Chapter Twenty-Three

At 5 p.m., in the conference hall of the Marriott Hotel in Gangcheng, Su Xian, dressed in a white shirt and black trousers, appeared, and the flashbulbs of the entire room rushed towards him like countless lightning bolts. Su Xian calmly sat down on the stage, opened his speech notes, adjusted the microphone on the table, and calmly looked at the cameras below the stage, "Good afternoon, everyone."

"First of all, please allow me to express my apologies. These past two days, my personal matters have disturbed everyone's lives and also affected the production crew and our partners. I'm very sorry." Su Xuan stood up and bowed.

“Mr. Zeng Yi is indeed my biological father, and everything he said in the live broadcast is true.” A commotion broke out in the audience. Reporters whispered among themselves, and the constant clicking of camera shutters could not drown out their whispers. A burst of flashes made it as bright as day.

Su Xuan looked at the speech in her hand, "What I am about to say is a fact that Mr. Zeng Yi did not say. My parents divorced when I was 9 years old. In the court's divorce decree, my mother was given custody of me, and Mr. Zeng Yi was supposed to pay my mother 3,000 yuan a month in child support until I turned 18. However, my mother has never received this payment."

“My mother has always had a hard life. She was my only support in life, but she also passed away from illness 8 years ago. This was a huge blow to me when I was a sophomore in college. The blow was not only emotional but also material. Because I lost my source of income, I had to apply for hardship grants from the school and work part-time during holidays to earn living expenses in order to support myself and complete my studies with great difficulty.”

“In these 19 years, my father has never appeared. He has never visited us, never helped me when I was in trouble, and never fulfilled his responsibilities as a father. Yesterday’s live broadcast was the first time I had seen him in all these years. Thinking about what I have experienced over the years, I am very sad.”

Su Xian choked up a little. She took a deep breath and continued, "I can't change the fact that he is my biological father. Even if he hasn't fulfilled his responsibilities as a father, I will take responsibility. I will pay for his medical expenses and handle the follow-up matters."

Thank you everyone.

Su Xian looked down at the audience, her eyes reddening. At this moment, tears were also a means of communication.

"Next, we will have a short Q&A session." Bai Lin, who had been standing to the side of the stage, began selecting reporters to answer questions.

The first reporter, barely having time to take the microphone, shouted, "Ms. Su, do you have any evidence that Mr. Zeng has never paid child support?"

“My mother’s passbook has been scanned. We have also asked bank staff to check her bank card transaction records and divorce decree. These will be made public for everyone to check.”

Another uproar erupted from the audience. Generally, when celebrities face a public relations crisis, they usually just issue a statement or a lawyer's letter. It's rare for Su Xian to hold a press conference to clarify things. Not only that, she also generously presented all the evidence. How could she do that if she didn't have a clear conscience?

"You said your father has never seen you. Is it possible that your mother didn't allow it?"

“In divorced families, the parents’ visitation rights are perfectly legitimate, and my mother wouldn’t stop him. Besides, he would have many ways to visit me if he wanted to. Another point is that he never appeared before or after my mother’s death.” Su Xuan’s answer was flawless.

Have you visited him in the hospital? Will you be with him until the very end?

"I'm sorry, this is a private matter, and I cannot answer it."

"What is your relationship with Liu Zichun?"

Bai Lin immediately interrupted the reporter, "Our press conference today is only for Mr. Zeng Yi..."

“It’s okay. I know everyone is curious about this, so I’ll take this opportunity to respond.” Su Xuan looked at the reporter. “Liu Zichun and I are just colleagues. That day was actually a dinner party for the cast and crew of ‘Snow Abyss’. It wasn’t just the two of us.”

"Okay, due to time constraints, the Q&A session is now over. Please stay tuned for further announcements from the studio. Thank you all for coming."

After Bai Lin finished her closing remarks, Su Xuan left with her under the escort of hotel security.

When the press conference was simultaneously broadcast live on Weibo, the number of online viewers quickly grew to one million, and within a few hours, the cumulative number of viewers even exceeded ten million.

The terms "Su Xian acknowledges his father", "Su Xian reveals his tragic childhood", and "Su Xian's evidence" topped the charts on various platforms, and were even interspersed with a couple of terms like "Su Xian's shirt" and "Su Xian's lipstick". This is, of course, one of the methods used by public relations companies to guide public attention.

In the trending discussion, screenshots of Su Xian's university classmates' replies were circulated. They mentioned that they helped Su Xian take notes and review during the time when Su Xian's mother was sick and passed away, and some classmates also testified that she worked during the holidays.

Su Xuan opened the university group chat on her phone. There were too many unread messages. The latest ones she saw were from her former roommates, urging everyone to speak up for her. She had lost touch with her former classmates in recent years. When PR suggested asking classmates to help her corroborate her story, she didn't even know how to ask, but they took the initiative to help her.

Su Xuan felt a warmth in her heart. She typed in the chat box, "Thank you everyone, thank you very much," and then clicked send.

Shortly afterward, someone who knew Zeng Yi came forward to reveal that he was addicted to gambling and that his current situation was entirely his own fault. Fewer and fewer people sympathized with him, while more and more people sided with Su Xian. Many netizens apologized for having criticized her; some legal experts also took advantage of the public's interest to analyze such incidents; and many netizens, after learning about Su Xian's experiences, felt a strong connection and shared their own unhappy childhoods in the comments.

Su Xian looked at it for a long time. She used to envy the warm families of her classmates. After her mother passed away, she also suffered from the hardships of life. But after several years of experience in the entertainment industry, she realized how precious the difficulties life had given her were. Without them, she wouldn't be the strong and independent person she is today.

Su Xian thought for a moment, then edited a message and asked Bai Lin to send it out using the studio's account.

"Life is sometimes like a cake, only this cake has both bitter and sweet sides. If you are happy now, then please cherish the people around you who make you happy. If you are going through pain, then please don't give up, there must be a lot of sweetness waiting for you on the cake."

Within half an hour of its release, the Weibo post garnered over 1 million likes. Later that day, another Weibo post by Holmes also trended on the hot search list.

The Weibo post was just a few words long: "Time may pass, but character will remain," accompanied by a promotional photo that Su Xian had previously taken for Holmes watches.

“The difference between them and Lan Zhi is obvious.” Bai Lin snorted coldly. “Speaking of which, this is a unilateral breach of contract by them. I need to talk to my lawyer and sue them when I sue Hei.”

Zhi Ran called at that moment, and Su Xuan answered.

"You've finally turned your phone on! I called you countless times yesterday, wanting to help but not knowing how. Now it's all over."

"Thank you, Zhiran."

"What? I didn't do anything."

Hearing a lot of noise coming from Zhi Ran's side, Su Xian asked, "What about you? What have you been busy with lately?"

"Don't even mention it. I started my career after taking your advice. I've been working in the mountains all day. It's exhausting. I'm talking all day long. There's just too much work on the film set."

"You're not thinking you should go back to being an actor, are you?"

"That's true, but I really can't make a living from this. Don't worry, I signed a bet with my parents this time. If I don't achieve results, I'll have to go on blind dates and get married."

Su Xian found it amusing that her parents had signed a betting agreement, but she still encouraged her, "Then you have to work hard, I don't want to be drinking your wedding wine so soon."

"Oh, when can I drink the matchmaker's wine between you and Brother Yuan?"

Su Xuan's face immediately turned red. "You're talking nonsense again."

"Tsk tsk tsk, I'm just teasing you. You can treat me to dinner another day. Oh, if only I were in Hong Kong, I could have this meal tonight."

"Even if you were here, you wouldn't get to eat it," Su Xuan said, pouring cold water on her enthusiasm. "I'm almost at the airport now."

"Oh, where are you going?"

"It's already been two days since we got back to the film studio."

"We definitely need to hurry, because what we're wasting is real money."

Su Xian couldn't help but tease, "Wow, Zhi Ran, you're starting to sound like a producer now."

"That's right." Zhi Ran said smugly. "Hey, someone's calling me, I'll talk to you later. I'll owe you that meal, remember to tell Yuan Ge."

"Okay, okay." Su Xuan hung up the phone.

It was late at night when Su Xian returned to the film studio. He lay on the bed and fell into a deep sleep, as if a huge weight had been lifted from his heart.