Chapter 52: Scammer Decides to Be a Good Person 27 – He Wasn’t a Thousand-Mile Horse¹, I Was

After Du Heng wrapped filming and came back, he was visibly thinner. His jawline was sharp enough to cut down countless young girls’ hearts.

The rewards brought by an outstanding role were substantial.

It wasn’t just praise from the audience, but also favor from directors and producers.

Filming had only just wrapped, and already several projects had come calling with offers. He was still holding onto all those scripts and hadn’t given any clear reply yet, only saying that he wanted to read them first.

After hanging up the phone, Du Heng smiled at Shi Lan. “Another one asking for my opinion.”

“When the fire’s at its hottest and the oil’s boiling, it’s easy to get pulled in every direction.” Shi Lan looked serious. “You need to stay calm.”

Du Heng nodded. “I know. Back when I was working construction, I heard Brother Wu chatting once, and one thing he said stuck with me. When poor people suddenly strike it rich, that’s when they’re most likely to lose themselves. A lot of people fall right there. My situation now isn’t really any different.”

He was only twenty-three, yet he could understand that principle and actually act on it. That was truly rare.

Shi Lan silently praised her own good judgment, then patiently explained, “Your situation is still a little different. It’s not that I insist on holding you back. This surge in popularity is an opportunity, and we can’t afford to miss it. I just want to wait a little longer. Going it alone isn’t a long-term solution. You still need a professional team. Now that you’ve blown up, those talent scouts have come sniffing around like sharks smelling blood. If we can use this chance to pick out a really good company, that’d be ideal. Once you have a team and they tailor a development plan for you, you’ll be able to choose scripts with a much clearer target.”

“I know. Lanlan’s only doing this for my own good.” Du Heng squeezed her hand. “I’ve read all these scripts already. There are two or three I like. If I still don’t find a suitable company to sign with, then I’ll just pick one from among them.”

When he wasn’t working, aside from cooperating with the production team on a few promotional events, Du Heng mostly stayed home reading scripts, reading letters from viewers, and writing replies.

He wasn’t replying to everyone, of course. He only picked a small portion.

He had even planned to drop the letters into the mailbox in their neighborhood himself, and Shi Lan only barely caught him before he did.

“That’ll expose your home address.”

Du Heng still didn’t understand.

All right then. Mr. Du, pure and innocent, had only just stepped into the entertainment industry, and had no awareness at all of the culture of obsessive stalker fans.

Shi Lan gave him a rough explanation.

Du Heng still found it unbelievable. “That exaggerated?”

“Let me tell you a story. There was a writer once who serialized a novel in the newspaper. One issue killed off an important character, and that character’s die-hard fans among the readers went completely insane. It wasn’t enough that they lost their minds on their own. They tracked down the writer’s home. Smashing windows and splashing paint was nothing. They even followed the writer’s family when they went out to buy groceries, and mailed the writer blood-stained razor blades and dead rabbits. Even the police couldn’t do much, because it wasn’t just one or two days, or one or two people. The writer ended up so badly worn down that he had a nervous breakdown and stopped updating altogether. In the end, all he could do was move.”

Du Heng sucked in a cold breath.

“Move, move, move… no, I mean, I won’t mail them. I won’t.”

“But don’t overcorrect either. For viewers who sincerely like you, getting a reply from you would definitely make them insanely happy. Maybe your letter could even become a ray of light that helps someone through the darkest point in their life.”

The look Du Heng gave her was helpless.

“You’re making it sound more and more dramatic.”

Shi Lan raised one finger and wagged it in front of him.

“No, no, no. You don’t understand how powerful an idol can be.” She patted the stack of letters. “Just package them up and send them to the production team. They can mail them out for you.”

“I’ll listen to you.”

“Oh, right.” Shi Lan thought of something else. “You didn’t write anything in those letters that doesn’t fit a positive public image, did you? That’s the kind of thing that can turn into black history if you’re not careful.”

“A positive public image? Black history?”

“Mm… you can understand a positive public image as upright, good, and inspiring, something that promotes truth, kindness, beauty, and an uplifting spirit. Black history means something that seems normal now, or something trivial that didn’t matter when you weren’t famous, but later on, once you get more attention, it gets endlessly magnified into a point people can attack you over.”

“An uplifting spirit?”

Shi Lan froze. That phrase didn’t exist yet in this era, did it?

She decided to skip over it. “You just need to get the idea. The terminology itself isn’t important.”

The look Du Heng gave her was hard to describe. “I think you’re more professional and more farsighted than any other manager.”

Not really. She just had access to a much larger volume of information, having learned lessons from the downfall of countless collapsed celebrities.

Still, being praised always felt good, so she shamelessly accepted it.

Yes, she was just that smart and farsighted.

That said, the managers who had approached Du Heng so far really weren’t all that professional. It wasn’t that every one of them was as unreliable as the first one who had come by, the one who only knew how to paint rosy fantasies, but none of them really met Shi Lan’s expectations either. In their hands, Du Heng’s acting career wouldn’t advance especially well.

In truth, she was anxious too. She worried that all her hesitation and caution would delay Du Heng instead.

As the person directly involved, Du Heng himself remained steady. Whenever he had nothing to do, he stayed home, went online, and learned how to use a computer.

Then, just as Shi Lan had gotten so anxious the corners of her mouth were breaking out in stress blisters, Du Heng received another invitation call.

He gossiped with Shi Lan about it. “This manager has a pretty unusual name. Long Haoshu. I’ve arranged to meet him tomorrow afternoon.”

Long Haoshu? One of the three top managers in the entertainment industry from the book? The agent who had discovered Du Heng’s talent and helped him reach the peak?

The reason Shi Lan could remember the name of a character other than the male and female leads was also because the name was so distinctive. Later on, people in the industry all respectfully called him Uncle Shu.

Shi Lan felt the kind of relief that came when the other shoe had finally dropped.

She still accompanied Du Heng to this meeting. The two of them had already met quite a few managers together, and Du Heng also understood what kind of partner Shi Lan wanted to choose for him, so he usually took the lead in the conversation while Shi Lan continued to sit to one side playing the sweet, clueless girl.

Most of the time, she didn’t speak, because there was no need to continue the conversation.

Long Haoshu was in his early thirties, with a little mustache, and looked like an artsy middle-aged man.

Shi Lan didn’t blindly trust him just because he was Du Heng’s manager in the book. It still depended on how things went today.

This future Uncle Shu was quite polite. He first took the initiative to introduce himself. Before turning thirty, he had only managed one artist, a female actress who was now a recognizable name in the industry. After they stopped working together, he hadn’t signed anyone else. In his words, he had come this time with sincerity to sign Du Heng. His management philosophy was quality over quantity.

Curious, Shi Lan asked, “How did you and your previous artist part ways?”

Long Haoshu smiled, but didn’t say much. “Our ideas about career development didn’t align.”

Tsk. Those few words could cover a lot.

Du Heng asked, “I’m just a newcomer. Getting into this industry was basically an accident, and you also said your policy is quality over quantity when signing people. Forgive me for asking, but what exactly did you see in me? This ‘quality’ you’re talking about might be more than I can live up to.”

“I don’t think so at all. When I said I came with sincerity, I wasn’t just saying it. Before coming here, I looked into you. You’re very good at choosing roles, and the results have proven you right. I found out that during the open casting for The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, the role you originally had your eye on was Yang Xiao. It was only because the production team had other arrangements that they didn’t choose you at first. Before me, quite a few management companies had already approached you, including some excellent teams in the industry, and you still didn’t sign with them. Rather than saying you stumbled into this by accident, I’d rather believe that you were prepared to enter the acting industry.”

Du Heng turned serious and sat a little straighter.

Long Haoshu paused before answering Du Heng’s original question. “There’s no need to talk about your physical appearance. As for the two directors you’ve worked with so far, I’ve visited both of them. Without exception, their assessment of you was that you’re highly moldable and have a wide acting range. On the path of acting, you truly have talent, and that’s rare. But you also need someone to help you, someone to handle the trivial matters outside of acting, someone to help develop and present your talent, and someone to help you go farther.”

Du Heng was perfectly clearheaded. He wasn’t dazzled by that stack of flattery.

“There are plenty of actors with potential besides me, not to mention trained professionals from acting schools and theater troupes. So why pick me?”

It sounded a little shameless, like he was saying that the praise so far wasn’t enough and hoping for even more.

Long Haoshu didn’t laugh. He looked at Du Heng and said, “Because you’re special.”

Next, he used every angle he could, from a chart analyzing the growth of his acting skills, to the compatibility of his personality, to the rarity of his looks, to prove his point.

Du Heng had never seen anyone turn changes in acting ability into a trend graph before. He glanced at Shi Lan, his eyes clearly saying, “This guy seems different from the others.”

He really did have something.

Shi Lan said, “Since you’ve looked into him, you should know what he did before entering the industry.”

“You mean construction work?” Long Haoshu poured her another cup of tea and nudged the plate of pastries she had been eating toward her. “That’s nothing. I also found out that he actually received a university admission letter, but… wasn’t able to enroll successfully.”

He leaned forward a little. “I’m not sure whether I’m explaining this clearly, but the largest group of people in this world are still the ones whose lives haven’t gone well in all kinds of ways. The flaws in his life history that you’re worried about, to him, are medals of honor instead. They’re the best proof of his resilience and his refusal to give in while fighting against this world. They make him a symbol that even more people can look up to.”

No, Shi Lan wasn’t worried about that at all. What worried her was not being able to resolve those issues as Du Heng’s manager.

As they kept talking, it became obvious why he would one day be one of the three evergreen giants among entertainment managers. Even in this era, Long Haoshu already had a forward-looking sense for image branding. Not the kind that packaged someone as an innately flawless deity like some “pure jade queen,” but the kind who fought through countless trials and carved a path through brambles, step by step ascending to the altar.

Shi Lan was satisfied.

Du Heng looked satisfied too.

Long Haoshu had already been satisfied from the start.

Since everyone’s goals aligned, it was time for Shi Lan to take control of the next stage – talking money.

Although the contract terms Long Haoshu offered were fairly reasonable, and Du Heng’s hard qualifications weren’t all that outstanding at the moment, a negotiation was still a negotiation. The last thing you should do was show your hand right at the beginning. Shi Lan traded remarks with him back and forth with ease.

In the end, Long Haoshu said he would go back and fight for the conditions Shi Lan wanted that were beyond his authority, but from the sound of it, it probably wouldn’t be a problem.

He wiped away nonexistent cold sweat and raised a cup of tea to Shi Lan.

“I guessed wrong. The one sitting steady and waiting for the right price was President Shi. Du Heng is a fine steed, and I came a step too late. President Shi is the one who recognized him as a true talent.”

At that, Du Heng completely forgot what modesty was. He answered with a straight face, “That’s right, it was all thanks to Lanlan.”

Under the table, Shi Lan kicked him once. Then she said to Long Haoshu, “He doesn’t have to be a fine steed for me to take a liking to him.”

Only then did Long Haoshu realize what she meant. Thinking about the relationship between the two of them, he burst out laughing.

From then on, Du Heng finally counted as someone with an organization behind him, and Shi Lan could at last free up part of her energy for her own work. At most, she would be Du Heng’s career consultant from now on, and only part-time at that.

As his manager, Long Haoshu officially took up the post.

The first thing he had to deal with was not choosing scripts for Du Heng, but handling a PR crisis.

Yes, a PR crisis.

The latest headline from an entertainment newspaper called Star Oddities read: Why Have Zhang Wuji and Yang Xiao Both Lowered Themselves to Working at a Fast Food Restaurant?

It was then rapidly reposted and commented on by all the major entertainment outlets.

The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber was more popular than ever recently, so taking advantage of the buzz was understandable. But the incident in the article was clearly from last year, when Yang Chong had come to have clothes made and ended up going with Du Heng to help out at the shop.

These entertainment reporters really knew how to hold back, sitting on it for a whole year.

Now public opinion was saying all sorts of things, and some of it was downright painful to look at.

[Even a worker’s uniform can’t hide that pert butt and wasp waist]

[Famous male star saddled with a million in debt, reduced to moonlighting at a fast food restaurant]

[Does the owner have a death wish, daring to make the Cult Leader and Protector work for him]

What kind of nonsense was this? Was this what the entertainment industry looked like before it had ever been regulated, back when it was still growing wild?

Did these writers want to go back and check whether even a single word they wrote was true?

Translator’s Notes