Chapter 50: Apprenticeship
When Yu Baozhi uttered those words, the paparazzi, who were afraid of not having enough juicy gossip, instantly went crazy. They scrambled to hand over their microphones, recorders, and other equipment, afraid of missing out on some classic moment.
Meanwhile, the paparazzi responsible for taking photos frantically snapped pictures of Yu Baozhi and Huang Qianyan. For a moment, the flashes from the cameras on the scene converged into a dazzling white light, almost blinding everyone.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Huang Qianyan, who was barely able to spare a little attention, used her strength to push Li Sishi directly down next to the seat behind her.
Caught off guard by this sudden attack, Li Sishi was momentarily stunned, but she quickly recovered, drawing on her extensive experience from her past life of dealing with mistresses and dodging paparazzi: Huang Qianyan was taking the opportunity to get her out of this mess!
This situation is certainly not the same as the street bickering of back then. In addition, although Huang Qianyan is pitiful, she has undoubtedly made a mistake. Her previous intervention was already risky. Now, even if she wanted to take another "risk," Huang Qianyan herself probably wouldn't support her doing so.
Thinking of this, Li Sishi crouched down and squeezed out of the crowd that was still pushing in. Then, while fixing her hair and tidying her appearance, she quickly blended into the group of onlookers who had been watching the gossip.
Soon, with Yu Baozhi's screams of pain in her chest, the coffee shop staff and the police they had called in worked together to finally manage to stop the frenzied paparazzi.
Immediately afterwards, Huang Qianyan, who was also pale-faced, was forced into an ambulance through a passage cleared by the police and later by medical staff.
Seeing the group of crazy paparazzi chasing the car with their weapons or even driving after it, Li Sishi huddled in the corner and breathed a sigh of relief, half worried and half relieved.
Then, she tidied herself up again, lowered her head, and pretended to be a playful schoolgirl rushing to play after school, and ran all the way to the nearby ice room.
She found a nearby phone booth, called Lu Yiting and Zuo Lili, and received the news that they would come to pick her up. Then, Li Sishi took out a small notebook from her bag, went into the ice cream parlor, found a corner, ordered some food, and then pretended to be studying diligently while looking down at her notes.
A short while later, Zuo Lili, the assistant wearing a baseball cap and casual clothes, came in and took Li Sishi out.
On the way back, Lu Yiting, sitting in the passenger seat, already knew some of the news, so she looked at Li Si...
Shi's gaze held a scrutinizing quality: "Why did you go to the coffee shop with Huang Qianyan?"
Li Sishi organized her thoughts and briefly explained why Huang Qianyan had asked her to talk: "Because Ms. Zhuang and I had some disagreements on certain issues, and Ms. Huang happened to come in and overhear, so she asked me out to help Ms. Zhuang and me clear up the misunderstanding..."
"She meant well." Hearing this explanation, Lu Yiting accepted it, but was still somewhat speechless.
The reason is simple—anyone who knows that their boss has signed a new successor who is suspected of replacing them will feel uneasy for a while. But Huang Qianyan is different. After adjusting her mindset, she even plans to promote this "successor".
He probably really thought he could finally "get married and settle down," so he became less and less interested in his career.
She dislikes celebrities who are obsessed with love to an extreme, because no matter how talented or lucky they are, their IQ and EQ plummet to an appalling level once they encounter so-called true love...
After sending Li Sishi back to her temporary villa and instructing Zuo Lili to take good care of her, Lu Yiting rushed off to Zhuang Menghua's place to report the "unexpected incident" that had occurred that day.
Being confined to the villa to avoid the storm wasn't easy, but fortunately, Zhuang Menghua and Lu Yiting didn't completely prevent her from accessing outside information. So, Li Sishi was able to get the latest news about Huang Qianyan and recent trends in the entertainment industry from the newspapers and magazines that Zuo Lili bought every day.
Undoubtedly, Yu Baozhi's words were incredibly impactful, dominating newspaper headlines and magazine covers for several days. This also led to a series of subsequent developments: Huang Qianyan's wealthy boyfriend, Yu Baozhi's philandering son whom she couldn't bear to scold or punish, and Cen Jianluo, a prominent tycoon in Hong Kong, all responded to this recently popular topic in an interview.
He said that he was just playing around with Huang Qianyan and that he would never divorce his current wife because of Huang Qianyan, speaking with an air of self-righteousness.
Huang Qianyan's situation worsened because of his response. People who had sympathized with her changed their tune, not only criticizing her for shamelessly breaking up other people's families, but also linking it to the upcoming movie adapted from a folk legend in which Huang Qianyan plays the lead role, saying that a bad woman like Huang Qianyan who breaks up other people's families is absolutely unsuitable to play the virtuous and chaste Bai Suzhen.
Fortunately, with Zhuang Menghua's strong public relations efforts and the film's...
Thanks to the director's strong support for Huang Qianyan, the film was eventually scheduled for release. Not only did it not fail, but it also gained a lot of negative publicity from the controversy.
Li Sishi didn't know much about what happened after that.
However, when Li Sishi saw in the newspaper that Huang Qianyan's musical prodigy ex-boyfriend had taken the initiative to support her, she couldn't help but call Huang Qianyan. Although the musical prodigy ex-boyfriend's actions at this time were indeed quite good, unfortunately, there is a saying in the world that the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment.
If Huang Qianyan returns to her musical prodigy ex-boyfriend out of gratitude, the revelation of his illegitimate child will only cause her even greater heartbreak.
The reason why Huang Qianyan retired from the entertainment industry so early was largely due to these two consecutive major blows.
Unfortunately, whether to avoid implicating her or because she was too busy lately, the calls Li Sishi made either went unanswered or were not answered by the person herself. Even when she asked the Filipino maid who answered the phone to leave a message for Huang Qianyan, there was no response.
Over time, Li Sishi temporarily gave up the idea of talking to Huang Qianyan again and instead focused on balancing her daily studies and professional training.
While busy dealing with Huang Qianyan's affairs, Zhuang Menghua reported to Lu Yiting on Li Sishi's actions during this period and was very satisfied with her "sensible" behavior.
One day, after Li Sishi finished her vocal lesson, Zhuang Menghua took some time to visit her and asked if she wanted to find a singer mentor so that she could better establish herself in this seniority-based industry and make her path on the fiercely competitive singing career easier.
Li Sishi thought about it carefully and asked, "I want to find Le Ji, is that okay?"
Upon hearing Li Sishi's answer, Zhuang Menghua raised an eyebrow slightly: "Could you explain why you chose Leji?"
Generally speaking, at Li Sishi's age, the singers she likes should be of the generation of Lun Yongnan and Rong Juezhang. Even if she takes an unconventional approach and likes female singers, it would have to be someone like Pei Yansang.
If it were Huang Qianyan, her request to become Le Yun's apprentice would be quite in line with the "aesthetics of the times".
Unfortunately, Huang Qianyan's singing skills were not even as good as Le Yun's, who repeatedly lamented that the child only had filial piety but not much talent.
At least, even though their singing isn't great, they can still sing in tune...
She had gone to great lengths to give Wong Sin-yin the opportunity to compete in the Miss Hong Kong pageant.
Sai was invited to perform as a guest, hoping to help Huang Qianyan, whose career had stagnated, to start a new chapter in her singing career. However, the next day, Hong Kong media criticized the performance as "not only a visual feast, but also making the singing of Hou Beihua and Shang Hanyou, who were performing on the same stage, sound like heavenly music. Moreover, it caused Shang Hanyou, who loves to sing, to suffer from PTSD as a soul singer..."
“When I was training for Miss Hong Kong, I met Lok Kei. He sang very well and was also very good at teaching people to sing…” Lee Sze-sze explained softly.
“Le Ji is indeed very good at teaching students, but—I think you want more than just to be his student, right?” Zhuang Menghua looked Li Sishi up and down again.
Le Yun is known in the music industry for his excellent singing skills and ability to teach. Many companies would try to get new artists to his company through connections, hoping to earn the title of "Le Yun's student".
Although none of Le Yun's students have yet reached his level, they have contributed to the phenomenon that Le Yun, at a young age, already has students all over the world...
Given this situation, Li Sishi's serious request clearly indicates that her target is not a "student" whom she could easily ask for a favor.
"That's right. If possible, I hope to become Yue Ji's apprentice. I really like his songs and hope to share the stage with him someday." Li Sishi acted like a little fangirl.
Seeing that Li Sishi really liked Le Yun in a particularly unconventional way, Zhuang Menghua felt much more relaxed while acknowledging her judgment: it seemed that Li Sishi really just liked Le Yun, a veteran singer, and that she didn't find out from somewhere that Le Yun wanted to fund a mermaid-themed movie that she had long dreamed of making next year, so she wanted to take the opportunity to get closer to Le Yun in order to become the leading lady.
Of course, by then she also planned to recommend Li Sishi to that side—however, the impression of her actively offering the opportunity versus Li Sishi actively seeking it was clearly different.
She likes "good kids" who have a little bit of their own opinions, but who must be as obedient and sensible as possible.
Li Sishi's previous "rebellious"
That had already reached the limit of her tolerance.
If it weren't for the recent scandal involving Huang Qianyan, she probably wouldn't have so quickly "forgave Li Sishi" and started planning resources for her, preparing for Li Sishi to immediately start filming as soon as she steps down as Miss Hong Kong next summer.
"I'll help you contact Le Yun. You should work hard on your studies and training during this time, and try to get Le Yun's attention." Zhuang Menghua finally nodded, indicating that she would make the arrangements.
"Thank you, Miss Zhuang." Li Sishi thanked Zhuang Menghua and then obediently watched her leave.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
