Chapter 9: Osmanthus Rice Balls p1
Before Mi Hongdou could take a closer look, Director Pan waved his notebook, signaling the actors to get into position for another take. In a moment of distraction, she looked back towards the camera, but the familiar figure was gone.
The onlookers were far away, so they couldn’t see Mi Hongdou’s appropriate micro-expressions or well-executed small actions. All they could see was Director Pan calling cut again and again, and the newcomer named Mi Hongdou’s repeated NGs. If they kept retaking it like this, she would probably become the NG queen of this drama.
Mi Hongdou was aware of this, but her dislike for Zhang Zijing couldn’t be completely suppressed by reason.
Speaking of Zhang Zijing, he was currently a popular young actor being promoted by Dajin Entertainment. He had just debuted, had a good face, and looked particularly good in historical costumes. In his previous drama, he played a minor role as a weak scholar, physically frail but with a scholarly aura. He wore a pale blue and white scholar’s robe, giving him an ethereal appearance. By chance, he met and married a raccoon spirit who had transformed into a human woman. Years later, when the protagonists passed by their home and were about to slay the demon, the weak scholar, instead of being frightened by the raccoon spirit who had revealed her true form, protected her out of their years of affection and sacrificed his own life.
Young girls nowadays loved this kind of affectionate and handsome man. Although he was just a supporting role with only a few scenes, Zhang Zijing became popular because of it.
Then he was heavily promoted by Dajin Entertainment and joined the crew of , continuing his affectionate persona.
Despite having a harem, Ji Yan was deeply in love with Empress Qin Muxue. In the previous script, Ji Yan knew that the empress had harmed Miao Qianye’s child, but instead of blaming her, he reflected that he had hurt the empress’s feelings by being too affectionate with other concubines. He protected Qin Muxue and found a scapegoat to take the blame. Later, the emperor and empress were both killed by Miao Qianye’s revenge, fulfilling Ji Yan’s vow to be with Qin Muxue in life and death. The Ji Yan in the previous script had more than just Qin Muxue. If one were to be critical, he was a scumbag. However, Zhang Zijing was good-looking and very good at playing affectionate roles.
After the movie was released, a large number of people believed that the emperor and empress had true love, and they admired the elegant and handsome Ji Yan.
Zhang Zijing became very popular because of the role of Ji Yan.
In her previous life, the role of Empress Qin Muxue was played by Bao Yueqiao from Qiong Yu Entertainment. She was very delicate and a little spoiled, which was very suitable for the role of the empress in the original script. In terms of looks, Mi Hongdou thought she might not be as good-looking as Bao Yueqiao. But now, Qiao Rubai’s intention was that with the changed script, the empress should no longer be a delicate and jealous woman, but a woman with the pride of a military family and a compassionate heart for the world. For such an empress, Mi Hongdou was more suitable than Bao Yueqiao. As for why Qiao Rubai was so sure that Mi Hongdou was suitable for this role after seeing her just once, Yang Lianyi wouldn’t remember to ask.
Mi Hongdou always felt that Qiao Rubai had ulterior motives, beyond economic interests, but she couldn’t figure it out and couldn’t ask, so she could only let it go for now.
Back to Zhang Zijing. Whenever a new movie or TV series was released, aside from the hype created by some companies, the audience would always link the relationships between the characters in the drama to the actors in real life, creating a lot of gossip. The better the drama, the more people would speculate, and the more elaborate the gossip would be. It wasn’t strange. The drama was short, and the better it was, the more touching the relationships were, the more the audience would be reluctant to let those people and those relationships end with the short drama.
Being reluctant, they hoped it would still exist, still happen, still be seen. But the drama had ended, so these beautiful visions could only be placed on the actors who played those roles, hoping that they would continue to fulfill them. After was released in her previous life, because it was a harem drama, the audience could speculate on many different pairings. After the audience took sides, the official pairing of the emperor and empress naturally had many supporters. The pairing of the emperor and Miao Qianye was also very popular. There were also some less popular pairings, such as the emperor and Concubine Zhu, the emperor and the general, Miao Qianye and Concubine Zhu, etc., which were not as popular as the first two.
The actors’ Weibo accounts were filled with comments tagging them and asking them to be together. Generally, this kind of situation would only be popular for a while when a drama was first released. When the actors went on to act in other dramas and played new roles, the audience would pair them with new people. After was released in her previous life, because it was so popular, several entertainment companies took advantage of the heat and made a TV series with the original cast, making a lot of money again.
It was also at that time that, for some reason, rumors about the lead actors started to spread. Among them, the rumors about Ji Junxin and Zhang Zijing were the most prevalent. For a time, Zhang Zijing, riding on Ji Junxin’s coattails, frequently appeared in the top three trending searches on Weibo. At that time, Mi Hongdou, who was already somewhat famous, had been captivated by Ji Junxin and became her fan. She paid close attention to the situation. With her limited experience in the industry and a lot of intuition, Mi Hongdou always felt that the rumors were too intense, as if someone was manipulating them behind the scenes.
According to Mi Hongdou’s analysis at the time, Qiong Yu had Qiao Rubai, so it was impossible for them to use rumors for hype. It must have been Dajin Entertainment, trying to promote Zhang Zijing by dragging down Ji Junxin, the most popular actress in the drama. Just as Mi Hongdou was getting angry and wanted to go online with a fake account to refute the rumors, the two agencies simultaneously issued statements, confirming the relationship between Ji Junxin and Zhang Zijing.
That night, one laptop was scrapped at Mi Hongdou’s home.
If it had just been that, it would have just been a case of her idol dating and getting married. She would have been sad but would have wished her happiness and continued to adore her child in the future. Who knew that she wouldn’t even get to see her idol’s wedding, let alone adore her child. The announcement issued by Dajin Entertainment stated that Zhang Zijing and Ji Junxin had amicably broken up months ago, and Zhang Zijing and Jiang Duo were in love and would be getting married next month. They thanked everyone for their blessings. Blessings, my ass!
Four years later, after reading the statement, another laptop was scrapped at Mi Hongdou’s home.
Who was Jiang Duo? Another artist under Dajin, the one who played Concubine Zhu in , the one who became Ji Junxin’s close friend after collaborating multiple times! What peaceful breakup? It was clearly a case of a scumbag cheating! She didn’t know what Zhang Zijing saw in Jiang Duo. She looked like a white lotus and was definitely not a good person. The roles she played were either pitiful and weak or outwardly pitiful and weak but actually vicious and cunning. She had been acting for so many years and was still only semi-famous, which showed how stupid she was!
Mi Hongdou didn’t really want Ji Junxin and Zhang Zijing to be together, but compared to her idol being dumped, the former was clearly more acceptable to her. Oh, and why did she know that Zhang Zijing cheated and not that he was dumped by Ji Junxin? That went without saying. If she didn’t even have that much insight, how could she be Ji Junxin’s loyal and die-hard fan for so many years?
Mi Hongdou miserably put on her fake account and went to her idol’s Weibo to say things like, “The weather is great today. I was walking and not looking, stepped into a manhole, and fell on my butt. The warm egg pancake I had just taken a bite of was instantly snatched away by a smiling Samoyed, and a big gray cat stepped on my hand. My hand hurts now.” She hoped that among the thousands of comments saying “Don’t cry, goddess, get up and keep going,” hers would be a breath of fresh air that would make her idol smile.
Sure enough, the day after Dajin Entertainment issued the blessing statement, Qiong Yu Entertainment issued a statement saying that Ji Junxin was retiring from the entertainment industry, and from that day on, Qiong Yu Entertainment would no longer have any kind of cooperation with Dajin Entertainment, Zhang Zijing, or Jiang Duo.
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