Divorce Application - Chapter 30

Chapter 30: Stepping on a Rival

Sheng Ge’s parents were both gold-medal producers, and her aunts, uncles, and cousins were all involved in the entertainment industry. If she wanted to debut, there were people from all walks of life ready to offer her advice.

So, Sheng Ge, who had shown musical talent since childhood, was taken under the wing of her grandfather, a male opera singer. After more than ten years of classical education, she defected to the entertainment industry to release albums and make niche music for young people.

Her grandfather came from a wealthy family with many children and even more grandchildren, but he only raised Sheng Ge from a young age. Even if she was rebellious and disobedient, the old man spoiled her on the inside and made sure she had everything she wanted.

During the day, Sheng Ge attended a new product launch for her father’s company and met Li Jinping and Liu Sinan, but didn’t say hello.

In the evening, she was taken to her grandfather’s 70th birthday party, and this time, she was honest and serious about saying hello.

Li Jinping was a peer of Sheng Ge’s grandfather, with a distant in-law relationship. They also had business dealings, so she came to wish him a happy birthday.

Liu Sinan and Sheng Ge had met a few times on set. Their age difference wasn’t huge. They were about to say hello at the banquet when Sheng Ge’s grandfather, with a smile, interrupted.

“Xiao Ge, this is your great-aunt Jinping,” the grandfather introduced her, dropping a small bomb. Liu Sinan saw Sheng Ge’s eyebrows twitch, her expression freeze for a second, and then she said with some difficulty to Li Jinping, who was in her thirties but looked like she was in her twenties, “Ms. Li… no, great-aunt, hello.”

Liu Sinan immediately turned red from trying not to laugh. Sheng Ge shot her several angry looks.

But in the next second, Liu Sinan couldn’t laugh anymore.

Her grandfather’s smiling gaze turned to Liu Sinan. “This is your great-aunt, Liu Sinan.”

In that instant, a torpedo hit both of them. Liu Sinan and Sheng Ge’s expressions turned to stone, then cracked and shattered into dust on the floor.

Li Jinping didn’t help them out of the awkward situation. Instead, she watched with a calm and amused smile as they fell apart.

The grandfather was an old-fashioned person. In the eyes of these old people, a radish might not be big, but you had to address it if it was in the right place in the family tree.

Whether she was a young girl or a three-year-old, a great-aunt was a great-aunt.

Sheng Ge was a little better than Liu Sinan. It took her a while to recover, and then she squeaked out a “great-aunt” in a voice as soft as a mosquito.

Liu Sinan’s mouth twitched. “…Mm.”

From then on, the atmosphere between her and Sheng Ge became a little strange.

“Sheng Ge’s singing is indeed very good,” Liu Sinan didn’t end up explaining her history with Sheng Ge to Qiqi and the others. But to cover up the fact that the rich only played with the rich and that rich families in the same city would definitely know each other, Liu Sinan added, “We’ve met once or twice on set.”

Joey thought more deeply. “Just keep your distance as much as possible. Sheng Ge has had a lot of negative press since her debut, all about her bad temper, acting like a diva, and being tactless and emotionally unintelligent. Boss, since you’re close to her, you don’t need to use her lack of emotional intelligence to highlight yourself. Just avoid her if you can.”

Qiqi also agreed. “In that dating reality show last month, there was a guy who secretly knew the girl and knew she had a bad temper. He intentionally provoked her on the show, making her lose her temper. Then he went to comfort her, guiding the audience to scold the girl and praise him. It was so cringy.”

Liu Sinan nodded. She also knew that couple. They broke up after the show, and their studios had a big fight. Then, Liu Sinan remembered something and couldn’t help but defend her. “Sheng Ge isn’t stupid. She’s just been spoiled a lot by her family since she was a child.”

After all, before she got into trouble, she and Wu Haoxue were no less spoiled than Sheng Ge.

It was just that for people like them, the family was strict, and even though their parents spoiled them and the people around them flattered them, they would act like they were the most beautiful in the world for a day. But that was just a phase of teenage rebellion. Kids from normal families would also think they were the best and wouldn’t listen to anyone during their rebellious phase. They were no different.

Once they passed their teenage years, they would become proper, serious people.

Wu Haoxue’s rebellious phase was worn down by her long years of studying. Liu Sinan’s was abruptly cut short at the age of 14. Maybe it resumed after she married Li Jinping at 18, or maybe she developed some new problems.

Liu Sinan looked down at the coffee in her hand, took a big gulp, and showed no emotion.

“Hey, that’s hot!” Joey quickly shouted.

Liu Sinan, who had already swallowed it, was scalded. Her eyes turned red. After a long pause, she opened her mouth, and smoke came out. “Mm.”

This problem of hers, constantly thinking about Li Jinping, should probably be given a name. Post-marital wife-nostalgia syndrome?

No, Li Jinping was already with other people and was starting a new chapter, so it wasn’t good to still refer to her as her “wife.”

So, it was divorce syndrome, which included a range of problems after a divorce, such as being unrestrained, returning to innocence, reflecting on the past, and missing everything.

She decided that every time she thought of Li Jinping again, she would do something drastic, like taking a big gulp of hot water to get scalded or getting up and bumping into a table corner. Over time, she might develop a stress reaction, and her brain would stop her before she even started reminiscing about Li Jinping.

“Boss, the director is calling us for a meeting.” Qiqi saw the notification in the group chat. “I asked Li Chaoran’s agent, and Ms. Li left after the rehearsal for work. I guess others have left too. Even a few of the washed-up ones didn’t go in person. Otherwise, we would have…”

“Let’s go,” Liu Sinan said, putting down her coffee. “I don’t have any other work now. Do I just grow mushrooms in the hotel?”

This kind of childish behavior, where you refuse to go if others’ principals don’t go, as if it makes you more dignified, is very common in the entertainment industry.

It’s said that this is to improve your status with the show’s crew. The more you cooperate, the more they will pick on you. Showing an appropriate attitude not only helps to increase your commercial value but also gains you some popularity on the show. After all, the entertainment industry is not strictly governed by social etiquette and morality. It’s all about one thing: being popular.

If you’re popular, and you don’t cooperate, it’s taken for granted and they’ll treat you with respect.

If you’re not popular, and you cooperate, they’ll just leave you in a corner and come back to you when they remember.

Liu Sinan was right in the awkward phase of becoming less popular. It was a good time to go out and see the various aspects of the entertainment industry that she hadn’t seen before.

Qiqi looked at Liu Sinan and was silent for three seconds. “Boss, Ms. Liu, I think you’re a little different from before.”

“Hmm?” Liu Sinan asked. “How am I different?”

Joey, on the side, smiled. “You’re thinner and prettier.”

Qiqi shook her head. “No, it’s just that you seem more grounded. It’s a good thing.”

Liu Sinan was amused by Qiqi’s peculiar metaphor. As she got up, she pointed at them. “One of you says I’m thinner, and the other says I’m more grounded. You’d better get your stories straight.”

After Liu Sinan said that, she walked out. Joey and Qiqi quickly followed. As Liu Sinan was making small talk with familiar staff members, Joey pulled Qiqi to the side. “Let’s get our stories straight. Don’t you think the boss is a little, you know?”

Qiqi frowned at him. “You know what?”

Joey “Bah”-ed. “I don’t mean anything bad. ‘You know’ is a good thing. The boss seems more down-to-earth. It’s not that she wasn’t down-to-earth before, but she’s just become very real. Before, she was a real shadow. Now, she’s a real person.”

Qiqi hit him on the shoulder, frustrated. “Isn’t that because… she got divorced? It’s all you men’s fault. Ms. Liu was such a good person. After the divorce, she barely even smiles. I’d rather Ms. Liu be the way she was before, carefree and always smiling.”

The heavy blow to his shoulder made Joey’s face twist for a few seconds. “How is it my fault?! Besides, Ms. Li isn’t a man!”

Qiqi looked at him with contempt. “Don’t talk about others in front of the boss. The boss looks calm, but her mood might be terrible. Don’t bother her.”

“I wouldn’t dare…” Before Joey could finish, Qiqi was already chasing after Liu Sinan. He quickly followed as well.

At the director’s meeting, Feng Mingming also came. Sheng Ge and Li Chaoran were not there. Among the remaining washed-up idols, it seemed that only the very washed-up ones were present.

The director said there was a small problem. “Two people can’t make it, so we’re planning to adjust the order of appearance. We’ll try to put similar types together.”

After he said that, the director looked at Liu Sinan and then at Feng Mingming, who was sitting behind her. “You are both models. We’ll put the two of you together. Is that okay?”

Liu Sinan didn’t say anything. Any normal person could see that scrambling the order would be more beneficial for the audience’s experience, especially with those washed-up idols who were basically packaged on assembly lines by several companies. Their dances all had the same style and they could basically perform a group dance.

But before she could say anything, Feng Mingming, who was behind her, had already expressed her opinion. “I don’t have a problem with that.”

The director looked at Liu Sinan. Liu Sinan thought for a moment and then nodded. “I’m fine with it too.”

After the meeting, everyone started to leave. Liu Sinan was walking behind everyone else. As she passed a camera, she reached out to straighten a lens cap that had fallen off.

“Be careful.” Liu Sinan picked it up and put it back in place, smiling at the intern in front of her.

The intern, holding a notebook with both hands, looked up at the script, then at Liu Sinan. She called out to Liu Sinan before she could leave the room.

“Ms. Liu,” the intern walked up to Ms. Liu and said timidly, “Can I take one more single shot of you?”

Liu Sinan looked at the camera and smiled. “You’re doing a lot of different jobs.”

She was picking up artists, listening to scripts with the director, and also doing camerawork.

The intern lowered her head, her eyes darting around. “Just, just one shot is enough.”

Liu Sinan walked back to her original position and, following her request, gave a smile for the camera.

“Is that good?” Liu Sinan asked.

The intern nodded frantically. She walked over and said, “Ms. Liu, look here…”

When the two of them were very close, the intern suddenly covered the microphone on her neck and said quickly and quietly, “Ms. Liu, don’t get angry on stage. Please, don’t.”

After she said that, she stepped back, as if she had only come over to show Liu Sinan the photo she had taken.

Liu Sinan’s expression didn’t change. After she heard it, she winked at the intern.

The intern didn’t say anything else and left with the camera.

After returning to her dressing room, she gathered her things and got into the car to go back to the hotel. On the way, Liu Sinan told them what had happened.

Qiqi asked, “Was it that young woman with the low ponytail?”

Liu Sinan said yes. “She told me not to get angry, and she specifically said on stage.”

Joey said, “Is it related to the change in order?”

“I don’t know, it should be. On stage, I’m either dancing or… receiving comments,” Liu Sinan stopped. After three seconds, she made a “tsk” sound and repeated, “Receiving comments.”

Qiqi thought it was strange. “That doesn’t make sense. Even if the judges are being unprofessional and want to be critical of the boss’s dancing, why would they specifically tell her not to get angry? She’s not the boss’s assistant or agent or anything. And even if she wanted to remind someone, wouldn’t it be better to remind Sheng Ge, who’s known to have a short fuse? Our boss is always so calm in front of the camera.”

Liu Sinan shook her head. “I don’t care. She was right about one thing. Don’t get angry.”

In front of the camera, getting angry would ruin her image. The audience watched a variety show to be happy and laugh. If you were on screen with a long face, people would definitely have something to say.

Behind the camera, there was even less reason to get angry. If there was a problem, solve it. If it couldn’t be solved, like Li Jinping… Liu Sinan punched herself in the stomach.

She tensed her abs and punched herself again.

Diaphragmatic breathing, always remembering to pull in her stomach and sink her ribs.

One more punch.

Mm, can’t get angry.

While Liu Sinan was silently chanting “empty your mind, don’t get angry,” Lan Qi called.

Her tone was calm, but her words came out so fast that they didn’t sound calm at all. “You have to look at the trending topics! The show crew released a clip of you dancing as a behind-the-scenes video!”

Liu Sinan was shocked. How could the show crew’s editing and post-production and review process be so fast in just a few hours?

She opened the trending topics. Under the “Dancing Queen” hashtag was “Liu Sinan’s Hellish Art.”

The dance style Liu Sinan chose was modern dance. In the market, especially in recent years, classical dance, street dance, and ballet all had a fixed audience. Modern dance was a more niche genre.

The clip they had released was from the first half of her dance, which had a theme. The state of her body was different in each stage of the dance—the beginning, development, and end. The clip they had cut out was of her being pulled to dance after she mistakenly entered a mental hospital, showing a kind of unbalanced and uncontrolled panic.

The comments below were all:

If you can’t dance, don’t come out and hurt our eyes.

Here she is again, trying to make money. She only has one thing going for her, her looks. Why can’t she just be a pretty face?

What the f*ck is she dancing? I’m not watching this show if she’s in it.

A perfect example of art from the underworld.

Is this person actually sick?

“Why isn’t anyone praising my dancing skills?” Liu Sinan finished reading the trending topics, skimming over the insults. She smiled. “This clip doesn’t even test my skills.”

Qiqi and Joey were already furious.

Lan Qi sighed on the other end of the phone. “Your popularity is not very good. Especially with your previous status, it’s easy to get hated by the entire internet.”

Liu Sinan said, “Being hated is still being popular. The filming is in a few days. I’m confident in my performance on stage.”

Lan Qi could only think that way too. But she paused for a moment and asked, “Why didn’t you choose ballet? Or at least, a classical dance in a traditional costume? After all, your skills are really amazing. They all started late, but you’ve been dancing since you were a child…”

Why did she choose modern dance?

Liu Sinan had actually hesitated. But when she tried to dance ballet again, she found that her skills had regressed too much. Even if she performed it beautifully and it was very captivating, an expert would see it as a performance with too many flaws.

She wasn’t an artist or a dancer, but she had won a national youth award for ballet when she was a child. To reappear now with such a performance would be more painful than killing her.

Ballet was about skill, and classical dance was about skill and rhythm. The most important criterion for modern dance was its power to move people.

She could work on the theme design and stage presentation.

She wanted to start over and give the audience a satisfying performance.

“Ballet is too hard on the body,” Liu Sinan gave an excuse. “And my arch isn’t as flexible anymore. The judges at the rehearsal today include a real master. If I went up there and danced ‘The Little Swan,’ she would definitely scold me off the stage.”

Lan Qi sighed again. “Alright. I believe in you. You can do well in any dance style you choose.”

After she said that, less than a few seconds later, there was some talking on Lan Qi’s end. Then, Lan Qi’s gloomy voice came through.

“Feng Mingming’s team bought another trending topic.”

The show crew didn’t just release Liu Sinan’s clip. Everyone else had a video too.

Feng Mingming had chosen to wear a traditional costume. The dance style she chose… Liu Sinan stared at it for a long time without saying anything.

Qiqi frowned. “Her dancing is just so-so. Why are all the comments praising her? They’re even calling her ‘Little Concubine,’ but she’s not even wearing a Tang dynasty dress, it’s a Hanfu!”

Joey was also watching. He asked Liu Sinan, “What dance style is she doing?”

Liu Sinan was silent for a moment. “She’s dancing ‘Wuya.'”

The song she chose was “Wuya.” Joey heard Liu Sinan’s difficult and exasperated evaluation and sighed heavily. “But the few poses she struck are indeed very beautiful… A model wearing a traditional costume. Feng Mingming has amplified all her strengths. The comments below are all talking about a few of her stunning fashion shows in traditional costumes.”

Qiqi was furious. “Stunning, my foot! Even if it was stunning, they shouldn’t step on us! This is definitely an army of internet trolls!”

The direction of the trending topics was gradually changing from praising Feng Mingming to insulting Liu Sinan.

Liu Sinan felt that it was probably because Feng Mingming’s team noticed that the praise was a bit too exaggerated, causing some discerning passersby to leave some negative comments. So they changed their strategy to insult Liu Sinan together.

This way, they could unite against a common enemy.

Liu Sinan was so angry she laughed. “What kind of people are these?”

She took out her phone and subconsciously wanted to dial a number. Then she would put on a wronged look and complain that someone was bullying her and that she needed her to stand up for her.

Her finger stopped on the “A” list, which now had only a blank space.

She paused for a few seconds, then moved her finger and opened WeChat.

nan: Call me some names.

xu: You shameless little demon, don’t hide behind your phone! I’ll rip your mouth apart!

nan: Why would you rip my mouth apart if I’m not saying anything?

xue: You’re not young anymore, you’ve accomplished nothing, you have no money, and no job. That’s what I’m talking about, you smelly, unwanted piece of trash!

After the divorce, she didn’t get much of Li Jinping’s assets, but what she had saved over the years was enough. And at this moment, she was on her way home from work.

nan: …You’re so lame. Can you call me something more relatable?

It was quiet for a few seconds on the other end, then a photo was sent.

The connection was not good, so the photo took a few seconds to load. It was a bit blurry, and she had to click to see the original image.

Yannu was lying on the cushion under the sofa with her ears drooping. Her front paws were bandaged, and an IV drip was hanging over her.

That cushion was one she often hugged.

xue: You can’t even take care of your own dog. What good are you?!

nan: What happened to Yannu? Is she sick? Why is she so thin?

xue: The last time I went to your house, I got the housekeeper Wang’s WeChat. She just took that photo. Yannu had a bath yesterday and was probably a little unhappy. She ran out when no one was paying attention. They found her in the middle of the night and she probably caught a cold.

Liu Sinan’s heart suddenly felt like it was being squeezed and twisted several times.

nan: F*ck it, she got a bath again!

xue: …Watch your language.

nan: My dog is being bullied, and you want me to be civilized? Screw civilization!

Liu Sinan immediately bought a plane ticket to fly back. She didn’t care about the trending topics. Let them say whatever they wanted. Lan Qi wasn’t a pushover. If they dared to buy internet trolls and set the tone, they shouldn’t be afraid of a backlash later.

Both Qiqi and Joey wanted to go with her, but Liu Sinan thought about it and took Joey with her.