Chapter 99
As soon as Leon heard the words “Phoebe posted on Twitter,” he felt an inexplicable sense of dread. He took out his phone and opened Phoebe’s Twitter. Sure enough, his feeling wasn’t wrong. Phoebe wrote: [Welcome to my studio. Looking forward to working together! Handshake emoji] She tagged Gwen, Milton, and Quintus. The last two names weren’t much of a concern, but seeing the first person Phoebe tagged gave Leon an overwhelming sense of frustration.
He snapped, “She definitely did it on purpose. I bet she had been waiting for the right moment to post that.” He had instructed his team to post at 10:00 am sharp. Typically, they’d start preparing three or four minutes in advance, post something small as a lead-in, and then have a big influencer drop the main reveal on Twitter. Therefore, Phoebe posted five minutes early, perfectly timing her post right before theirs.
The assistant glanced at Leon’s unpleasant expression. “Yeah, there’s no way this was just a coincidence.” Phoebe had already pulled several stunts targeting Jenkins Entertainment in the past. This time, it only proved that Phoebe was more skillful, predicting Leon’s next move before he even made it.
Of course, the assistant wasn’t about to say that out loud. But even without him saying it, Leon knew. Phoebe had figured out his timing habits. Not only that, she had already anticipated they’d use Gwen to stir up a storm.
Leon took a deep breath. “Great, just great! She opened her studio just to go against us.” He sneered. “She really is a Jenkins, sharp as ever.”
The assistant couldn’t help thinking, ‘Didn’t you just call your brother a dimwit yesterday? So maybe being sharp has nothing to do with being a Jenkins.’ If it weren’t for being on opposite sides, the assistant might’ve even admired Phoebe. After all, there was no one else who could frustrate Leon like…
The assistant asked, “Mr. Jenkins, since we can’t leak it ourselves now, are we still pushing the agenda?” The team was still waiting for an answer. Leon thought for a moment. “Yes, we’ll push it. I don’t believe she has any solid evidence that can flip things in Gwen’s favor. I suspect she’ll try some nonsense like horoscopes to spin things.”
He ordered, “Keep attacking, make sure Gwen has no chance of making a comeback.” Once he had pushed someone down, the last thing he wanted was for them to make a comeback. If Gwen managed a revival in the entertainment industry, it would mean Leon’s two cash cows would be rendered useless. He couldn’t allow that. The assistant cautiously asked, “And what about Phoebe?”
Leon glanced at him. “Same as always.” The assistant said, “Understood. Should we increase the pressure a bit?” Leon nodded. “Do it. Push the narrative that Phoebe is trying to use horoscopes and other bullshit to clean up Gwen’s image. Tell everyone not to believe…”
He unerringly continued, “She can predict my moves, but I can outmaneuver her predictions too.” Hearing Leon’s confidence, the assistant finally felt relieved. The assistant was responsible for destroying many pieces of evidence in favor of Gwen, making sure they couldn’t be recovered by any means. He also didn’t believe Phoebe or her team could find a way to retrieve them.
Before, the assistant was curious and puzzled about how Phoebe planned to turn things around. Now, Leon’s words made everything clear. It turned out experience did trump all. This time, Phoebe had hit a wall.
Chapter 99
The assistant gave the order to skip their previous leak plans and proceed with the next phase. Phoebe was very popular, so when she posted on Twitter, it attracted a lot of attention. Seeing the three people she signed to her studio left many in the industry stunned. Milton and Quintus didn’t have many scandals and had only seen brief moments of fame before fading away, so no one paid much attention to them. But signing Gwen really surprised everyone. They all thought Phoebe was joking.
Gwen had been a major star, but she was also the most disgraced A-list actress, whose downfall was well-documented. A comeback for her seemed almost impossible. They were curious about how Phoebe would spin this. They suspected she planned to whitewash Gwen’s image or push her down the route of “scandalous celebrity.” Most assumed it would be the latter.
Additionally, Milton and Quintus had been out of the spotlight for so long. Reviving their careers would be difficult too. They thought Phoebe was out of her mind. Even scouting three new talents would have been easier than trying to rehabilitate these three. But soon, everyone noticed one thing in common. All three had been targets of Jenkins Entertainment, suppressed or blacklisted.
So, they thought Phoebe was deliberately challenging Jenkins Entertainment. However, there didn’t seem to be any chance of winning this fight. No one could understand what Phoebe was doing, and most thought she was making a huge mistake. They figured she had lost her mind. They were certain that this head-on clash with Jenkins Entertainment would result in Phoebe losing.
And after taking such a bold stand against Jenkins Entertainment, the Jenkins brothers would not let her off the hook. Sure enough, the online narrative quickly shifted. Gwen and the other two all posted on Twitter, expressing how happy they were to join Phoebe’s studio and looked forward to working together. However, the comments beneath their posts were flooded with insults.
Gwen got it the worst. Besides the wave of paid trolls stirring the pot, fans of Gwen’s ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend also poured in to attack her. Haters and others who disliked Gwen chimed in too, flooding her post with all kinds of insults. The general sentiment was that, as a despicable homewrecker, Gwen was a terrible role model and had no right to remain a public figure. The overwhelming message was that she should get out of the entertainment industry.
“Gwen gets out of the entertainment industry” became a trending topic. Anyone in the know could tell that Jenkins Entertainment was behind this. Meanwhile, Leon’s team decided it was time to drop their bombshell. It was about Phoebe having secured a guest role for Gwen on an upcoming show.
Just as they were about to release the prepared content, Phoebe beat them to the punch by posting another tweet. Phoebe [Thank you, Ms. Davis, for giving Gwen this opportunity. Looking forward to working together!] She tagged Adriana from Monarch Entertainment.
Jenkins Entertainment’s PR team was frustrated. Phoebe had timed it perfectly to release her post again. All the things they had spent late nights preparing, aside from the troll army’s efforts, had just been preemptively revealed by Phoebe herself. They didn’t know what they were supposed to do now. They felt like all the time and effort they’d wasted could’ve been avoided if they had known Phoebe’d beat them to it.
In his office, Leon kept checking Twitter and the trending topics. When he saw Phoebe once again perfectly timing her reveal, he couldn’t hold back and threw his phone in frustration. Cillie walked in right as Leon lost it and threw the phone, which landed by Ollie’s feet, startling him. He jacked it up and checked if it was broken. It wasn’t.
Walking over, Ollie placed the phone back on Leon’s desk. “This is the first time I’ve seen you lose control like this.” Leon’s eyes were filled with anger. “It’s all Phoebe’s fault.”
Chapter 99
Ollie was stunned for a moment. “What did she do this time?” He had only seen Phoebe’s first tweet of the day. Leon grabbed his phone from the desk and opened Twitter. “See for yourself.” Ollie looked through the posts and suddenly fell silent.
After a while, he finally said, “I told you before, her signing Gwen was never going to be that simple. She predicted everything you were going to do and deliberately posted at just the right moment.” Posting at the perfect time was a blatant provocation. This was Phoebe’s way of openly mocking Leon, showing him she had already figured out and predicted his every move, rendering all his preparations pointless.
At that moment, Ollie suddenly understood why Leon was so furious. Their younger sister really knew how to push buttons. Leon said furiously, “Let her enjoy this for now. Predicting my next moves wasn’t hard. I can predict her moves too. Don’t worry, I’ll turn the tables.”