The Wife Is A Superstar 4

Chapter 671 - Money Over Love

The first article was about the Mao family providing financial assistance to Hwi so that he could purchase 5% Kim Industries shares under his name to add to the 2.5% he already owned before for a total of 7.5% shares. This was the same shares that Qiao Yu failed to purchase for Jennie due to the seller's prejudice against her caused by her past reputation as a good-for-nothing, self-important, spoiled brat.

The article also implied that the real reason Hwi and Yeon separated was not because she cheated on him with Mingyu but because he wanted more Kim Industries shares and the Mao family could give it to him. His final decision was to abandon Yeon and essentially sell himself  in exchange for the 5% shares.

Donghwi was the one who chose money over love, not Yeon.

After skimming through the article, Jennie and Lisa clicked on the next one. It was a tabloid story consisting primarily of intimate still photos of Donghwi and Mao Qiu taken from property surveillance cameras from cafés, restaurants, parking lots, and most damning of all, hotels.

The date stamps on some of the still photos were from when Donghwi and Yeon were still engaged. Granted, those photos were from cafés and restaurants, not hotels, so there was no concrete proof at this point that the two had sexual relations, but it was already apparent that Mao Qiu was already acting clingy to Hwi even then. She could be seen always hugging his arm and pressing her watermelon-sized plastic boobs to his side. Hwi's expression didn't show any emotion but it was a fact that he allowed the woman to press herself against him in an intimate manner when he was still engaged to another woman during that time.

These photos were a huge contrast to the evidence Mingyu provided earlier where it showed in the hospital and mall surveillance videos that he and Yeon kept an appropriate distance from each other at all times.

The other photos of Hwi and Mao Qiu
were taken after he and Yeon separated. He was already engaged to Mao Qiu at this point. They were shown engaging in intimate acts such as hugging and kissing at hotel lobbies and hallways and even parking lots. The tabloid promised that there more scandalous photos but they were unable to post online because they couldn't pass censorship rules. This statement only fired up the readers' imaginations as to what kind of scandalous photos were not shown.

Jennie reached over and scrolled down to the bottom of the story for the readers' comments. As expected, the majority was condemning Hwi.

"Ah, they're from the Slippers Army," Jennie mumbled after seeing a number of mighty slipper emojis in the comments.

Louis had informed her a few days ago that Zhou Mei (CaptainBlackStar) planned on organizing a group, mostly from the Slippers Army, to head to the courthouse in order to support Yeon, who the Black Stars remembered as Jennie's former bodyguard and now friend. And also, they planned to attack Hwi by throwing stinky mighty slippers at him, especially after the audio and video evidence of him being violent towards Hoyeon in front of their son was revealed.

Fortunately, Madam Wan (MrsLovePhantom) and her friends, the other posh ladies (JJNumbers1-3Fan) managed to stop Zhou Mei in time. They reasoned that it wouldn't be good for Jennie's image if her official fan club, the Black Stars, got involved in the custody case which was already receiving wide media coverage.

Jennie was relieved upon hearing about it and silently thanked Madam Wan and the other madams. However, it wasn't because she worried about her image but because she didn't want her fans to get into trouble with the law, especially because the group originally planned on attacking Hwi in front of the courthouse.

Back to the present, she and Lisa continued reading the other news articles and the readers' comments. Public opinion was finally shifting to favour Yeon and Mingyu. People began drawing their own conclusions with the most popular one being that Hwi made the fake cheating allegations against Yeon and Mingyu in order to hide his own affair with his current fiancée, Mao Qiu.

It could be seen that Mingyu's actions was already beginning to bear fruit. Although public opinion was generally still mixed at this point, those who felt confused about who to believe were leaning more towards Mingyu because first of all, he looked gentle and trustworthy. Allowing himself to be interviewed and telling his own side of the story with his own voice on TV was working wonders.

Second of all, the fact that he was an agricultural tycoon and was actually wealthier and more influential than Deputy CFO Donghwi and yet still acted polite and humble won him a lot of brownie points from the viewers. He wasn't flashy at all and looked like a regular person. If the news didn't reveal that he was actually rich, then the people wouldn't even know that he was the one producing the food they were eating every single day.

Third of all, a few shooting athletes, both active and retired, came forward to voice out their support for him. Their appearance prompted some to dig up Mingyu's past achievements as a pro shooting athlete who won some national competitions before. If he didn't retire in order to focus on his agricultural business, he would've competed in the Olympics and perhaps even brought honour to the country. Right now, he was a licenced coach who sometimes mentored young aspiring shooting athletes. His students and their parents also stepped forward to vouch for his good moral character.

His name and reputation which were dragged through the mud during the cheating allegations were quickly becoming squeaky clean again. In extension, Hoyeon's own name and reputation were also undergoing the same cleansing.

All thanks to Mingyu.