Chapter 3 – Auditions

 

It was a hot summer day. There was no air-conditioning, just a few fans hanging from the ceiling of the food stalls making a ruckus.

Outside, there was a wooden table where two men were seated. One of them had such a loud and unrestrained voice that those sitting within could hear him clearly.

Liu Xi slung an arm around Chu Ying’s shoulders and laughed. “Your suit – really, it makes you appear handsome beyond belief!”

Chu Ying laughingly scolded. “Get out.”

Liu Xi filled his glass with more alcohol. “It’s been such a long time, if I’d known you’d left the army earlier I’d have come back sooner to take you out for a drink.”

Chu Ying sniffed and said nothing.

The two of them grew up together. After Chu Ying joined the army and Liu Xi went into business, their interactions had lessened but their friendship remained tight.

“Ding –”

A clear phone notification sounded.

Liu Xi wondered, “Ying-zi, why is your phone still sounding, it’s been almost a whole night.”

Chu Ying took his phone out and glanced at it. Sure enough, it’s some unimportant messages from Su Yi again. He hadn’t managed to put his phone back when Liu Xi let out an exclamation.

“Goddess Su Yi?” Liu Xi paused in shock. “That female celebrity?”

Chu Ying didn’t say anything, taking a drink on his own.

“Is it?” Liu Xi looked at his indifferent attitude and smiled wider. “Hey, if it is, give me her number, I’ve liked her for a really long time.”

As he spoke he opened his phone, digging out a photo from his album. It was Su Yi’s Weibo profile picture. On it she wore a well-fitted suit, her red lips slightly parted and her eye-line slanting up, at once handsome and sexy. “Damn, during the auction I’d intended to go chat with her, but I got held up by my dad.”

Chu Ying tilted his head and looked at the photo on Liu Xi’s hand phone for just a moment before he looked away again.

He raised his head and took another gulp before standing up, patting Liu Xi’s head as if he was patting his dog.

“You’ve passed the age where you need your dad to help you get a girl.”

It was only when Chu Ying was a distance away that Liu Xi finally recovered enough to call angrily, “If you didn’t want to, you don’t have to give me the number! Why do you have to attack me personally as well?!”

**

Outside the auditioning room for ‘Undercurrent’.

Su Yi was looking at the script in her hand, muttering something under her breath. Close up, it was possible to hear her reciting the lines.

Her pronunciation was clear, reading aloud the lines in rhythmic tones. Wu Xue, sitting beside her, couldn’t help sighing with deep feeling that even the heavens wanted her to be an actress. Su Yi didn’t have professional training in this regard, but her ability to read off the scripts definitely crushed that of most other female actresses. She almost never needed dubs.

After going through the script once, Su Yi took out her phone again. Sure enough, there wasn’t any notification, but there was no disappointment on her face. Instead, she curved her lips up slightly and sent another message to Chu Ying.

When that was done, she opened Weibo and looked at the trending topics. Then she realized that the news of an egg being thrown at her was gone.

That news had been a rather hot topic, not just because she had an egg thrown at her. More people were interested in Chu Ying. The media had caught the scene when he had caught the egg, making that the main photo for this article.

Any news on a hero rushing in to save the day would be big news, particularly if the hero was as handsome as this one. The comments below were almost all regarding the identity of the guy.

She clicked open the search bar and searched, ‘Su Yi getting hit by an egg’.

0 related news.

She paused, shocked, and then entered, ‘Blocking an egg’.

0 related news.

???

She looked at Wu Xue and marveled, “Your public relations ability has scored full marks recently, little Xue Xue.”

Wu Xue was unable to make heads or tails of what she said. “What public relations ability, what have you done?”

“…no, I was talking about the egg incident.”

Wu Xue let out an ‘oh’. “I noticed that too, but that was not my doing.”

Su Yi raised an eyebrow. “Then who was it?”

“Who else can it be, that guy in the photo. Duh. But it’s quite impressive, there wasn’t a single related topic left, I really want to ask him which public relations company he has found.” Wu Xue finished that and looked at her. “But, why are you even bored enough to be looking up the news about you getting hit by an egg?”

Su Yi smiled. “Oh, there were a few comments I saw last time saying that I looked like I belong by his side.”

“…” After a few moments of silence, Wu Xue said, “He’s in a hurry to draw the line with you and you’re thinking about those few stupid comments.”

She suddenly reached out a hand and touched Su Yi’s forehead. “Has that guy bewitched you?”

“No,” Su Yi pushed her hand away and said seriously, “He poisoned me.”

Su Yi clicked open Chu Ying’s moments again, opened the picture of the dog, took a few good looks and closed it.

Wu Xue looked at all of that and sighed, finally unable to help urging Su Yi, “Wake up. You don’t even know that guy’s age and personality, how can you like him? It’s just an infatuation – and one with only that face, at that.”

Su Yi didn’t reply.

Wu Xue said, “It’s true, you haven’t dated before, you don’t know, when you like a guy you don’t do it this way…”

“I do,” Su Yi said with conviction.

Having been silenced twice, Wu Xue had nothing more to say and gave in. “Alright, say that that’s the case, how much do you know about him? Even if I don’t say much about anything else, haven’t you thought about whether he has a girlfriend or a wife, or that he’s a dad? I’m not objecting to you dating, but I do feel that you’ve only met once and don’t know each other at all…”

“If he has a girlfriend or a wife, I wouldn’t interrupt him,” Su Yi interrupted, her lips quirked. “But if not, I’m going to get him.”

As she finished speaking, the staff came over to inform her that she should prepare to go in for the audition. Su Yi nodded in acknowledgement and stood up. She placed the script on Wu Xue’s knees and followed the staff into the auditioning room.

**

When Su Yi walked into the audition room, Tu Jinglan just happened to be walking out.

The two came face to face and Tu Jinglan smiled, “Yi-jie, funny how we’re seeing each other again. Good luck on your audition!”

Su Yi calmly said, “Thanks.”

After Su Yi went in, Tu Jinglan lost her smile. She took a pair of sunglasses from her assistant’s hands and said with unhappiness, “What’s with her look.”

The assistant had long since understood Tu Jinglan’s temperament and hurried to agree, “Yeah, she hasn’t been a lead before either, acting as if she really is the bigshot she thinks she is.”

Tu Jinglan humphed. This time, both the director and team of ‘Undercurrent’ were big names, the investors were easy with spending too. It was definitely the best shot she had gotten recently. She had to get this role.

She thought about it for a moment and called her agent. “Who’s investing in ‘Undercurrent’?”

On the other end the agent had long since figured that out. “It’s the Chu Corporation. Don’t worry, I’ve already gotten you a chance to have a meal with the senior executives in that company.”

“That’s good.” Tu Jinglan couldn’t help complaining, “I just ran into Su Yi again, she still had that look, it’s enough to make anyone annoyed!”

Tu Jinglan’s dislike of Su Yi wasn’t entirely out of thin air. These few years, as long as Su Yi appeared at the audition venue, the role was almost always Su Yi’s.

As luck would have it, in these two years wherein Tu Jinglan entered the industry, she kept running into Su Yi. As the number of roles she’d lost to Su Yi increased, her dislike for Su Yi grew into a hatred for her as well.

“What can Su Yi be considered? A lofty white lotus who sees herself as above everyone else will have to rot someday.” Her agent said, “Don’t worry, when those on top are happy this role will be yours.”

The volume was loud and the agent’s voice was rather sharp. Even if it was not on hands-off mode, the assistant standing by Tu Jinglan could still hear what the other said very clearly.

After hanging up, the assistant couldn’t help asking, “Jing-jie, why does Lin-jie seem to know Su Yi so well?”

Lin-jie was Tu Jinglan’s agent.

“Su Yi used to be Lin-jie’s artist,” Tu Jinglan said. “Then Lin-jie found that she couldn’t become famous and terminated the contract with her. Huh, Lin-jie has such good taste, I have no idea why she signed the contract with Su Yi before.”

Stepping on someone else and raising herself at the same time, Tu Jinglan finished what she had to say, put on her sunglasses and walked out of the audition venue loftily.

But, Su Yi’s not exactly not famous either…

Her assistant silently swallowed this thought and hurried to follow Tu Jinglan.