Cooperation

Qi Yi and Yang Huayi met in a very secluded place.

Once the two of them met, there was no small talk; they got straight to the point.

Qi Yi slapped her tablet down in front of Yang Huayi. “That trending video about Qi Yao using drugs—those were your people, weren’t they?”

Yang Huayi sat upright across from her and didn’t even glance at the tablet. She said lazily, “I’m the one who made it public. What, are you going to settle scores with me?”

Qi Yi gave a cold laugh. “You’re quick to admit it.”

Yang Huayi spread her hands. “President Qi, you have your hands in everything. If you wanted to check something, what could you possibly miss? Was there any point in me denying it?”

Then she added innocently, “And Qi Yao— I said it before. If he kept acting up, I’d crush him.”

Yang Huayi had exposed Qi Yao’s drug use. Qi Yi was furious, because it dragged MeiYu Media’s reputation down with it; but that wasn’t what angered her most.

Yang Huayi was only the one who had torn the curtain open, not the mastermind behind it.

Qi Yi’s expression darkened. “What do you think about this?”

Yang Huayi studied her face, her tone unreadable. “What opinion could I possibly have?”

Qi Yi snorted. “Save it. If I really had my hands in everything, I wouldn’t have let one of my own artists get led into drugs right under my nose.”

Yang Huayi’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You know?”

“I’m only guessing,” Qi Yi said coldly. “Who dragged Qi Yao into it, who was working behind the scenes—President Yang, you should have an answer, shouldn’t you?”

Yang Huayi suddenly smiled.

Her smile was light and carefree. “President Qi, you really are sharp. Talking to you is always a pleasure. There’s been some internal turnover at Heguang Tongchen Corporation lately; everything I want to do keeps running into roadblocks. You’ve heard a little about that, haven’t you?”

A flash of keen light passed through Qi Yi’s eyes. “So it really was her... Of course. It was her.”

Yang Huayi only smiled and said nothing.

“Liu He wasn’t brought into the company by you?” Qi Yi’s tone turned mocking. “You’ve always loved taking in strays. The farmer and the snake; getting bitten by your own subordinate, having shit dumped on your head—how does it feel?”

Ignoring Qi Yi’s sarcasm, Yang Huayi’s expression didn’t change; only the depth in her eyes grew colder. “Do you want to cooperate?”

She poured Qi Yi a cup of tea and set it in front of her.

Qi Yi didn’t drink it. She looked at her suspiciously. “You want to crush Qi Yao, fine. But what about Yu Ling? As far as I know, she was the one who specifically went to find Qi Yao, and the two of them worked together on this.”

Yang Huayi’s tone was disdainful. “She’s tied to Liu He; keeping her around is still useful.”

Qi Yi continued to watch her.

Yang Huayi took out her phone and pulled up footage of Yu Ling tampering with Li Lan’s car. “Don’t worry. What she’s holding over people is just as explosive. Even if I wanted to protect her, Li Lan would crush her. Yu Ling is finished sooner or later.”

Qi Yi finally let her guard down, but one question still remained.

“By that logic, Yu Ling is a bigger threat to Li Lan. She even tampered with things in an attempt to kill Li Lan; why is Li Lan going after Qi Yao first instead?”

Yang Huayi curled her lips. “Qi Yao pushed Zhu Qing.”

Qi Yi waited for more. “Mm? That’s it?”

Yang Huayi said coldly, “That’s it.”

Qi Yi burst out laughing. “Hahaha, the artist you value so much is actually a hopeless romantic.”

Yang Huayi’s tone was indifferent. “Most of what Yu Ling does is aimed at Li Lan; Li Lan, on the other hand, isn’t in a hurry. That means she’s broad-minded and can keep her composure.”

“Broad-minded? Hahahaha—”

Yang Huayi watched her laugh with a blank face.

Qi Yi laughed for a long time. Seeing Yang Huayi look bad was like watching a good show; after laughing to her heart’s content, she finally reined in her expression.

“All right. Cooperation.”

Qi Yi picked up the tea with one hand and took a sip, then exchanged a look with her; they understood each other without words.

—

On set, Qian Chu came in with a whole crowd.

“You, follow the screenwriter and help revise the script,” Qian Chu assigned. “You, go with the stage crew to prepare props; and you, you should be from the camera team, right? Go find Deputy Director Sun right away.”

Li Lan had a bit of a headache. “Why did you bring so many people? The set already has enough hands.”

Qian Chu stayed put and refused to leave. “These were all arranged by President Yang. You can’t turn them down, so how could I? And I’m staying at the filming base. I brought the studio’s core staff here; we’re setting up our office right here so we can supervise at any time.”

Li Lan frowned. “What exactly are you supervising?”

Qian Chu looked at her calmly. “You.”

Li Lan: “……”

“You don’t know how hot this movie is right now,” Qian Chu said, her attitude completely different from before; she sounded almost eager. “Just based on the current online buzz, there’ll probably be over ten million people showing up on opening day just for the hype and curiosity. If it’s shot even a little well, it’ll easily break a hundred million.”

Li Lan reminded her silently, “Our estimated budget is thirty to fifty million; making a hundred million barely even means we won’t lose money.”

Qian Chu laughed brightly. “How could it possibly lose money? I’ve read the script; it’s a good script. Your judgment really is excellent, hahaha. President Yang is also coming to join the production in a few days, so there’s no way it’ll lose money.”

Li Lan narrowed her eyes. “She’s joining the production? I’m the one who decides that.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Qian Chu was unusually easy to talk to now. “Anyway, a bunch of advertisers have already come to me wanting to discuss co-investment. I guess contacting your director wasn’t working, but none of them offered a price I liked...”

The advertisers who had pulled funding the moment Li Lan got blacklisted online were now shamelessly crawling back to ask for cooperation. The director, calm as ever, quoted Li Lan’s famous words and told them to “get lost.”

The advertising slots that opened up were naturally being fought over like crazy.

Li Lan couldn’t stand her anymore and got up to leave. “Talk to the director yourself. I’m going to shoot.”

Qian Chu, this money-obsessed miser, had followed the scent of money here.

Whether by fate or by chance, the so-called “fake marriage” incident had driven both Li Lan’s and Zhu Qing’s popularity up by a huge margin; naturally, this newly started film, shooting while the heat was still blazing, was drawing intense attention.

Li Lan didn’t want outside factors affecting the shoot. Since Qian Chu had come, she could help handle the trouble; as for business cooperation, Qian Chu could deal with it.

-

Over on the other side, Zhu Qing was listening to the director explain the scene.

The character she was playing was called Lan Yin. Her ancestors had once been protected by a certain official, and before her mother died, she took Lan Yin’s hand and held it tightly, telling her that she had to repay that kindness.

Her mother died with her eyes still open. After burying her, Lan Yin left home and came to Shanghai, relying on a sweet, pleasing voice to sing for money and live a life of nightly revelry.

Based on Zhu Qing’s temperament, the screenwriter had custom-tailored the role of a songstress for her. Zhu Qing had a delicate oval face, fair and refined, with smooth contours that photographed beautifully. Her features, taken individually, were all pleasant enough, but together they became especially captivating; most of all, those round, narrow almond eyes of hers. She didn’t even need to do anything; just looking at the camera, she already seemed to carry a misty, half-buried past.

She had a face with a story, and the more the director looked, the more satisfied he became.

Li Lan’s character was called Bai Zehua, the eldest legitimate daughter of a large feudal family. Her family was in business and owned dozens of cargo ships. She had been sent abroad as a child to study advanced culture; only after her father fell gravely ill and she finished her studies did she return to the country.

Next, the two of them were going to shoot their first scene together.

Li Lan asked with concern, “Any problems?”

Zhu Qing shook her head and sank into the emotion of the story.

The scene was this: after Bai Zehua and Lan Yin became confidantes, Bai Zehua went south to deal with a dispute over cargo ships, but when she returned home, she discovered that Lan Yin was about to become her “stepmother.”

The autumn rain brought a chill; dew dripped from the banana leaves, and the lamplight stretched the shadow by the window long and thin.

Bai Zehua held a slim cigarette between her fingers. The ember glowed red in her pale hand, flickering faintly. Threads of smoke melted into the air; she stood in the darkness beside a carved screen, her gaze heavy and dusky as dried ink, fixed tightly on the blurry pool of light behind it.

Lan Yin had just finished bathing and changing clothes. She draped on a silk nightgown embroidered with silver thread, picked up a soft towel, and gently wiped her damp long hair as she rounded the screen.

Then she ran straight into a shadow.

The person she had longed for day and night appeared before her; Lan Yin’s gaze faltered in slight shock.

Bai Zehua stood in the shadows, half her face swallowed by darkness and half pale and expressionless.

The whites of her eyes were faintly red; storms seemed to be held down in their depths as she walked step by step toward Lan Yin.

Her leather shoes scraped against the wooden floor with a creak; every step felt like it was crushing Lan Yin’s taut nerves.

“Long time no see,” Bai Zehua exhaled a straight white stream of smoke. It brushed over Lan Yin’s bare collarbone and rounded shoulder, then rose and wrapped her face in a faint haze. From Lan Yin’s perspective, the emotion in Bai Zehua’s eyes was utterly unfamiliar. “Oh, no; we just saw each other at the banquet. I didn’t have time to greet you yet.”

The searing wave of smoke made Lan Yin tremble, but the ash that fell felt icy; cold and hot at once, gooseflesh rising densely across her skin.

Lan Yin’s pupils contracted. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. A thousand words were stuck in her throat and only became a fragile silence in her eyes.

There were many things she could not tell Bai Zehua.

Lan Yin gave a slight shake of her head, water dripping from her long hair and landing on her neck. “Was the journey all right?”

“All right?” Bai Zehua let out a cold laugh. Her voice was so soft it was almost a whisper, yet every word hit like an ice pick. “Perfectly all right. The cargo ships were hijacked three times; the last time, they held a knife to my throat and forced me to jump into the river. The water was so violent it felt like it would smash my bones to pieces. The whirlpool dragged me, pressing me down toward the riverbed again and again... I choked on a mouthful of stinking mud, my throat burning like fire, but I clenched onto...”

She suddenly stopped. The hand holding the cigarette trembled slightly, ash falling in a soft flurry. Her gaze locked onto Lan Yin’s with ferocity, like teeth sinking into flesh. “—I clung to the jade token engraved with ‘peace’ that you gave me, and I fought my way back up with my whole damn life! I was terrified that if I were even a second slower, I’d lose this life and never, never see you again; I’d never fulfill my promise to wander through Jiangnan’s mist and rain with you!”

Every word seemed torn raw from between her teeth, carrying blood-soaked hatred and agony that cut to the bone.

She pressed closer step by step; each emphasized word forced Lan Yin back. With a thud, her back hit the cold wall, and she had nowhere left to retreat.

“But...” Bai Zehua suddenly raised her hand and seized Lan Yin’s slender wrist.

“Ah!” Lan Yin cried out in pain, instinctively struggling, but that hand was like a welded iron clamp, unmoving.

Bai Zehua ignored her resistance entirely and forcefully pressed Lan Yin’s palm against her own cheek. Tilting her head, she fixed her with that near-crazed gaze Lan Yin had never seen before.

“That person, though, turned around and suddenly became my stepmother,” she said, every word carrying the smell of blood. Her hoarse voice buzzed in Lan Yin’s ear. “How can she be so heartless? Hm? Tell me why. Tell me!”

Her wrist hurt unbearably; the cold wall ground against her spine; in front of her was the almost frenzied face of the woman she loved. Lan Yin’s breathing completely broke down. Her chest heaved violently, and tears streamed silently from the corners of her eyes. She trembled like a dead leaf in the wind, choking out broken, shaky breaths. “...Let go of me.”

“Not letting go!” The last shred of reason in Bai Zehua’s eyes shattered completely, and a destructive impulse seized her.

She suddenly lowered her head and bit down on Lan Yin’s slender wrist.

“Ah——!” A sharp stab of pain shot through her; Lan Yin cried out.

The tips of Bai Zehua’s teeth instantly broke the skin, and blood with a metallic smell spilled into the gaps between them.

“It hurts... don’t bite... don’t do this...” With tears in her voice, Lan Yin’s other hand helplessly patted Bai Zehua’s taut shoulder, as if to comfort her, yet also as if apologizing. “I... I faint at the sight of blood... I...”

Bai Zehua raised her head.

Bright red blood stained her lips. In a breath so soft it could only be caught at close range, like a lover’s murmur, she said, “You can’t marry him. He is far from a good match...”

The words were like a wisp of silk thread; Lan Yin couldn’t make out anything clearly.

The instant her vision landed on the glaring scarlet on her wrist, all her senses—screaming, the smell of blood, the bone-deep cold, the sharp pain, and that face carrying both obsession and madness, all too familiar and yet utterly strange—came crashing down like a heavy blow.

Her body went limp, and she fainted completely, falling straight into Bai Zehua’s arms.

Outside the door, the physician paced anxiously.

The heavy door slowly opened.

Bai Zehua’s figure appeared in the doorway, holding the unconscious Lan Yin steadily in her arms. Lan Yin’s head drooped weakly in the crook of her arm, looking both wronged and powerless.

Bai Zehua’s movements were extremely careful, as though she were holding some fragile piece of porcelain. She bent down slowly and placed Lan Yin gently onto the stretcher that had already been prepared.

“Go tell the old man that she’s very ill, suffering from a severe and dangerous condition that can’t be cured and will kill her.”

“Oh, right; you can also say it’s like a plague, contagious, absolutely impossible to keep in the estate.”

“Send her to Xingji Hospital to recuperate immediately. Without my order, no one is allowed to let her leave.”

“Cut!”

The chemistry between the two of them exceeded everyone’s expectations. This take flowed extremely smoothly; all the emotion and tension they needed were there.

Li Lan let out a breath.

The overly suppressed emotions made her a little uncomfortable. Once she recovered, she wiped the sweat from her face and walked toward Zhu Qing.

“Are you all right?”

Zhu Qing silently nodded at her.

After a moment, she said, “You acted very well.”

Li Lan paused, then said sincerely, “You were good too.”

Zhu Qing shook her head. Her voice was very soft. “I only got pulled into the scene by you; you’re the one who carried the whole thing.”

Zhu Qing wasn’t wrong. Li Lan herself was just too suited to this script. At first glance it hadn’t seemed that way, but the more they shot, the more it felt like the entire story had been tailored for her from top to bottom; her emotions, her image, fit the character so seamlessly it was almost perfect.

Zhu Qing thought of the video Yang Huayi had sent her.

In this trending-search incident, Yang Huayi had made another move, helping Li Lan take revenge by crushing Qi Yao completely.

Yang Huayi’s repeated help, this script that seemed custom-made for her, the twenty million she had personally invested... one thing after another; it was all too intimate.

And then there was Yu Ling. Up to now, Li Lan still had no intention of dealing with Yu Ling, only because Yang Huayi had other arrangements for her.

Yang Huayi... was able to make Li Lan repeatedly tolerate the person who had hurt her.

Li Lan had not yet said anything when Zhu Qing braced a hand on her knee and stood up. Her voice was somewhat cold and hard. “I’m going to rest for a bit. Don’t follow me.”

————————!!————————

The story is entering its last major arc!

Zhu Qing: You’ve got something going on there [eye roll]

Li Lan: ...Wronged.

(Wishing everyone a happy weekend [heart][heart])