Book Synopsis
Book Tags
Donation Rankings
Comment
0 Comments
You May Also Like
墨書 Inktalez
In July last year, I graduated and joined Yunding Cultural Communication Company, quickly becoming the brightest star in the entire company.
I starred as the lead actress in several short dramas that became huge hits. The screenwriter, Teacher Hu, said, "Strictly speaking, the male lead is the soul of our plays. Your performance, while stealing the spotlight, has unusually enhanced the overall quality of the show! Girl, you were born to do this job; keep it up!"
More praise came from online viewers who generally believed that if the script had set me as the main character, it would have been even more outstanding. Teacher Hu, a partner in the company, faced various pressures but tailored a single-lead period drama titled The Years Leave Their Marks for me based on this feedback.
After its release during the National Day holiday, all other genres—time travel, dragon lords, rebirth—were crushed into dust by our serious drama. Reliable news from the Jiangbei Province publicity department indicated that this drama was highly likely to win the Five One Project award, the only one of its kind for short dramas at a national level!
Boss Ji Weimin announced, "Classmate Jiang Qiuying is officially promoted ahead of schedule, with a 60% salary increase starting in October and a 1% share of the profits from leading roles."
When November's paycheck arrived, I took home nearly 50,000 yuan! Oh my! My dorm sisters were still running minor roles and earning just a few thousand while facing ridicule. Was I too extraordinary? On short video platforms, my followers quickly surpassed one million and continued to rise rapidly. The flattery and praise made me feel as if I had eaten honey.
During the New Year holiday, my boss announced that I would replace Liu Juanjuan as the deputy manager of the Performance Department. In addition to another pay raise, he granted me an extra week of paid leave beyond statutory holidays!
I was on cloud nine, feeling that no amount of flaunting could be excessive. I made a low down payment on a BMW Mini and treated my dorm sisters to the most expensive seafood buffet. I promised my good friend Jiang Xiaoli, who slept on the upper bunk, that she could interview at the company after the holidays. Then I drove back home for a bit of fun. In no time at all, I became the freshly minted Liu Yifei, Dilraba, Yang Mi, and Li Bingbing in the exaggerated imaginations of all the women in Village.
I had studied acting for four years at Provincial Art School and created posters featuring my photos with grand introductions to display in the promotional showcase's center position. Just when I thought I had the world in my hands, they pulled this stunt on me!
Was this world possessed by ghosts?
Everyone in the company knew I was about to be kicked out! A video surfaced on short video platforms showing Yunding Cultural Communication's boss's wife slapping a mistress. Although my face was blurred out in the video, the comments section was filled with people naming and shaming me:
"When men get rich, they turn bad; when women turn bad, they get rich!"
"She looks good in public but is filthy behind closed doors!"
"Isn't she just in her early twenties? Her boss is in his forties? Tsk tsk... does that even match?"
"If you have any connection to work or showbiz—even as an outsider—it's truly mind-blowing!"
The various filthy and crude insults and doubts were as noisy as a frog pond in the countryside during summer. With videos of me getting beaten circulating, I quickly faced social death, becoming a trending topic for all the wrong reasons. As the saying goes, good news travels slowly while bad news spreads like wildfire; any content mentioning me was gaining traction on short video platforms!
My mother called, crying in frustration, "Sweetheart, we may be poor, but our ambitions shouldn't be! You’ve got food and shelter provided by your father and me; how could you become someone like that?"
"I don't have you as a father, and you don't have me as a daughter!" My dad's words were jumbled and incoherent.
In reality, the situation in the village was even worse than I had imagined. The older women who once supported me had turned against me, spreading rumors that I was "selling myself."
"I told you so! At such a young age, how could anyone earn thousands a month? My son graduated from college two years ago and only makes over five thousand a month, and he went to a 211 school!"
"My daughter is taking the college entrance exam this year; several universities have sent her offers, but her father and I won’t let her go. Attending a lousy university and doing that kind of work would disgrace our ancestors!"
—Why don’t you mention that your daughter scored less than 200 points on her exams and those offers are from fake universities? Your precious girl went to a vocational school and got pregnant within six months!
It was bad enough from outsiders, but my own aunt even kicked me when I was down, returning the nutritional supplements I had bought for her, claiming she was afraid they would give her a dirty disease!
I was still just a naive child fresh out of school! Who was scheming against me?
On the eve of graduation, our counselor solemnly advised us soon-to-be graduates: "The real world is not like school; it’s more like a jungle. In this jungle, there’s not just fighting but also deceit and survival. While I hope you all remain kind-hearted and innocent, you must also learn to discern people and protect yourselves from harm..."
At that time, listening to a middle-aged woman in her forties talk about the "jungle" felt amusing to us. Now looking back, those were words of wisdom from an elder filled with life experience.
Now, aside from the occasional comfort from Jiang Xiaoli and Teacher Hu, I no longer bothered to put on a facade for anyone at the company: I was leaving soon anyway; what did it matter if they were human or not?
Jiang Xiaoli was very worried about me: "Qiuying, where will you go after leaving Yunding?"
Indeed, my scandal was like stinky tofu mixed with rotten eggs; it reeked for miles in the industry—who would still want to hire me?
"You still have hundreds of thousands in loans for that car you just bought; how will you pay it off?"
This wasn’t just idle worry; that BMW had become more than just an expensive car—it felt like a hot potato or a ticking bomb! All I could do was respond with a bitter smile.
In the past, the term "Sisters" had connotations of sympathy and compassion, but it also carried a hint of schadenfreude. I paid little attention to it, treating it like the last Seafood Feast I had, which ended up being dog food.
Without a bit of Scandal, you can never truly know the other side of those around you. Some people are like QR Codes; unless you scan them, you really have no idea what they are all about!
Perhaps they sensed that I was about to move out—pack my bags and leave. The whispers in the tea room, lounge, and restrooms about me had now become almost overt:
"Women who look good are never simple... Hehe..."
"Of course! With a pretty face, smooth figure, fair skin, and long legs, they have the capital to sleep with the boss!"
"At my age and with my looks, the boss wouldn't even glance my way."
…
Comment 0 Comment Count