The Queen of the Silver Screen [Showbiz]

In her previous life, Jiang Chen had two great regrets. First, when she was just starting out in the entertainment industry, she felt self-conscious about her looks and chose to get plastic surgery. Second, because of the surgery, she never became a Best Actress, right up until her death.

Reborn as Jiang Cheng, she looks at the youthful face in the mirror, imperfect but full of collagen. She gently brushes her fingers over the young brows and eyes of her reflection

There's no need for plastic surgery. She has acting skills that can transform her face!

*

Someone once took stock of Best Actress Jiang Cheng's career and found that her path to success was impossible to replicate.

In the entertainment industry, filled with beauties, she didn't have stunning looks;

in the cutthroat world of fame and fortune, she came from a background with next to nothing.

All she had was her superb acting ability.

When playing a stereotypical evil supporting woman, she turned the character's sinister madness into a textbook performance, making viewers flood the official account with questions: "Are you sure you don't need to investigate her? That doesn't look like acting!"

When playing a little beggar, she crouched beside a slop bucket, chewing on moldy bread. A pair of eyes glowed eerily through her dirty, tangled hair, making the director behind the monitor shudder: "That girl's eyes look like a man-eating ghoul could crawl out of them!"

When playing a mysterious swordsman in a wuxia drama, she stood with her sword in a bamboo grove, and the light, graceful flourish of her blade made it ring with a clear, metallic hum. The night footage of her dancing with her sword in the bamboo grove leaked, and the original author posted in the middle of the night: "That's Xie Lingshuang stepping right out of the book!"

At the time, she was still just an ordinary extra. At a cast dinner, a newly popular young actor swirled his wineglass and sneered: "These days, audiences only care about looks."

She smiled and raised her glass to him: "A pretty face is just a ticket to get in. Acting is the foundation that takes an actor to the highest awards podium!"

*

Later, on the night she won the Oscar for Best Actress and completed her Grand Slam of the world's four major Best Actress awards, a reporter asked her in front of the flashing cameras: "Some say you won so many awards thanks entirely to this amazing camera-ready face bestowed on you by heaven. What do you think?"

Jiang Cheng held her trophy and looked at the camera, winking playfully: "That's wrong. This isn't a rice bowl heaven handed me. I spent forty years making it myself."

Reader's guide:

1. A traditional showbiz career-progression story. She starts out as a supporting actor and extra; her golden finger is being reborn, giving her decades more acting experience than everyone else.

2. It's a Mary Sue story, and the female lead's acting is unbelievably good.

3. There are lots of scenes within the story, as well as some delightfully cheesy moments, like the heroine showing off her incredible acting and outperforming her scene partners.

4. This isn't a mindless wish-fulfillment story. There will be plenty of setbacks early on, such as her losing roles to actors with better connections despite her excellent acting, and being suppressed by the powerful. But the heroine will quickly overcome these problems through her own ability, rising step by step from the bottom to the top.

Theme: With a resilient mind, you can succeed at anything