Who Needs a CEO? I Choose Stardom

The Little Deer Demon’s original form was an albino sika deer. Having just transformed into a human, her body still bore the features of a deer.

To achieve this look, Ni Bingyan had started preparing the day before.

Her long hair was dyed white and straightened until it was sleek and smooth.

When she got up in the morning, fake antlers were attached to her head, intricate patterns were delicately painted on her face, and she put on a custom-made, thigh-length tunic of fine white fur. Ni Bingyan looked exactly like a Deer Demon who had just walked out of the mountain forests!

The entire crew watched her intently as she emerged from behind a tree, took a few tentative steps forward, and looked around with curiosity...

She kicked her legs, unaccustomed to them. Looking down, she saw she now had two of them, bare and smooth, ending in a pair of feet red from the cold.

Curiously, she held out her hands. Her five slender, pale fingers, as delicate as spring onions, were completely different from her previous little hooves.

She hopped on the spot a few times, then opened her mouth in delight, letting out the happy cry of a sika deer—”Yelp~”

She did a somersault, kicking up a flurry of snowflakes, her movements like a person rolling around in bed.

To a sika deer, wasn’t the thick snow just like a blanket?

This was a newly transformed Deer Demon, exploring the world.

Ni Bingyan vividly portrayed a newly transformed, human-shaped sika deer walking through the forest, trying her best to ignore the bone-chilling cold.

In a daze, she heard the heavenly words, ”That’s a wrap on this take! Take a break, then we’ll shoot a backup! Props department, reset the set!” Before she could even react, Duanmu Li was already wrapping her in a warm coat.

It had felt like a long time, but in reality, it had only been a few minutes.

Before she could say a word, Duanmu Li had already lifted her onto a chair covered with a thick blanket and was pulling a pair of thick, tall boots onto her feet.

”Quick, drink some hot ginger soup!”

Taking the ginger soup from someone’s outstretched hand, Ni Bingyan shakily drank it down. Only then did she feel life return to her body, and she began to tremble, huddled under the blanket.

In all her years in the industry, this had been the most difficult scene she had ever filmed.

After finishing that scene and filming her first meeting with the Demon Hunter, Mo Li, she returned to her lodgings. She didn’t leave her heated kang bed except to use the restroom, and she drank at least a whole pot of ginger soup.

The day had been so grueling that even she couldn’t resist opening Weibo and posting: ”Hustler, hustler’s soul, striving to get ahead. Let’s go, fighting! [Nine photos of a beautiful snowy landscape]”

The internet service in the forest area was poor, and it took a long time for the post to go through. She didn’t have the patience to play on her phone anyway, so she pulled a copy of *Heavenly Craftsmanship* from her suitcase and read quietly, leaning against the headboard of the kang.

It was a light, easy read, perfect for relaxing her mind.

She was just like a retired old man.

At first, the young women rooming with her would play cards and chat, thinking she was a pretty normal girl. But after a few more days, they all found her incredibly odd, as if she didn’t belong with the rest of them at all.

I mean, look at what she did every day.

While others were practically fuming over the bad internet, her phone was tucked away in her bag, and she’d barely glance at it over the course of several days.

When others gathered to discuss which lipstick was best or which powder compact was amazing, she would just listen quietly, completely uninterested.

When everyone pulled out their tablets to watch a new drama, cupping their faces and screaming, ”OMG, he’s killing me!” she set down her finished copy of *Heavenly Craftsmanship* and pulled out a stack of printed exam papers from her suitcase.

Yes, a stack of exam papers.

Everyone stared, dumbfounded, as she lovingly unfolded the stack of papers, took a fresh set from the middle, and happily started working on them...

Perhaps their stares were too intense, because she looked up, confused. ”Am I bothering you guys?”

Everyone shuddered at once!

’No, no, no! We’re so sorry! We’re not worthy of sharing a room with you! Please, don’t say things like that!’

When you have a diligent overachiever right next to you, every moment of leisure feels like a slow suicide. The pressure was indescribable!

She was clearly easy to get along with, but being around her, everyone felt an immense pressure and wanted to turn and run.

This must be the legendary ”aura of a study god”!

Ni Bingyan had lived this way since she was a child. While friendly with others, she always marched to the beat of her own drum, never changing her goals because of what others thought.

Seeing their strange expressions, she didn’t think much of it.

’They’ll get used to it eventually. It takes all sorts to make a world. I’m just one person among many. If they think I’m strange, it’s just because they haven’t seen much of the world.’

Seeing how unfazed she was, everyone sighed inwardly—’No wonder she could be the reigning champion on CCTV!’

They all recalled the *Chinese Poetry Conference*, which had trended on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, and felt a deep sense of understanding.

Filled with a certain indescribable speechlessness, the roommates went online to their usual platforms and began venting anonymously.

The post titles were mostly things like, ”Ten years in the industry, and I’ve never seen a female celebrity like this...”

Normally, since they were posting anonymously and using vague descriptions, fans would at most make some educated guesses about who they were talking about. This time, however, it coincided perfectly with Lu Yao’s manga.

The first season of *My Cousin is a Superstar* had just ended, and fans were hotly debating the identity of the cousin. Suddenly, seeing so many similar complaints from different platforms, they did some digging, and... tsk tsk!

[I knew it! It’s her, it’s her, it’s totally her! You’re a clever one, ”Lu Yao Knows a Horse’s Strength.” Let’s see how long you can keep playing coy?!]

The power of a fandom often exceeds the author’s own imagination.

Lu Yao just took a nap and woke up to find a pile of detailed exposé posts online.

They had dug up everything from the identities of the people complaining to the *Demon Suppression Tower* film crew. Then, they found Ni Bingyan in the official cast announcement and cross-referenced the complaints with the content of Lu Yao’s manga. The evidence was a slam dunk!

Lu Yao tried to stubbornly deny it, but the fans shut her down with a single question: ”How many female celebrities this weird have you ever met?” Defeated, she had no choice but to admit it.

A few days after Wei Shuojie’s family returned from Qiong Island, the couple was humming a tune while making dumplings in the kitchen when their son walked in, holding up his phone.

”Mom! Mom! Look, Sister Bingbing is trending again!”

Wei Shuojie’s hand, which was portioning the dough, paused. She looked up in surprise. ”Isn’t she supposed to be filming properly on set? She’s not on break, is she? What kind of trouble could she have gotten into?”

With the premiere of the *Chinese Poetry Conference* on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, she had been fully prepared for her to start trending. She’d ridden that wave of publicity and smoothly gained over five million followers. ’It’s only been a few days, and she’s trending again?’

Thinking about how they were still striving for ten million followers last year, Wei Shuojie couldn’t help but sigh with emotion. Now, right after the New Year, she was already heading toward thirty million.

Having a celebrity with a knack for going viral meant you didn’t have to worry; she could trend and gain followers all by herself. It was great, aside from being a little hard on the heart.

”Haha! Isn’t she filming in the mountains right now? The accommodations there are tight, so she’s sharing a room with some crew members. Turns out Sister Bingbing’s living habits are so weird that her roommates couldn’t help but complain about it online, and her cousin’s fans dug it all up.”

”Huh? What did they dig up?”

Ni Bingyan didn’t have any real scandals to her name, so upon hearing what it was about, Wei Shuojie immediately relaxed.

Li Zhi held up the phone for her to see.

After reading it, Wei Shuojie couldn’t help but chuckle.

”Forget it, don’t worry about her. That’s just how she is. Let’s get back to cooking. Son, go peel a head of garlic for the dumpling dipping sauce.”

”Okay, Mom.”

His parents were rarely home at the same time, and the house was filled with warmth. The usually cool and distant child softened up.

Ni Bingyan couldn’t care less about the outside world. Her eyes were only on her work and her bank account balance.

A few days ago, she had seen Sang Yuan, who updated her on her investments. He said her ten million had been invested in several companies, and its market value had already multiplied dozens of times. In another couple of years, she could cash out.

Today, she received another text message. The final payment from before the New Year had arrived—another several million.

She was so happy she ate an extra half bowl of rice for dinner.

Feeling stuffed, she walked around the room reading her script, trying to immerse herself in the Little Deer Demon’s life.

The beautiful Little Deer Demon had clear, limpid eyes, full of innocence and naivety. Yet, her actions followed the law of the jungle—survival of the fittest—and possessed a natural cruelty.

She would catch a fluffy rabbit in the forest, one moment cradling it happily and stroking its fur, the next, feeling hungry, she would immediately snap its neck.

Sika deer are herbivores, but after becoming a demon, she began to crave meat. She took a bite of the rabbit, but finding it not as tasty as she had imagined, she carelessly tossed it on the ground.

Mo Li would sigh, lead her inside, wipe her mouth with a warm cloth, and then teach her the ways of being human.

”You are a person now, and people don’t eat raw meat. See this rabbit? If we cook it, it will become delicious.”

The naive Deer Demon tasted braised rabbit for the first time, and it opened up a whole new world for her.

But when she followed Mo Li into the human world, she discovered that some people ate raw beef, some ate raw fish, and some even ate strange things like raw shrimp, crabs, and eggs...

For the first time, she began to doubt the Demon Hunter’s words—’I’ve learned the ways of being human, but why don’t humans follow these ways themselves?’

’Or... are you just teaching me these things to control me?’

At this thought, the look she gave Mo Li turned dangerous.