"Can you bring me along to make some money in the stock market?" Fairy Sister leaned in close, batting her eyes as she asked. Who doesn't like an easy chance to make money?
"You're the financial backer, so of course I have to take you with me!" After reaching this level of familiarity between them, there was nothing left to hide, especially since the principal was put up by her anyway.
As it happened, a good opportunity had come up recently, but Chen Hao couldn't get his hands on a ticket, so he needed the young girl to step up in person.
He mentioned it to the young girl, and she agreed immediately. Just to go and make an appearance, and she could actually earn this much?
"I'll have my mom ask about it. I'll put up the money for this, how about we split the profits evenly?"
"Deal!" Without Fairy Sister, Chen Hao wouldn't have been able to pull off this deal by himself. By leaking a bit of information, he would get money for nothing—a massive win.
"Then I'll just play around for a bit longer. Once you start your company, I'll come join you." The young girl asked to be taken in once more.
"Alright, alright. When the time comes, we'll start a company together as partners, and I'll include you." Since this girl knew his secret, there was no point talking about formal contracts; he might as well bring her along for the ride. Just the fact that she could discuss future intelligence with him was worth the status of a business partner.
"Uncle, you're so handsome. The more I look at you, the more handsome you get." Seeing that Chen Hao was willing to bring her along, the young girl beamed and started flirting again.
"Am I not handsome if I don't take you along?" Chen Hao gave her a disdainful look. She was so worldly, not fairy-like at all.
"Handsome! Handsome no matter what. Uncle, can you tell me again about all the movies I'll be starring in later? I didn't pay close enough attention before."
Earlier, Chen Hao had run down all her future works for Fairy Sister. It wasn't that she hadn't paid attention; she just hadn't truly believed what Chen Hao was saying. Who could possibly star in 19 consecutive box-office flops? It was simply too absurd.
Chen Hao smiled at the corner of his mouth. "Do you believe what I said now?"
"I've always believed you, alright? Otherwise, I wouldn't have gone against my mom's pressure and invested all my money in Wanted. I just wanted to listen carefully one more time to see just how clueless my mom really is."
When Chen Hao had reviewed her filmography back then, he had told her that she had a terrible eye for picking scripts. But the stubborn girl had insisted that choosing scripts was the manager's job, so it had to be her old lady's poor taste, not her fault.
Even as an outsider, Chen Hao had wanted to cry injustice on behalf of Mama Liu. Even if it was your own mother, starring in over a dozen bad movies in a row would get her replaced. Therefore, it could only mean that she herself had a terrible eye for picking scripts, which was why she kept choosing awful ones.
However, since the young girl was letting her mother take the blame, Chen Hao didn't expose her—after all, the young girl still needed to save a little face.
"Do you really want to hear it all over again?" Chen Hao was full of enthusiasm. His occupational hazard was acting up, and his urge to roast was intense.
Before, when he had been lodging inside the young girl's body and living under someone else's roof, he had been fairly polite during the review. But now that he had his own body, she couldn't blame him for returning to his status as the head of her anti-fans.
"Listen!" The young girl was stubborn to a fault.
"Fine, let's start with your next movie. Earlier I said that because you didn't sign with Huayi and instead snatched the female lead role in The Forbidden Kingdom, you were blacklisted by them."
"After you were blacklisted by Huayi, you couldn't get any acting gigs in the mainland anymore and had no choice but to develop your career in the Hong Kong and Taiwan entertainment circles. But the Hong Kong and Taiwan circles back then were already in their twilight years, while the mainland was developing better and better. Any actors and directors with half a brain all wanted to come to the mainland to develop."
"Netizens described your move to the Hong Kong circle back then as somewhat similar to joining the Kuomintang army in 1949. By the way, do you get the 'joining the KMT army in 1949' meme?"
The young girl was speechless. "I'm not illiterate, you know. The KMT retreated to Taiwan in '49 and New China was founded—who doesn't know that?"
Chen Hao feigned extreme surprise. "Oh? An American like you cares about modern Chinese history?"
The young girl giggled. "Uncle, I moved my citizenship back home, you know."
This time it was Chen Hao's turn to be astonished. "Your mom agreed to that?"
The young girl tilted her head and asked curiously, "Why wouldn't my mom agree? I make all my own decisions. Besides, you're the one who said the mainland will have the best development in the future—I'd have to be an idiot to keep my American citizenship."
Chen Hao was somewhat taken aback. Although he was an anti-fan, he only ever trashed the girl's acting skills and didn't really have any opinions about her nationality. After all, she had been taken to the US by her mother when she was a child; what could she possibly have done at such a young age?
Therefore, he hadn't tried to persuade her to change her nationality either, only complaining about the future chaos in America and praising the mainland's prosperity. And just like that, the girl had resolved the citizenship issue all by herself—from now on, the haters would have one less major piece of ammunition against her.
Seeing that Chen Hao was still dazed, she urged him on, "Keep talking about the works. What's the next one?"
Chen Hao snapped back to reality. Since the young girl was looking to be abused, he wouldn't hold back either, transforming directly into a venomous, snarky blogger.
"Your next project is called Love in Disguise. The director is the Taiwan singer Wang Laoer—not only a rookie, but a complete outsider. The results were entirely predictable."
"The movie's plot was childish to the point of absurdity, falling short even of third-rate idol dramas. The female lead you played gets hit by the male lead's car, yet sits in front of the car playing the guzheng, complete with cheap-looking butterflies flying around courtesy of fifty-cent special effects. It's truly like absurdity opening the door for absurdity—absurd to the extreme."
"Is it really that funny? My mom really is unreliable. If I had read a script like this, I definitely wouldn't have taken it," the young girl covered her mouth with a giggle, once again shifting the blame.
"While filming this movie, you also got caught up in a romance rumor. But it wasn't with the male lead Wang Laoer; instead, it was with the second female lead, Zeng Ge."
"That's the Zeng Ge from Leo Zodiac on Super Girl a couple of months ago. That girl either genuinely had feelings for you or just wanted to ride your coattails for clout, and she entangled with you for quite a long time. Because of that, you've also been constantly rumored to be a lesbian..."
The young girl stopped laughing at that. Being rumored to have undergone gender reassignment and abortion wasn't enough; they had to add being a lesbian on top of that?
Her blood was boiling—her fair, tender little fists clenched tight!
Ignoring the fact that the young girl's eyes were practically shooting fire, Chen Hao continued his roast: "A Painted Skin remake. To be honest, you deserve some credit for having the courage to challenge a classic role like Nie Xiaoqian."
"Too bad the plot of this movie is brain-dead. The Nie Xiaoqian you played gets caught up in a love triangle, having romantic entanglements with both Yan Chixia and Ning Caichen. You fall in love with Ning Caichen because of a single piece of candy, yet your true love is supposed to be Yan Chixia—it makes absolutely no sense."
"And this movie is purely your own fault. Your acting was left miles in the dust by Joey Wong. The Nie Xiaoqian you played had plenty of innocence but lacked allure—no, wait, not that it lacked allure, it lacked even a goddamn ounce of the charm of a seductive vixen! You looked like a possessed Husky!"
The young girl's face darkened slightly, but Chen Hao ignored her and kept rambling.
"The Last Supper was an epic historical flop. The original director was the biased Lu Taijun, but this guy earned himself the nickname 'Lu Slow-Motion.' After being in production for over a year, the cast hadn't even been fully finalized, and not a single frame of the plot had been shot. Talk about dragging your feet."
"Later, the production crew temporarily swapped directors, only to replace him with a Hong Konger who knew nothing about history to helm the project. No matter what historical drama that airheaded director shoots, he always loves using UFO-shaped helmets. He never researches costumes, props, or makeup, creating styles that are neither fish nor fowl. He made the Contention Between Chu and Han look like a Hong Kong suspense thriller..."