Floating Island
Li Meng's mental state became worse and worse. She couldn't sleep well at night at the beginning, and later she couldn't sleep all night. Even Jia Kun said that her complexion was too bad to go on stage. Jiang Qiunan ridiculed her for this, both openly and covertly. At first, she would refute him, but later she didn't even have the energy to refute him.
Their personal belongings were kept in the safe in the lounge. Li Meng took a break and wanted to take a vitamin from the safe. When she opened the safe, what caught her eye was a name tag!
The orange and yellow border clusters the numbers in the middle.
She was startled and picked up the name tag and clenched it tightly in her hand. She looked around and saw that there was no one around before she dared to take it out to confirm. 4001!
Not hers.
The appearance of the name tag filled her with immense panic. The stinging pain deep within her solar plexus shattered her sanity. She shouted in the empty lounge, "Who! Who is it? Why is there a name tag? What on earth do you want to do?"
There was a buzzing sound in her ears, and an illusion seemed to appear before her eyes. The person came against the light, and the upper body was blurred by the light and could not be distinguished clearly. A pair of slender legs under the pleated skirt were slowly walking towards her. Li Meng took a step back and fell to the ground suddenly.
"Ah..." She wanted to scream but couldn't. She could only clench the name tag tightly. The sharp corners pierced the delicate skin of her palm, and red liquid flowed out from her palm, but she was filled with fear.
"Sister Meng..."
The call from far away is ethereal and sad.
She trembled and said silently, "It wasn't me who changed it, it wasn't me. She has gone downstairs to accompany you. Don't come looking for me..."
"Sister Meng!"
A resounding voice woke her from her hallucination. The face that was blurred by the backlight gradually became clear. Li Meng was sweating profusely. "Yingying..."
"It's me." Wang Yingying supported her, "What's wrong with you, Sister Meng?"
The crisp sound of high heels hitting the floor was heard. Jiang Qiunan also appeared in front of her in a pleated skirt, arms folded across her chest, with a contemptuous smile, and spoke condescendingly, "Li Meng, are you suffering from some kind of mental illness? You look so pale, like a ghost."
Jiang Qiunan glanced at her and walked away.
"Sister Meng, you're bleeding!" Wang Yingying noticed her hand, "Let me bandage it for you."
Li Meng suddenly shook her off, holding the name tag tightly in her hand, and stood up hurriedly, "No need."
Originally thought that Jiang Qiunan said that she had a mental illness just to mock her, she never thought that she would directly report it to Jia Kun. Upon hearing this, Jia Kun immediately found a psychiatrist to evaluate Li Meng. At this moment, Li Meng was being forced to go to the clinic.
"I'm not sick!" She pushed and struggled to break free from their grip. Seeing her like this, Jia Kun became more determined to do this mental examination.
"What will happen to R&E if I leave? If I don't go, you must have colluded with those doctors to remove me from my position as captain. I won't go!" In a panic, Li Meng pulled out a fruit knife from the table and slashed it twice in the air.
Jia Kun was afraid that she would actually hurt someone, so he quickly comforted her, "Okay, okay, I won't look, I won't look. Put the knife down first, and let's talk, okay?"
"No!" Li Meng's eyes were red, "I don't want to, I don't want to end up like Tang Xiaoyou!"
Everyone in the room was at a loss as to what to do with her. Suddenly, the assistant rushed over and whispered in Jia Kun's ear, "Lin Ran is missing, and the police are here!"
Maybe the assistant was too nervous, but the news was heard by everyone in the room.
The fear crawled up her spine like an ant, causing pain and itchiness wherever it passed. Li Meng's eyes were unfocused and she muttered, "Lin Ran is missing..."
"He's disappeared... Is this revenge?"
Before Jia Kun had time to solve Li Meng's problem, the police came to his door with people, and he had no choice but to follow Guo Yan to settle it.
After he left, Li Meng suddenly lost all her strength, and the fruit knife fell to the ground with a clang.
After a while, she seemed to understand something and shouted, "I want to see Chen An! I want to see Chen An!"
She pushed through the crowd and rushed out, just in time to meet Chen An and his men coming to see Jia Kun. Chen An frowned when he saw such a thin and pale person. The last time he saw her, she was still a glamorous member of a girl group. How could she become like this in just a few days?
The next second, she said, "Officer Chen, I have something to tell you!"
Her voice was trembling, and her eyes were filled with tears as she pleaded for help. Jia Kun suddenly sensed something was wrong and grabbed her arm. He then smiled at Chen An and said, "Officer Chen, she hasn't been in a good mental state recently. Let her have a good rest."
"I'm not! I don't have any mental problems!" Li Meng struggled to break free from his shackles and looked at him angrily, "I'm fine!"
Jia Kun's smile froze, the fierceness in his eyes no longer concealed. Li Meng tried to return his gaze, determined to let go of everything. The two men, originally in a standoff, were interrupted by Chen An's sideways step forward. "When the police are investigating, citizens should cooperate, isn't that right, Manager Jia?" His voice was low, yet it carried a certain intimidating power that brooked no argument.
Li Meng took the initiative to ask to leave here. She chose a coffee shop far away from "Mengdie". She felt relieved only when she saw the car driving away.
The cafe was very quiet. Her mood had stabilized a lot. She even smiled and thanked the waiter. She seemed like a completely different person from the woman who had just lost control and gone crazy.
She slowly unwrapped the gauze wrapped around her right hand and said, "This wound was caused by a brand name, and also by... her six years ago."
Chen An didn't bother her. Tears welled up in her eyes. After a while, she said, "This company is simply cannibalistic!"
Six years ago, Li Meng left her hometown and came to a big city to make a living. In 2017 and 2018, talent shows became a trend in the circle. Audition posters could be seen everywhere and web ads popped up from time to time.
At first she just wanted to find a job in the city and live a good life, but she had a low level of education and could not find any leisurely job. She worked as a waitress, masseuse, and hairdresser, all of which required long working hours, but the salary was not ideal.
One day, she received a group of young girls who were wearing revealing clothes and going in and out of massage parlors, talking excitedly about talent shows. One of the girls was named Tang Xiaoyou.
Eighteen-year-old Tang Xiaoyou was indeed very beautiful, with broad eyebrows, a high nose bridge, thin lips, and eyes that always looked at you with sparkling eyes. She was very smart and memorable. At that time, she was not rich. While lying on the massage bed, she vowed to her little sister that she would become a big star.
Later she did succeed. She participated in a talent show and brought Li Meng into the show as well. So her first meeting with Li Meng was not at the recording site of "Stars with You", but in a dim underground massage club.
There were many people recruited through the talent show, all of them were girls around 17 or 18 years old, except... Luo Fanyin.
Luo Fanyin looked smaller than them, with a smaller frame and a timid nature, but her face was surprisingly similar to Tang Xiaoyou's, and some people even jokingly called them twin sisters. With this resemblance, Tang Xiaoyou's small team had one more person, so when she chose a room next time, she deliberately chose the few people who followed her together.
The draft that year was very grand and the competition was very fierce. More than 200 people were eliminated and only two teams were selected. One was signed by a small manufacturer, and the other was R&E.
"Luo Fanyin, who was originally scheduled to debut with us, disappeared on the eve of debut night."
Li Meng remembered that night when Luo Fanyin was suddenly notified that she could not make her debut because she had been selected.
She pulled out a name tag from her pocket and said, "This name tag is the direct cause of Luo Fanyin's death."
Chen An took the nameplate, "4001"
"Is there any special meaning?"
Li Meng frowned slightly. "Officer Chen, have you heard of the AB grading system?"
Rating? He didn't understand the entertainment industry, so he shook his head and said, "I don't know."
She suddenly smiled bitterly, "That's right, no one would know except Mengdie."
"Mengdie isn't a legitimate company. They recruit trainees in large numbers just to provide a steady supply of 'goods' to wealthy individuals." Her breathing became increasingly rapid. "The recruited trainees are categorized by management as either Category A or Category B. Category A trainees are promoted and packaged as stars to make money for Mengdie, while Category B trainees are sent to a secret island for the entertainment of wealthy individuals."
Chen An thought that "Mengdie" might be a shell company that engages in criminal activities such as trafficking in women, but it was obvious that things were not as simple as he thought.
"Luo Fanyin's withdrawal from the competition was not her original intention." Li Meng's eyes were filled with tears, and she slammed her hands on the glass table. "We saw her being taken away. She was put in a sack and taken away."
She almost couldn't hold on, her heart rate gradually climbed, and she felt like she couldn't breathe. "Tang Xiaoyou and I saw it."
"And all this is because Tang Xiaoyou replaced the brand name."
Chen An recovered the truth from her slightly messy words, "You mean, the person they originally chose was Tang Xiaoyou, but Tang Xiaoyou gave the name tag to Luo Fanyin, so Luo Fanyin was taken away. 4001 is actually Luo Fanyin's name tag, right?"
"...Yes." Li Meng continued, "In the talent show, we didn't have names, only numbers. Everywhere we looked, we saw dense numbers. The notification of who was selected was privately told to us by a Mengdie staff member. When Tang Xiaoyou was selected, she was excited and thought she was going to marry a wealthy sponsor and become a rich wife. Later, she found out that it was not a good place. So she replaced Luo Fanyin's name tag, and I helped her hide it as an accomplice."
"No one noticed such a big show?"
"The show was recorded first and then broadcast. By the time it aired, the debut competition had already ended. Later, Tang Xiaoyou found the director and pretended that he had mistyped his number. That was the end of the matter."
"Does everyone in Mengdie know about the AB level thing?"
Li Meng shook her head. "No. Only a few people know about it. After all, those who are rated A-level will rarely be demoted to B-level."
"Has anyone been promoted from B-rank to A-rank?"
Li Meng thought about it carefully and said, "Yes."
"who?"
"Lin Ran."
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