Chapter 178: The Taste of Being Cyber-Bullied!

At this moment, his phone was buzzing incessantly. Aside from WeChat messages from friends asking about the situation, many former classmates and colleagues were also adding him as a friend, sending all sorts of harassing messages asking for financial support or jobs.

Not to mention apps like Weibo, Douyin, and Starlight Live, which kept sending notifications about a massive influx of direct messages in his backend.

He didn't even dare to look at those messages. He knew without looking that they were filled with abuse from internet trolls and hired click-farms.

So this was what it felt like to be cyberbullied.

He finally got a taste of the psychological and emotional impact that cyberbullying could have on a person's life.

No wonder some people couldn't bear it and wanted to end their lives after being cyberbullied.

"Doesn't Lin Mu have the recording on her phone? Later on, you can issue a statement saying that you beat him up to stand up for Lin Mu, and then expose the recording. After that, find someone to leak all the dirt on Galaxy Entertainment, shifting the focus of the conflict onto them..."

Hearing this, Lin Fan immediately raised his hand to interrupt: "Wait, if we do that, won't I be offending the Yang family?"

Zhou Jiayi immediately chimed in, "There's no other choice. This whole situation is a dead end!"

"In the entertainment industry, even if you are innocent, and even if your name is eventually cleared through a reversal, you'll still end up stained. If the Fourth Young Master Tang wasn't involved, it must have been Wang Minglou who went to the Second Young Master Yang, using the same old trick to instigate him into retaliating against you. So you're bound to offend someone anyway. This whole thing is Wang Minglou's scheme!"

Zhou Jiayi directly pointed out that the mastermind behind the scenes was Wang Minglou.

"Damn it! I never expected that guy to be so scheming. I should have beaten him to a cripple yesterday!"

Lin Fan slammed the table in anger, exclaiming that one could not judge a book by its cover.

That guy Wang Minglou didn't even look like a smart person, yet he turned out to be so insidious and cunning.

"Step two: You and Lin Mu appear together in a clarification video, stating that you two are step-siblings and that it's only natural for an older brother to dote on his younger sister. Fortunately, both of you share the surname Lin, so this explanation will be quite convincing."

Su Hanmo continued laying out the next phase of the public relations plan.

Lin Fan let out a sigh of relief, almost forgetting about this crucial detail.

If Lin Mu had any other surname, this matter would indeed be hard to explain.

"Step three: Have Huayi Media issue an announcement stating that they are indeed producing a TV series with Lin Mu as the female lead, and one of the filming locations happens to be Monarch Manor. Then, have Li Li help promote it as well. This will quickly wash away the malicious mud that's been slung at Lin Mu."

"Step four, and the most crucial one: Find a way to track down the person who wrote that anonymous essay exposing the matter, and buy them off to come forward and clarify that they were paid by Wang Minglou. Then you issue another statement saying that Wang Minglou orchestrated these retaliatory actions out of spite, and announce that you're taking him to court. With the matter blowing up to this scale, the relevant authorities won't just sit by and do nothing."

Upon hearing this, Lin Fan suddenly recalled the essay he had seen earlier.

"I suspect that essay was written by Lin Mu's roommate, Huang Lingxi. She was there the day before yesterday, and she knows every single detail clearly!"

Lin Fan said with a firm and certain tone.

"If we can find her, I have a way to make her obediently listen to me!"

Lin Fan was already contemplating using his mental manipulation skill on Huang Lingxi to force her to set the record straight.

"Jiayi, it looks like we'll have to trouble you to use your connections to find someone."

Su Hanmo looked up at Zhou Jiayi and blurted out, completely unaware that her form of address sounded somewhat intimate.

"No problem, I'll get on it right away. You two shouldn't panic either; calm down first and carefully sort out the PR steps one by one. I'm leaving now."

Zhou Jiayi gave her a reassuring look before rushing off in a hurry.

Watching him leave, Su Hanmo let out a sigh with a complicated expression.

Seeing this, Lin Fan couldn't help but blurt out, "Are you two getting back together?"

"We're in the middle of all this, and you still have the mood to make jokes!"

Su Hanmo rolled her eyes in absolute disgust.

Lin Fan sheepishly curled his lips.

This was the first time he had ever been chewed out so thoroughly by Su Hanmo.

Meanwhile, Su Hanmo took out her laptop and began organizing all the PR plans and steps one by one.

Taking advantage of this lull, Lin Fan posted a statement on WeChat stating that someone had deliberately framed him, and he requested that people stop inquiring about the situation.

However, after this statement went out, a few people very close to him still sent messages expressing their concern.

Zhang Yi was the first to reassure him not to panic and told him to hurry up and find Su Hanmo for damage control.

Lin Fan only replied to her, letting her know that he and Su Hanmo were in Shanghai and were already preparing a PR strategy.

Fifteen minutes later, Su Hanmo finalized the public relations plan, and the two parted ways to take action individually.

Su Hanmo went to contact news media outlets through her connections, using money to bribe them into deleting the related news.

This was a very common PR tactic in the entertainment industry.

As soon as negative news broke, celebrities or talent agencies would immediately spend money to pull the articles, suppress web traffic, and issue statements.

Meanwhile, Lin Fan headed to the Shanghai Theatre Academy to rendezvous with Lin Mu.

After the scandal broke, Lin Mu had asked her head teacher for an extended leave of absence and fled to a rental apartment to lie low.

It wasn't until Lin Fan sent her the PR plan drafted by Su Hanmo that she put on a disguise to meet him.

Once inside the car, Lin Fan felt a deep ache in his heart seeing her bundled up so tightly.

A newly adult girl had been subjected to cyberbuxing because of him, forced to skip classes, and was bound to face endless gossip and criticism at school.

Furthermore, when Lin Mu messaged him an hour ago, Lin Fan had noticed that her favorability rating toward him had dropped back down to zero!

Fortunately, it had only dropped to zero.

If she had developed genuine aversion toward him, he really would have been in tears.

Without wasting any more breath, Lin Fan detailed the PR plan to her before driving her back to Monarch Manor.

Right now, Monarch Manor was actually the safest place to be.

The security in this residential area was at a national-security level, and outsiders could not simply wander in to snoop around.

"Have you gotten in touch with Huang Lingxi?"

Once they were on the road, Lin Fan finally brought up Huang Lingxi.

"No, she hasn't replied to my WeChat or my calls. Either she's intentionally ignoring me, or she's gone missing. I asked our head teacher, and she took a leave of absence yesterday... I suspect she followed Wang Minglou to Kyoto. Finding her now will probably be very difficult."

Even inside the car and wearing a face mask, Lin Mu's voice still carried lingering terror, despite Lin Fan having comforted her twice.

"It's fine, I anticipated this. Young Master Zhou will be able to track down her whereabouts shortly. If she's in Kyoto, I'll go there tonight to find her."

Lin Fan reassured her once more.

"For now, call Sister Li, explain the situation in detail, and share the PR plan I just mentioned so she can coordinate with Huayi Media. I've already decided to invest in producing a TV series and get it rolling immediately; that will completely wash away the negative impact on you."

Lin Mu nodded, her eyes filled with a fresh trace of admiration for Lin Fan.

She hadn't expected him to come up with such a comprehensive PR strategy so quickly.

Upon returning to Manor Number Eighteen, Lin Fan followed Su Hanmo's instructions and filmed the clarification video together with Lin Mu.

At eleven o'clock that night, Monarch Real Estate, a subsidiary of the Zhou family, officially released a statement online.