Chapter 142

  The mobile phone was found about six hours ago, when Jianran had already boarded the plane to Berlin, which made him directly miss this news - of course, even if he didn't miss this news and knew it quickly, it wouldn't be of any use, because he couldn't intervene or do any PR work on the police side.

  The police are not interested in such things, they just handle matters according to the law.

  From the rooftop, searching for Jiang Luocheng's phone, through mobile data recovery, it was found that before the phone ran out of battery and turned off, it was still playing Jianran's press conference live broadcast. Additionally, no one had seen Jiang Luocheng after this incident. Based on these three pieces of information, the police initially judged that the person who jumped from the building was likely this young and famous new-generation director - although further investigation of DNA, fingerprints, and other evidence would be needed to confirm this point. However, when the police revealed the current situation to the reporters, Jianran felt like he had already died a thousand deaths.

  He can fully imagine what kind of consequences will be triggered when a journalist makes this thing public.

  And they will obviously rush to make this matter public.

  This is an escalation of the event, if a celebrity coming out isn't sensational enough, then having another controversial same-sex celebrity jump off the building at the scene of his coming out is definitely pushing the whole show to its climax. The media will probably be able to make a big deal out of this and play it up for a whole month, and in the following month, they'll probably only need to come up with various spin-off topics without having to rack their brains to think of news.

  He felt like he was going crazy, and what drove him even crazier was that he was completely in a passive position in this matter, without any opportunity for public relations handling - all the initiative was firmly grasped in the hands of the authorities. For a time, the identity of the deceased became the key point in determining his future fate.

  The impact of coming out seems to be less important, temporarily put aside, and the whole thing has not been clearly positioned - although it's just "bad" and "very bad" results.

  Jianran carefully put Fang Yu in the room, at this time he received a call from his family member, hesitated for a moment and still picked it up. The phone was Yuan Mei, calling mainly to inform him that all his family members had arrived safely. After more than ten hours of long-distance flight, everyone was a bit tired, and they had already been picked up by the people sent by Jiang Chuan and were preparing to go to the hotel to rest.

  He mechanically responded with a few "uh-huhs" while receiving and sending text messages on his phone, the buzzing notification sounds annoying him. Feeling somewhat irritated, he got up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, pulling open the curtains to gaze out at the view. At this moment, Yuan Mei on the other end of the line seemed to sense that Jian Ran's emotions were not quite right, and asked with a worried tone if he was okay... Holding the phone, looking out at the hotel room's floor-to-ceiling window as dusk fell, Jian Ran moved his lips, wanting to say that he was extremely unhappy and wanted to jump out of the window and fly away. However, when the words reached his mouth, they turned into an unconvincing sigh. He slowly said: "Mom, I'm fine now. The Levithan project is about to start filming in two days, so I might be a bit busy. You take Grandma and the others out to play, look at the scenery and buildings, and buy some things you like. Don't be stingy, just use my card..."

  Just as he was about to finish speaking, he heard Yuan Jincheng's voice on the other end of the phone: "Yuan Jinran? Yuan Jinran? My dear grandpa, are you really with Jiang Chuan? Damn it, are you one of the few good men in this world? Can't you spare some for the masses of women?"

  "......Mom, you want the person on the phone to shut up, is it because you think that when we speak Chinese on foreign streets, others won't understand and it gives us a sense of superiority?"

  On the other side, Yuan Mei's phone seemed to have been snatched away by Yuan Jingyan, because as soon as her words fell, his calm and clear voice came through: "Yes."

  "How did Jiang Chuan bring you here, this kind of thing? He should have left you in the country to deal with the reporters' siege—"

  "I don't care, anyway because of you I had to contribute my annual leave, you have to compensate me for mental loss. If you can't settle this matter in a short time, I plan to ask the company directly for maternity leave..."

  "What will you do when you really get pregnant?"

  "They say I'm going to have a second child."

  He quietly rolled his eyes, but surprisingly, the annoyance in his chest was slightly dispelled by Yuan Jincheng's interruption. He exchanged a few casual words with his cousin, when the bathroom door opened and a man wearing a bathrobe with wet hair walked out. Jianran quickly hung up the phone, tossed it aside, grabbed a towel and threw it at Jiangchuan: "Be careful not to catch a cold."

  "I vaguely heard it in the bathroom," Jiang Chuan wiped his hair with a towel, staring at Jin Ran through the gap in the towel, "The person who jumped off the building was Jiang Luocheng?"

  "...For a moment, he looked at Jiang Chuan calmly and said, "I just discovered that your eyes seem to be speaking."

  “？”

  "Now with great enthusiasm said: Is there such a good thing?"

  "…", Jiang Chuan pulled down his towel and said seriously, "Don't wrong others."

  "I'm about to get a headache to death, have some sympathy for me."

  He weakly waved his hand, originally just wanting Jiang Chuan to shut up, but unexpectedly the man stopped hanging the bath towel and casually put it on the chair. He then turned around, stretched out his hand, pulled the young black-haired man into his arms, and gently rubbed his soft, slightly damp black hair with his large hands...

  "Is this okay?"

  Jiang Chuan's chest cavity vibrated with his voice, and at this time, the tip of his nose was pressed against the man's bathrobe, which was open in front of his chest muscles. His nostrils were filled with the scent of shower gel on him. He nodded randomly, while hearing the agent Mr. make a sound like a blind dog behind their buttocks. Fang Yu didn't know where to put her eyes and could only lower her head to look at her phone, reporting: "In the agent circle I'm in, someone said that they received a notice from their company, and all artists under their company will be arranged to postpone any news or announcements, whether they have a press release or not. For the next month, don't make any noise - hmm, mainly because even if you do make some noise, it won't be able to surpass yours, so no one wants to waste this spirit."

  "It's okay if I don't say thank you, right? For the past few months, he hasn't left the headlines for even a few days - by the way, I really didn't think Jiang Luocheng loved me to the point of jumping off a building for me." Sitting on the soft bed in the hotel, Jin Yan hugged the pillow with empty eyes, as if completely stunned by this sudden massive amount of information. "Do you guys think it's possible? Is that person really Jiang Luocheng?"

  "It's not impossible, think about it, Jiang Luocheng has been basically unscathed since his debut, although the movies he made at the beginning were not that popular, but they were still well-received. He himself was touted as the 'hope of Chinese cinema' from his university days, I've been seeing media reports praising him to high heaven for over a decade now. He's good-looking and has had relationships with both men and women, I couldn't find anyone more suited to the entertainment industry... Fang Yu analyzed, "People like him, who have always had it easy, probably never thought they'd experience rejection. This time, not only was he brutally rejected by you, but also publicly humiliated at a press conference. Do you know how many people were watching your live stream? I checked earlier, after you said Jiang Luocheng is a complete moral degenerate, his Weibo and blog comment sections were flooded with messages. The ridicule and sarcasm were so intense that it's amazing... "

  "...then he couldn't take the stimulation and jumped off the building?" Jin Ran said, "He doesn't seem like someone who can't handle this kind of pressure."

  "It's probably just a momentary impulse, but then again, who commits suicide without being impulsive? Fang Yu rubbed his chin, "I reckon it's because he couldn't bear to see you openly flirting with Jiang Chuan - if I'm being honest, you're not exactly fair to him either. In Jiang Luo Cheng's eyes, he sacrificed so much for you, but when you were together, you didn't give him any benefits. And then this Jiang Chuan guy comes out of nowhere and snatches all the advantages, plus, in order to compete with Jiang Chuan, Jiang Luo Cheng ended up with a bad reputation... I suppose his male pride wouldn't allow him to live on."

  "Oh, he cheated on me, blaming me?"

  He listened more and more out of tune, so he frowned and used his eyes to hint that he should shut up quickly.

  Putting aside all personal feelings, if the person who jumped off the building was Jiang Luocheng, this incident would not be too bad for Jin Yan - although the media and online would make a bigger fuss about it, but from a long-term perspective, the direction of the whole thing's definition would actually shift from "celebrity behavior affecting social atmosphere" to a personal emotional matter.

  That is to say, as long as the person who jumped off the building isn't Jian Ran's Mifen Si, he might still have a tiny bit of chance to survive.

  Of course, this is also the only comfort that can be used to comfort oneself. In fact, the situation has become so bad that it cannot get any worse. Based on the trend of the deteriorating situation, I have mentally prepared myself for the possibility that "I don't know if tomorrow will collapse". In comparison, what I am experiencing now is relatively more acceptable. Just thinking about this seems to make everything okay.

  ……

  The next day, he rested well and occasionally went online to see the progress of the situation. After hastily browsing some news headlines and finding that there was no progress, he wouldn't look again.

  Currently, the main discussion topic in China is focused on the identity of the person who jumped off the building. The topics of coming out and sexual orientation have been somewhat deviated from the main theme. At one point, his Weibo was occupied by fans of Jiang Luocheng, with overwhelming abuse and insults that left Yuan Jianran surprised. He didn't know why Jiang Luocheng, as a director, had so many seemingly die-hard fans. They were extremely grieved and angry about his "death", accusing Yuan Jianran of directly driving Jiang Luocheng to death, calling him a murderer. The words were shocking, as if he would have to die a hundred times to make up for the regrettable loss of a future star in the film industry...

  When did Jiang Lu become so popular? Jian Ran thought it was simply inexplicable.

  Then, after a while, these voices suddenly became smaller, and except for two or three little cats discussing it, there were no more splashes of water. The related topic ranking also quickly fell from the topic list... Jing Yan was not stupid and immediately guessed that before, it was probably which competitor who wanted to take advantage of the situation had brought in a water army to trample him. These voices were gradually overwhelmed by Jing Yan's own fans' refuting voices after the water army finished their job... They refuted one after another: first, whether the person who jumped down was actually Jiang Luo Cheng or not; secondly, even if it was true, it was Jiang Luo Cheng himself who had done something wrong and jumped down, which had nothing to do with Jing Yan.

  Of course, apart from these, there are also people shouting under his Weibo about how Mi fans have turned black, and how disgusting homosexuality is, with their usual rhetoric. As for these words, Jian Yan doesn't think they're anything out of the ordinary.

  Firstly, he never believed that those who easily label others as "homophobic" are truly open-minded; secondly, if they were indeed like that, then it must be due to their religious beliefs that made them unable to accept the LGBTQ+ community, and in this case, he would choose to respect their beliefs; lastly, regarding whether homosexuality is disgusting or not, it's still up to the LGBTQ+ individuals themselves to speak out, as they are just like everyone else who drinks water, eats food, farts, and sleeps, and it's none of others' business.

  The next day he began preparing for his upcoming film shoot.

  That night, as he was lying on the sofa with a cucumber mask on his face playing games on his tablet computer, he received a call from director Peter. The latter first comforted him in a routine manner and then changed the subject back and forth, eventually circling around to the topic that concerned him most: "In your current state, can you really shoot tomorrow? I don't want to NG again and again."

  Of course he didn't say it that directly - at least in terms of wording, it was already very tactful for a foreigner.

  He solemnly declared that this might be his last film, so he would take it seriously and make sure not to let personal feelings affect the work mood and waste footage. The director was relieved by this idea and hung up the phone... According to the shooting content, they need to shoot a scene in an ancient winery with a hundred years of history on the first day. In the winery, they can experience the fun of grape picking during the shooting break and taste the white Riesling wine made from the most famous Balearic Islands. Jianran has already prepared himself to get drunk in the ocean of wine and forget all troubles.

  In his distant homeland thousands of miles away, the media are enthusiastically editing him.

  At least he's not dead yet.