After she finished speaking, the girl became agitated again.
"I'll give you a number! Ten million!" Zhou Zhou was genuinely afraid she would jump; the firefighters were already trying to get him to come down. "I may not have a house, but I owe ten million because of my idol-chasing, little sister! Ten million!"
"What?" The girl clearly didn't believe him and shouted, "You're lying! How could you possibly owe so much!"
"You guys are just playing around with your idols! I'm going to empty my pockets!"
"I spent all my savings on his limited-edition merchandise! I even stole money from my mom to go see his variety show! I also borrowed money to pick him up at the airport and to go to his concert!"
"I signed with a company and got him packaged for debut just for him! In the end, I got nothing!"
Zhou Zhou shouted back at her directly, as if singing a folk song, his voice even louder and more forceful than hers.
The last act of defiance among fans, bound by unspoken rules, is to outdo their idol and not lose their passion.
"Who do you think you are, trying to debut like this! You think you're a star just because you're wearing a mask!" The girl had changed from standing to sitting on the edge, and was clearly much more stable than before.
The firefighters exchanged glances, preparing to seize the opportunity.
"I don't even know if I can still be considered a celebrity now." Zhou Zhou smiled wryly and slowly took off her mask. "Do you know me? My name is Zhou Zhou."
"Zhou Zhou?" the girl murmured the name, then asked loudly, "The one who was trending a few days ago!"
"It's me!"
The gossip about celebrities is much more exciting than what ordinary people talk about. Although she didn't know much about it, the girl seemed more interested than before. "Aren't all celebrities rich?!"
"Little sister! You need to have a concept of money!" Zhou Zhou could tell that this girl was still very naive and had no concept of money or life, otherwise she wouldn't be here. "How much money do you think I have?! Do you know how much the gift I gave to Actor Ye under that trending topic cost?! Do you know how much the contract to terminate my contract with the company cost?!"
"Then you have fans too! Fans spend a lot of money on you! J City has a population of 20 million! If 10 million fans each spend 1 yuan, you'll have 10 million!" the girl argued with him, raising her voice.
"One yuan per person is illegal fundraising!" Zhou Zhou noticed the firefighter slowly approaching, so he needed to grab the firefighter's attention even more. "Of my million Weibo followers, over 900,000 are paid trolls, the remaining 80% are haters, and 20% are zombie followers! Do you think celebrities are rich just because they look glamorous? The entertainment industry is a deep and murky place, far beyond what you or I can control! Today, I have three trending topics! And all the comments under those topics are insults! I'm drowning in debt and being cyberbullied, yet I still face life with a positive attitude!"
"Then you seem more pitiful... Ah! Let me go!"
When Zhou Zhou saw her being pulled down from the edge of the short barrier by the firefighters, his heart, which had been hanging in suspense, instantly settled down.
"Damn it." Zhou Zhou's legs went weak. Human life was at stake, and this was the first time he had ever done something like this.
“Young man, on behalf of the J City Fire Department, thank you!” A firefighter came up to help him up. “But this kind of thing is dangerous for both you and the person contemplating suicide. We do not encourage people to do this.”
"Sorry for the trouble." Zhou Zhou waved his hand, put on his mask, and was glad that there were no reporters or paparazzi here, otherwise he would have already thought of the trending topics for tomorrow.
The rooftop was in chaos. The girl was crying, the firefighters were trying to comfort her, and the girl's mother rushed up and hugged her. The mother and daughter cried together.
The girl looked quite young; it was unclear how much money she owed.
Zhou Zhou looked at her with pity, the sound of her sobbing reaching his ears.
"Are you stupid?! Jump off a building! How much money do you owe?!"
'Three, three thousand... Waaaaaah!'
"..." Okay, let's just assume the child is too young to understand the relative importance of money and life.
Zhou Zhou swayed slowly downstairs with weak steps. The supermarket staff cleared away the wreckage of the billboards downstairs, and the crowd was dispersed by the police. Among the pedestrians, a figure wearing a thin black trench coat stood there, his fingertips still tightly clutching a white Bluetooth headset.
“Fu Hengzhi?” Zhou Zhou touched his right ear and found that the Bluetooth earphone was indeed gone. He suddenly remembered that he had been on the phone with the other party. “I’m sorry, I was almost hit by the billboard first, and then I went up to save people. I forgot to talk to you…”
Holy crap, why does he look so awful?
So what if I forgot I was on the phone? You can't just come up and beat me up, can you?
[Author's Note: Zhou Zhou screams: Have you ever seen a celebrity more miserable than me?! Have you?!]
Chapter Eighteen: Where is My Ring?
"President Fu?" Zhou Zhou asked cautiously, but didn't dare to approach.
Zhou Zhou wore a black disposable mask, revealing only her bright eyes as she looked at him. Fu Hengzhi fiddled with the Bluetooth earphone between his fingers, his face dark and his mood complicated.
He drove at breakneck speed, and when he got out of the car, he ran to get there. Seeing a group of people gathered around, he was even afraid to see the other person lying in a pool of blood.
"I was on the phone for half the time and no one answered. I thought something had happened to you." Fu Hengzhi tossed the Bluetooth device to Zhou Zhou and turned to leave.
Zhou Zhou put the Bluetooth headset back in its case and followed, feeling a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry to have worried you. It's just that a young girl was about to jump off a building, and I thought I could try to talk her out of it, so I went up to help the firefighters with their emotional support."
Fu Hengzhi's expression softened, and he gave a faint "hmm," leaving one wondering what he was thinking or feeling.
Zhou Zhou didn't know what to say, and the two remained silent for a while before Fu Hengzhi finally spoke when they were almost at the parking lot.
What are you doing here?
"Let's eat." Zhou Zhou cleared his throat twice and mumbled, "I didn't eat enough at noon. Aunt Feng isn't home, and I didn't dare to touch the ingredients, so I came out to buy something to eat."
Fu Hengzhi turned his head and looked at him quietly, his dark and deep eyes making Zhou Zhou feel uneasy.
Zhou Zhou looked away, chuckled dryly twice, and wondered how Fu Hengzhi felt about this matter.
You really can't guess what a domineering CEO is thinking; you'll never figure it out no matter how hard you try.
The two got into the car one after the other. The moment Zhou Zhou's bottom touched the leather seat, she remembered something important.
“Mr. Fu, well, when I came back the other day, I had a ring in my pocket, in a small square brocade box about this size. Did you see it?” Zhou Zhou fastened his seatbelt and gestured with his hand, but Fu Hengzhi didn’t turn around to look at him at all, only glancing at the rearview mirror.
"No." Fu Hengzhi started the car, turned a corner, and drove straight out of the parking lot.
"Ah." Zhou Zhou sank down, feeling utterly dejected. She said listlessly, "Where did it fall, Xiao Yi..."
At this point, Zhou Zhou quickly covered her mouth. It was better not to let Fu Hengzhi know this. He might know that the ring was the engagement ring the original owner gave to Ye Qisheng, but he might not know the price of the ring.
Moreover, whether the deeply affectionate persona he just established this morning is true or not is irrelevant. If the other party knew that the original owner had used his money to pursue other men in a lavish manner, they would feel somewhat cuckolded.
Since they were all men, Zhou Zhou felt he had to understand this feeling.
When he left home, it was just getting light, but when he returned, it was already dark. Fu Hengzhi parked his car and came out of the garage, where he saw Zhou Zhou searching for his ring among the low shrubs in the lawn and flowerbeds with his phone flashlight.
"..." Actually, the ring was in the storage compartment on the right side of the driver's seat in the car, but Fu Hengzhi didn't want to give it to him.
Zhou Zhou squatted down and bent over, carefully examining the area around the base of the low shrubs, speculating on the possibility that the gardener had taken it. Someone walked up behind him, and Zhou Zhou, though clearly concerned, casually asked, "President Fu, if the gardener finds something, should he hand it in or take it with him?"
"Hand it over," Fu Hengzhi said. "Everything found in this courtyard should be handed over to the owner for disposal; that's stipulated in the employment contract."
That's terrible, why can't we find it?
Zhou Zhou felt uncomfortable in the squatting position, so he got up and stretched his back. Just then, he heard a call coming from the villa.
"Xiao Zhou, Heng Zhi, come in and eat, or the food will get cold!"
“Okay~” Zhou Zhou replied in a drawn-out voice.
"What do you want with that box?" Fu Hengzhi asked casually, not forgetting the other person's devoted persona. "You pursued Ye Qisheng not to..." to attract my attention. This was a strange question, and Fu Hengzhi couldn't bring himself to say it.
"Sigh." Zhou Zhou didn't dare say much more. He had already said enough to cause misunderstandings in the past two days, so he chose a standard, universal answer: "I paid for it myself, so I have to return it. I can't waste money..."
Zhou Zhou met Fu Hengzhi's eyes in the night, and for a moment, she didn't know what to think. "...After all, it's not easy for you to make money."
Then he heard the other person give a soft chuckle.
Zhou Zhou: "..." Damn it.
Dinner wasn't particularly lavish and consisted mainly of light dishes. Zhou Zhou had already eaten fried chicken and hamburgers, so he could still manage to eat some of this.
"Aunt Feng, have you found any small square boxes in the past two days?"
After the meal, Zhou Zhou asked, and the answer was still no.
"Sigh." Zhou Zhou couldn't help but feel dejected. Why give him hope only to disappoint him again?
Ten million! Ten million!
Watching Zhou Zhou's lonely figure go upstairs, Aunt Feng asked softly as she cleared the dishes, "What's wrong? Did you two have a fight?"
"No." Fu Hengzhi didn't want to return the ring, thinking that the other party was used to spending money and might be short of cash now. "I'll go upstairs and check on him."
"Hey, hurry up and go!" Hearing what the other person said, Aunt Feng was overjoyed and urged him upstairs with a beaming smile, thinking that Hengzhi was a quick learner.
Zhou Zhou, feeling dejected with the million-dollar ring, went back to her room, went to the walk-in closet, changed into her pajamas, and just as she came out, she saw Fu Hengzhi entering the room.
Fu Hengzhi didn't knock this time. When he came in, he looked at the furniture arrangement, which was exactly the same as before, and noticed Zhou Zhou coming out of the dressing room. He met Zhou Zhou's surprised gaze.
"How did you get in?" Zhou Zhou remembered that this was probably the second or third time Fu Hengzhi had entered this bedroom, so she couldn't help but be a little surprised.
"This is my bedroom." Fu Hengzhi frowned slightly. Judging from the other person's reaction, was he resentful because he hadn't been back for too long?
"Hmm..." Zhou Zhou pursed his lips and tentatively asked, "Should I leave?"
[Author's Note: Zhou Zhou: Did I find a ring? It's worth ten million!]
It's about to be released! Thank you all for your support over the years!
Chapter Nineteen: Follow us so you don't get lost!
A moment of silence fell over the room, followed by Zhou Zhou clearing his throat to cover his embarrassment.
"I was just kidding."
The response was still just a soft "hmm" from Fu Hengzhi.
Zhou Zhou followed Fu Hengzhi's gaze from the doorway into the dressing room, and after a few sounds of cabinet doors opening and closing, they entered the bathroom.
"..." Fu Hengzhi suddenly turned his head and had a silent eye contact with Zhou Zhou before stepping into the bathroom in his pajamas.
The door clicked shut.
"Hey?" Looking at Fu Hengzhi's eyes just now, he looked wary. He was like this at his parents' house last time. They were all men. Did he think he could eat him?
Zhou Zhou pursed her lips, feeling that Fu Hengzhi was a walking contradiction, and she would never be able to understand his thoughts.
With practiced ease, fingertips tapped lightly on the keyboard, logging into the original owner's Weibo account via the web browser.
We still need to deal with the issues left behind by the original owner first.
In the afternoon, he only checked the trending topics list and didn't pay attention to other information. Only then did he realize that there were red notification dots under his private messages and the latest Weibo posts.
Does it have anything to do with him?
It doesn't matter.
Without even clicking on the link, Zhou Zhou went straight to the personal homepage, changed the original actor's profile, and replaced the creepy avatar with the system image that came with the computer.
Blue skies, white clouds, and a vast green grassland—isn't that more pleasing to the eye than this blood-soaked makeup?
With the mouse clicked into the edit and publish page, Zhou Zhou didn't need to draft anything. He quickly typed on the keyboard, and a nearly 1,000-word letter of withdrawal from the entertainment industry and apology was freshly produced.