Chapter 10 – Liar

 

Su Yi had just reached home when she received the other script from Wu Xue.

Wu Xue said, “Nevermind, it’s their loss, we have a lot of shows.”

The script was a typewritten one. Su Yi looked through the first few scenes, a little unenthusiastic. ‘Undercurrent’ had such fierce competition for a reason, it was a rather rare well written script, no wonder Tu Jinglan dared to openly snatch it away.

Su Yi said, “Let’s see what’s next.”

After she hung up, she tied her hair up, turned around and entered the bathroom.

She’d showered before going out, but after eating Mala soup she was not as fresh anymore. She roughly rinsed herself off, wrapped the towel around herself, and moved the laptop to the bed, starting to carefully read through the script.

She was not that far in when the alarm she’d set rang.

Su Yi immediately lost the mood to continue reading the script, rolling over and happily picking up her phone.

[Goddess Su Yi: I forgot to take my shoe back, it’s rather confusing.jpg].

A few minutes passed without any response.

Waiting made her anxious, and the script was so dry she couldn’t handle trying to finish it. She closed the file and randomly clicked open a movie to watch.

The doorbell rang.

Su Yi’s address was known to a few media companies, but before the paparazzi had stalked her for half a year without any results to show for it and they’d never come back since. Her family wasn’t in City A either, at this time, other than Wu Xue, no one would come to her house.

She got up, looking out through the cat-eye.

Liang Bo held two glasses of wine, his cheeks red. When there was no response, he impatiently pressed the doorbell a few more times.

Su Yi tsked and turned around, returning to her bedroom. She didn’t intend to open the door at all.

Maybe it’s because he was drunk or something else, today Liang Bo was exceptionally patient, standing outside for almost five minutes without walking away.

When no one answered the doorbell, he started banging on the door noisily.

Su Yi got off the bed, putting on a big overcoat and making sure it covered everything.

Then she put on the anti-theft chain, opening the door and saying in an unfriendly manner, “Is there anything?”

“I knew you were here,” Liang Bo smiled. “Come up and have a drink, it’s almost all the people in the industry.”

Liang Bo loved his appearance, if this was some other time he’d never lower his position and come find Su Yi.

When they were playing Truth or Dare he’d lost and Liu Xi convinced him to come down and invite Su Yi up. He’d been a little tipsy already, unable to handle being teased, so he’d just brought the wine down.

“Not drinking.” Su Yi prepared to close the door.

“Hey… ouch,” Liang Bo didn’t think twice about using his hand to block, if he went up now, how bad would he appear? “No, you need to go and show your face.”

Su Yi asked, “We met in the lift today, right?”

Liang Bo nodded, “Yeah.”

“That sort of taser, I have three more in my house.”

….

When Chu Ying saw Su Yi’s message it was already the second day. Yesterday one of his platoon mates came back to visit his relatives. He went to the airport to pick the guy up, and they went out for beer and BBQ, when he reached home he went straight to bed.

He sent a voice message: [Saw it.]

He was not very used to typing out the messages, that’s why he’d replied so simply to Su Yi’s messages before.

The other sent a voice message in reply rather quickly too.

[“Yup, then pick a time and I’ll come find you, if that’s fine.”]

Su Yi clearly hadn’t woken up, her voice was all soft and slurred.

Chu Ying didn’t understand why he listened to it a second time before he moved his fingers, replying ‘yeah’.

When they reached the company, his assistant brought him a folder. “Boss, this is the list of actors for ‘Undercurrent’.”

Chu Ying had just taken over the business and didn’t know too much about this, the assistant had kindly added a simple introduction to every name on the list.

Good scripts are hard to find and this investment was decided by Old Man Chu. The money they invested was just a small portion of their assets, but compared to the other stage crews it was a rather big deal now. With the amount of funds they had they’d invited a whole bunch of big shots, and even the side characters were old-timers.

When he got to the second female lead, Chu Ying’s actions slowed down.

Tu Jinglan, the person with Liu Xi yesterday, and he’d heard about her from that Old Witch on Su Yi’s phone too.

“This one,” he threw the folder on the table, pointing at Tu Jinglan’s name. “Was the one decided on through the auditions?”

The assistant immediately understood. “No, it’s a request from Assistant Director Qi.”

Chu Ying asked, “Who’s the investor in this show?”

The assistant was confused, and after a long pause, he said, “Our company.”

“Not us, it’s me.” Chu Ying’s voice was calm and emotionless. He pushed the file forward, “Even if there’s any requests, it’s not up to him.”

“…” The assistant carefully asked, “What do you mean?”

“In this show, we don’t want any connections.”

The assistant got it this time, picking up the file. “I’ll get to it now.”

It was a rare day off, Su Yi slept all the way till noon.

After the sleepiness wore off, she abruptly opened her eyes, picking up the phone by her bed and opened the chat with Chu Ying.

This morning’s chat log entered her eyes.

Nice, it was not a dream.

She closed her eyes and smiled, clicking open that two seconds voice message and listening to it over and over again.

The sound of the password being entered rang through the house, Wu Xue entered in a hurry. When she found her, she couldn’t help asking, “Why haven’t you woken up?”

“It’s an off day,” she said, lazily. “Let me sleep a little more. Why are you here? Is there something on?”

“Yes, great news.” Wu Xue sneered, turning around and sprawling on the sofa like a victorious general.

Su Yi casually got up, the strap of her nightdress hanging off to her side, revealing quite a sight. “Let’s hear about it.”

Wu Xue said, “The crew for ‘Undercurrent’ just contacted me, asking if you still had time to take their show.”

“What do they mean,” Su Yi said. “I’m not going to take another role.”

“No,” Wu Xue smiled. “Qiu Ji’s role is yours.”

Su Yi’s first reaction was, “There’s some negative news on Tu Jinglan?”

“Regretfully, not yet.” Wu Xue didn’t try to mystify her. “Before, someone in Chu Corporation had pushed her onto this role, but who knows what happened, they just pulled her out today.”

Su Yi was rather surprised. “Wasn’t the scriptwriter the one in charge, they just get to put someone in and pull them out as they wish?”

“If you have money you really can do anything you wish to.” Wu Xue calmly poured herself a glass of water. “Tu Jinglan’s team had been trying to hint to the media that they got the role in ‘Undercurrent’, hah, I’d like to see how they intend to clean up this mess.”

“……” Su Yi thought about it and only managed, “That senior management is really a heartless bastard.”

A pillow hit her in the face.

Wu Xue said, “How many times have I told you to be more elegant with your words! Get up and go clean up, you have a meeting with the people on the film’s side in the company this afternoon!”

Her agency wasn’t a big one and there weren’t many artists in it, but the company had a rather good eye for which direction each of its artists could develop in. They’d managed to cultivate quite a few successful artists and was famous enough in the industry.

Su Yi, for example, was designated ‘villainous woman’ by the company after her first work.

When she reached the company, the company’s representative was already talking about the contract with the film’s side.

“Sorry about this, there was a traffic jam.”

After explaining why she was late, Su Yi sat down on the chair and didn’t interrupt a second time.

She hid her hand under the table, sending messages to Chu Ying.

[Goddess Su Yi: Busy?]

This time the other replied rather quickly.

[Chu Ying: No.]

[Goddess Su Yi: I’m in a meeting, it’s so boring yawning.gif]

[Chu Ying: Then stop being on your phone.]

This relic!

[Goddess Su Yi: We just ended :)]

When she was waiting for the reply, the door to conference room opened once more.

“Director Chu,” the representative for the film saw the person and hurriedly stood up. “Why did you come down personally.”

Su Yi had her back to the door and didn’t see the person. She stood up with the others, her eyes still flitting to the screen waiting to see if Chu Ying had replied.

The person who came answered simply, “It’s convenient.”

…

Su Yi turned around, meeting the guy’s eyes.

Chu Ying was wearing a suit, staring at her too, his eyes full of ridicule.

These few days, to familiarize himself with the company’s workings, he’d been part of many meetings, even the most basic weekly ones. Today he’d come here to better understand these meetings.

He didn’t expect to catch a liar in the act here.

Su Yi hadn’t the time to think about why the guy would appear here. She turned around hurriedly, trying to delete the message she’d just sent, but the system informed her that it had been sent for more than two minutes and couldn’t be deleted.

The people in the room immediately gave up the main seat. Chu Ying leisurely sat down.

“Continue.”

 

 

this chapter was edited by Anne, and further polished by Larkspur 🙂