Who Needs a CEO? I Choose Stardom

It was still early, and his daughter was most likely still on set, so he wasn’t in a hurry.

He had to take his time with this.

Just as he was mulling over how to make his daughter see the benefits of building her reputation, his phone rang.

He picked it up and saw it was his daughter’s manager.

He’d saved the number but had never been contacted by her before. A sudden call... could something have happened to his daughter?

His heart skipped a beat. Ni Guangli answered the phone without a moment’s hesitation.

”Hello?”

”Hello, Mr. Ni! This is Xiao Ni’s manager, Wei Shuojie.”

After getting the news from Starlight Publishing House, Wei Shuojie knew the deal was practically sealed. She immediately called Ni Guangli, intending to capitalize on the opportunity.

”Oh? Xiao Wei! Is there something wrong with Bingbing? Is that why you’re calling?”

Hearing the anxiety in his voice, Wei Shuojie quickly tried to reassure him.

”No, no, nothing’s wrong with her. I just had a small matter I wanted to discuss with you.”

His daughter had been a well-behaved child ever since she was little. In all her years of schooling, he’d never once been called into the principal’s office.

Now that she had been working for several years, for her manager to suddenly contact him privately about a ”small matter”... well, you didn’t need to be a genius to know it couldn’t possibly be a small matter.

If it were truly a small matter, why would she need to call him?

After all, his daughter was twenty-six, not six.

The relief Ni Guangli had just felt vanished, and his heart was in his throat again. He sat up straight and asked cautiously, ”What kind of ’small’ problem are we talking about?”

”Well, it’s like this...”

As a mother who had received her own share of calls from schoolteachers, Wei Shuojie understood his anxiety completely. She didn’t beat around the bush and got straight to the point.

”I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but Bingbing... she seems to have very low self-esteem...”

”Low self-esteem? How is that possible? She was raised with more than enough love, and we never wanted for anything. She’s had excellent grades since she was a child, and she was never shy about giving speeches or performing on stage. She’s always been so confident and poised...”

’Saying she has low self-esteem is a complete joke!’

Hearing such a thing so suddenly, Ni Guangli couldn’t believe it at all.

”Mr. Ni, I’m not trying to speak ill of her... I haven’t finished what I was saying. Perhaps you could let me finish?”

Ni Guangli grunted but said nothing more.

’At his age, you don’t get worked up that easily unless you’re putting on a show for a livestream sale.’

”I’m not sure what it is, but she always feels like she isn’t good enough. Ugh, her state of mind is hard to describe. How about I give you a few examples?”

”Fine. Go on.”

”On set, when other actors finish filming for the day, most of them are so exhausted they pass out as soon as they get back. Or they’ll play some video games to unwind. But she’s different. Even after a late-night shoot, she has to go back to her van and memorize vocabulary words for a while. Otherwise, she just tosses and turns in bed, unable to sleep.”

Ni Guangli listened, his brow furrowed, but he didn’t say a word.

”And that’s not all. When it’s another actor’s turn to film, she doesn’t just sit idly in her van. Even if she only has half an hour, she’ll do half a practice test, watch a few tutorial videos, or practice her conversational skills along with an international news broadcast... I even caught her sharing fishing guides online once—the kind people have to pay for.”

’That’s... that’s taking frugality to a whole new level!’

Ni Guangli’s eyes went wide.

’His daughter had always been a motivated, good kid, but not *this* motivated, surely?!’

’A famous actress earning over a hundred million a year is running an online side hustle? Even as her father, he had to admit it: that sounded absolutely insane!’

”What exactly is she studying?”

’She wasn’t a doctor. Who keeps studying nonstop so many years after leaving school? How much could one person possibly love to study?’

Ni Guangli started to panic a little. His daughter had never been like this before!

”She has a preference for languages. To be honest, I’m not even sure how many she speaks. Lately, she’s also been learning office software. She said it was to make it easier to share her life on set with you.”

Ni Guangli was touched.

Just last night, he had received a Word document from her detailing the events that had almost led to her becoming depressed. It was incredibly thorough, with written descriptions and all sorts of photos. After reading it, he had finally been able to relax.

He never imagined it wouldn’t be a one-time thing. His daughter was actually planning to send him these reports regularly, just so her old father wouldn’t have to worry about her while she was away.

’What a sweet and caring daughter!’

”At first, I thought her self-discipline and drive were good things. But later, I realized the reason she does all this is because she’s extremely insecure. She lacks a proper sense of her own worth, and it manifests as low self-esteem and a lack of confidence.”

”That’s not such a big deal, is it?”

’From another perspective, isn’t it a good thing for someone to be driven and humble?’