[Quest: Return to the Entertainment Industry]
[For one reason or another, other people may think you peaked the moment you debuted, reaching heights they could never have imagined. Only you know the truth: you’ve always been at rock bottom, nothing more than a mayfly in the entertainment industry that merely looked dazzling. Even the heights others called your peak were what you dreamed of reaching.]
[But no amount of sand can hide the blazing sun. They thought you were nothing more than a particularly bright mayfly, never realizing what kind of brilliance they had tried to cage. It’s time to announce your arrival to the world! It’s time to return to the place that looked down on you and take back everything that should have been yours!]
[Initial resource provided: Party A Experience Card]
“A Party A Experience Card? System, what’s that?”
After reading the quest description, Su Zhi couldn’t help asking.
The System’s description was a little embarrassing, sure. But how did that saying go? She was a genius. No amount of praise could ever be excessive!
After mentally rereading the description four, five, seven, eight times, Su Zhi focused on the Party A Experience Card the System had provided.
If the System is my cheat code, then this card is the capital it gave me to make a comeback. A cheat code’s cheat code, basically.
The name of this particular cheat was just a little hard to understand. What does returning to the entertainment industry have to do with being Party A?
“In simple terms…” the System replied calmly. “You’re buying your way onto a production.”
As it spoke, the details of the Party A Experience Card appeared before Su Zhi.
[Party A Experience Card]
[Know what it’s like to be Party A? Use this and find out.]
[Effect: Join a project as Party A, or one of the parties acting as Party A.]
[Restriction: Can only be used in the entertainment industry. Maximum capital available: 99.99 million yuan.]
[When the project ends, the System will recover the investment and any returns. If the project turns a profit, the Host will receive a share of the profits, between 1% and 30%, depending on the scale. The more it earns, the larger her share.]
Su Zhi’s eyes lit up when she saw the card’s details. Getting onto a production as an investor? She knew all about that.
Back when she’d been at her peak, her company had done it countless times to promote her.
At the time, Su Zhi had been an earnest little workaholic who didn’t understand how cruel the world could be. Even when she got a role by joining a production as an investor, she still took her acting seriously. She worked to get her scenes in one take and earned the respect of quite a few directors.
But she’d also seen what some other investor-backed actors were like.
They phoned it in, overused body doubles, didn’t learn their lines, and couldn’t be bothered to attend script readings. Some would show up half a day into filming and announce that they hadn’t read the script and had no idea who they were playing. Then they’d blame the director for making the scene too complicated and claim other productions managed just fine without a script.
Su Zhi had never planned to slack off, but those experiences had taught her one thing: in a production, the person with the money was the one in charge. If you joined as an investor, you had a say.
In this case, the Party A Experience Card gave Su Zhi access to almost a hundred million yuan for a single project.
That was enough to make a large-scale movie, as long as she didn’t hire too many A-list and top-tier stars.
But making her own movie wasn’t realistic. First, she had no experience. Second, she had no connections. Third, there was the question of time.
Three years on the shelf had taken a serious toll on her popularity. If she spent tens of millions on a movie, at least half a year would pass from planning to editing to promotion and release.
And that was before she even figured out how to get past her former company, now a major obstacle.
It wasn’t practical.
If she wanted to return to the entertainment industry and get back to her old level of fame quickly, she needed exposure.
A movie was out, leaving her two options. The best one was a variety show.
But the hottest variety shows at the moment were run by her former company. After falling out with them, showing up at one of their programs as if nothing had happened would be bizarre. Even with investor money behind her, it wasn’t practical.
Sometimes confidence is good. Sometimes it’s just stupidity.
If variety shows were out, she could take another approach. Movies took a long time to make, but TV dramas in Great Xia were often filmed while they aired.
That was how she’d made her name.
She’d been eating cold noodles by the roadside when she’d struck up a conversation with a disheveled-looking man. He’d invited her to make a guest appearance.
She’d acted in one episode and instantly gone viral. Almost overnight, the internet was flooded with memes made from the handful of shots in which her face had appeared.
The director had made a few small changes to the later episodes, postponing the character’s planned exit. The results had been even better. Her Weibo account had gained four hundred thousand followers overnight, and she’d become the Nation’s Daughter.
What had been supposed to be a two-episode cameo, filmed over four or five days at most, had turned into three months.
She’d made her debut in a TV drama. Returning with another one seemed like a good choice.
More importantly, the timing was right.
“Uncle, you were the one who made me famous back then. Looks like I’ll have to bother you again.”
As she spoke, Su Zhi took out her phone, opened Weibo, and found a director named You Xin.
The pinned post on his Weibo account was a promotional poster for his new TV drama, Loophole.
At its center was a shadowy silhouette, marking the spot where the lead actor had yet to be announced.
Seeing that shadow called to mind the last time she’d spoken to Director You Xin.
“If your credentials are strong enough in a few years, I can’t promise you a Best Actress award, but you could compete for Best TV Actress. Getting that at twenty would be something, wouldn’t it?”
The highest honors in film were Best Actor and Best Actress. In music, they were Heavenly King and Pop Diva. For television, they were Television Emperor and Best TV Actress.
You Xin was the director who had taken a chance on Su Zhi years ago, recklessly ushering her into the entertainment industry before she had any idea what she was getting into.
At the time, You Xin had been in a career slump. Su Zhi’s unexpected appearance had helped him win that year’s award for Best TV Director. It had fulfilled a dream and pulled him out of a professional rut. In the five years that followed, he won Best TV Director once more and Best Film Director once, becoming one of Great Xia’s top directors.
During the three years Su Zhi had been shelved, none of the Morningstar Entertainment artists had mentioned her—not once. Even when people tried to bait them into it, they dodged the question, as if she were taboo.
You Xin was the only one who brought her up. Whenever he went on a show, he made a point of mentioning her.
It seemed he was still trying to keep his promise.
“Since you wrote this role with me in mind, I have no reason to give it up!”
Su Zhi spoke to herself as she looked at the silhouette.
Before, she’d known about the role but couldn’t do anything about it. All she could do was let him down.
But now…things were different.
