I Became Everyone's Favorite on a Detective Variety Show

[Update paused]

[Beautiful and badass mystery novelist x gentle, adorable love-song singer]

While gathering material in the desert, Cheng Buzhou saw a mirage. Can someone tell her why it was showing her own funeral?

The mirage was fleeting, but it was packed with content.

She saw herself as a minor character, a long-lost first love who died suddenly of an illness. The men who had lost her then fought over another woman with a similar face, using force and threats, and tempting her with promises. She went through every old-school cliché in the book, short of kidney and eye transplants...

Cheng Buzhou: ?

She gets a health checkup every year and is perfectly healthy. How could she die young?

As soon as she left the desert, she called without wasting a second. "That mystery variety show you mentioned? I'm in."

The show she had never taken seriously was the very one where the mirage's heroine appeared alongside those men.

Cheng Buzhou hurried back to China to see who this woman was.

Later, Who's Behind the Scenes was hailed as the most deadly variety show in the industry. Whoever went on it became an intellectual wasteland.

There were no personas and no scripts. Every celebrity on the show was left scratching their head, and even the "fish with nine holes" couldn't hide their ignorance anymore.

The only ones to make it through unscathed were singer Ji Fengting and a woman named Bai Li.

The latter seemed to have some connection to a big-name screenwriter.

Eight years later, Cheng Buzhou returned to China.

Everyone looked at the cool beauty before them, dressed in a dark green gown with loose curls, and failed to recognize her.

Back in high school, she had been the pure, long-haired beauty with straight black hair.

Cheng Buzhou smiled faintly, holding a glass of wine as she moved smoothly through the gathering.

Everyone's eyes followed her as she walked away.

Her cold-hearted, rich-family fiancé, whose mind was full of profit, poured her a glass of wine. "There's a charity gala tonight. Come with me."

Cheng Buzhou replied coldly, "The engagement is off. Get lost."

Her flirtatious childhood friend, a rich second-generation playboy, leaned toward her. "It's only been a few years, but I didn't recognize you at all."

Cheng Buzhou smiled. "You haven't changed. You're still just as sleazy."

Her lovesick, clingy younger cousin tried to tug at her sleeve. "Sis, I've missed you so much."

Cheng Buzhou covered her nose. "Stay back. Your creepiness is making me gag."

She turned and pushed Bai Li into the spotlight.

"Who needs their shallow affection? A career is what a real woman should pursue."

[Blurb saved on April 10, 2023, revised on July 2, and screenshotted]

Theme: Loving freedom and refusing to be restrained