Chapter 9
Gu Feining didn’t know about Yuan Jinyan reposting her Weibo. Normally her Weibo was managed by Xiao Mang for work matters. At the time of the repost, she had been watching clips of various variety shows.
Yue Mei had explained to her about the current state of the show. She had also seen the list of judges. Besides her, there were two other male mentors. One was a very famous senior, Teacher Gu, and the other was an A-list male actor with great acting skills, Zhong Lin.
The program team selected a hundred participants and let the participants choose their mentors afterward.
Gu Feining knew very well that she had little chance of winning here. If it were up to her, she would also want to choose either the famous senior or Zhong Lin. They were people with extraordinary acting skills. Not only would the contestants learn a lot from them, but they would also serve as extremely useful connections if they could get familiar with them.
For this reason, Yue Mei had told her in advance she had to learn how to get screen time. If fewer people chose her and they were not outstanding, the screen time would definitely not be split evenly. In this case, she might not only get insufficient screen time, they would also portray her in a negative light. If this happens, forget about attracting fans, she might even get anti-fans.
There were way too many variety shows nowadays and it was hard to tell what the audience liked. She could very easily attract anti-fans if she wasn’t careful.
On the day they were to take promotional pictures, Gu Feining and Yue Mei had already met the director and the screenwriter of the variety show and had a chat. The director was quite satisfied with Gu Feining, likely because the director had heard about her reputation in the entertainment industry. Although she was someone sent over from the company they were only collaborating with, her image was not bad, and they had managed to save quite a sum of money as she didn’t ask for much pay.
This screenwriter had been working on variety shows for many years. When Yue Mei told him honestly about Gu Feining’s situation, the other expressed that although variety shows had a script and would assign each celebrity a role, the role assigned would simply be based on the celebrity’s personality with a few add-ons. It wouldn’t be so specific that they’d have a script for every single sentence. It would mainly rely on the celebrity’s interpretation. If they were worried they wouldn’t be able to perform well for the assigned role, they could just be themself.
Because no matter how good at acting an actor was, they would be unable to hide all of their flaws from the camera in a variety show.
That was true, but Gu Feining wanted to learn a little more. Therefore, she had kept watching variety shows these days to learn a little and find the correct mood for participating in variety shows so that she wouldn’t freeze up when she saw the camera. If she could learn a bit of the required techniques, that would be even better. That way, even if she didn’t get much screen time, hopefully, she would be able to have a scene or two where she was quite outstanding. It would also be considered a success if she could achieve that.
Because she normally didn’t watch variety shows, she found it quite interesting now that she was. She was getting engrossed in it when Yue Mei called to tell her about the situation online.
She told her not to worry and that the team would control the comments.
The reason Yue Mei was interfering this time was that she knew Gu Feining didn’t like this kind of attention. Moreover, although no one knew what the effects would be when the variety show aired, Yue Mei’s team and Shi Xi’s manager, An Ge, secretly hoped Gu Feining and Shi Xi’s CP would become popular.
Yue Mei really wished Gu Feining could become more popular using this opportunity.
On the other hand, An Ge knew very well there was danger in popular celebrities using CPs to further increase their popularity. It was unknown how many CPs the show was planning but Gu Feining and Shi Xi were a safe CP that the audience liked.
For An Ge’s team, no matter which CP became popular, it was a win-win situation for them.
The biggest problem now was that Yuan Jinyan’s team was uncooperative, so it was a little troublesome.
Gu Feining’s reaction was very calm. She didn’t hang up the phone, instead turned it to speaker mode as she opened her Weibo and directly deleted the post Yuan Jinyan had reposted.
Looking at the timestamps, it was less than two minutes since he reposted and it already had the same three-digit number of comments as her post which had been posted a few hours ago. On the other hand, the number of comments on Shi Xi’s post had even reached a five-digit number. The difference in popularity was really too obvious.
Both of them had tens of millions of fans, but the gap between Yuan Jinyan and Shi Xi was still very large. No wonder Yuan Jinyan wanted to get close to Shi Xi.
After that, Gu Feining told Yue Mei, “I deleted my Weibo post and reposted it. If he’s not afraid of looking bad, he can try acting close again.”
Just a while ago, Yue Mei was worried but now, she couldn’t help but laugh. She really didn’t expect Gu Feining to use this sort of tactic. “He probably won’t. If he posts it again, it’ll be lowering his status.”
Yuan Jinyan was still someone with the title of a film emperor. He would never lower himself to reposting something twice. Even the fact that his repost was of a deleted post was already awkward enough.
Gu Feining’s team handled some things in the background, so this matter didn’t have much impact.
There were a few entertainment bloggers that looked into their relationship before mocking Yuan Jinyan. Afterall, the post he reposted was deleted and Gu Feining had posted the exact same one again. No matter how one looked at the matter, it was obvious she was targeting him.
Gu Feining didn’t know what was going on with Yuan Jinyan’s side, but she was quite satisfied with this result.
On the day before the filming for the variety show started, the main casts gathered at a hotel to meet. Because they would be filming a lot, to make it more convenient for them to film, the production team had booked a room for each.
Gu Feining was the earliest to arrive. Not long after, the other two mentors arrived. Teacher Gu was a famous and elderly senior, so she hadn’t interacted with him before. However, during her university days, she had attended his lectures. He was over fifty years old but looked like he had just turned forty. He was very energetic and charismatic.
Zhong Lin and Gu Feining hadn’t worked together either. But if they appeared at the same scene, they would nod their heads to greet or say hello. What made Gu Feining feel surprised was that this famous actor wasn’t arrogant at all and had even brought drinks for everyone.
The atmosphere at their first meeting seemed quite good.
However, when the meeting began and Shi Xi had yet to appear, she became a little perplexed. She thought she didn’t want to see him, but every time the meeting room door was opened, she couldn’t help looking over.
That person said when he had her contact number, he would be able to contact her whenever he wanted but in fact, he hadn’t contacted her at all this whole time. However, Gu Feining had been troubled by his words for a few days. When she thought about it now, she felt a little angry.
In the end, Shi Xi didn’t come at all. Gu Feining couldn’t help but feel a little discouraged. But it did make sense. With Shi Xi’s status, he wouldn’t have time to appear before the show started filming. Someone of his status in the industry would normally arrive on the day of the filming.
While they were having the meeting, Gu Feining received the script for the first episode. It was as the screenwriter had said, there was no specific role besides for the overall progression of the show, some processes to take note of, and various precautions.
This sort of show was a little different from other reality shows. Furthermore, it was related to acting skills. Gu Feining took a look and felt more at ease.
As the very first talent competition show for acting in China, the show had a lot of ambition. There were many things to discuss in detail with everyone. Because she had watched a lot of variety shows recently, she was able to contribute to the discussion.
The meeting increased Gu Feining’s interest in the program and also made her feel a lot more relaxed. She felt that it was very good that everyone got to meet a day before the filming to familiarize themselves with each other.
The discussion was very lively. Then, suddenly, the door of the conference room was opened by the hotel staff and Shi Xi walked in.
Gu Feining was sitting in the innermost seat. Although she was far away from the door, as soon as Shi Xi entered the room, he could see her.
Gu Feining wasn’t sure if she was imagining things, but she felt that as soon as Shi Xi entered the room, his gaze was locked onto her. She hurriedly lowered her head and picked up the pen on the table to doodle.
While she had her head lowered, she heard Shi Xi apologize to everyone, saying he was late because of work matters.
His assistant and manager quickly placed the food and drinks he had brought onto the table. It happened to be dinnertime, so he had the hotel prepare dinner and send it over.
They didn’t waste much time and chatted as they ate. Shi Xi had taken part in almost all the variety shows in China. He was familiar with competitions and reality shows and thus, he quickly understood what was going on. Although he didn’t speak much, his words were very precise and everything he mentioned was useful.
After a few times, it was obvious that Teacher Gu and Zhong Lin liked him.
It seemed that it wasn’t just a coincidence that Shi Xi became popular.
After Shi Xi arrived, Gu Feining did not speak much. He was sitting in the seat directly opposite of hers and as soon as she raised her head, she would meet his gaze. Even if she wanted to ignore it, she could not.
She looked at the director as she listened to him talking about how they were to interact with the contestants. Suddenly, her phone that was on the table vibrated. The certain person sitting opposite her had his gaze fixed on the director with a serious expression on his face while he sent her message in secret.
Shi Xi: [Senior, did you like the milk tea?]
When she saw the message, she raised her gaze and met Shi Xi’s eyes. The other smiled and pointed at the milk tea on the table.
Gu Feining hurriedly turned away and placed her phone face-down on the table.
Shi Xi only smiled and turned around to talk to his assistant behind him, not harassing her anymore.
Gu Feining did actually like to drink sweet things, but due to her profession, she rarely drank milk tea. The milk tea Shi Xi brought today was indeed very nice and even after she had finished drinking it, she subconsciously reached for it to sip it again. Only when she bit on the straw did she remember that she had finished drinking.
When she subconsciously acted to drink again, someone from behind passed her an unopened cup of milk tea that was still cold. She was a little surprised and turned around to look. It was Shi Xi’s assistant. When she looked at Shi Xi again, the other was resting his head on his palm and smiling at her.
Her heart skipped a beat from being looked at like that. Her phone vibrated again.
Shi Xi’s message arrived: [Is it sweet?]
She quickly lowered her head and bit the straw, taking a big gulp. It was sweet, almost too sweet.
The meeting only ended when it was past nine. Most of the content they wanted to discuss had already been brought up. Before the meeting ended, they also confirmed the content of the photoshoot tomorrow. The three mentors needed to take two types of promotional shoots. The first one was an individual shot, and for the second, they had to work together with Shi Xi to film a classic clip of a television drama.
Teacher Gu got a clip of a son and a father. It was a legendary scene from a very popular movie from his time.
Zhong Lin got a clip between tough guys. It was a clip from a Hong Kong police and bandit show in the early years. It was very classic and had been used by many variety shows.
Gu Feining knew it was easy to guess what the topic would be since she was the only female celebrity among the mentors. She opened the file to take a look. As expected, they were acting as lovers, and it was a tragic scene on the topic of life and death. This was from a film with a box office of more than 100 million RMB and had brought countless people to tears. It was going to be a very big challenge.
Finally, the director stood up and said, “Everyone has worked hard today. It’ll be even tougher when we start filming. Please endure it.” After that, everyone shook hands and said their goodbyes, planning on returning to their rooms to rest.
After Gu Feining had said goodbyes to the people around her, she was stopped by Shi Xi as soon as she turned around. She had wanted to avoid Shi Xi but still ended up getting stopped by him.
“Let’s work hard together,” she extended her hand before Shi Xi did because he had seen her hug Teacher Gu and Zhong Lin. The reason she had extended her hand to him was to avoid the other’s hug.
However, Shi Xi grabbed her hand and pulled her into a hug. After that, in a voice that only the two of them could hear, “Wait, I’ll come and look for you.”
Chapter 9
Gu Feining didn’t know about Yuan Jinyan reposting her Weibo. Normally her Weibo was managed by Xiao Mang for work matters. At the time of the repost, she had been watching clips of various variety shows.
Yue Mei had explained to her about the current state of the show. She had also seen the list of judges. Besides her, there were two other male mentors. One was a very famous senior, Teacher Gu, and the other was an A-list male actor with great acting skills, Zhong Lin.
The program team selected a hundred participants and let the participants choose their mentors afterward.
Gu Feining knew very well that she had little chance of winning here. If it were up to her, she would also want to choose either the famous senior or Zhong Lin. They were people with extraordinary acting skills. Not only would the contestants learn a lot from them, but they would also serve as extremely useful connections if they could get familiar with them.
For this reason, Yue Mei had told her in advance she had to learn how to get screen time. If fewer people chose her and they were not outstanding, the screen time would definitely not be split evenly. In this case, she might not only get insufficient screen time, they would also portray her in a negative light. If this happens, forget about attracting fans, she might even get anti-fans.
There were way too many variety shows nowadays and it was hard to tell what the audience liked. She could very easily attract anti-fans if she wasn’t careful.
On the day they were to take promotional pictures, Gu Feining and Yue Mei had already met the director and the screenwriter of the variety show and had a chat. The director was quite satisfied with Gu Feining, likely because the director had heard about her reputation in the entertainment industry. Although she was someone sent over from the company they were only collaborating with, her image was not bad, and they had managed to save quite a sum of money as she didn’t ask for much pay.
This screenwriter had been working on variety shows for many years. When Yue Mei told him honestly about Gu Feining’s situation, the other expressed that although variety shows had a script and would assign each celebrity a role, the role assigned would simply be based on the celebrity’s personality with a few add-ons. It wouldn’t be so specific that they’d have a script for every single sentence. It would mainly rely on the celebrity’s interpretation. If they were worried they wouldn’t be able to perform well for the assigned role, they could just be themself.
Because no matter how good at acting an actor was, they would be unable to hide all of their flaws from the camera in a variety show.
That was true, but Gu Feining wanted to learn a little more. Therefore, she had kept watching variety shows these days to learn a little and find the correct mood for participating in variety shows so that she wouldn’t freeze up when she saw the camera. If she could learn a bit of the required techniques, that would be even better. That way, even if she didn’t get much screen time, hopefully, she would be able to have a scene or two where she was quite outstanding. It would also be considered a success if she could achieve that.
Because she normally didn’t watch variety shows, she found it quite interesting now that she was. She was getting engrossed in it when Yue Mei called to tell her about the situation online.
She told her not to worry and that the team would control the comments.
The reason Yue Mei was interfering this time was that she knew Gu Feining didn’t like this kind of attention. Moreover, although no one knew what the effects would be when the variety show aired, Yue Mei’s team and Shi Xi’s manager, An Ge, secretly hoped Gu Feining and Shi Xi’s CP would become popular.
Yue Mei really wished Gu Feining could become more popular using this opportunity.
On the other hand, An Ge knew very well there was danger in popular celebrities using CPs to further increase their popularity. It was unknown how many CPs the show was planning but Gu Feining and Shi Xi were a safe CP that the audience liked.
For An Ge’s team, no matter which CP became popular, it was a win-win situation for them.
The biggest problem now was that Yuan Jinyan’s team was uncooperative, so it was a little troublesome.
Gu Feining’s reaction was very calm. She didn’t hang up the phone, instead turned it to speaker mode as she opened her Weibo and directly deleted the post Yuan Jinyan had reposted.
Looking at the timestamps, it was less than two minutes since he reposted and it already had the same three-digit number of comments as her post which had been posted a few hours ago. On the other hand, the number of comments on Shi Xi’s post had even reached a five-digit number. The difference in popularity was really too obvious.
Both of them had tens of millions of fans, but the gap between Yuan Jinyan and Shi Xi was still very large. No wonder Yuan Jinyan wanted to get close to Shi Xi.
After that, Gu Feining told Yue Mei, “I deleted my Weibo post and reposted it. If he’s not afraid of looking bad, he can try acting close again.”
Just a while ago, Yue Mei was worried but now, she couldn’t help but laugh. She really didn’t expect Gu Feining to use this sort of tactic. “He probably won’t. If he posts it again, it’ll be lowering his status.”
Yuan Jinyan was still someone with the title of a film emperor. He would never lower himself to reposting something twice. Even the fact that his repost was of a deleted post was already awkward enough.
Gu Feining’s team handled some things in the background, so this matter didn’t have much impact.
There were a few entertainment bloggers that looked into their relationship before mocking Yuan Jinyan. Afterall, the post he reposted was deleted and Gu Feining had posted the exact same one again. No matter how one looked at the matter, it was obvious she was targeting him.
Gu Feining didn’t know what was going on with Yuan Jinyan’s side, but she was quite satisfied with this result.
On the day before the filming for the variety show started, the main casts gathered at a hotel to meet. Because they would be filming a lot, to make it more convenient for them to film, the production team had booked a room for each.
Gu Feining was the earliest to arrive. Not long after, the other two mentors arrived. Teacher Gu was a famous and elderly senior, so she hadn’t interacted with him before. However, during her university days, she had attended his lectures. He was over fifty years old but looked like he had just turned forty. He was very energetic and charismatic.
Zhong Lin and Gu Feining hadn’t worked together either. But if they appeared at the same scene, they would nod their heads to greet or say hello. What made Gu Feining feel surprised was that this famous actor wasn’t arrogant at all and had even brought drinks for everyone.
The atmosphere at their first meeting seemed quite good.
However, when the meeting began and Shi Xi had yet to appear, she became a little perplexed. She thought she didn’t want to see him, but every time the meeting room door was opened, she couldn’t help looking over.
That person said when he had her contact number, he would be able to contact her whenever he wanted but in fact, he hadn’t contacted her at all this whole time. However, Gu Feining had been troubled by his words for a few days. When she thought about it now, she felt a little angry.
In the end, Shi Xi didn’t come at all. Gu Feining couldn’t help but feel a little discouraged. But it did make sense. With Shi Xi’s status, he wouldn’t have time to appear before the show started filming. Someone of his status in the industry would normally arrive on the day of the filming.
While they were having the meeting, Gu Feining received the script for the first episode. It was as the screenwriter had said, there was no specific role besides for the overall progression of the show, some processes to take note of, and various precautions.
This sort of show was a little different from other reality shows. Furthermore, it was related to acting skills. Gu Feining took a look and felt more at ease.
As the very first talent competition show for acting in China, the show had a lot of ambition. There were many things to discuss in detail with everyone. Because she had watched a lot of variety shows recently, she was able to contribute to the discussion.
The meeting increased Gu Feining’s interest in the program and also made her feel a lot more relaxed. She felt that it was very good that everyone got to meet a day before the filming to familiarize themselves with each other.
The discussion was very lively. Then, suddenly, the door of the conference room was opened by the hotel staff and Shi Xi walked in.
Gu Feining was sitting in the innermost seat. Although she was far away from the door, as soon as Shi Xi entered the room, he could see her.
Gu Feining wasn’t sure if she was imagining things, but she felt that as soon as Shi Xi entered the room, his gaze was locked onto her. She hurriedly lowered her head and picked up the pen on the table to doodle.
While she had her head lowered, she heard Shi Xi apologize to everyone, saying he was late because of work matters.
His assistant and manager quickly placed the food and drinks he had brought onto the table. It happened to be dinnertime, so he had the hotel prepare dinner and send it over.
They didn’t waste much time and chatted as they ate. Shi Xi had taken part in almost all the variety shows in China. He was familiar with competitions and reality shows and thus, he quickly understood what was going on. Although he didn’t speak much, his words were very precise and everything he mentioned was useful.
After a few times, it was obvious that Teacher Gu and Zhong Lin liked him.
It seemed that it wasn’t just a coincidence that Shi Xi became popular.
After Shi Xi arrived, Gu Feining did not speak much. He was sitting in the seat directly opposite of hers and as soon as she raised her head, she would meet his gaze. Even if she wanted to ignore it, she could not.
She looked at the director as she listened to him talking about how they were to interact with the contestants. Suddenly, her phone that was on the table vibrated. The certain person sitting opposite her had his gaze fixed on the director with a serious expression on his face while he sent her message in secret.
Shi Xi: [Senior, did you like the milk tea?]
When she saw the message, she raised her gaze and met Shi Xi’s eyes. The other smiled and pointed at the milk tea on the table.
Gu Feining hurriedly turned away and placed her phone face-down on the table.
Shi Xi only smiled and turned around to talk to his assistant behind him, not harassing her anymore.
Gu Feining did actually like to drink sweet things, but due to her profession, she rarely drank milk tea. The milk tea Shi Xi brought today was indeed very nice and even after she had finished drinking it, she subconsciously reached for it to sip it again. Only when she bit on the straw did she remember that she had finished drinking.
When she subconsciously acted to drink again, someone from behind passed her an unopened cup of milk tea that was still cold. She was a little surprised and turned around to look. It was Shi Xi’s assistant. When she looked at Shi Xi again, the other was resting his head on his palm and smiling at her.
Her heart skipped a beat from being looked at like that. Her phone vibrated again.
Shi Xi’s message arrived: [Is it sweet?]
She quickly lowered her head and bit the straw, taking a big gulp. It was sweet, almost too sweet.
The meeting only ended when it was past nine. Most of the content they wanted to discuss had already been brought up. Before the meeting ended, they also confirmed the content of the photoshoot tomorrow. The three mentors needed to take two types of promotional shoots. The first one was an individual shot, and for the second, they had to work together with Shi Xi to film a classic clip of a television drama.
Teacher Gu got a clip of a son and a father. It was a legendary scene from a very popular movie from his time.
Zhong Lin got a clip between tough guys. It was a clip from a Hong Kong police and bandit show in the early years. It was very classic and had been used by many variety shows.
Gu Feining knew it was easy to guess what the topic would be since she was the only female celebrity among the mentors. She opened the file to take a look. As expected, they were acting as lovers, and it was a tragic scene on the topic of life and death. This was from a film with a box office of more than 100 million RMB and had brought countless people to tears. It was going to be a very big challenge.
Finally, the director stood up and said, “Everyone has worked hard today. It’ll be even tougher when we start filming. Please endure it.” After that, everyone shook hands and said their goodbyes, planning on returning to their rooms to rest.
After Gu Feining had said goodbyes to the people around her, she was stopped by Shi Xi as soon as she turned around. She had wanted to avoid Shi Xi but still ended up getting stopped by him.
“Let’s work hard together,” she extended her hand before Shi Xi did because he had seen her hug Teacher Gu and Zhong Lin. The reason she had extended her hand to him was to avoid the other’s hug.
However, Shi Xi grabbed her hand and pulled her into a hug. After that, in a voice that only the two of them could hear, “Wait, I’ll come and look for you.”
