Who Needs a CEO? I Choose Stardom

New York, 6:00 PM.

Ni Bingyan, carrying a heavy handbag, arrived punctually at Mr. Victor’s salon with Wei Shuojie.

The moment they walked in, Alan greeted them enthusiastically. Seeing the unfamiliar face of Wei Shuojie, they offered a rare smile and shook her hand.

Meanwhile, in Rongcheng City, it was 7:00 AM.

Ni Guangli had just finished breakfast and was adjusting his tie in front of the living room mirror.

While fussing with it, he urged his young apprentice, ”Shengwa’er, go check on the driver. What’s taking him so long?”

He was going to Chili Channel to record an interview today and couldn’t afford to be late.

The charity foundation, which he had gone to great lengths to establish with five hundred million yuan, was not only important to the government, but to him as well.

The various stipends for the families of fallen anti-drug officers needed to be disbursed quickly, and the foundation’s influence had to expand just as rapidly.

As long as he thought about drug traffickers still out there stirring up trouble, ready to harm law-abiding citizens like him at any moment, he couldn’t sleep soundly.

”Don’t worry, Master. Even when the car arrives, Brother Wang has to inspect it first before we can leave.”

The bodyguards Sang Yuan had found were already on duty.

One was named Wang, skilled in all kinds of threat detection. The other, named Chen, was an expert in combat and adept at improvising weapons from his surroundings.

Both were retired special forces soldiers who didn’t smoke, drink, gamble, or do drugs. Their skills were well worth their high salaries.

Their arrival greatly increased Ni Guangli’s sense of security, and he thanked his prospective son-in-law profusely.

In reality, the overall situation in the country was quite safe. Wealthy people didn’t go around with a gaggle of bodyguards all day. His current lack of security was largely due to post-traumatic stress.

It would take time to ease, so everyone went along with whatever he asked for.

The car pulled up, and after Brother Wang finished his inspection, the group set off in two vehicles to prevent being surrounded and to have a backup in case one broke down.

They arrived at Chili Channel smoothly. A glance at the time showed it was 8:30.

The show started at nine, so he still had time to chat with the host.

Generously donating five hundred million to contribute to the people was a rare sight in the country. More importantly, the foundation wasn’t open to public donations, which showed he had no intention of using it to make money.

As a provincial media mouthpiece, Chili Channel naturally wanted to conduct a thorough interview to make his good deeds known to more people.

When the show began, the host started by introducing him according to the script, then brought up the topic of the charity foundation.

”Five hundred million yuan is no small sum. What gave you this idea?”

The female host was gentle and graceful. Ni Guangli had already anticipated her question, so after a moment of thought, he began:

”I’m getting old, and my thinking is a little behind the times. To be honest, I never had any plans to start a charity foundation before. I would just visit the nursing home and the orphanage during the holidays to bring them some food and drinks. We live in peaceful, prosperous times, after all, so I always felt that was enough.”

Ni Guangli’s answer was incredibly frank, drawing a few soft, good-natured chuckles from the audience.

”Then what was it that changed your mind?”

The host had told Ni Guangli the questions she would ask on the show, but she didn’t know what his answers would be. Hearing him say this, she immediately followed his line of thought to dig deeper.

”A while ago, my daughter’s agent called me and said that my Bingbing was studying all the time. During breaks in filming, she’d finally get a moment to rest, but she wouldn’t take it.

”She was always so wound up, either studying this or studying that. I was worried the pressure from work was getting to her, that she was doing this because she was having some psychological issues. So I took a trip to Beijing. I wanted to take her out to have some fun, to teach her to enjoy life and not live like an ascetic at such a young age.”

Recalling his worries from that time, Ni Guangli let out an amused sigh.

This immediately captured everyone’s attention.

A famous actress’s own father spilling the beans? Who wouldn’t want to hear more?

”Oh?”

Everyone knew that Ni Guangli had gone to Beijing, but who knew this was the real reason?

”Because Bingbing was too diligent, you were worried she was having mental health issues?”

”Sigh, she was filming *Soul Ferryman* back then, wasn’t she? Just watching the show made me feel heavy-hearted. I was worried she couldn’t handle it.”

”That’s true. *Soul Ferryman* is an excellent series. It’s very thought-provoking and really tests one’s soul.”

The host nodded in agreement before asking, ”You mentioned taking her out to have fun? I’m a little curious, what did you two do?”

The daily fun of a famous actress and her dad—plenty of people would be interested in that.

A show needs highlights, otherwise it’s hard for the production team to even post promotional content on social media.

”I took her clubbing. Yes, that’s the time all those gossip accounts started rumors, saying she wasn’t focusing on filming and left the set to go clubbing with her sugar daddy. I was so mad! We go clubbing once, and I get demoted from her real dad to her sugar daddy!”

”Hahaha! And then? Was it effective?”

”Sigh, of course it wasn’t! I thought young people liked that sort of thing, but she didn’t. We got to the door and she didn’t even want to go in. She told me it was a waste of money and boring. I had to tell her, ’If you don’t come in with me, what if I lose my balance? I might get trampled to death!’ Only then did she reluctantly follow me inside.”

”Hahaha!”

The laughter in the studio grew louder.

You could really tell Mr. Ni had been an internet celebrity for a few years. He really knew how to liven up a room.

”So clubbing didn’t work. What next?”

”Then I took her to eat spicy crayfish. I wanted her to understand that life isn’t just about striving forward; sometimes you need to stop and enjoy good food. Good food is wonderful, right? You feel happy after a delicious meal.”

Alright, that sounded just like a chef. It was exactly the sort of thing he would say.

”And then, she ended up trending online again because of a mountain of crayfish shells?”

Ni Guangli spread his hands with a helpless look on his face.

’That’s what happens when you’re too famous.’

The studio erupted in laughter again.

Once the laughter died down, Ni Guangli continued, ”She ate a huge pile, and then, sucking on her fingers, she told me, ’Sss... Sss... Dad, we can’t eat like this! If I get fat, no one will cast me. Don’t bring me here again!’”

Seeing him stick out his pinky, vividly imitating Ni Bingyan eating the spicy crayfish while frowning, the host laughed so hard she had to wipe a tear from her eye.

”It seems that approach didn’t work either!”

”Exactly. She’s an actress. In her line of work, just being able to eat a full meal every day is a blessing. I decided not to make things hard for her. So then, I took her to an auction house. I figured, if she doesn’t like eating, drinking, and having fun, surely a girl would like to ’buy, buy, buy,’ right?”

”That makes a lot of sense. How did it go?”

Ni Guangli sighed. ”As it turned out, aside from two inexpensive items she liked, she didn’t bid on anything else. There was a lot of jewelry that day, and I thought, she’s always attending events and things. She’s a girl who likes to look pretty, she can’t always be wearing the same few pieces. So I bought some for her. But when we got home, not only was she not happy, she showed me a pile of things and told me that she didn’t buy jewelry, but not because she couldn’t afford it.”

”Oh? What things?”

Ni Guangli looked up at the camera across from him and sighed again.

”She opened a box and told me to look, to see where all her money had gone.”

”What was inside? Uncle Ni, you can’t leave us hanging like this!”

Ni Guangli sighed.

”Donation agreements. A thick stack of them. Thick donation agreements. For Hope Primary Schools, many Hope Primary Schools. And all sorts of other charity projects.”

’What?’

’I’ve never heard about Ni Bingyan doing charity work?’

’Could her dad be lying to boost her reputation?’

”My expression was the same as yours right now. I had never heard her talk about this before! And why was she suddenly telling me about it? It made my own level of awareness seem so low! No joke, at that moment, I really wished I could find a crack in the floor to crawl into!”

”What did she say?”

”She told me, ’Dad, look, when you spend money, it has to be meaningful. I’m just one person. How much can I eat? How much can I wear? How much can I put on? If I wear one less set of gems, a Hope Primary School can spring up in some small town. If I wear one less necklace, a thousand people can regain their sight...’”

The entire studio was silent, with only the sound of Ni Guangli’s reminiscence:

”She said, ’Dad, I know you’ve lived an honest and upright life, and you don’t owe anyone anything. I also understand that people who work hard deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labor. No one can say there’s anything wrong with that. But I often feel a sense of unease in my conscience.

”’She said, ’There are so many people in this world who have it very hard. All I have to do is let a little bit slip through my fingers, and I can help so many of them! I have no reason not to do it.’”

Ni Guangli gave a self-deprecating smile. ”You might laugh, but I basically fled back from Beijing at the time. I felt so ashamed of myself that I couldn’t face her. If she had been doing all this with a lot of fanfare, I might have thought she’d entered society and picked up the bad habit of being insincere. But she told me this privately, in the middle of the night, when it was just the two of us.

”That incident had a huge impact on me!

”For months afterward, my mind was consumed with the thought that I had to do something. That’s how the idea of starting the foundation came about.

”As for why the foundation focuses mainly on supporting anti-drug efforts... well, that’s another story...”