Chapter 977 Someone Got in Halfway
At this point, Tan Dongbang and Cai Songyin were still ignorant of what had happened. They were having a scrumptious meal with Tan Guiren, the Tans, and the Cais in a luxurious hotel.
They were having a reunion dinner because Tan Dongbang had needed to attend the dinner for the lantern festival on the last day of the lunar new year at the broadcasting station. The two families only gathered once in a blue moon. The dishes had just been served. They had not even begun eating yet because they were too busy catching up with each other. Just then, Cai Songyin’s phone rang.
She took a glance at the screen and realized that it was a call from her personal assistant. Her personal assistant was probably worried that she would not pick up her phone, so she’d sent Cai Songyin a text message as well. It read, “Director Cai, go on Weibo immediately! A video about Prime Minister Tan, Gu Yanran, and yourself has leaked…”
What video was that?
It was of Gu Yanran, Prime Minister Tan, and herself?
Cai Songyin felt that it was ridiculous, but was also slightly put off. It was total nonsense. She knew there were videos of Gu Yanran and Prime Minister Tan, but which one had ever included her?
By then, in the VIP room where everyone was having dinner, more people were using their phones. Some of them started looking at her with a strange look in their eyes. Cai Songyin sensed that something was amiss all of a sudden.
She opened Weibo in a state of panic and looked at the top ten hot searches. They were all about the video of Prime Minister Tan and Mrs. Tan! Those numbers were real and had not been produced by online marketing accounts.
Cai Songyin’s heart skipped a beat as she clicked on a link. The images that appeared on her phone almost made her throw her phone away!
“Who on earth did this?! I am going to sue this person! I will definitely sue this person! This is too overboard! How can someone tarnish the image of the prime minister like that!? Does this person wish to die?!”
Cai Songyin knew which video it was the moment her eyes landed on it, realizing it immediately that it had been edited. She knew this because she had definitely not been in the original video, yet some daredevil had added shots of her to this dirty video!
Although she was only holding a video camera off to the side in the edited video, she could not accept it at all. She wanted to puke just from thinking about it! She could not take this lying down!
Cai Songyin had always had a fiery temper. With Tan Dongbang listening to her and everyone around her trying to kiss up to her, she had become a little too full of herself recently.
With a slam of her fist on the table, Cai Songyin stood up and ran into the small adjoining room beside the dining area and returned the call to her personal assistant. “What do you think you are paid to do?! How can you allow such a video to spread like wildfire online?! Did I offer you such a high salary just so you could be an onlooker like everyone else?! Go get me a lawyer and send the person who posted that video a cease and desist letter! Get Weibo to remove those hot searches! Take that video down from the entire internet!”
Cai Songyin screamed so loud that her blood vessels appeared all over her skin. She grabbed her phone so tightly that her fingers looked like a chicken’s foot.
Her personal assistant was almost in tears on the other end of the line. “Director Cai, we are already putting in a lot of effort! We have already called up the management of Weibo to get that video off the internet and contacted the office that is in charge of the internet. But… but… There was something wrong with Weibo’s backend system. Their technical department has already been at it for the past half an hour but they still have not managed to bring it down. They can’t even hide it!”
“Our Creative Director just suffered a heart attack due to this. We have already called an ambulance and sent him to the hospital. I think something is really wrong. This is not something that can be solved by a normal company. You are the wife of the prime minister. Could you… Could you please seek the help of the secret departments to settle this issue?”
Cai Songyin immediately thought of Huo Shaoheng. However… However… if she went to Huo Shaoheng for help, he would discover the short novel meant to tarnish the reputation of Gu Nianzhi and himself, the one that she had gotten an online author to write!
Cai Songyin shook her head and threw the thought to the back of her mind. She asked her personal assistant again, “What about that novel? How was it publicized? Bring it down immediately!”
Cai Songyin’s personal assistant almost wanted to kowtow to her since she still remembered the novel. “Di… Director Cai, we initially intended to publicize that novel. However, we do not know what happened to it. The link that the online author sent us contained this video!”
Cai Songyin felt dizzy. She felt as though someone had hit her on the head with a huge hammer. She began seeing stars and started wavering. She stuck out her hand and supported herself against the wall before she fell. Cai Songyin broke out in cold sweat, feeling a mixture of anger, shame, and the desire to die.
Who had done this?!
This person was so clever that he’d managed to discover her plans, then change her publicizing link without anyone knowing!
Due to her fear of involving the Special Forces, the first thought that came to Cai Songyin’s mind was that Huo Shaoheng had discovered her plot and attacked first!
However, she thought about it again. If it had really been Huo Shaoheng, wouldn’t he be afraid of making mistakes in the army? He was someone with an extremely bright future ahead of him. Even if he had found out about Cai Songyin getting someone to write a novel to tarnish Gu Nianzhi and his reputation, he could have just gotten it deleted and sent her a warning. He would not have done something so heartless, would he?
Moreover, Cai Songyin remembered that the outline that she had gotten her trusted subordinate to do up was something that would thoroughly tarnish Gu Nianzhi’s reputation. As for Huo Shaoheng, she had not intended to bring him down completely. She had made sure that it would not destroy his future.
Cai Songyin’s plan had been great. However, she had not expected that her plans would be tampered with by someone. Someone had gotten in halfway and used her methods and resources, wanting to bring Huo Shaoheng down.
That mastermind had not realized that their exquisite plan would be destroyed by Gu Nianzhi alone, or that it would be turned around to bring Tan Dongbang and Cai Songyin down.
Cai Songyin felt like she was in a huge maze with mirrors all over it. The person she saw in the reflection looked beyond wretched… She wailed and fell to the ground, grabbing her hair. She was on the brink of breaking down.
Tan Guiren was already worried about Cai Songyin when she ran to the adjoining room. Hearing Cai Songyin’s wail, Tan Guiren ran towards her. “What happened, mummy?”
Cai Shengnan followed behind Tan Guiren. With a stern face, she passed the phone to Tan Guiren. “Take a look.”
“No!” Cai Songyin snapped back to her senses the moment she saw Tan Guiren. She snatched the phone from Cai Shengnan’s hands. “How can you show such a dirty thing to Guigui?! Did water seep into your brain just now, Shengnan?!”
Cai Shengnan blew her top upon hearing this. However, seeing that her little aunt’s family had met with something like this and would be in a bad mood, she controlled herself. Suppressing her temper, she said, “What do you intend to do now, aunt? What is going on with this video?”
Of course, Cai Songyin would never tell her the truth. Moreover, the video had been edited, adding Cai Songyin to it. It was already fake news. Therefore, she said angrily, “What do you mean by ‘what is going on’?! We were maligned! Your uncle is now the prime minister. Do you even know how many people are jealous?! We already fought about this some time back. We did not expect their photoshop skills to have improved so much!”
Cai Shengnan said in shock, “These are all photoshopped? I could not tell at all…”
“Of course!” Cai Songyin rolled her eyes. “You are a lawyer, Shengnan. I will be engaging you to be my personal lawyer from now on. We will sue… We will sue that hacker!”
She did not dare to say that she would sue the online author that had posted the video, because she did not know if her subordinates had done a clean job and left any loopholes for that author. If they had not left anything, she would sue the online author as well. However, if he had something against them…
A chill ran down Cai Songyin’s spine. She shuddered thinking about the consequences. Right now, she regretted her actions more than anything. Why had she had that stupid idea?!
Even if she’d wanted to prank Gu Nianzhi, she should have gotten herself out of it properly first…
She could only blame herself for being overly complacent. She had not expected that there would still be people who would dare to sabotage her! She could not understand it no matter what. How had such a perfect plan been leaked and made use of?!
“No problem.” Cai Shengnan agreed instantaneously. However, she tried to talk to Cai Songyin carefully. “I will sue that online author who posted the link as well. But aunt, shouldn’t such things be handled by a third party lawyer engaged by uncle’s cabinet? Think about it, this video was trying to tarnish the reputation of the cabinet’s prime minister and the wife of the prime minister. Shouldn’t the legal department of the cabinet step in?”
Cai Shengnan was scheming to a certain extent.
Firstly, being the official lawyer engaged by the Hua Xia Empire’s cabinet’s legal department and being the lawyer of a defendant were entirely different things. The former would look amazing in a lawyer’s portfolio, and the latter would just be a normal case.
Also, she could only receive her rightful lawyer’s fees if she was to be an officially engaged lawyer by the legal department of the cabinet. If she agreed to be her aunt’s lawyer just like that, she would most likely not be able to get paid…