrongly. But in the end, this person’s style was really hard to associate with being clean.

Fu Jinchi pursed his lips: “You came just to ask this? Still watching the movie or not?”

Yan Zishu put his hand on his knee: “Watch after finishing the business.”

Fu Jinchi seemed pleased by this small action and grabbed his hand back.

But Fu Jinchi only said: “I can tell you, it’s Third Uncle Fu’s idea.”

However, these words didn’t deny that at the implementation level, it was he who implemented it.

Thinking about it, for an old guy like Third Uncle Fu’s age, if he wanted to deal with Fu Weishan for some reason and dampen his spirit, it was possible. But old people really might not necessarily know what Weibo Square is.

Such a “youthful” path, eighty percent likely could only be taken by Fu Jinchi.

It’s just, when did the two of them, grandfather and grandson (or uncle and nephew generation-wise), wear the same pair of pants?

Although Yan Zishu was still doubtful, he knew how to read the room. Since Fu Jinchi said “I can tell you,” it meant the rest was content he “didn’t want to tell you.” So he kept his limits and didn’t continue to ask, leaving the rest to guessing.

At this time, Fu Jinchi turned off the lights.

In the darkness, the movie started. A group of young men and women who weren’t afraid of death drove themselves to a cabin in the woods where no one lived.

The mysterious killer, accompanied by ominous music, targeted them from outside the turbulent lens.

Yan Zishu curled up on the bed, staring at the screen with his eyes but not his heart.

His choice of a bloody bad movie had a teasing meaning. After all, he was being tortured by the PR department at the time, and the other party said “don’t be busy, come out to watch a movie,” which would make anyone unhappy to hear. As a result, he didn’t expect Fu Jinchi to really watch this.

Fu Jinchi also pulled him a bit, signaling him to lean back and change to a comfortable position.

The young male and female companions on the screen disappeared one by one, the car was destroyed, people were fighting among themselves, scattering and running like headless flies.

Because Yan Zishu chose it himself, he refused to go back on his word and say he wouldn’t watch. Fu Jinchi also stubbornly didn’t say it was boring and stop watching.

The two just leaned on the bed like this, as if really enjoying a good film together, watching the physically and mentally deformed killer family finally torture and kill people one by one with various methods, enjoying two hours of visual stimulation of flying flesh and blood, and then ushering in a baffling ending.

It only proved that it was really ugly; being the worst of bad movies had its reasons.

Until the cast list finally finished playing, Fu Jinchi asked him if he wanted to stay.

When Yan Zishu refused, he finally said a sentence: “No, actually a bit nauseous.”

Fu Jinchi didn’t insist, only laughed when he went to get the car keys: “Serves you right.”