Chapter 32: Two Things

The first thing Lin Wenzhi wanted Wen Jiang to do wasn’t difficult.

At least, not for him—it didn’t even require him to take any initiative.

News that Ke Yuan might be replaced as the lead had already started circulating within the club, but it hadn’t yet stirred up any major waves. The president was waffling, most people stayed neutral, and true neutrality accounted for less than twenty percent. The rest were more like, “No one else seems to care, so I won’t stick my neck out either,” though deep down they leaned toward Lin Wenzhi’s side.

After all, this was for the Yanhai Art Festival competition. When it came to actual acting skills and winning awards, even with rose-tinted glasses, pitting Ke Yuan against Wen Jiang was asking for humiliation. They could only play the emotional card of “Ke Yuan’s been practicing so hard, it’d be such a pity to replace him now”—and that didn’t work well on anyone but the president.

The real pressure keeping most members quiet didn’t come from inside the club, but from Ke Yuan’s external connections. To most students at Qingchi, his cousin Jiang Hehu was like a distant yet overwhelmingly present symbol—the closest they ever got to him was spotting his initials in shorthand while surfing the forums.

No one knew exactly what status Ke Yuan held in Jiang Hehu’s heart. Maybe Jiang Hehu was still in the dark about his cousin’s performance, or maybe he knew and didn’t care. No one had solid intel. Lin Wenzhi seemed fine for now, but that could be because they didn’t care, or because they only gave a damn about the final official result. No one dared bet on it until the dust settled.

So the task for Wen Jiang was simple: help keep an eye on their movements.

After all, he was the guy who’d openly beaten Jiang Hehu to a pulp. Wen Jiang was a bona fide S-Grade student—the S-Grade of S-Grades, the Lifestyle System of Lifestyle Systems. He should have more channels to Super A-Grades than most. Lin Wenzhi figured her request was reasonable enough. If it really didn’t pan out… well, the Art Festival wasn’t finalized yet. Plenty of time.

Very reasonable, Wen Jiang pondered seriously for half a second.

…So why not just message Jiang Hehu right now?

It felt like they were playing some underground intel war, sneaking around for info. Gold-medal spy Wen Jiang nodded cooperatively. “Sure.”

By comparison, the second thing Lin Wenzhi wanted him to do was trickier and more urgent: convince the president.

Mentioning the president gave even Lin Wenzhi a headache. The former Drama Club president had cared only for honors, not love or hate. This one might be a rebound from rock bottom—he wasn’t really into the competition trophies or prize money. Purely laying out pros and cons, facts and logic on which script had the best shot at first place, always fell just short of swaying him.

If most club members were fired up, declaring they wanted that gold award and to put on the Drama Club’s best show ever at the Art Festival, the president would happily switch scripts. But most people stayed silent, as if they had no opinion. Conversely, even those with ideas held back once they saw the president hadn’t taken a firm stance, figuring they’d wait for him to decide. This mutual restraint created the surface illusion that “everyone’s fine keeping things as they are.”

So Lin Wenzhi’s plan to convince the president was simple too. If boiled down to one punchy phrase: play the pitiful card.

It sounded cheap at first, but she’d thought it through completely by now. This wasn’t like brown-nosing a boss or sabotaging colleagues at a company. This was remonstrating—a loyal minister boldly advising the emperor for the good of the realm and its people. Alas, His Majesty kept getting misled by villains, unable to commit. With storm clouds gathering and the century-old legacy at risk, how could he ever face the people of Qingchi again? The minister had no choice but this desperate measure. Pure strategy.

If you had to label it, call it a beauty trap or self-injury ploy.

Lin Wenzhi had no kind feelings for Ke Yuan. Sharp take: if he’d put half the effort he spent playing pitiful into actual practice, she wouldn’t even be pushing this script change. The president only hesitated because he’d fallen for that act.

“Since he got his position by playing pitiful,” then we’ll do it too. Lin Wenzhi encouraged Wen Jiang earnestly. “You play pitiful too!”

Will I? Wen Jiang lowered his gaze, unsure.

He got where Lin Wenzhi was coming from. Flip the script, and her situation was like him finally finding his acting groove, knowing the direction to improve, able to nail a good performance—only to get forced into phoning it in, then dragging that half-baked mess onstage for the competition.

But on the lead role specifically, Wen Jiang had no burning obsession.

His desire to play the protagonist was real—actors could rarely resist that shining center-stage spotlight. But he also lived by another creed: perform every assigned role to the best of your ability. He’d always accepted whatever roles the club handed out, treating them as training without question.

Supporting roles, bit parts, all styles—they were part of his Supernatural Ability training. He’d never specifically demanded a role through connections or anything unrelated to skill.

Still, he genuinely believed the new script was leagues better, so he didn’t mind helping swap it out. This felt a bit like being nudged along by Qian Lang’s Absolute Trust, much like with Gao Mingcheng—no point fighting it when you could just go with the flow. Though this was a tad harder to decide.

The compromise would’ve been using her new script without touching casting, but that road was dead. Lin Wenzhi was certain Ke Yuan couldn’t pull off the lead.

She hadn’t deliberately sidelined him either—the role she gave him fit his vibe perfectly, with room to showcase Angel’s Voice. She’d considered everything. But for the male lead? Might as well stick with the old script.

Pushing the new plot but hacking it apart due to his inadequacies would just dumb it down to old-script level. She’d been down that road once. No way she’d do it again.

“I can’t think of any other way right now. The president won’t take bribes,” Lin Wenzhi propped her cheek, half-complaining, half-sighing. “Even doubled the amount this time, and he didn’t blink…”

“…” Wen Jiang latched onto a keyword, his gaze shifting back. “Doubled what?”

“Hm?” Lin Wenzhi blinked, then realized. She pulled out her phone casually. “The Art Festival prize money, duh. Haven’t you seen the announcement? Here, sending it to you.”

Opportunity.

Wen Jiang clocked it instantly. He waited a few beats without reacting. As she swiped the screen and sent the image, he spoke up: “My phone’s dead.”

He extended his hand toward her naturally. “I’ll just look at yours.”

“Sure.” Lin Wenzhi handed it over without a second thought, still on their chat.

Jackpot. Wen Jiang kept his face impassive. Before tapping the Yanhai Art Festival drama contest promo poster, he glanced at their chat history. There, stark as day from his account: “Will the princess become my treasure?”

Ah, so that’s it.

…So that’s it?

How did this tie into the script swap?

Because the script had a “princess”…?

Deep.

Even if he’d seen the text first, he never would’ve connected it to this. But regardless, this was ironclad proof Qian Lang had spam-texted Lin Wenzhi from his phone. Wen Jiang skipped it. He opened the poster, scrolled to the prizes.

The Yanhai Art Festival drama winner didn’t just get the champion trophy—they got a fat cash prize too. By Drama Club tradition, only a sliver went to club funds; the rest got divvied up by contribution, mostly playtime. Leads took home more than supports.

“The president even said if we snag first, he’ll chip in to double everyone’s cut,” Lin Wenzhi added wistfully.

No wonder money didn’t sway him—he could just pay it himself. Probably one of this school’s “student quirks.”

At her old high school, rallying folks with prize money talk—reminding them a loss meant zilch for everyone—worked fine, even if it seemed less “pure passion.” But not at Qingchi.

The Drama Club wasn’t too cliquey class-wise. Their current stars and ace playwright were average backgrounds, keeping things chill and chatty.

Using prize money to persuade others? Few would bite, and those who might would feel embarrassed in this vibe and stay mum. But “first place“? That carried weight. Everyone wanted to see the Qingchi Drama Club crush it, especially after the last two years’ easy wins. No one wanted to be the class that dropped the ball.

They even had an S-Grade performer!

The club’s buzz was huge now—Art Festival day, the forums would explode with threads.

Qingchi kids’ spending habits shocked Lin Wenzhi, but here they acted their age.

This year’s Yanhai Art Festival was bigger than ever, prizes fatter too. Champion cash plus president’s bonus—for the lead, that came to… this much. Wen Jiang did the math.

Wen Jiang: …

“Got it,” Wen Jiang volunteered, fully on board. “I’ll talk to him.”