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Chapter 006: The Invisible Mentor
Fang Hui raised an eyebrow and chuckled. “You’ve lost faith in her? Yet you’ve invested so much money and pulled so many strings—why bother?”
The handsome man shrugged with a faint smile. “Aunt Guan treated my brother well. I’m just paying her back.”
Fang Hui glanced at his friend and pulled out another cigarette, though he didn’t light it. His silver lighter clicked open and shut in his hand. Despite his reputation for loyalty, Young Master Du was actually indifferent. He’d taken someone else’s mother, who gave all her love to Du’s younger brother. Now, all Du could offer in return was some financial compensation. To someone like him, money easily solved everything.
It didn’t matter. Jian Han’s strong performance today was something only Fang Hui noticed. Du didn’t care. He was just spending money to keep the girl happy.
Fang Hui didn’t doubt that if Jian Han was eliminated from the trainee competition, Du would instantly fund a movie with A-list stars just for her. With money, you could do whatever you wanted.
He finally lit his cigarette, taking a deep drag. “Another race?”
Moments later, the roar of luxury cars filled the highway as they sped off into the night.
By 4 a.m., Fang Hui parked his car quietly outside an upscale apartment building. After the thrill of the race, he took a shower and put on a white robe. With a cup of coffee in hand, he entered his study, opened his laptop, and went straight to Glory Entertainment’s official website.
As expected, the top-ranked video was of Trainee No. 18’s evaluation. Curious, Fang Hui clicked on it, eager to see what performance had earned Jian Han three five-star ratings.
The video opened with Jian Han peeking out like a lost little deer, her big black eyes blinking innocently. Fang Hui paused—he had never seen this playful side of her before, always used to her gloomy expressions.
Then the camera shifted to a close-up of Han Chen, the popular star that Glory Entertainment was promoting heavily. Even with his impatient scowl, his flawless face was as handsome as ever.
Fang Hui relaxed. It was rare for a judge to appear in a trainee’s evaluation video. This could boost Jian Han’s visibility.
“What are you playing at?”
“Okay, you—”
As the video progressed, Fang Hui’s expression became more and more confused. No wonder the judge’s close-up made it into the trainee video—Jian Han was using Han Chen as her live prop!
When the camera zoomed in on the chubby piglet sticker on her phone, paired with Han Chen’s serious face, Fang Hui covered his own with one hand in despair. Now he understood why this video was ranked first.
With low expectations, he scrolled down to the fan comments, finding an endless stream of furious Han Chen fans:
— “This little b**** is using my male god! Unforgivable!”
— “Who knows her address? I’m sending a suitcase of banana peels! The biggest suitcase I can find!”
— “She’s trying to climb her way up using him? Please, go to Korea first for some surgery!”
The ratio of flowers to rotten eggs was a shocking 1:10,000.
Fang Hui tried to console himself. At least there was one person who liked it, right? He kept scrolling and finally found a positive comment buried on the fifth-to-last page:
— “Weak opinion here, but doesn’t his face paired with the chubby piglet look kind of cute?”
And that was it. The comment was buried in a flood of angry responses:
— “Cute, my foot! You’re a pig! Your whole family’s pigs!”
— “Pig! Your entire neighborhood is full of pigs!”
— “Goodbye, pig. See you at the slaughterhouse, then on the dinner table.”
Fang Hui stared blankly for a while before checking the time. It was almost 6 a.m. He pulled out his phone and dialed Jian Han’s number. To his surprise, despite her mild depression, she didn’t have insomnia this time. The phone rang for a long time before she answered, her voice groggy with sleep. “—Hello?”
Fang Hui paused briefly before saying, “For now, I won’t schedule any new gigs for you. Just focus on Director Zheng’s audition.”
“Mm.” She lazily responded, then added, “Anything else? If not, I’m hanging up.”
Fang Hui raised an eyebrow. Since when had Jian Han, usually so withdrawn, become so polite? His voice softened. “That’s all. Go back to sleep.”
Her soft “goodbye” echoed in his ears as he hung up. Fang Hui stood there, staring at his phone. He suddenly felt an odd sense of pride, as if Jian Han had grown up before his eyes. If she kept maturing like this, fame wouldn’t be hard to come by, especially with Du Ziming willing to spend so much on her.
After the evaluation on Monday, Jian Han spent the rest of the week with nothing to do. During that time, Fang Hui sent over the script for Director Zheng’s new project. As Fang Hui put it, since they’d invited her to audition for the second female lead, even if she didn’t get the part, she’d at least land a minor role.
When Jian Han received the script, she chose a smooth, sturdy poster of Han Chen from a pile of discarded ones and used it to cover the script’s binding—of course, she made sure Han Chen’s devilishly handsome face was hidden on the inside.
Fang Hui told her the audition scene was in Act 3, Scene 5. Jian Han skimmed the table of contents and flipped straight to page 23. Just as she was about to start reading, that warm, familiar voice echoed in her mind again: “No scene exists in isolation. Even if you’re playing a minor role, you should read the entire script.”
Jian Han froze. The voice vanished again, but when she tried to recall its tone and cadence, a sharp pain throbbed in her temples. The pounding in her head was so intense she couldn’t think straight.
Damn it, that voice came and went like a ghost, always popping up unexpectedly. What was worse, those words felt like they were engraved in her heart, each one as clear and permanent as if carved in stone.
After a while, the pain subsided. Jian Han gave up trying to trace the voice. Taking a deep breath, she flipped back to the first page of the script, determined to follow the voice’s advice and read it from beginning to end.