To be honest, seeing a fan at the opening ceremony had made Su Zhi happy. But when she got close enough to see the picture on the girl’s T-shirt, her good mood took a hit. She was almost mortified.
“A few of us made this together! There were supposed to be more of us, but we remembered you don’t like us spending too much money on you, so I’m the only one from Donghai City who came to welcome you. And this is your punishment for disappearing without a word for three years. We missed having you around!”
The girl noticed Su Zhi staring at the shirt and explained. At the end, she put on an indignant expression.
If she got mad first, Su Zhi wouldn’t have any reason to be angry. In fact, she’d have to comfort her.
And what was the picture on the shirt?
It was simple: one of Su Zhi’s most ridiculous moments on a variety show.
She’d been eating mint candies when she suddenly got mischievous and snatched a bottle of soda from another guest. She’d managed to grab it. Afraid he’d take it back—and because her manager had forbidden her to drink soda for ages and she was dying for a sip—she’d shoved it straight into her mouth.
Soda and mints weren’t quite as explosive as soda and popping candy, but…
Well, the soda had come spraying out of Su Zhi’s nose.
That was the exact moment captured on the T-shirt.
For a moment, Su Zhi couldn’t tell whether the girl was here to support her or make fun of her.
“So, can you sign this wonderfully meaningful shirt for me?”
The girl laughed when she saw Su Zhi frozen in place.
“Not a chance. I’m not signing that.”
Su Zhi didn’t take the pen the girl offered, but she did remove the little straw hat she was wearing. The girl bent down a little, and Su Zhi rose onto her toes to put the hat on her head.
“You can have this.”
Once she’d put the white straw hat on the girl, Su Zhi turned to leave.
The T-shirt was mortifying, sure, but it had also put her completely at ease.
There was only one person supporting her, but having someone in her corner was different from having no one at all. Suddenly, she felt a little surer of herself.
“Baby! Don’t just disappear on us again!”
The girl called after her as Su Zhi walked away. There was a note of stubbornness in her voice.
“I won’t. Now that I’ve left Morningstar, I’m only going to climb higher.”
Su Zhi turned back and answered confidently.
Then she walked away beneath a storm of flashing lights.
There wasn’t much to an opening ceremony: the celebrities arrived, the reporters asked questions, and then everyone cut the ribbon.
For the other actors, reporters were chosen at random. When it was Su Zhi’s turn, the questions were prearranged.
If You Xin had chosen at random and happened to pick one of the less scrupulous reporters, the man might have asked something completely unrelated to Loophole.
Those reporters did things like that all the time. In pursuit of a major story, they’d do just about anything.
So what did they ask Su Zhi?
“This is your first time playing a detective, right? Are you confident?”
That was it.
Honestly, Su Zhi was stunned.
Chunmeng… was a detective?
Then again, the reporter’s question wasn’t unreasonable.
Before filming officially began, You Xin had released four promotional images featuring Su Zhi. Three showed her in detective-style outfits; the fourth showed her dressed in white, gazing up at the sky at a forty-five-degree angle beneath the setting sun.
You Xin hadn’t revealed Chunmeng’s character background, so the reporters had naturally guessed based on the fact that she was the female lead and what the posters showed. Guided by their assumptions, they’d concluded that Chunmeng was probably an assistant to the male lead, Cheng Zhengyi.
They weren’t entirely wrong. In the story, Chunmeng helped Cheng Zhengyi solve several cases. That made her something of a detective herself.
In the past, when Su Zhi had appeared in police dramas or detective stories, she’d always played a criminal.
The reporters’ explanation was that she wanted to distance herself from her past, so she was changing the kinds of roles she played—from criminals to detectives who represented justice.
Sometimes you didn’t have to explain anything. People would make up their own story.
How should Su Zhi answer?
In the past, she probably would have ignored You Xin’s feelings and told them outright that she was playing a villain, not a detective.
But she’d thought of the money she had in Loophole—money she could actually earn—and of You Xin’s script. Then she came up with a rather interesting answer.
“This role is a bold new challenge for me. It won’t be easy, but I’m confident I can pull it off. No role is beyond my reach. And I’m sure my reunion with Uncle You will help us build on the success of Battle of Ningcheng and take things to an even higher level!”
The best way to answer a question was simple: don’t answer it, but make the other person think you have.
Su Zhi had made it sound as though she’d answered the reporter. In reality, she’d only given a fairly standard statement about being confident she could play Chunmeng. At no point had she said Chunmeng was a detective.
“Not bad.”
You Xin glanced at Su Zhi in surprise.
Three years had definitely changed her. She’d gotten good at talking around a question without giving away the plot. It also gave him a chance to try out that approach.
The Three-Episode Rule!
“So we just let our one precious chance to question Su Zhi go to waste?”
After Su Zhi’s interview, some reporters who hadn’t managed to ask a question began to panic.
It wasn’t that they cared about Loophole. They wanted to know about the big story surrounding Su Zhi. That was the real scoop.
Watching a huge story unfold right in front of them, yet having no chance to ask about it, left the less scrupulous reporters squirming in their seats.
“Wait, Su Zhi’s taking part in the ribbon-cutting?”
Just when they thought they’d waited for nothing, they noticed that Su Zhi was included in the final ceremony, when only the investors were supposed to cut the ribbon.
They looked at the male lead, who was standing off to the side applauding. Su Zhi wasn’t merely standing with the others—she was in the most prominent spot.
Had Su Zhi invested in Loophole? But that made no sense. Where would an orphan like her get the money?
