I woke up to find I have a child - Chapter 62
In the end, the winners were Gu Zhigui and Han Yiren and they just so happened to be a good combination too for the male and female leads. Jiang Lingyan’s PR team had already written up various drafts to advertise the final winners so that no matter who won the competition, they would send out announcements immediately. The young woman who was officially in charge of the show’s blog didn’t watch the live broadcast, sso she simply sat in her office and simply sent out the announcements then were written in advance after seeing a notification that the show ended.
As a result, the young woman who was officially in charge of the blog was overwhelmed with all kinds of abusive comments.
The fans of Han Feixu and Yin Jiahe scolded and cursed her along with Han Yiren in the same breath. The fans of Gu Zhigui also cursed Han Yiren and strongly demanded that Han Yiren be withdrawn from production entirely. They didn’t care if it was Han Feixu or Yin Jiahe who took her place as anyone would be better suited to be their male god’s partner than that vote-rigging bit*h.
As soon as Han Yiren had stepped off her stage, she was dragged away in a hurry by her manager. Meanwhile, Han Feixu was in much less of a hurry as she planned to get her makeup removed, change her clothes, take a break and have a meal before driving to the airport.
Everyone else, who had somehow become part of the background in this spectacle, all had incredulous expressions on their faces with only Jiang Lingyan wearing a particularly dark expression.
She angrily searched out Ye Mingxin, who was saying her farewell to Duan Weiyang. Jiang Lingyan didn’t care that Ye Mingxin was busy talking to someone else and directly dragged her to the side and asked in a low tone, “Ye Mingxin, you were the one who did this, weren’t you? Are you still human? I know you value your lover over your friends, but you can’t go overboard! Now the whole country thinks there’s corruption in my show!”
Jiang LingYuan frantically followed behind her sister. Usually, the target of her sister’s anger and frustration was her, but today that anger has finally landed on Ye Mingxin. So of course she wouldn’t miss out on this opportunity to follow along and watch the fun.
Glancing at the second child of the Jiang family standing behind Jiang LIngyan, Ye Minxin said in a calm and indifferent voice, “This time, you really did seek out the wrong person, I had nothing to do with it.”
Jiang Lingyan fell silent for a moment and then shouted angrily, “What’s the difference between you personally doing it and Qi Yu, your manager, carrying out your orders?!”
“….”
“It wasn’t Qi Yu either. It was Little Xu. This plan was entirely her idea and she also implemented it herself. It had nothing to do with me.”
Jiang Lingyan may have the guts to yell at Ye Mingxin, but she had no courage to yell at Han Feixu. And this is because if she did yell at Han Feixu, she will offend the three most important women in her life = =
(T/N: In case you didn’t get it , she meant her little sister, her best friend, and Shen Sangluo, the woman she’s pursuing)
Jiang Lingyan felt like she had just punched cotton, and grew even more furious as she looked at Ye Mingxin’s smiling face. She turned her head around only to see her little sister wearing a proud expression that said, “As expected of the person I like.”
……So annoying.
She stood there in sullen silence for a while, when she raised her head and stared intensely into Ye Mingxin’s eyes, “It really has nothing to do with you?”
Ye Mignxin nodded sincerely, “I had nothing to do with it. Little Xu was the one who came up with such a clever solution, I don’t have the ability to do something so amazing.”
Alright, alright, enough’s enough, we all know you like to brag about your wife okay = =
Jiang Lingyan narrowed her eyes, “If you have nothing to do with it, then can I ask how she was able to buy off so many of the judges in my carefully picked panel of in-person voters? Where did she even get the list of names from?”
Neither side spoke. A staff member pushing a rack of clothes passed by them. Ye Mingxin quickly ran after him, “Wait, are you going to the dressing rooms? I’m going to and I need a guide. Sorry, there’s just so many people here and I’m a little lost….”
As she finished speaking, her figure quickly disappeared into the crowd as she ran away.
Jiang Lingyan: “…..”
We are done!
While one pair of childhood friends were in conflict like fire and water, another set of childhood friends was working hard together to achieve their nefarious schemes.
Shen Sangluo finally delivered the bouquet into Han Feixu’s hand as the two of them slipped into Han Feixu’s room and closed the door behind them. Shen Sangluo laughed loudly after listening to Han Feixu explain everything, “You’re quite good! It seems your school education was not in vain!”
Han Feixu raised her chin triumphantly, “Hmph, dare to smear my reputation? Well this is the price she must pay!”
Shen Sangluo: “The overbearing president play is already over, so you don’t need to say these cheesy lines anymore.”
“….oh.”
Shen Sangluo sighed in regret, “It’s just unfortunate that such an opportunity was wasted. Didn’t you say you like this script very much? You even participated in this variety show for three months because of it and now you are forced to gift it to someone else.”
Han Feixu pulled on her sleeves. She doesn’t know where the production crew got this dress as after wearing it for just a little while it was already quite wrinkled.
“It’s not a gift.” Han Feixu lowered her eyes as she replied nonchalantly, “With what she has done in the past, you can see her true character and way of doing things. She spent money to buy resources to discredit and trouble me. I’ve basically become her imaginary enemy. Think about it, if she’s willing to do all that before I win, imagine what crazy things she’ll do when I actually win.”
Shen Sangluo fell into deep thought, “So you already knew you wouldn’t be able to win this competition?”
Han Feixu shook her head, “I didn’t know beforehand, more like the night before. I had guessed that there was an 80% probability that she would bribe the panel of in-person voters in advance or sign a contract with the director directly before the end of the show. No matter what she decided to do, she would have prepared her PR team for any emergency and washed herself clean of any rumors. Since that’s the case, why not give her a little push and catch her off guard. Let her fly onto that altar she coveted so much.”
Shen Sangluo laughed, “She fell shortly after she flew. Her expression just now looked like she ate mud. It was seen by everyone too, how embarrassing.”
The corners of Han Feixu’s mouth raised upwards, “She deserved it. I knew she would do something like this so I asked Wei Xun to contact 60 of the in-person voters and only 52 of them agreed. But, seeing her final vote count, it seems that at least half of the remaining 27 voted for her because they were bought off by her.”
Shen Sangluo pondered over her words for a while, “Are you saying there are also people who accepted money from both sides?”
“There must be some.” Han Feixu said firmly.
Shen Sangluo blinked in surprise, “And you are not afraid that they will expose you? If it was one set of money then they would think it’s from Han Yiren’s side, but if you buy them off and her people also buy them off, anyone thinking carefully will know that you’re trying to frame her!”
“I’m not afraid.” Han Feixu said nonchalantly, “I was careful and asked Wei Xun to change his tone when approaching these people. I asked him to not expose his identity, but to leave clues so that those suspicious will see that he was sent by a rich socialite.”
After a half-second pause, her tone turned sinister as she added, “A very rich and married woman that is.”
Shen Sangluo didn’t understand, “A very rich married woman…isn’t that you?”
“Han Yiren and the others don’t know that I’m married,” Han Feixu laughed, “And the one Han Yiren is most afraid of is not me, but the woman whose husband she’s having an affair with.”
Chang Hao’s wife is someone who runs her own company and is described as a sophisticated socialite. She knows that her husband is always out drinking and messing around with women, but seldom cares about his affairs. It is only when he goes overboard, or the mistress becomes a thorn in her side that she teaches them a lesson and makes them dare to never mess around again.
Shen Sangluo gave her a complicated expression, “So this was your true character when you were 16. I had thought you were only blackened after you met Ye Mingxin.”
“…..”
What kind of sentence is this?
Han Feixu said darkly, “I have always been like this, alright? It’s just that no one tried to provoke me when I was 16. If someone had back then, I would’ve punished them just as severely.”
After chatting for a little while longer, Shen Sangluo left. Han Feixu packed everything up before rushing to the airport for a midnight flight. At the airport Han Feixu asked Ye Mingxin, “Is Jiang Lingyan very angry?”
“Yes, but it should be ok. She won’t dare to do anything to you.”
Han Feixu smiled, “I had only thought of revenge when I planned this and completely forgot how this would negatively affect her show. When I return, I will personally apologize to her.”
Ye Mingxin wanted to say that there was no need for that and that all would be forgiven if she could get Section Chief Shen to agree to a meal with Jiang Lingyan. If that happened, Jiang Lingyan wouldn’t care about anything negatively affecting her, even her show.
But before she could open her mouth to suggest this, Han Feixu whispered, “But what should I give her? Oh, right, Ye Tingxue’s bulletproof car is still sitting in the company parking garage. Liang-jie hasn’t even driven it yet. That’s great, we don’t need to arrange transportation to bring it home, we might as well just give it to Jiang Lingyan!”
As soon as she finished speaking she fell silent for 3 seconds before turning to look at Ye Mingxin, “I now know why Yu Tingxue is fond of giving people bulletproof cars.
Ye Mingxin also fell silent, “Because they’re useless to everyone…?”
That’s right, among the many different products offered by Yu Tingxue’s company, this is considered a slow-selling product = =
Han Feixu did not stay idle. She quietly chatted with Shen Sangluo on the phone and then was busy boarding the plane. By the time she sat down in her seat, her eyelids could barely stay open and she quickly fell asleep for two hours before the plane landed.
On the road after landing, Han Feixu had some time to look at the grand spectacle playing out on the internet.
Everything had escalated to another level and now instead of Han Yiren’s name trending, the tag #Director Jiang burning in anger!# was steadily sitting at the top of trending searches.
Vote manipulation, this is not something that is unique to the entertainment industry as it’s something widespread in even personal social circles. In today’s society, in order to give their child a leg up, many parents use their connections to rig certain competitions. But while most people are used to such heinous schemes, they were still startled by just how blatant and obvious Han Yiren’s vote manipulation was. That’s why everyone was stepping forth to express their disdain.
However, this sort of topic would only last for a day at most before it’s quickly squeezed out by newer trending searches. This trending search was different, however, as the chief director of the variety show is personally stepping forth to expose the truth….
While Jiang Lingyan didn’t curse or blame anyone, she did send a short text that roughly said she was “very disappointed” with what happened on ?I am the protagonist?and that this would be the first and last variety show she would do. She refuses to be involved in another variety show in the future, let alone work with certain problematic artists.
Han Feixu had read this news with terror as she was afraid that she may have landed herself on Jiang Lingyan’s blacklist.
She asked Ye Mignxin about it, but Ye Mingxin herself had no clue just how many people her childhood friend had blocked and if she herself was perhaps on her blacklist. Thus, she had no other choice but to come at it from another angle, “Whether she meant you or not, it won’t matter. Didn’t you go on this variety show for the purpose of gaining some popularity and to receive a chance at getting a female lead role? Now that you’ve regained your popularity and the opportunity of playing the female lead has disappeared, do you still feel the need to participate in variety shows?”
Han Feixu shook her head, “I don’t want to anymore. Also, if I want to be an actress, I would rather act in a real movie.”
Ye Mingxin chuckled, “That’s right. And you don’t have to be afraid, since your best friend is the one Jiang Lingyan’s pursuing so she’s afraid of getting on your bad side.”
Hearing this sentence, Han Feixu nodded seriously, “She should be afraid of me. Shen Sangluo is already feeling hostile towards her, so If I whisper just a few awful things about her into Shen Sangluo’s ear she will become completely hopeless.:
Ye Mignxin blinked, suddenly quite worried about her childhood friend’s relationship in the future. She smiled hesitantly “Little Xu, you won’t purposely speak ill of Jiang Lingyan to Section Chief Shen , right?”
Han Feixu frowned, “That’ll depend on your performance.”
Ye Mignxin: “……”
Is this what they call the “guilt by association”? A punishment that implies “If you treat me poorly, then I will retaliate by ruining your best friend’s life”?
As things began to settle down, they returned to the set of ?Return of the Phoenix?. Han Feixu had no upcoming scenes for quite a while as her next scene would be when the emperor personally goes on a military expedition. During this expedition, her son dies and as she hugs her dying son in her arms, she’ll look at the camera numbly and order them to palace her son’s body in the ice cellar. She’ll wait for the emperor to come back and personally see the dead body of his son with his own two eyes.
After framing such a scene, the Wen Shan character will experience the final climax for her role. She’ll temporarily regain the favor of the emperor and then together with her remaining son she battles with Yingxiu. Yet. In the end, both her and her remaining son fall into ruin.
In these later stages of the drama, Han Feixu’s makeup slowly becomes more graceful and elegant. Sometimes when she looks at herself in the mirror, she’d think she’s looking at someone else. Wen Shan was roughly in her 70s when she finally died, so she was turned into a gray-haired old lady. Who knows how she’ll actually look when she grows old, perhaps she’ll look exactly the same as the person in the mirror.
Liang Zhu called out her name several times as Han Feixu continued to stare at the mirror in a daze, “Hey, did you hear what I said just now?”
Han Feixu looked up at her blankly, “Huh?”
Seems like she didn’t hear anything at all = =
After her team finished dealing with Han Yiren, Liang Zhu had also flown back to Hengdian.
People all over the country know that Han Yiren’s win was not legitimate and that she had stolen someone else’s potential role. However, she still has to accept this job and do so with zero pay.
Who knows how Liang Zhu got this information, but when she found out she gloated over it and even passed it on to several friends who are also agents or managers. She also found people who were very gossipy so it didn’t take long before the entire entertainment circle and eventually the entire internet knew about it. Han Yiren’s reputation as someone who won through vote manipulation was now confirmed.
Liang Zhu helplessly repeated herself again, “Do you want me to find a new script for you or will you look at the script for ?Sleeper?first? Ye Mingxin has already asked me twice about it and since you haven’t said anything to me, I can’t answer her. Just what are you thinking about doing?”
?Return of the Phoenix?is set to finish in less than two months and now that ?I am the protagonist? has ended, Han Feixu still hasn’t found a new film to pick up. Liang Zhu has already accepted three different endorsements for her, a magazine cover shoot, and an interview for another magazine, but they haven’t decided on a real script yet.
Han Feixu thought about it for a while, “I’ll take a look at ?Sleeper?.”
Hearing this, Liang Zhu immediately stood up, “Then I’ll ask Qi Yu for the script. He already has one printed out so it’ll save me the trouble of making another copy.”
“Ai, no need.” Han Feixu took out her phone and then after searching through her contacts she finally found the name “Dugu”. She held up her phone and asked Liang Zhu, “This is director Dugu Yuehua’s number, right?”
Liang Zhu fell silent as she stared at the trendy emoji profile picture, “Yes, that’s him. You’re personally going to contact him?”
“I saw he posted a picture of Xiangshan* in his friends’ circle and he seems to be producing a film there. I want to meet him personally and let him see my skills.” (T/N: ?? could be referring to the county, but most likely the mountain in Taiwan)
Liang Zhu smiled, “What is there to look at? You used to be one of his female leads. As long as you let Ye Mingxin talk to him, you can directly sign a contract when you meet up with him again. Why go through the hassle of making an extra trip?”
Han Feixu looked up at her with a serious expression on her face, “I want to go see the director by myself, you are allowed to tell Ye Mingxin.”
Liang Zhu was dumbfounded and Han Feixu continued after a short pause, “I don’t want to rely on her for everything. If I want to act in a film, I hope to win that opportunity by myself and not because someone else gave it to me.”
After returning from Beijing, Liang Zhu felt as if Han Feixu was no longer the same as before. She thought about this sudden change and asked tentatively, “Did you come up with this idea because of Han Yiren?”
Han Feixu pondered over a question for a little bit, “I guess it’s a little bit related to her. Before, I had no opinion about acting, and it didn’t matter if I did go into acting or not. It used to be just a job for me, but now, I really want to do this job well.”
This was the first time someone actively tried to slander and frame her, using her as a stepping stone for their career. Before the truth was revealed, Han Feixu didn’t have any opinion on this matter as after all, many people have told her before that a celebrity is bound to be slandered and hated at one point however no one told her that the rumors and hatred is man-made.
Han Yiren is not her opponent, she was never qualified to be her opponent, however that does not mean she will tolerate seeing the person who slandered her and used her as a stepping stone living well while she herself idly lag behind, never to move forward.
In the past, Han Feixu didn’t care about her career plan at all. After all, she was suddenly thrust into this role with the mentality of a 16-year-old. She would do whatever Liang Zhu asked her to do, but now she was starting to really think about her career development. Thus, Dugu Yuehua’s ?Sleeper?would be a good start towards returning to the big screen.
While Han Feixu was busy filming, Liang Zhu secretly went to find Ye Mingxin and basically summarized Han Feixu’s words to her. Ye Mingxin simply smiled lightly and said, “I knew she would have such an attitude. Don’t worry, I haven’t said anything to Dugu Yueha yet so you can let Little Xu personally contact him herself.”
8 years ago, when Han Feixu first filmed?Blossoming Dreams?, Ye Mingxin wasn’t together with Han Feixu yet. Not to mention, she had only joined the filming halfway in and hadn’t even seen Dugu Yuehua all these years. Liang Zhu was a little worried, “You aren’t worried that she’ll be ignored?”
Ye Mingxin raised an eyebrow, “Don’t tell me you’re worried that Little Xu won’t be able to catch Dugu Yuehua’s eye?”
Suddenly, Liang Zhu could see a solemen and bolded English sentence in Ye Mingxin’s eyes.
—How Dare You!
Liang Zhu immediately let out some dry laughter, “How is that possible? Our Little Xu is the best, hehehehehe…..”
Ye Mingxin subtly curled her lips, “Our Little Xu?”
“N-No, no, no I mean your Little Xu. Yours.”
Ye Mingxin was satisfied with her answer and propped her chin in one hand, “When the time comes, you can go with Little Xu and help her with that matter. Meanwhile I don’t know anything, do you understand?”
Liang Zhu quietly repeated, “Understood.”
Walking out of Ye Mingxin’s trailer, Liang Zhu felt like she was covered in cold sweat despite it being the middle of summer.
She’s clearly known her for almost five years now, yet she still felt instinctively afraid when she saw Ye Mingxin’s face.
Standing in an open space that was exposed to the scorching hot sun, Liang Zhu squinted her eyes and saw Han Feixu. She watched as Han Feixu rushed towards her RV after finishing on set and couldn’t help but sigh.
Thanks to Han Feixu, she and Shen Sangluo have been questioned and harassed by Ye Mingxin for nearly half a year. Even now she doesn’t know how Han Feixu was able to hide from Ye Mingxin for so long back then. She disappeared in such a way that even Ye Mingxin couldn’t find her for a long time. She had simply vanished, and no one could locate her.
When Han Feixu had first returned to China, Laing Zhu would occasionally bring up this matter and Han Feixu would feel guilty about it. And so she virtually agreed to every condition Liang Zhu put forth, but in just one night, she went to sleep and woke up without her memories. Now it was just too embarrassing for her to bring up the past.
And so, between Liang Zhu and Ye Mingxin, one pretended that she didn’t say anything and the other pretended she didn’t hear anything and neither revealed anything. Meanwhile, Han Feixu contacted Dugu Yuehua on WeChat. When Dugu Yuehua saw Han Feixu was contacting him, he was quite happy and after hearing that she was coming to see him at Xiangshan to talk about his new movie, he happily agreed.
Han Feixu picked a day she would relatively be free and brought her manager and assistant with her.
Halfway to their destination, Han Feixu fell asleep and Zhong Yuanyuan asked Liang Zhu in a quiet shipper, “Do you think there’s something off with Han Feixu’s mood recently?’
“I don’t think so.”
Zhong Yuanyuan’s eyes widened, “How do you not see it? She’s much more serious during filming now and she doesn’t check her Weibo as often anymore. And the scariest thing is…she actually started watching documentaries!”
“….which documentary?”
“Documentaries that seem to be related to human psychology.” Zhong Yuanyuan didn’t watch it carefully, so she could only give Liang Zhu a rough recollection, “She couldn’t have been traumatized by Han Yiren, right?”
Zhong Yuanyuan felt that something was off because Han Feixu was not as lazy and reckless as before. Liang Zhu had adapted to the situation quickly because Han Feixu used to be like this, someone who didn’t mess around nor check Weibo very much and at most would watch some classic movies during her free time.
Liang Zhu was startled for a moment. She turned to look at the sleeping Han Feixu in the backseat. Zhong Yuanyuan glanced at her, “What’s wrong?”
Liang Zhu shook her head, “Nothing, I just feel like Han Feixu is a little closer to the person she was before she lost her memory.”
Zhong Yuanyuan smiled, “Isn’t that a good thing? Maybe one day her memory will fully recover and even if it doesn’t, people are always slowly maturing and sooner or later she will return to her previous self.”
Liang Zhu nodded and said nothing more.
When they arrived, Han Feixu went straight to the film studio in Xiangshan where many historical films were shot. When he heard that she had arrived, Dugu Yuehua set her an address and asked her to go there first.
With the way they had set up their meeting, it was as if they were meeting up to smuggle illegal materials = =
After waiting for an hour and a half, Dugu Yuehua finally arrived. As soon as he came, he said, “Sorry to have kept you waiting. I had no choice, they couldn’t film at all without me. In all fairness, Huang Ren is a cloud director and for someone who was born after 1995, he has extraordinary tealnet. However he is still just a rookie who doesn’t understand things. If it weren’t for the good relationship between his father and me, I wouldn’t have come to be his producer.
Han Feixu quickly stood up and said politely, “It’s all right, it’s common sense that I should be the one waiting for you. Please, sit.”
Dugu Yuehua’s attitude was very friendly just now and was already leaning down to sit when he heard Han Feixu’s words. He frowned and raised his head, “What is wrong with you?”
Han Feixu felt like she was on the verge of collapsing.
What did she say wrong this time? Why does everyone ask her “what’s wrong with you” the moment they meet her? Didn’t she just say a few polite words, how could even a few words be able to expose her?!