Overprotected By My Tsundere CEO

Chapter 1010 - 693: Best Supporting Actress Award [03] Luna Durant Stirring Up Trouble

"This is the ’not bad’ business you were talking about?"

Hearing that, Henry Chapman looked up at her.

He gave a faint "yeah."

Strolling over, Nora Scott sat down beside him. She had just opened her mouth to ask when there was a knock at the door and a server walked in, respectfully handing a menu to Nora.

"What’s going on with the barbecue place?" Nora took the menu and raised a brow. "When it first opened, business was at least decent, wasn’t it?"

Aside from the chefs Henry had carefully picked out, all the staff here came from Virtue Retreat.

Naturally, they were all "old acquaintances" with Nora.

"Right."

The server nodded, wiped at the sweat on his forehead, cast a glance at Henry, and sighed.

Seeing the "there’s a story" look on his face, Nora grew interested. "Go on."

"A new K‑BBQ place opened across the street. Business is okay, supposedly the food’s pretty good." The server rubbed his hands together, glanced at Henry again, then let out a heavy sigh. "Then Mr. Chapman went over to eat a meal, to try the taste, and someone took photos and posted them online."

"..."

The server didn’t need to spell out the rest; Nora could already piece it together.

Henry went to that place for a ’site inspection,’ got photographed, and the photos hit the internet—of course it caused a sensation. That drew hordes of customers flooding over there, and as the place’s popularity skyrocketed, it naturally stole away this restaurant’s original clientele... triggering a vicious cycle on this side.

"Now the place across the street is a bona fide internet-famous store." The server said, "Basically, they’ve taken away half the street’s business. The few customers we do still have only come because the other side is full and they can’t be bothered to wait."

Nora chuckled.

"Chapman, impressive." Tilting her head, Nora gave Henry a teasing look. "So generous of you, going over there to do free promo for them."

Henry shot her a cool glance.

"’The barbecue place personally visited by Actor Chapman,’ ’Just how delicious is it to attract Actor Chapman...’" Nora did a quick search on her phone, narrowed her eyes, and the smile at the corner of her lips deepened. "The owner’s pretty smart, using your photos for a big publicity push—their Weibo followers have already passed a million."

She flicked another look at Henry. "Actor Chapman’s own barbecue joint getting totally crushed by the barbecue place Actor Chapman once visited... what’s Actor Chapman feeling right now?"

"..." Henry’s mouth twitched; he felt like this short trip had made her tongue even sharper. "Are you going to eat or not?"

Snapping the menu shut, Nora said with great interest, "I want to go eat next door."

"It’s not good." Henry frowned.

Nora drawled, "A barbecue place made famous by Actor Chapman—I want to give it a try."

"..."

"Come with me."

"No." Henry’s tone was cold.

Rubbing her chin with a finger, Nora suddenly thought of something. "Tell me, if photos of me eating barbecue in your place get out, could that beat the internet-famous shop across the street?"

"..."

Honestly, I really don’t want to compete with you on traffic.

Fortunately, Nora wasn’t someone who acted entirely on impulse. She didn’t actually drag Henry across the street. Instead, she ordered a big pile of skewers right here and ate with Henry in the private room.

—She was in charge of eating; Henry was in charge of grilling.

Enjoying Henry’s attentive service, Nora took the opportunity to worry about his business for him. "You’re just going to let things stay this dead?"

"We’ll see."

Henry wasn’t particularly bothered.

If he wanted to rely on the star effect, he would’ve publicly claimed the place as his ages ago. But he didn’t want to mix the two things together. A barbecue restaurant should just be a barbecue restaurant; filming should be done properly as filming. Besides, he’d opened the restaurant mainly for fun to begin with. As long as he himself was happy with the food, that was enough.

"I actually have an idea." Nora propped her chin on one hand, stirring the dipping sauce with her chopsticks. "But we’ll have to wait until after the voting for ’Twelve’ ends."

"Hm?"

"You’ll find out when the time comes."

Nora smiled.

For the ’Twelve’ voting, Pedro Langley had been holding back from going public with her. Pedro went to such lengths to prove her acting skills; of course she had to cooperate, and not cause any trouble during this period.

Ideally, she shouldn’t even appear on the trending searches.

That would just invite drama.

Henry glanced at her without saying anything.

*

Nora had no intention of stirring up trouble.

The problem was that "trouble" just had to come knocking on her door.

Right when Nora’s vote count for Best Supporting Actress in ’Twelve’ was leaving all the others in the dust, a piece of news suddenly broke about Luna Durant—

Luna Durant posted a Weibo.

In a very veiled way, she accused Nora of using connections to suppress her, destroying her family, and ruining her whole life.

The Weibo went out at ten at night. At the time, aside from her own fans, passersby and Nora’s fans didn’t take it seriously; there were even people mocking her for "not being able to accept losing."

But four hours later, another piece of news came out, which sent that Weibo shooting to the top of the hot list and straight-up blowing up.

—After posting the Weibo, Luna Durant swallowed a large amount of sleeping pills. Her agent discovered her in time and rushed her to the hospital, and she’d already been successfully resuscitated.

With that, public opinion swung completely around.

[Could it be that what Luna Durant said is actually true?]

[@Nora Scott @Zero come out and explain yourselves!]

[Nora is vicious and ruthless! If she hadn’t forced her into a corner, why would Luna Durant choose to take sleeping pills!]

[Kneeling and begging the police to investigate thoroughly and give the public the truth! Don’t let any evildoer off the hook!]

[Nora’s so high and mighty now. With her clout, dealing with a Luna Durant is nothing. Hah, you can’t even say a single bad word about Nora online now—that’s capital controlling public opinion. And don’t talk to me about ’Twelve’’s voting being fair and transparent; there’s definitely water in there.]

...