Chapter 138

On January 25th, the *Wolf Warrior 2* crew finally completed all filming tasks in Africa on the eve of the Spring Festival. Everyone packed their luggage and boarded the early flight to Beijing Airport.

By the time they got off the plane, it was already nine o'clock in the evening. Because the filming hadn't officially wrapped, Director Wu Jing didn't treat everyone to a meal.

Having been busy in South Africa for more than four months, everyone was tired. Taking advantage of the Spring Festival, Director Wu Jing arranged a seven-day short vacation for the crew members.

"Luoluo!"

In the Capital Airport lobby, Wen Xia flew toward Miss Luo Quan and hugged her, with Junko following behind; both of them had come to pick up Miss Luo Quan.

It being the eve of the Spring Festival, there were many people coming and going in the airport. Fortunately, both of them were wearing sunglasses and weren't recognized by anyone.

The three exchanged simple pleasantries and took a taxi to the luxury mansion Wen Xia had rented in Beijing.

As the capital of China, Beijing can be described as having land worth its weight in gold, and housing prices have always been ridiculously high. With Wen Xia's current financial resources, buying a luxury mansion in a prosperous area would still be quite difficult, but renting one was very easy.

The luxury mansion Wen Xia rented was located in the Jiuding Mansion in Haidian District, one of the most luxurious residential areas in Beijing and also the place with the most celebrities. The entire residential area adopted a European classical design. The community was equipped with entertainment facilities such as gyms, bars, and cinemas, and hospitals, supermarkets, and restaurants were all available. Even without stepping out of the house, most daily needs could be met.

If one wanted to buy a house here in full, it would start at 100 million RMB, but just renting one only cost 45,000 a month. Although that was also high, Wen Xia could fully afford it.

Now that her domestic business was just starting, once she appeared on more shows in the future, she would sooner or later be able to buy a house here.

Wen Xia's room was on the sixth floor. This entire floor was her room, a duplex design. How big it was exactly, she didn't know, but Miss Luo Quan thought it should be a bit smaller than the villa her dad had in Manhattan.

"Make yourself at home." Wen Xia turned on the lights and waved at Miss Luo Quan, with the generous temperament of a hostess. "Have you eaten? Do you want me to order takeout?"

Miss Luo Quan shook her head gently: "I ate on the plane; I'm not very hungry."

Wen Xia laughed: "I regretted renting this house as soon as I did. There are so many rooms, and usually only Junko and I live here. At night, Junko and I don't even dare to go downstairs to get a drink of water, but now that you're here, I feel much more at ease."

Miss Luo Quan looked suspicious: "You aren't planning to wake me up and make me go downstairs with you, are you?"

Junko smiled very sweetly: "Your karate is so amazing; with you here, we won't have to be afraid anymore. No matter what kind of criminal we encounter, you can easily subdue them."

Miss Luo Quan was speechless: "You make it sound like I'm very violent."

After a few jokes, the three returned to their respective rooms.

Hearing that Wen Xia's mother, An Ran, was coming from Yuzhou to Beijing for the New Year tomorrow, Miss Luo Quan had quite a deep memory of this gentle-as-water aunt.

Miss Luo Quan, Luo Ni, and Wen Xia actually had very similar personalities; they were usually carefree, and their way of doing things was just as vigorous and resolute as most Yuzhou girls.

An Ran's personality, however, was more steady and reserved, speaking in a soft voice, completely opposite to her daughter. It was estimated that her daughter inherited it from her father, who had long since disappeared.

Speaking of which, although An Ran was usually soft and weak, when facing the deadbeat husband who abandoned his wife and daughter, An Ran was much stronger than Luo Ni.

After getting along for so many years, Miss Luo Quan had almost never heard Aunt An Ran mention Wen Xia's father, to the point that even now she didn't know what Wen Xia's father's name was, only that his surname was Wen...

It can only be said that what everyone shows on the outside and what they think deep down are often different. Gentleness and strength, cheerfulness and fragility, have never been opposites.

After returning to her room, Miss Luo Quan clicked on the Tdler website and looked at the ranking of the world's 100 most beautiful faces with anticipation again.

Second! She had moved up one spot!

The reason she was so nervous was that five days ago, the Tdler website announced that the countdown for the selection of this year's 100 most beautiful and most handsome faces had begun, with one week of voting time left. Just in time for the Spring Festival, the final rankings of the two lists would be made public.

Previously, Miss Luo Quan had been firmly in the top three, but as soon as this news came out, her ranking dropped to ninth in less than twelve hours, almost falling out of the top ten.

Miss Luo Quan had often said before that she didn't care about the ranking of the most beautiful faces at all, but when her ranking really dropped, she started to panic. Sure enough, the "True Fragrance Law" is everywhere.

Seeing that her ranking was dropping so fast, Miss Luo Quan hurriedly tweeted to call on her fans to help her vote.

This was probably the first time Miss Luo Quan had asked her fans for something. In the past, when she released so many albums, at most she would say "please pay attention," and never asked them to buy them. But this time, Miss Luo Quan asked her fans to help her vote, her tone anxious and sincere.

Originally, Miss Luo Quan thought that this tweet would take a few more days to have an effect, but a surprising scene occurred.

Hoshino Sakura, the members of the Lovemusic band, and Lyon retweeted this tweet at the first opportunity and called on their own fans to help vote for Miss Luo Quan.

In Japan, many young people also launched a "Vote for Goddess Sister Quan Shui" campaign on various forums, calling on everyone in Japan who liked Miss Luo Quan to go to Tdler and vote for her.

Japan's internet doesn't have a firewall, so they could directly access this website, and voting was also very convenient.

With so much help, Miss Luo Quan's ranking quickly overtook the others from ninth place and returned to the top three.

The reason she didn't reach first place wasn't that the fans weren't putting in the effort. With Miss Luo Quan's popularity in Japan, with so many fans voting for three consecutive days, getting to first place really wasn't a difficult task.

It's just that the first place for the world's 100 most beautiful and most handsome faces is always left blank until the voting ends.

This is mainly because this list is determined by fan voting. If the ranking were determined entirely by fans, it wouldn't be convincing. Therefore, the first place of these two lists is always selected from these 100 celebrities, and the judges are all the editors-in-chief of Tdler, who analyze it from the most objective perspective.

To put it bluntly, it's purely about looks, regardless of popularity.

Therefore, second place was the limit Miss Luo Quan could reach; whether she could go further depended on the evaluation of the Tdler editors-in-chief.

Currently, there was no news about who would win the title of the world's most beautiful, and many well-known foreign gambling websites even opened betting odds. Among them, the third-ranked American female singer Aaliyah Grant had the lowest odds, indicating that most people were very optimistic about her.

It's not that her looks are truly invincible, it's just that her identity is very powerful.

Black heritage, lesbian, anti-discrimination advocate, vegan—these were all Aaliyah's labels, stacking up like buffs. But usually, her most important buff was her black heritage.

If such a "politically correct" girl didn't win in the end, it would mean that Tdler's editors-in-chief were discriminating against her and would have to apologize to all black people.

In the current environment, no brand or individual dares to openly discriminate against black people. Even in Eastern countries that don't have the concept of racial discrimination, no one would do such a thing; most are just ordinary netizens talking trash.

In view of this, most people felt that this time the world's most beautiful face would probably be taken by Aaliyah.

Actually, Aaliyah is also very beautiful. Without so many labels, she might still have won first place in a normal selection.

But if she didn't take first place, the Tdler website could face negative public opinion attacks, so everyone actually already had an idea of who this world's first place should go to.

Originally, Miss Luo Quan thought so too. When she learned that this year's competitor was a black girl, she didn't think about winning first place.

Just endure it and come back next year. Anyway, she was only nineteen this year, and her appearance would only become more exquisite. By then, would she still be afraid that others wouldn't recognize her?

It's just that good things always arrive suddenly when people are unprepared. Just as Miss Luo Quan saw that she was ranked second and closed the website with satisfaction, her phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hello, do you remember me, Miss Luo Quan? I'm Mark Frank, the Tdler editor who interviewed you last time."

Miss Luo Quan's heart skipped a beat: "Oh, it's Editor Mark. I wonder why you're calling me..."

"After the selection by all the Tdler editors, you have been elected as the 2016 World's Most Beautiful Face!"

"Really!" Miss Luo Quan covered her mouth in surprise. Just now she was wondering if a miracle would happen, and she didn't expect it to really come!

Mark laughed: "Of course it's true. Your beauty is well-known on the internet. We want to take an extra set of photos for you. Are you in Japan right now?"

"No, I'm in Beijing right now."

Mark nodded: "Are you free now?"

"Yes!"

"Then we will immediately arrange for staff in Beijing to take some photos for you, and in two days they will be produced into the video of the world's 100 most beautiful faces."

Miss Luo Quan said excitedly: "Then I'll trouble you... By the way, do I need to dress up for the shoot?"

"That's up to you. Whatever clothes you think are the most beautiful, wear them for the shoot!"

"Okay, I'll go find some clothes right now." Hanging up the phone, Miss Luo Quan jumped up and cheered, her joy overflowing.

She excitedly opened her suitcase and dumped her clothes onto the bed, but instantly fell into a dilemma.

Because the season in South Africa was summer, her suitcase was packed with summer clothes like T-shirts. Beijing was still snowing just now; wouldn't she be frozen into an icicle if she went out in those to take pictures? And these clothes were also a bit too casual.

But besides these clothes, she only had a warm windbreaker given to her by the crew. What would it count as to wear that to take photos for the World's Most Beautiful Face?

"Right, Wen Xia!" Miss Luo Quan remembered that Wen Xia was a limited-edition clothing collector; she could borrow one from her to wear!

Miss Luo Quan ran barefoot in a panic to Wen Xia's door and knocked three times: "Wen Xia, are you asleep?"

"Not yet!"

Miss Luo Quan immediately opened the door and rushed in.