To feel secure in life, everyone needs different things.
Some might need a faithful partner. Some feel a stable job is what matters most. Others believe you can never have too many skills—that with real ability, you'll never starve. And then there are those who are more direct, wanting nothing more than an endless supply of money...
Ni Bingyan's aspirations were, like many people's, quite simple.
She wanted a house.
A house is a harbor from the wind and rain. If for no other reason than this one: no matter how down on your luck you become, you never have to fear being homeless, wandering the streets, a drifter with no roots.
No one can ever stand in your own house and tell you, "Get out!"
'So worth it.'
She was an orphan who grew up in an orphanage. She only finished high school thanks to donations from the public. After getting into a good university but having no money for tuition, she turned eighteen, left the orphanage, and started working to support herself.
When she first entered the workforce, she was painfully naive and got scammed at her very first job.
Not only did she lose the last of the living expenses the old orphanage director had given her, but she herself was nearly treated like property and sold off to some backwoods mountain village.
By a strange twist of fate, she managed to escape on the way and ran into a film crew shooting on location in the mountains. Dizzy with hunger, she heard they were recruiting extras, providing meals, and even paying forty yuan a day. Overjoyed, she clung to the extras coordinator's leg and bawled her eyes out, and thus began her acting career.
In the beginning, she had no experience and didn't know that for an actor, screen time—and preferably lines—was a good thing. Hearing that playing a corpse earned you extra money, she was especially eager to land those roles.
If a sharp-eyed viewer were to watch that movie from beginning to end, magnifying every single frame, they could probably find the fifty-six corpses she played.
Whenever this came up, others would shake with laughter, but for her, it was nothing but bittersweet sorrow.
She often thought, 'If some young man back then had just held me, lovingly stroked my head, and said, "Life is tough, isn't it? Xiao Ni, you're such a strong girl!" I probably would have married young.'
Desperate for a full meal, she stuck around the film set doing odd jobs, and whenever they needed an extra, she would pop right up. After a while, even the famous director became familiar with her.
The director had a great eye. He said she had a natural spark for acting and was cut out for this line of work. He felt for her, moved by her tireless, hardworking spirit. On the day the production wrapped, he had a few drinks and gave her some heartfelt advice: get plastic surgery.
He said that if she didn't go get some "refinements," her natural "hardware" would never compete with the medical miracles funded by big money. She might never play a female lead in her life; at best, she'd end up playing the female lead's mother when she got older.
The director's judgment was spot on.
In her past life, she had struggled for over a decade and was still just a supporting actress.
She had also hesitated about getting plastic surgery, but unfortunately, she had no money when she was young. Later, when she finally had some, she bought a one-bedroom apartment instead.
Compared to gambling on shaving down bone and re-contouring her face in her thirties, she felt buying a house would give her more peace of mind.
Now, she had over twenty million.
She could buy a small villa with a yard.
It didn't need to be huge—a hundred-odd square meters and two stories would be enough.
As long as the yard was big enough.
She would plant grapes, cherries, and peaches in the front yard. In the backyard, she'd grow vegetables: scallions, ginger, garlic, radishes, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers...
Normally, she would be away filming, returning home to water them on her breaks. If she landed a spot on one of those high-quality productions that required months of closed-set shooting, she could always buy an irrigation system for automatic watering...
Just imagining it, Ni Bingyan couldn't sit still anymore!
While waiting for the moving company to arrive, she opened her computer and quickly started searching for pre-owned homes in her chosen area.
Her criteria: a budget under twenty million, the house didn't have to be particularly large, but it absolutely had to have a big yard. It could be far from the city center, but transportation had to be convenient. Ideally, it would be close to the airport to make it easier for her to fly to different locations for work...
After filtering by all these conditions, the range of choices was not large.
She immediately called the number of a real estate agent listed on the webpage and asked if she could see a house right now.
Her request was also a bit unusual: not an in-person viewing, but a video call.
One agent politely declined. 'A viewing in the middle of the night? Are you for real?'
Another, half-asleep, mumbled, "Ma'am, you've got to be kidding," and hung up.
A hot-tempered one didn't even let her finish, snarling, "Are you crazy?" before slamming the phone down.
After a dozen or so calls, a bold young agent finally took the job.
His thinking was simple. 'The customer is always right. Who knows? Maybe seeing me working this late at night will be enough to close the deal.'