Within a few days, news came. Long Qi’s scenes were filmed up to the end of the youthful phase. The subsequent adult phase would be taken over by Jian Yizhen. In other words, the two would evenly split different periods of the same character. In other words, Long Qi had been played.

Lao Ping was unusually furious.

But he appeared unusually calm. The first thing he did was go settle the payment. Since the other party had violated the contract first, Long Qi still received the full music video fee. Not only that, but she also got an additional breach of contract penalty. Only after Lao Ping secured control over the payment did he let his emotions fly, but even then, he only closed the door and said to Long Qi: See, this industry is just this unreliable. If you’re not powerful, people can replace you whenever they want.

Long Qi was munching on an apple, glancing at him through the reflection in the makeup mirror. The makeup artist was removing her eye makeup. She closed her eyes.

“Girl,” the makeup artist said, “your natural features are among the best I’ve seen in female artists. Take good care of them. I have faith in you. If there’s nothing wrong, we’ll work together again next time.”

After several days together, the makeup artist had grown quite fond of Long Qi, saying she cooperated well with makeup application and wasn’t difficult or affected.

“Sigh, that other one won’t be easy to serve, will she?” The female assistant chimed in at the right moment.

Everyone knew who “that other one” referred to. The makeup artist didn’t treat them as outsiders either, laughed, and shrugged her shoulders.

“Sister Fan really brought Jian Yizhen into the crew—that’s bold.” Hao Shuai also added a comment.

“Sister Fan and that one have always been close. They’ve known each other for over ten years.” The makeup artist echoed.

Lao Ping didn’t participate in the conversation. He paced back and forth in the dressing room sending messages on his phone. After Long Qi finished removing her makeup and everyone else had left, he closed the dressing room door, pulled over a chair, and sat in front of Long Qi.

“Do you know why Jian Yizhen was able to turn things around?”

He asked.

Long Qi glanced at him through the mirror.

“Do you know why I’m in the right but can’t tear into them?”

She fiddled with her hair in front of the mirror, still not answering. Seeing she wasn’t taking this seriously, Lao Ping simply tossed his phone on the table. On the phone screen were the secretly taken photos of her and Jin Yiken from a few days ago.

“Fan Mi sent these to me before I negotiated with the company about your situation.”

Then Lao Ping began adopting the earnest, painstaking tone of a loving father educating a rebellious daughter: “Hao Shuai said Fan Mi talked to you beforehand. My dear ancestor, you need to tell me about these things. Only when I know what’s going on can I maneuver ahead of time. I can handle it, but I’m just afraid you treat me like an outsider. Although you have a stubborn temperament, you’re my favorite prospect. Next time…”

Before Lao Ping finished, Long Qi pulled out her phone from her pocket and tossed it screen-up on the table.

He glanced at it.

The moment his gaze touched the content on the screen, his loving father expression changed in a second. Just as he was about to reach for it, Long Qi took the phone back first.

“Although there’s my reason for being replaced, that reason only accounts for one-tenth. You’ve also seen the other nine-tenths. I’ll take the loss on this matter. I don’t plan to turn things around. Let’s turn the page on this. I’ll fully cooperate with you on the next job. What do you think?”

Long Qi’s smooth handling made Lao Ping skeptical instead. He said, “Wait, you took it back too fast. I didn’t see it clearly.”

“You saw it clearly.”

Only then did Lao Ping switch to a cryptic tone: “Jian Yizhen’s dirt is not insignificant.”

“She and I are on equal footing.”

“You really don’t plan to settle the score?”

“No plans. I was already complaining about the workload being too large. Now the workload is cut in half but I still get the full pay—why not? Each of us holding each other’s dirt and living peacefully.”

“Besides,” Long Qi added, “once she takes this on, sooner or later either Fan Mi or she will collapse.”

The content of the two photos Jin Yiken sent her was very straightforward.

The first was a scene of Jian Yizhen and the record company boss riding in the same car in an underground parking garage. There was no third person present, and their behavior was intimate. The second was a scene of Jian Yizhen and Fan Mi entering an elevator in some building together. Jian Yizhen’s hand was linked with Fan Mi’s elbow, and she was kissing Fan Mi’s cheek.

Both incidents occurred on the same day. Jin Yiken’s message was followed by a note: If you want more, go ask Si Bolin. He doesn’t just do school business.

So Jian Yizhen and Fan Mi weren’t close friends.

They were lovers.

From Jin Yiken’s earlier statement “she wanted to hook my dad,” Long Qi vaguely guessed why these photos were captured, and thus knew why Fan Mi was so determined to snatch the role from her. It was just like how she herself had been with Dong Xi back then. Unfortunately, Fan Mi was devoted to Jian Yizhen, but Jian Yizhen was restless, climbing up to this person and that person. Fan Mi herself was probably only being used and climbed upon by Jian Yizhen because of her influence in the music industry.

Poor Fan Mi.

“Alright then,” Lao Ping also gave up, put away the lecture he had originally planned to give at length, pulled the chair back, and stood up. “I just moved up a magazine travel shoot schedule. Prepare yourself these next few days. I’ll handle the other follow-up work.”

“Lao Ping,” Long Qi called to him before he buried himself in his phone for online work. “Thank you.”

Lao Ping was in a sense the first person to recognize her and give her social value, although it was related to personal interests, although it was mundane.

The music video filming work came to a close. Long Qi left the crew on the day Jian Yizhen joined. After that, most of what she took on were magazine photo shoots—her old line of work—except she’d been upgraded from interior page model to cover girl. As her magazine appearance rate increased, some fashion bloggers began paying attention to her. As a newcomer who became popular at the beginning of the year, after accumulating momentum for half a year, her attention level surged even higher during summer vacation.

During those days, the college entrance exam results also came out. Long Qi’s score barely crossed the first-tier university line. Whether she could be admitted to the key universities Jin Yiken had selected for her was uncertain. However, several drama-related schools that Lao Ping had asked her to apply to all sent admission notices. After considering, she chose the one located in this city.

She had asked Jin Yiken for his thoughts on this matter, but Jin Yiken’s reply didn’t come until a day after she made her decision, saying it was up to her.

At that time, she had just finished shooting a set of studio portraits. During a break, she got her phone from the assistant and saw the message. The temperature at the end of August reached over thirty degrees. The studio was even more scorching. Her fingers quickly tapped on the keyboard, typing word by word “what have you been busy with lately.” After her fingertip hesitated slightly on the send button, she deleted it character by character.

Instead, she logged onto the campus network, logged out of her own account, logged into Hao Shuai’s account, and clicked on Bai Aiting’s avatar in the following list.

Unlike before, Bai Aiting’s profile page was completely blank.

She refreshed twice. Both times it was the same page. Completely empty.

She called out to Hao Shuai, asking if there was a problem with the account. Hao Shuai asked back, “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Hao Shuai’s words paused.

Long Qi told him to speak.

Only then did he shake his head: “Um, the school forum has been buzzing about this these past few days… maybe you should go look yourself.”

“Not looking. You tell me.”

So Hao Shuai said in a cautious tone: “She… her account was abnormal a few days ago, so she simply cleared her profile page.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

Long Qi handed the phone to the assistant, stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets: “Then what’s there to discuss about that?”

“Because she uploaded a few photos…” Hao Shuai said. “Although she deleted them in less than half a day, judging from the view count, they spread quite widely.”

“What photos?”

Hao Shuai hemmed and hawed. Long Qi directly took his phone, figuring that with his sensitivity to gossip, he definitely would have taken screenshots and saved them right away. Then, sure enough, she found the suspected photos in the photo album. When she first looked, she didn’t recognize them and scrolled past. Hao Shuai reminded her: “Just… just that one from a moment ago.”

She scrolled back.

Her brows furrowed.

In this photo of Bai Aiting, the background was a bathroom. Setting aside the flushed cheeks that clearly showed she was drunk and the half-wet, half-dry hair, just the mental state alone was shocking. She sat with bent knees on the edge of a bathtub. Her strap had fallen off her shoulder, her back was almost completely bare. On the edge of the bathtub were cigarette packs and beer bottles. Between two fingers, she was pressing a cigarette against the wall. On her face was a residual smile as if from post-pleasure, and in her eyes was also a sense of willing degeneration. The scale was comparable to Long Qi’s photos from the peak of her delinquent days.

The date the photo was uploaded was the third day after Long Qi’s birthday. There was no text, but the view count was higher than any previous photo post by Bai Aiting, and this was only two minutes after she posted the photo. A good student’s self-abandonment attracts more attention than a bad student’s return to the right path—this long-verified phenomenon was now being demonstrated once again.

Long Qi asked flatly, “Is it still online?”

“No, all the secondary shares have been deleted.”

From this statement, she knew Jin Yiken was handling this matter.

She clicked the small trash can in the lower right corner. A red delete option popped up on the photo. Hao Shuai wanted to say something but hesitated. She deleted the photo.