“Ahem, ahem, ahem, ahem, ahem—” Ji Sheng almost coughed himself to death.

“What’s the matter?” His cough was so earth-shattering that it forced Xie Xuanming to put down the kitchen knife.

Xie Xuanming raised his hand to help but at once realised that his palms were wet, so he turned his hand backwards to touch Ji Sheng’s throat with his wrist gently.

“It’s okay, ahem.” Ji Sheng’s face turned red, “I just choked.”

“Oh.” Xie Xuanming continued to stand by his side for a while and returned to the kitchen when he looked better.

Ji Sheng finally calmed down, patted his chest to stabilise his emotions, and turned his eyes to Ji Yueming.

Ji Yueming looked at him somewhat admiringly and gave him a thumbs up.

Ji Sheng: ……

Ji Sheng wanted to cough again.

“Mom, can you stop looking at me with this kind of ‘you are amazing’ look?” Ji Sheng did his best to breathe evenly.

“My dear, but you are really amazing.” Ji Yueming said sincerely. “How come I didn’t have this kind of insight into men when I was younger.”

“? I don’t have any insight!!!” Ji Sheng felt wronged.

“Fine, fine, no insight, no insight.” Ji Yueming coaxed repeatedly, but after a while quietly came over and asked in a whisper, “Really not?”

“No.” Ji Sheng almost ran away, “He is… a very good friend.”

“Really…” Ji Yueming muttered, “Then this kid is very good, ready to help his friends every way possible…”

Ji Sheng was quiet for a while, then muttered to himself: “Too good…”

Actually, so good that no matter what decision was made, there would be guilt.

Xie Xuanming came to Ji Sheng’s house as a guest but cooked the meal, which caused Ji Yueming’s quite sincere admiration.

Xie Xuanming held his head down in front of Ji Yueming, as well-behaved as a Pomeranian kneaded by humans. Ji Sheng looked at Xie Xuanming darkly, remembering that he had been fooled by such a well-behaved appearance back then, to the extent of being blind and thinking the kid was harmless.

Like mother, like son. Since Ji Sheng was fond of this kind of good boy type, Ji Yueming naturally fancied it too. The more she looked at Xie Xuanming, the more she liked him, and after the meal she wanted to recognise him as her adopted son.

After the three of them finished their meal and chatted for a while, Ji Sheng and Xie Xuanming got up and said goodbye to Ji Yueming.

“Pay attention to safety when you go home.” Ji Sheng instructed as he hugged Ji Yueming when leaving.

“Okay, okay.” Ji Yueming said, “So do you, son. Be safe. Remember to call me if you need something.”

The two hugged for a while; Ji Sheng took a step back, and when Ji Yueming closed the door, he turned around and said, “Let’s go.”

Xie Xuanming, who was waiting in the background, whispered, “En.”

Getting in the car, Xie Xuanming asked, “Do you have any plans beyond Niepan?”

“I thought you were the one making the decisions, didn’t you sign us to Xuansheng?”

“I’m not in charge of running the artists.” Xie Xuanming said.

“So… no one has told us about the next itinerary.” Ji Sheng said, “But the members all want to take advantage of the popularity to start a tour. If they can go, they will be happy… I will meet with the new agent tomorrow and discuss the itinerary by the way.”

“Oh.” Xie Xuanming seemed to recall the unhappy events from Ji Sheng’s previous “personal tour”, frowned and didn’t say anything more.

It was Ji Sheng who glanced at him a few more times, wanting to say something; but in the end, he didn’t say anything.

The next day, Xie Xuanming had an appointment, so he asked the driver to take Ji Sheng to the company instead of him.

Ji Sheng habitually pulled the co-pilot door and only then did he react to the driver’s confused eyes.

“Sorry.” He closed the front door and sat in the back seat after scratching his head for a long time.

Habits are really terrible things.

That’s what Ji Sheng thought.

The new agent was still the previous cold-faced big brother. This did not surprise Ji Sheng. This guy was designated by Xie Xuanming and it was normal for him to be in charge of Niepan.

Niepan didn’t mind either. Although the agent looked cold, he was doing a good job and could sometimes be used as a bodyguard.

The members were surprised for a moment and quickly accepted the fact that the agent remained unchanged.

Taking into account their relationship with Xie Xuanming, Xuansheng respected Niepan’s opinions very much, and basically put a bunch of resources in front of Niepan, allowing the members to choose for themselves.

Niepan had never seen such a scene before; they stared at the resources they couldn’t have imagined. The members gathered around to discuss for a while and came to the conclusion that they didn’t understand these twists and turns, so it was better to let the company arrange it.

What Niepan really cared about…

“Tour!” The keyboardist chanted and looked at the agent, “When can we go on tour?”

In the past, Niepan had a long gap between performances. When they were not working, they lived in a small dormitory and wrote songs. The number of songs they composed had long been enough to support a two-hour performance, but due to insufficient company funds, the members had been unable to perform their own repertoire even on a small stage.

Now that their owner had changed to a wealthy one, this old dream was naturally put forward.

“If you are touring, we can help Niepan contact the venues.” The agent replied, “Counting the planning and publicity period, we will probably be able to start at the end of next month.”

“Wow!!”

The unattainable goal was right in front of them at this moment. Niepan cheered, and even Ji Sheng’s face lit up a smile. He lowered his head and chuckled a few times, then raised his hand and said, “I have a question.”

The members looked at him and the agent said, “Say.”

“Can I bring one more person during the tour?”

“Bring someone?” The agent said, “A guest? If you want to invite guests, you need to report them to the company in advance. The publicity department can also add the photos and names of the guests on the promotional posters, and if the invitee is an artist from another company, we can also discuss the cost of the performance with the other party.”

“It’s not that complicated.” Ji Sheng touched the tip of his nose and said embarrassedly, “I just want to invite a guest.”

“Which company is he from?”

“Just from our company.”

The agent hadn’t reacted yet, but the Niepan members were the first to think of something. Huang Sizhe jumped up, his face full of disbelief: “Ji Hui, are you serious? Do you need to bring the surnamed Xie with you on the tour?”

“En.” Ji Sheng said, “He used to be a singer, and he also had an idea of performing recently. So I want to take this opportunity to invite him to one or two performances…”

“No way?” Huang Sizhe rubbed his hair irritably, but was interrupted by the keyboardist just as he was about to say something.

“Xiao Huang, be quiet.” The keyboardist pointed out the key question straightforwardly, “Xiao Hui, are you sure that Emperor Xie will be willing to come to our little lousy band’s tour?”

“Don’t worry about this.” If nothing else, Ji Sheng was very confident on this issue, “If I invite him, he will be willing.”

Agent: ……

Niepan in full: ……

It somehow felt like they didn’t know what strange light was blinding their eyes.

“Okay.” The agent took the lead in breaking the silence, “You can invite guests and it will play a role in promoting the tour. Ji Hui, go back and discuss with the boss, and then report to me which shows he will come.”

“Okay.”

Niepan adjourned the meeting, and the agent stopped Ji Sheng.

“The boss told me to take you back.”

“Hmm?” Ji Sheng was a little surprised.

“He has something to do these two days, and if he doesn’t come back, I will be responsible for the pick-up and drop-off.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know.”

“…” Ji Sheng felt a little weird but still said, “Okay, I’ll trouble you.”

In the car, Ji Sheng squeezed his mobile phone with both hands and spun it unconsciously. The screen turned upside down countless times at his fingers, but he still hadn’t made the decision to make a call.

In the end, Ji Sheng lowered his head in despair and unlocked the screen.

He clicked on social media and at a glance knew where Xie Xuanming was gone.

On the hot search, a video of the sisheng’s trial appeared and there was also an official report on it. 

The official briefing still blurred the names of the artists involved, but netizens  managed to find the artists in question by using the surnames the judge mentioned in the video.

After all, Ji, Xie, and Sheng were not common surnames.

Especially appearing together, they confirmed the guesses of netizens.

The trial records that had been released less than two hours ago greatly shook public opinion.

In the video, the sisheng admitted to injuring Ji Sheng’s wrist, and also admitted that the car accident was caused by her.

Although she denied that the two injuries were intentional, this video still shocked the melon-eating masses.

On the one hand, Qingchu had never announced Ji Sheng’s wrist trauma. It was only today that netizens learned that Ji Sheng had been injured. On the other hand, if the car accident was man-made, then why was Ji Sheng’s death determined to be caused by drunk driving?

Netizens smelled the scent of big melons, pulled out the drunk driving bulletin from a year ago and began to dig graves and question why the various marketing accounts made rumours.

Under the surging public opinion, several marketing agencies couldn’t bear the pressure and admitted that the drunk driving bulletin was “paid to do the job”.

Ji Sheng’s fans who had been silent for a long time finally took the lead and summarised the content of the marketing accounts that had sent the desinformation then.

Within two years, four typical marketing media outlets posted a total of 5,458 Weibo posts, of which 1,762 were related to Sheng Kongzhi, significantly more than any other artist, and all of them were positive and amiable.

In addition, these marketing accounts were also very friendly to other artists from the Qingchu company, except for Ji Sheng, with more than a thousand positive posts.

The data was made public. At this point, it was clear who was spending money to raise the marketing accounts, who was making rumours, and who was eating human blood steamed buns.

Disinformation about the artist’s way of death, stepping on the deceased to take the top position, causing the innocent victim to be blamed…

Qingchu’s actions were outrageous, detonating public opinion and causing everyone’s anger.

In the afternoon of that day, a group of girls wearing masks appeared at the door of Qingchu company. They were all fans of Ji Sheng, holding photos of Ji Sheng’s performances on stage in the past.

Located in the centre of the crowd was the station sister. Most of the photos displayed this time had been taken by her.

With reddened eyes, she raised her sign in the centre of the fan crowd, a few large characters written on it.

[I just want you to see how dazzling he used to be when he was destroyed by you]

This set of photos was posted on the Internet, causing the fans to empathise and become even more angry.

Those who reaped the most dividends became the ones who bore the brunt of this anger now.

Angry netizens stormed straight to Sheng Kongzhi’s Weibo account, recounting all the black materials and bad behaviour of the past.

Scam with the votes during the debut, privately associating with fans, encouraging sishengs, bullying actresses, spreading rumours about former teammates…

Blood and tears poured into the comments, and although there were still many Sheng Kongzhi’s fans, they couldn’t control the public’s anger. They tried their best to defend in the comments area: ”Sexual harassment” has not been disproved. Sheng Kongzhi is also a victim and should not be blamed…

Then who should bear the pressure of public opinion?

Sheng Kongzhi’s fans couldn’t find any unlucky ghost to divert their firepower for a while. After all, their usual scapegoat who had been verbally abused for many years finally was exonerated today and was looking forward to the long-lost justice.

When Sheng Kongzhi’s fans were still stubbornly resisting the storm, a message was sent out, completely dispelling their last hope.

Xuansheng Company issued a post,  officially announcing that it would conduct a web drama called “The Drummer”.

The web drama was adapted from real events, and Xie Xuanming would participate in it.

Ji Sheng had been reading Weibo for most of the day, and at this moment he was sitting on the sofa, staring at the ten-second video under the official announcement.

Xie Xuanming appeared in the video, staring at the camera and saying:

“This drama will tell the story of a drummer’s short but brilliant life.”

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