A Third-Rate Actor [Showbiz]

[This work is published exclusively on Jinjiang Literature City. All other copies are pirated. Any discrepancies in pirated copies are unrelated to the official version.]

1v1, switches, happy ending

Blurb:

At 22, Gu Fangzhou landed a job as the agent to a top actress. She was fearless, taking on gods and Buddhas alike, and soon made quite a name for herself despite her youth. Some said she was such a talent that companies would fight over her. Others said she'd offended too many people and would eventually be blacklisted by the industry.

But no one expected her own company to strike first. At 26, Gu Fangzhou was singled out and fired. She went freelance, stumbling along until she was 31.

Wang Danni began her acting career at 20. At 22, she signed with a long-established agency. At 24, for reasons no one knew, she broke her contract and left. At 25, she tearfully begged to return in front of a crowd of media. Soon after, she shot to fame and became a top-tier star. Now 29, she's one of the hottest stars in the industry.

The two seemed to have no connection at all. Only in some obscure corner of the internet had someone once mentioned that they might have worked together for a while.

A top-tier star had once left the industry alongside her agent for love.

Celebrity gossip is always a mix of truth and rumor. People listened for entertainment, and no one paid it any mind.

Everyone thought life would go on as usual, with Gu Fangzhou taking her junior artists from one job to the next, day after day.

"You have to be a star before you get to nitpick and choose who you work with and which projects you take!" In a small production with a tight budget, everyone heard Gu Fangzhou's furious shout.

She was just as forceful as ever, just as unwilling to spare anyone's feelings.

"You complain about this and that, but do you have what it takes to climb higher? If you refuse this role and that role, how are you going to fight for more opportunities? How are you going to get onto a bigger platform?"

The news of the little incident spread fast.

That very night, Gu Fangzhou found the woman who had become a huge star sitting in her home.

Wang Danni wore a ridiculously expensive robe and held a bottle of champagne. She sprawled on Gu Fangzhou's sofa, making a drunken scene. "You heartless woman! You worry about everyone else, so why don't you worry about me? Back then, I went crawling back so we could both put food on the table, and you didn't say a word. Now those brats give you grief every day, and you're out here planning their futures? Why didn't you say anything when it was the two of us?"

Gu Fangzhou tried to ignore the unreasonable woman, but under Wang Danni's loud ranting, she considered whether the soundproofing in her home was good enough. Then she picked up her keys and coat to take Wang Danni home.

"Hey, don't tell me you've become some kind of confidante to those kids?" Clutching the coat Gu Fangzhou had draped over her head, Wang Danni crouched in the doorway and refused to move. "I'm drunk. If you don't answer me, I'm not leaving."

"Don't pretend. You can drink a whole jin of baijiu and you think I don't know?" Gu Fangzhou frowned.

"What do you want?"

The hallway light flickered on and off, again and again, until patience ran out and neither of them made another sound.

Wang Danni lowered her head and smiled. "You were heartless... and I was unkind... Now I'm a star. Can you give me a chance to choose you?"

Reader Advisory:

1. Everything is fictional. The characters' actions and values do not represent reality. Please don't read too much into them.

2. No unsolicited writing advice.

3. If you don't like it, click the X and let us go our separate ways. Everyone wins.

Theme: Life is only thirty thousand days. Cherish the present.