The crowd who was happily waiting for the drama to unfold earlier went silent all of a sudden as they stared at the crushed coconut on the table and exchanged looks with each other.
Zhou LiQian, whose arm was still pinned behind her back, kept on shouting, "Xu WanZhi, what do you think you are doing! Let me go!"
She might still sound tough, but she was already panicking inside – her arm, twisted behind her, was hurting like hell and all she could think of was the scene of Xu WanZhi crushing the coconut with her bare hands. She never knew that Xu WanZhi could do that. Should she kneel down and thank the good lord that Xu WanZhi didn't just dislocate her shoulder???
Xu WanZhi sneered and gave Zhou LiQian a forward shove when she let go of her. Zhou LiQian stumbled forward a couple of steps and fell onto a lounger.
"Oh!" Xu WanZhi acted surprised, took a couple steps forward, bent over, and said, "I am sorry, LiQian-jie. It seems I have… accidentally knocked your plastic surgery nose out of place."
Startled, Zhou LiQian immediately pulled out her phone and turned on the front camera.
It was only after she had turned the camera on that she realized that she had fallen for her trick.
But it was too late.
The crowd around them started chitchatting among themselves.
"So Zhou LiQian had plastic surgeries?"
"Hadn't she always bragged about everything being all natural on herself?"
"She had a nose job?"
"And she had the audacity to call someone else a head-changing monster day in and day out?"
Embarrassed, Zhou LiQian got up, stomped her feet, and went back to her dressing room.
Xu WanZhi smiled, called Xiao Yuan over, and opened up another coconut.
It was only after a long while before Zhou LiQian slowly re-emerged after she had touched up her makeup. She had already touched it up a few times this afternoon, but still couldn't stop her small beads of sweat from showing up on her forehead.
In contrast, Xu WanZhi's makeup was fine on her delicate face. With her being able to use her magical ability to maintain her body temperature, the heat had no effect on her. Her rosy red lips still casually sipping coconut juice out of a straw. Her slender, white legs were crossed, and her curvy body was leaning against the back of the chair as she looked down upon everyone and everything around her.
Every look and smile of hers had an added hint of amorousness to them.
It was as though the ceramic doll who was only capable of a fake smile had suddenly gained a soul and turned into a beautiful woman from the inside out.
As much as everybody else was busy running around with their own business, they still couldn't help glancing over in her direction from time to time.
Noticing the chance in the ways that others were looking at Xu WanZhi, Zhou LiQian was so mad that she could explode. But she was still intimidated by Xu WanZhi's brute force. She wasn't even able to negotiate the beating scene. She hasn't even been able to slap her across her face yet, and she already had her arm twisted behind her. What the hell was going on?
She mulled over it for a long time. Finally, she gave into her fear and said with a quivering voice, "We should stick with the original plan of faking the slap."
Taking their places and standing in front of the camera, Zhou LiQian had lost all her drive of "beating up" Xu WanZhi. Right now, her eyes were filled with nothing but fear.
Once the rolling had begun, she recited a weak, "You shameless little slut…."
After saying that, she lifted her arm, but she was too afraid to swing it at Xu WanZhi – not even just to fake slapping her. Had Xu WanZhi give her a stare right now, she'd probably drop onto her knees right then and there.
After a long while, she grabbed Xu WanZhi's shoulder lightly and started reasoning with her, "Can you please give me back my husband?"
...
Zhou LiQian, her hands quivering, had to try it a few times before they were finally able to finish the scene.
It was also dinner time and Sun-jie, presumably, was still at work so Xu WanZhi just took the car back to the agency's office.
The company she was with was called Silver Start Entertainment, and it was one of the peripheral properties that belonged to Mu ZhenYu. As their businesses had been going downhill recently, nobody really gave too much effort in managing it. And the original owner, in particularly, was one of the least noticeable actresses of theirs. She made a paltry amount when she was able to get into an official filming. Otherwise, she just got small parts here and there, and barely anyone ever noticed her.
According to the original novel, Mu ZhenYu merely used Xu WanZhi as an excuse in front of his family and never announce this fake "lover" relationship publicly. As such, nobody knew of Xu WanZhi's background at Silver Start and nobody gave a sh*t about her. Anyone could stomp on her whenever they felt like.
Her agent, Sun-jie, in particular, was like a vampire. She didn't even treat the original owner as a human being. Many of the negative publicity actually originated from her. As long as the actresses under her can bring in money, she didn't care if the entire internet spit on the actress.
Xu WanZhi had a bad impression on Sun-jie . She went into the office to reason with her, but as soon as she stepped out of the elevator, she heard her gossiping with her other colleagues inside the office.
Xu WanZhi had very good hearing. Even though Sun-jie was speaking softly and the thick door to the office was closed and it was on the other end of the hallway, she could still catch every single word clearly.
"That Xu WanZhi is such an ungrateful thing. I told her to go run into Jiang YueXian at the airport this morning. Guess what she said? She said she wasn't going to go. It's shameful, she said. With her standing? What exactly was so shameful to her? With her current standing, she still wanted to pick and choose what she will or will not do? Did she really think she could make it with just her looks alone? Who's not attractive in this circle, right? If she's going to be so stuck up, she should pick up a bowl and go bag for money on the streets. See if anyone would give her a few extra cents because she is so pretty!"
When she was done, everybody in the office with her burst out laughing.
Xu WanZhi snickered, walked down the hall in her high heels, and pushed the door open.
Inside the office, the subject had already moved onto Mu ZhenYu. Sun-jie, seeing that Xu WanZhi was there, didn't think she could hear what they had said a few minutes ago so she said to her coldly, "Why are you here? What do you want?"
Xu WanZhi didn't look any better than her. "Not Enough Time To Love Up has wrapped up. I came to let you know that plus I'm here to see if there's any other scripts available."
"Oh, puuulease," said Sun-jie as though Xu WanZhi was cracking a joke. She sat up and said, mockingly to her colleagues next to her, "Do you know how many first and second tiers actresses in our company have no work right now? If we have a script available, you would be at the bottom of the queue. I've heard that you've beat up on Zhou LiQian this afternoon, just because she mentioned you under Jiang YueXian's WeChat? That's so funny, had she said anything incorrect? Such a great opportunity that I had offered up to you. I told you to go, what made you think you could not go? Look at it now. You didn't get onto hot searches and you beat someone up. I guarantee you that Zhou LiQian will start a sh*t show online before dinnertime. C'mon, can't you just not create problems for us, hmm? What do you have to go against someone of Zhou LiQian's standing?"
Xu WanZhi's mouth curved up, and she said, "She can go right ahead and do that. The more negative publicity I have, the happier you are anyway. To put it in your words, with her high standing, if she's willing to bash one of your actresses, then she's doing you a favor. You should be thankful here, why are you complaining to me about it?"
"Watch your attitude!!" said Sun-jie as she slammed her palm against her desk. "Xu WanZhi, starting right now, turn in your chauffeur, assistant, and car key. Go home and think about what you have done."
Xu WanZhi hadn't even said a word in response before someone knocked on the door. The person who was knocking let herself in. Xu WanZhi turned around and saw that it was Xiao Yuan, her assistant.
"WanZhi-jie, I have a document here for you to sign."
Sun-jie snapped right away. She stood up and started shouting at her, "Xiao Yuan! Have you no manners? We are still talking here. Who said you can just walk in like this? What's so important that she might sign it this minute?"
"Transfe of stock ownership," came a young woman's voice from outside the door. A woman in a power suit and hair pulled into a ponytail walked in and said, "I was the one who let her walk in here. Do you have a problem with that?"
Everybody who were there gossiping just a moment ago all changed colors, and they uniformly stood up and greeted her at once, "Fang-jie."
The unexpected guest was one of Silver Star's elders, golden agent Fang Lin. She has a lot of seniority at Silver Star. Not only was she an agent, she was also involved in the management of the company. The fact that Silver Star was still around attributed a lot to her.
Fang Lin looked around the entire room and responded to the greeting with a grunt before she walked over to Sun-jie and said to her sternly, "Starting today, 30% of Silver Star's stock will be transferred to Miss Xu. Her office will be the one next to CEO Zhang. Anything else that you are not done talking about, you can go and sort it out at her office. Any other questions?"
Sun-jie looked up abruptly. She was in so much shock that her mouth dropped open. After a long while, she was finally able to stammer out a, "No, no problem."
Xu WanZhi took the pen from Xiao Yan and signed her name on the document. "No wonder Sun-jie just had me turn in my assistant, chauffeur, and car keys. She must have already found it out through internal channels."
Her words startled Sun-jie, making her break up in cold sweat.