When Ding Ze heard the words "Premium Class," he suddenly fell off his chair, despite having been on high alert, prepared for the first PR crisis since signing the contract.
On the other end of the phone, Gu Ran yawned nonchalantly.
Ding Ze struggled to pull himself up from the floor, gripping the edge of his desk. "You're saying the luxury car in the photo was just a Premium Class ride-hailing car? The driver was a chauffeur?"
Gu Ran sounded confused. "Is that not allowed?"
Ding Ze: "..."
Allowed? Hell yeah, it’s allowed.
No one could have expected that the hottest female streamer would take a Premium Class ride-hailing car when going out—not just today, but clearly, even the person who took that photo hadn’t anticipated it.
So this was also a possibility.
Ding Ze let out a long sigh of relief and sent Gu Ran the links to the exposé post and several related threads. "The company is also investigating who posted this. Slandering the top female streamer is one thing, but daring to drag the CEO of Xinbo into it? I was worried you actually had some inappropriate intentions toward him, making it hard to explain later. Now I’m relieved."
Gu Ran finally woke up fully: "..."
She clicked on the links Ding Ze sent her, and the more she read, the darker her expression became. By the time the photo of her getting into the luxury car surfaced, the rumors had already spiraled out of control.
The claims were so vivid and detailed, as if the posters had personally witnessed her throwing herself at Xinbo’s executives at the Cat’s Paw headquarters or engaging in some unspeakable adult transaction with the CEO in the car to climb the social ladder. The sheer audacity left other readers stunned.
Gu Ran cursed under her breath, then saw countless private messages flooding her Cat’s Paw streamer inbox, calling her a gold-digger, a hypocrite, and celebrating that her "true colors" had finally been exposed.
Before, they had mocked her, attacked her for being bad at games, and tried to sabotage her gaming sponsorships. But now, based on nothing but a rumor and a single photo, they were spinning the most disgusting kind of slander—sexual rumors.
She had just firmly rejected Ji Shiyu’s offer to drive her home in the elevator, and now they were spreading lies about her getting into Xinbo’s CEO’s car? This was nothing short of contempt and humiliation.
Fuming like a pufferfish, Gu Ran stormed into the bathroom, quickly washed her face, brushed her teeth, and five minutes later, tied her hair back with a bunny hairband. Still in her pajamas, her face bare without even a drop of moisturizer, she plopped down in her usual streaming seat.
Gu Ran turned on her equipment and went live.
Even though it wasn’t her usual streaming time and she hadn’t given any prior notice, within half a minute, tens of thousands of viewers flooded in.
[Whoa, why’s she streaming now?]
[Damn, is she about to address the rumors?]
[She looks like she just woke up.]
[This is the first time I’ve seen a streamer go live looking like this. Legendary.]
Gu Ran glanced at the skyrocketing viewer count in the top-right corner but stayed silent, deliberately waiting a few minutes. As expected, once the numbers swelled, the trolls emerged:
[You already got in the car, stop pretending to be virtuous. Acting all high and mighty while rejecting big tips—disgusting.]
[If some celebrities had half your acting skills, we wouldn’t have so many terrible dramas.]
[So satisfying to see your true face exposed. Who wants to be a streamer? You just want to be some rich guy’s third or fourth concubine.]
[Cat got your tongue? Too ashamed to speak?]
Though her loyal fans, the "Little Fishies," were spamming supportive messages, the snide comments still seeped through.
When Gu Ran felt the moment was right, she took a deep breath.
Then, in the midst of the "Why aren’t you saying anything?" taunts, came a sharp, indignant retort: "Do some of you just have a screw loose?"
The sudden outburst stunned everyone.
On screen, the streamer—who clearly hadn’t even bothered to comb her hair after washing her face—pulled out her phone, swiped a few times, and held it up to the camera.
"Have none of you ever taken a ride-hailing car before? Have you never seen the option for ‘Premium Class’?"
Gu Ran pointed at her ride-hailing history and read aloud: "Alright, listen up. Date: X month XX day—the same day Xinbo signed the acquisition deal with Cat’s Paw. Cat’s Paw posted about it on Weibo, and the news outlets reported the time. You can check it yourself."
"Pick-up time: XX:XX. About twenty minutes after the signing ceremony ended. I didn’t even stay for lunch—just went downstairs to hail a ride home. It was hot, and I didn’t want to wait, so I chose a Premium Class car for faster service. I was happy when such a nice car showed up. But I guess some people are so filthy-minded they see filth everywhere."
"Still don’t believe me? Fine. I’ll even dig up what I ordered for lunch that day."
The furious streamer began scrolling through her food delivery records live on stream, muttering, "I’m so mad I could grow breast lumps. Woken up early by this nonsense. ‘Oh no, the female streamer got into a luxury car—must be some shady deal!’ The way they describe it, you’d think they were hiding under the wheels writing a novel. Here—look!"
A screenshot of her food order appeared on screen:
Spicy crayfish (single portion) x1, rice x1, cola x1.
The timing matched perfectly—about an hour after her ride.
After letting everyone examine the proof, Gu Ran huffed and put her phone away.
But some still refused to back down: [What about the part where you threw yourself at him?]
Gu Ran, who had started to calm down after presenting her evidence, spun in her chair and nearly exploded again. "Seriously, some of you are just mentally unwell."
"What woman hasn’t stumbled in heels before? If you trip, wouldn’t any decent person nearby reach out to steady you? Or do you want me to faceplant on the floor while Xinbo’s CEO rolls his eyes and kicks me for good measure? Would that make you happy?"
By the time she ranted, "Do you really need the CEO to roll his eyes and kick me for you to be satisfied?" the entire chat was in stitches.
[HAHAHAHA I’ve never seen Ranran this worked up before!]
[Any girl would lose it over rumors like this. The creeps who spread this garbage should rot.]
[She didn’t even brush her hair before going live—she’s clearly fuming.]
[Damn, why is she so cute even when she’s raging?]
[LMAO the haters’ faces must be stinging from all that slapping.]
[I’ve gotten luxury cars on ride-hailing apps too—once a Porsche. The driver said the fare didn’t even cover gas, but he just didn’t want such a nice car sitting idle.]
[Our Ranran’s moving up in the world! Even her ride-hailing cars are Premium Class now! proud chest bump]
【Off topic, but is that Chen’s Spicy Crayfish really that good? Seems like Ranran orders it a lot—she’s even posted about it before.】
【+1, I also feel like that crayfish looks delicious.】
After talking nonstop, Gu Ran’s throat felt dry. She took a sip of water and noticed her impromptu livestream had somehow turned into a food recommendation session about which place served the best crayfish.
A livestream launched without any prior announcement in the morning had somehow matched the popularity of her usual nightly broadcasts.
Gu Ran had said enough. She reached out and turned off the camera. “Alright, that’s all for this matter. I’m going to have breakfast now. Goodbye, everyone. Ending the stream.”
After breakfast, she sat in her chair, fanning herself with her hand, and saw clips of her livestream already spreading across social media. Not only were the numbers explosive, but netizens had also given her various nicknames:
“The ultimate ‘fishing’ streamer wakes up to debunk rumors live—luxury car exposed as premium ride-hailing service. The entire thing is so hilarious I’m wheezing.”
“Sensational streamer debunks rumors in real time. You thought she got into a sugar daddy’s luxury car? Turns out it was just a premium ride-hailing service.”
Countless people found the “No. 1 Beauty of Cat Paw” absolutely adorable when she puffed up like an angry pufferfish to refute the rumors. Who would’ve thought that simply taking a premium ride-hailing service could be twisted into a scandal? While they felt sorry for her, they also found her debunking process hilarious. Their thoughts were all “poor girl,” but their comments said:
“Okay, this is kinda savage, but I lowkey want something else to happen just so she’ll come out and debunk it again!”
Gu Ran: “…?”
Are these people insane?!
A while later, Ding Ze called, saying he’d identified the person who took the photos and made the post.
It was an intern at Cat Paw who had recently finished their internship. A check of their social media revealed they were a hardcore fan of Meng Miaomiao and had spent a lot of money on her.
Ding Ze: “Cat Paw will notify HR across the industry. No company will want to hire this kind of person in the future.”
Gu Ran gave a quiet “Mm.”
Ding Ze: “Honestly, I still suspect Wu Zhen.” (Wu Zhen was Meng Miaomiao’s agent.)
“Even though we haven’t found any connection between this intern and her, my gut says an intern wouldn’t be this savvy. Look at that post—from the explosive content to the timing of releasing the photos, every step was calculated to maximize outrage.”
Gu Ran let out a cold laugh. “Instead of managing her own streamer, she’s obsessed with sabotaging others. Good thing I walk the straight path—I’m not afraid of shadows.”
Ding Ze chuckled, then remembered Gu Ran’s furious livestream and couldn’t help asking, “You were in such a hurry to debunk it earlier… Aren’t you worried the CEO might be upset if he sees it?”
“Also, I can’t shake the feeling that… you seem kind of disgusted by him?”
Gu Ran paused, then replied matter-of-factly, “Why would he be upset? Did I say anything bad about him? I was only scolding those rumor-mongers the whole time.”
“A big-shot CEO wouldn’t want to be tied to some streamer like me, right? I cleared things up fast without riding on his status or clout—he should be pleased.”
Ding Ze nodded. “Fair point.”
“But next time something like this happens, don’t act so impulsively. Check with the company before clarifying, in case you accidentally say something that could be twisted.”
Gu Ran: “Oh.”
Ding Ze: “Uh, can I ask you something personal?”
Gu Ran: “What?”
Ding Ze sounded puzzled. “You’re single, right? Since even the CEO doesn’t interest you, I’m kinda curious what kind of guy could actually catch your eye.”
“Have you ever been in love? Or liked someone?”
Gu Ran went quiet for a few seconds before answering bluntly, “Yeah.”
“He didn’t like me back, cut off my credit card, so I left and started earning my own money.”
Ding Ze's brain short-circuited at the sheer amount of information in her reply.
It lined up with what he’d always guessed—Gu Ran used to be a caged canary, one day abandoned by her owner. The canary, having never known the harsh world outside the cage, couldn’t go back and had to clumsily learn how to survive on her own.
Ding Ze had seen plenty of internet celebrities and streamers, and while he had never met a kept woman before, he had always felt a bit of disdain toward the idea.
Until he met Gu Ran and found his assumptions shaken.
A girl this pretty, this adorable, this effortlessly charming—a literal fishing god reincarnated, cute and spicy in equal measure—who wouldn’t fall for her? Who wouldn’t want to spoil her? And yet someone actually didn’t like her? Someone actually refused to take care of her?! Someone wasn’t fighting for the chance?!
What kind of twisted logic was that?
Ding Ze mentally cursed the guy out:
What an absolute idiot.
