Zhu Yu gripped the cup in her hand awkwardly: "I'm fine, what's wrong with you all? Why are you all staring at me like that?"
Song Jiayan: "Zhu, Xiao, Yu, something's wrong with you. Confess right now."
Zhu Yu put down her cup and let out a long, helpless sigh.
"I knew I couldn't fool you. My family went bankrupt. I came back this time to try and pay off my debts."
"What?"
Song Jiayan stared wide-eyed, her face filled with disbelief.
The three families were old friends; the Fu family was the main family, while the Song and Zhu families were smaller families that depended on the Fu family, this huge family.
But that small is only relative to the Fu family.
Even in this capital city, the Song and Zhu families are among the most prominent and powerful families.
It was only after the Zhu family moved overseas that they gradually lost contact.
Unexpectedly, the Zhu family had fallen to the point where they had to rely on a little girl to find a way to pay off their debts.
Zhu Yu smiled bitterly: "It's unbelievable, isn't it? I thought so too." Two crystal tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. "I never thought that the family that has always sheltered me from the wind and rain would collapse."
Then he smiled again: "But it's okay, I've already thought of a way to pay off the debt."
Fu Wang: "You know I can help you."
Song Jiayan, afraid of being left behind, said, "I'm here for you too, I can help you too."
Zhu Yu shook her head, her gaze resolute: "Thank you, but I want to handle this myself. I'm all grown up now, and I can't live under someone else's protection forever."
Fu Wang put down the wine glass he was swirling in his hand, his eyes filled with an unyielding darkness: "You can."
Song Jiayan nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, it's such a big deal, what would we be doing if we, as friends, didn't help?"
Zhu Yu simply shook his head again.
A gentle yet firm refusal to offer help.
She was already twenty-two years old, no longer the pampered young lady who needed to be pampered in every way.
This is something she has to face.
She was grateful for her friend's help, but she was unwilling to live her whole life under someone else's wings.
Song Jiayan understood her persistence.
"If you need help, feel free to contact me anytime. I may not be good at much else, but I do have some money."
Zhu Yu chuckled: "Young Master Song Jiayan on the global rich list, do you call that a little bit?"
Song Jiayan pouted: "Can't a person be humble for once?"
"Make way, make way, you're the elder."
Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden ringing of a bell.
The cell phone on the table suddenly rang, vibrating incessantly and emitting a piercing buzzing sound on the glass surface.
Almost the instant the bell rang, Fu Wang's brows furrowed reflexively.
He picked up his phone with his well-defined knuckles, glanced at the caller ID, and a fleeting look of annoyance crossed his usually unchanging expression.
The next second, without any hesitation, I pressed the hang-up button.
"Aren't you going to answer?" Zhu Yu asked softly, her voice tinged with concern. "Calling so late, it must be something very important."
Fu Wang remained expressionless, as if he didn't care about the phone call he had just received.
"Harassing phone calls".
If Zhu Yu hadn't been holding a script, she would have actually been fooled by his appearance.
This is a world constructed from old-fashioned entertainment industry novels, containing key elements such as forced acquisition, substitute literature, and her escape while he pursues her.
The female lead, Su Xiaoxiao, is an obscure actress who bravely enters the entertainment industry to treat her mother's illness. She refuses to accept the unspoken rules of the industry and is subsequently blacklisted by her company. However, because she looks very much like the male lead Fu Wang's white moonlight, she is seen by Fu Wang at a banquet. What follows is a series of coercion, enticement, and forceful attempts to take her away.
Su Xiaoxiao compromised with Fu Wang for her mother's illness and became his contract lover, but she did not truly accept the relationship in her heart.
Fu Wang also harbored feelings for his beloved Su Xiaoxiao, and after taking her in as his mistress, he simply kept her confined to the villa and forbade her from going out to film.
The purely financial relationship between the two was broken after the white moonlight returned to China.
With her beloved Bai Yueguang (her love interest) back in China, Su Xiaoxiao, the stand-in, naturally lost her purpose. She used the connections she gained from Fu Wang to quickly rise to become a top-tier actress.
However, Fu Wang discovered Bai Yueguang's true colors while spending time with her. It turned out that Bai Yueguang returned to China because her family had gone bankrupt and she wanted to use him to make a comeback. All her previous actions were for ulterior motives.
Fu Wang then realized how good Su Xiaoxiao was, and thus began a frantic pursuit to win her back.
However, at that time, Su Xiaoxiao already had the gentle and refined second male lead and the frank and enthusiastic third male lead by her side. He could only use means to forcibly bind Su Xiaoxiao to his side and prevent her from having any opportunity to contact the outside world.
Birds that have seen the vastness of the sky and earth would never want to be confined in a cage.
With the help of the second and third male leads, Su Xiaoxiao tries to escape from Fu Wang, but is discovered by him during her escape. Fu Wang goes mad and tries to kill everyone who took Su Xiaoxiao away from him. Su Xiaoxiao dies protecting the second male lead from a bullet, and Fu Wang also commits suicide to die for love.
Ultimately, a bad ending was achieved where both characters died.
Su Xiaoxiao originally had a bright future in the entertainment industry, but it was ruined by Fu Wang's obsessive love. Her strong resentment summoned the system, which allowed Zhu Yu to take her place as the female lead.
Thinking about the identity the system had assigned her, Zhu Yu wanted to facepalm and smile bitterly.
Unfortunately, she was the two-faced, vain, and unattractive "white moonlight" from the original story.
On one hand, she despised Fu Wang's obsession and didn't want to get involved with him; on the other hand, she wanted to use his power to revive her family. In the end, her true colors were exposed, and she was thrown into the sea to feed the fish by the furious Fu Wang.
When Zhu Yu transmigrated to this world, the Zhu family had just gone bankrupt, and the entire family was in chaos.
Because of her unique skill, Zhu Yu caused quite a stir on her way back to China, and was even spotted at the airport.
A group of people mistook them for celebrities and surrounded them taking pictures.
If she hadn't happened to run into Song Jiayan, she doesn't know how long she would have been stuck at the airport taking pictures.
This is like torture for someone with social anxiety.
If she wasn't mistaken, that phone call must have been from Su Xiaoxiao.
After all, there aren't many people who can make Fu Wang's icy face show emotion.
As for how to verify whether she guessed correctly...
Zhu Yu chuckled wickedly to himself.
A slender, pale hand gently rested on the back of Fu Wang's hand. Her fingertips were a pale pink, barely covering half of his knuckles. Her delicate wrist looked as if it could break with the slightest touch.
Fu Wang froze.
He looked down at the small hand trying to search through the call log. The skin was a lustrous pearly white in the dim light, warm and soft, and carried a sweet fragrance.
He slowly turned his palm over, easily enveloping Zhu Yu's entire hand.
"What are you doing?"
Zhu Yu looked up, her eyes filled with just the right amount of curiosity and confusion: "I'm just a little curious, which company makes such dedicated harassing phone calls that they're still working overtime to make calls at 10 p.m.?"
Just then, the phone rang again.