I Ran Away After Flirting with the Goddess - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Being targeted by someone like Jiang Yi to leech off your fame is like having a piece of gum stuck to the sole of an expensive shoe you can’t get it clean no matter what, and it’s utterly disgusting.

However, face is everything in this circle. No matter how viciously people tear into each other in private, they rarely bring it to the surface; in public, one must at least put on a show of being friendly and magnanimous.

Jiang Yi assumed that after he “clarified” the rumor with a vague apology saying it was all a misunderstanding Shen Lishu would just let it slide for the sake of her reputation and wouldn’t descend into a public spat with him.

Little did he know he had kicked a steel plate.

Shen Lishu didn’t give him any face at all. She didn’t care for the unspoken rules of the industry. First, she refused his apology, and then she blocked his resources. Now, not only was Jiang Yi facing a massive backlash in his comment section, but the drama he had finished filming was also being held up. His face looked like an overturned palette vivid and messy.

Normally, once a drama is submitted for review, whether it airs or not doesn’t affect the actor’s paycheck; they’ve already been paid. At most, they just lose out on temporary exposure. But the problem was that Jiang Yi had invested his own money into this project!

He had poured his own funds into the production because he believed this drama would be a hit, potentially allowing him to pivot his career, catch the eye of major directors, and turn a profit. It was specifically to generate hype for this drama that Jiang Yi came up with the idea to leech off Shen Lishu’s fame today.

Now, the eggs are broken and the basket is gone; he has nothing left.

Jiang Yi regretted it. He regretted it until his heart turned blue. He begged everyone he knew, utilizing every resource at his disposal to try and contact Shen Lishu personally. Whether it was an apology or compensation, he would agree to anything she asked without a second thought.

One had to admit, Shen Lishu was ruthless. Her strike landed exactly on Jiang Yi’s Achilles’ heel. If she had blocked any other project, Jiang Yi probably would have acted like nothing happened, perhaps even gloating over the fact that he made the trending searches.

His manager was so angry he cursed Jiang Yi for being a self-important idiot, taking a decent hand of cards and playing them into the dirt with his “clever” maneuvers.

“Are you sick in the head? Have you played the ‘overbearing CEO’ role so much that you’ve lost your normal brain? Of all the people to start a scandal with, you chose Shen Lishu? Does a Best Actress like her need your tiny bit of hype?” The manager cursed Jiang Yi while frantically contacting friends. “If you don’t flop, who will?”

There was a reason Shen Lishu had been able to walk tall in this industry for all these years. Jiang Yi just had to go and provoke her. Jiang Yi didn’t dare talk back while being scolded, letting the manager vent.

While Jiang Yi’s side was still looking for connections to reach Shen Lishu, the Best Actress herself was currently eating lychees.

She washed the lychees and brought them over. An Rongrong reached out with a grin, took one, and lowered her head to pick at the shell. Lychees are delicious, but the shells are a pain to peel; every time she finished eating them, An Rongrong’s thumbnails would ache from the effort.

“Let me teach you a trick.” Shen Lishu held a lychee out in front of An Rongrong. With her index finger and thumb, she gave it a gentle, effortless squeeze. The lychee, which usually seemed so difficult to peel, simply split open.

The whole process took one second.

An Rongrong was dumbfounded. She looked down at the lychee in her own hand—the shell looked like it had been gnawed on by a dog then looked at the lychee in Shen Lishu’s hand, which was split open like a roasted chestnut. Her eyes went round.

Is this a special power of the Goddess?

An Rongrong took another lychee and tried to squeeze it the way Shen Lishu did. The result: her hands were covered in juice. Sometimes, the gap between two people is larger than the gap between a person and a pig…

An Rongrong looked at Shen Lishu with a pouting, pitiful expression.

Shen Lishu couldn’t help but laugh out loud. She demonstrated the technique for An Rongrong again. Meeting those dark, bright eyes filled with wonder and admiration, Shen Lishu felt a strange sense of accomplishment.

“Call me something nice, and I’ll teach you,” Shen Lishu said, sitting on the sofa in a “big boss” posture, elegantly eating a lychee with one hand. Her beautiful eyes looked down at An Rongrong. “This is a secret technique, traditionally passed down only to women, not men.”

“Empress Dowager!” An Rongrong adopted a full-on sycophant pose. She mimicked flicking a white handkerchief over her shoulder and gave a formal bow of greeting. “Your humble servant Xiao Rong greets the Empress Dowager.”

“Is Your Majesty thirsty? Is Your Majesty hungry? Would Your Majesty like to see me do the splits?” An Rongrong wiggled her way over to Shen Lishu’s legs, looking up at her with crescent-shaped, smiling eyes. She held out her hands and wiggled her fingers. “Does the Empress Dowager need a leg massage?”

Both of An Rongrong’s “paws” were covered in sticky lychee juice. Shen Lishu raised an eyebrow and decisively grabbed An Rongrong’s wrists with two fingers, rejecting her “spa service.”

“Look,” Shen Lishu said, crossing her legs and leaning over to demonstrate. “See this line on the lychee? Grip both sides of the line and squeeze like this, and it opens.”

There is a vertical line on a lychee where the bumps are particularly small. As long as you apply pressure along that line, the skin pops open.

An Rongrong followed suit and actually succeeded! Her eyes sparkled as she looked up at Shen Lishu. “Sister, you’re amazing!”

Who doesn’t like “rainbow farts” (flattery)? Shen Lishu certainly liked them.

She ate two more and stood up to wash her hands. ” I have nothing to do tonight. Do you want me to help you go over tomorrow’s scenes?”

Was she offering a private tutoring session?

An Rongrong’s eyes widened instantly, and the joy on her face was impossible to hide. Putting the “tutoring” aside, the main point was that she could spend more time with Shen Lishu.

First, she was fed fruit by her Goddess, then she learned a “women-only” secret technique, and finally, the Goddess was going to run lines with her.

Oh my god, is this actually happening?

An Rongrong was so happy she wanted to roll around on the floor of Shen Lishu’s room. Her small face was flushed.

“I have two copies of the script here, so you don’t have to go back to get yours.” Shen Lishu brought the scripts over.

An Rongrong was busy peeling lychees using her newly learned method. Hearing the movement, she looked up.

Shen Lishu had used a simple hair tie to loosely pull back her long, wavy hair. A few strands fell against the side of her face. The lazy, casual look made her appear exceptionally charming. Furthermore, Shen Lishu pulled out a pair of gold-rimmed glasses and put them on. With a smile on her red lips, she said to An Rongrong, “My vision isn’t great at night; I’m afraid I won’t be able to see the words.”

The script was full of small text. It was fine during the day, but a bit taxing at night. Shen Lishu would absolutely not admit she was getting older; she blamed it entirely on being nearsighted!

She was looking at the script, but An Rongrong was looking at her.

Shen Lishu’s features were already of the “stunningly beautiful” type. Now, wearing the fine gold-rimmed glasses, she gained an added air of “abstinent” allure. It made one’s heart itch and fingers twitch.

Shen Lishu in this domestic state made one want very, very badly to push her down on the sofa, undo her long wavy hair, take off those gold-rimmed glasses, and bite those red lips that tasted like lychees.

An Rongrong unconsciously swallowed. Realizing her own reaction, she looked away as if her eyes had been burned. She held her breath, her face flushing as she blinked and lowered her head to pick at a lychee shell. Her heart was thumping wildly in her chest.

If An Rongrong’s feelings for Shen Lishu before were the pure intentions of a fan for an idol, then at this moment, those feelings were thoroughly mutating and fermenting. The lychee in her mouth felt cloyingly sweet; she only felt better after washing her hands and rinsing her mouth.

“Let’s go through the dialogue once first.” Shen Lishu handed one of the scripts to An Rongrong and sat back on the sofa.

Although An Rongrong had no acting experience, she was quite diligent. Especially when acting alongside Shen Lishu, she couldn’t afford to mess up, so she had memorized the lines very well.

After they finished the dialogue, Shen Lishu pointed out a few notes on tone and expression for An Rongrong and then let her practice on her own. Shen Lishu leaned back on the sofa and picked up her phone to reply to messages.

Regarding Jiang Yi’s attempts to send people to gauge her attitude, Shen Lishu ignored them all. Instead of begging her, he would be better off begging the people reviewing his drama. Jiang Yi wanted to leech off her fame for free? Shen Lishu was going to make him pay for it. There’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world. Some people who have been in the entertainment industry for so long aren’t even as sensible or polite as An Rongrong.

Shen Lishu scrolled through Weibo. The tide of the trending searches had completely turned. Her fans had incredible fighting power; they had dug up all of Jiang Yi’s past scandals. For example, how he would make inappropriate sexual jokes to actresses that were offensive but hard to call out directly. Or how he would wrap his arm around an actress’s waist during public events despite her visible discomfort, projecting an “overbearing CEO” persona while actually just being a “salty pig hand” (groper).

Greasy and disgusting—he deserved to flop.

Back at the wine tasting banquet, if Shen Lishu hadn’t rescued An Rongrong and taken her away, it was hard to say what would have happened later.

Shen Lishu looked up at An Rongrong. She was seriously contemplating the tone of the lines according to the instructions, looking incredibly well-behaved.

“Rongrong,” Shen Lishu said as her thumb scrolled through the comments, suddenly asking her, “What kind of fan are you to me?”

There are career fans, visual fans, passerby fans, anti-fans, die-hard fans, “girlfriend” fans, “wife” fans, and “sister” fans. She wondered which category An Rongrong belonged to. Just a moment ago, Shen Lishu saw her using a side account to curse out Jiang Yi.

The question caught An Rongrong off guard, leaving her a bit dazed. She pulled her “little vest” (secret identity) tighter and blinked a few times, attempting to gloss it over. “I’m a fan of everything about you.”

Seeing Shen Lishu look up at her suspiciously, An Rongrong’s scalp felt tight. She guiltily lowered her head, desperately wanting to scream at Shen Lishu:

Goddess, please stay away from your fan’s private life!

Some things shouldn’t be known too clearly. For instance, when An Rongrong was talking trash in private, she would whimper things like “I want Shen Lishu to take me forcefully” could she tell Shen Lishu that? Definitely not!

An Rongrong looked at Shen Lishu with wide, clean, pure eyes. “I am your career fan.”

A fan of the “career line” (and the cleavage/bust line).

No problems here.

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