Chapter 17 Bloody Boxing Glove
That night Xiao Yuan posted a photo.
A boxing glove stained with blood.
He tagged me. "Hit hard. Felt great. Come again next time."
My head hurt so much my ears rang.
Sister Li came to ask me, carefully, what we should do.
She had been in the industry for years. A well-known gold-medal agent. I didn't know how many emergency PR fires she had put out.
She had just never met anyone this insane.
I let out a cold laugh. "Treat it as him losing his mind. Ignore it."
In less than ten minutes, I got Xie Kun's call.
I picked up. "What, Director Xie still has the stomach to phone me?"
After I left Haohai, Xiao Yuan cleaned the company from top to bottom. Pay cuts. Demotions. Staff optimization.
He also announced he was replacing the female lead of Spilt Water.
The project had drawn eyes from the moment it launched. The start had been unlucky, the road messy. After the male and female leads were swapped twice, the whole thing looked basically dead.
I quit the variety show and left the company. The biggest investor pulled out.
It looked like Haohai had taken a real hit.
Then Spilt Water announced its new female lead.
Zhan Chun. A Best Actress who had been off-screen for nearly five years.
The male lead was Gu Yu, a Best Actor. He had been Zhan Chun's only rumored partner for years after her debut, and after she left the screen they had cut each other off completely.
That one step brought Spilt Water straight back from the dead.
Then, on the variety show I Choose You, Xiao Yuan put Shen Xinrui—who could neither sing nor dance well—up onto the mentor seat.
He made her the show PD. She would guide every contestant. She got a single vote with life-or-death power over who advanced.
Giving the weakest person the highest power was a ruthless publicity stunt that whipped up a storm of blood.
I Choose You blew up a second time, covered in shit, black and red at once.
In the face of huge profit, Xiao Yuan discarded Shen Xinrui like a chess piece, without a blink.
Her career was basically ruined.
Haohai had originally set her on a refined actress path. Endless top resources had been lined up for her later.
She looked too stupid to me. And too naive, as if she still held fantasies about Xiao Yuan that were never going to happen.
I always had the impression that people around him thought they would be Xiao Yuan's exception. The one and only in his heart.
I had been one of them.
I had thought Shen Xinrui was that exception too. I had naively imagined I could become that exception myself.
Xie Kun sighed. "Does your studio still need people? Can I jump over?"