Chapter 24
“Actor Trainees” was, to put it mildly, a rather awkward kind of show. On the one hand, it marketed itself as a program for discovering actors with real potential and skill; on the other, it did the exact opposite by dramatically boosting the contestants’ exposure. When it came time to decide who would debut, popularity rankings also carried a great deal of weight. The contestants didn’t just spend their days at base camp in grueling, tightly scheduled training sessions; those near the top of the rankings also had to take outside jobs from time to time—shooting magazine spreads, filming ads, attending promotional events, and so on. No previous talent show had gone this far. It was hard to say whether the production team was ignoring the contestants and the original purpose of the program in pursuit of money, or simply trying to make the show more fan-friendly.
There was an old saying: the fans of a talent show only stay excited for three months. Whether the debuting people were singers or anyone else, the excitement came with the show’s popularity; once the show ended, it would naturally fade. But debuting through a talent show had one advantage: the fans were far more loyal than those of people who debuted in more conventional ways. It relied on a kind of companion-like cultivation, and in the early stages, fans gave their idols a huge amount of support and encouragement.
There was an invisible hierarchy in the entertainment industry; film actors ranked above television actors, and idol-style performers who debuted through variety shows were looked down on by actors who came up through proper film and television productions. Fortunately, this show was selecting actors to begin with, which at most made the contestants half-idols. If they signed and debuted smoothly, then acted in dramas and films in the future, there wouldn’t be much difference in the end.
Lin Yuewei’s acting was self-taught. She had attended a cram course led by a famous instructor and done a short intensive study, but in terms of acting, she absolutely couldn’t compare with those from formal training, such as Shao Yasi. On top of that, her popularity was absurdly high; if she could spend half her week practicing, that was already not bad. So when she heard she would have to go out for a promotional appearance, she wasn’t very willing. In her view, that was all draining popularity for little gain.
Shao Yasi dragged her, set down two cushions, and sat on the bathroom floor with her. She took the matter even more seriously than Lin Yuewei did and tried to persuade her. “You have to go. Think about how long it’s been since your fans have seen you. They need material to keep their loyalty up. We haven’t even debuted yet, so fan support is especially important.”
With no camera watching them, Lin Yuewei relaxed against the toilet and deliberately teased her. “Then I won’t have time to practice. What do I do?”
Shao Yasi answered without hesitation, “I’ll practice with you when I get back. I don’t have any outside jobs anyway; I can help you do your share too.”
Lin Yuewei smiled and pinched her cheek.
What a sweet idiot.
As if asking casually, Lin Yuewei said, “Do you have any plans for the future?”
Shao Yasi was a fresh graduate just like her, but she had started school early and was a year younger. Barely twenty and at exactly the right age, Shao Yasi said, “I’ll just keep running around different sets and see if there are any roles I can play.”
Lin Yuewei asked, “You never thought about debuting?”
Shao Yasi laughed. “The show’s already halfway through, and I’m still in the teens. I’ve never even cracked the top ranks once; maybe I’ll be eliminated next time.”
Lin Yuewei said, “Not necessarily. Why are you so pessimistic?”
“It’s not pessimism. Being a person means having self-awareness,” Shao Yasi said with a sigh. “If I do get eliminated, the one I’ll be most reluctant to leave is you. You absolutely have to debut; debut for both of us.”
Lin Yuewei ruffled her hair. “Don’t say such depressing things. You have a lot of fans now too.” Debuting was very possible.
Shao Yasi herself didn’t hold out much hope, but she also didn’t want to dampen Lin Yuewei’s spirits. Looking at the other girl’s bright, shining eyes, she couldn’t help but say, “I’ll work hard.”
“That’s more like it,” Lin Yuewei said.
Shao Yasi didn’t have much scheming to her. From the clothes she wore in private and the way she chatted in front of her without a care, Lin Yuewei knew her family was wealthy, which was why she had developed such an easygoing, noncompetitive personality. But even if she was well-off, she wasn’t that rich; in the entertainment circle, hers was a fairly ordinary background. The new generation that had entered the industry and started to stand out, especially through talent shows, often came from either tycoons or high-ranking officials; their family backgrounds were more intimidating than the last.
Although Lin Yuewei’s family was very rich and the Lin family moved in upper-class circles, their business scope barely overlapped, and their hands couldn’t reach into this circle. At most, they could get the production team to take slightly better care of her. So when her parents said she should make her own way and not expect help from the family, that was basically empty talk; she had entered this circle with nothing but her own two hands.
Now she had only just taken her first step, and Shao Yasi was the first piece she had placed on this board. Every step after that would need careful planning.
Lin Yuewei closed her eyes and let the makeup artist paint her face, praising her skin.
The host was onstage, cueing the program flow.
“Let’s welcome first place, second place, and Lin Yuewei—” The host stepped back. “Please come on up.”
Amid the cheers, the three of them went onstage. Through her sunglasses, Gu Yanqiu saw that Lin Yuewei was still dressed simply this time in a T-shirt and shorts, her hair tied into a ponytail with a playful lock left hanging on each side of her forehead. The clean, fresh outfit looked incredibly comfortable. She had fair skin, long straight legs, and balanced proportions; in an instant, she stole everyone’s attention.
The host smiled. “Even though everyone down below already knows you, we still have to go through introductions as part of the process.”
They introduced themselves in order of ranking. With each introduction, the crowd below screamed that person’s name wildly. By the time it was Lin Yuewei’s turn, the audience was almost entirely female fans. Lin Zhi’s voice, which he had been trying to shout under the threat of his girlfriend, was easily swallowed beneath the noise.
Gu Yanqiu curled her lip. “...”
Lin Yuewei suddenly felt a resentful gaze fall on her. She looked into the crowd; light signs and banners stretched on endlessly. Coincidentally, Gu Yanqiu was standing on the side with the first-place contestant, and Lin Yuewei didn’t look over there.
The first-place contestant made a heart shape with her hands for everyone. Lin Yuewei exchanged a glance with second place, and the two of them leaned toward each other at the same time, raising their arms above their heads to form a huge heart.
“Ahhhhhhh!!!”
A girl beside Gu Yanqiu jumped up in excitement. Gu Yanqiu hurriedly stepped aside and brushed her sleeve, thinking, These fans are a little too crazy.
Lin Yuewei was smiling brilliantly; the colder someone usually looked, the more heart-stopping their smile became. Through the sunglasses, Gu Yanqiu’s eyes flickered. She suddenly realized that the girl’s earlier “ahhhhh” had expressed her current feelings perfectly.
She opened her thin lips and softly said, “Ah.”
“Ah, ah.”
...It didn’t have much effect.
Instead, her ears quietly started to burn.
Lin Zhi tried several times to push forward and meet up with Gu Yanqiu, but as the event went on, more and more people crowded in, and it was impossible to move. In the end, he gave up.
The event didn’t last long. After the host asked a few questions, it was time for the interactive game segment, and the crowd below erupted. People were chosen according to rank. Lin Yuewei was third. The first-place contestant scanned the audience and selected a female fan in the middle holding a light sign. That fan shoved the sign into someone else’s hands, then ran excitedly up to the stage and immediately gave first place a big hug.
Second place picked a boy wearing a headband and holding a hand banner with her name on it.
When it was Lin Yuewei’s turn, she walked to the center of the stage and swept her gaze across the crowd in front of her. Everything looked a little dizzying. She wanted to casually pick someone good-looking. The front row was closest, so she looked from left to right, the microphone in her hand making a thoughtful “mm” sound.
Suddenly, her gaze met a woman wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, one hand tucked into her pocket. That woman’s figure looked extremely familiar.
Lin Yuewei raised her brows, then saw the other woman turn her head away, deliberately avoiding her eyes. Even her profile was identical.
Lin Yuewei: “!!”
It was her! Gu Yanqiu, that ice queen! Why was she here?!
“The first row, from right to left... one, two, three, four, five... twelve, that girl with the hat.” A mischievous smile suddenly appeared on Lin Yuewei’s lips, and the fans’ cameras caught it, triggering another round of screams.
Gu Yanqiu was doing her best to keep a low profile.
Suddenly, someone beside her patted her shoulder and said enviously, “You won. Go on.”
Gu Yanqiu: “???”
What did they mean, her? Go where?
The person said, “Lin Yuewei picked you to go onstage.”
Gu Yanqiu lifted her head. When that person saw her face, even through the sunglasses, they couldn’t help gasping, “Miss, you’re so beautiful.”
Gu Yanqiu replied reflexively, “Thank you.”
She was lingering below; the host was in a hurry, so they urged her again. “The lady with the hat, please come up.”
Lin Yuewei also said, “Come up.”
Lin Zhi: “Ahhhhhhh!!!”
His girlfriend didn’t know his boss. Seeing him howl like that, she pinched his arm. “What are you yelling for?”
Lin Zhi whispered the whole story into her ear.
His girlfriend: “...”
Lin Zhi asked, “What’s wrong?”
His girlfriend said, “Do bosses these days all lack this much shame?”
Lin Zhi burst out laughing.
Gu Yanqiu was pushed onto the stage and climbed the steps one by one. Standing beside Lin Yuewei, she smelled the faint, lingering scent of agarwood on her body and actually felt a strange sense of long-ago daze.
She couldn’t help staring for a moment.
The host said, “All right, our guest is up here now. Please introduce yourself first.”
“I’m XXX.”
“I’m XXX.”
Only Gu Yanqiu was still wearing large sunglasses, her cap pulled low over her head, revealing only a flawless jawline like a work of art.
The host said, “This one...” She was shorter than Gu Yanqiu, so she tilted her head to look at her. “Very mysterious, huh. Could you take off the sunglasses and hat?”
Lin Yuewei was also looking at her.
Gu Yanqiu avoided Lin Yuewei’s gaze, took off her sunglasses and hat, and let her waist-length hair spill down like ink and water. Her features were exquisite, her eyes bright and shining; she was no less beautiful than Lin Yuewei herself, and with the experience she already had, her elegant, detached temperament far surpassed those little idols who had just turned twenty and hadn’t had time to be polished yet.
The entire venue fell silent.
The host suddenly lost her words. It wasn’t as if she had never seen a celebrity chosen from the audience before, but celebrities were already familiar faces to viewers and wouldn’t steal the spotlight too much. This one was a complete outsider, and in an instant, she had actually eclipsed the three idols onstage.
Someone in the crowd didn’t know who was first to blurt out, “Holy shit,” followed by one stunned exclamation after another. Lin Zhi’s girlfriend clutched tightly at the flesh on Lin Zhi’s arm; Lin Zhi endured the pain and asked, “What’s wrong?”
His girlfriend wore a pained expression. “I’m kind of thinking about switching sides right now. What do I do?”
Lin Zhi: “Switch to what?”
His girlfriend: “Lin-Gu.”
Lin Zhi: “...”
Lin Yuewei felt a very strange sense of pride. She was also the fastest to recover among everyone present; after all, she had seen Gu Yanqiu many times, and they had even lived side by side. She gave an exaggerated “wow” and asked Gu Yanqiu, “This pretty lady looks amazing. Any interest in joining our ‘Actor Trainees’?”
Gu Yanqiu said honestly, “Isn’t the competition already underway?”
Lin Yuewei said, “You could join next season.”
Only then did Gu Yanqiu realize Lin Yuewei had been teasing her just now. A hint of dazedness quickly vanished from her brows; she said seriously, “I’m not interested in acting.”
Lin Yuewei pressed, “Then what are you interested in?”
Gu Yanqiu almost blurted out “you,” and frightened herself.
Lin Yuewei saw it and laughed, continuing, “Gu... if I keep talking, I’m probably going to scare you.” Lin Yuewei also jolted, having spoken too quickly and almost forgotten where she was; she nearly let slip the fact that she and Gu Yanqiu knew each other.
The host took up the thread at just the right moment and couldn’t help sneaking another look at Gu Yanqiu. Since she didn’t have a banner in hand, the host asked, “Whose fan are you?”
She passed over the microphone.
Gu Yanqiu’s voice was a little low; it came through the speakers and said, “I’m just passing by. I’m nobody’s fan.”
Lin Yuewei’s expression darkened when she heard that.
Even if she couldn’t give her face, she should at least say she was her fan. What did “passing by” mean?
“Pfft.” Laughter rose from below.
Lin Zhi’s girlfriend said, “Hey, wait a second. Isn’t she Lin Yuewei’s fan?”
Lin Zhi scratched his head. “How would I know?”
His girlfriend’s eyes darted around, clearly thinking about something.
The host laughed along very cooperatively and asked her surname.
After a brief thought, Gu Yanqiu said, “My surname is Lin.”
The host was surprised. “Same surname as our Yuewei.”
Lin Yuewei was the one truly shocked now. She looked at her. What was this person doing? It was one thing to say she was just passing by, but now she was even using her surname?
Gu Yanqiu smiled faintly. “Must be fate.”
“Indeed, it’s fate. So the people surnamed Lin are all this beautiful, huh, haha,” the host said, then began to explain the rules of the interactive game. The game was simple and fairly fun: one person acted, one person guessed. A team consisted of two contestants, with one minute on the clock, competing in groups; whichever group got more right would win.
They still went according to ranking order.
The first-place team went first. Lin Yuewei happened to be hiding at the back with Gu Yanqiu, whispering to each other, but on the surface they definitely had to act as if they didn’t know one another, so they only tilted their heads slightly toward each other.
Lin Yuewei wore a smile; the smile was for the fans below. Lowering her voice, she asked Gu Yanqiu, “How did you end up here?”
Gu Yanqiu replied, “Didn’t I say? I was just passing by.”
Lin Yuewei said with a sharp edge, “Oh? How did I not know Miss Gu was someone who liked to join in on the excitement? Especially the kind of excitement involving pretty girls?”
The prettiest little girl was right beside her, and Gu Yanqiu felt happy inwardly, though her face remained cool. “I also didn’t know Miss Lin would be here. If I had known...”
Lin Yuewei asked, “If you had known, what then?” Would she have turned around and left? That sounded like something Gu Yanqiu would do.
Gu Yanqiu opened her mouth and solemnly made things up on the spot. “Then I would have gone to get one of your banners and held it up. I blurted out to the host just now; I should have said I was your fan and embarrassed you. Please forgive me, Miss Lin.”
Lin Yuewei: “...”
Gu Yanqiu could make even nonsense sound perfectly organized, and she ended up confusing Lin Yuewei instead. After thinking it over carefully, Lin Yuewei felt an odd sensation, as if she’d been flirted with. But Gu Yanqiu’s words were clearly not meant as an offense; then where had that feeling come from?
Gu Yanqiu said, “Someone’s looking over here.”
Lin Yuewei immediately restored her brilliant smile.
Gu Yanqiu suppressed her laughter and stood straight with one hand behind her back, expressionless.
The first group finished; the second group went up.
Lin Yuewei still had questions, so she seized the chance to ask them all at once. “I received a rabbit plush toy the other day. Was that from you?”
Gu Yanqiu denied it immediately. “No.”
Lin Yuewei: “???”
Unlike a fan, although Lin Yuewei kept some distance from Gu Yanqiu, a marriage certificate was still a marriage certificate; their relationship was closer. She treated Gu Yanqiu as someone she could confide in and said, “Then who could it have been?”
Gu Yanqiu said, “How would I know?”
Lin Yuewei eyed her suspiciously and asked, “Have you been to XX?”
XX was the city where they had been training. Gu Yanqiu still shook her head. “No. I’ve been in this city recently.”
So it really wasn’t her?
Lin Yuewei’s thoughts were tangled beyond sorting. For the past two days, she had kept replaying those times when she thought she saw Gu Yanqiu, and had almost concluded it really was her. She had even been thinking that next time she could use her phone and ask Jiang Congbi to get Gu Yanqiu’s number for her, then call to ask. Who knew she’d run into her like this, only for that to be the answer she got before she could even thank heaven.
The rabbit was a complete coincidence; then the person who wrote the card wasn’t her either.
Gu Yanqiu noticed that Lin Yuewei’s mood seemed lower than before and silently regretted it. Denying it had been an instinctive choice. A trace of hesitation flashed through her features; could it be that Lin Yuewei had actually hoped it was her?
Gu Yanqiu’s lips parted. “Actually...”
Lin Yuewei looked up. “Hm?” Her brows and eyes were bright, like they were steeped in a pool of peach blossom wine; one glance was enough to make someone feel as if they were about to sink drunk into it.
Gu Yanqiu froze.
The host said, “All right, let’s welcome the third group.”
Gu Yanqiu’s throat bobbed, and she swallowed the rest of her words. “Nothing.”
The two of them moved from the back to the front. The host asked them to choose who would act and who would guess, and a disagreement arose immediately; both of them wanted to be the one guessing. That was because the acting person had to make some physical movements, and who knew what kind of words they might get, making it impossible to predict whether they’d have to perform some unbecoming gestures.
The first two groups had been idol contestants guessing while fans acted. Fans had no burden, so they could do anything.
Gu Yanqiu was not, in name, Lin Yuewei’s fan; even if she was in fact one, she would never do anything in public that might affect her image. Lin Yuewei knew this person’s old-fashioned, proper nature. The host was still trying to persuade them when she walked first to the acting position, sighed, and said, “Forget it. I’ll do it.”
“...” Gu Yanqiu suddenly felt an incongruous sense of being indulged.
Before she could get awkward, the host announced the game start.
First word: gorilla.
Lin Yuewei sneered inwardly. Sure enough, her image today was not going to survive.
She began imitating a giant gorilla onstage, mouth drooping, both hands pounding her chest, walking across the stage sideways. The crowd below was laughing themselves sick; the front row was shaking so hard even their cameras trembled.
Only Gu Yanqiu didn’t laugh. She studied Lin Yuewei’s movements with a serious expression, her brow faintly knitted.
Lin Yuewei beat her chest hard enough to feel like she was about to cough blood, while this Bodhisattva Gu watched her from the side as calm as could be.
Ten seconds later.
Gu Yanqiu spoke, her pace extremely slow. “A gorilla?”
Lin Yuewei didn’t want to spare her even a glance. “Two words.”
Gu Yanqiu said, “Gorilla.”
The host said, “Correct. Next.”
Second word: ostrich.
Lin Yuewei: “...”
Was this being played on her?
The fans below were already laughing. Although the questions had been prepared by them, what they actually drew was entirely down to luck. Even the host had to lower the microphone and shake her shoulders with laughter.
Lin Yuewei asked, “Can I pass?”
The fans below heckled, “Nooo—”
Gu Yanqiu didn’t know what it was and blinked with a smile.
Ten more seconds of a human-shaped ostrich running across the stage later, Gu Yanqiu covered her mouth with a light laugh, then said, “Ostrich.”
The words after that were finally not so intense. Just a one-minute match, yet Lin Yuewei ended up with a thin layer of sweat on her face, and in her heart she cursed Gu Yanqiu a hundred times.
The host said, “I declare the winning group to be the first group, with seven words.”
After the game, as usual, the two people in each group hugged each other before stepping down. Everyone else had already hugged, and only Lin Yuewei and Gu Yanqiu were looking at each other with awkward hesitation.
Such an ordinary action somehow felt too intimate for them.
They couldn’t keep standing there awkwardly. Thinking quickly, Lin Yuewei stepped forward and pulled Gu Yanqiu into her arms with one hand.
Author’s note:
Gu Yanqiu, who never says a single true word.
Lin Yuewei, who’s already hugged and now doesn’t want to let go, and is panicking like crazy.
President Gu: I care a lot about my idol image, so I’m sorry I can’t squeal like a groundhog. Could everyone please help me scream for her QAQ