Ch 1.

I was famous in the entertainment industry for being a delicate white lotus. Pure face, soft voice, sweet disposition—the kind of girl who’d step out of her way to help an old lady cross the street. It had taken me three whole years to build that image.

It collapsed in a single night.

I was currently shooting a fantasy period drama. In the dead of winter, I had to fly back and forth on wire harnesses wearing thin silk gowns, not to mention getting dunked in freezing water. Honestly, surviving the shoot without being admitted to the ICU for hypothermia felt like a medical miracle.

That morning, while getting my makeup done, I saw the director bending over backward to welcome a girl onto the set. Dressed in head-to-toe designer, her entire vibe practically screamed: Don’t mess with me.

From the crew’s hushed gossip, I gathered she was Su Qing, a representative sent by our primary investor. I didn’t pay it much mind, until cameras started rolling.

I kept getting hit with bad takes. If my acting had actually been the problem, I wouldn’t have complained even if we reshot a scene a hundred times. But it was painfully obvious… that wasn’t the case.

Su Qing was deliberately screwing with me. She was getting a total kick out of watching me freeze on a wire harness in mid-air, wearing nothing but a whisper of silk while snow fell around us. A basic flying sequence took twenty-three takes. The director looked so mortified he couldn’t even meet my eyes.

She didn’t stop there. When we moved to the underwater scene, no matter how hard I tried, she just gave a cold, bored dismissive hand wave: “The emotion’s not there.”

I was so cold my head was spinning.

Look, I’ve never been a pushover. If I took this lying down, I might as well pack my bags and join a monastery. I marched straight up to Su Qing.

“Miss Su, did I somehow offend you?” I asked.

“You think you’re worthy of offending me?” Su Qing scoffed, looking at me with pure disdain. “God knows how many beds you had to crawl through just to land this role.”

If there’s one thing I despise, it’s slut-shaming women to tear them down. I didn’t care who she was; all I knew was that if I kept holding back, I’d end up in a hospital bed by nightfall.

So, I slapped her across the face. Hard.

Crack!

I stared down at her, my voice ice-cold. “If your mother never taught you how to speak like a decent human being, I don’t mind filling in.”

I turned to walk away, but Su Qing lunged at me from behind, grabbing my arm. Out of pure reflex, I yanked my hand back. I don’t know what she tripped over, but she stumbled, lost her footing, and went splash, right into the freezing lake.

The set dissolved into utter chaos. By the time the ambulance pulled away with Su Qing inside, my assistant finally managed to dig up her background.

Su Qing: Lu Yanbai’s childhood sweetheart, freshly returned from abroad.

And Lu Yanbai… was my sugar daddy.

Me: “…”

Yeah, I was totally screwed.

In the three years I’d been with Lu Yanbai, I’d never heard him mention a “first love” or a “childhood sweetheart.” This sudden plot twist left my head spinning in a tangled knot.

I called his phone: Off.

I tried his assistant: Unreachable.

Only then did I remember that right before I joined this film crew, we’d gotten into a massive fight. He’d wanted me to turn down the role to join him on a vacation to Northern Europe, but I refused. He accused me of putting my career ahead of him; I told him to stay out of my professional life.

Lu Yanbai usually gave in to me, but this time… he’d cut off all contact.

My chest felt tight, but my stubborn streak won out. I shot him two texts:

【Ignoring me now? Look at you, acting all tough.】

【I accidentally slapped your little sweetheart today. No comment on that?】

The messages sat there, sinking into the void. Frustrated, I tossed my phone onto the nightstand and collapsed into bed.

The next morning, my manager’s frantic screeching yanked me out of sleep.

“Lin Wanxing! What on earth did you do to the Su family?! They’re pulling every string they have to get you blacklisted!”

Overnight, the internet exploded with hit pieces:

Fake, engineered persona.

Kept woman.

Diva behavior and workplace bullying.

Sponsors were breaking down my door demanding contract cancellations, and prospective film roles evaporated into thin air. The Su family wanted to bury me alive, and my small-time management agency didn’t have the leverage to fight back.

My manager tiptoed around the topic, suggesting I ask Lu Yanbai for help. I dragged a hand through my messy hair, thoroughly annoyed.

“No way. We’re in a cold war right now. As far as I’m concerned, we’re broken up.”

She added a quiet, devastating blow: “Besides… the person you hit was his childhood sweetheart. What if he takes her side?”

I went quiet. She had a point.

A heavy wave of exhaustion washed over me. This was the second time in my life I was facing the threat of a complete industry ban.

The first time was right after my debut. A wealthy heir named Jiang Yan tried to make me his side piece. When I turned him down, his wounded ego turned into blind rage, and he leaked a wave of dirty rumors to crush my career before it could start.

I was young back then, hot-headed and fiercely stubborn. I figured the worst-case scenario was leaving the industry anyway, so what was there to be afraid of?

So, I quietly staked out the high-end nightclub Jiang Yan frequented. The second he stumbled out wasted… I threw a burlap sack over his head and beat him within an inch of his life.