The Award-Winning Actress’s Exclusive Favor - Chapter 1

Autumn was nearing its end. The morning breeze swept yellowing leaves past the shops lining the street, while the distant clamor outside the floor-to-ceiling window drifted into the room. The breakfast stall at the corner still carried the aroma of freshly cooked food. Early-rising wage slaves hurried beneath the rosy dawn, and the growing bustle gently stirred the white gauze curtains by the window.

Morning sunlight slanted through a gap in the curtains and fell across the woman on the bed, scattering faint halos of light over her body and slowly drawing her back to consciousness.

Her brows knitted slightly. Her eyelashes trembled twice before her eyes gradually opened.

The sounds around her became clearer, the light more glaring, and everything steadily took on an unsettling sense of reality.

Once she saw the room clearly, confusion flickered through her dark eyes. The unfamiliar surroundings left her unable to understand what had happened for a moment.

Her name was Wei Xia.

Just moments ago, she had been buried beneath an avalanche.

As someone who loved trying all kinds of extreme sports, Wei Xia could only helplessly accept that death had finally caught up with her.

Having only just escaped the avalanche in one sense, she stared warily at the unfamiliar room. She pushed herself upright and looked around.

The room reeked heavily of alcohol, and the cluttered furnishings made even the air feel acrid.

Wei Xia’s heart sank.

Well, damn. Out of all the countless transmigration stories in the world, was it finally her turn?

Still, being alive was better than being dead.

Compared to accepting her own death, Wei Xia found transmigration much easier to swallow.

Her chest felt painfully tight, though. She wondered whether it was some lingering aftereffect of dying. She raised a hand to rub it, only to feel a sharp sting in her wrist.

Wei Xia sucked in a breath and looked down.

Only then did she notice the gruesome, split-open wound across her wrist.

This person really hadn’t left herself any room to survive.

“Brutal,” Wei Xia muttered.

Only then did she get up and begin searching for a first-aid kit.

After an entire night, the wound had already stopped bleeding. Perhaps because Wei Xia had arrived in this body, the cut was deep but had somehow missed the major tendons and blood vessels.

She eventually found the first-aid kit in a filthy corner and expertly bandaged the wound. Then she tried to search through the body’s memories.

Unfortunately, aside from her own memories, she knew absolutely nothing about this body or the world she had arrived in.

It was as though she had been tossed onto the street blindfolded—desperate to understand her surroundings, yet completely helpless.

She had lost a great deal of blood, and all that moving around had already drained what little strength she had left. She first rummaged through the refrigerator for something to eat. After recovering slightly, she went into the bathroom and gave the original owner’s appearance a cursory glance.

Weakly, she offered a single word of praise.

“Pretty.”

Then she let out a long sigh and returned to bed.

She slept through the rest of the morning.

By noon, the breakfast stall outside had already packed up. This probably wasn’t a central district, because the area became exceptionally quiet during the afternoon.

Once Wei Xia felt sufficiently rested, she finally got up and began cleaning the apartment.

She replaced the blood-soaked bedsheets, gathered the rubbish scattered across the floor into one pile, and soon discovered a phone buried beneath the mess.

The surprise came at exactly the right time.

She didn’t know the passcode, but fingerprint recognition solved everything.

With a phone and internet access, Wei Xia quickly looked up the state of technology, culture, and general development in this world.

To her delight, she discovered that this was a parallel world not too different from her own.

That was excellent news. At the very least, she wouldn’t seem completely out of place.

Many of the scientists, writers, and even entertainment figures here were unfamiliar to her, but that wouldn’t affect her future life or prevent her from integrating into society.

After learning all this, Wei Xia’s mood improved.

Then her stomach began growling again.

She had no intention of going outside yet, so she simply prepared a cup of instant noodles. While it steeped, she went to the bathroom to wash up.

It was only then that she truly saw what the original owner looked like.

Her hair was a tangled mess stuck against her forehead. The collar of her shirt hung crookedly, the fabric was badly wrinkled, and her trousers sagged loosely around her hips.

Yet her disheveled appearance did nothing to conceal the clean lines of her brow bone and jaw.

Her eyes were still drowsy but bright, with slightly upturned corners that softened rather than sharpened her expression. Her nose bridge was straight, while the rounded tip balanced the faintly heroic cast of her brows.

Her lips were clearly defined and naturally pale pink, with a slight upward curve at the corners.

Her entire face was both delicately sculpted and strikingly defined. As long as she didn’t lower her brows in a cold expression, she looked exceptionally gentle.

“She really is gorgeous.”

She had to admit, getting a new body came with its benefits.

The woman in the mirror bore a slight resemblance to Wei Xia’s original appearance, but her features were much more refined.

And then there was…

“This height…”

Wei Xia clicked her tongue.

For a woman, she was remarkably tall.

Because of the wound on her wrist, Wei Xia could only wash herself briefly before returning to the living room and eating her instant noodles.

The one-bedroom apartment had a bathroom, living room, and kitchen, but no television or computer.

She could only rely on her phone to learn as much as possible about this world.

Aside from social news, most of the day’s trending topics concerned an annual film festival that would take place in two days.

Wei Xia had no interest in the entertainment industry, but she didn’t want to become completely disconnected from society, so she tapped on the trending topic to take a look.

“Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong!”

The urgent ringing of the doorbell interrupted her.

With noodles still in her mouth, Wei Xia’s heart skipped a beat. She stared blankly toward the door.

Damn it.

Was it someone who knew her?

In the brief moment she hesitated, the person outside lost patience and began pounding on the door.

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Through the door, Wei Xia could faintly hear a woman shouting.

“Wei Xia! I know you’re in there! If you’re not dead, open the door!”

So it really was someone she knew.

Wei Xia sighed.

There was no way she could hide her lack of memories, especially from someone close to the original owner. She couldn’t avoid the situation forever, so she might as well face it directly.

Still holding her noodles, she opened the door.

A short-haired woman stood outside, dressed in a white blouse and brown suit trousers, with black-framed glasses perched on her nose.

The moment she saw Wei Xia, she let out a heavy sigh of relief.

She pushed past Wei Xia into the apartment, then frowned and covered her nose.

“Were you trying to drink yourself to death?”

The smell of alcohol had yet to fully dissipate. The woman was probably sensitive to it and noticed it as soon as she entered.

What shocked her even more, however, was that the apartment was clean and tidy.

Wei Xia had actually cleaned!

“Probably something a little more serious than that,” Wei Xia said, following behind her and rubbing her nose guiltily.

The woman’s brows drew together sharply.

“What do you mean?”

Wei Xia smiled calmly and held out her bandaged wrist.

“I tried to kill myself last night. I lost too much blood, so now I have amnesia.”

It was a terrible excuse, but Wei Xia couldn’t be bothered to invent a better one.

The woman froze.

All the composure drained from her face, leaving her faintly pale.

As Wei Xia’s manager, Jiang Yiran couldn’t imagine what would happen if one of her artists committed suicide. The public would drown her in condemnation.

Yet Wei Xia remained completely calm.

She even gave Jiang Yiran a reassuring smile.

“So I might need your help remembering… who exactly am I?”

The worry on Jiang Yiran’s face instantly went blank.

She asked stiffly, “You really have amnesia?”

She had forgotten far too thoroughly.

Then what were they supposed to do about everything that came next?

No one knew better than Jiang Yiran that her sharp, professional appearance was mostly for show.

Precisely because she knew she wasn’t very capable at handling problems, she had put extra effort into looking competent.

Most of the time, despite being Wei Xia’s manager, she acted more like her assistant.

Jiang Yiran was even more anxious about Wei Xia’s situation than Wei Xia herself.

She had originally come to discuss the problem with Wei Xia so they could think of a solution together.

But now…

All the energy drained from her.

In a listless voice, she began explaining everything she knew.

Half a day after arriving in this world, Wei Xia finally gained a clear understanding of the body she now inhabited.

The original owner’s name had once been Wei Dong.

Because her career had remained in a permanent winter after several years in the industry, she had changed her name to Wei Xia earlier that year—switching “winter” to “summer” in hopes of changing her luck.

Miss Wei Dong had been discovered by a talent scout and signed because of her outstanding appearance.

However, good looks alone weren’t always enough to become famous in the entertainment industry.

Some people simply weren’t destined for stardom.

Wei Dong was one of them.

She didn’t have a particularly eye-catching presence. Her acting was poor, and she couldn’t sing either.

Even her fairly attractive face was nothing unusual in an industry overflowing with beautiful people.

The company had tried giving her opportunities twice, but both attempts had sunk without a ripple, like stones thrown into the sea.

After that, she became a discarded pawn.

Once Wei Dong lost the company’s protection, something unexpected happened.

She became infamous.

Infamy was still fame.

Traffic was traffic.

The company took one look and thought, Excellent.

So they began deliberately cultivating her in that direction.

Some people possessed a natural talent for attracting hatred, and Wei Dong was exactly that kind of person.

They couldn’t make her popular, but she was exceptionally easy to despise.

The company simply turned her into a foil whose sole purpose was to promote other artists.

For example, Wei Dong was currently being attacked across the internet because she had allegedly sexually harassed a newly signed young woman from the same company.

Naturally, the young woman had used the wave of attention to make her debut.

She was sweet and adorable, and her Weibo follower count had risen by more than a hundred thousand overnight.

Ninety-nine thousand of them followed her out of sympathy.

The remaining hundred thousand were Wei Dong’s haters.

“Even making her perform suggestive dances wouldn’t have worked this well,” Jiang Yiran couldn’t help murmuring as she recalled the situation.

Some people really were destined to become famous.

“Anything else?” Wei Xia asked.

She knew nothing about the entertainment industry, so she couldn’t fully grasp how serious the situation was.

Besides, Wei Xia had spent years traveling all over the world. Compared to some of the things she had experienced, petty feuds and scandals like this were easier for her to endure.

“Wait.”

Wei Xia suddenly realized something.

“She sexually harassed a woman? And everyone online believed it?”

Her voice was filled with shock, as though the very idea were absurd.

Jiang Yiran looked at her.

“Why wouldn’t they?”

Her voice was equally calm and confused.

Wei Xia fell silent.

“…Something about that feels wrong.”

Jiang Yiran stared at her.

“What part?”

Wei Xia blinked innocently and asked in a small voice, “I like women?”

The room abruptly fell silent.

An indescribable atmosphere passed between them.

It seemed that, for both of them, the question had completely overturned their understanding of reality.

Jiang Yiran suddenly leaped to her feet and shouted in horror, “What, are people who like women some kind of freak to you?!”

“I—”

Wei Xia jumped up too, even more panicked than Jiang Yiran.

“No! They’re not freaks! But something like this can happen and the entire internet believes it?”

Realization quickly dawned on Jiang Yiran.

“Oh, right. You have amnesia. So you remember that men and women can date, but you’ve forgotten that women can marry women?”

Wei Xia stared at her.

“Huh? They can do that now?”

This world was freaking incredible.