The set was in chaos when Su Qiao arrived. Curious glances followed her wherever she went, although no one dared to meet her eyes when she returned their looks with a steady gaze. Filming had come to a complete standstill and in the centre of the hub, Director Ma was facing off with a formidable woman in six-inch stilettos. They made her tower over his slightly pudgy frame and even though she was willowy in build, her intimidating aura meant that no one would underestimate her.
Su Qiao headed over. "Director Ma, Yu Jie."
Director Ma's forehead was shiny from a thin layer of sweat. He wiped at it with an old school handkerchief and smiled bleakly at Su Qiao. Instead of his usual sternness, he appeared browbeaten this morning, back hunched over as he multi-tasked arguing with Manager Yu and replying to the messages that were incessantly pinging up on his phone.
"Su Qiao ah," he sighed. "The production's official Weibo page has released a statement saying that I did indeed tell Xue Junxie to hand the script over to you but that I'd mentioned he should do so in the morning."
Next to him, the assistant director nodded. "There were quite a few of us present during that conversation who can vouch for Director Ma."
That was fair. Su Qiao didn't think he was to blame, who would have thought that Xue Junxie would seize the opportunity to stir up trouble from something as innocuous as passing on an amended script?
She thanked them both before turning to Manager Yu. Manager Yu eyed her critically.
"Didn't catch a wink of sleep?" she asked with a disapproving frown. "Take it from someone who's been there. Your complexion may be good now because you're still young but give it a couple of years and you're going to regret the all-nighters you've pulled."
Su Qiao grimaced. "I know." Boy did she know. Her old life of perpetual night shifts still haunted her dreams sometimes. She'd only been 25 then but she'd looked closer to 30 beneath the thick layer of makeup she'd forced herself to slap on each day.
With one last long look, Manager Yu let it drop. Perhaps she didn't think this was a suitable time to be nagging about such things. "Director Ma," she said grimly. "Although the situation was managed in time, my team isn't confident in the safety of the set anymore. The video on the hotel corridor could have been set up by Xue Junxie himself but the video of the both of them holding hands was taken by someone else." She was implying that Xue Junxie had an accomplice onset, a fact which also worried Su Qiao enormously. There was nothing more uncomfortable than having an enemy lurking in the shadows.
Director Ma sent one more frantic text message before sighing and sinking into a chair. He gestured for everyone to join him. This was the first time they were all united in one big group at the catering area, even Mo Chen, who didn't have to come in so early today. He sat in a corner, trying and failing to conceal a yawn. Su Qiao thought about the rapid cover-up and clearing of her name at stupid o'clock this morning and wondered if he had played any part in it.
Across the table, Bai Meixin tried valiantly to catch Su Qiao's eye but Su Qiao ensured that her gaze was focused elsewhere all the time. Xue Junxie had been too much bullshit in one day and even though she had no evidence of it yet, she was already certain that Bai Meixin stood at the centre of all his motivations. Su Qiao just yearned for one day free of the cloying scent of white lotuses. She could deal with Bai Meixin some other time.
"We've run a background check on all the support staff who were on the roster at that time," he said. "We've identified two suspicious persons, both of whom are members of Xue Junxie's fan club. But the only thing we can hold them liable for would be a breach of the privacy clause in their employment contract. They've been fired and our legal team will issue a Breach of Contract Notice to them by latest this evening."
Manager Yu crossed her arms. Peng Lili scrambled up to them with two plates heaped with the breakfast selection and Manager Yu plucked an egg sandwich off the plate with her fire-engine red nails and took a dainty bite. Su Qiao followed suit, only realising now that she was starving. Staying awake for the entire night seemed to have put her gastric juices into a state of hyper-secretion.
"That would be adequate for now," Manager Yu concluded. "But I hope nothing like this happens again." She shot Su Qiao a warning glare, which Su Qiao returned with a small, contrite smile. "What is the team going to do about Xue Junxie's role?"
Director Ma wilted visibly in front of them. Su Qiao was certain that if he weren't surrounded by such a big audience, he would have started ripping out large chunks of hair in anxiety by now. "I'm liaising with the casting department now to see if we can make a new offer to our second and third choices but this is such a last-minute change that I don't have many hopes that their schedules will still be available."
Su Qiao chewed on her soft-boiled egg as she tried to think of a solution. In part, this had happened because of her and she didn't want Director Ma to see her as a burden from now on. "Would holding another audition now be impossible?"
"Well, not impossible per se…but—"
"I might have a suitable recommendation." Mo Chen spoke up out of the blue, causing quite a few people to start in their seats. He'd been so quiet this entire time that everyone was too stressed to remember that he was there.
"Who?"
"A little acquaintance of mine, Yun Zhou." Mo Chen paused. "He's very new to the industry, I'm certain you've never heard of him."
Director Ma looked dubious but he wasn't about to shoot down a film emperor of all people. "I trust your judgement but would it be all right if we called him in for a quick audition?"
"Of course."
Yun Zhou. His name sounded familiar but Su Qiao couldn't place it. She had to rack her brains before realising that it was the name of the future youngest film emperor in history. By the time he'd achieved that, Su Qiao was already so far out of the industry that she could barely count as an 18-stringed celebrity (1). The movie that earned him his crown had also been the one his co-star, Bai Meixin, became film empress in. In the novel, Lin Zizhou had been infuriated by the CP fans that shipped the both of them together because they had demonstrated such strong chemistry on set. Their ship name had even been 'boat beneath a bridge' because 'Zhou' meant the former and 'Qiao' was a homonym for the latter.
It must have rankled Lin Zizhou, to have to share a CP name with someone else. Shortly after that, a scandal had hit Yun Zhou. Su Qiao would bet her life that one very petty bastard had everything to do with it.
She worried at her lower lip with her teeth as she considered all these deviations in the original plot. Yun Zhou was going to meet Su Qiao way before the original timeline. Would the plot try to correct itself by making him fall for her in advance?
If so, he would probably cause her problems too. It was exhausting to have to be on her guard 24/7. Sighing, she leaned back in her seat and tried to ignore the tension headache that was like a tight band constricting around her forehead.
Her phone buzzed again. She pulled it out of her jeans pocket and scrolled through the messages. They'd been pouring in all morning. Although she was no longer strung up in the top 20 list of trending news for all to gawk at, it was impossible to completely shut down all sources and some of the information had leaked out.
Still, it was already better damage control than she could hope for.
There were accusatory texts from her father's secretary, whose number she'd forgotten to block. Bai Lixian had also borrowed this phone to send her a 'worried' text. Su Qiao added it to the blacklist without replying.
Yao Xun and some of the young masters that he was closer to also sent their support but some of the group chats had taken a funny tone, asking in a roundabout manner whether she had sunk so low that she was keeping a mere actor as a boy toy. A couple of them even insinuated that the reason why her engagement had been called off was that Lin Zizhou had caught her cheating.
The irony. Well, she wasn't going to take this lying down, was she?
Su Qiao: If you really must know, I dumped Lin Zizhou. I don't have to justify why to anyone.
Su Qiao: And since you have no life apart from trawling through Weibo for gossip, please do a better job of being a professional waste of space and check the newest updates. Being conscientious might help you sound less stupid next time but then again, it might not, since you seem to take everything at face value and haven't yet demonstrated an ability to formulate a coherent thought of your own
Su Qiao: Here, let me spell it out for you — Xue Junxie sabotaged me, you dumbass.