Xia Cheng felt that this Simulator was targeting her.
Sure, she did have intentions of seducing Gu Xingye, but she hadn't even gotten the chance to act on them yet—how could it just blurt that out?
This was outright slander! I'm going to sue you for defamation!
But before she could turn that slander into reality, the director arrived.
So there was no way to immediately put on an R-rated show.
The player could only reluctantly set aside that plan for now.
【The opening ceremony is over. At the end of June, "Setting the Wind and Waves" officially begins filming. Please arrange your schedule for the next three months accordingly.】
There wasn't much to say about scheduling. Since she was already in the production, if she wanted a high score at the end, most of her daily activities had to be set to 【Filming】, with only the occasional opportunity to go sleep with her sugar daddy to make his gold coins burst out.
The 【Film Set Shooting】 in the Simulator was highly realistic—if someone was actually interested in acting, they could genuinely hone their craft in the Simulator.
But the player only wanted to be a Best Actress; she had zero interest in acting itself. She couldn't be bothered to stay on set repeating the same routine, so she simply handed everything over to the system's auto-pilot and took the chance to log off and go eat hotpot.
On the set of "Setting the Wind and Waves."
"I already told you I wanted my milk tea without sugar! Do you not have ears?! It's so sweet it's going to choke someone to death! You can't even handle something this small—I think you should just quit being my assistant while you still can!"
The young assistant stammered, "But Sister Yan Zhu, this milk tea really doesn't have sugar in it. It's a fruit tea base, so it's naturally a bit sweet…"
"Then why didn't you say so earlier?! Is your mouth just for decoration?!" Yan Zhu's face burned with rage. "Do you have any idea how many calories I just swallowed in that one sip, and how much exercise it'll take to burn off?! Are you trying to make me waste three hours on a treadmill after I've already worked my ass off filming?!"
She hurled the milk tea directly at her assistant. The young assistant's clothes were splattered with a large stain of tea, but she didn't dare fight back. She kept her expression obedient on the surface, though inwardly she cursed Yan Zhu for being so high-maintenance: Milk tea was already high in calories anyway—what difference did sugar make? If she was that afraid of gaining weight, she just shouldn't drink it at all!
But for the sake of her salary, she didn't say that out loud. She just silently endured it.
Yan Zhu, of course, had no idea what her assistant was thinking. She'd thrown and she'd yelled, and the anger in her heart finally subsided a little.
She waved her hand to dismiss the assistant, then lay back in her rest chair and picked up the script again. But her mind wasn't on acting. She couldn't read two lines before she grew restless and irritable, so she closed the script again.
Can't even buy a cup of milk tea right—what a bunch of useless trash!
The more Yan Zhu thought about it, the angrier she got. It felt like the whole world was against her.
Yan Zhu had always been arrogant, demanding to occupy the center stage in everything. She'd even once slapped another actor in public over being robbed of the center position—which showed just how obsessed she was with being the spotlight. Even when she'd first entered the entertainment industry, she refused to take any role that wasn't the lead.
But this time, she'd gone against her usual nature by agreeing to join "Setting the Wind and Waves" as the second female lead. First, she needed to keep a low profile—she'd only recently returned from abroad, and she needed to show Mrs. Yan that she'd reformed. Second, her ultimate purpose in coming back this time wasn't really about acting at all.
Looking back on her twenty-plus years of life, Yan Zhu only felt wronged. Outsiders saw her as domineering and willful, but they had no idea how much effort she'd put in, how much she'd humbled herself, just to survive in the Yan family.
On the surface, she was the glamorous eldest Miss of the Yan family, wanting for nothing in terms of food, clothing, and luxury. But everyone in their circle knew she wasn't the real deal. Everyone knew she was just a fake phoenix occupying a magpie's nest. Those sycophantic bastards would bow and scrape to her face, but who knew how they mocked her behind her back?
The people outside were bastards, and the Yan family were bastards too.
Yan Yao's attitude toward her had always been lukewarm at best—never close. Mr. Yan carried such heavy authority that she was terrified just looking at him. Mrs. Yan treated her decently enough and often showed concern for her, but Yan Zhu could never forget the day when she was seven years old and her identity was exposed—the scene of Mrs. Yan trying to throw her out.
Yan Zhu remembered vividly the look in Mrs. Yan's eyes when she'd stared at her—filled with fury and disgust. No matter how well Mrs. Yan treated her afterward, Yan Zhu could never forgive her.
But it didn't matter anyway. In her heart, she'd never considered Mrs. Yan her real mother. On the surface, she'd call her "Mom" with sickening sweetness, but deep down, she'd long stopped seeing Mrs. Yan as a mother figure. Her real mother was the woman who had given her a life of wealth and luxury, who had even sacrificed her own life for her sake.
Even though she'd never once called that woman "Mom" while she was alive, in Yan Zhu's heart, that woman was the one who loved her most. She recognized only her as her true mother.
Over the years, Yan Zhu had lived in constant fear. Her life in the Yan family had always been precarious, like walking on thin ice. If the true daughter were ever found and brought back, would there even be a place left for her in this family?
Her arrogance and domineering behavior in public were nothing more than a way to vent her stress and ease the fear in her heart—so how could those who were the root cause of it all blame her for it?
Later, she stopped being afraid, but as she grew older, another even more deadly fear began to haunt her.
Yan Zhu was an adopted daughter of the Yan family, not a biological one. While the family wouldn't stint on her food, clothing, or daily expenses, it went without saying that she could never obtain any real benefits from the family. How could a family like the Yans possibly allow someone with no blood relation to touch the center of power?
If she wanted to maintain her status and position forever, without fear of falling from her class, the most secure method was to marry into one of the other three great families—and pray that her husband would die early so she could take over the family in the capacity of his widow. This was exactly what the Yan family had done before; as early as her birth, the Yan family had already arranged a betrothal with the Duan family.
But those people from the Duan family were also a bunch of bastards. Once they learned she wasn't the true daughter, they showed no mercy whatsoever and bluntly demanded that the betrothal be switched to the real daughter.
And so Yan Zhu was left awkwardly stuck in the middle.
The other three great families were unwilling to form a marriage alliance with her, and if she married beneath her station, Yan Zhu truly couldn't swallow that—was she supposed to let people who weren't even fit to hold her shoes climb above her head, watch those who were once beneath her throw their weight around, while she could never return to the pinnacle of Dongzhou's social pyramid?!
She refused to accept it. She couldn't possibly accept it. So even though she thought those men were all bastards at heart, Yan Zhu still felt she had to hold her nose and give it her best shot.
She surveyed the four great families and ultimately concluded that the only ones who met her requirements and seemed realistically attainable were Gu Xingye and Duan Mingxuan.
To be honest, she didn't like either of these men at all. In fact, it wasn't just them—she didn't like a single one of the heirs of the four great families.
Yan Zhu herself had a princess temperament. She liked men who were gentle-natured, who would yield to her, who would indulge her in everything. But these young lords had always been arrogant and condescending, and the wives they'd eventually choose would probably be the gentle, respectful, obedient type. She simply couldn't imagine any of them yielding to anyone. In her eyes, anyone who wouldn't yield to her was a bastard.
But no matter how much resentment she harbored inside, when she thought of the exalted status and a lifetime of wealth and glory in the future, Yan Zhu steeled her heart and, enduring humiliation, prepared to conquer these two bastards.
She decided to start with Gu Xingye. She'd heard he'd recently joined a new film production. To get a head start by being close to the action, she simply snatched the role of the female lead's rival, kicking out the original actress. As for why she didn't take the female lead role—it was because this film wasn't centered on romance. In the original plot, while the male lead and female lead had quite a few scenes together, the female lead ended up with the male supporting character, while the male lead was paired with the female supporting character.
Yan Zhu thought everything was ready except for the final push. But after joining the production, she discovered yet another bastard.
Xia Cheng.
This woman was also there to oppose her. Not only was she stunningly beautiful, but she'd also beaten Yan Zhu to the punch by securing Duan Mingxuan. And the most outrageous part? That bitch was even more arrogant and contemptuous than Yan Zhu herself, the legitimate young lady!
At first, Yan Zhu had tried to restrain her true nature and hypocritically strike up conversations with Xia Cheng, trying to curry favor. But the woman simply ignored her. When faced with Yan Zhu, she'd even rudely said something like, "Your level is so low. I don't make friends with SR cards," and then never spoke another word to her.
Yan Zhu didn't understand what she meant, but she could vaguely sense it wasn't anything good.
She felt humiliated.
Why?! Even if she wasn't the true daughter, she was still the Yan family's only adopted daughter. Wherever she went, people fawned over her. Who did this Xia Cheng think she was?! How dare she speak to her like that?!
Yan Zhu was furious and wanted to teach her a lesson.
Though she was a bona fide nepotism hire, one thing Yan Zhu took pride in was that her acting was genuinely good. Perhaps this was thanks to having learned from a young age to disguise herself in front of her "parents." In today's entertainment industry, teeming with all sorts of monsters and demons, her acting was even among the very best of her peer group of young actresses.
She'd heard before that this Xia Cheng was very talented and had even been praised by Director Qin as "a born actress." But Yan Zhu dismissed this. A newcomer who'd only just finished one film—how good could her acting possibly be? Besides, in her entire acting career so far, she surely had never encountered a scene partner who deliberately caused multiple NGs.
When a scene partner deliberately causes multiple NGs, an ordinary person would become extremely impatient after going through four or five takes. Beyond that, their energy and stamina would start to fail, their own state would inevitably suffer, and the final result might even be worse than the first take.
Yan Zhu deliberately messed up her lines a full twenty times.
But as filming progressed, things didn't develop the way she had imagined.
Even the attitudes of everyone else on set shifted from initial indignation to bewilderment, and then to outright shock.
Because they discovered that no matter how many times she NG'd, that girl's performance remained just as flawless as the first take—not a single deviation. Her composure stayed calm and unruffled, as if she were completely unaffected by Yan Zhu's antics.
What kind of masterful acting was this?
What kind of unshakable mentality?
Yan Zhu had intended to disrupt Xia Cheng's state of mind, but in the end, it was she herself who got disrupted. As time went on, her performance grew worse and worse, until she nearly forgot her lines altogether.
This bitch was simply born to oppose her!
Her heart was filled with fury and grievance. On the way back to the hotel, she spent the entire ride silently cursing the girl through gritted teeth, then threw herself onto her hotel bed to sulk.
But just then, the doorbell suddenly rang. Standing at the door was the girl she least wanted to see, holding a package in her hands.
"I'd like to give you a gift," the girl said.
Why would she kindly give her a gift?
Yan Zhu opened the package with a hint of suspicion—
"Hotpot is so delicious, let's have hotpot again tomorrow~"
After eating her fill, Xia Cheng logged back online. She skimmed through the previous AFK records and confirmed there were no bugs, though one thing in the logs puzzled her.
"This SR's acting is this bad? She needed twenty NGs for a single scene? What a total noob." Xia Cheng shook her head. "But wait, if she's this terrible, why is her 'Acting' attribute still rated 'Excellent'?"
The player didn't understand.
Not that it mattered—the player never cared whether NPCs could act well anyway. None of them could match her.
But this noob was the female lead's rival, and she still had several more scenes opposite her coming up. If she kept performing this badly, it could jeopardize Xia Cheng's path to the Best Actress title.
Xia Cheng refused to let that happen!
She wanted this SR to improve her acting attribute and stop being such a scrub.
Time to gift the NPC some acting-improvement items.
The in-game shop had several gifts that could quickly boost acting stats, purchasable with in-game currency. But Xia Cheng didn't want to spend too much money on an SR, so she only picked the cheapest option.
[You gifted Yan Zhu: "Fear No Hardship: Becoming an Actor from Zero" ×1.]
[You gifted Yan Zhu: "Fundamentals of Dramatic Performance" ×1.]
[You gifted Yan Zhu: "An Actor's Self-Cultivation" ×1.]
[You gifted Yan Zhu: "How a Talentless Acting Scrub Breaks Through Their Limits" ×1.]
…
[After receiving your gifts, Yan Zhu burst into tears. Her sobbing was so loud it alarmed the hotel manager.]
"No need to be that moved, right?" the player sighed. "I only sent a few books. She's supposed to be an SR, but she's clearly never seen the world."
[Your gifts made Yan Zhu so furious she broke down crying. Her Favorability toward you has decreased by 100 points.]
"What?!" Xia Cheng was shocked. "I gave her gifts and she still docks my Favorability?"
She snatched the books back from the NPC's hands and snapped, "Then stay a noob forever! Gift's cancelled!"