The most beautiful space

53. Public opinion can melt metal, and accumulated slander can destroy bones.

Xie Mingyuan is indeed getting engaged. Su Tong really didn't expect that after being locked up for a while, this would be the result. She knew that Xie Mingyuan probably had feelings for her, but no normal person would want the person who likes them to be unhappy for life. Judging from Xie Mingyuan's personality, Su Tong didn't want him to be tied down by a family marriage at all.

The kind of plot that's common in third-rate idol dramas, where the male lead gets engaged to a woman and then breaks off the engagement at the slightest provocation, is practically unheard of in real life between men and women from large families. For them, the marriage certificate obtained from the civil affairs bureau doesn't hold much significance. Instead, once the engagement banquet is held and both families' relatives and friends have witnessed the engagement, the face and honor of the large family are paramount. Announcing the engagement to the world is already a more important constraint than the legal marriage itself.

But Su Tong can't even handle her own problems, so how can she care about Xie Mingyuan? In any case, Xie Mingyuan's status means he'll live a much better life than most people in the world. The faintest hope is that he and his fiancée just happen to be compatible and like each other. However, given Xie Mingyuan's free-spirited and happy nature, being forced into an engagement is enough for him to despise his future bride.

Although negative news about Lin Shanshan circulated online, it seemed to have little impact on her. Since leaving the set early that day, she had been arriving and leaving on time every day, completely unconcerned about the farcical antics of these clowns and the stares of those around her, seemingly focused entirely on filming. However, Fan Keqin was always timid whenever she saw Lin Shanshan and Qin Jing, speaking cautiously and barely daring to raise her voice, her eyes even glistening with suppressed, pitiful tears, as if to say, "I've already lowered my guard, please stop bullying me."

If Su Tong hadn't felt she understood Lin Shanshan's personality to some extent, and if Xie Chengjing hadn't said first that Lin Shanshan wasn't that kind of person, Su Tong would probably have suspected that Lin Shanshan had actually done something to Fan Keqin. Su Tong could only pretend that neither Xie Chengjing's affair nor Lin Shanshan's negative news had happened, and continued to treat Lin Shanshan with a distant yet polite demeanor.

Qin Jing, who was only briefly mentioned in the report as "an accomplice of Lin Shanshan in bullying and suppressing newcomers, and a petty person who often flatters Lin Shanshan by any means necessary," clearly seemed unhappy and indignant on Lin Shanshan's behalf.

Qin Jing is a rather unique presence on set and in the industry as a whole. Other female celebrities, whether they follow a pure, intellectual, sexy, or otherwise image-building route, generally maintain a certain facade, never showing their true feelings in their interactions with other artists, regardless of the actual relationship. Qin Jing, however, is alluring and unpredictable. She laughs and gets angry whenever she wants, giving the impression of genuine personality while simultaneously making her true thoughts impossible to decipher.

She completely ignores people she doesn't like—such as Fan Keqin, whose popularity has skyrocketed recently. Sometimes, when Fan Keqin puts on that pitiful look in front of Lin Shanshan, a strange, cold snort from her can make Fan Keqin unable to stay in her presence.

Although they had only known each other for a short time, Qin Jing had always been quite nice to An Jing. An Jing was also quite concerned about Qin Jing's bad mood and had recently been buying her food and drinks. They would eat together and chat about the true and false things in the entertainment circle.

On the fourth night after Lin Shanshan's news broke and became a hot topic, Su Tong sat on the sofa with Kongkong after dinner, watching TV. She saw Fan Keqin, dressed in a pure white gauze dress, appear on a second-rate talk show. She didn't appear on the show for long, and the production team was obviously targeting the recent news between her and Lin Shanshan.

The show started with a lively discussion about how she was fortunate enough to be selected for the role, when the host suddenly asked about Lin Shanshan. Fan Keqin's smile immediately froze, and she lowered her head with a touch of fragility and helplessness. Close-up shots revealed her eyes glistening with tiny tears, full of grievance and heartbreak. She could only murmur, "No, no, the reports are all a bit unfounded. Sister Shanshan is good to us all." She looked as if she had suffered a great injustice, yet kindly didn't want to speak ill of others—such a beautiful, pure white flower! Later, the host pretended to have unintentionally asked the wrong question and casually moved on from the topic.

Then the people on the show started talking about other issues, and Su Tong's attention was no longer focused on the TV. She then realized that Xie Chengjing was also standing behind her watching TV, and she showed a slightly surprised expression.

Xie Chengjing patted Xie Er'er, letting it go over to play with Kongkong, who was lying on the carpet. He pointed to the woman smiling gently on the TV and asked, "Is this Fan Keqin?"

“Yes,” Su Tong nodded, “Didn’t you say you saw her on set?”

Xie Chengjing looked at her more carefully before saying, "I didn't look at her face closely at the time, but now that I see it, it is indeed Fan Keqin. However, she doesn't look quite like the Fan Keqin I met. She's prettier on TV."

Fan Keqin is not particularly good-looking, and she is no longer at the youngest and most delicate age. She didn't have any scenes to film that day, so her makeup wasn't as meticulously done as it is for TV shows. Without the lighting and post-production retouching, it's naturally not as good as when she knew she was going to be on a TV show and put in a lot of effort to create a beautiful makeup look.

After the interview, Lin Shanshan did not take any public action, but she had private talks with Director Lin and the producer for a period of time.

Director Lin was already unhappy about the paparazzi reporting on the crew, feeling that the leak of information about the crew was related to the infighting between Lin Shanshan, Fan Keqin, and others. Not wanting to keep any more troublesome people making a mess of the crew, he directly agreed to her suggestion, gathered Fan Keqin's scattered scenes together, and filmed them all in one go. He then subtly told Fan Keqin not to come to the crew anymore unless necessary, and that she could come for a farewell dinner at the end of filming.

At this point, Su Tong thought that the little news about "Lin Shanshan bullying Fan Keqin" was about over.

Fan Keqin left in tears amidst Qin Jing's disdain and sarcasm. She encountered Lin Zhen and seemed about to say something, but Lin Zhen smiled and said directly, "Miss Fan, please take care. Sue and I have a rehearsal scheduled, so I'm sorry I can't see you off." This shut down everything she was about to say.

Fan Keqin secretly resented it. Everyone said that a pure and gentle woman like her was the most popular in the circle, but after showing interest in Lin Zhen several times, he remained unmoved. He still lingered around Sue, who only had a devilishly beautiful face and kept everyone at arm's length. Really! That woman was only slightly prettier than Lin Shanshan and Qin Jing; all three of them were actually her mother's sluts.

Just as she was feeling annoyed, she ran into the same cold-faced man she'd bumped into before when she was leaving for dinner. Last time, Fan Keqin had mustered the courage to show him the way and thought that although he was terribly cold, he also had an air of nobility. This time, she saw that he had arrived in a Bugatti Veyron. Fan Keqin didn't know that Xie Chengjing had come to see Su Tong last time, and she was thrilled to have found a good target. If she could get close to this man, would she still have to worry about Qin Jing giving her the cold shoulder?

Deliberately burying her head and gently wiping away tears as she walked out, her shoulders trembling slightly, she saw the man and his driver stride in. Sobbing, she pretended not to see where she was going and tried to fall onto Xie Chengjing. Xie Chengjing simply stepped aside, and she awkwardly fell sideways to the ground. Surprised, she could only continue sobbing, trying to open her eyes wide to appear pitiful and adorable, and whispered timidly, "I'm sorry, sir, I lost my composure and almost bumped into you. I'm so sorry..."

She then saw a pair of eyes as cold as the polar night and as menacing as a soul-reaping messenger. She was so frightened that she was speechless, wondering where she had gotten the courage to provoke such a man. The owner of those eyes glanced at her as if she were an ant and then walked away.

This was Xie Chengjing's second visit to Su Tong's set. Unlike the last time, Su Tong wasn't surprised. When she had a scene, she performed; when not, she sat with Xie Chengjing in the rest area, either jotting down last-minute notes for the next scene or watching other actors perform. Even veteran actors like Lin Zhen occasionally forgot their lines, but Su Tong quietly maintained her record of never forgetting her lines since filming began, only being called out once for not conveying the emotions in her lines well. Memorizing lines was a sign of respect for acting, and she naturally wanted to continue doing so.

Even Lin Zhen joked during a break, "You already have a good image, and your acting is both spirited and talented. You even memorize your lines so diligently. If you were a male star, I, a veteran, would probably be swept away by you."

Su Tong laughed: "No way! You have so many more lines than me, okay? Besides filming, I don't have any other work. I'm so bored that all I can do is memorize lines. But if I had so many lines to memorize, I probably would have gotten them all mixed up by now."

It was only then that Su Tong realized Xie Chengjing was simply phenomenal. While Su Tong was reading the script, he only glanced at it occasionally, but if Su Tong mispronounced a single word, he could point it out flawlessly. Su Tong was truly amazed; he was no ordinary person. His approach to filming was also unusual. According to Director Lin, men who came to the set usually stared at the female stars, but Xie Chengjing focused more on male stars like Lin Zhen and An Jing, which Su Tong found incomprehensible. However, his stern gaze on the filming process put immense pressure on everyone, including Su Tong and Director Lin.

After Lin Zhen, An Jing, and Su Tong became closer, Su Tong also got along much more naturally with the rest of the crew. For some reason, even Lin Shanshan's attitude towards Su Tong wasn't as cold as before. The crew members were all talking about it on WeChat Moments. They all said that when Xie Chengjing was around, the entire crew's efficiency increased by at least ten percent. They said that when filming wrapped up, they would definitely ask the director to give Xie Chengjing a big red envelope as a special contribution award. Su Tong was both amused and exasperated, and had to suppress her laughter and maintain a calm expression so that Xie Chengjing wouldn't know that they were discussing him on WeChat Moments.

After finishing work and returning home, Su Tong, who had been acting since then, habitually watched entertainment news every day. On Hunan TV, currently the most popular channel in mainland China, she saw a very familiar and charming female star crying and complaining. The subtitles below read, "Liu Ning couldn't help but speak out for justice, Lin Shanshan's bullying of newcomers is exposed." She knew that this storm surrounding Lin Shanshan was not going to be easily quelled.

Lin Shanshan and her company initially thought that issuing a clarification would only escalate the situation, and hoped that the minor controversy surrounding Fan Keqin would subside on its own. However, public opinion can be devastating, and even the most upright person can no longer remain silent. (166 Reading Network)