Chapter 83: Bingbing's Night Raid

Having successively resolved the issues with the two novice actors, Zhou Jielun and Liu Yifei, Boss Lu was finally able to find some free time to return to Jiangsu Province.

After all, as a member of the public participating in the college entrance examination, many procedures required the person to be present in order to be completed.

The date for the 2002 college entrance examination was still in July, amidst the sweltering heat.

Having possessed a young Daoist priest from Jiangsu to take the exam, Lu Kuan did not know whether he was lucky or unlucky.

The lucky part was that this year he could avoid the poisonous clutches of the mathematics master, Ge Jun, Master Ge.

The unlucky part was that Jiangsu Province was just too damn competitive, especially the 2002 exam paper—it was absolutely perverted!

In 2002, Jiangsu Province introduced the "Grand Comprehensive" model, combining politics, history, geography, physics, biology, and chemistry into a single exam paper with a total score of 300 points.

This matter later became a topic of conversation over tea and dinner for many years, with the nation exclaiming that Jiangsu examinees were all polymaths.

Here is a brief excerpt of a famous question.

It is known that a bear fell into a pit 19.66 meters deep, taking two seconds.

Question: What color is the bear?

The correct answer is: Based on the pit depth and time, the gravitational acceleration is calculated to be 9.83 meters/second squared, therefore the location is at the South Pole or North Pole; since there are no bears at the South Pole, the bear is a polar bear, white.

This kind of "organic fusion question" was just the tip of the iceberg of the Grand Comprehensive, a mere appetizer to test the waters.

On the evening of June 20th, at the Jinshan Scenic Area, Yiquan Hotel.

The hotel was built beside the world-renowned Zhongling Spring; it was originally constructed to welcome a great leader inspecting the south, so it counted as a relatively high-end guesthouse at the time.

Boss Lu naturally would not wrong himself, so he was eating watermelon and doing practice tests in his room.

It was too hard; he really had it too hard.

Due to the birth of the Grand Comprehensive, this year's Jiangsu college entrance examination only lasted for the 7th and 8th.

Facing the 300-point "Big Boss," Boss Lu had already been driven to the brink of madness by one "blindly fused question" after another.

"Knock, knock, knock!"

"Who is it?"

Boss Lu really could not imagine who could have tracked him down in Zhenjiang; a small card?

The door opened, and holy crap! A 3D big card!

First there was Hong Fu fleeing by night, and now there was Fan Bingbing raiding by night!

The fully disguised big star quickly squeezed into the room, not forgetting to carefully press against the door frame to listen for a while.

Boss Lu was very puzzled: "What are you doing? Acting like a thief?"

Fan Bingbing turned around with composure and took off the oversized sunglasses that covered half her face.

"Today, I am here to be a thief!"

Fan Bingbing took off her coat without any sense of restraint, revealing a light purple silk camisole dress underneath that reached just to her knees, leaving her straight calves fully exposed.

She sat on the chair with composure, looking provocatively at Lu Kuan, the thin straps outlining her charming collarbone lines.

The silk material of the dress perfectly clung to her physique, perfectly displaying the exaggerated waist-to-hip ratio of a young woman.

Boss Lu admitted that his blood was slightly surging, so he pulled over a chair and sat down beside her.

"A thief? What is the plan?"

Fan Bingbing dodged the question: "Aren't you curious how I knew you were here?"

Lu Kuan had just thought about this question; Sun Wenwen was handling the matters regarding the film festival registration for *Whiplash* and the project initiation for *Chinese Paladin*.

There were quite a few people in the crew who knew his itinerary, and Yang Siwei, who was accompanying the Beijing-circle young master Zhang Ruoyun, was one of them.

Yang Siwei was one of Wang Jinhua's people, so it was not strange for her to have a connection with her.

One could only say that this woman had a very strong ability to seize every opportunity.

"It doesn't matter, you're already here."

Boss Lu said half a sentence and left the other half, gently exhaling a puff of smoke; Fan Bingbing looked at his face, which was somewhat blurry, and then pretended to be aggrieved:

"Boss Lu, you are too biased."

"Huh?"

"You can promote other little girls like that, and even prepare to take her to Venice; we've known each other for quite a while, haven't we?"

Fan Bingbing gave him a look that was both coquettish and shy, then suddenly stood up and rubbed into his arms, sitting on his lap, her hands locking around Boss Lu's neck.

Lu Kuan smelled the faint fragrance coming from her body; looking at this pretty face with nude makeup at close range, there were indeed no flaws.

Paired with her slightly upturned eyelashes and pink lip gloss, all that was missing was the action of biting her lower lip.

That would be the charge signal for tonight.

The big star clearly did not fall into the net so easily; her level was far higher than the likes of Dong Jie.

Just as she felt a hint of touch on her hips, Fan Bingbing pretended to be disgusted, took the cigarette butt from Boss Lu's mouth, and flashed back to the bed.

With her legs crossed, her slender, fair arms propped up the edge of the bed, her gaze drifting toward his lower body as if by accident.

Do you want it? Let's see your stance.

"Why are you suddenly in such a rush?"

Fan Bingbing was startled upon hearing this and said somewhat dejectedly: "They want me to stir up a scandal with Hong Jinbao, and I don't want to."

"But I really have no other way; I've tried everything, and there's still no improvement."

As mentioned earlier, after joining Wang Jinhua's command, the latter formulated a development route for her of "appearing on CCTV and taking on good roles."

This included the delayed broadcast of *Qin Shi Huang*, *Young Justice Bao 2*, and next year's *Sword Stained with Royal Blood*.

But the 21-year-old Fan Bingbing was still lukewarm.

According to the development path of later generations, she would switch to the Hong Kong circle and, under the matchmaking of Hong Jinbao, participate in blockbusters like *The Lion Roars*, *The Twins Effect*, *A Chinese Tall Story*, and *A Battle of Wits*.

Boss Lu sat with his legs crossed: "I told you long ago that the Hong Kong circle has no future, at least not in these few years."

"Even if you go to the Hong Kong circle, you'll just be a supporting actress, carrying the sedan chair for the younger generation of Hong Kong like Xie Tingfeng and Zhang Baizhi."

Fan Bingbing nodded silently, her expression somewhat gray.

"The company first planned for me to stir up a scandal with Hong Jinbao's son, but it didn't have much effect."

This was when she was participating in *Special Police Dragon*, directed by Hong Jinbao and his son, and it was also the period when she first met Lu Kuan at Mei Yanfang's house.

"Yesterday, Sister Hua looked for me; the two bosses asked me to go directly to Hong Jinbao... and they even hinted to me..."

The future big star covered her face and wept pitifully, not even stealing a glance at Lu Kuan's expression, looking every bit like a girl with master-level "tea art" skills.

Boss Lu clicked his tongue in admiration; this acting was more than a grade higher than little Liu's!

Dealing with a female star of this level was much more interesting than those white lotuses.

Lu Kuan tested her: "Huayi has a large foundation; surely they have the confidence to promote you."

Fan Bingbing cried out: "How could they have any room for me in their eyes?"

She was not stupid at all; she was a top-tier shrewd person in the entertainment industry.

Huayi's resources were top-notch, but between the two "Bings," the consistent choice was always Li Bingbing, and the two's career paths were in conflict at this stage.

She and Li Bingbing met in the 2000 TV series *Youth Outing*, and the latter introduced her to Huayi; she didn't expect to be inviting a wolf into the house.

Fan Bingbing used her high emotional intelligence to adopt Wang Jinhua as her godmother and snatched the female lead in *Young Justice Bao 2*, which alerted Li, who then launched a counterattack.

This time, demanding she lower her status, abandon her reputation, and proactively stir up such a malicious scandal as a 21-year-old girl was a calculated move.

This period was different from later generations; artists proactively stirring up scandals was not yet mainstream, and normal hype was about romantic entanglements, like the "Feng-Fei Romance" in Hong Kong.

A scandal like that of a 21-year-old girl and a 53-year-old Hong Kong action star like Fan Bingbing was still relatively rare.

This kind of hype would bring very bad side effects to an artist; it could be said to be a "succeed or perish" situation.

On the eve of falling into the abyss, Fan Bingbing thought of Lu Kuan; she was unwilling to sacrifice herself in the Hong Kong circle like this.

And Lu Kuan was her last straw.

(End of chapter)