Chapter 15.2

Cheng Yao was completely caught off guard by Qian Heng’s arrangement. For a long time, she had only been in a subordinate position when receiving clients, and most of the time, there was even no need for her to speak. This was her first case that she had participated in as a JunHeng’s employee, and it was a very large case. However, at this moment, she was alone, facing her client. And this person was not someone else, but Bai Xingmeng, the righteous Bai Xingmeng.

Fortunately, as Cheng Yao was racking her brain to think about a topic, Bai Xingmeng spoke first.

“Lawyer Cheng, do you think I am stupid?”

Bai Xingmeng’s question caught Cheng Yao by surprise.

Fortunately, Bai Xingmeng asked this question without expecting Cheng Yao to give her an answer.

In many cases, especially in a marriage dispute, in addition to seeking legal help, the clients also constantly sought a moment to talk.

“Lawyer Cheng, can you chat with me? You are a girl, I believe you may understand my feelings better.” Bai Xingmeng smiled apologetically, “I know it will delay your time, but I am willing to pay you for it as per your consultation rate. Today, I just don’t want to talk about cold laws. I just want to chat with you. I’m a celebrity, so I can’t bare my heart to anyone in my circle.”

Cheng Yao nodded, expressing that she understood her. Since working as a lawyer, she had indeed experienced many such things. It was ridiculous. Even though many of the parties had close relatives and close friends, they could not dare reveal their inner turmoils and emotions to them. Instead, they hired contract lawyers to talk about such things. And ironically they were willing to let go of their guards and talk about everything with their lawyers.

Compared to their relatives and friends, they believed more in the confidentiality clauses in their drawn contracts and the huge liquidated damages for breaching them. These gave them more peace of mind.

Bai Xingmeng lowered her head and muttered, “In fact, this marriage actually brought me a lot of pain. For him, I violated my brokerage contract and married him secretly during the contract period. The company later found out and retaliated against me. Because of this, I had to pay huge liquidated damages.

She was almost buried by her company and her career was almost put to an end.” When Cheng Yao was following the “Lingyao’s Strategy”, she had looked into Bai Xingmeng’s personal records and gossip posts. She had become famous overnight. It was indeed true that when she was at the peak of her popularity, she was suddenly hidden by her company. From the age of 23 to 26, there was not much news about her. They had wasted her four years. Four years was the best period of youth for an ordinary girl, and it was also the same for a star.

Bai Xingmeng’s tone was a little self-deprecating, “Maybe girls become stupid once they fall in love. Now that I think about it, I’ve realized that Xu Jun may not have ever liked me from the beginning. When I started dating him, his business was still very small. It was not the way it is now. I really liked him, but what did I get in return? Endless scandals all these years.”

“Was it because of your agency’s conditions that you didn’t disclose your relationship?”

“Oh, after having the courage to marry him and directly violate the brokerage contract, do you think I would be afraid of disclosing my relationship?” Bai Xingmeng smiled melancholically, “He didn’t want to make it public.”

Cheng Yao was a little puzzled and asked, “Why?”

“Because half-concealed scandals bring more attention.” Bai Xingmeng smiled sadly, “I had always had a positive image since I started my career, and I had never been in any scandal. But when I was with him, I got splashed with the most filthy water of my life. For the promotion of films and television dramas, I had to cooperate with the male protagonists and also act as if I was in love with them to hype the production. When the paparazzi knew about my relationship, they painted me as a hypocritical woman who was stepping in two boats at the same time. At that time, I was very aggrieved after seeing people’s severe criticisms. But then I wondered that I had done a good job at hiding my relationship with him, then how did the paparazzi know about it? It is only now that I got to know that it was Xu Jun who revealed it all to the paparazzi.”

Looking at Cheng Yao’s stunned face, Bai Xingmeng smiled bitterly, “Lawyer Cheng, just think about it, before the gossip about Xu Jun and my relationship, had you heard about the company Tuan Tuan Online?”

Cheng Yao thought for a while and shook her head. She really had no impression at all. She had got to know about Xu Jun’s company only because of Bai Xingmeng’s continuous ups and downs in those years.

“After we got together, Tuan Tuan Online became well known to everyone. When paparazzi first reported about our relationship, his Tuan Tuan Online had over 1 million users on that day. With this kind of scandal, the website traffic and the number of users kept increasing.”

‘Well, it does seem to be true.‘ Cheng Yao remembered how she had registered for Tuan Tuan Online because of the scandal between Bai Xingmeng and Xu Jun.

When Bai Xingmeng said this, she paused, “Lawyer Cheng, are you a registered user of Tuan Tuan Online?”

“Yeah.”

“Then under what circumstances did you register?”

Cheng Yao was a little embarrassed, “At that time, someone, who broke the news, claimed that Xu Jun secretly used his initials to show his love to you on the homepage of his website. When I was in school, I was very bored. Like other netizens, I went to Tuan Tuan Online as an onlooker. At that time because of this, I accidentally discovered that the Tuan Tuan Online’s website was very well done, with complete functions, clean pages, and no messy advertisements. There was also a huge inventory of novels in the literature section, and there were many reading modes to choose from. It has a very simple design. So since then, I’ve always been a regular user of Tuan Tuan Online.”

After listening to Cheng Yao’s answer, Bai Xingmeng showed an expression as if she had understood everything. “Yes, that’s it. Many people registered after that time. The website got many loyal and regular users.” She lowered her gaze, “Although my marriage with him broke down, I have to say that Xu Jun is indeed a capable man. His website design and planning are indeed very good… There are many talented men like him in this world, but not all achieve their goals by unscrupulous means like him.” Bai Xingmeng paused, “That little show of his affection was actually planned by him..”

Cheng Yao was completely shocked.

“It had never been a display of his love. It was just a play he directed and acted by himself. First, he deliberately changed the website page, and then he went to the team to break the news and hyped up his website with that ‘show’.” Bai Xingmeng’s face was calm, but her voice was still slightly trembling, “Since the first day we were together, what he was actually interested in was my popularity. He needed my popularity to bring attention to his website, and for that, he needed a scandal to create a hype.”

Bai Xingmeng laughed at herself, “The hype from dating a female celebrity is better than any ad campaign. He knew netizens would quickly gather seeing such things and then would look into his background. All he needed to do was just secretly add fuel to the flames. This is more economical as it not only saves him the costs of his company’s marketing and advertising but also helps him expand by channeling the genuine consumers, i.e. the group of most active internet users.”

“He has great marketing talent, so he knows that linking the image of a business enterprise leader to the entertainment industry will bring much better results than directly promoting the company, saving him both time and efforts.” Bai Xingmeng bit her lip, “I didn’t understand until later that this was the real purpose behind his love and marriage with me.”