Wen's mother slapped Wen Shiyu across the face, "What nonsense are you spouting in front of your father!"
Amidst the chaos, Wen Mubai finally mustered the courage to speak.
"There are other investors like Wang Zhineng all over the world, so you can only focus on City A?"
"Mu Bai, do you have a solution?" Wen's mother's expression changed instantly, adopting the demeanor of a good stepmother. "Tell me quickly."
“Lai Qian,” she said, giving a name. “She’s thinking of acting recently.”
Lai Qian was an actress she had worked with before. She herself didn't have any special background, but the sugar daddy behind her was very powerful and doted on her.
Although she has been in the entertainment industry for so long without achieving much fame, and is constantly criticized by netizens for her acting skills and outspoken personality, she never lacks good opportunities.
However, she has recently become interested in changing her career path and is currently in contact with a script and director. She means that she will spend money to make a good movie of her own. It doesn't have to be a box office hit, but it must be high-quality.
Lai Qian had originally contacted the Wang family, but something went wrong and the deal fell through, which gave Wen Mubai the opportunity.
"The solution has been explained; it's up to you to decide how to do it."
"I'm full." Wen Mubai put down his chopsticks and the barely touched rice bowl and stood up, glancing at his mother out of the corner of his eye. "Next time, tell the kitchen to put less chili in the food. It's too spicy."
...
2602
In recent months, Xu Chacha's behavior has become very strange. She gets up at six o'clock in the morning and sits at the table to do her makeup for more than an hour.
This behavior is not uncommon among freshmen, but Xu Chacha is different. You should know that she used to get up 30 minutes before class, wash up, put on lipstick, grab her books, and rush to the classroom.
Another early riser, Zhu Zhu, couldn't resist gossiping, "Honey, have you been feeling romantic lately? You're getting up earlier than me every day."
Xu Chacha was drawing eyeliner, barely daring to breathe. Fortunately, she was still skilled, and the upward-curving eyeliner was drawn very smoothly.
After finishing the drawing, she replied to Zhu Zhu, "I just feel that I'm usually too sloppy when I go out."
"You're sloppy?" Zhu Zhu opened her eyes angrily. "You're naturally beautiful, if I looked like you, I wouldn't bother with makeup when I went out."
“That’s different.” Xu Chacha patiently curled her eyelashes little by little. “I’m not pretty enough.”
"Help! Help!" Zhu Zhu clutched her chest. "This child is driving me crazy! Where did she learn Versailles from? Su Qing, Jiang Shu, someone come here! Help me give her a good scolding!"
"Shh." Xu Chacha covered her mouth. "I'm serious."
Wen Mubai has written screenplays and worked as the editor-in-chief of fashion magazines. He has seen all kinds of celebrities, beauties, and models in the industry. Her looks are really no match for him.
Last time when she asked Wen Mubai, he said he wanted to make money first. This time, he said he wanted someone good-looking. After considering all the options, Xu Chacha concluded that Wen Mubai's ideal type was a beautiful rich woman.
Thanks to her good fortune in transmigrating into the book, Xu Chacha now has half of that luck, but the question of whether she's good-looking is still rather ambiguous. She's unsure what constitutes good-looking in Wen Mubai's eyes.
"Does it look good?" After tidying herself up, Xu Chacha put down the mirror and asked.
She always wears very light makeup, focusing on highlighting her strengths and minimizing her weaknesses. She doesn't add much color; she just lightly sweeps a layer of eyeshadow to deepen the contours, adds some shimmer to the creases of her double eyelids, and applies pearlescent shimmer to her eyes. Paired with curled eyelashes, it looks like she's not putting on much effort, but she looks much more energetic.
A light application of matte brick red on the lips, with a gradient that slowly spreads out from the center, looks very high-quality and also makes teeth appear whiter.
Zhu Zhu wiped the drool from her mouth. "You're beautiful. If I were a man, I'd want to marry you right now."
"Okay, that's all for today."
"You're all dressed up so nicely today, where are you going?" Zhu Zhu asked curiously. "Don't you have classes this afternoon?"
"Go find Auntie... Wen Mubai." Xu Chacha almost called out the wrong name.
"Oh~ then go ahead." Zhu Zhu chuckled, "So you won't be back tonight?"
"Get lost." Xu Chacha threw a wad of tissues at her, grabbed her keys and put them in her bag. "I'm leaving. Don't think about me."
Xu Chacha had called a car in advance on her phone. She got in just as she arrived at the school gate. After closing the car door, she sent a text message to Wen Mubai to tell her that she had already set off.
Wen Mubai, who hadn't written a script in a long time, recently took on another job, this time working with Lai Qian, who is known for his poor acting skills.
Xu Chacha was a little curious, so she insisted on visiting the set. Wen Mubai thought she was a fan of someone, so he gave her the address.
She wasn't a screenwriter on the set, but Xu Chacha was going, so it would be best if someone led her there. Therefore, Xu Chacha was going to take a taxi to her studio, and the two of them would meet up and then set off together.
What Wen Mubai didn't know was that Xu Chacha wasn't actually interested in any particular actress; she simply wanted to meet up with him. She'd been so busy lately that she barely had time to reply to text messages, and Xu Chacha was practically bored out of her mind.
The two arrived at the film set together. Unfortunately, they were shooting on an outdoor set today, and the wind was so strong that it made them shiver.
Meanwhile, the female lead, Lai Qian, was wearing a thin sundress and sitting on a bench by the lake in the park, facing the water, acting out a crying scene while reciting lines so long that even the screenwriter himself probably couldn't remember them.
Xu Chacha found it quite refreshing. She didn't expect that Lai Qian, the actress who was rumored to have powerful backers and act like a diva, would be so dedicated. When the director asked her to do it again, she did it again without uttering a single complaint.
However, Xu Chacha was quite shocked when she first learned that she had put so much effort into making this movie.
From the script to the costumes and even the director, she and her backers spent a lot of money to put together the project. Normally, with such a setup, a different actor would have been able to get at least two nominations.
Outsiders couldn't understand Lai Qian's actions, and even insiders were confused, simply thinking she was tired of being a kept woman and wanted to try throwing money down the drain.
"Cut! Cut!" As soon as the director yelled "Cut!", the assistant wrapped Lai Qian in a blanket. She was holding a pink hot water bottle and shivering from the cold. "Director, is that take okay? If you make me cry a few more times, my tears will freeze into ice along with the lake water."
Director: "It depends on your standard. If it is..."
"Fine! You can't say it now." Lai Qian covered his mouth. "It's harder than climbing to heaven for me to hear you say 'okay'."
Having probably seen Wen Mubai, Lai Qian walked over with a cup of hot tea, stood in front of Xu Chacha, and looked her up and down. "Wow, this girl is really pretty."
Xu Chacha was surprised that she, who looked so ladylike, spoke so down-to-earth, and tilted her head and chuckled softly.
“She’s grown up now.” Wen Mubai pressed his hand on Xu Chacha’s head. “But she has always been strikingly beautiful.”
"Wow, this feels amazing." Lai Qian was really outgoing and immediately pinched Xu Chacha's face. "My skin was similar to yours when I was young. I miss it so much."
Xu Chacha laughed, "You're still young, and you look so good even with such a tired-looking makeup. You have such great natural features, I'm so envious."
“Hey!” Lai Qian’s eyes widened. “I like this little girl, she’s got a sweet tongue.”
"I like you too," Xu Chacha said politely.
"Tell me, is it because you're a big fan of mine that you specially asked Wen Mubai to bring you to visit the set?" Lai Qian winked at her.
"I guess so," was all she could say.
"That's great! Come on, let's chat. You're so likable, when we get back, I'll get you autographs and photos."
"Huh? Hahaha, okay."
Xu Chacha didn't expect that she had only come to meet Wen Mubai, but was pulled away by Lai Qian to chat. Wen Mubai was also pulled away by the director to discuss the script after standing there for a short time.
She could only suppress her pleading gaze and obediently sit next to Lai Qian and listen to her rambling.
"It's so rare that I can still have fans who followed me to the event, and they're even female fans." Lai Qian put his arm around Xu Chacha's shoulder, looking like they were best buddies.
She was wearing a floral dress, but she didn't care about her image at all. She crossed her legs and held an enamel cup filled with dried sea buckthorn fruit in her left hand, which she held with her fingers in a delicate gesture. She was blowing on it and drinking it. Her posture was similar to that of an old man flipping through a newspaper at a morning tea stall.
"Your play is very good." It's good even if you only watch it as a comedy.
"You kid." Lai Qian slapped Xu Chacha hard on the back. "You're talking nonsense. How can you brag like that? We can just talk about it, but don't embarrass yourselves online, or people will call you a brainless fan."
"Pfft—" Xu Chacha covered her mouth, "Sister Qianqian, you have such a good attitude."
"How can you manage with a bad attitude?" Lai Qian took a sip of her hot tea. "Can you find another female celebrity in China with more scandals than me? All those accusations of being arrogant and being kept by a sugar daddy are old news. And now they're even criticizing me for not wearing a bra while watering flowers in my villa garden?"
"I saw that too. Don't you find it bothersome? The paparazzi are practically camped out at your door." That's meddling way too much.
"What's the big deal? I'm a female celebrity. I'll only worry when no one wants to film me anymore." Lai Qian was very open-minded.
"So... is the sugar daddy/sugar baby arrangement also true?"
"You could say that, but we can actually be considered a couple, it's just that she's always been the one supporting me."
"Couple?"
"Tsk, you have no idea how beautiful she is. If I hadn't been so persistent, she wouldn't have even looked at me." Lai Qian took a sip of her cup.
"You can do that?" Is this an uncommon version of Mao Sui recommending himself?
Having read too many novels with forced sales and purchases, Xu Chacha suddenly became very interested in the story of Lai Qian and her sugar daddy.
“Yeah, if it were anyone else, I’d be playing a virtuous and chaste woman. But with her, I’m the one who benefits.” Lai Qian laughed heartily. “I’m the one who gets the better deal.”
Xu Chacha was somewhat curious about that person, but for some reason, a strange thought popped into her head at that moment.
"And me?" she pointed to herself. "How am I?"
Lai Qian narrowed his eyes. "You're young and inexperienced, so don't get involved. Don't assume that all sugar daddies are as rich and handsome as my husband. There are plenty of pot-bellied, bald old men out there."
"That's not what I meant!" Xu Chacha quickly said.
"Oh~" Lai Qian's gaze towards her changed instantly.
Indeed, a closer look reveals that Xu Chacha's accessories and clothes are quite expensive.
"This line of work doesn't care about looks, it cares about this." Lai Qian rubbed his fingers together as if counting money.
"I have a little bit of that too."
The assistant next to Lai Qian stepped forward at the right moment and explained Xu Chacha's identity.
"Great, and she's a rich female fan. That'll make me proud." Lai Qian slapped his thigh and excitedly asked Xu Chacha, "Which one have you got your eye on?"
Xu Chacha wasn't used to her way of speaking, and she hadn't thought of it that way. She just happened to be chatting with Lai Qian and asked the question on a whim.
Now, she wouldn't dare to speak up.
Who is Ke Laiqian? She's been in the industry for so long that she's become quite the shrewd person. From the moment she entered, she noticed that Xu Chacha's eyes kept glancing at Wen Mubai, each glance more affectionate and clingy than the last. She was all too familiar with that kind of look.
Lai Qian is the one who looks at her partner like that every day.
"If it's Wen Mubai, I advise you to seize this opportunity to take advantage of the situation."
"Wh-no, no." Xu Chacha quickly waved her hands, glancing at Wen Mubai who was still engrossed in chatting with the director and had no time to pay attention to them, then leaned closer and whispered, "What do you mean?"
"The Wen family seems to be having some trouble lately, losing money on several projects. Take that recently flopped drama, for example, it was theirs. They were hoping it would turn things around, but the male lead got into a domestic violence and infidelity scandal, leading to a boycott by the audience. Over a billion yuan went down the drain." Lai Qian was very excited when talking about gossip. "They've almost lost everything, otherwise why would they push their daughter out on blind dates?"
When the topic of blind dates came up, Xu Chacha's expression darkened.
If she hadn't messed up the blind date, the Wen family and the Wang family wouldn't have become so strained, leaving Wen Mubai running between the film crew and the studio, so busy that he needs to be reminded to eat.
Xu Chacha watched anxiously from the sidelines, desperately wanting to help her, but it seemed that she really had nothing but money.
Xu Chacha thought that if she had been more diligent over the years, she wouldn't still be unknown and have only a handful of connections in the industry. At least then she might have been able to help Wen Mubai in some way.
Thinking about it, Xu Chacha unconsciously clenched her fist. She felt it was time to wake up her damn career ambition. As long as she wasn't working herself to death, wasn't it better to earn as much money as possible?
She's been spoiled by her parents for so long that she's almost turned into a useless little pig who only knows how to expect to be waited on hand and foot.
Xu Chacha raised her hand and patted her face. "Wake up, Xu Chacha! You have to support your wife! What are you doing, being a lazy bum? Get up and make some money!"