The Villain’s Contract Lover - CH 073
Title: The Villain’s Contract Lover
Translator: Fringe Capybara
Chapter 73 - Don’t Be So Superstitious (“Ignore me today and I won't even give you the time of day tomorrow.”) (1)
Two days later, “Blossoming Us” finally wrapped up the remainder of the filming and, after a simple closing ceremony, the filming crew disbanded and the show entered into the series of post-production steps such as editing and approval screening, etc.
The night of the closing ceremony, the entire team went to a final dinner gathering. After a few rounds of drinking, the director raised his wine glass, looked around the room and, finally looked at Xu WanZhi, said, “Come, come, come. Let’s have a toast. WanZhi, you must free up your time for the second part of the series. Don’t tell us that now that you are a spokesperson and your status had gone up, you are going forget this big family of yours.”
Xu WanZhi understood that the director wanted to take the opportunity of being in front of everyone to blackmail her morally. She rose to fame in “Blossoming Us”, she should not forget this tableful of people in the future.
Nevertheless, she joined “Blossoming Us” for the purpose of appeasing the old madam and it really wasn’t necessary to have a three-part series in order to appease an old lady. She felt that the 16-episode part I would be sufficient. When they swapped out the female lead in part II, there would be a preconception that she was not as good as Xu WanZhi. It would create an unfair favoritism for Xu WanZhi.
Besides, as she used her magic during Brand B’s photoshoot which caused the sales of Brand B’s product to shoot up, many other luxurious brands had sent her invitations. This was the critical time in her career. She couldn’t possibly waste all of her time on a web series.
Xu WanZhi smiled and raised her glass. “Don’t worry, Director. It will be on top of my list for consideration.”
As flawless and diplomatic as she had put it, all of the experienced people there heard the subtext loud and clear.
Top of the list to consider was still just considering it. It failed to deliver the same type of assurance that, say, “I will definitely be in the future parts” would. Obviously, first to consider was a round about way of turning down the production of part II, meaning that they would need to look for a different female lead.
Hearing that, the director had the most mixed feelings. When Silver Start Entertainment reached out to him and mentioned that the female lead would most likely be Xu WanZhi and that he had found out that Xu WanZhi owned 30% of Silver Star’s stock, he was extremely reluctant in using her.
Back then, Xu WanZhi was still the Queen of Negative Publicity that was hated by just about everyone on the net. Nobody would have believed it if they were told that Xu WanZhi would have real fans one day. As such, even though they knew full well that “Blossoming Us” would be a series, they only signed Xu WanZhi for season one. Contrarily, the male lead Shen Yi and the other two important roles were signed for all three parts of the series.
Nevertheless, when the filming was completed, Xu WanZhi’s interpretation and completeness of the script had well exceeded what he had expected. She had made a lot of newbie mistakes at the beginning but who’d have thought that her learning curve would be so steep. Her improvement in leaps and bounds everyday was visible to the naked eyes.
By the day of the closing ceremony, her acting and reciting skills were already better than many new up and coming actresses. With his very astute observation, she would for sure become a shining star one day and sky would be her limit.
All things considered, the decision of only signing her for one season would seem to be very inappropriate. In fact, quite give the feeling of “so you ignore me today, you won’t even have that chance tomorrow.”
The director knew full well that in any series, switching actors/actresses in the middle brought the biggest visual impact to the viewers. With Xu WanZhi’s exit, this project would more likely than not go downhill from this point forward. Smiling bitterly he managed to say politely, “Okay, don’t forget the small people.”
The dinner gathering was over and everybody walked out in groups of twos and threes.
