Translator: Larbre Studio Editor: Larbre Studio
She had barely left the room when she heard the people sitting inside talking about her…
“Zhou, how come Ning Qing is willing to be slapped for two hundred? I remember her as the beloved girl of the Ning family. How did she end up like this?”
“Don’t even get me started. It’s all because of her lecher dad. Ning Qing’s mother liked Chinese opera a lot when she was young and became really close with Li Meiling, a brilliant Chinese opera performer. Li Meiling gave birth to Ning Yao twenty years ago. Ning Qing treated Ning Yao as her younger sister, without knowing that she was really her half-sister. Ning Qing’s father divorced her mother three years ago, started to live with Li Meiling and Ning Yao, and threw Ning Qing and her mother out of the family.”
“What? Ms. Li Meiling? She’s extremely venerable in the Chinese opera circle, a much-applauded artist. How come…”
“Shh, don’t let her hear it. The world runs by the law of the jungle. Although Li Meiling was cheating behind her best friend’s back, who dared to say anything? I feel really sorry for Ning Qing and her mother. Her mother is still sick and her fiancé Xu’s family has helped little. She is really struggling.”
“Oh… And Ning Qing just won’t compromise. Speaking of men drooling over her pretty face every day. Now I’m not talking about coaxing up a sugar daddy, but if only she would be willing to show up to parties and socialize with the big shots, her income could reach that of the A-list stars.”
“Yeah, right. Ning Qing was an excellent student when she was studying at the Beijing Film Academy. Huayi Entertainment was about to sign her when she was nineteen, but she once slapped the CEO of Huayi when he touched her hand. After that incident, she was blacklisted throughout the entire industry and now she can only play minor roles. The dark hidden rules of show business.”
Listening to people inside the room talking about her, Ning Qing forced a smile. She went to the bathroom while placing her hand on the wall for support.
She would never regret slapping that man. People say that the entertainment industry is full of filth, but not everyone is filthy in the film circle–only those with black hearts.
She would never compromise her morals or betray herself.
After washing her face with cold water, Ning Qing still felt dizzy. She walked out of the bathroom.
After several steps, she ran into a man who smelled strongly of booze. He shouted at her, “Haven’t you got eyes?”
Ning Qing frowned. She looked at him and froze. What a small world. He was the first hand of Huayi whom they were just talking about.
The man was also stunned at the sight of Ning Qing, too. But then his eyes began to glow. In the past two years, Ning Qing had grown more beautiful than all the A-list stars he had slept with, even without make-up.
He was about to make a move. “Oh, it’s you. How have you been these past two years? Wanna come back to Huayi? I’ve been thinking about you. You’re always welcome there.”
That was the way a forty-year-old man with a little drink in him spoke. Right. He behaved like that because he dared to, for Huayi and Yinghuang, the latter of which was owned by the Xu Family, were the two largest entertainment companies in the industry.
Unfortunately, she fell out with both.
“Thank you for your offer, but I’m not interested,” she said indifferently as she kept walking.
The man looked at her with a filthy and excited look while she was walking away. He had been in the industry for too long to accept that there was any woman he wanted but could not have.
He ran a few paces to catch up with her, put his arm around her waist and said, “Ning Qing, don’t choose the hard way. I’ll make sure you have a very comfortable life if you say yes.”