Chapter 317 - Dark Schemes (2/2)

Zheng Gege had already returned to the movie set after her food poisoning incident. As usual, she brought fruit tea for Ah Sha. Zheng Gege knew that the incident last time had to do with Hao Yuan. She also knew that Ah Sha was aware of it as well. Still, Zheng Gege never asked her anything about it, which further improved Ah Sha’s opinion of her.

From that alone, Ah Sha came to the conclusion that Zheng Gege was a smart and calm woman, a woman who would always know what she wanted.

“You can just ask, you know,” Ah Sha said when she noticed the way Zheng Gege was acting. The poor girl looked like she was about to explode if she didn’t start unloading whatever questions she had for Ah Sha. “You’ve been keeping it to yourself for a few days already,” Ah Sha went on. “You’ll probably go nuts if you don’t let it out!”

Zheng Gege chuckled, though her voice held its usual coldness. “Why did you put on an act in front of others?” After her first interaction with Mei Jing, Zheng Gege had dismissed all the things she read from the news articles about Mei Jing being just another arm candy. Since then, Zheng Gege had just assumed that the reporters had been making things up about Mei Jing. But when she saw the act that Mei Jing had put on in front of the reporters that day, Zheng Gege was shocked.

“Don’t you think it’s more fun that way?” Ah Sha sipped her fruit tea. “If they think that I’m good at acting, beautiful, attractive… well, basically that I have everything, then those women would go nuts. At least now, they can comfort themselves, thinking that I don’t have everything.”

Between an arm candy and a capable woman, people would be more likely to believe in whatever an arm candy said.

“Actually, it doesn’t really matter how capable you are. To those people, you’ll always be a woman who uses a man to climb to power,” Zheng Gege said, revealing a mocking smile. “Women are slandered regardless of what they do, whereas people keep finding excuses for men. Whenever they do something wrong, people will say, oh, there must be a good reason he did it. Men are always forgiven for what they did no matter how big, whereas women get destroyed even by a simple mistake.”

“Gege?” Ah Sha said. Ah Sha noticed that Zheng Gege’s eyes had already glazed over some time during her speech.

Zheng Gege’s eyes went wide all of a sudden. It was as though she had just woken up from a trance. “Ah!” Zheng Gege recovered. “I’m fine. I’m sorry. I guess I drifted off for a moment there.”

“Gege! Time for your scene!” A crew member yelled.

Zheng Gege stood up. “I’ll head back to work then!”

Ah Sha watched Zheng Gege’s retreating form, frowning as she did. Xiao Hua noticed the look of concern on Ah Sha’s face. “Young miss, shall we look into her past?” Xiao Hua asked.

“Sure,” Ah Sha said.

But when Xiao Hua was about to make the call, Ah Sha reached out to stop her. “Nah, forget it. Let’s not invade her privacy.”

Zhou Na came to check on Ah Sha in the afternoon.

“Do you know that Hao Yuan got a new movie role?”

“She found her own script?” Ah Sha asked casually. She was in the middle of removing her makeup.

Zhou Na nodded angrily. “It’s a big movie as well. The screenwriter won an international award before. I wonder how much her family paid to get the script.”

“What about the funds?” Ah Sha paused in thought. “How much money did she bring in?”

“From what I hear? She’s covering half of the production expenses while Stars Entertainment will cover the other half.”

Wan Qingsi came to pick her up for dinner. They’d made plans yesterday that they’d go to a seafood restaurant tonight.

“What do you think about Hao Yuan’s latest development?” Ah Sha asked.

“She’s pretty good, I’ll give her that. She managed to bring in thirty million,” Wan Qingsi said, holding Ah Sha’s hand as he drove. Once in a while, he’d drop a kiss or two on her hand.

Ah Sha frowned. “Something about this doesn’t feel right.”

“Your intuition is usually accurate,” Wan Qingsi said, leaning over the console to kiss her lips as if to reward her. Ah Sha pushed him away. “Eyes on the road!”

“Well, everything seems clean from what I can tell so far. I’ve read the script. It’s a spy thriller,” Wan Qingsi said, smirking. “I can’t wait to find out what she’s up to.”

With that much funds she had access to, Hao Yuan knew that she could’ve joined another company and become the number one actress there. There was no reason for her to stay in Stars Entertainment. Ah Sha’s position in Stars Entertainment was pretty much unshakable. Everyone knew how much Wan Qingsi cared about her. Besides, based on the news articles written about the ball, everyone could sense that Wan Qingsi might really be willing to go up against the Ying family because of Mei Jing.

Hao Yuan hated Ah Sha’s guts for two reasons: one, Ah Sha didn’t give her first place during the contest; two, Hao Yuan couldn’t stand to see others being better than herself.

“Don’t worry okay?” Wan Qingsi said reassuringly. “Focus on your acting, and remember to eat your meals. I’ll handle everything else!” Wan Qingsi pulled up at the restaurant and unbuckled Ah Sha’s seat belt. It was June, so the wind at the beach was a little bit cold; Wan Qingsi got Ah Sha to wear his jacket and pulled her snug against his side as they walked from the car to the restaurant.

The seafood restaurant was unique in the sense that half of it was underwater. Customers were granted a beautiful view of various aquatic animals swimming around them as they ate. There were even scuba divers swimming around to give customers a demonstration of underwater fish feeding.

However, what began as a wonderful dinner got ruined near its end. Wan Qingsi’s mood suddenly became sullen when Ah Sha received a phone call from none other than Lin Musheng.

“You’re coming to S City again?” Ah Sha asked into the phone. Apparently, Lin Musheng told her that he’d arrived in S City tomorrow, asking Ah Sha to make time to have dinner with him.

Wan Qingsi snatched Ah Sha’s phone away and hung up straight away. “Ignore him,” Wan Qingsi said with a scowl. “You’re not allowed to meet him.”

Ah Sha chuckled and tried to persuade him by giving him a kiss. “Oh, come on! Let’s go together! Please?”

Meanwhile, in another booth somewhere else, Hao Yuan was clinking her glass with an unknown man.

“You can leave it to us. We’ll handle it perfectly!”

“Remember to get the whole thing on tape,” Hao Yuan reminded. “Make sure that her face is on the video.”

“Got it,” the man promised. “You paid us double the amount, so we’d definitely pay more attention to what we’re doing. Just wait to see the news! But… once it gets big, will we get into trouble?”

“Hmph!” Hao Yuan smiled. “You guys don’t have to worry. She’s just an orphan without any background. Even if she sees your face, she couldn’t do anything to you. As far as I know, she’s still a virgin. You lucky bastards literally struck gold with this deal.”