15. Does Great Fame Depend on Fate?

It was only at this moment that Zhang Jiang finally realized the truth: the wealthy heiress before him was nothing like the idle wastrels he had imagined. She hadn’t come to the North City finals for amusement, nor to while away her time—her arrival was purposeful and calculated. She understood the entertainment market intimately, so much so that even Chen Liwan, the real owner of Twin Stars, could only stand aside and offer a quiet, deferential smile as she spoke.

But the ratings…

Zhang Jiang cast a troubled glance at the stage below. With such formulaic, wordless performances, it was impossible to capture the audience’s attention in the very first episode. His original plan had been to let this talent show grow gradually into a quality program—most successful reality shows nowadays relied on word of mouth built over time. Yet this little sovereign before him clearly wished for nothing less than instant, explosive success the moment the show aired!

“Miss Chen, the market is an unpredictable thing. A modest hit can be engineered, but for a real sensation… that’s a matter of fate!”

To be honest, talent shows had only been truly popular in the first couple of years when the format was new. Since then, similar programs had sprung up like mushrooms after the rain, and there hadn’t been a true hit in the past four or five years. For this young lady to demand a phenomenon right off the bat—wasn’t that asking for the impossible?

“A sensation… depends on fate?” Chen Ruowen repeated Zhang Jiang’s words. Seeing his eager nod, her expression remained impassive.

“If success depends on fate, then what are you here for?”

“…What?” Wait, how did he end up ensnaring himself with his own argument? If success really was up to fate, didn’t that make him useless?

Fortunately, Chen Ruowen didn’t linger on the point. She quickly provided the answer before Zhang Jiang could untangle his own thoughts.

“If great success truly hinges on fate, then all of our work must be for one purpose: to increase the probability that fate chooses our show. And if there’s a probability, why can’t it be one hundred percent?”

Zhang Jiang: (๑°⌓°๑)

Now that she put it that way, it sounded perfectly reasonable.

Chen Liwan stifled a smile as he looked approvingly at his daughter. This girl, when it came to persuasion—or rather, leadership—was quite adept! If only she could show such emotional intelligence and eloquence in daily matters as well…

Well, perhaps that was too much to hope for. With her wild and impatient nature… ah, best not to dwell on it.

“From the moment we began adapting major IPs, every move Twin Stars has made was aimed at producing a sensation,” Chen Ruowen said, locking eyes with Zhang Jiang, who was now seriously considering her words. “If we can’t achieve that, this show is meaningless. We might as well not air it at all.”

Zhang Jiang’s face fell instantly. Cancel the online broadcast plan outright? That would not only end his career as chief planner, but those highly paid judges he’d recruited would probably curse him for half his life.

He’d thought the hunt for new actors was just a trial balloon for Twin Stars’ foray into talent shows, but now it seemed the weight on his shoulders was immense.

The first round allotted each contestant just 120 seconds to perform. Following the casting for Lu Chen, the next role up was Li Xiaoxiao, the female lead of “Dominion of the Firmament.”

This role’s challenge was even more daunting: contestants had to perform the scene where Li Xiaoxiao sacrifices her life to save Lu Chen.

According to the script, Li Xiaoxiao was actually a pawn planted by Tian to eliminate Lu Chen. Her emotions were sealed by design, yet she gradually thawed under Lu Chen’s genuine kindness. At the critical moment when his life hung in the balance, her true feelings finally broke through their seal. She succeeded in saving her beloved—and lost her own life in the process.

The difficulty lay in the fact that Li Xiaoxiao’s death occurred before her identity and Tian’s conspiracy were revealed. Mortally wounded and barely able to speak, she yearned to tell Lu Chen the truth, yet dared not and could not.

Her feelings in that instant were a tangled web: love, guilt, and the bewilderment of one who is just awakening to her own heart.

It was a subtle, challenging scene—especially as it required mime acting.

Chen Ruowen watched nearly fifty performances for these two main roles, yet found only a handful of actors who showed any promise.

After a word with Chen Liwan, she slipped out during the intermission following the lead roles’ auditions and made her way to the restroom.

Passing through the VIP lounge, she suddenly heard a familiar voice.

“Gao, are you serious about this?”

Turning the corner, the lounge came into full view. A man and a woman stood side by side, the woman’s delicate shoulders and alluring face angled toward the man. One arm wrapped possessively around his waist, the other caressed his chest as if she wished to merge with him.

Chen Ruowen recognized the woman—she’d just auditioned for Li Xiaoxiao a few minutes earlier and was one of the rare contestants who’d caught her eye.

“You really want to help me get this role?” the woman pressed, moving even closer.

The man made no attempt to resist her advances. In fact, he smiled at her question, but just as he was about to reply, his gaze caught Chen Ruowen at the edge of his vision.

“Well, fancy seeing you here.”

The man showed no embarrassment at being caught in the act. Instead, he offered Chen Ruowen an affable, interested smile that made his already handsome features even more magnetic.

Chen Ruowen remembered him as well—he was the schoolmate from No. 1 High who had been struck by her discarded cigarette earlier.

Though she didn’t know his name, she found his style of making an entrance particularly distasteful.

With a noncommittal hum, Chen Ruowen had no desire to engage further. Yet the man, seemingly oblivious, gave her a thorough once-over before tilting his head in another smile.

“Your makeup suits you today. You look beautiful.”

“At least you have good taste,” Chen Ruowen replied, her tone as curt as ever.

The man chuckled softly, unfazed by her lack of courtesy—in fact, he found it rather amusing. With one swift motion, he brushed off the minor actress clinging to him and extended a hand to Chen Ruowen.

“Gao Tang. May I introduce myself?”

The minor actress immediately shot Chen Ruowen a hostile glare. The woman’s mere presence had stolen all of Gao Tang’s attention, and she was simply too attractive—strikingly so, with a beauty that carried an air of dominance rather than charm. Such looks rarely endeared a woman to her peers, and the timing couldn’t be worse—it was the very moment she was trying to win Gao Tang over for the role.

The actress clung once more to Gao Tang’s arm, pressing herself against him in a show of possessive bravado and forcing a brittle smile.

“Mr. Gao, is this lady… also here to audition today?”

Chen Ruowen glanced disdainfully at Gao Tang’s outstretched hand, then brushed past him without a backward look, her shoulder colliding with his as she strode out of the lounge.

“Not interested.”