While ‘The Green Apple’ was indeed an outstanding piece of work, there were other films equally worthy of receiving recognition.
Something happened later, however.
…
Truthfully speaking, the winner of the Best Actress for this film fest had been internally decided.
When the Mu Group heavily invested in the event, Mu Yazhe raised an uncompromising condition to the organizers: The winner of the Best Actress should go to Yun Shishi and no one else.
Thus, she could have won that award.
There was a discord among the judges, unfortunately.
Seeing that the wielder of the highest power in the Mu Group was absent, the organizers started holding selfish motives and ended up helping another investor tamper with the results, causing the chosen winner to be overturned. As such, the award, which was originally meant for the rookie actress, went to Lin Zhi, instead.
She only knew of this matter through Qin Zhou after returning to the hotel.
The manager also only found out about it at the end of the awards ceremony, and it got him fuming. He realized that there was a disagreement among the judging panel when they were about to present the award; they were seemingly arguing heatedly about something earlier.
As it turned out, someone had resorted to dirty tricks to rob his charge of the Best Actress Award.
Without this episode, the award would have ultimately gone to her.
It would have been such a historical moment in the film festival!
Winning the Best Rookie Actress and Best Actress awards would have been such a great honor and significance to her.
Also, she would become the youngest actress in history to win both awards at the same time at the Golden Eagle Film Festival. It would be something unprecedented.
It would be such an amazing privilege to a young rookie in showbiz!
Alas, due to various reasons, this matter had turned into regret, instead!
The man did not inform her of this while they were on their way back to the hotel, for fear that she would be greatly disappointed and break down into tears as a result.
In reality, though, she was not at all crestfallen by the news. Even though Lin Zhi and her team had indeed manipulated the results, Mu Yazhe had done the very same thing, too.
Nothing mattered more than his absence to the film festival.
The woman reassured her manager, “Don’t worry; I’m not that fragile. I’m satisfied with receiving the award for the best newcomer.”
“You’ve got a strong mentality, indeed! If this happened to other female celebs, they would probably be crying under the blankets right now,” lamented Qin Zhou ruefully.
“One shouldn’t be too greedy and should learn how to be content.”
He nodded before reminding her, “It’s getting late. You should get some rest in preparation for our return to the capital tomorrow morning.”
“Alright.”
…
Thus, Yun Shishi returned to an empty hotel room where she placed her award on the table and blankly stared at it for a while. She then headed to the bathroom to wash up. Once she was done, she decided to turn in early for the night.
However, with her mind being in a state of disarray, she found it hard to fall asleep, no matter how long she lay in bed or how much she tossed and turned.
Her mind buzzed the moment she shut her eyes.
Just as she was about to doze off, her phone lit up.
It was a new text.
The woman unlocked the screen and clicked it to read the message, which was from Qin Zhou.
[I’ll be waiting for you on the rooftop.]
It was just a short sentence of eight words.
Rooftop?
The hotel that they were staying at had a rooftop, which was located on the twenty-eighth floor. Why did he suddenly ask me to go there?
It’s already this late into the night. Isn’t he going to sleep?
She called him right back, but the call went unanswered.
That’s weird!
She made several calls, but they were to no avail.
