Perfect Fiancé Chapter 36

Hey everybody! Welcome back~ I realise I've been apologising on the posts often lately (which I really am sorry) for the late releases, so I instead I have some good news! I'm gonna be taking my leave soon!

With some murmurings to the Discord members of Meraki, I've promised to make sure I finished PF by the end of year! So… While stockpiling is still unsuccessfully going on, I'll do my best! I'm motivated and hopefully, with your awesome comments and replies, I'll get the booster I need to finish it! Fingers crossed everyone!

So here's our  that we've made and we wanna give our special thanks to Eleanor Woodall who has supported us in our translation~ Thank you! It warms our hearts to see your support to us!

Also, here's our ! It's getting busy for all of us in real life lately, but still, we would love to have ya here with us in Discord! Join us~ ?

Alrighty, without further ado, it's… Chapter 36!

"Xue Kai?" Su Jin raised her head and asked as she looked at the final list of names that Lu Xi had handed over to her.

Xue Kai was one of the auditionees for the role of the second male lead, Mu Cheng. How could it be said- although this person had no shortcomings, he was not the most outstanding candidate either. There were some other candidates that were equally matched to him and they had all been part of the preliminary selection that the two of them had decided upon yesterday. However, who could have guessed that Lu Xi's choice would have ultimately been him.

"Mm." Lu Xi nodded, "based on my intuition, I think that he will turn out to be a worthwhile choice."

"A worthwhile choice?" Su Jin arched an eyebrow but did not express an opinion about the answer Lu Xi gave. Anyways, since he was one of the people that they had narrowed down their selection to; she could not find any fault with his choice at all.

And with that, the three vacant roles had been decided upon.

The female lead Tong Yao would be played by Mu Qing, the male lead Cheng Yuan would be played by Bai Haoqi and the second male lead Mu Cheng would be played by Xue Kai.

Among them, only the female lead actress Mu Qing was an artist from Sheng Ming. However, she was not from the Shenhai branch office, but in fact, a person that had been newly a.s.signed to the main company.

Since the candidates for the main roles had been determined, Qin An then began to follow-up with all of the people that had come for the auditions, one after another.

In Junan's Studio.

A man in his twenties leaned back against a sofa. His eagle eyes were slightly narrowed and his face was overcast with a gloomy expression.

"Junan." A woman with a maroon bob and dressed in high heels came in the door and as she looked at an a.s.sistant, who stood helplessly to the side, she sat down beside him.

"Look," as she pointed to the pile of files in front of them, she calmly spoke, "there are so many scripts here. Among them, there is no lack of scripts sent over here by famous directors from this country. Furthermore, some have already set up a production team and crew; once you agree to one, you won't even need to audition and will immediately be cast as the male lead."

The man's head slightly moved.

Noticing this, she did not say anything further but carefully placed the scripts in her hand down and spread them out over the coffee table.

Zhuo Junan gazed at the screenplays that covered the surface of the coffee table and frowned. Finally, he spoke.

"Shen jie, I understand your meaning." Sighing deeply, he sat upright and tugged irritably at the deep blue necktie around his neck, "I am neither lacking scripts nor am I lacking money. However, I simply cannot let this go."

"Isn't it just a role?" Shen Na frowned, "you are the one that I have single-handedly risen to popularity. Over the years, you have had your share of losses through auditions. Think back to when you were an E-list celebrity and then where you are now; you've walked the path to get to this position of Film Emperor today. You did not have a straight, direct and smooth path to success but even while going through all of those trials and hards.h.i.+ps, I have always felt that you were a very adaptable and astute person. Don't tell me that a White Magnolia trophy cup has cause you to become arrogant with no sense of propriety?"

As she got to the end of what she had wanted to say, her words had a faintly severe tone to them.

"Shen jie, first please don't get angry. That was not what I meant." Zhuo Junan shook his head, "if the one who brushed me off today was only Lu Xi, I would definitely have no objections and reflect upon the areas that I need to work on to have not caught his eye. However…"

"What do you mean?" The frown between Shen Na's brows grew deeper and the refined look on her face was filled with some doubt, "was the one who held the audition, not Director Lu? He is Sheng Ming's little young master afterall. However, even if it was the producer, he too would not dare to hastily make decisions right?"

"It wasn't the producer." Zhuo Junan shook his head slightly, and recalled the state of affairs during the interview, as his eyes flashed with extremely deep resentment, "it was a woman."

"During the interview, I could tell that Director Lu was quite satisfied with my performance. Moreover, among the people auditioning for Cheng Yuan, I could be considered as the person with the highest status within the group. Prior to the screen test, I was under the impression that the audition was simply a formality and that getting the role would be a cinch."

"Afterwards, when I had already stepped out of the door, I turned my head back to look and I just happened to see the woman sitting beside him shaking her head." Zhuo Junan slightly snorted in indignation. "At this point, I had yet to know the results from the audition. However, once the results were sent out, did I only happen to recall that moment. At the time, I was able to lip-read the words that Director Lu spoke and it was exactly these three words: 'how was it?'."

In the past, he had learned how to lipread over a period of time for a drama. Although he had only learned a few things, still, this sort of simple phrase of words could still be deduced.

"Woman?" Shen Na lowered her head slightly and asked thoughtfully, "what did she look like?"

"What did she look like?" Zhuo Junan's dark eyes squinted as his thin lips parted to spit out a phrase:

"Beautiful."

Beautiful? Shen Na was surprised, how could one describe her as such. Beautiful women were aplenty, who would know who this woman was?

"Black tresses like a waterfall with exquisite facial features and most importantly of all, a pair of phoenix eyes…"

Phoenix eyes… Beautiful… Woman… Shen An's eyes shone and flipped through the photo gallery in her phone.

One by one, photographs were swiped pa.s.s before her eyes, when eventually, an exquisite face appeared on the screen.

"Is this her?" Shen Na then raised her phone up in front of Zhuo Junan.

The girl in the photo was dressed in an extremely common and standard blue and white school uniform. Although her looks were somewhat soft and immature, her facial features had already begun to reveal her gorgeous looks.

"That's her." Zhuo Junan nodded affirmatively.

Even in the entertainment circle that was centred upon looks, this sort of remarkable beauty was rarely seen.

"She's Su Jin." Shen Na spoke heavily.

"Su Jin?" Zhuo Junan was startled, "the eldest young lady of the Su family that was wrongly swapped at birth?"

"Mm." Shen An nodded, "the Su family's eldest young lady, the fiancee of Director Lu."

Zhuo Junan nodded slightly too. The name, Su Jin, naturally he knew had a well-known reputation. Amongst the bigwigs of Shenhai, with regards to those that he could possibly come into contact with, his choice had always been to keep a certain distance away as far as possible. Yet, if he was unable to distance himself, then he would flatter and respect. Only, this eldest young lady of the Su family had never interfered with the entertainment circle matters in the past. It could be said that everyone minded their own business and went their own ways, therefore, at the time he had not recognized and therefore did not acknowledge her presence there at the audition.

Yet, as he thought more about how a woman, who obviously did not understand his talent for performance, and thus personally rejected him; in his heart, the resentment surged forth once more.

"I did not offend this eldest young lady!" He could not help but furrowed his brows.

"Who knows why she suddenly was opposed to you?" Shen Na was rather helpless too and could only speak words of consolement, "Junan, don't think about it anymore. Whether it was this eldest young lady or Director Lu-"

"-both are people that we cannot afford to cause problems for."

Zhuo Junan quietly dropped his gaze and reached out to pick a script from the coffee table.

In a flash, a few days had pa.s.sed.

The opening ceremony(1) for the drama《Sunflower》was held in the small auditorium in Shenhai University.

(1) 开机仪式 (kāi jī yí shì) – The meaning behind this is exactly how it was written. It is an opening ceremony for filming and performing in China, the custom there is to wish and pray for the filming process to be smooth sailing and without any accidents to occur. It began due to the fragile nature of film cameras in the past where a damaged camera could result in tons of losses due to retakes and equipment damages.

Due to two-thirds of this drama happening at a university, under Lu Xi's instruction, Qin An had already discussed renting the university grounds with Shenhai University.

After the ceremony, Lu Xi and some of the lead actors were surrounded by reporters who had caught wind of their presence there. However, due to the selection of some actors who were not particularly famous, the reporters had all swiftly sprinted and directed their microphones towards Lu Xi.

"Director Lu, with the casting selection this time, did you deliberately decide to give up on using some of the hottest actors and actresses?"

"Director Lu, excuse me, may I ask why did you suddenly decide to adapt this drama 《Sunflower》this time?"

"Director Lu, for you to have changed directions from movies to television dramas, was it because you were not feeling confident about filming a follow-up movie better than 《Heart-pounding Excitement》?"

Among the numerous and disorderly buzz of interrogation, another voice could be clearly heard and threaded its way through to his ears.

"Director Lu, I have heard that the White Magnolia Film Emperor Zhuo Junan had partic.i.p.ated in the casting for the male lead. In addition to that, with this reputation and hearing that he did not make any errors, why was he eliminated by your fiancee, Miss Su Jin?"

Translated by Iris

Edited by Ely