As soon as Feng Wan arrived at the show set, she spotted Xu Lijun wildly waving at her. It had been over ten days since they last met, so they immediately huddled together, chirping away excitedly.
Suddenly, Xu Lijun leaned in with a mysterious smile and whispered in her ear, "Hey, did you hear? Zhou Zhengkang has been dropped from the show for tax evasion. No idea if the new guy will be easy to get along with."
In this lifetime, Feng Wan hadn't been paying much attention to the entertainment industry—especially not to shocking gossip that hadn't even exploded publicly yet.
Seeing her surprised expression, Xu Lijun felt extremely satisfied. She knew it—Feng Wan definitely didn't know. Even she, with her well-connected sources, had only found out this morning.
"This hasn't been made public yet. Let's just keep it between us. The director must be losing sleep over it."
Xu Lijun was right. The director hadn't slept a wink for two nights. He truly hadn't expected that a rookie like Zhou Zhengkang would dare to do something so blatantly illegal.
Now, all he could do was hope his team could pull through and quickly erase Zhou Zhengkang's footage from the show.
(Note: This fictional plot diverges from real-world enforcement—please don't equate this with real-life situations.)
The assistant director looked just as haggard, with dark circles under his eyes and a shinier-than-usual balding head. His thinning hair drooped miserably.
Soon, the new guest star made a dazzling entrance: Yan Yi, a big name in the music scene—praised as the "King of Songs."
He had been in the industry for eleven years and held considerable influence in the music world.
The director's team must have pulled some serious strings to invite someone like him; no doubt it cost them a fortune.
With the new episode kicking off, the crew decided to shake things up. The first task was to clean a local livestock farmer's home. The more team members who completed the task, the more startup funds they'd receive.
Looking at the drawing lots box in front of her, Feng Wan silently prayed—please, anything but the pigsty. She could handle a chicken coop or a sheep pen.
When she read the slip of paper, she finally breathed a sigh of relief: the word "chicken coop" was written clearly on it.
At that moment, Feng Wan was profoundly grateful to the system. If it weren't for it, she probably would've ended up stuck with the pigsty.
Now that she had drawn her lot, she stood to the side quietly, ready to watch the show. As long as it wasn't her, she was fine.
Oh? In the end, it was Yuan Huihui and the newcomer Yan Yi who drew the pigsty. What a lucky (or unlucky) match—two cursed hands united.
But then, the production team got shady and sent an assistant over in secret.
"Miss Feng, since it's Yan Yi's first time here, would you mind switching tasks with him? We promise we won't forget your generosity—this episode, we'll give you more screen time."
The assistant looked miserable too—he clearly didn't want to be the bearer of such an awkward request. But for whatever reason, the director insisted on pulling this stunt.
"Sorry, it's a nice suggestion, but I'm not interested. Please thank the director for me."
The assistant left with his tail between his legs to report back.
In the end, who knows what the director did, but Zhang Yuan and Yan Yi swapped tasks. The others played along, pretending not to notice.
Just like that, Yan Yi was now teamed up with Feng Wan, and the two of them were assigned to clean the chicken coop together.
Feng Wan wasn't the type to "let the senior suffer" out of politeness. She immediately proposed a division of labor—one person would scoop up the chicken poop while the other hosed down the coop.
There were two coops anyway, so they could switch off. No one was getting the short end of the stick. Feng Wan couldn't care less about the director shooting her dagger looks.
The director, however, felt that Feng Wan didn't know her place. She couldn't read the room. He silently vowed to give her less screen time going forward.
But Feng Wan knew full well what the director was trying to pull—he wanted her to do the dirtiest work all the way through. Too bad for him—she wasn't the type to accept losses quietly, and she hated when people spouted nonsense like "suffering is a blessing."
Yan Yi noticed that Feng Wan was different from the women he'd met before. She didn't fawn over him because of his status. This piqued his interest in her even more.
In the end, the six people who completed the task received a total of 800 yuan from the production team.
That night, after dinner, as Feng Wan passed by Yan Yi, he subtly handed her a small slip of paper behind the camera.
"Gorgeous Miss Feng, I'll be waiting for you in my private dressing room tonight. Don't stand me up!"
Wasn't this basically a hook-up note? It made her feel like something was stuck in her throat—she almost threw up her dinner.
Yan Yi was utterly disgusting. Did he think Feng Wan was a prostitute or something?