Chapter 22

During the course of filming, Lin Shanshan wanted to slap her again but Shi Sheng managed to dodge every single time. After a few rounds of slapping air, the director started roaring again. This time Lin Shanshan was being scolded along with Shi Sheng. Shi Sheng wasn’t afraid of being scolded, she just treated it like the director was farting.

“Do you people still want to film or not?! At this rate, even if we film till tomorrow this scene isn’t going to pass!!!”

The flames of rage were burning in Lin Shanshan’s chest. She wanted Jiang Wan to pay!

When they finally passed the scene after much effort, Lin Shanshan tailed Shi Sheng after seeing her head to the restrooms and gave a forceful push to Shi Sheng from behind.

“Jiang Wan, you did it on purpose didn’t you!”

Shi Sheng managed to catch herself on the sink so she didn’t fall. Her gaze hardened as she turned around and flung a slap over. “I’m returning that slap to you.”

That slap bewildered Lin Shanshan who only reacted after a few seconds. She charged over to Shi Sheng aggressively, attempting to pull on her hair.

Shi Sheng had long since been prepared for her to make a counterattack. She avoided Lin Shanshan’s hand and ducked behind her, shoving her from behind before swiftly leaving the restroom. There wasn’t much cover at the entrance of the restroom so Lin Shanshan didn’t dare to show herself outside while her image was in shambles. Shi Sheng, on the other hand, practically swaggered out.

When Lin Shanshan had finally managed to get herself looking respectable she came out of the restroom. However, Shi Sheng was nowhere to be seen. Lin Shanshan nearly exploded from rage.

Though once she had calmed down she realised something was off. Jiang Wan was cowardly and timid; Lin Shanshan had bullied her before and she hadn’t so much as made a peep, so why had she suddenly burst out now?

……

Once she had returned that slap, Shi Sheng escaped without informing anyone when no one was looking. ‘If that director is upset about it he can always go find the agent Xi Mo arranged for me. I’m^(bbb) not going to stay here any longer! Since Xi Mo wants to use me then I’ll use him too. I won’t be like Jiang Wan that dummy.’

Shi Sheng found a card on her person. When she went to the bank to check her balance, she discovered there was only $30,000 {I think this is in RMB but I’m used to the $ sign} inside. This was practically a pittance to those in the entertainment industry. Even if making money wasn’t hard for her, with only $30,000 in capital… ‘En, it’s a bit little. I won’t be able to earn much money in the short-term.’

Just as Shi Sheng was pondering on what to do with her life, her phone rang. Shi Sheng took it out and checked the caller. It was that agent of hers so she rejected the call!

The agent called a few more times and after having all of them rejected, the caller changed to her assistant. She rejected it again!

When the phone rang again, Shi Sheng subconsciously pressed reject. Only after it was rejected did she see the name of the caller. Shi Sheng sent a savage text over: I’m^(bbb) reconsidering my^(bbb) life choices! Don’t fucking bother me, and get your people to stop fucking bothering me too!!!

After sending the message, she turned off her phone. When Shi Sheng had cleared out her head and made some plans for the future, she slowly headed back to the apartment she was staying in.

The apartment was provided by the company. Previously she had been staying with another actor but ever since Xi Mo made her a shield, she had been allocated a private apartment. Opening the door, Shi Sheng wasn’t surprised to find the person waiting for her inside.

It was her agent: Milan.

She wore a professional-looking suit and was in her thirties. With her short, cropped hair, she looked very clean and efficient.

“You still know how to return.” Milan’s voice contained a hint of anger, “Do you know how many calls I sent you?”

“Oh. So?” Shi Sheng gave a perfunctory reply.

This agent was quite skilled but she wasn’t serious in carrying Jiang Wan to the top. She even seemed to look down on Jiang Wan otherwise she wouldn’t have given her that shitty role.

She closely examined Shi Sheng as she furrowed her brows. As an agent, learning to read people was a necessity. Although Jiang Wan had a pretty good physical appearance, her character was too weak and lacking in self-confidence. She seemed pretty self-conscious, which made others subconsciously look down on her.

But the Jiang Wan sunk into the couch right now was different. Just by sitting there, there was a noble aura that seemed as if she was born with it. In her eyes, there was no caution or lack of self-confidence, there was only calmness.

Were it not for that face, Milan wouldn’t have thought this person was Jiang Wan.

“I’m not going to act in 《City-Toppling》 anymore. Help me deal with it.” Shi Sheng could only speak first when she noticed Milan just staring at her in silence. 《City-Toppling》 was the name of the TV drama with an ancient setting she was just in.

Milan woke from her thoughts as she asked reflexively, “Not acting? Why?”

“I don’t like it.” ‘I prefer making money over shooting films. Too bad Jiang Wan wanted to stand at the peak of the entertainment circle…’

Milan acted like she heard a funny joke. “Jiang Wan, who do you think you are? Just because you say you’re not going to act anymore you can just quit? What, you think your family owns the set?!”

‘There wasn’t such a thing in this world where you could do whatever you wanted with just an “I don’t like it.”! I don’t like having to carry her either but its orders from above.’

“Anyways I’m not going to the set anymore.”

“Jiang Wan!!!” Milan was exasperated. She had already been unhappy with having to carry such an actress but now said actress wasn’t even listening to her.

Shi Sheng rubbed the tip of her ear as she spoke in an innocent voice, “Milan-jie[1], if you have the time to be yelling at me you might as well be using it to figure out how to resolve this matter.”

Milan forced herself to calm down as she persuaded Shi Sheng in a nice tone, “Jiang Wan, 《City-Toppling》 is already at the halfway point of filming. Do you know how much money the company would have to pay in damages if you pull out now? You’ve only just entered the company; how would you be able to afford that amount? This matter would also be detrimental to your reputation. You have to consider clearly for the sake of both you and your future.”

“I’m not going to act.”

“Jiang Wan, you’re just a newbie. If you continue to be this wilful, even if the company thinks highly of you, you’d still be buried[2]!”

“I’m not going to act.”

No matter what Milan said, Shi Sheng only gave her this one reply. In the end, Milan left in anger. Not too long after she left, Xi Mo’s call came in. Shi Sheng let it ring for about 30 seconds before picking it up.

“Why aren’t you going to act?” Xi Mo’s voice was a bit raspy. Every syllable seemed like it had been imbued with a magnetic field that got one drunk just hearing it.

“Didn’t like it.” Shi Sheng gave a clipped reply. It was silent on Xi Mo’s end for a while before the sounds of someone busying themselves could be heard.

‘Ha… Looks like this busy person thinks his ‘shield’ is pretty important; He took time out just to call after all!’ Shi Sheng tossed the phone aside before finding Jiang Wan’s notebook inside the messed-up sheets of her bed.

Shi Sheng searched for ‘Jiang Wan’. There wasn’t any big news about her. Shi Sheng then watched the young adult TV drama that Jiang Wan had acted in. She deduced from it that Jiang Wan’s acting skills were pretty standard. But since it was a youth TV drama, acting skills weren’t all that important. The most important were the looks.

She then searched up ‘Dongfang Entertainment’ as well as ‘Xi Mo’ to get a better understanding of the two before closing the page.

Shi Sheng seemed to recall that Jiang Wan had a Weibo[3] account. She searched for the Weibo number in her head before logging in. The moment she did, she was bombarded by notification alerts, causing the page to hang for a few seconds while they were processed. There were above a thousand posts and was increasing as she watched.

[1] In the raws it’s ‘米兰姐’ which means Big Sis Milan. But I think it breaks the flow and sounds too respectful. Sis Milan also seemed weird to me so I went with letting the Big Sis part in pinyin. It sounds better. To me at least.

[2] The raws state ‘雪藏’ which literally means ‘snow hide’. When used in this context, it means to not give the actor/actress who signed the contract with the company, any opportunities to get good publicity. Basically, the good roles in the good movies would be kept from them. I couldn’t find a word/phrase that fits this so I decided on this.

[3] Something like Twitter for China?

Author’s note:

I updated, so please vote~

Seeing as how it’s my birthday, aren’t you guys going to comment or vote? *sobs* Don’t treat me like this. Smash me to death with votes!!!

Translator’s Corner:

That text was savage indeed…

The author referred to herself as ‘宝宝’ or ‘baobao’ which, if you remember from Chapter 1, means baby. I find that adorable.