Madame Lei lifted the cat by the armpits to eye level.
“Meow…” The cat was still not feeling well. Her small belly was round and distended.
“Your fish,” Madame Lei said, pointing to Little Bean’s belly, “is in there. Do you want to wait for her to poop it out?”
Ye Shuyun turned and glowered at Madame Lei.
Madame Lei laughed. “Let’s go, Little Bean. I think you better stay with me for the next few days, for your own safety. You won’t be able to eat my fish—my fish tank is fully enclosed.”
“Meow…”
The cat meowed weakly in agreement. She shrank into herself and tried to make herself appear smaller—evidently she knew she had done something wrong.
Madame Lei happily walked off with the cat cradled in her arms, leaving Ye Shuyun to her growing despair.
There were only two words echoing in Ye Shuyun’s mind: My fish…
At that moment, Yan Huan was still in the middle of filming Beauty, blissfully unaware of what Little Bean had done. She was entirely at ease; Su Muran, on the other hand, was gloomy and unhappy.
They were now shooting the scene in which Qin Jun and Mei Rushi vowed to love each other forever.
The camera zoomed out from the diabetes-inducing sight of Qin Jun and Mei Rushi acting lovey-dovey with each other, and then panned to a woman who was watching them from a distance. It was Chen Jing, heartbroken, yet defiantly keeping her tears at bay. She lifted her chin, threw back her shoulders, and walked away with her head held high.
The story then followed Chen Jing’s fanatical attempts at revenge. Her eyes burned with all-consuming hatred, but the viewers did not find it repulsive; on the contrary, they found her wrath to be entirely relatable, and their hearts went out to her. They instinctively understood that Chen Jing was a helpless victim; her extreme measures were a testimony of her despair, a cover for her helplessness.
Even though the viewers sided with Chen Jing, the protagonist had to win in the end. That was just how it worked. The odds had been against Chen Jing from the beginning; her fleeting glimpses of triumph and victory proved to be nothing more than a fantasy that shattered upon her defeat.
She was driven out of the Qin household; at the same time, her father, a government official, fell from grace for other unrelated reasons, dooming her family and rendering Chen Jing homeless. Even so, Chen Jing’s eyes remained clear and bright—she knew that she had done nothing wrong, and she refused to bow down to her undeserved fate.
But she could not escape her ultimate fate: in the end, she froze to death on the streets on a snowy night.
Right before her death, she reached out to intercept a snowflake as it floated to the ground, and watched it melt instantly upon her fingers. She did this several times as her body temperature dropped—soon, her fingers were no longer warm enough to melt the snowflakes.
When that happened, she allowed the snowflakes to accumulate on her open palm. She lifted them to her mouth, moistening her chapped lips with the taste of ice.
She lay upon the ground, her gaze fixed upon the boundless snow before her.
“I refuse to accept this fate. I won’t accept it…”
Her broken, shattered voice rose in volume and pitch as she let out a savage, spine-tingling wail. It died away, leaving only profound bitterness and sorrow…
Gradually, she closed her eyes. A solitary tear rolled down her cheek.
“Over my dead body…”
Those were her last words.
This was only a little past the half-way point for Beauty; the rest of the script showed how the female lead had earned her happy ending. It was a good opportunity for Su Muran to turn things around and gain the viewers’ respect; unfortunately for her, she did not have the chance to do that.
The viewers wept over Chen Jing’s death; everyone agreed that Chen Jing had not deserved her tragic fate. One of the viewers was so moved by Chen Jing’s story they left a long comment on the Internet forum about it:
“I don’t understand why that homewrecker won. The male lead is a total scumbag, too. You have to be completely heartless to build your happiness upon the suffering of others. I feel so sorry for Chen Jing. She did nothing wrong. She was just an ordinary woman, a product of her time; she was manipulative and cunning, yes, but she was also kind and gentle—you can tell from the way her eyes lit up with delight when talking to the parrot. She only began to scheme and plot because she had been pushed to the breaking point. If, instead of Qin Jun, she had married a man who actually loved, understood, and respected her, she would have lived happily ever after. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, the story ended with her death—there may be more episodes after this, but I’ll just pretend they don’t exist.”
Another netizen also left a lengthy comment in response:
“I completely agree with the previous comment. I’m dropping the show after this. Is the show trying to encourage women to steal husbands and wreck families? Unbelievable. The wife died, and they expect me to watch the mistress strut around like she’s earned her happy ending? Where’s the justice in that? How is Chen Jing, bless her poor soul, supposed to rest in peace? I’ll never forget Chen Jing’s last words: ‘I refuse to accept this fate. I won’t accept it.’ This is all too common in real life: the lawful wife ends up destitute and miserable, and can only say: ‘I refuse to accept this fate’ while her scumbag husband and his mistress live happily ever after. Well, like Chen Jing, I have only four words to say in response: ‘Over my dead body.’”
The comments that followed all said the same thing:
“I refuse to accept this fate. Over my dead body.”
It was supposed to be a beautiful, uplifting Cinderella story, but the viewers had a vastly different take on the story, one in which the female lead and supporting actress had swapped places. There were more than 20 episodes left in the story after Chen Jing’s death; Su Muran had been desperate to rehabilitate her image by showing that Mei Rushi was a nice woman who deserved her happy ending, but that proved to be impossible as the viewer ratings had immediately gone into free fall.
And she knew she had no one to blame but herself for choosing the role of a homewrecker as her acting debut. Mistresses and homewreckers were universally reviled, after all.
Su Muran had been pelted with rotting vegetables and eggs during a few high-profile shopping expeditions. It would have been the highest compliment if she had been playing a despicable villain; unfortunately for her, she was playing the female lead. It was practically unheard of for the female protagonist of a big-budget TV show to end up with rotting vegetables and egg on her face.
On the last occasion, her manager quickly shielded her and led her away, but they had not been quick enough to evade the cameras of the paparazzi. The photos of Su Muran with egg in her hair were quickly uploaded to the internet; instead of attracting pity, the photos only served to make her look worse.
The Su family was forced to hire bodyguards for Su Muran. Su Qingdong now wished he had never agreed to let his daughter enter showbiz; at the very least, he should have vetted her scripts carefully. He had been negligent, and because of that his precious daughter—the only heir to the family—had turned into the poster child for infidelity. The entire situation was horrifically embarrassing to the Su family as a whole.
At this point, Beauty was supposed to run for another ten episodes or so, but the rest of the episodes were cancelled at the request of the Su family. The Su family knew very well that the rest of the episodes would only serve to inflict further damage to Su Muran’s reputation, instead of saving it.
Their main priority now was to find a good TV show for Su Muran that would help rehabilitate her image.
