“Su Zhi, are you sure you don’t want to renew? The company made you famous once, and it can do it again. It’s been three years. Surely you’ve had time to cool off. You’re an orphan, for heaven’s sake. You got where you are because the company backed you. Wasn’t three years of cooling off enough?”
The midday sun filtered through the thick canopy and dappled Su Zhi’s face as she sat on a swing beneath the trees. Wearing a cat-eared coat, she stretched out a leg and pushed against the ground.
The swing was too high for her to reach the ground properly, so it barely moved. Still, the gentle sway was enough to ease her sour mood a little.
A breeze swept through, setting her loose white hair dancing. It did nothing to ruffle her composure. She simply reached up and tied her hair back with the elastic in her hand.
“You have everything going for you. Even after three years, plenty of people would be eager to promote you. Come back and sign the contract like a good girl.”
As Su Zhi tied her hair, the same stern voice sounded through the Bluetooth earpiece clipped to her ear.
She slowly raised her head and gazed into the boundless sky.
A few white clouds drifted across the blue. The sun disappeared behind them for a moment, but its light still filtered through and spilled across the earth.
After a few seconds’ thought, Su Zhi replied, “I’ll sign a contract, but not on your terms.”
“Su Zhi, you’re still so naive. You think they wanted to promote you because of your acting? You’re just an ordinary person. The company can make you famous, and it can make someone else famous, too. It makes no difference whether it has you or not. Don’t think so highly of yourself…”
“Then we have nothing to discuss. That’s that. My contract with the company has expired anyway.”
Su Zhi didn’t wait for the person on the other end to finish. She pulled out her phone and hung up.
For some reason, the moment the call ended, she felt a wave of relief.
The entertainment industry—a trash can plated in gold.
That was how she’d felt about it for five years.
Five years.
At fifteen, by a twist of fate, she’d landed a role in a TV drama. Her character was so compelling, and her performance so close to perfect, that when the show aired, she became famous across the country almost overnight. She became the Nation’s Daughter and even had the honor of appearing at the Spring Festival Gala.
She’d gone from an ordinary high school student to one of the biggest stars in the country in a single night. A public appearance could earn her tens of thousands of yuan, while endorsements easily brought in more than ten million.
According to entertainment gossip, she’d made several hundred million yuan in her most successful year.
But her contract told a different story. Back then, the boss had generously offered her a salary of twenty thousand yuan a month. Anything beyond that? It had nothing to do with her. Every now and then, she might get a ten- or twenty-thousand-yuan bonus.
For the next two years, her acting career was at its peak. She starred in three movies, made countless guest appearances, and was constantly busy with variety shows.
Other people thought she’d made it. Su Zhi only felt exhausted. They thought she was rich; she was still making twenty thousand yuan a month.
To be fair, that was a lot of money. The problem was that she had to cover some of her own expenses at company events. After food, rent, new clothes, makeup, and everything else, she might have a thousand or two left over.
And even that money often had to go toward one problem or another.
She’d stood at the top of the entertainment industry for two years and still had nothing to show for it.
The company had hinted that there were ways for her to improve her pay. Su Zhi refused, and the company forced her to take a three-year “cooling-off period.”
A nice way of saying she’d been shelved.
To be fair, those three years of being shelved had finally let Su Zhi live like a normal person. The company still found plenty of excuses to dock her pay, but she had enough left to live on—and at least she was more comfortable than she’d been at the height of her fame.
She’d saved nothing during those two explosive years. After three years on the shelf, she had more than a hundred thousand yuan in the bank.
Thinking about it made Su Zhi want to laugh.
Now, five years had passed, and the simple contract she’d signed at the start of her career had expired. The company wanted her to renew, but she’d seen through the entertainment industry’s true nature and refused.
She’d had enough of being worked like a beast of burden. There was no way she was going back.
“Let the glory days stay in the past. It’s been three years. Nobody even remembers me anymore.”
Su Zhi spoke to herself.
The entertainment industry was quick to forget. Three years on the shelf was enough for a star’s fans to move on.
She hopped off the swing and glanced up at the sky again. The midday sun broke through the clouds and poured back over the earth, banishing the gloom.
So what if the entertainment industry was a swamp? She’d had enough of being praised as a star while living like a pack animal.
She didn’t think of herself as some pure lotus rising unstained from the mud. The filth around her had simply forced her to become one.
“Still, if I’m done being an idol, what am I supposed to do now? If only I’d transmigrated a few decades earlier. Maybe I could’ve used what I remembered to game the system a little. But now… even property speculation is out. And that ship has sailed.”
After making up her mind to leave the entertainment industry, Su Zhi realized she had no idea what to do next.
Right—she was a transmigrator, one of the most useless kinds.
She’d arrived in this world twenty years ago as an orphan, with no one to rely on. She’d thought that once she grew up, she could use her memories to get ahead.
Then she’d realized she had no money, and she wasn’t interested in the lottery or sports betting. All she could do was build up her savings the old-fashioned way. And after all that, she’d only managed to save a little over a hundred thousand yuan. By then, the boom in private business was long gone, and the property market had already peaked.
Cryptocurrency was still an option, but she’d have to catch the very last wave. One wrong move and she’d lose the shirt off her back.
“Ah, life… I’m out of work now. Being an idol… even a dog wouldn’t do that job. I’d rather get a job waiting tables.”
After turning the problem over in her head, Su Zhi came to the conclusion that she was pretty much useless. Waiting tables or tightening screws in a factory might be her only options.
[Super Life Comeback System fully charged.]
[Beep! Host’s current mood is low. Scanning…]
[Scan complete. Super Life Comeback System activated…]
[First-Stage Quest issued: Return to the Entertainment Industry!]
***
Su Zhi:
