Chapter 103 - 98: Too Full to Sleep
"What time is it? Why aren’t you asleep? What are you doing wandering around down here?"
At one in the morning, Mr. Sang came out to get his wife a glass of water. Hearing a noise downstairs, he saw his son still in his day clothes, pacing around, and couldn’t help but scold him.
’Young people are all like this,’ he thought. ’They think staying up late is no big deal. They won’t realize how much damage it does to their bodies until they’re older.’
"Your mother and I already woke up once. Is something on your mind?"
Hearing the voice, Sang Yuan looked up and saw his dad holding a water glass, peering down over the railing.
"It’s nothing. I ate too much for dinner. I’m so stuffed I can’t sleep."
It was a very ordinary sentence, but he said it with a hint of pride.
’What’s there to be proud of, eating until you’re stuffed? It’s not like our family is short on food.’
Mr. Sang glanced at the wall clock, a little perplexed.
’He and his wife are used to sleeping early, and they always have dinner early. By this time, even if he’d swallowed a lead weight, it should be mostly digested. How could he still be too stuffed to sleep?’
Though suspicious, his wife was still waiting for her water. His son was a grown man, so he didn’t want to say too much. He just said, "Get some sleep soon," filled the glass, and went back to their room.
The heat was on in the room, and Mrs. Sang often woke up in the middle of the night with a dry throat. Seeing him come in, she gave a dry cough from under the covers, then threw on a robe and sat up.
She took the water, drank half the glass, and then asked, "What were you doing out there? What took you so long to get a glass of water?"
Mr. Sang replied, "Our son is still wandering around the living room! I asked him why he isn’t asleep, and he told me he ate too much for dinner and is too stuffed. Tell me, how many hours has it been since he ate? And he’s still stuffed? He must be hiding something from me again! Sigh, kids grow up, and they don’t tell me things anymore. I can’t be bothered with him!"
He said he couldn’t be bothered, but his voice was full of worry.
"You know our son. He’s very reliable. If he hasn’t asked you for help, he can probably handle it himself. Don’t you worry about it. See? I’m not worried."
Knowing her husband was all talk, Mrs. Sang offered a few comforting words as she took off her robe, ready to lie back down. But then, she suddenly sat up again.
"Wait! It’s not that he ate too much, is it? It’s obviously that he ate two dinners!"
"What two dinners?"
Before he could ask, Mrs. Sang had already pulled on her pajama pants and left the bedroom.
"Hey? I’m asking you, what’s going on?"
Mrs. Sang didn’t answer him.
A moment later, she must have run into their son at the top of the stairs as he was coming up, because he heard his wife ask, "Son! Did you manage to get a meal?"
His son’s voice was smiling as he replied, "Mhm."
The boy’s mother asked gleefully, "What did you eat?"
"Nothing much. She always eats simply. But I peeled the garlic for her."
"Hehe, well done! That’s exactly right. You have to do chores together so you can happily eat together! For girls, genuine respect and treating them as an equal—that’s the real secret to winning their hearts!"
Then their son agreed and went on upstairs.
Having been through it all himself, Mr. Sang immediately understood when he heard that.
’Hah, that silly boy. Too excited to sleep over a single meal.’
Mr. Sang lay down and pulled the blanket up, but he couldn’t resist complaining about his wife before falling asleep. "And you said you weren’t worried. Does this look like ’not worried’ to you?"
Mrs. Sang had just returned and rolled her eyes when she heard him.
"What do you know? To use the young folks’ slang, I’m ’shipping’ them! He’s a grown man; I’m not going to worry that much about him."
"You’re just being stubborn."
"What was that? Speak up, I didn’t hear you!"
Mrs. Sang threw back the covers to get into bed and pinched the soft flesh of his waist.
Mr. Sang immediately rolled over with his back to her and expertly let out a deafening snore.
’This trick again!’
Mrs. Sang huffed, turned off the bedside lamp, and was asleep in moments.
In her dream, two children threw themselves onto her lap. One shouted, "Grandma, hold me!" and the other cried, "Grandma, me too!" She was so overjoyed she didn’t know which one to hug first.
’Sigh, life is really giving me more and more to look forward to!’
At the same time, Ni Bingyan shot awake from a dream. She sat there stunned for a long time before going to the bathroom to draw a hot bath.
She’d had a nightmare and was covered in a cold sweat. If she didn’t take a good, long soak, she would definitely catch a cold by tomorrow.
In the entertainment industry, it’s actually the low-level actors, more so than the ones who’ve made it, who encounter the "casting couch." Many even offer themselves up willingly, not daring to say a word when they’re taken advantage of.
Everyone wants to get famous, but there are few paths to the top.
An actress’s prime is so short, so there are far too many people who want to take a shortcut and pull ahead of the competition.
No other profession places such high demands on an individual’s appearance as acting does.
They already suffer from intense anxiety about their looks. When resources are scarce, the vast majority of those who aren’t considered pretty enough will get plastic surgery.
And if they still don’t have resources after becoming beautiful, they’ll throw everything away to please investors, directors, or even just an assistant casting director.
It’s no exaggeration to say that some female stars sleep their way to the top.
Ni Bingyan had encountered similar situations many times in her past life.
Even though she wasn’t as beautiful then as she was now, people still targeted her.
The most severe incident involved a lowlife who drugged her. To protect her innocence, with the drug taking effect, she ended up stabbing him several times.
In the end, she was pulled from a pool of blood by the police and spent several days in the hospital recovering.
Although she wasn’t held responsible due to self-defense, the incident left a deep shadow on her.
That was what she had just dreamed about, what had startled her awake.
Honestly, with her diligence and talent, if she hadn’t been so principled, she wouldn’t have struggled for over a decade without making a name for herself.
Where there’s demand, there’s a market. And where there’s a market, there are people to serve it. Entertainment industry madams like Li Yi are truly countless.
Some are just low-end, while others are high-end.
The low-end ones might just connect people for sex.
For example, spending a night "hanging out" with a certain casting director could land you a supporting role.
As for the high-end ones, she had witnessed it once with her own eyes.
A certain agency, trying to secure an investment, brought their top actress to drink with a big shot. Three million per glass.
At the time, she hadn’t landed a role in a long time and couldn’t even afford rent, so she was working as a waitress at a hotel that provided room and board. That night, she stood on the sidelines, watching that actress chug glass after glass. When she couldn’t drink anymore, her agent secretly pinched her thigh, and she had to force a smile and keep spewing all sorts of flattering words.
A group of big shots watched her as if she were a monkey in a circus, praising her high tolerance for alcohol.
In that moment, she was like a plaything, with no dignity to speak of.
In her past life, she had even seen an industry price list with the rates for different female stars written on it.
Just as Wei Shuojie had said, to make it in this circle, as long as you were willing to go all out, beauty was a machete that could clear any path.
Soaking in the warm water, she finally let out a long breath and picked up her phone.
In her chat window with Li Yi, a few messages were waiting.
Icy-Cold Little Hands: [Hey sweetie, ran into a little trouble on the way, so I can’t make it. Sorry about that! Hope you guys have fun. Let’s hang out next time we get a chance.]
Yi-Not-Aunty: [Ni, my great beauty! Everyone’s waiting for you! How can you just say you’re not coming? Are we old classmates or not?]
’Normally, if a friend with plans sent a message like that, the first response would be to ask what happened, right? But Li Yi immediately started blaming me for bailing, even using our shared history as classmates to guilt-trip me into coming.’
Ni Bingyan was busy cooking and eating at the time and didn’t have a chance to reply. When she looked again, she saw that Li Yi had sent several more messages, each one with a worse tone than the last.
Yi-Not-Aunty: [What’s your problem? Standing me up like this? You said you’d come, and now you’re not. Someone’s here who wanted to meet you, they came especially to see you.]
Yi-Not-Aunty: [If you weren’t coming, why didn’t you say so earlier? I got everything ready to host you. My kindness was completely wasted!]
Yi-Not-Aunty: [So you’re just going to disrespect me, is that it? Don’t even say you know me in the future.]
Yi-Not-Aunty: [Get here now! F*ck you!]
Ni Bingyan knew something was wrong right away.
’Is she trying to pimp me out, but failed to lure me over, and now the other party is going to deal with her? Is that why she’s so desperate?’
Having seen plenty of dirty business, Ni Bingyan sensed something was off and immediately called Sister Wei to tell her what was happening.
’My family is in the restaurant business and has no connections to the entertainment industry. If someone was really targeting me, I could easily fall into a trap if I wasn’t careful. I need to know my enemy to protect myself.’
Unfortunately, when she woke up, there was still no reply from Sister Wei.