Chapter 406 - A Lifetime Event
Rebirth of a Fashionista: This Life Is Soo Last Season
The Peerless Couple was finally getting married.
The netizens, who had, whether intentionally or unintentionally, been gorging on the PDAs from the couple, all breathed a sigh of relief. If a perfect couple like the Peerless Couple couldn’t be together, then what kind of love could last forever?
Other famous celebrity couples were also tagged by their fans, and they were asked to follow the example of the Peerless Couple and propose romantically like Boss Shen. Meanwhile, many celebrities who had been single for a long time were also pestered by the netizens to find a boyfriend or girlfriend.
Although the netizens liked to read about gossip related to the entertainment industry, they didn’t really like reading negative gossip. Usually, the news that spread on the Internet like wildfire was negative, so as soon as some good news popped up, the netizens became super excited. Even the people who were not fans of the Peerless Couple were elated by this news, and everyone was looking forward to their marriage.
The male celebrities who had worked with Jiaojiao before were also being urged by their fans to get married. Apart from a few irrational and delusional fans who believed they could be the girlfriend of their idols, most fans wished for their favourite idols to settle down and get married soon.
The number of clicks on the leaked proposal video soared rapidly. Shen Zhining's singing was edited into a separate clip, and it was widely retweeted and liked.
Actually, the whole proposal event wasn’t very complicated. What made the proposal perfect was the luxury cruise ships, the approximately five hundred fans who were cheering them on, the beautiful and glamorous stage, and finally, a rich and handsome singer who was good at singing. The proposal couldn't have such a great effect if it was missing any of those elements.
Soon, a video of an interview topped the search rankings.
The people being interviewed were not the main protagonists of the marriage proposal. Rather, they were a few employees from Shen Zhining’s company who had personally witnessed the marriage proposal that was currently trending online.
The anonymous reporter asked, "Since you are Mr. Shen Zhining’s employee, you must be his wife’s fan, right?"
Employee A glanced left and right before replying, "To be honest, I wasn’t her fan at the beginning. Boss' wife is too young, so I didn’t really follow her. However, since she is our lady boss, I naturally started to pay special attention and started following her on social media. That was how I got to know just how amazing our lady boss is! She is simply a goddess!"
"As a participant who had personally witnessed the marriage proposal, what are your thoughts?"
"The proposal was simply too awesome!"
The reporter was bewildered.
Employee B leaned over and exclaimed excitedly, "Our Boss Shen said that if the proposal is successful, the company's year-end bonus will be doubled this year!"
After being stunned for a brief moment, the reporter finally recovered her senses and said, "This is indeed Mr. Shen’s way of doing things. With such a big reward, you must have put in a tremendous amount of effort. No wonder the scene of this proposal was so well arranged. The final scene where the flower petals fluttered in the air was very romantic.”
"Even if there was no reward, we would still do our best. Generally, Mr. Shen treats us very well. This is an important milestone in his life, so we naturally had to cooperate well in order to make this a success. Surprisingly, Boss Shen is really good at singing, and his voice is very melodic. If he had made his debut, XXX would have been crushed a long time ago," Employee B said.
Employee A rolled her eyes, "Are you kidding me? How much is our Mr. Shen worth? How can XXX be mentioned on equal terms as our Boss Shen? Our Boss Shen earns millions of dollars every minute without lifting a finger, can XXX do the same?"
Although Employee A's words would cause others to hate on Boss Shen, there was nothing wrong with her remark at all!
Why did so many celebrities consider having their own commercial enterprise after they became famous? It was mainly because there were too many uncertainties in the entertainment industry. Celebrities could lose everything if they were not careful, but with a commercial enterprise, things would be different. They would still have a source of income, and there would be no need to worry about not finding work, not receiving any roles, or not receiving any advertisement offers.
The Peerless Couple, who everyone was fervently talking about, disappeared from the public eye after the marriage proposal. No one had seen Jiaojiao on campus once the school’s semester was over.
Where did they go?
In any case, there was no sign of the Peerless Couple in the Northern Hemisphere.
Just when the news of the marriage proposal was starting to dwindle, a wedding photo started to trend on the internet.
The netizens immediately understood that they actually went to take wedding photos. Honestly speaking, the wedding photo that was posted online was really beautiful. Jiao Fans silently downloaded the photo to use it as their background image.
Against the backdrop of the clear sky, two bamboo rafts floated on the blue sea, on which stood two people, staring at each other.
A white wedding dress fluttered on the surface of the water, just like floating white clouds.
The wedding dress hugged the curves of Jiaojiao’s body, highlighting her beautiful, long, and lean figure. There was not a single ounce of unwanted fat on her body at all. Her slender swan-like neck stretched out elegantly, and her side profile was accentuated with exquisite makeup. She gave off an extremely feminine aura, and even the sparkling diamond that adorned her head couldn’t take away from her elegant demeanour.
Boss Shen was dressed in a white suit, and his tall figure gave off an elegant and noble aura. Except for an extravagant wrist watch, there were no other superfluous ornaments on him, but he was still so eye-catching that people couldn’t move their eyes away from him.
The couple stared into each other’s eyes. Although they weren’t smiling, their love could be clearly felt from the way they stared at each other.
The colour proportion and distribution of the scenery had reached a harmony between humanity and nature, which was extremely pleasing to the eye.
Since they had shared their wedding photo online, it seemed that good news was just around the corner.
Sure enough, Shen Zhining soon announced on Weibo that their wedding was scheduled for the 23rd of February, and the Weibo announcement was posted on the New Year's Eve.
Other celebrities, who wanted to take advantage of the New Year to create some big news and occupy a spot on the hot searches lists, realized that even if they made up a scandal and hired Internet Water Armies to boost their popularity, it was still not as impressive as Boss Shen’s single sentence.
If it were someone else, they could still step on them. But how could they possibly step on Shen Zhining? If they did that, they would be drowned by spite from the majority of netizens. After all, in their eyes, Shen Zhining was the Mr Perfect who spoiled his wife.
Although they couldn’t step on him, they could still freeload from his popularity.
An internet celebrity posted a selfie of herself in a wedding dress and added the caption: I wish I could marry a man like Shen Zhining. Even if I can only be his lover, it’s worth it.
Her first sentence was normal. After all, nowadays many girls dream of having a rich and handsome man like Shen Zhining to dote on them. But, her last sentence sounded somewhat shady. Soon, the internet celebrity's Weibo was flooded by the netizens’ protest, and it became a battlefield.
Originally, if the internet celebrity had come forward to apologize, this matter would have been over. Unexpectedly, she was quite ambitious, and she wanted to bite off more than she could chew. She posted another picture of her linking arms with Shen Zhining. At first, everyone roasted her, saying that she had even dared to take out a photoshopped photo. Later, it was confirmed by a well-known tech expert that there was no trace of this photo being photoshopped.
Some people started to speculate whether this internet celebrity was truly Boss Shen’s mistress. More and more netizens voiced the same concern, and the internet celebrity soon became infamous. Rising to fame with that kind of reputation was naturally not a good thing. But to those who only cared about their fame and not their reputation, this wasn’t considered an issue.
The internet celebrity then posted another Weibo message and clarified: That photo was just a group photo of a fan and her idol; there are no other meanings. She also tagged Shen Zhining. The plan of this internet celebrity was for Shen Zhining, who was about to get married, to come forward and affirm her words. In that case, she could successfully whitewash her reputation while also creating the illusion that there was really something going on between her and Shen Zhining.
Jiao Fans were all enraged. Shen Zhining was Er Jiao’s man, so how could they allow a flirtatious b*tch to taint the Peerless Couple? However, since they were bound by the rules and regulations in their fan club, they couldn’t take the initiative to start a catfight. Hence, they sent all kinds of private messages to Shen Zhining, and requested for him to come forward and clarify the situation.
However, Shen Zhining didn’t take any actions.
When things were about to develop in a bad direction, a piece of news was released online. The news stated that the internet celebrity was currently under investigation for selling some so-called homemade cosmetics that contained ingredients that were over the accepted limits. As such, the entire circle of internet celebrities was thoroughly investigated. Every internet celebrity who was selling things online was being checked. If the goods sold were of poor quality or didn’t comply with the regulations, their accounts were banned and they were fined. In the end, even those accounts which displayed inappropriate behavior online were banned.
This disturbance even spread to the entertainment industry. For a period, the people who only had a little fame were extremely worried, and they became more cautious with their words and actions. Suddenly, the atmosphere of the entertainment industry felt a lot more refreshing.
The whole thing started with the internet celebrity who leeched off Shen Zhining’s popularity, so the truth emperor asserted that Shen Zhining must be behind this big clean-up.
TL Note: The truth emperor is an internet slang that generally refers to those who know about seldom-known things, and they help others solve their questions online. They are usually very active in forums.
However, Shen Zhining didn’t come out to admit this, so all this remained as speculation.
The clean-up incident only gradually died down at the end of the year.
It was New Year's Eve, and it was Jiaojiao's birthday once again. Jiaojiao, who hadn’t been very active lately, started a live broadcast, which overjoyed her fans. Within the first few minutes, millions of people had already joined the live broadcast. Then, the number of viewers continued to increase, and soon exceeded ten million.
The fans were mostly concerned about whether the relationship between the Peerless Couple was still doing okay, and what Jiaojiao had been up to recently. Many people started to ask questions after sending virtual gifts.
In the studio, Sheng Jiaoyang was sitting in front of the floor-to-ceiling window while facing a shelf with a tablet computer. She was reading everyone's questions.
After glancing through them, Sheng Jiaoyang smiled, "Looks like everyone is very concerned about my love life. Don't worry, we are fine."
"As for the question about whether I knew about the photo taken by the internet celebrity with my darling, if I say I didn't know, would you believe me? In fact, I was also there at the time. When the internet celebrity approached us, she said that she was my fan, but then she suddenly hugged my darling's arm. I was stupefied, but this matter was quite trivial and not worth mentioning. Darling and I were busy preparing for our wedding, so I didn’t have time to bother about it."
"To the person who said that I have lost weight…it’s definitely a misperception. I just look more fit."
"Who said that after one becomes an adult, they can’t grow taller any longer? I just grew a few centimeters taller."
"Hey, you hope that I can grow as tall as my darling so that it won’t be as tiring when we kiss? You’re being too much! If I were as tall as my darling, then wouldn’t I be taller than him when I wear high heels? If that's the case, then wouldn't he be the one who has to bow down…ahem, no one heard anything."
There was a barrage of ‘We’ve heard you!’ on the bullet screen.
Then, a different eye-catching comment popped up: A woman bowing her head and kissing a man. Hmmm, just thinking about it makes me excited.
Sheng Jiaoyang, who was in the middle of drinking water, spurted the water on one of her unfinished paintings when she read that comment. She quickly bent over to fix her painting. When she sat back properly and looked at the screen again, she saw the viewers happily commenting on the bullet screen.
[What did I see just now? Boss Shen is skateboarding outside!]
[OMG, Boss Shen is becoming cuter every time I see him!]
[Mr. Shen is skateboarding, 2333333.]
TL Note: 23333333 is Chinese Internet slang for laughing, like lol.
[Mr. Shen will be a super nanny in the future. I never thought that he would stay at home and skateboard with his kid.]
[Miss Shen’s charm is driving me crazy!]
When Sheng Jiaoyang saw the word ‘skateboarding’, she turned her head and looked out of the window. She then saw Shen Zhining standing on the skateboard and sliding nimbly, followed by a small silhouette who was sliding clumsily.
Shen Zhining was teaching Xiao An to skateboard.
Having sensed her gaze, Shen Zhining suddenly stopped and looked towards her.
Sheng Jiaoyang’s lips curled upwards and her eyes were full of smiles. She waved her tiny hands at Shen Zhining before she then turned back and said to the viewers, "Because Xiao An is a little introverted, my darling is doing everything he can to encourage Xiao An to become more cheerful."
She talked with the viewers until the sky started to darken. Only when Shen Zhining walked into the studio, did Sheng Jiaoyang say goodbye to everyone and thanked them for their birthday presents. Then, the live broadcast ended.
"Dinner is ready. Let’s go downstairs."
Sheng Jiaoyang walked over and held his hand. Then, they went down together.
Recently, Sheng Jiaoyang ate a lot to grow some more meat on her body. Coupled with the fact that today was a special day, everyone was very jovial as they chatted and laughed along, and they ended up unwittingly eating too much. Hence, Sheng Jiaoyang, who was originally planning to watch the New Year's Gala with Grandfather Yang, was dragged out by Shen Zhining for a walk.
"Our wedding is in seven days. It's strange, I read that many people have premarital depression, but how come I don't feel any of that? Is it because we are together all the time?" Sheng Jiaoyang tilted her head to look at Shen Zhining.
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"Now I'm suddenly starting to worry. If our life is always so ordinary, will we get bored one day?"
"Plain water is also very ordinary. You've been drinking it for more than 20 years. Are you tired of it?"
"I'm not, but I often drink scented tea, fruit juice, and other flavored water too."
"Why, you think it's boring to be with me?" Shen Zhining stopped and looked at her.
Sheng Jiaoyang’s lips parted but she was temporarily tongue tied.
"Don't get me wrong, that’s not what I mean." As a last resort, Sheng Jiaoyang could only change the subject, "I wonder how things are going at our wedding site."
"You'll know when that day comes."
Sheng Jiaoyang stared at Shen Zhining helplessly. "Lately, you always retort my words. Can we just have a normal conversation?"
"You’ve been so preoccupied in your studio these days, did you even have a good chat with me?" Shen Zhining raised an eyebrow slightly.
That's what this was all about. Sheng Jiaoyang rolled her eyes and said, "You could have come and joined me there."
"Join in what way?" As soon as he saw the subtle change in Sheng Jiaoyang's expression, Shen Zhining knew that she must have come up with some tricks.
Sheng Jiaoyang smiled mysteriously and pulled Shen Zhining to the studio. After they got inside, she specifically locked the door.
"Take off all your clothes." Sheng Jiaoyang was rubbing her hands.
Shen Zhining's pupils contracted and his voice tensed slightly, "What did you say?"
"I said, take off all your clothes. Come on, Darling, don't be shy." Sheng Jiaoyang's eyes were sparkling brightly with expectation.
Shen Zhining licked his lower lip. "You…"
"Tomorrow is the New Year, and it's the right moment to prepare a New Year's gift." Sheng Jiaoyang sized him up and added, "If you don't want to take them off, I'll take them off for you."
Shen Zhining raised his hand and unbuttoned his shirt, and his gaze was burning more and more ardently.
Seeing that Shen Zhining was taking off his clothes obediently, Sheng Jiaoyang smiled with satisfaction. She then walked past him to fiddle with her painting utensils. She had been looking forward to this moment for a long time, as she had long coveted Shen Zhining's perfect body. She believed that it would look particularly good as a painting.
However, she had only taken two steps before she fell down.
"What are you doing?"
Shen Zhining laid on her back and licked her earlobe, while his hand moved to take off her clothes unambiguously. Only his voice was a bit indistinct as he said, "I'm giving you a New Year present."
"No, no! That's not what I want as a New Year's present!"
"It's too late," he blew into her ear, "The New Year's present has already been ordered. If you want something else, we can talk about it next year."
"Wait…" Before she could finish, she was flipped over and her lips were sealed by his.
Many netizens, who were still enthusiastically discussing Shen Zhining’s skateboarding scene, found that Jiaojiao's Weibo had been updated at midnight.
Xu Jiaojiao: Bastard Shen, I’m going to make you appear stark naked on my painting!
Although the Weibo post was deleted soon after, it was still screenshotted by the quick witted netizens.
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Sheng Jiaoyang found that she had made a big joke of herself. She posted the words that she wanted to post on her secondary Weibo account on the main account. Although the post was deleted by Xu Ping in time, this matter was still publicized by the netizens who wanted to join in the fun.
Many years after this incident, some people would still ask: Has Xu Jiaojiao managed to draw Shen Zhining’s naked body?
But this question was one that was never answered.
Some bold media reporters also asked this question when they interviewed Sheng Jiaoyang, but Sheng Jiaoyang only smiled awkwardly and politely, and didn’t give them a precise answer.
So, did she manage to paint it in the end?
Sheng Jiaoyang could only say that she had been trying hard to accomplish it.
Originally, there was a chance on their wedding day. She had pestered Shen Zhining, and even got him to promise that he would be her model after the wedding.
In the end…
On the wedding day.
The wedding was held on Shen Zhining's private island. The whole site was beautifully arranged, and all the guests were smiling from ear to ear. But, the bride in the wedding dress smiled more brightly than any of them.
No one knew the meaning behind her smile apart from Shen Zhining. Sheng Jiaoyang was excited, because her wish would soon be fulfilled after the wedding.
She was excited, so she drank a bit more than usual.
Afterwards, she did strip Shen Zhining. But she did it in the bedroom, not in the studio.
The next day, when she wanted to draw him again, she was rejected. Shen Zhining said that the opportunity had been given to her last night, but she had missed it herself.
What else could Sheng Jiaoyang say? She could only secretly ponder over her next steps. One day, after Shen Zhining fell asleep, she could strip him naked. Drawing a sleeping beauty wasn’t bad either. Otherwise, she could seek another opportunity to make Shen Zhining promise her again.
As to whether she could get this opportunity in the end, it was something that could only be known in the future.