Chapter 685: The True-Talk System of the Entertainment Industry (1)

"Yang Yang, this is all my fault! Sob sob sob... If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have been splashed with water, and if you hadn't been splashed with water, you wouldn't have caught a cold and fever, and you wouldn't have missed this morning's audition. You have every right to be angry; I'll take it if you want to hit or scold me, but please don't ignore me, sob sob sob..."

At the busiest street corner of the Film and Television City, Xie Yang was blocked under a street tree by a pretty, doll-like young woman.

As the other party spoke, she sobbed, her brows knitted and tears streaming down her face like rain on pear blossoms, making her appear all the more delicate and pitiable.

Passersby couldn't help but interject:

"She's apologized to this extent, just forgive her. It's just a missed audition, what's the big deal!"

"Exactly, those waiting here for auditions are either extras or bottom-tier nobodies; it's not like you're guaranteed to succeed anyway, why make things so awkward."

"I heard there are thirty or forty film crews stationed here recently, there are plenty of opportunities to be an extra, no need to ruin a friendship over such a small matter."

"That's right..."

The voices of the passersby drifted into Xie Yang's ears, but she lowered her eyelids and ignored them, actually busy receiving the memories of the original body.

The original body's real name was Xie Meini, and Xie Yang was her stage name.

She was born in a small town under a County, and her parents both worked at an old-brand scissor factory in town.

Her College Entrance Examination results weren't ideal, but she wanted to be an actress, so she repeated a year, only to get into the performance major of a junior college near the Film and Television City; she was a junior this year and would graduate in June.

To put it nicely, this semester was for social practice, but in reality, it was just letting students find their own jobs. Fortunately, the school was right next to the Film and Television City, so there were still opportunities to scrape by as an extra.

The original body knew her family's financial situation; her parents were already under a lot of pressure to put her through art school. If she wanted to work in this industry in the future, she had to rely entirely on herself, as her family couldn't help at all. Thus, she started squatting in the Film and Television City as an extra and playing bit parts during her freshman winter break.

Thanks to her naturally gentle and elegant "ancient costume face," she could always successfully land roles whenever a period drama crew was hiring extras or small supporting roles with few lines.

After mixing through several winter and summer breaks, she had made a name for herself among a few directors who specialized in period dramas.

They knew of this young girl; although her family background was ordinary, she had no connections, no resources, and her acting skills were still quite raw, but she had good natural conditions and was willing to put in the effort to learn, so they were willing to give her a chance when there was a suitable small role.

Her pay had also risen from the initial one hundred per day to three hundred and fifty.

Three hundred and fifty was the market rate for special bit-part actors in the industry, and the original body had been taking jobs at this rate since last year.

If she opened a Weibo account and labeled herself an "eighteenth-tier minor actress," it wouldn't exactly be bragging.

So far, three talent agencies had approached her, and the terms offered sounded decent, but the contract period started at a minimum of eight years, which made her feel very uneasy, so she was still considering it.

Lou Yiling was from her hometown, and the two had attended the same school through middle and high school.

Lou Yiling did better than her on the College Entrance Examination and reached the undergraduate cutoff on her first try, but she still couldn't get into a good university. Fortunately, Lou Yiling's uncle knew someone in the banking system, so he had her apply to study finance at an ordinary second-tier university in the provincial capital.

She was a senior this year and had reached the internship period.

Yet, for some reason, instead of going to a bank to sit at a counter and enjoy the air conditioning for her internship, she actually came to the Film and Television City to apply as an extra.

Then, relying on the fact that the original body, her fellow villager and classmate, was easy to talk to, she not only sponged off her dorm and slept in her bed, but also took advantage of the original body having a cold and fever to go to the crew where the original body was supposed to audition, using the assistant director's back door to snatch the role of the sixth female lead.

For small roles, the director wouldn't show up for auditions, so the assistant director who received the benefits made the final call.

Right now, it was the scene where the original body had arrived at the crew after her fever broke, only to find the audition had ended, and Lou Yiling was chasing after her to explain and beg for forgiveness.

If Xie Yang hadn't transmigrated here, the two would have argued on the side of the road for a while, until a large truck delivering Props reversed without noticing the road conditions and crashed straight into Lou Yiling.

In her panic, the original body pulled Lou Yiling out of the way; Lou Yiling was fine, but the original body tripped and was dragged under the truck.

Fortunately, there was no danger to her life, but the original body's face was dragged and rubbed against the Cement ground for quite a while, causing serious injuries, and subsequent plastic surgery failed, forcing her to tearfully bid farewell to her acting career.

As for Lou Yiling, she embarked on an acting career thanks to that sixth female lead role and signed with a talent agency that same month.

And the original body became her ugly assistant who carried bags and did chores.

In name, she was an assistant, and she did indeed receive an assistant's salary, but the work she did far exceeded the scope of a small assistant's responsibilities.

The professionally trained original body not only often helped Lou Yiling rehearse and taught her acting techniques, but also assisted the manager in helping Lou Yiling fight for various scripts and snatch endorsements at all levels.

Besides work, Lou Yiling often had her clean up the mess in her private life.

When Lou Yiling was exposed for having an affair with a certain popular male star, the original body was pushed out as a shield, claiming that she liked the other party and wanted to ask for an autograph but was too embarrassed because of her ugly face, which led to the viral GIF online; when Lou Yiling was exposed for entering and leaving a five-star hotel with a married investor and acting intimately, it was the original body who took the blame again.

Lou Yiling claimed that her assistant was there at the time, and the investor "daddy" was actually trying to borrow her assistant's face for a clinical trial of a beauty product. The reason they chose a hotel was to use the hotel bathroom for facial comparison. One couldn't exactly occupy the public restrooms in a tea house or restaurant for her assistant to wash her face and remove makeup. As for the intimate behavior, that was a matter of opinion.

Surprisingly, some netizens actually believed this nonsense, which not only successfully cleared Lou Yiling's name but also made a poorly selling beauty cream under the investor's name a hit.

It wasn't until the big scandal of having a child out of wedlock was confirmed that Lou Yiling panicked.

This child belonged to her boss, and even the boss himself didn't know she had secretly kept the child. She had heard that the boss's wife couldn't conceive, and she wanted to leave herself a way out; what if she could rise in status through the child in the future?

But definitely not now!

If it were exposed now, the boss's wife would join forces with others in the industry to blacklist her!

Her contract still had three years left; once she was shelved, would there be any place for her in this circle after three years?

So, she knelt before the original body, snot and tears running down her face, begging with sobs:

"Nini, for the sake of the time when you were disfigured and couldn't find work, and I took you in, please help me one more time! I promise this is the last time!"

"Nini! I'm begging you! I'm an actress, a star living in the spotlight; I can't have any flaws on me, if I do, I'm ruined! You're different, you're an artist's assistant, a regular person; the outside world doesn't pay that much attention to regular people, even if there are a few rumors for a short time, they'll pass quickly."

"Nini, just say Binbin is your child, and the child's father is someone you had a crush on during college... You can say whatever you want, anyway, you usually take care of Binbin more than I do, and Binbin is familiar with you, people will believe it..."