Brother Dao Took the Entertainment Industry by Storm, Fans Beg Me Not to Kill Anymore-Chapter 425: Mrs. Marshall and Liu Rulan

Actually, it wasn't just Xie Jingshi who was surprised; Xiao He himself hadn't expected it either. "It's mainly because everyone on the production team was really on the ball and provided a lot of orders."

Even the most cold-hearted person would soften their stance upon seeing such a large order, let alone Director Zhuang, who later also ordered a batch of custom perfumes to send back as employee benefits.

Such a massive order was something Madame Marchelle definitely couldn't handle by herself; she would have to distribute it to other shops later.

So in the end, it was a case of being indebted to others' generosity, leading to a win-win cooperation.

"You have a point. So where is the lady's shop located? I'll have my assistant go buy some later."

Xiao He took out his phone and promptly sent the address to Xie Jingshi.

At that moment, his assistant, Xiao Chen, came running over excitedly. "Brother Xiao, Brother Xiao! The competition over there has started. Look at the judging panel over there. Isn't that Madame Marchelle sitting right in the middle?"

Xiao He was taken aback for a moment. Following Xiao Chen's lead, he moved his gaze, weaving it through the complex arrangement of stalls, finally landing on the activity area over there.

Sure enough, that familiar elderly lady was now sitting on the judging panel, watching the perfumery contestants below with a dignified posture. And behind her, surprisingly, sat Liu Rulan.

Since the competition wasn't a strictly formal one, Madame Marchelle wasn't fixated on the contestants' every move. Instead, she would turn around from time to time to chat with Liu Rulan. It seemed the two of them were really getting along very well.

This time, Xiao He was genuinely a bit shocked.

Xie Jingshi had also heard Xiao Chen's words and glanced in that direction. He clicked his tongue. "Looks like our assumptions were too conservative. The other party's background is bigger than we imagined. Didn't your agent tell you?"

Xiao He shook his head. "Sister Liu has her own hobbies. It's rare for her to have more opportunities to engage with them. I don't need to drag her into asking all sorts of questions."

Liu Rulan was indeed quite interested in perfume. It was said she even had a special room at home for storing perfumes. So, Xiao He simply thought Liu Rulan liked perfume and enjoyed chatting with Madame Marchelle.

Xie Jingshi gave Xiao He a meaningful look and said with considerable emotion, "Then your agent is quite thoughtful."

Xiao He wasn't stupid. He understood the implication in Xie Jingshi's words, frowned, and then shook his head. "It's not that serious."

Whether Sister Liu genuinely liked perfume and that's why she interacted with Madame Marchelle, or she used perfume as a means to interact with Madame Marchelle, Xiao He felt this wasn't an issue worth delving into deeply.

With sincerity exchanged for sincerity, their relationship could be so harmonious.

That was enough.

Xie Jingshi fell silent for a moment and didn't say anything more.

However, among the crowd outside, someone cast a scrutinizing gaze upon Xiao He.

Xiao He frowned, turned to look, and his gaze precisely locked on.

— At the periphery of the square, a tall, thin, unfamiliar Asian man wearing glasses was pointing his phone at him.

Xiao He felt a bit strange inside.

Noticing Xiao He's gaze, the other party immediately lowered his phone, his eyes somewhat evasive, seemingly not expecting Xiao He to be so sharp. He then turned and slipped into the crowd, disappearing without a trace.

Xiao He stood in place, lost in thought.

"What's wrong?"

Xie Jingshi inquired.

"Nothing."

Xiao He turned back and smiled at Xie Jingshi. "Probably a fan or paparazzi. There are quite a lot of people here; it's hard to tell."

"Indeed."

Xie Jingshi looked at the surrounding crowd and nodded.

After this little interlude, the filming of *The Phantom Thief Alliance 2* officially began.

-

Lu Xiaokong and Shi Ji took advantage of the Grasse festival activities to come here to investigate and actually managed to get a lead from a portly, unscrupulous old merchant.

Because of this, Shi Ji sneezed the whole way.

Lu Xiaokong was speechless. "Why didn't you say you had pollen allergies earlier!"

Shi Ji, however, remained stubborn. "I never have pollen allergies! It must be that they use too much industrial fragrance, all fake goods!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Shi Ji sneezed again.

But his words gave Lu Xiaokong a new inspiration. "Industrial fragrance... fake goods..."

Immediately, Lu Xiaokong slapped his hand. "Right, how come I didn't think of that!"

"Achoo—"

Shi Ji sneezed again.

"Come on, let's go back and find that hacker!"

Lu Xiaokong immediately turned and started walking back.

"Hey, hey, achoo— What exactly did you think of, achoo—"

Shi Ji sneezed several more times in a row and then rubbed his nose.

His gaze swept over the nearby stalls, and he muttered in confusion, "That's strange. Could I really have pollen allergies?"

"Achoo—"

-

Xie Jingshi and the others were filming, while Liu Rulan, having come over from the activity venue, stood next to Xiao He.

Xiao He glanced at Liu Rulan but didn't ask her about Madame Marchelle. Instead, he inquired, "Sister Liu, there haven't been any major changes in domestic public opinion recently, right?"

"Hmm? No."

Liu Rulan thought for a moment, then looked at Xiao He. "What's wrong? Did you notice something unusual?"

Xiao He said honestly, "Then it might be me overthinking. I just saw a guy filming me earlier, and I had a bad feeling about it."

Liu Rulan's gaze immediately swept toward the periphery.

Since most of the filming locations for the production team were outdoors, there had been more or less curious glances from nearby recently. This festival activity was also one of the local important characteristic events, so there were especially many travelers coming and going. Filming here inevitably attracted attention from some people.

With the scene crowded and eyes everywhere, Liu Rulan was surprised by Xiao He's sharpness.

"Bad feeling? Domestic paparazzi? Stalker fans? Or anti-fans?"

"Just a feeling." Xiao He told the truth. "I have no proof, and the other party didn't seem to be Chinese."

Actually, Asian appearances are quite similar, but upon closer inspection, there are still some differences, especially in the surrounding aura, trendy hairstyles and attire, even the eyes—they're not quite the same.

For example, with photos of celebrities from different Asian countries, even if you're not a fan, just a casual observer, you can often tell at a glance which country's celebrity is which. It really is just a feeling.

Xiao He couldn't point to anything specific to substantiate it; it was purely intuition.

But Xiao He didn't understand.

Liu Rulan didn't understand either. "Where did you provoke this from?"

As a manager who had been handling follow-up matters for her artist for years, she could now accept the troublesome incidents that popped up for her artist quite well.

But this time, she didn't know where Xiao He had stirred this up from; it was truly very strange.

Xiao He: "...I don't know either."

You're asking me? Who should I ask?

Xiao He himself was baffled!

Liu Rulan stared at Xiao He, knowing he wasn't someone who spoke without basis. Since he said so, there must be a problem.

After thinking for a moment, she comforted him, "Don't worry about this matter. I'll have the domestic team keep an eye on the situation."

-

Meanwhile, back in China, Xiao Zhou from operations noticed something unusual.

"What's up?"

A colleague from operations asked casually.

"It seems the heat for Brother Xiao's *Twelve Mirrors* has gone down."

Xiao Zhou said, looking rather troubled while scrolling through the backend data of the video.

Logically, the performance of *Twelve Mirrors* should align more with the tastes of overseas viewers. Recently, discussions about Xiao He on foreign websites had indeed increased a lot. The video's traffic had remained high, and many foreign fans had become fans of Xiao He because of this video.

But starting today, the traffic for Brother Xiao's video wasn't as good as the past few days.

This puzzled Xiao Zhou.

"It's normal. Things like traffic rise and fall; no one can say for sure. Perhaps something more attention-grabbing happened, so people aren't focusing here anymore. Don't worry too much."

An older operations colleague patted Xiao Zhou on the shoulder.

"Alright, it's perfect timing. Manager Liu asked us to reduce those meme-like comment trends on foreign websites. Now that the traffic has gone down, we can clean up the comment section at just the right time."

Regarding the operation of foreign website accounts, Linghui Entertainment didn't choose to outsource but directly assigned this work to the Operations Department. However, everyone had relatively little contact with foreign websites, so while valuing the development of these accounts, they still had many things to explore and figure out.

Xiao Zhou indeed didn't understand much about foreign traffic operation models, so she didn't dwell on it and started burying herself in handling her work.

And on foreign websites, the hashtags related to Xiao He's *Twelve Mirrors* continued to quietly drop.