I woke up to find I have a child - Chapter 58
Ye Mingxin had driven them almost halfway before she realized that they were 1) both still locked in the car and that 2) they had forgotten a certain someone behind. So they turned back around and picked up the person they left behind.
Zhong Yuanyuan got into the car while hugging the large bag of takeout she bought. She complained loudly, “I was just about to take a taxi and leave all by myself! How can you two forget an entire, living, breathing, person and even leave her behind?!”
Ye Mingxin pretended she was too focused on her driving to hear her as she tried to come up with a plausible excuse. Han Feixu, however, just turned around and looked at the large bag in her arms, “You bought so much, is there a share for us?”
“There was a share for you about ten minutes ago, but now there is none!”
Hearing this, Han Feixu turned back happily and said, “Did you hear that? We don’t need to go out and buy food anymore, we can just eat Yuanyuan’s food.”
Zhong Yuanyuan: “….”
Hey, don’t just selectively ignore my words!
And thus, dinner was hastily eaten in the parking lot of the theater. Afterwards, Ye Mingxin called Yan Yureong to inform her that they were both safe and sound. Meanwhile, Han Feixu and Zhong Yuanyuan reached an agreement: Han Feixu would increase Yuanyuan’s yearly bonus. Only after receiving a confirmation of a bonus increase did Zhong Yuanyuan no longer complain anymore = =
Meanwhile, back in the theater, everyone was about ready to begin. They planned to shoot some scenes of the contestants getting along with each other before shooting everyone’s individual interviews.
There was nothing outstanding about the first few scenes. Everyone was ordered to sit next to each other and reminisce about their time together on the show while mentioning what they are looking forward to in the future. Han Yiren brought up that time she said she was a fan of Han Feixu’s and everyone laughed at that memory. Han Feixu felt embarrassed at being the center of attention and even Yin Jiahe, who had been silent this entire time, joined in on the topic.
“So you’re a fan of Han Feixu. I didn’t know since I joined the show late.”
Han Yiren smiled and said, “That’s right and I’m not just an ordinary fan either, but a die-hard fan.”
Yin Jiahe laughed, “I can see that. You must really like Han Feixu, otherwise why would your career path develop the exact same way as Han Feixu?”
The smiling expression on Han Yiren’s face froze at this moment. Han Yiren didn’t reply, so the others looked over at her. All of them were a little confused at Yin Jiahe’s words, and the atmosphere fell into a sudden and awkward silence. Zhang Hao even turned his head so the camera couldn’t capture his exaggerated expression as he silently mouthed to himself: “Wow~”
Then he turned his head back around, only to see Nie Kaiyuan giving him a look of suspicion. He thought that Zhang Hao was a little different than usual. A little too excited, even more than usual, and even a little more dramatic.
And he was right because at this moment Zhang Hao was thinking in his heart, things are not as simple as they seem! After participating in so many variety shows, he finally got to see the one thing he always wanted to see on these shows up close, the tense fighting between girls!
What Yin Jiahe said was something no one else really paid much attention to, but now that she had brought it up everyone could see that Han Yiren and Han Feixu’s career path really was quite similar.
Han Feixu debuted at the age of 18. She had started by accepting a female lead role under a famous director. After becoming popular, she then participated in several film festivals with her first film crew, and even walked the stage of two award shows. Even now her popularity remains high despite her being rather low-key herself. Low-key as in apart from her job as an actress, and some selective endorsements, she hardly went out to any other events. Impressive, sunny, and amiable, those were the three personality traits attributed to her image. When she was active, she was even named the most dedicated actress of her generation by the media back then.
Even after she became popular, she didn’t become complacent. She didn’t act in any “bad” movies just for the sake of making money. And so a year after her first film, she had only just started working on her second film. Her fanbase was still strong online then and afterwards, because she was able to perform well in two consecutive films, she was able to directly enter the ranks of first-tier actors.
If it wasn’t for her sudden disappearance all those years ago, the name Han Feixu would be mentioned alongside the current big superstars in the film industry today.
This is Han Feixu’s career path. If one looked at Han Yiren’s path, they would find that she also acted in her first movie at 18 and won an award for it. Although said award wasn’t anything quite prestigious, it did open up more opportunities in the acting world for her. After that, just like Han Feixu, she remained relatively low-key and virtually did the exact same events Han Feixu did back then. However, she did add a few extra events, such as fan interactions from time to time and doing down-to-earth events in public. Her fans found such an attitude rather cute.
And so the personality traits that Han Feixu used to have were now also applied onto Han Yiren. The media gave her an even higher evaluation, saying that she is the most professional beginner actress and that she embodies the acting spirit.
Han Yiren’s second film hasn’t been released yet, apparently it will take a little while longer due to scheduling problems. That wasn’t really good news, but from another point of view one could see that this delay will allow Han Yiren’s career path to mirror Han Feixu’s almost exactly. In fact, one could say that Han Yiren’s development was even smoother and more perfect than Han Feixu’s.
It only took about a minute for most people in the room to figure out the twist and turns of this development, and most of them showed subtle expressions of realization on their face. Duan Weiyang, who was sitting on a wooden chair nearby, had her legs crossed as she observed them. She didn’t seem to know how to hide her expression, or one could say, she didn’t want to hide her expression at all.
Because she turned her gaze onto Han Yiren directly and gave her a meaningful look without saying a single word.
Copycats are quite common in all walks of life. In high-tech industries companies steal each other’s patents all the time, in higher education people plagiarize each other’s papers, author’s steal each other’s plots/writing, songwriters steal each other’s lyrics, and actors generally copy each other’s characters and performance styles. However, who knew you could also copy someone’s career development path?
Of course, since someone’s career path is not considered intellectual property it is naturally not a crime. However, it still makes people look at you strangely.
It’s like someone had worked hard to put together a beautiful dress only for you to nod your head at it and then turn around and go to the mall to buy the same clothes, shoes, and accessories. Until the copycat becomes the same as the original.
Who knows how the person who first wore that dress feels, but from an outsider’s perspective, Duan Weiyuang felt a little speechless and a little disturbed = =
During this brief period of awkward silence, everyone present had their own complicated thoughts on the matter except for Han Feixu.
And that was only because she didn’t understand the implication of Yin Jiahe’s words.
This is the gap in experience. The current Han Feixu knows too little about the entertainment industry. She has only heard people say that the waters of the entertainment industry are deep, but she doesn’t know how deep the water really is nor what is waiting for her beneath it. Even if someone broke down the specifics to her or pulled open the waters and showed her, she would just smile naively.
And so she said, “Can the development of a career path also be copied? You’re thinking too much, it’s just a coincidence.”
A coincidence is a coincidence, but too many coincidences makes it no longer a coincidence. It’s true that there is no such thing as “stealing” someone’s career development path, but that was only because there was no Han Feixu before and no one had thought about it earlier.
Unless there are some sort of unavoidable reasons for not becoming popular, most people would definitely take advantage of their current opportunities and ride the popularity wave. Since windows of opportunity only come every once in a while, it would be a pity to not take it. In fact, Han Feixu would’ve definitely taken the opportunity back then to become more popular, but because of her parents’ accident she was unable to. And then she wasn’t able to go back to acting at all. So it wasn’t because she didn’t want to continue acting at her peak but because she couldn’t continue acting. Her initial plan was to quickly get everything organized and then return to her acting career.
However, the heavens had other ideas for her. Too many unforeseen events happened along the way and she lost the will/energy to continue acting. Then later when she had her daughter, she completely let go of idea of ever going back into acting.
Han Yiren did not lie. She is indeed a die-hard fan of Han Feixu, and she started following her since middle school.
However, Han Yiren is different from a regular fan. She is ambitious, rational, and has a brain that is so clever she’ll think of things no one else can.
And so when she thought of becoming an actress, she thought she could also imitate Han Feixu’s career path. Han Feixu has good acting skills, and she also has good acting skills. Han Feixu has a pretty face, well she also has a pretty face. Since Han Feixu has already blazed forth a proven path, one where an actress can receive much accolades and glory, why should she create her own path when there was already a good one right in front of her?
After much thought, she concluded she has everything Han Feixu has. And she also has something Han Feixu doesn’t have, and that is the ambition and tenacity to never give up before achieving her goal.
Since she wants to be an actress, she will be the best. She won’t simply be another traffic star*, instead she wants to be a star that everyone will praise and admire. (*T/N: traffic star = “hyped-up” celebrities who drive high digital growth but are only hot for a short time.)
From elementary to high school, Han Yiren has been the class president. Every competition she could enter, she participated in. In order to claw her way to the top, she has done everything needed to win. Sometimes she’ll use her own abilities, other times she’ll use any means possible. So one could say, on an innate level, Han Yiren is an extremely vain person, but her vanity is not manifested materially, rather psychologically.
Becoming an actress was the most difficult thing she has done so far, but it is also something she has done the most and achieved the fastest. No one really knows just what she has done to become a popular actress and move closer to her final goal, step by step.
So she imitated Han Feixu. However, she never felt that anyone would find out, because Han Feixu had disappeared from the public eye. She had disappeared so completely, it was as if there never was such a person in this world. This fact made her feel relieved and bold enough to do everything that Han Feixu did to make herself popular without worry. She had become someone else, to the point where after pretending to be someone else day in and day out she had forgotten what she used to be like.
That was until the day she saw Han Feixu’s name trending again.
She was offered the script for ?Barrier Lake?before, but at the time she turned it down. This was because the protagonist was neither a good nor bad role, and she didn’t want to participate in a variety show because she thought they were not worth her time or status.
However, when she learned that Han Feixu was participating, she changed her mind.
The room was silent for 30 seconds, but the awkwardness was so thick it made everyone present, including the cameraman, feel like it had been 30 minutes instead. Yet, Yin Jiahe is still smiling at Han Yiren, as if she wasn’t letting her off that easily. No one spoke up to help her either, so finally Han Yiren had to break the silence.
“This just proves my point, I really am a die-hard fan.”
The two women faced each other with smiles, but the warmth of their smiles did not reach their eyes.
Zhang Hao watched this drama go down with focused eyes, when suddenly he was harshly elbowed and had his attention torn away. Pulling back his gaze, he blinked and immediately understood why Nie Kaiyuan elbowed him just now.
After turning up the jokes and performing another comedic act with Nie Kaiyuan, the atmosphere quickly returned to its original liveliness. No one mentioned the previous matter again, and so the lingering clouds in the room quickly dissipated. The cameraman with the camera lifted on his shoulder felt his back grow chilly. It seems he had broke out into cold sweat from all that tension just now = =
Han Yiren shifted every now and then, her gaze naturally moving, as if she was just aimlessly looking around. However, she was actually silently observing everyone’s expression and when she reached Ye Mingxin, she paused, and then looked away as if nothing had happened.
Ye Mingxin met her gaze expressionlessly. When Han Yiren looked away, she simply lowered her eyes and let out a quiet laugh.