158: Chapter 157 Zhang Yixing's Counterattack, Sue Him!

Changsha.

The backstage dressing room of the program recording center.

Zhang Yixing's finger hovered over the virtual keyboard.

The screen stayed on the Weibo editing page.

"Yixing, don't be impulsive."

The manager stepped forward, his voice urgent. "This joint and several liquidated damages amount to twenty billion Korean Won, which is over one hundred million RMB! The company cannot cover this for you."

The head of legal tapped the desk and pointed at the drafted PR statement. "Sign it. The statement only says you were unaware of the joint agreement and condemns Su Chen for unilaterally breaching the contract. Only by deflecting the blame onto Su Chen can you secure your three S-class commercial deals for the second half of the year."

The PR director chimed in, "You are a top star now, with sixty million followers. Capital values your commercial worth. Su Chen led his team to the championship and is basking in glory, so why should you bear his risk of breach? It's not fair."

Not fair?

Zhang Yixing looked at the Korean warning letter on the desk.

The red fingerprint stain stung his eyes.

Three years ago, in that leaky basement in Seoul.

In order to practice a backflip, he had crashed heavily onto the concrete floor.

With a lumbar spine contusion, the doctor said that if he didn't return home immediately to recuperate, he might never be able to dance again in his life.

The SM manager walked up to him with this "Supplementary Annex C" and threw down a pen.

If he didn't sign, his application to return home wouldn't be approved, and they would even fine him for delaying his training progress.

That was the most hopeless day of his life.

Then, Su Chen came.

Su Chen kicked open the iron door of the basement and ripped the contract in half.

Su Chen pointed at the Korean manager's nose and said, "I'm taking him with me. I'll shoulder the liquidated damages alone."

With that burden, Su Chen was shelved for a full five years, going from SM's top all-rounder ACE to a "discarded pawn" whom nobody in the industry knew.

Zhang Yixing pulled back his thoughts.

*Commercial value?* he thought.

To hell with commercial value.

He raised his left hand and picked up the warning letter.

He opened his phone camera, didn't bother finding an angle or adding a filter, aimed it at the black-and-white paper and the bright red fingerprint, and pressed the shutter.

The image uploaded.

His fingers landed on the keyboard, typing three sentences.

"Go ahead and sue. I'm not afraid."

"Brother Chen protected me for five years. Now, it's my turn to protect him."

Click, send.

*Ding.*

Sent successfully.

Zhang Yixing locked his phone screen and placed it face down on the desk.

His movements were swift and decisive.

"What did you post?"

The manager's face turned pale. He quickly whipped out his phone and opened Zhang Yixing's profile on his special follows list.

The page refreshed.

The Weibo post with the image and text popped up.

"You're crazy!"

The PR director gasped, his voice cracking with a sharp pitch. "Delete it quickly! You're putting the company on the grill! You are declaring war on multinational capital!"

Zhang Yixing stood up and pulled back his chair.

He turned to look at the panicked executives in front of him.

"The liquidated damages, I'll pay them."

Zhang Yixing said calmly, "If I can't afford it, I'll leave the entertainment industry. I'm quitting."

He pushed open the dressing room door and strode down the corridor.

At this moment, the mountain that had weighed on his shoulders for three years shattered into pieces.

In the online world, time seemed to freeze at this very second.

Immediately after, it was like a megaton nuclear bomb had been detonated.

On Zhang Yixing's personal Weibo, even a casual selfie on a normal day would easily garner over ten thousand comments within minutes.

Yet, for the first ten minutes after this Weibo post was published, the comment section was eerily quiet.

Ten minutes later, the Sina Weibo servers issued lag warnings, unable to cope with the heavy load.

Programmers frantically spun up backup servers.

The repost count surpassed one million in a single hour!

The number one spot on the trending search list instantly changed hands, with a deep red "Explode" tag following the search term.

#Zhang Yixing Directly Confronts SM#

#Go Ahead and Sue, I'm Not Afraid#

#Su Chen Zhang Yixing#

The comment sections and real-time public squares were completely set ablaze.

[Oh my god! Zhang Yixing directly made SM's warning letter public! He is declaring war head-on!]

["Go ahead and sue, I'm not afraid." This sentence makes my scalp tingle. Is this still the usually gentle and mild Little Sheep?]

[Crying so hard! Old fans all know that when they were Trainees in Korea, Su Chen was their big brother and the most protective of his own.]

[Brother Chen protected him for five years, and now he has stood up! What a beautiful bromance!]

[Capital wants to use Zhang Yixing to force Su Chen to bow down? In their dreams! Chinese men don't have "bowing down" in their bones!]

[XO's group spirit is exploding! Just for this sentence, I'll fan him for life!]

[SM has completely kicked a steel plate this time. Blackmailing with overbearing clauses from three years ago, do they really think this is still three years ago?]

[Resolutely boycott SM! Protect Zhang Yixing, protect Su Chen!]

Seoul.

The eleventh floor of the SM Entertainment Building.

Park Jung-soo stared at the computer screen.

The real-time data report sent back from the China Branch made his breathing grow heavy.

Not only did Zhang Yixing's commercial resources remain undamaged by this warning letter,

on the contrary, the official accounts of two major domestic brands in China directly commented under Zhang Yixing's Weibo post to show their support: "Don't be afraid of being sued. If compensation is needed, we will cover the liquidated damages. Mr. Zhang, please sign with us immediately."

Not only did public opinion fail to crush Su Chen, but it instead triggered a collective crusade against SM Entertainment across the entire Chinese internet.

Park Jung-soo slammed his fist onto the desk.

The solid wood desk shook, the coffee cup tipped over, and dark brown liquid spilled all over the surface.

"Madmen."

Park Jung-soo gnashed his teeth. "Giving up billions in resources just to ruin their own future for someone who has been banned for five years—they are all fucking madmen!"

Yanjing.

The bus was driving on the highway.

Su Chen held his phone to his ear.

The call hadn't gone through yet.

Lin Yue, sitting on the other side of the aisle, suddenly gasped.

The tablet in her hand almost dropped to the floor.

"Su Chen."

Lin Yue's voice trembled as she grabbed Su Chen's wrist. "Look at this."

She handed the tablet over.

On the screen was precisely the Weibo post that Zhang Yixing had just published.

Su Chen's gaze fell upon the familiar warning letter in the photo.

Finally, it locked onto the two lines of text below.

"Go ahead and sue. I'm not afraid."

"Brother Chen protected me for five years. Now, it's my turn to protect him."

*Beep—* The international call connected.

"President Su?"

A capable male voice came from the other end of the line, with keyboard-clacking sounds filling the background. "My capital pool here is ready. We can initiate a full-scale short-selling plan against SM in the Asian market at any time. Should we make our move?"

Su Chen looked at those two lines of text.

The coldness in his eyes receded, replaced by a touch of softness that was hard for ordinary people to detect.

*This kid has really grown up,* he thought.

Then, Su Chen tucked away that softness, and his gaze became sharper than before.

"Don't move yet,"

Su Chen said into the phone.

The male voice on the other end was taken aback. "Not move? SM is at its most vulnerable right now."

"Simple short-selling is too easy on them."

Su Chen leaned back against his seat. "I want to pull them out by the roots."

Su Chen hung up the phone.

"Lin Yue."

Su Chen looked toward the front row.

"Yes."

"Contact Yanjing's best foreign-related legal team. Immediately."

Su Chen tossed his phone onto the seat. "Someone wants to sue my brother. I need to go teach them a lesson."

Brother Cai, sitting in the back row, watched the activity on Weibo, slapped his thigh, and shouted, "Awesome! Now that's what a real man does!"

Chen Yu scrolled through his phone, but his brow suddenly furrowed.

"Captain, it's not over yet."

Chen Yu pointed at the screen. "With Zhang Yixing speaking up, all the pressure has shifted to Lu Han and Huang Zitao. Now the entire internet is staring at the two of them."

Hengdian World Studios.

Inside an RV of a certain historical drama production crew.

Lu Han had just finished filming a night scene, and he was still wearing heavy armor.

His manager held up a phone, blocking him with an ashen face.

"No matter how the internet shapes the narrative, you absolutely cannot speak out at this time! The production's legal team has already reached out. If you get involved in a multinational dispute now, this drama will replace its male lead immediately!"

Lu Han didn't look at his manager.

He looked over the other's shoulder at the tablet on the desk.

On the screen, screenshots of Zhang Yixing's "Go ahead and sue" were being frantically shared by netizens.

The corner of Lu Han's mouth twitched. He reached up to unbuckle his helmet strap and threw the heavy helmet to the ground.

It hit the floor with a dull thud.

Yanjing.

A certain recording studio.

Huang Zitao took off his monitoring headphones.

Outside the recording booth, his entire team was in a chaotic mess.

His partner pushed open the glass door and rushed in hurriedly, "Taozi, disconnect from the internet immediately! Hand over the passwords to all your social media accounts; the company will take over for you during this period!"

Huang Zitao sat in his chair with his feet on the edge of the desk, chewing on an unlit lollipop.

He looked at the night view of Yanjing outside the window, his fingers sliding rapidly across his phone screen.

*How can I let that sheep steal the spotlight all by himself for something this cool?* he thought.

He spat the lollipop into the trash can.

He stood up and walked toward his partner.

Undercurrents surged simultaneously in two different locations.

The two most watched pairs of eyes in the Chinese entertainment industry looked in the same direction at this very moment.

A super storm capable of overturning the entertainment industries of both China and South Korea had only just begun.