The first time Chu Yunyun stood in front of the towering glass building of Starshine Media, she realized that this world was nothing like the battlefield she had known before, because here, no one used knives or poison, and yet every smile carried a hidden blade, and every step forward meant pushing someone else backward.
She stood beside Liang Jinhai in the underground parking lot, staring up at the logo gleaming faintly above them, while the early morning light filtered through the concrete ceiling and cast pale shadows over the black car that had brought them here.
"You don't have to come in with me," she said quietly, adjusting the simple jacket she wore, one that made her look like an ordinary college student rather than someone tied by contract to a man who could shake the city with a phone call.
Liang Jinhai glanced at her from the driver's seat, his expression as unreadable as ever, and after a brief pause, he replied in a tone that held neither warmth nor distance, "I won't be seen."
She understood immediately what he meant.
Her identity could not be revealed.
Not now.
Not while she was still weak.
Not while she was still borrowing another woman's life to stand in this world.
Starshine Media was technically under the Liang Group, but that did not mean that everyone inside it could be trusted, and Liang Jinhai had no intention of letting anyone connect Yu Chen to himself, let alone to the contract that bound them together.
So when she stepped out of the car, she did so alone.
The glass doors slid open silently, and the air inside was thick with the faint scent of perfume and freshly brewed coffee, mixed with the restless tension of people who lived on auditions, rumors, and the hope that their faces would one day appear on a glowing screen.
Posters of famous actors lined the walls, their smiling faces larger than life, while young girls and boys sat in the waiting area clutching scripts and phones, whispering nervously to one another as if their voices alone could determine their futures.
Chu Yunyun walked forward with steady steps, though her heartbeat was loud in her ears, not because she feared rejection, but because she knew that once she crossed this threshold, she would no longer be hiding in the shadows of someone else's family or someone else's life.
She would be seen.
And being seen was dangerous.
At the front desk, she gave her name softly.
"Yu Chen."
The receptionist looked at her briefly, then nodded and gestured toward the elevator. "Go to the twelfth floor. Talent department."
Inside the elevator, her reflection stared back at her from the mirrored walls, and for a moment she felt the strange overlap of two lives pressing against each other inside her chest, because Yu Chen had once dreamed vaguely of becoming someone important, though she had never dared to imagine standing here, while Chu Yunyun had once lived in a world of wealth and power but had never been allowed to choose her own path.
Now, both of them stood here together, borrowing each other's pain and ambition.
The talent director's office was bright and filled with paperwork and framed photographs of artists who had already made it, and behind the desk sat a woman in her forties with sharp eyes and a composed smile that suggested she had seen every type of desperation this industry could produce.
"I'm Sister Mei," she said, gesturing for Chu Yunyun to sit. "You're here to audition?"
"Yes," Chu Yunyun replied, keeping her voice even.
Sister Mei studied her for a long moment, her gaze moving from her pale face to her thin wrists and then back to her eyes, which were far too calm for someone stepping into this world for the first time.
"You don't look like someone who belongs here," Sister Mei said bluntly. "No training, no background, no connections, and a body that looks like it would collapse if the wind blew too hard."
Chu Yunyun did not deny it."I don't belong anywhere else either."
Sister Mei raised an eyebrow, amused despite herself."What makes you think this place will be kinder?"
"It won't," Chu Yunyun answered, and for just a second, something dark and cold flickered beneath her gentle expression, though it disappeared so quickly that it could almost be mistaken for imagination. "But I can endure unkindness."
Sister Mei leaned back in her chair, tapping her pen lightly against the desk as if considering a puzzle she had not yet decided to solve.
"You're honest," she said. "That's rare."
She pulled out a thin script and slid it across the desk.
"There's a campus drama starting auditions today. Supporting role. A sickly student who hides her illness from everyone else. If you want in, this is your chance."
Chu Yunyun picked up the script, and when she saw the brief character description, a faint smile touched her lips, because it felt as though fate enjoyed mocking her by dressing her wounds in different costumes.
"I'll try," she said.
The audition hall was crowded, and the air was filled with whispered lines and nervous laughter, while staff members moved back and forth with clipboards, barely sparing glances for the girls who waited in rows like goods on display.
Chu Yunyun sat quietly in the corner, reading her lines over and over, though she did not need to memorize them, because every sentence matched something she had already lived through.
When her number was called, she walked into the room with a calm that surprised even herself, standing before three judges and a single camera that pointed at her like an unblinking eye.
"Whenever you're ready," one of them said.
She closed her eyes briefly, and in that moment, she was no longer standing in an audition room but back in a hospital corridor, listening to doctors speak in hushed voices while her mother complained about expenses and her sister coughed softly behind her.
When she opened her eyes again, the words came out of her mouth not as lines but as memories.
"Don't waste money on me," she said, her voice light and trembling at the same time, as though she truly believed she was asking for something unreasonable. "I'm used to being in pain. It's not worth making everyone suffer because of me."
Her hands tightened at her sides, and her breathing became uneven as she forced herself to smile, a smile that looked too small for her face.
"I'll be fine," she added softly. "I always am."
The room fell into an unnatural silence.
No one interrupted her.
No one cut her off.
When the scene ended, she bowed and left without waiting for praise or rejection, because she had already given everything she had in that moment.
She waited outside for nearly an hour, and during that time, her phone vibrated once in her bag.
A single message from an unknown number.
Are you done?
She typed back slowly.
Not yet.
When her name was finally called again, it was to tell her she had been selected.
Just like that, she had stepped into the industry.
Filming began days later, and reality quickly tore away the thin layer of romance she had imagined, because the set was chaotic, the lights were blinding, and the schedule was ruthless, leaving no space for weakness.
On the first day, after standing under the hot lamps for too long, her vision went dark, and she collapsed in the middle of a scene, her body finally protesting against the role she had forced it to play.
She woke up to the familiar sight of an IV drip and the sterile smell of medicine, and for a moment, she thought she had gone backward instead of forward.
Sister Mei stood beside the bed, arms crossed. "You're too weak," she said. "This industry doesn't wait for people to recover."
"I don't want it to wait," Chu Yunyun replied hoarsely. "Just… give me time to catch up."
From the doorway, Liang Jinhai watched silently, though no one recognized him, because today he was merely another tall man in a black coat, standing in the background as if he had nothing to do with her fate at all.
That night, when she returned to the quiet room that now served as her temporary shelter, she scrolled through her phone and saw her name appear for the first time on a small entertainment account.
#NewActressYuChen
#WeakButReal
She stared at the screen for a long time.
Weak.
Real.
Both were true.And neither would protect her.
In the Yu family apartment, Yu Li stared at the same screen, her fingers tightening around her phone as she whispered her sister's name in disbelief, while somewhere much farther away, a soul that once destroyed Chu Yunyun was slowly opening her eyes in a different body, guided by a voice that promised power.
Chu Yunyun did not know any of that yet.
All she knew was that she had stepped onto a stage where millions could see her, and once a person was seen, she could no longer disappear quietly.
She lay on the bed and closed her eyes, feeling the ache in her bones and the slow, stubborn beat of her heart, and she understood that this path would not make her kinder or softer, but it would make her visible.
And visibility, in this life, was the first form of power she had ever truly chosen.
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Let's increase Chu Yunyun power together. She still weak, she needs your power stone to grow stronger don't forget to support her.