Chapter 55

Chapter 55

That file Chi Tuo had told her to read—the third page listed every questionable work arrangement from Huanzhou Entertainment since the contract was signed, spanning a full two pages.

The last page detailed the breach penalty calculation. An Ye couldn’t fully understand it, but she could roughly tell it was calculated based on her commercial value and the economic losses over the five-year contract.

It wasn’t a small amount.

“Huanzhou Entertainment isn’t some small company.” An Ye stayed quiet for a few seconds before speaking. “Their legal and PR teams are the most untouchable in the industry.”

Lin Hao was nearby, so An Ye didn’t say the rest out loud.

She wanted to terminate the contract, not leave the industry. If money could settle it, she didn’t want unnecessary trouble.

“Jinding isn’t a small law firm either.” Chi Tuo had finished eating and put down his chopsticks.

An Ye held back from snapping at him, just choosing to stay silent.

“And besides, our target this time isn’t Huanzhou,” Chi Tuo continued. “It’s Yan Wan.”

An Ye looked at him.

“In the five years you’ve worked with Huanzhou, both sides have more or less stuck to the contract. If it weren’t for Huanzhou trying to change directions, you could’ve completed your term there without much issue.”

When Chi Tuo slipped into work mode, there was a noticeable shift—his all-black suit no longer looked out of place.

An Ye no longer had that sense of a tall eighteen-year-old kid playing dress-up in adult clothes.

“But Yan Wan is a different matter.”

“He pulled you out of your old agency and into Huanzhou for his own benefit. His position and access to resources at Huanzhou came from you. Without being your manager, with his résumé, he wouldn’t have even gotten through Huanzhou’s front door.”

Lin Hao handed over another document.

It was Yan Wan’s résumé—containing both what An Ye already knew and things she hadn’t known.

Yan Wan, 43 years old, graduated from a vocational school with a degree in automotive repair. After graduation, he floated around film and TV sets. Initially, he relied on connections from his hometown to find small gigs and rounded up background extras to collect agency fees—a kind of foreman role.

Later, one of the extras he frequently worked with got a bit of viral fame from a fake-death blood-splatter scene. Yan Wan, an industry outsider, managed to keep the buzz going by googling marketing companies using keywords and calling them one by one. He landed that extra a few gigs on web variety shows—as background clappers or the kind of audience members who shout out a line or two.

That was the beginning of Yan Wan’s turn toward becoming a talent agent. Though that extra has since vanished—no one knows where in the world he is now scraping by.

After that, Yan Wan began scouting among extras—those who had some charisma or got screen time in behind-the-scenes footage. He’d help them build hype, get them follow-up gigs. After two or three years of this, he earned the nickname “Brother Yan” in that filming base.

But without a formal company, this “Brother Yan” couldn’t do anything big. Helping extras land background work didn’t pay much, so Yan Wan took his two years of “experience” and started applying on job sites. Incredibly, he actually got hired by a talent agency.

It was a rickety operation—no real stars to speak of—but still better than managing background actors.

Later, the agency struck gold by signing An Jiujiu.

At the time of signing, her film with Lin Luo, Amusement Park, hadn’t been released. She was just a fresh face with great looks who’d starred in a well-known director’s film. Her stage name “An Ye” was also given by this agency. Yan Wan wasn’t her original manager—her first handler was someone named Sister Liu, who’s now vanished from the industry.

Yan Wan became An Jiujiu’s manager thanks to Wang Shanshan.

The same film base where Yan Wan was known as Brother Yan was one of the places Wang Shanshan used to circulate photos of her daughter. These stage parents had all more or less heard of Brother Yan—once a self-made man, now part of the formal industry. After An Jiujiu signed with the agency, Wang Shanshan thought Sister Liu was too soft and couldn’t handle her headstrong daughter. So she quietly approached Yan Wan, asking him to help An Jiujiu out.

That’s how Yan Wan got connected with An Jiujiu. She was the first actor he managed who had actually been in a film—and not just in a supporting role, but as the female lead, albeit a child version.

So Yan Wan was highly invested from the start. In a company that had only handled web dramas and variety shows, he helped An Ye—before her first film was even released—land a low-budget violent film. When he took the job, he didn’t even consider whether it would pass the film board’s censorship.But An Ye’s career luck was genuinely good. After shooting the low-budget film, her portrayal of the young Lin Luo exploded in popularity. Riding the wave of Lin Luo’s success, that low-budget film—although never released in theaters domestically—caught some attention on overseas streaming platforms and was later reuploaded back into the domestic market.

Her career path stabilized from then on. Yan Wan was transformed into a top agent, became known as Brother Yan of the agency, and aside from An Ye, he also managed two young actresses who played fourth or fifth female leads in TV dramas.

That period was likely when Yan Wan and An Ye were at their closest. Although An Ye was the most valuable talent in that scrappy agency, the company didn’t have any high-profile resources. All her scripts and variety show appearances afterward were painstakingly sought out by Yan Wan. They achieved success together—he built an industry network under her name, and with his help, An Ye won the most prestigious domestic Best Actress award for the first time.

Later, when the shortsighted agency felt one film a year wasn’t enough and pushed her to take on back-to-back TV and web dramas, he began arranging contact with Huanzhou.

That was all An Ye had known.

Her mental state had always been cycling between roles, insomnia, and real life. Her sources of information were basically just Wang Shanshan and Yan Wan. It wasn’t until she received this file today that she found out Yan Wan had taken a 2 million yuan referral fee from Huanzhou back then.

Two million wasn’t much to her now.

But to someone who had nearly lost everything five years ago, it was no different than looting a burning house.

Back then, she truly believed she had gotten into Huanzhou thanks to Yan Wan coughing up blood from drinking too much.

The pain numbed her. She had grown used to being betrayed. Coldly, she kept reading.

Yan Wan had done many things—he rejected her job offers, and to make her more mentally fragile and easier to control, he took film roles for her that mirrored shadows of her childhood trauma. He lowered her price without consent just to put her on variety shows as a foil to Qing Ze. Of course, there were also those under-the-table hype deals—for which he must’ve taken a cut.

Some of these things she knew; others she didn’t. And Huanzhou had tacitly allowed it all.

Five years is actually a long time. Long enough that even though she had gradually heard bits and pieces over the years and assumed they were isolated incidents, seeing it all compiled into one thick stack was something else entirely.

Too thick.

So overwhelming that she couldn’t pretend not to see it even if she wanted to.

“Got a cigarette?” she asked.

“Quit,” the other replied, shooting a glare at Lin Hao who had started to reach into his pocket.

An Ye: “……”

She smiled faintly and leaned back into the chair, saying nothing more.

“Yan Wan had it too easy all the way through. Whether it was you, Qing Ze, or even Lu Ping—who’s now switched managers—the resources he held were all built off your names. He himself is worth nothing.”

Suited up, Chi Tuo uttered a curse word in a tone that was calm and professional.

Lin Hao remained completely composed at his side.

Instead, it was An Ye who glanced at Chi Tuo with a bit more attention.

“His value to the agency lay in the fact that he had you and Qing Ze under his belt. But you two weren’t closely tied to the agency—because of his manipulations. Especially you.”

“Huanzhou hasn’t technically violated your contract.”

“But Yan Wan has—many times.”

“Yan Wan and Huanzhou had an employment relationship. His job was to handle your image, packaging, and promotion, all under the assumption that he was an employee of Huanzhou Entertainment. So his actions also represent Huanzhou.”

“We’ve done the calculations on the negotiation amount. If we focus the discussion with Huanzhou’s legal team on Yan Wan’s behavior, they’ll definitely be on the defensive.”

Chi Tuo finished speaking and reached out to close the file An Ye was still reading.

An Ye looked up at him.

“As for the contract termination, I currently have just one proposal. Do you want to hear it?” Chi Tuo asked her.An Ye didn’t know why, but her heart was beating a little fast.

“If we go head-on, Huanzhou will eventually abandon Yan Wan. The penalty you’ll have to pay won’t be any higher than what we’ve seen before. But Yan Wan—he has to spit out everything he swallowed.” Chi Tuo said, “If someone has to take the fall for this termination, that person can only be Yan Wan.”

An Ye opened her mouth but no sound came out. In the end, she could only manage a faint “Ah.”

Had he spent these past few years in Singapore getting involved with some triad…? Isn’t the law strict over there? Or maybe he went to Canada and picked up bad habits?

Those gangster-like expressions...

What was more shocking was that his assistant—who had seemed out of the loop the entire time—looked calm now, like this was all perfectly normal.

No wonder...

No wonder Deputy Director Qian had said that the investor who showed up with a squad of tattooed bodyguards was somehow taken down by Chi Tuo...

Her mind was swirling with absurd thoughts, even briefly wondering if Chi Tuo liked wearing black because it was some kind of gang symbol...

...

“…Are there any soup dumplings left?” An Ye could only say something to pull herself back from her runaway imagination. “I’m still hungry.”

Her brain couldn’t handle any more.

“You discussed this with Qi Wei too?” she followed up with another question.

“This is your issue. I have to discuss it with you first. Only after you agree will I talk to the rest of the team,” Chi Tuo emphasized. “You’re my employer.”

An Ye shifted in her seat and softly gave an “Mm.”

Chi Tuo placed a small dish of vinegar in front of her, a pair of chopsticks, and the last soup dumpling.

Despite how ravenously he’d eaten, he hadn’t finished everything—he’d hidden one dumpling in the bottom layer of the steamer, and it was still warm.

An Ye stared at the dumpling and said, “With this plan… does it mean I won’t have to make my medical records public?”

Chi Tuo smiled and nodded. “Yes.”

“Our country’s current laws are still quite vague regarding intentional psychological harm, and the compensation for mental distress is very low. But as long as we raise the issue, Yan Wan will absolutely not be able to leak anything about your recurrent hypersomnia.”

Regardless of whether her condition stemmed from childhood, if Yan Wan publicly claimed An Ye had mental health issues, Chi Tuo had plenty of evidence to prove that Yan Wan had subjected her to long-term, deliberate psychological harm. That included, but was not limited to: giving her scripts related to her childhood trauma, forcing her through inhumane schedules, ignoring her reputation to pair her with fake romantic scandals for PR—and more. He didn’t even need those recordings of Yan Wan verbally abusing her.

Those recordings were inadmissible in court, but just leaking a few clips would be enough to completely destroy Yan Wan’s reputation several times over.

That’s the thing about the entertainment industry—its strength and weakness are the same: when it elevates you, it’s dazzling; when it destroys you, it only takes a moment.

So Chi Tuo’s plan sealed off her only potential weak spot.

An Ye remembered the times after their reunion when she had taken calls from Yan Wan in front of Chi Tuo—Chi Tuo had always told her to record them. Even though he knew Yan Wan wouldn’t say anything incriminating or leave any clear evidence, he still made that request seriously.

She had always had a habit of recording conversations just in case.

But he? He did it to destroy the other party.

Was she feeling wronged?

Yes.

Did she want to live a good life?

Yes.So the guy sitting across from her, the one who even had to ration his sleep, was once again telling her that he would fulfill all his promises—and all she needed to do was live her life well.

Eat a soup dumpling.

Act in the roles she loves.

Live freely.