Life countdown begins, ice queen bursts into security room

When Jiang Fan woke up at eight o'clock in the morning, Su Yuyan was no longer in bed.

The sound of water could be heard coming from the bathroom.

He sat up, stretched, and his cervical spine cracked twice.

Since I got the system, my physique has also improved. I was up until almost 2 a.m. last night, but I don't feel tired at all right now.

The bathroom door opened, and Su Yuyan walked out wrapped in a white bathrobe, her wet hair draped over her shoulders.

Her bare-faced appearance is excessively good.

Her skin was so white it glowed, and there wasn't a single fine line to be found at the corner of her eyes. The beauty mark under her eye accentuated her charming features.

This is the effect of the system's "physical condition improvement".

After several months of entanglement with him, Su Yuyan's skin condition visibly deteriorated.

The same goes for Xu Qingya. With two top-tier women defying aging at the same time, the entertainment industry is bound to be in an uproar sooner or later.

"You're up?" Su Yuyan asked, drying her hair as she glanced at him.

Jiang Fan threw off the covers and got out of bed. He walked over barefoot and hugged her waist from behind.

Su Yuyan's body stiffened.

"What are you trying to do now—"

"Go take a shower."

Su Yuyan raised her elbow and nudged him.

"I just finished showering."

"Then let's wash it again. Let me scrub your back."

"you--"

Before he could finish speaking, he was already being lifted up horizontally.

The bathrobe's belt was half loose, and she was wearing nothing underneath.

"Jiang Fan, put me down!"

Jiang Fan ignored her, kicked open the bathroom door, and went inside.

When the showerhead is turned on, hot water pours down.

The glass door closed behind me, and the heat quickly fogged up the entire transparent glass.

When Su Yuyan was pressed against the glass door, she swore.

"Holy shit—ahhhhhh!"

The last syllable squeezed out of his throat took several detours.

She was pressed against the glass door, her body distorted by the pressure, her two silhouettes shifting constantly in the mist.

Jiang Fan bit her earlobe and asked if she wanted more.

Su Yuyan bit her lip and refused to make a sound, then slammed her hand on the glass door.

-

Forty minutes later.

Su Yuyan sat in front of the dressing table, drying her hair, her face still flushed.

She glanced in the mirror at the two circular marks imprinted on the bathroom glass door, and her lips twitched.

Jiang Fan changed his clothes and came out of the bedroom. He casually wiped his hair with a towel and threw it on the back of the sofa.

"Aren't you going to dry your hair?" Su Yuyan looked at him in the mirror.

"Let it air dry."

"...Men are so much less troublesome."

Su Yuyan turned off the hairdryer and used a comb to gather her hair to one side.

Her neck and collarbone were reflected in the mirror, with a small red mark on them.

She touched that spot with her finger, then turned around and glared at Jiang Fan.

Jiang Fan shrugged. "Your skin is too delicate, is it my fault?"

-

The two ate breakfast quietly.

Su Yuyan's family has a regular breakfast delivery service, with bread, salad, and fruit filling the table.

Su Yuyan put down her fork and wiped her mouth with a tissue.

"I just sent a message to Ningyuan, and he replied."

Jiang Fan looked up.

"How so?"

"He said he was free in the afternoon and asked us to come over. He lives in Songjiang, which is about a 40-minute drive away."

Jiang Fan checked the time: 8:50.

"Okay. What time in the afternoon?"

He said anytime after 2 PM is fine, he can come anytime.

Jiang Fan nodded and stuffed the last piece of bread into his mouth.

"I'll go back and get the script first, then I'll come pick you up this afternoon."

After leaving the apartment building, I took a taxi straight to the studio.

-

I arrived at the studio at 9:40.

Li Cheng was explaining work to Zhou Yutong when he saw Jiang Fan enter. The two went into the office and closed the door behind them.

"Brother Fan, I checked Ningyuan's situation." He handed over the prepared materials.

"He won Best New Director and made several art films, which received good reviews, but the highest-grossing one only made 80 million. Later, he had a falling out with the investors, supposedly because they asked him to change the ending, which he refused, and he was fired by them. He hasn't had any new works in over a year."

Jiang Fan took the documents and scanned them.

Does he have any projects running right now?

"No. I asked a few people in the industry, and they all said he's semi-retired. Some people have asked him to do gay porn, but he's not interested."

Jiang Fan walked into the office, opened the drawer, and took out a thick stack of printed scripts.

But he didn't put it all in.

Pull out the back half and lock it in the drawer, then put only the front half into a brown paper bag.

"Brother Fan, are you planning to let this guy direct? He's notoriously difficult to deal with—"

"Let him look at the notebook first. If he thinks it's okay, we'll talk about the rest later."

-

It was exactly 1 p.m.

Li Cheng drove Jiang Fan to the apartment building of Su Yuyan.

Jiang Fan sent a message, and Su Yuyan came down five minutes later.

A light gray, loose-fitting suit jacket over a white turtleneck sweater, paired with black wide-leg trousers and flat shoes—a very understated look.

He greeted Li Cheng as he got in the car, pulled open the back seat door, and casually pushed his sunglasses up to his head.

Su Yuyan adjusted the angle of the seat back and turned to look at Jiang Fan.

"Did you bring the script?"

Jiang Fan gestured towards the back row with his lip. The brown paper bag was placed on the last seat.

Su Yuyan reached out, tore open the paper bag, and turned to the first page.

The title reads—

Goodbye Mr. Loser.

"What do you mean?"

"The protagonist's name is Charlotte, and he is particularly troubled."

Su Yuyan raised an eyebrow and continued reading.

"Let me see what roles are available first."

"There's really no suitable role for you in this production. The female lead is a housewife, and the second female lead is a scheming high school girl. Which one would you like to play?"

Su Yuyan mentally replayed the image of herself playing a high school student, and a slight twitch appeared at the corner of her mouth.

"...Never mind then."

The car quieted down, with only the sound of pages turning and navigation announcements remaining.

Su Yuyan couldn't help but laugh out loud after watching just the beginning.

"This part is quite sarcastic."

Five more minutes passed.

"...That's so shameless." She covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking.

Ten more minutes.

The laughter stopped.

Su Yuyan turned to the last page, her hand hovering in mid-air, the smile still on her face.

"What happens next?"

"That's all."

"What do you mean 'gone'?" She turned the paper bag over and emptied it; it was empty.

"You cut it off right at the climax? Xia Luo just became famous, and Ma Dongmei's storyline had only just begun—"

"I only brought half of it."

Su Yuyan stared at him.

"You did this on purpose?"

Jiang Fan didn't deny it, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

"We must keep Ningyuan in suspense. The kind of person he is, if you put everything in front of him, he'll just pick and choose. Show him half, and let him come to you asking for the second half."

Su Yuyan closed the script and tapped the cover with her index finger.

"You're even more difficult to deal with than him."

"Thank you for the compliment."

I'm not complimenting you.

Li Cheng was driving, his eyes fixed on the road, his ears constantly perked up.

He glanced at the back seat in the rearview mirror. The atmosphere between the two people was so natural that it gave him the creeps.

Su Yuyan, a shareholder of Times Media and a pop diva on par with Xu Qingya, was sitting in the back seat looking no different from an ordinary girlfriend.

If Xu Qingya found out...

Li Cheng gripped the steering wheel tightly and suppressed the thought.

I don't want to, I dare not think about it.

The car drove off the overpass, and the navigation system indicated that we would arrive at our destination in ten minutes.

The road in Songjiang gets narrower and narrower, and the plane trees on both sides cut the sunlight into pieces and let it into the car.

"We've arrived up ahead, turn left." Su Yuyan put down her script and pointed to the intersection.

The car turned into an old alley.

At the end of the alley is a two-story building with ivy climbing all over the courtyard walls.

An old Volvo, covered in dust, was parked in front of the gate; it looked like it hadn't been moved in a long time.

Jiang Fan picked up the brown paper bag and pushed open the car door.

"Right here?"

"This is it." Su Yuyan also got out of the car. "I'm warning you, he's a rude person, don't take it to heart."

Jiang Fan patted the paper bag.

"Don't worry. If he can keep a straight face after reading half of this book, I'll treat you to grilled sausages for a month."