Chapter 1 – Chu Ying

Su Yi laid on the big sofa lazily, resting her long legs on the table as she scrolled unenthusiastically through Weibo comments.

[Slut, you’ll have retribution for scheming against my baby!!]

[Hope that your family will be ruined by an interloper and that you will die alone. /smile]”

[Scheming bitch, leave the entertainment industry!]

……

The Weibo post from two hours ago had since accumulated over six thousand replies, largely unkind.

Assistant An Xuan walked to her side and placed the fresh watermelon juice in front of her. “Yi-jie, why are you trawling through the comments again?”

Su Yi didn’t raise a brow, “How could I not look at fans’ comments?”

“…” An Xuan looked at her expression of indifference with respect. “I was afraid that you would be affected emotionally…”

Su Yi said, “They’re cursing the character, not me.”

These, over six thousand comments, were not directed at Su Yi, the actress. Instead they were explicitly aimed at the vile second female lead Yu Ji, from the trending imperial-harem show, the character she was playing

This galled An Xuan. “Yes, but it’s just a character in a TV show. How could they rant about it on your Weibo? Don’t they understand the nature of acting?”

Su Yi glanced at the new personal assistant of hers, who had only been around for almost three months, and said calmly, “Don’t take it seriously, just treat these comments as praise.”

“Praise?”

Su Yi said, “Yeah, their hatred reflects my acting prowess.”

“…” Hmm? That seemed to make sense.

Su Yi smiled silently. Picking up the glass of watermelon juice, she took a sip.

Su Yi was indeed an oddity of the entertainment industry. She might not be famous, but she was more well-known and recognized than certain A-list actresses. If you say that she’s famous – it wasn’t entirely true either, given that she had never acted as a female lead.

The first show she appeared in was a big banner production – from the directors to the actors, every single person was from the top of the entertainment industry’s food chain – except for Su Yi, the second female lead.

She played an innocent little white lotus turned villainous. For years after the episode in which her innocence was lost, her Weibo had been overwhelmed by haters. In the aftermath of that show, she gained notoriety overnight, overshadowing the show itself.

As an inexperienced rookie, she shouldn’t have been part of such a colossal production, yet the director Li Min resisted the objections and pushed on with her.

Li Min had taken just one look at her before rushing forward to pat her on the shoulder and tell her that she had to be the character.

Startled and confused, Su Yi had asked, “Why?”

Li Min smiled gently at her, “Your face leads people to easily believe you’re both evil and hateful.”

“……”

Su Yi wasn’t ugly. One could even argue that she was really pretty – thick eyelashes, slanted oval eyes that resembled sloe-eyed beauties, a small and high nose, lips that were full rather than big… It was tough trying to be ugly with such perfect features. She resembled the legendary ‘aggressive beauty’.

Besides, she wasn’t just a pretty face. She had a pretty elegant figure too.

Su Yi was a meter and seventy-six cm tall without shoes, just two to three cm shorter than the most popular supermodels in the country. She had perfect proportions too – long legs, thin waist and slender neck. Most importantly, she had bountiful breasts.

Flat-chested supermodel? Non-existent!

Though she was rather dissatisfied with that. If her chest was a little smaller, she would have had more options since the designers nowadays preferred flat-chested models, who were more like clothes-hangers.

At this, she looked down at her babies and sighed. “Do you know that you’ve gotten in the way of your mom’s career?”

An Xuan was shocked. She stammered, “Yi-jie… you… you’re pregnant???”

Su Yi said, “No, I’m talking to my boobs.”

“…”

An Xuan coughed softly once, opened the tablet and retrieved the schedule. “Yi-jie, there’s a charity gala tomorrow night.”

Si Yi had set down her phone and was playing with her nails. “Noted. Schedule in a session with a manicurist tomorrow afternoon, I’d like to change my style.”

The next day, An Xuan and her agent, Wu Xue, hurried to Su Yi’s home with the make-up artist and gown in tow.

Su Yi was lying on the sofa, a facial mask on her face. The manicurist sat by her with a face mask on, carefully doing her nails.

Wu Xue ripped off her mask. “Sit up and do your makeup!”

Su Yi looked at her through half-opened eyes and slowly straightened up. “Why are you here?”

“I brought you the scripts.” Wu Xue had been her agent since shortly after Su Yi first entered the industry and had since been with her for more than five years. Their relationship had long since evolved beyond that of normal colleagues into that of each other’s closest friend. Wu Xue sat down beside her, tossing two scripts at her. “Take a look, which one do you want?”

Su Yi gave them both a look-over and realized that both were directed by big names…

“Can’t I take both?”

“No. The filming times overlap.”

Su Yi smiled. “That doesn’t matter, I’m not afraid of hard work.”

Wu Xue sneered. “You’re not afraid of hard work but those big shots don’t agree to casting you in both. Besides, these two shows, not only do their filming times overlap… their promotions and even their release schedule are about the same; it’s as if they’re twins…”

Su Yi said, “… then I’ll take a look at the scripts and tell you after I’ve decided.”

“Alright, but be quick. The auditions are next week.” Su Yi’s nails were done, on them the roses in full bloom were as charmingly delicate as their owner. Wu Xue pulled her up from the sofa, and hurried the people around to put on her make-up and gown for her. “The charity ball tonight is a little more – you know. There’s not just going to be a lot of people from this industry, I hear… some of those with bigger backgrounds are going to come too. Watch yourself, don’t stir up any trouble.”

Su Yi giggled. “Little Xue Xue, what do you mean? It’s just a charity ball, what sort of problems can I stir up?”

Wu Xue, “Heh, the last time you went to that ball you made headlines didn’t you? ‘Famous Actress Su Yi flashing on the Red Carpet’?”

Su Yi corrected her. “I didn’t get exposed, that bastard reporter made that up. He even blurred the corner of my safety pants that were showing. Wow… how underhanded do you say he was?”

“If you hadn’t been mean to that reporter, how would he have messed with you?”

Su Yi scoffed. “He dared to ask if I’ve gone for plastic surgery for my face and if I’ve gone for breast augmentation. Honestly, if he said I’ve done plastic surgery that’s fine, but he doesn’t get to attack my babies. Did I ask for them to grow this big? He should be glad it was in front of the cameras. If it was in private I would have beaten him up.”

“…”

The make-up artist had an ‘I’m used to this’ face, and remained silent. Her mein did not change as she continued to put on Su Yi’s makeup. She asked, “Little Yi, what colour do you want for your lips today?”

Su Yi thought about it. “Bright red. Yu Ji’s recent parts were all with this colour, it’d call attention back to her.”

Wu Xue took the gown sponsored by their company out of the box. “Change before you put your makeup on. If it gets onto the clothes, you can’t afford to pay it back. The company said that this charity ball is a huge affair, so they went out to borrow this dress just for this event. It’s really expensive.”

The gown in Wu Xue’s hands was a long dress with a hollow sleeve, coloured a bright and passionate red, the skirt designed with pleats.

“Red really does suit you.” After she put on the dress Wu Xue commented.

Su Yi was naturally pale, and with the bright red gauzy fabric on her pale white skin she looked fetching. Thanks to the previous incident, the dress the company had given her this time, had quite a lot of fabric. Perhaps, the sleeves were hollow, but were still long.

Except the additional fabric, which wrapped tightly around her well-proportioned body, only served to further express her figure, especially her breasts.

Su Yi who had noticed it as well, commented coldly. “The company’s not afraid that there are not enough people suspecting me of going for breast enhancement?”

It was too late to change the dress now, so all Wu Xue could do was try to comfort her. “It’s alright, I know that they’re real and that’s good enough. We don’t need to care about what others say, alright?”

“…”

At the venue, Su Yi got off the car, stood on the red carpet and let the reporters take photos.

The red carpet was the place where one could clearly see whether a celebrity was famous or not. Whoever the reporters aimed their camera at were the more well-known ones. A whole row of them stood on the long red carpet, with everyone making an effort to pose and entice the reporters to take a few more photos.

Su Yi didn’t care too much about this. It was just a charity ball, was there a need to entertain the reporters? She stood there, counted to ten and prepared to leave.

“Su Yi! Wait, just a few more…”

“Su Yi, please look this way!”

“Su Yi…”

A few reporters called out to her, and Su Yi couldn’t do anything about it – all she could do was look back and smile at the camera.

“Su Yi! You big slut! –”

A sharp voice sounded in the group of reporters, loud and clear. Almost everyone on the red carpet could hear it. With this one screech, not only Su Yi, but also the reporters and celebrities around, looked with surprise towards the source.

The voice sounded once again, “You framed Zhen Mi! She’s a good sister who entered the palace with you! Slut!!!”

Su Yi didn’t have the chance to react when an egg raced through the air, drawing out a pretty arc towards her.

Seriously? She was going to get hit by an egg??

That was Su Yi’s first reaction.

Where did this bunch of loonies come from? It was just a TV show. Do you have to be so serious about it???

That was Su Yi’s second reaction.

Even if she had to be hit by an egg, it mustn’t get into her eyes. That would really be disgusting…

That was Su Yi’s third reaction.

Amidst the screams, she closed her eyes and awaited her fate –

One second, two seconds, three seconds…

She kept her eyes closed for quite a while, but the sticky slimy feeling she was waiting for didn’t come.

She opened her eyes in slits, and realized that the surrounding light had dimmed.

A tall shadow stood in front of her. The person she was looking at was rather tall. Su Yi calculated carefully, she was wearing 6 cm heels today so she was at least a meter and eighty cm now, but the guy in front of her was taller still. He had a rather solid back and didn’t appear too fat, so that suit probably only contained muscles …

A series of erotic thoughts flashed through her mind.

The man turned around.

Thick brows, sharp eyes, a high nose, thin lips and bronze-coloured skin.

He was frowning slightly, a bit of egg remained on his hand.

The guy had blocked her view completely. She swallowed unconsciously, then carefully turned to the side and saw the person who threw the egg being dragged away by security.

She thanked that loony idiot in her heart.

Then she looked up, putting on the smile she’d practiced in the mirror countless times – the end of her lips slightly tugged upwards, a curve to her eyes, gently saying, “Thank you.”

The man inclined his head slightly and without stopping, took a step and left.

Su Yi ignored the reporters calling out behind her, stepping on her heels to catch up with him.

“My name is Su Yi.”

“To be able to catch that egg, you must be really agile.”

“What is your name?”

Su Yi’s voice wasn’t very loud, but she was sure that the volume was within the range which that man could hear. The other’s expression remained unchanged though, and he refused to reply to her with a single word.

She didn’t get angry, and instead reached out her hand to catch his sleeve. Of course, she was unable to pull such a big guy around, but the guy still slowed down.

Su Yi could hear the almost inaudible sigh of the man.

His voice was rather deep. “Chu Ying.”

When he was done, he removed Su Yi’s little hands from his sleeve with ease and left with big strides.

Su Yi didn’t continue chasing him. Carved onto her little face was a smile, when she was chasing Chu Ying, her heel had almost been rubbed raw by her shoe.

Satisfied, she slowed down and continued walking towards her seat.