Chapter 512: Just Happened to Help with the Kids

Used it up. No problem—things are meant to be used, right~

Zhao Jinmai's agent was in decent spirits now; though he'd internally cursed Bai Liang as a beast, wondering when the hell he'd taken the little girl, at least this guy wasn't the type to ditch someone after getting his fill.

Not a bad deal.

"Jinmai, get some rest early; when filming starts, give it your best."

"I know, but will this drama's shooting take up my class time?" Zhao Jinmai quickly added, remembering the issue.

She got into the Central Academy of Drama, where regulations on this matter are slightly stricter.

For example, they basically don't let first- and second-year students take on acting jobs—they must focus on attending classes properly.

Isn't that exactly how Tong Yao's story came about?

The agent assured her not to worry about such things; after all, rules are just rules, and plenty of people find ways around them.

And saying first- and second-year students can't take roles is just a general statement—why would they completely block students from seizing good opportunities?

It usually only applies to those with no connections or whose production teams don't help them request leave.

With "The Beginning" backed by Zhengwu Yangguang and Tencent, plus Bai Liangjia Alliance involved, if they can't even get a leave approved, that'd be downright unbelievable.

After explaining again, the agent thought the little girl really was still just a little girl—she actually worried about something like this.

Only students with clear eyes and a cluelessly cute demeanor would treat skipping class as a huge deal~

The agent pinched Zhao Jinmai's cheek and prepared to leave.

Zhao Jinmai: Did I act too much? I feel like I overdid it.

Just as her agent sister was about to leave, she suddenly turned back, studying her with a slightly puzzled and scrutinizing gaze.

That gesture made Zhao Jinmai's heart tighten—she thought, sure enough, she had been overacting. She didn't need to pretend so much like a foolish child.

But the agent wasn't suspicious because Zhao Jinmai acted too much.

It was because she'd genuinely spotted a common-sense mistake.

"Jinmai, did you use up everything I gave you?"

"Huh? Yeah!"

"That doesn't make sense~ you only needed to use one of those two." The agent said, puzzled.

"Huh? Really?"

Now Jinmai was truly confused—she didn't know this. She'd never actually used them.

The little girl who sometimes liked to pretend to be clueless but was actually quite smart had finally slipped up in an area she didn't understand.

The consequence was…

No consequence.

After all, this isn't a rule-based horror story where being caught by your agent means you're dead.

Instead, it made the agent feel embarrassed and awkward.

So Bai Liang really hadn't done anything improper to the girl after all. I misjudged him~

But if he's a gentleman, then me—giving a virgin girl "tools for the crime"—is the real beast.

People who don't know might think I'm some old madam who sends artists to powerful men's beds.

The more the agent thought about it, the more anxious she became—what did Bai Liang think of her?

He's been so attentive to Zhao Jinmai—what if he just casually "erased" me, making it impossible for me to survive in this industry?

"Jinmai, can I ask you a favor?"

Zhao Jinmai beamed, eyes lighting up. "Of course!"

—

"Little brat, you're pretty smart."

After hanging up, Bai Liang pondered it with his super brain and couldn't help murmuring.

He'd just received two calls—one from Zhao Jinmai's agent, apologizing.

Naturally, it was for slipping those "tools for the crime" into Zhao Jinmai's bag.

Then Zhao Jinmai called back to briefly explain—basically, the agent sister had misunderstood, blah blah blah.

But she'd already told him this once before.

Otherwise, he might've gone into beef-free mode.

Saying it again now? Probably just trying to gain more leverage.

On the line of artist-agent-agency, tight cooperation coexists with negotiation.

Some agents wield enormous power, fully controlling their artists' every move.

From choosing roles to career direction, it's entirely up to the agent.

Sometimes the agent's role overlaps with the agency's, but sometimes agents collude with artists to go against the company.

It depends entirely on the cooperation model—or the agency's and agent's styles.

Of course, there are agents who call all the shots, and there are artists who hold the power, using agents as tools.

Hmm. Sister Yanzi is exactly like that.

At first, she basically did assistant work—but Bai Liang is lazy, which forced her to learn and improve rapidly, becoming far more reliable.

Zhao Jinmai's current status clearly isn't high enough to make a seasoned agent listen to her.

Without external interference, she still mostly has to follow the company and her agent's instructions.

But the little girl has her own mind; though she doesn't have big ambitions yet, what she's doing now clearly aims to gain more voice and influence within the team.

Negotiation exists everywhere and doesn't necessarily mean a falling out.

Her negotiation with the agent is a relatively healthy one.

That's why Bai Liang called her smart—she handled the leverage well.

At the same time, she seemed to want to prove something to Bai Liang. I've really grown up!

"Who's smart? Me?"

A beautiful face appeared in Bai Liang's line of sight; its owner couldn't wait to claim his praise for herself.

Bai Liang:.

He said nothing, just stared at that scroll.

The other immediately blushed, muttering, "I'm smart too!"

Some people at eighteen already play chess with their agents—outwitting them, feigning ignorance, leveraging every trick.

Some people are twenty-eight and still going "ma ka ba ka," excelling at cuteness and pouting, even getting jealous of their own pets.

Today, when Bai Liang met Na Zha, she sulked on the spot, arms crossed, clearly demanding comfort—because he petted Xiao Bao first, not her.

Previously, Da Sister Tian Tian was called a museum-worthy idiot; Na Zha isn't far behind—each the other's mirror.

These two could form a duo and debut: "The Museum's Twin Stars."

Add Meng Jie—who seems sane but has a bizarre thought process—and the trio's name becomes: "Dumb, Foolish, Clumsy."

"Ah yes yes yes, so smart, so smart."

"Your eyes tell me you don't think that way—you don't truly believe I'm smart," Na Zha pouted.

Bai Liang: Do I have to truly believe it? That's too much. Just kiss me a few more times.

Fortunately, Na Zha has one trait: her attention is easily distracted.

Bai Liang called her to get in the car, made her sit on his lap, kissed her a few times, and instantly she forgot all about being smart or not—only caring if her face smelled nice and looked pretty~

This time, both were going to guest-star in the drama "Your Era, My Era."

As a sequel to "Dear, Love You," it naturally needed them to appear briefly in some scenes.

But their main scenes are actually in the final episode.

Hmm. A wedding.

"Hey, getting married again!"

Na Zha happily shook her head, though the word "again" sounded odd—she didn't mind much.

So what if we do it once more~

No matter how many times, it's always with the same person!

Last time was a crimson wedding; this time it's a common one—she wants to experience both properly!

So she was extremely eager about this special appearance.

Don't even talk about pay—she'd pay to go.

The producers of "Era" either didn't know Na Zha's situation, or they were just meticulous.

If they'd approached Na Zha first, she would have handled Bai Liang herself—a great deal, buy one get one free.

But contacting Bai Liang first, securing him, then approaching Na Zha? That's even more meticulous—laying groundwork for future collaborations.

"Na Zha-jie~"

"Yao Yao!"

After meeting, Na Zha and Chen Yao embraced warmly, then held hands—their bond as Tang Ren's two Number Ones still looked excellent.

Even their cats knew each other well—upon meeting, they bumped heads and immediately launched a grooming battle.

Bai Liang, standing there, felt like an outsider.

Fortunately, the professional crew wouldn't let him be ignored—someone immediately came over to check on him.

After all, Bai Liang was here to help; his and Na Zha's guest appearances, bluntly put, might be one of the drama's biggest draws.

Riding the popularity of the predecessor gave this drama a natural advantage, but it would inevitably be compared.

If the difference wasn't too big, fine. But if it was too much… that could get messy.

No need to expect another drama king—the difficulty is simply too high. "Dear, Love You"'s insane popularity and traffic came from multiple synergies; ordinary dramas could never get such treatment.

Add to that the combo of a top-tier male idol and a top-tier female idol—just the cast alone creates a massive gap.

Just like when Liu Shishi left Tang Ren and Na Zha took over as Number One, Chen Yao now bore even greater pressure. The previous two Number Ones' contracts expired at their absolute peaks—both were top-tier!

Na Zha was even more extreme.

The difficulty of catching up was too great, especially now that Tang Ren had grown.

Fortunately, Chen Yao had a good mindset: if I can't catch up, then I can't catch up—no big deal.

While chatting with Na Zha about dinner, she sneakily stole glances at Bai Liang, who held both cats—one in each arm—and couldn't help smiling.

He doesn't favor one over the other—both cats he loves.

Hmm. The cats love him too!

Bai Liang: Of course they love me—I'm great to them!

As Bai Liang looked at the two cats, he couldn't help thinking of the giant fish he'd caught on the Yangtze.

"You know I caught a fish over ten meters long, weighing more than ten tons?"

"Meow?"

Bai Da was just bullying the kittens—they couldn't talk back, so he could brag wildly.

"Too bad you two weren't there—if you had been, I'd have fed you that fish~"

Cai Yi: I just walked in and heard someone feeding fish dreams to cats!

She'd actually arrived yesterday, visiting Chen Yao on set.

She's about to become Tang Ren's new Number One—visiting like this signals the company's stance in some ways.

Plus, she could hang around Bai Liang and Na Zha—even if Na Zha was leaving, their contract expired, but the relationship could still continue~

Tang Ren is a film and TV company; future suitable dramas might come up—better to part on good terms, leave room for future collaboration.

And after she arrived, she saw Bai Liang holding his phone, showing photos to two little kittens.

She couldn't help leaning over to take a peek, and realized this kid was as much of a jerk as ever.

He was actually showing the kittens pictures of fish.

But Cai Yinong, who had been ready to greet him, hesitated slightly—mainly over what to call him.

After thinking for several seconds,

"Dou Xiao Bai~"

"Huh? Cai Zong, why are you here?"

"What, did I come at a bad time?" Cai Yinong, seeing Bai Liang's smile—nearly unchanged from years ago—relaxed.

Actually, she'd just been wondering whether to call him "Bai Zong."

Although Na Zha had always said Bai Liang hadn't changed at all, Cai Yinong hadn't interacted with him in a long time and didn't know if he was still the guy who used to give her little toys as thanks.

"No, you came at the perfect time! Just help me babysit~"

"Babysit what?"

The good news was, Bai Liang really hadn't changed; years in the world of fame and fortune seemed to have no effect on him.

The bad news was, Cai Yinong felt she had grown old~

Looking at the little bundle in her arms, she had a strange feeling of being forced to babysit her own grandchild.

Seeing her by giving her one of the cats first—what a weird way to catch up.

What about the time when Bai Liang and Na Zha were both too busy to look after Xiao Bao and asked her to help?

An old lonely person babysitting a left-behind child?

"The picture you just showed them—that's the big fish you caught before, right?"

Cai Yinong, holding the cat, remembered how Bai Liang had just been feeding the two kittens imaginary fish, and asked casually.

"Huh? Cai Zong, you know I caught a fish over ten meters long and weighing more than ten tons?"

"Huh? That big? When I watched the show yesterday, it looked more like two meters." Cai Yinong frowned.

"You watched the show? Then it's two meters, two hundred kilos." Bai Liang immediately corrected himself.

Cai Yinong: Damn it, so you were just BS-ing me just now?!

Yesterday, the new episode of "China's Restaurant" aired, and its views exploded.

Too many people went to watch the footage of Bai Liang catching that white sturgeon.

The production team was really serious—they barely edited at all, and managed to squeeze over half an hour of fishing footage into one episode of "China's Restaurant," when the whole episode is only about an hour and a half long.

Almost a third of it was just him fishing.

Naturally, this meant sacrificing many other shots.

More precisely, it meant sacrificing the shots of the other male guests.

After all, the girls all rushed to accompany Bai Liang fishing, running errands for him—holding umbrellas, carrying chairs, even baiting his spot~

They stayed right by his side, so the camera naturally never left him.

But Cai Yinong wasn't particularly interested in the fish itself—she just felt a brief pang of nostalgia.

But she was far more interested in the girls around Bai Liang—more precisely, she was getting anxious.

Yao Yao, come on, try a little harder! You can't join the battle of the "old ones," and now you can't even catch a glimpse of the "new ones."

As one of Bai Liang's early romantic pairings, Chen Yao had done better than before, but her presence around Bai Liang had become far lower than ever.

Occasionally, old fans would dig up old clips of her "dates" and "shopping trips" with Bai Liang and sigh: Back then, our Yao Yao and the Immortal were so sweet—why did it just fade away?

Passive, uninvolved, unengaged.

Of course there'd be no story like this~

Only when some marketing accounts did lists of Bai Liang's gossip rumors could they even mention Chen Yao—and she'd be ranked way at the bottom. If you weren't patient enough to scroll, you might never even see her.

Cai Yinong watched all this, and it made her anxious inside.

So she decided she had to think of a way to help out a bit. —

First thing upon joining the set: pick out a wedding dress!

Filming was impossible right away; Na Zha had been waiting to fix the little details and small regrets from their last wedding.

In her bag were even several sticky notes, all written with the things from the last wedding that hadn't satisfied her.

A perfectly perfect wedding might be very, very hard—when the Lord Huang married his Big Treasure, they even got brand sponsorships and made it feel like a press conference.

But Na Zha thought: if quality can't be achieved in one go, then we'll make up for it with quantity!

Just have more weddings, right?

Put them all together, and it would absolutely be perfect!

Later, when they had enough wedding footage, she'd find someone to edit it all together.

Bai Liang found this genius idea of hers quite impressive—oh, by the way, she'd just come up with it in the car.

The inspiration came while they were kissing.

This afternoon, the "Era" drama crew gave everyone a day off—more precisely, they gave the female lead a day off.

Chen Yao planned to accompany Na Zha to pick out wedding dresses, and Cai Yinong naturally came along too.

Na Zha welcomed this warmly—having good older and younger sisters to accompany her made it feel more real.

"So similar. So very similar," Cai Yinong sighed.

"What's similar?" Na Zha asked curiously.

"It's just like a real wedding. The two of you are exactly like a young couple going to a bridal shop."

"Exactly!"

Cai Yinong's words made Na Zha's heart bloom with joy—she nearly kissed her on the spot.

It was practically speaking straight to her heart.

But just as Na Zha went off to change into her wedding dress, Cai Yinong found Chen Yao, who was wandering around with her hands clasped behind her back.

"Yao Yao, why don't you go take a look at the wedding dresses too~"

"Huh? Me?" Chen Yao was a little surprised. "My wedding dress is already prepared."

In the drama, the wedding featured two couples together, so costumes and props of this kind had naturally been prepared long in advance.

It was just that Na Zha had demanded to pick out a new set herself.

The crew naturally wouldn't refuse.

Chen Yao naturally had no such need. After all, she was only filming a wedding scene, and it didn't carry that much significance for her.

"Even if it's prepared, you can still change it. Let Dou Xiao Bai give you some input." Cai Yinong urged directly.

This left Chen Yao not knowing how to respond. She tilted her head slightly to glance at Bai Liang, who was sitting over there petting a cat, and couldn't help but say softly, "Sister Cai, what if Sister Na Zha notices something's off?"

"Just be a little bolder! That little bastard Bai Liang has been off-kilter for ages. Na Zha and that whoever have been at it for years, and there are plenty of other crazy girls throwing themselves at him. One more of you won't make a difference, one less won't be missed."

Chen Yao still shook her head, feeling that jumping in like this would be too forward. She preferred to keep things sneaky, and when it came to that kind of catfight chaos, she honestly felt she couldn't handle it.

She didn't really want to get involved.

But at that moment Cai Yinong played her trump card: "We're going to take wedding photos later too. Don't you want to take one as well?"

This time Chen Yao froze.

She thought about it.

"I'll go ask Brother Xiao Bai."

"You still need to ask him about this?"

Cai Yinong was a bit speechless. Unless Bai Liang was a complete fool, how could he possibly agree?

He'd definitely find some excuse to coax her, like "I'll bring you back next time to pick one out specially" — some perfunctory line like that.

However~

"Sure, go pick one out too." Bai Liang agreed directly.

Just now, while petting the cat, he had actually been thinking: Na Zha was making such a big deal out of it — would Chen Yao feel a bit uncomfortable? Now that she was taking the initiative to voice a need, naturally he had no reason to refuse.

As for whether it would cause trouble?

Master Bai Da never fretted over consequences!

Cai Yinong:????

What nerve!

She hadn't expected that, after all these years, this guy Bai Liang could still refresh her understanding of him.

Just as she was caught up in her mental storm of emotion, Bai Liang also noticed her strange expression.

He couldn't help but say: "President Cai, why don't you go pick one out too?"

Cai Yinong:

While she was speechless, Bai Liang quickly added, "But I won't be taking photos with you, 嗷~"

"Bah!"

(End of chapter)