Actresses

Chapter 73 Warning

After much persuasion, Shi Jiahe finally managed to get away with it and took her leave.

After leaving her boss's house, she walked unsteadily back to her office. The road seemed to stretch for miles; she even got lost a bit in the neighborhood.

Although He Yuran didn't press further to insist on changing the role to match Li Luo'an, she also didn't agree on a timeframe for confirming the actor's participation. Shi Jiahe thought, "I'll just pretend this never happened. If the boss asks, I'll play dumb."

The question is, does Zhuang Pan still want to continue acting? Someone like Stone Sister (Stone Sister) would never be impolite, so why hasn't she replied to WeChat messages for three days? But looking at social media, Zhuang Pan's studio is still operating normally. That can only be explained by the other party's unwillingness to reply, or perhaps they're trying to come up with an excuse.

In short, the premonition that I would definitely be rejected grew stronger and stronger.

Shi Jiahe hesitated for a moment, then sent a WeChat message to Wei Ning: "I have a question for you. Does whether Zhuang Pan acts or not really matter much to the approval of the film?"

Wei Ning, usually so decisive, hesitated today, unable to give a clear conclusion. "Why are you suddenly bringing this up? Didn't we just talk about this last time? And you should also wait for our platform's new policy. There might be some changes to long dramas soon, so... I can't give a definitive answer right now."

Shi Jiahe stared at her phone, thinking, "What if I've worked so hard all this time, only to get laid off in the end? Then all my work will have been for nothing!"

But now that things have come to this, I can't tell Wei Ning about these doubts in my heart.

Once good friends become work partners, the "good friend" part must be removed first. You can't pour out all your secrets to others. Otherwise, mixing work and personal matters will be exhausting for both of you. Shi Jiahe understands this principle.

Just then, a sharp pain shot through my head, probably from not sleeping well last night. Plus, my dry eye syndrome has been flaring up badly lately; I can barely open my eyes now.

Shi Jiahe thought for a moment, and realized that she was in such a bad state that she should find someone to talk to and comfort her. But considering her current poor mental state, the best solution was probably to go home and get some sleep.

She dragged her heavy steps, intending to walk to the studio, but when she reached the elevator, she turned back.

She didn't want to deal with Ding Yi's mouth. Moreover, she had to help Teacher Jiang Fan with some trivial matters recently, and Shi Jiahe's irritability even became more tangible.

For many nights in a row, after finishing her work and returning home, Shi Jiahe and Zhao Cai had nothing to say to each other because they were both exhausted. However, lying in bed, Shi Jiahe couldn't fall asleep, or sleep well. She would wake up many times each night, get up and go to the bathroom aimlessly, only to find nothing, and then go back to bed tossing and turning. Occasionally, she would have a sudden, throbbing sensation, then wake up with a start, sit up, find everything normal, and lie back down. Or, after sleeping for a while, she would feel that the pillow was uncomfortable, or that something was wrong with the sheets, so she would straighten the corners of the blankets before lying down again, feeling suspicious. In the end, she would always toss and turn until four or five in the morning before finally falling asleep from exhaustion.

When I woke up to the alarm clock the next morning, I could clearly feel the lack of sleep, which left me feeling lethargic all day. This happened every day.

How long will this continue? Even though Zhao Cai is the one who wrote the script, why is she under so much pressure?

Shi Jiahe aimlessly scrolled through her contacts, thinking about who among the people she had made in recent years had quickly drifted away after becoming friends. The more she thought about it, the more doubtful she became. Do I have friends? Do I even have anyone I can talk to?

Actually, I do have friends of over ten years, but everyone's always so busy. And to put it bluntly, everyone has their own uncertainties; we're all busy and confused, so it's not necessarily true that anyone else is in a better mental state than Shi Jiahe. Because the industry downturn has become even more severe this year, I've heard that other agencies and artists are getting significantly less pay for filming. According to very reliable sources, even some well-known agencies that used to be guaranteed profits every year started losing money last year. So, what can we talk about when we get together? How do we talk about not being able to sleep? Compare whose sleep quality is worse? Just thinking about it makes me feel awful.

Shi Jiahe didn't care about anything else and simply called a car to go home. She didn't even bother to check if anyone was in the living room before going inside and falling asleep.

Sometimes, after accumulating fatigue for many days, you'll suddenly sleep soundly one day, and that was the case today. Of course, this is also thanks to Shi Jiahe not having to work regular hours and having flexible time.

In her dream, Shi Jiahe seemed to be in a meeting. It even went down to the specifics of how many scenes had been filmed, and then she heard someone saying things like, "We need to cut costs wherever possible; times have changed, and budgets are tight," and so on. It was like an information overload; after experiencing countless questions, Shi Jiahe suddenly woke up.

I checked my watch; it was a little past four in the afternoon.

She slept like a log, neither fully awake nor fully asleep. She hadn't even eaten breakfast, and now she was almost overeating from hunger, but her stomach was aching slightly. She used to only worry about whether her boss ate, but now she was showing signs of surpassing He Yuran's unhealthy lifestyle.

Shi Jiahe got up and ordered takeout. As usual, she opened her phone to check if she had missed any news or messages in the past few hours.

The top trending entertainment news on Weibo right now is a blue-background announcement from a director in the acting department, surnamed Chen. I don't know him, so I'll close this. I'm checking the work group chat again. Ding Yi is currently overseeing a role for Jiang Fan; it's a cameo, and the pay isn't much, but at least it's a legitimate job. The group is discussing whether they should write a character biography for Jiang Fan since the production team sent over part of the script, or if Jiang Fan can do it himself.

Unexpectedly, He Yuran caused an uproar in the group chat. She started by exclaiming, "Holy crap! Holy crap!"

Shi Jiahe frowned and thought for a while. What kind of trouble had this gotten into now? She couldn't figure it out. Then, her boss sent her a message. When she opened it, it was the same corruption news.

She typed a message asking, "Boss, what's this?"

"This person is my teacher," the boss said in the group chat.

Okay, Shi Jiahe still didn't understand—what did this have to do with them? But she still obediently replied in the group chat, "Well... Boss, don't be too sad. Maybe your teacher is innocent; he should be released in a while?"

But what she was really thinking was that if something like this made the news, it was practically a done deal. The interrogation process was probably already over. And who knew what might happen next? There were already more than one case involving the acting departments of major performing arts schools in recent years.

Actually, back in the era when the boss, He Yuran, was focusing on the acting department, admissions were undergoing a transition period. The process was shifting from selecting entirely from ordinary people to a more commercialized system where admissions were based on connections, meaning the proportion of students admitted through connections was increasing. Twenty years ago, a typical acting class might have only one or two students admitted through connections, and they would keep a very low profile. However, with socioeconomic development and the rising income of actors, more and more wealthy families wanted their children to pursue acting. Therefore, in the last five years, the rate of students admitted through connections to acting departments at major professional schools has become alarmingly high. Sometimes, an entire acting class might have no more than five students admitted through legitimate channels.

Shi Jiahe even heard that in recent years, the average amount involved behind a manipulated performance department spot has reached seven figures or more. Because every step of the admissions process needs to be rigged, ordinary families simply cannot afford to send their children to study acting and pursue the arts. This has also contributed to the increasingly rigid and entrenched power structure in the film and television industry.

Of course, these were just rumors that Shi Jiahe had heard, and their veracity could not be verified. However, as these news stories continued to emerge, they seemed to become more and more credible.

Shi Jiahe had just finished comforting her boss with her self-righteousness when she saw He Yuran say in the group chat: "No, no, no, let him do whatever he wants. What I'm curious about now is whether his son will be implicated."

Son? Shi Jiahe was even more confused. Who were they? She didn't recognize any of them. So she sent a question mark.

Unexpectedly, the boss replied with an ellipsis. Then came a voice message, sounding very dissatisfied, though it was unclear who he was targeting. "I told you, have you lost your memory? Oh well."

This was clearly aimed at her. Shi Jiahe held her phone and played the recording twice, getting more and more uneasy the more she listened.

She wondered, "What did I say wrong? What does this news have to do with me? Your teacher isn't my teacher, is he?"

Unable to think of a reply, she dejectedly tossed her phone aside, deciding not to bother replying at all.

However, Shi Jiahe sensed that He Yuran's temper wasn't without reason. Moreover, it seemed as if a strange nerve was throbbing somewhere, reminding her that these strange things were connected.

She stared intently, deep in thought, until a knock at the door broke her train of thought. It must be the takeout, but Zhao Cai didn't go get it for her. After listening for a while, she opened the door herself. She brought it back, put the takeout aside, and her appetite vanished.

The whole process felt like I had amnesia, and my mind remained blank, unable to recall any valuable information.

The more you try to think about it this way, the more panic will arise.

She had clearly sensed that her boss was angry, which was quite rare. However, He Yuran's patience with her seemed to have waned recently. This was what worried Shi Jiahe the most.

Moreover, in the past, whenever her boss invited her to his house, he always had an excuse to keep her there. They would eat and drink together, chat, or even stay overnight for a few days if she wanted. But recently, he always kicked her out immediately after finishing their business.

If Shi Jiahe used to complain that her boss was too clingy, now that the boundaries are clear and they've become distant, she's started to experience separation anxiety.

Was there a problem with her work? Shi Jiahe thought, but it didn't seem like it. There hadn't been anything important lately. She'd been diligently working on the script every day, but it's common sense that the screenwriter couldn't produce results immediately. Was it because she hadn't been considerate of her boss's feelings? That didn't seem likely. Whenever He Yuran spoke, she always responded immediately, even more proactively than before.

"It's just one thing I can't remember, is it really necessary to give me such a hard time?" Shi Jiahe felt more and more aggrieved. "Even if I haven't done anything outstanding, I've still put in a lot of effort, haven't I?"

Resentment, confusion, and a mix of other emotions made the meal even more unpalatable.

Moreover, her inner panic intensified. Her heart was beating faster than she could control.

The panic came from a seemingly distant and ethereal place. Shi Jiahe couldn't help but clutch her chest and stand up. Just then, she belatedly realized that her heart was pounding relentlessly without pause. For a few seconds, she didn't even have time to breathe.

It turned out that it wasn't a feeling, but a real sensation, a warning signal from her body.

—Your heart is beating too fast.

When Shi Jiahe realized that she was actually experiencing this moment, everything suddenly went black and she fainted.