Qin You endured the pain as she left the bathroom and returned to the living room.
She opened the fridge, grabbed a slice of bread to munch on, and then picked up the Original Host’s phone from the bed before sitting down at the desk.
The Original Host rarely used a computer, performing almost every task on her phone. This was likely a common habit among the younger generation. However, she did own a laptop; though it looked more flashy than practical, it was expensive enough that its specifications were actually quite good.
Qin You flipped open the laptop and rummaged through the drawers for a long time before finally finding a data cable to connect the phone.
Then, she began to recover the Original Host’s WeChat chat records.
To be honest, call her cold and ruthless if you want, but even after witnessing the Original Host’s tragic experiences through a first-person perspective, it was still hard for Qin You to feel any sympathy.
The Original Host had started with an unimaginably perfect hand, yet she had thrown it all away for the stupidest reasons.
Not to mention her final reason for seeking death. Qin You just wanted to ask—are you serious?
The ribbon the Original Host used to hang herself was actually from the gift wrapping her boyfriend had given her for her birthday. When she chose that ribbon, she even felt a flicker of vengeful pleasure—once he saw this, would he regret treating her this way? Would he feel a shred of guilt?
Qin You really couldn’t help but ask—are you truly serious? What kind of revenge is that?
Of course, she wanted to ask both of them, including the Original Host and her self-proclaimed “clever” but actually moronic boyfriend: are you both idiots? How can anyone actually believe that deleting WeChat chat records means they are truly gone?
Had they never heard the saying?
—The things on the internet aren’t written in pencil, but in pen. They cannot be erased; once they exist, they never disappear.
Before long, a massive amount of recovered records appeared on the computer screen. At the same time, the hunger in her stomach grew even more intense because she had only swallowed a single slice of bread.
Qin You hesitated for a moment, then found a bit more food in the fridge before she began scrolling through the chat logs between the two.
“Pfft.”
The meaningless, sappy love talk produced during their passionate love affair made Qin You scoff in disgust. However, the evidence was more than sufficient. Whenever she wished, she could flip the script on the public outcry that had already reached its peak and trigger a second tsunami.
But just as she finished selecting a few of the most nauseating screenshots, her movements suddenly stopped.
She switched interfaces and clicked into a different conversation.
It was a dialogue between the Original Host and The Agent.
During the long playback of memories earlier, this conversation had undoubtedly been part of the section played at dozens of times the normal speed. The Original Host hadn’t cared much about it and hadn’t formed a deep impression of it—unlike the memories related to her boyfriend, which had played at original speed, clear and vivid enough to make Qin You feel sick.
In this conversation, The Agent had mentioned a web drama. The project’s tentative name was *Sleepless City*. The Agent suggested she look at the currently leaked script and try to fight for the role of the Female Protagonist. However, the Original Host had ignored this suggestion, feeling that acting in a web drama was “beneath her dignity.”
If the director had contacted her personally, she might have considered it. But to proactively participate in an open audition for a web drama? She couldn’t afford to lose face like that. After all, she had just finished a popular satellite TV idol drama. To lower her status by fighting for a role in a web drama would mean she might not be able to land any good roles in the future.
That memory had flashed by so quickly that Qin You only just now realized its significance.
*Sleepless City*… wasn’t that the working title for *Vanity Fair*?
*Vanity Fair*, the web drama that exploded into a massive hit. When it was released, people said it was the first year of the rise of web dramas. Although it later proved that web dramas as a whole hadn’t risen—only this one had.
Even ten years later, people were still constantly looking back at this drama. Analyzing it remained a guaranteed traffic password.
The actors who came out of this production were almost all newcomers at the time, but ten years later, they had become stars known to all, young and old.
Qin You didn’t have the benefit of hindsight; she had known even during the audition stage of this drama that it was destined to be a massive hit.
She had read those few pages of the leaked audition script. Anyone with eyes and a bit of reading ability should have known: as long as the director didn’t mess it up by filming randomly and the investors didn’t mess it up by changing the script, this script was guaranteed to be a hit.
And the director, screenwriter, and investor for this drama all happened to be the same person.
Therefore, there was absolutely no room for anyone to mess it up.
This multi-talented director, Director Wang, possessed a life story even more legendary than the characters he wrote.
This Director Wang had appeared out of thin air, bringing his own capital and his own script, selecting actors only from newcomers to film his debut work.
Initially, some people saw this modus operandi and thought he was some second-generation heir out for a lark, chasing dreams in the entertainment industry. Although Director Wang’s age didn’t quite fit the image of a second-generation heir, a middle-aged second-generation heir was still a second-generation heir…
However, they soon discovered that Director Wang was indeed not a second-generation heir; he was a first-generation legend.
Before he decided to chase his dreams in the entertainment industry, he had been a legend in the investment world, managing a fund worth hundreds of billions. Under such a massive scale, his five-year return rate still exceeded 300%. Two years ago, he had retired from the profession, leaving no trace. People in the financial world thought he had gone into seclusion, and some even thought he had been incarcerated. As it turned out, the man had buried his head in writing scripts.
The script in question was the very one Qin You was currently opening.
Her breathing couldn’t help but quicken.
Back then, when she had first seen this audition script, her breath had hitched and her palms had sweated just like this. She had wanted to act in this drama so badly it drove her mad, but… back then, she hadn’t passed the audition.
The number of female roles with lines in this drama was quite high, but the script explicitly stated they had to have an outstanding appearance. Her attempting to audition back then was a bit of a lack of “self-awareness,” so she was naturally brushed off in the first stage.
But now, she had a new face…
In the conversation, The Agent had suggested she try for the Female Protagonist.
The currently leaked script was only twenty pages long, but most people believed the plot trajectory was already very clear.
The Female Protagonist is a fresh university graduate who overcomes many obstacles to enter a top investment bank. Her best friend is the daughter of the CEO of another investment bank, and her boyfriend is the heir to a large enterprise considering an IPO. However, she doesn’t leverage the power of either person, relying instead on her own hard work to strive and level up within the investment bank.
With just a few strokes, the script outlined a protagonist who yearns for the “Vanity Fair” but does not go along with its corrupt practices.
But her road to leveling up also has many twists and turns. Most come from the workplace, but a small portion comes from her personal life.
For example, she buries herself in work seven days a week, busy from morning until midnight every day. Her boyfriend feels neglected, and a birthday surprise he carefully prepared for her is ignored. The two have a fight; one says this relationship feels like they aren’t even dating, while the other accuses the other of the surprise being a pure nuisance. After several such bickers, they finally have a major argument.
After finishing her work, the Female Protagonist feels some regret over her attitude. But when she decides to have a proper talk with her boyfriend, she finds a Beautiful Woman by his side.
The trial reading script ended there. However, many people—including The Agent—felt the subsequent plot was easy to guess. Although the Female Protagonist would go through a series of setbacks, they were just setbacks; in the end, she would surely achieve success in both her career and her relationship.
As for that Beautiful Woman, her first appearance in the script was actually outside the Female Protagonist’s field of vision. From a God’s Perspective, readers knew immediately that she had no good intentions, that her approach to the male lead was for an ulterior motive, and that she was destined to be cannon fodder.
But when Qin You first read the script, she had sensed a faint sense of incongruity.
Director Wang was a man who later became famous for being caustic and mean; his scripts always carried a hint of sarcasm.
But at this point, he hadn’t yet become that household-name, venom-tongued famous director. The only writing of his that had circulated was that short trial reading script. Thus, many people hadn’t grasped his innate sarcastic intent and had formed preconceived notions about the plot.
However, if one read carefully, it was easy to see that the beginning of this script featured the “Female Protagonist,” who had just graduated from high school, witnessing a scene she would never forget at her best friend’s coming-of-age ceremony.
It was a grand party attended by numerous important figures from the venture capital industry, including the then-dominant Venture Capital Queen.
In this typical social setting, someone introduced a Rich Second-Generation Handsome Young Man to the Queen. The intention was to act as a matchmaker; after all, finding someone who was both a financial match and outstanding in appearance was quite difficult. The matchmaker thought their eye for people was quite good, but the young man immediately began pitching his project, hoping the Queen would consider investing in it.
A perfectly good social occasion had turned into a business setting, and the matchmaker’s face turned stiff.
The Queen, however, laughed and said, “I admire your drive. You have five minutes.”
This scene left a profound impression on the “Female Protagonist’s” heart. From then on, she decided she wanted to be that kind of person—the kind of person someone would strive for an opportunity just to speak with for five minutes.
This was where Qin You felt the incongruity. Director Wang clearly believed that “turning a social occasion into a business setting” was not only acceptable but worthy of praise. In other words, he believed things like decorum and face were useless—without drive, where would investment come from? Where would success come from?
So why would he write a noble Female Protagonist who rejected all the easily accessible assistance around her?
Qin You could even imagine him cursing “idiot” as he wrote the character—having assistance but not using it while still wanting to reach the peak? What kind of daydream are you having? If I wrote your path as smooth and easy, wouldn’t that be a disservice to all the years I spent humbling myself and striving?
Under any other screenwriter, this character would be a lovable, approachable, and pitiable protagonist. Only under Director Wang would she either suffer a major setback or change completely—or both. Because this was the kind of plot a person permeated by capital would write.
This was also the reason why *Vanity Fair* later became a massive hit and remained unforgettable years later. True to its name, the drama depicted the real, bestial struggle of the vanity fair, rather than a fairy tale where moral beliefs coexisted with fame and capital.
In an industry with such a high incarceration rate, how could a “Female Protagonist” be allowed to reach the peak with a clean, proud integrity?
After the series aired, just as Qin You had speculated, the “Female Protagonist” everyone expected was merely an introductory character in this ensemble drama.
And that Beautiful Woman? She appeared with the persona of a gold-digger, bewitching the male lead while he was emotionally empty. But she didn’t want just a little bit of money; instead, she extracted details of a specific business segment from the company he was taking over. She used this as leverage to exceptionally join a private equity fund focused on early-stage projects as a partner—the very fund that was currently prioritizing an investment in a startup that happened to be in competition with the male lead’s father’s industry.
That was the plot of the second episode.
Qin You decided to fight for that role.