In the anonymous forums, countless users came forward every day under pseudonyms, claiming to be industry insiders and dropping “exclusive” gossip. While many of these were obviously fabricated by bored individuals, one thing never changed: if a post even hinted at a juicy revelation, netizens would flock to it. Their philosophy? Better to bite into a thousand fake melons than miss out on a real one. As a result, these posts always caught fire.
Post Replies:
1st Floor: [Got my little stool ready—waiting for the melon!]
9th Floor: [A married two-character actress? There are tons of those. Who exactly is the OP talking about?]
17th Floor: [Is it that xx? I’ve always felt something off about her and her husband. Even their lovey-dovey posts on Weibo seem forced. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been separated for a while already.]
21st Floor: [That’s way too broad—how are we supposed to guess?]
30th Floor: [OP vanished. We might as well go home, folks. I could make up a hundred of these rumors a day.]
32nd Floor: [Where’s the original poster? Come back out!]
Because the original poster had suddenly gone silent, the thread died down after around thirty posts. Everyone assumed it was just another fake rumor. But half an hour later, the OP unexpectedly returned.
OP: [Believe it or not, I’m telling the truth. May lightning strike me if I’m making this up.]
OP: [All I can say is, this two-character actress’s husband is a huge name—way more famous than most of your favorites.]
With this new detail, the thread instantly lit up again.
Netizens went wild, guessing every two-character actress whose husband had even a decent career. Eventually, someone chimed in:
“Husband’s a big name… Damn, sounds a bit like Liang Yan…”
“Liang Yan? Isn’t she married to Lu Lincheng?”
“Two-character actress, super famous husband… yeah, kinda fits.”
“No way—Liang Yan’s that miserable? Lu Lincheng even gave her a fake phone number?”
“Tch. A woman who keeps clinging to Lu Lincheng like that… whatever happens, she deserves it.”
“I heard someone spotted Liang Yan eating hotpot alone the other day, and she even used her main account to reply to a fan saying she’d never eat hotpot with Lu Lincheng again. Wasn’t she super quiet before? What, did someone put a curse on her recently?”
“When are these two going to get divorced already? I’ve been waiting so long I’m starting to rot.”
“Hey, don’t be like that. I’m still a CP fan of theirs 😅🐶”
“Sigh… Lu Lincheng’s got the looks and the talent—he should just stay single. It breaks my heart knowing there’s another woman’s name on his household registration.”
“Anyway, what’s Liang Yan even doing these days? Has she had any work lately?”
“I think she only shot one web drama this entire year. Probably just sitting at home picking her toes now.”
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city’s concrete jungle, surrounded by cement blocks and steel beams on a busy construction site, the two-character actress Liang Yan stood among piles of gravel. She wore a yellow hard hat, a safety vest printed with the slogan “Safety Above All, Life is Paramount,” and white gloves on her hands. Looking up at the swirling dust in the air, she seemed completely out of place.
Not far away, Liu Hongliang—the show’s main MC who’d drawn the “foreman” role—was striding across the construction site in a flashy black suit over a bright red undershirt, crocodile leather shoes on his feet, a cigarette behind his ear, and a briefcase tucked under one arm. His hard hat was just for show, but his swagger was full-on boss mode.
Several follow PDs and directors trailed behind him.
As Liu Hongliang passed Liang Yan, who stood there looking dazed and frail, he gave her a firm pat on the shoulder and said, “Liang Yan, do your best. Don’t worry, I won’t short you on your wages.”
Earlier that morning, during the show’s career-draw segment, Liang Yan had suffered an epic embarrassment that tanked the whole game for her team. As a result, she was stuck with the least popular job—construction worker. Her mission was straightforward: move bricks.
Liu Hongliang’s foreman role, on the other hand, required him to gather enough wages to pay his workers. The coveted “CEO” role had gone to the youngest idol on the show, Yan Zhun, while Qin Yueshi had picked the role that perfectly matched her gentle image: elementary school teacher.
After exchanging a few words, Liu Hongliang walked off to continue gathering pay for the workers.
Liang Yan stared blankly at the mountain of red bricks in front of her, overwhelmed, until the program-assigned NPC worker, Xiao Zhuang, showed up.
Tears welled up in her eyes. “Zhuang, are you here to help me move bricks? Thank you, thank you so much—sob…”
“Nope, I’m not,” Xiao Zhuang replied, shaking his head while pulling a standard construction-site wheelbarrow from behind him.
“This is for you. Don’t thank me. This is as far as I go.”
Liang Yan: “………………”
Dust swirled through the air, the sharp noise of machinery ringing in everyone’s ears. Liang Yan’s safety helmet was a size too big, and her thin arms struggled as she loaded bricks into the barrow. Then, swaying side to side, she pushed the load to the designated spot on-site.
Though she’d started off visibly discouraged, once work officially began, Liang Yan quickly adjusted. Before long, she’d gotten the hang of using the wheelbarrow and was zipping around the site like a pro.
One of the show’s directors, alarmed by how efficient she looked, quickly reminded her to talk more on camera.
So, as she heaved bricks into the barrow, Liang Yan panted and shared her thoughts on the experience: “I really think construction workers have it so hard. This job is… honestly, just so tough.”
“Every single worker—ow—is like a crucial screw in the machinery of urban development. It’s thanks to their hard work that we get to enjoy such a good life,” Liang Yan declared while expertly filling a wheelbarrow to the brim and then dumping the load with a loud clang at the designated spot.
She was so focused on the task that she didn’t notice the stunned expressions on the faces of the nearby follow PDs and show directors.
Sweat had formed on her forehead, gluing stray hairs to her face as they slipped from her tightly bound bun. Her helmet was too big and kept slipping, forcing her to pause mid-task just to push it back up. After a few trips, her face was smudged with dust, and her whole appearance was a mess—but with her fair skin and delicate features, she looked less like a mess and more like Cinderella after being worked to the bone by a wicked stepmother.
Except… the Cinderella in fairy tales never worked this hard. And definitely wasn’t this capable.
The show’s directors were so shocked, they forgot to jot notes in their little black production notebooks.
Was this really… Lu Lincheng’s wife?
Was this really… a pampered actress from the entertainment industry who supposedly couldn’t lift a thing?
This wasn’t some helpless Cinderella—this was a beast in disguise!
The editing team was on the verge of a breakdown. When they’d confirmed Liang Yan would be the one hauling bricks, they’d already drafted the entire episode’s script:
A frail young actress arrives at a dusty construction site. She struggles, falters, and finally falls after just two trips. She gets injured, cries quietly in a corner. But then, moved by the resilience and kindness of the hardworking laborers around her, she finds new strength. With the support of a fellow worker, she pulls herself together, and under the setting sun, a slender figure grits her teeth and finishes the day’s labor with tear-streaked determination…
But now?
Forget the crying. Liang Yan looked ready to take over the entire site.
The number of bricks prepared by the production team had been carefully calculated. A star like Liang Yan—slim from years of dieting—surely wouldn’t have much physical strength. So they made sure the amount wasn’t too little to be meaningless, but not too much that she couldn’t finish it with some effort.
But this girl… this demon girl… clearly didn’t read the script. (:з」∠)
Eventually, Liang Yan began to feel a little tired. She paused, pulled out her insulated tumbler, and took a sip of water—only to notice a few staff members staring at her with odd expressions.
She touched her face. “Do I… have something on me?”
“No, no, no!” the staff all shook their heads in unison.
“Then why are you all looking at me like that?” she muttered, a little suspicious, but didn’t push further. Instead, she went right back to energetically moving bricks like she was born for it.
The crew could only watch in awe as the giant pile of red bricks grew smaller and smaller… until, in what felt like no time at all, it disappeared completely.
The bricks were officially gone.
Liang Yan sat down on the spot to rest, catching her breath. But after just a moment, she dusted herself off and stood up again, scanning the site.
“Liang Yan, what are you looking for?” one of the follow PDs asked.
“Where are the rest of the bricks? That was it?” she asked, frowning.
Several metaphorical sweat drops rolled down the director’s forehead as they let out an awkward laugh.
“Um… those were all of them. You finished them…”
The workload had been designed to last until sunset. They’d expected to film Liang Yan struggling for hours, but she had finished everything with time to spare.
“That’s it? Really?” she asked, clearly skeptical.
“Really. That’s it,” the director replied, shaking their head and glancing at Liang Yan’s petite frame with disbelief.
“Liang Yan, you’re… honestly amazing.”
“Hehe, thanks,” Liang Yan said, sitting down with her water bottle on the edge of a small concrete step to rest. The work had been tiring, sure—but nowhere near her physical limit.
She’d always been unusually strong. In elementary school, she trained at a sports academy as a weightlifter. Because she spent most of her childhood at the academy and rarely went home, there were very few photos of her as a kid. The ones that did exist were mostly taken during training sessions: a chubby little girl with a round face, soft short hair flattened against her scalp, and perpetually rosy cheeks. She’d always looked sturdy and honest, standing among the slender girls practicing gymnastics.
She kept training in weightlifting all the way through ninth grade—until puberty hit. She shot up in height and slimmed down dramatically. The once-solid little dumpling had turned into a tall, skinny girl, clearly no longer suited to powerlifting. On top of that, the flush on her cheeks faded, her skin became pale, and her features grew more refined. Eventually, she transferred to the arts program in the building next door.
Many celebrities in the industry had happily shared childhood photos with fans and media. Even Lu Lincheng had a famous picture from when he was five, dressed in a tiny suit, solemnly staring at the camera. But Liang Yan never released a single childhood photo—prompting Lu Lincheng’s fans to speculate that she must’ve had plastic surgery.
In truth, she just couldn’t bring herself to share them.
Other people’s childhood photos were taken in amusement parks, or in front of a glowing TV at home—little kids in new clothes, beaming as they hugged their toys. But Liang Yan didn’t have anything like that. Her few childhood photos were of her in the ugly sports academy uniform, grinning dumbly at the camera, surrounded by old, paint-chipped equipment that had been worn down by years of use.
Her earliest memories weren’t of laughter or warmth, but of her father passed out drunk and her mother hunched over the mahjong table. The rice cooker at home had long since rusted, and the only bowls they owned shattered one after another during screaming matches.
If it hadn’t been for those two constantly fighting adults getting divorced—and both refusing to take her in, treating her like unwanted baggage—she would’ve never ended up in a full-boarding sports academy.
The competition there was brutal. Everyone trained relentlessly, eyes locked on the limited spots available when the provincial team came each year for selections.
It was no different from the entertainment industry—where pretty young girls flooded in like fish swimming upstream, all wide-eyed and desperate, fighting over the few scraps of opportunity the industry had to offer.
Liang Yan had seen that childhood photo of Lu Lincheng before. Even at five, the little brat already had a scowl perfected. Still, with his soft, milky skin and features that screamed “future heartbreaker,” it was no wonder fans were losing their minds in the comments—crying out things like, “How was he this cute even as a kid?!”
Liang Yan let out a snort.
That weak little bean in the photo?
If her childhood self had met him back then, she could’ve snapped two of him in one hand.
***