Chapter 354: Who Doesn't Love Gorgeous Attire?

For celebrities, who doesn’t love gorgeous clothes and beautiful accessories? Who could possibly hate being the center of attention?

Every year-end, all the A-listers and rising starlets, desperate for exposure and status, tear each other apart like cabbage about to be thrown into a pot. It’s an absolute mess!

It’s as if they believe that whoever looks prettiest on the red carpet or manages to squeeze into the center for photos will automatically be cast as the female lead.

Without any significant work to their name, no matter how fiercely they compete in glamour, it’s all just a flash in the pan.

It’s not that many people don’t understand this, but that’s just the ecosystem of the entertainment industry these days.

As long as you have buzz, you’ll have a never-ending stream of money.

If you just gamble a little, you can use a decade of your youth to earn enough to last a lifetime. Whether or not you have a representative work doesn’t seem all that important.

After all, not everyone wants to act in movies. Or rather, not everyone wants to act in movies for their entire life.

Following their career path, even if they’re no longer famous and can’t land acting roles or endorsements, they can still use their past fame to become livestream sellers.

It’s not as miserable as people might imagine.

But for Ni Bingyan, a life like that was more terrifying than a life of poverty and destitution.

‘I guess to each their own!’

Speaking of which, she was the one who started it.

She had livestreamed selling potatoes for a poor county without taking a single cent. Others immediately saw the potential and, no matter what they sold, started taking a cut of at least ten percent.

‘Money is a bastard, but it sure is sweet.’

‘You can’t look down on other people’s dreams.’

She just wanted something different from everyone else. Her ambition and greed were no less than anyone’s.

Although she didn’t need to resort to fake falls or bizarre outfits to grab attention, she couldn’t be careless either.

「November 25th. Taipei Arena. This year’s Jinma Award ceremony was held as scheduled.」

Affected by the northeast monsoon, it had been raining in Taipei for the past two days, and it felt even colder than the northern parts of mainland China.

Ni Bingyan was incredibly grateful that when choosing a gown, she had picked a nude-pink haute couture feather dress as a backup.

Her originally planned gray ultra-couture gown was beautiful, and its prestige was undeniable. Even with her current elevated status, it had taken Sister Wei a great deal of effort to borrow it.

But with the gloomy weather, no matter how great her figure or how perfect her makeup, the unedited photos from the event could still turn out to be a disaster.

Fighting on their turf across the strait, many locals here were unfriendly to people from the mainland. To reduce the chances of being smeared by the local media, her requirement for herself was to be flawlessly beautiful from every angle.

The design of this nude-pink couture feather dress was very unique. The light, form-fitting body of the dress was appliquéd with feather-shaped pieces of matching satin, which were adorned with tiny artificial gems. When the light hit them, they sparkled brilliantly.

As for the soft feathers, they were sewn onto the large, light, and smooth sleeves.

When she lowered her arms, the large sleeves resembled a fluffy cape. When she raised her hands, the sleeves slid down, looking like a luxurious silk shawl.

The crucial point was, this dress wasn’t cold at all to wear.

Once she arrived and saw her peers so cold they looked like they wanted to retract their necks into their shoulders, still having to walk the red carpet while enduring goosebumps, Ni Bingyan wrapped herself in her large sleeves, and a strong sense of bliss suddenly washed over her.

The on-site lighting was truly terrible.

People wearing dark colors like gray, black, or purple were really out of luck!

Unfortunately, gowns for these events weren’t that easy to borrow, and not many people, like Ni Bingyan, could prepare a Plan B.

Once they arrived, even if they knew their outfit wasn’t suitable for the day, the vast majority of them had no way to change.

This was both because they had nothing to change into and because there was no time to change.

The entry times were all scheduled in advance. It was one thing to get on the red carpet on time and dawdle for a bit—at most, you’d get a few complaints. But if you missed your slot, you couldn’t expect the A-listers to wait for you to go first.

As a Best Actress nominee, Ni Bingyan had a very good spot in the entry order, scheduled after a highly respected veteran actor.

“Wow~ You look so pretty today~”

The Taiwanese host’s voice was sugary sweet, and her sparkling, starry eyes were quite eye-catching.

It was a perfectly normal thing to say, but her tone made it sound strange.

Ni Bingyan gave a slight smile, not bothering with it, and simply returned the compliment politely, “Thank you, you’re very pretty too.”

After the compliment, she wanted to sign the board and go inside. After all, it was oddly cold today, and she had nothing to talk about with this host she’d never met before.

But the host stopped her. “Miss Ni, you are *also* one of our nominees for Best Actress today. May I ask how you’re feeling right now? Are you confident you’ll win the award?”

The Best Actor and Actress awards were the highlight of the evening, so being stopped for a few extra questions was normal. Ni Bingyan immediately stopped and looked the host in the eye for a couple of seconds before gently averting her gaze.

‘This host is really something else!’

‘First, she complimented me on being pretty “*today*,” and now she says I’m “*also*” a Best Actress nominee, as if I’m just here to fill a spot…’

‘If I were the type to stir up drama, a couple of sharp retorts would get me trending online.’

‘For example, “Do you think there’s a day I’m *not* pretty?” or, “I am a nominee, plain and simple. What do you mean, ‘*also*’? Do you think I don’t deserve this nomination?”‘

But she wasn’t that kind of brainless firecracker. She pretended not to hear the implications in the host’s words and just gave a conventional answer:

“Of course I’m nervous and excited! To be honest, just being nominated and competing alongside these esteemed seniors is already a form of recognition for me.”

Knowing how to answer questions flawlessly in front of the camera, neither obsequious nor arrogant, was a survival skill every celebrity needed to master. Across two lifetimes and more than twenty years of learning, Ni Bingyan was quite adept at it.

Seeing how slippery she was, refusing to take the bait twice in a row, the host had no choice but to let her go.

‘This beauty from the mainland isn’t as brain-dead as I thought.’

The host lowered her head and pouted. When she looked up again, her smile was back in place, and she began to interact sweetly with the next guest on the red carpet.

This guest was a local star, and the two of them were clearly close. Their chat was naturally not going to end in just a few sentences.

Ni Bingyan heard the conversation behind her but pretended she didn’t.

For certain well-known reasons, many people here weren’t particularly friendly when dealing with people from the mainland.

In a professional setting, they might be more restrained and it might not be as obvious, but for a sensitive person, the malice was impossible to hide.

This wasn’t something one or two people could solve, and as an actress, there wasn’t much she could do about it.

Once inside, she followed the seat number on her invitation and saw that someone was already sitting next to her spot.

She took a closer look. Wasn’t that Guo Tong?

‘I almost didn’t recognize her.’

Before, Guo Tong had also been petite, but back then her face was round and full of collagen, and she smiled sweetly at everyone she saw.

Ever since getting pregnant out of wedlock, forcing the marriage, getting married, and having a child, she had rarely appeared in public.

To run into her here today… she now had a sharp, pointed face like a “melon seed spirit,” and her frame was terribly thin.

She wore a black and white suit with a white crew-neck T-shirt underneath. Still petite, but her entire being now exuded a sharp, unapproachable aura.

‘She must have a good father. No matter how irrelevant she’s become, her credentials as a former child star could still land her a seat next to me.’

Seeing her, Ni Bingyan felt a complex mix of emotions, but she still smiled and was the first to greet her:

“Tongtong, long time no see.”