Wen Nianshen gazed at A-Xin for a long while, then asked, "Director Ruan, even if I act out this final ending, the netizens still won't change their opinion of me much. With everything earlier as setup, even if this film becomes a hit, they'll only think Wen Nianshen relied on Director Ruan—that with a good script she did well, but they won't admit I have any real ability."
"Director Ruan, is it that you think I'm a piece of gold, and you plan to let me shine?" Wen Nianshen asked softly. "Actually, I don't mind in the slightest what they say. If Director Ruan were a man, they'd probably say I slept my way to the top through you."
Wen Nianshen thought to herself: if the netizens really spun it that way, she'd honestly want to toss those random extras a little reward or something.
"Read the script properly—we're filming this afternoon."
A-Xin patted Wen Nianshen's shoulder, and as she passed by, she tilted her head and said by her ear, "You were a piece of gold to begin with—you've been shining all along."
"Director Ruan, you smell so nice." Wen Nianshen smiled and pressed her lips together, turning her head to meet A-Xin's eyes. "Fine, I'll read the script carefully. I absolutely won't drag you down. I guarantee the filming will go smoothly, alright?"
Wen Nianshen held the script and flipped to the final ending, looking at her character—the way it was ultimately dissected to reveal something different. The more she read, the more flavor it had. As expected of her all-capable wife: whatever she did, she could do it best.
What had originally been a sweet, brainless little heiress who only knew how to throw her weight around now, with this different ending and a deep dissection of the character's background, actually gave the film something worth watching.
Who could have guessed that the mastermind behind the entire film was this seemingly dim-witted young heiress? The background was designed so that this heiress had only a father, no mother, and had been doted on by her father since childhood.
The heiress wasn't the film's protagonist—she should count as an important supporting female role.
Beautiful in appearance, deeply doted on by her father, who indulged her in everything—the kind of spoiled-rotten character.
The story's premise was that the heiress's father was a business magnate who controlled an enormous conglomerate. Being a large group, it naturally had many members. But there would always be people who, for one reason or another, left such a big company, even though the pay there was good.
The suspicious point was that more than a dozen consecutive murder cases had gone unsolved, the killer never found. And these victims had all once worked at this conglomerate. So the people inside this conglomerate were the first to be suspected as the place where the true killer might lurk.
The male lead was a police officer in charge of this serial-murder case. To hunt down the killer, he went undercover at the conglomerate, appearing in the guise of a returnee from overseas. The male lead himself was handsome, highly educated, and extremely capable in his work.
A persona like that naturally attracted the conglomerate's young heiress, who would appear before him from time to time.
The male lead didn't like this heiress, but because he had to investigate the case, he had no choice but to spend more time around her. Most importantly, the heiress's father was among his suspects.
The film's female lead also worked at this company—just a rookie fresh out of college. No matter what company she joined, she was easily bullied by the veterans. Lacking social experience, she offended quite a few people; her personality was simple and pure, with a touch of adorableness.
That clumsy manner of hers was often witnessed by the male lead, who lent her a hand in passing, and so they came to know each other naturally. Then, in true melodramatic fashion, the heiress grew jealous of how good the male lead was to her and targeted the female lead at every turn.
The male lead and female lead developed feelings for each other, but he still had to investigate the case, and with the heiress's obstruction added in, misunderstandings between the two of them piled up endlessly.
In the end, the male lead's investigation led him to the heiress's father. To get close to the heiress's father, he chose to become engaged to the heiress, which left the female lead so heartbroken that she resigned and left.
Finally, through investigative methods, the male lead found a great deal of evidence all pointing to the heiress's father as the killer. After many twists and turns, the police arrested this conglomerate magnate. At that point, the male lead also explained his reasons to the female lead, and the two cleared up their misunderstanding and got together.
And on the day the heiress's father was put on trial, the murders happened once again.
At this point, everyone understood that although this conglomerate magnate had done many illegal and unscrupulous things, he might not be the killer. So they had no choice but to halt the trial and continue pursuing the true culprit.
Just then, the female lead went missing, and not long after, the male lead received a phone call. It turned out the female lead had been kidnapped by the heiress. At the same time, on the police's end, they had uncovered some old, buried history, and combined with some evidence in the hand of the last victim, they finally understood—the killer who had murdered the earlier victims was, in fact, the heiress.
Of course, the male and female leads wouldn't die. After some hardships, the male lead rescued the female lead. And the heiress, standing on a great bridge, spoke of her own origins and confessed that she truly loved the male lead.
She also said she had never meant to kill the female lead—she'd only wanted to lure him there to talk with him. She hoped that, at the moment of her death, she could see him one more time.
The reason she'd killed those people was that they were all the true culprits behind her parents' deaths. If not for these people joining hands with the conglomerate magnate, her parents wouldn't have died. And the conglomerate magnate—that is, her father—was not her real father.
After saying all this, the heiress jumped into the sea and drowned.
Wen Nianshen pondered this character's psychology and decided to perform the ending with her true ability.
Though the audience would be amazed by her final performance, they absolutely would not consider Wen Nianshen an actress with real skill—they'd only feel she had picked a good role.
That afternoon, Wen Nianshen filmed the final part of the storyline.
Just this ending alone would take several days to shoot—after all, some scenes required selecting real on-location settings.
While filming the final scene, the many actors taking part all felt that Wen Nianshen truly did have acting ability—and very good acting at that. It must be because she was too beautiful, her face the envy of others, and because she so loved jumping into online fights, that everyone disliked her.
That last confession scene really did bring tears to their eyes.
This time, the leap from the bridge into the sea was a real jump, too. On this point, many people came to admire Wen Nianshen. This young miss might be a bit willful, but many high-difficulty stunts that even her stunt double might not manage, she herself could do. Whenever she could avoid using a stunt double, she did her best not to.
From this, they concluded that Wen Nianshen was an actress who genuinely loved filming.
As Wen Nianshen fell into the sea and surfaced, a small boat appeared at her side. A-Xin crouched on the boat and reached out a hand to her. Wen Nianshen lifted her head, placed her hand in A-Xin's, and climbed up using the other's strength.
"Director Ruan, are you this good to all your actors? You even came down personally to fetch me."
A-Xin handed Wen Nianshen a clean towel. "No."
"So then—it's only because the one who jumped was me, that's why you came?" She knew the answer perfectly well, but she just loved to ask. In all their days together, she didn't know how many times she'd asked.
A-Xin's answer was the same every time, and she never tired of hearing it—the more she heard, the more she wanted to.
"Yes."
After drying her hair, Wen Nianshen said, "I put real effort into this film, Director Ruan. So when it flops, don't go blaming me. I tried my hardest—you're the one who insisted on using me."
The people around her, hearing Wen Nianshen's words, were utterly speechless.
The final cut wasn't even out yet, and she was already saying it would flop. Still, come to think of it, it was strange—the dramas and films Wen Nianshen made, even if they weren't massive hits, never had bad popularity, box office, or ratings. In short, they always turned a profit.
Maybe the world really did have a lot of looks-obsessed people.
After the film wrapped, half the year had already passed, and Wen Nianshen didn't plan to film anymore. Now that her wife was here, she wanted to go flirt with her wife from time to time.
She'd film together with her wife next year instead.
When the promotional poster came out, Wen Nianshen and A-Xin were, of course, still on the trending lists.
"She's a bit good-looking, sure, but I will not be watching a film she's in. Whoever watches it is a little dog."
"Boycott every film with Wen Nianshen in it."
"Right, we have to resist this kind of bad trend!"
"Don't think that just because you have a few stinking dollars, you can shoot whatever films you like to poison our eyes."
"Another one of those pretty-heiress personas—Wen Nianshen's taste really is unchanging across the century."
...
"Director Ruan must be blind."
When she saw this one, Wen Nianshen wasn't pleased and clapped back directly: "No personal attacks, please. Director Ruan's eyes are perfectly fine."
"Sigh, lost another genius director. You think Director Ruan's brain short-circuited?"
"For money, of course. In this circle now, who isn't in it for the money? Every idol I used to stan I've gone from fan to anti over—because they all worked with Wen Nianshen."
Wen Nianshen was displeased. Whenever she saw anyone personally attacking A-Xin, she clapped back at every one of them.
Observant netizens noticed: when people cursed Wen Nianshen herself, she ignored it. But the moment they cursed A-Xin, Wen Nianshen would surely clap back. They couldn't quite understand what Wen Nianshen meant by this. They could only guess blindly, and most figured the two were relatives or something. But no one ever guessed that the two had that kind of relationship, because it seemed far too impossible.
In any case, the film reached its release date.
During this period, Wen Nianshen often invited A-Xin out to eat, to chat, and flirted with her from time to time—she just had no intention of confessing. It looked like she had the upper hand, but every time she saw A-Xin's indulgent gaze, she felt both sweet and at a loss for words.
Su Wei, meanwhile, was rather busy. Ever since being signed by Wen Nianshen, she'd been worked nearly to death. Endless promotional appearances, busy filming, busy with shows, busy with reality programs—in short, resources were thrown at her like there was no tomorrow.
Su Wei had a good foundation to begin with, and under such a fierce flood of resources, it would be hard not to blow up. With Wen Nianshen there, Yuan Ye and Jing Songyuan had no way to do anything to Su Wei.
And since Su Wei was busy as a mad dog, they couldn't find the time to do anything to her either.
As for tripping Su Wei up—Wen Nianshen was so rich and was promoting Su Wei so hard, they couldn't get any trip to land. In the end, they decided to first take down Wen Nianshen and bankrupt the entire Wen family. Unfortunately, somehow, before they could deal with Wen Nianshen, their own companies ran into trouble first.
On the day the film went on presale, Wen Nianshen waved two movie tickets in front of A-Xin and said, "Movie. Want to go?"
"You've already got the tickets ready—of course I'll go."
Wen Nianshen naturally linked her arm through A-Xin's. "Let's go take a look first. If hardly anyone's watching, I'll spend the money to buy out the whole theater. We have to keep up your image no matter what."
"As long as you're happy."
Wen Nianshen: No sense of accomplishment at all.