CH 11

This novel is only hosted on Foxaholic, copies found elsewhere are either stolen or plagiarized.

It was nightfall when Ruona came. She was wrapped up tightly and carried lots of things.

Opening the door, Liang Yin was still a little stunned when Ruona exclaimed, “Yinyin, I am here!” She raised her arms to hug her and walked in, “Guess what delicious food I brought you!”

She merely took her shoes off without changing to the house slippers before walking to the table, then took each and every thing out of the bags, and spread them over the table.

There were all kinds of fruits, shrimp dumplings, barbecued pork, hawthorn cakes, roast goose, red bean dessert with sticky rice dumplings …. and even a bowl of hot and sour noodles.

“You don’t know how hungry I have been lately. When my weight exceeded 90 last week, that Tyrant Landlord was dead set on having me lose weight and didn’t even let me eat a grain of rice but only drank those nutritional juices that I nearly vomited!” As she spoke, she took off the hat and layers of scarf when a delicate pretty little face was soon revealed.

‘Tyrant Landlord’, is Ruona’s talent agent, Tan Guangping who has a reputation for being ‘strict’.

But before the scarf was completely taken off, she halted on the spot again with eyes full of surprise, “Yinyin, what’s wrong with you?”

Liang Yin’s eyes were red and swollen, which she apparently had cried before.

“Nothing.” Liang Yin shook her head gently and put down the slippers in her hand, “Put the slippers on.” She then turned around and went to the kitchen to pour some water for her.

Ruona slipped on the slippers haphazardly and followed her, “No, you have to tell me.”

She has never seen Liang Yin cry. Based on her impression, she has always been a quiet and calm person who is neither pleased by external gains nor saddened by personal losses.

The hand that was pouring the water paused and after a long while, Liang Yin finally replied, “Zhong Mingzhen and I are ready to divorce.”

After putting a brave front for so long, the tears still trickled down when she turned around. Once she got home and closed the door, the tears raged that she eventually choked with sobs.

All the forbearance was just so that others wouldn’t see her inner weaknesses, but this was after all an excessively long relationship that began from her youth for a full thirteen years.

Ending it was just like hollowing out half of her life and riddled her with gaping wounds.

Liang Yin’s eyes started to redden again. Raising her head, she turned around and tried to hold back.

“Why ah … “Ruona looked at her with reddened eyes too. She couldn’t endure seeing her being slandered or getting tarnished and what’s more seeing her cry.

She knew how much she liked Zhong Mingzhen.

Liang Yin tried her best to calm her state of mind before lowering her head and replied, “Probably not compatible.” After a pause, she added, “Let’s go eat, it’s getting cold.”

She knew she wanted to eat too.

""

Ruona loves to eat, but she has been on a diet these years for filming. For an actress, it is excessively important to maintain a stable weight. In fact, Ruona is already very slim to weigh less than 90 lbs at 162.

Ruona followed her to sit down at the table. Carrying over the bowl of hot and sour noodles, she, however, had no more appetite. Looking at Liang Yin who sat right in front of her, she pushed the stuff on the table towards her and said, “You also eat some ah, these are all your favorites.”

She could see that Liang Yin was obviously thinner than before.

She has always envied her good figure, with a height of 165 and weigh 90 lbs. She is always that slim but now she only feels distressed.

“En.” Liang Yin did not refuse and responded. She took the bowl of red bean dessert with sticky rice dumplings and scooped a spoonful to eat it.

The red bean dessert with sticky rice dumplings is glutinous and sweet but she had no appetite for it. She just didn’t want to disappoint Ruona’s kind intent.

Ruona picked up a stalk of green vegetables and bit into it. She then asked in a small voice, “Have you guys talked about it?”

“En.” Liang Yin swallowed the red bean in her mouth.

Looking at her appearance of not being able to swallow, she knew there must be some hidden circumstance but Liang Yin refused to say anything, so she dared not ask again.

Seeing Liang Yin’s reticence and sorrow, she didn’t want to unmask her scars.

There is inevitably a chance for her to ask again.

She finally knew why she came back so suddenly and why she was so unfortunate to be photographed. In the past, people from the Zhong family would always follow her and also take care of everything whenever she came back.

""

“Then what are you going to do from now on? I mean will you keep staying here or will you go somewhere else?” Ruona suddenly asked whatever that came to her mind.

She (LY) is an adaptable person and used to quietness. Since the death of her maternal grandmother three years ago, she has no more family members and she (RN) is really afraid of where she would run off to again.

She knows many people in the entertainment industry, but there is only one true friend.

Liang Yin shook her head, “I haven’t thought about it.” The reason she came back was because there is still a place to stay here and she still needed to go through the divorce process with Zhong Mingzhen in the country. After that, she hasn’t thought about it.

“Yinyin, how about returning to acting.” Ruona ran over and pulled her hand, “You retired because you married into the Zhong family at that time, but now that you are divorced, there’s nothing more to worry about? Aren’t you fond of acting, I can see that you have not fallen behind all these years, so why not simply come back.”

Over these years, she knew that Liang Yin had been paying close attention to the developments of the film and television industry. She has been learning constantly; studying the languages of various countries, reading up the histories of other countries, learning all kinds of knowledge that is practical and also not feasible, and also studied all kinds of film related materials.

Once, she even rushed over specifically to listen to a lecture given by an internationally renowned director in a neighboring country.

Over the years, she (RN) would sometimes ask her about contents she couldn’t understand in the script and she could always get the most crucial answer.

She always felt that if she was famous due to her strenuous diligence, then her livelihood was typically God’s reward, hence if she truly stopped acting, then it would really be too pitiful!

Liang Yin looked at Ruona without actually saying a word for a long time.

Returning to acting? She has never thought about it.

When she retired back then, it was indeed because she married into the Zhong family. Zhong Mingzhen told his family that he was marrying her but Father Zhong opposed it. Due to Zhong Mingzhen’s persistence later, Father Zhong finally consented but Mother Zhong looked for her afterwards and indirectly told her that the Zhong family didn’t need a limelight-seeker daughter-in-law.

""

Back then, the first Old Madam Zhong died of depression due to the involvement of an actress. Father Zhong had always borne grudges over the early death of his biological mother. He could not interfere with the fact that Liang Yin was not a member of the Zhong family but he absolutely would not allow her to marry into the Zhong family as an actress.

Liang Yin learned these ins and outs from the current Old Madam Zhong, and then really began to retire from the public eye.

The current Old Madam Zhong has long been the third wife of the Zhong family. Without any children, Old Madam Zhong has always rendered her with care. The actress back then had left a child who is currently the youngest uncle of the Zhong family. It was also him who brought the Great Director Chen Hua’en back to the Zhong family and met her — he is at odds with Father Zhong without any inheritance of the family businesses and just ran around before investing in the entertainment industry.

It was just that she did leave the entertainment industry to marry into the Zhong family back then but she never thought she would still return after leaving the Zhong family one day.

Ruona seemed afraid that she would just walk away, so she added, “You don’t know how many people want your comeback. You can see that those fans of yours, they miss you a lot. Didn’t I post on Weibo yesterday, you don’t know how many followers I’ve gained or how many private messages I received which all asked about my relationship with you and let me forward their support and longings for you.

Not mentioning these fans, even the people in the circle asked me too. Do you remember that Tung Xiaohua, the one who shot [Min Sheng], I don’t know how many times he approached me, asking me about our relationship and wanting to know if you really want to come back after he saw my Weibo. He has a script in hand which was written several years ago and the main character was originally written to cater for you but you retired before he finished writing it. He hasn’t shot that script because he has not found a satisfactory candidate yet. He said it was his painstaking effort and he hated to ruin it by randomly choosing someone else. Not to mention how happy he was when he heard of your comeback this time.

Yinyin, really, why don’t you just come back. Since you like acting and many people are waiting for your film, isn’t this great? Although the Tyrant Landlord is harsh, he has great ability. You can look for him to be your talent agent first then kick him out once you become famous!

Yinyin, I really can’t bear for you to leave. There are few people with real feelings in this entertainment industry. On the surface, they take group photos to mark the occasion like beautiful intimate sisters but once they turn around, you will be blackened or photoshopped ugly and like the plastic-flowers friendship*, they will secretly disparage and trample you. I really wish for you to stay with me.”

[T/N: 塑料花友谊 (Sùliào huā yǒuyì) – fake friendship / false sisterhood]

Ruona tiresomely pursued with reddened eyes.

Knowing that Liang Yin is most soft-hearted, perhaps she will agree if she talked more.

Looking at her mournful appearance, Liang Yin wanted to laugh yet felt her heart ached a little and brushing the loose hair that covered her forehead, she replied with a faint smile, “I will think about it.”

But she still hasn’t agreed.

**********

In the president’s office of StarLight Media Zhou Jianchen finally met Xu Lili who had gone missing for a long time.

Xu Lili ultimately appeared at the airport in the morning and was frantically mobbed.

The people from StarLight Media found her inside her rented apartment later and brought her back to the company.

In just briefly a few days, she has lost a lot of weight and is a shadow of her former self.

With tears in her eyes, she was very cooperative, as if she was ready for anything.

Big President Zhou, Zhou Zuokang was there too. Sitting at the desk, his gaze was calm but icy-cold, “Let’s talk about it, why you did this?”

He was the one who intended to popularize her in the beginning. She is pretty, intuitive and tenacious. Although her acting skills were a little lacking, he believed she would become popular then become another cash cow for the company after some packaging and styling

He believed his own foresight even at the expense of Zhou Jianchen’s manifesting displeasure to let him cooperate with the hype — the company’s interest are paramount and except for overstepping the bottom line, he can disregard all means but he didn’t expect that he would eventually made an error of judgement.

Xu Lili was very calm, confronting the big boss’ demand, “I will not say anything, so just do what needs to be done.”

She doesn’t care about anything anymore.

Hearing that, Zhou Jianchen actually flared up. She stirred up such a big ruckus, but now she is ready to say nothing?

But he was in no mood to waste a word on her, so he just turned around to not look at her.

Xu Lili’s tears trickled down pitter-pattering.

Why did she do this, merely because she likes him very much.

Or perhaps she was too deeply involved in the role.

In that movie, he was the male lead while she was the second female lead and everything about her revolved around him.

She knew perfectly well that those rumors were all bogus but she wilfully believed that they were real and then she became completely disheartened after her declaration of love was rejected.

She has suffered depression before which no one knew about it. She would often do something beyond her control then kept regretting it and suffered a lot of torment.

In these past two years, she has done too many things to become famous.

She longed for redemption, so she posted such a Weibo in desperation. The candid photo has all along existed in her photo album which she hoped is real.

But she became afraid after posting it. Knowing how much impact this would bring after she did it, she dared not face it yet she couldn’t delete it, so she could only escape.

She had insomnia during those nights. Turning off her cellphone to block off everything, she was still afraid. She didn’t know what would be discussed online about her or how Zhou Jianchen would think of her.

She dared not look but couldn’t help checking, and then felt more and more despair.

All the illusions were destroyed without any mercy.

Then, she eventually chose to let go.

She had loved and would never love again, and she would bear all the consequences.

That Weibo was simply digging her own grave and buried her bright future, but she had no regret at all.

She just felt relieved as she has nothing left to lose anymore.

**********

Since Xu Lili kept her mouth shut, Zhou Zuokang could only let someone take her away. He just needed to confirm that there was no ploy behind it and others didn’t matter.

It couldn’t have been better since she came back on her own.

Zhou Jianchen, however, was still in a bad mood even though he knew that Xu Lili would be kept idle from now on and would never be able to turn her fate again.

“This matter is my bad. I didn’t discern her clearly in the first place.” After everyone had left, Zhou Zoukang still tended to his younger brother.

Although the matter has been resolved, this debt is still his to bear.

Zhou Jianchen is just so calculative towards him.

Seeing that his elder brother was appeasing him, he just forsaken the mockery which he wanted to say.

Zhou Zuokang smiled then took out some materials from the drawer, “Chen Hua’en is preparing to shoot a new film, a big production, interested?”

“Not interested.” Zhou Jianchen replied without even looking at it.

“You’d better take a look. I’ve read it and it’s quite fitting for you. Didn’t you keep saying that you haven’t picked a satisfactory script, this should satisfy you.” Zhou Zuokang said and handed it over personally.

Zhou Jianchen could only take it. Flipping it, he only took a glance when he subconsciously stood straight up.

“How about it, won’t this be a big hit?” Zhou Zuokang rubbed his hands and laughed, “I had a chat with Chan Hua’en and he also thinks you are suitable for this film, but your payment is too high that he felt he couldn’t afford to hire you. Haha.” Zhou Zoukang laughed again.

Feeling ear-piercing, Zhou Jianchen didn’t want to talk to him anymore. He rolled up the material in his hands, just turned around and left.

He completely disregarded Zhou Zoukang who was still shouting behind him, “Think about it, you haven’t acted in a film for a long time!”

**********

Walking out the threshold, he instinctively took out his cellphone.

Switching it on, Liang Yin still did not reply.

The author has something to say:

Little Episode:

Chan Hua’en: Are you interested in accepting this film of mine?

Fim Emperor Zhou: Not interested.

Chan Hua’en: The female lead is Liang Yin …

Film Emperor Zhou: Perform, perform, perform! Say nothing more, I’m performing!