Contract Lover - L.K Adaptation

73

Chapter 73 - Don't Be So Superstitious ("Ignore
me today and I won't even give you the time of day
tomorrow.") (1)

Two days later, "Blossoming Us" finally wrapped
up the remainder of the filming and, after a simple
closing ceremony, the filming crew disbanded and
the show entered into the series of post-production
steps such as editing and approval screening, etc.

The night of the closing ceremony, the entire team
went to a final dinner gathering. After a few rounds
of drinking, the director raised his wine glass, looked around the room and, finally looked at Xu Lisa, said, "Come, come, come. Let's have a toast. Lisa , you must free up your time for the second part of the series. Don't tell us that now that you are a spokesperson and your status had gone up, you are going forget this big family of yours."

Xu Lisa understood that the director wanted to
take the opportunity of being in front of everyone
to blackmail her morally. She rose to fame in
"Blossoming Us", she should not forget this table full of people in the future.

Nevertheless, she joined "Blossoming Us" for the
purpose of appeasing the old madam and it really
wasn't necessary to have a three-part series in
order to appease an old lady. She felt that the
16-episode part I would be sufficient. When they
swapped out the female lead in part II, there would
be a preconception that she was not as good as Xu Lisa. It would create an unfair favoritism for Xu Lisa.

Besides, as she used her magic during Brand B's
photoshoot which caused the sales of Brand B's
product to shoot up, many other luxurious brands had sent her invitations. This was the critical time in her career. She couldn't possibly waste all of her time on a web series.

Xu Lisa smiled and raised her glass. "Don't worry, Director. It will be on top of my list for consideration."

As flawless and diplomatic as she had put it, all of the experienced people there heard the subtext loud and clear.

Top of the list to consider was still just considering it.

It failed to deliver the same type of assurance that,
say, 'I will definitely be in the future parts' would.
Obviously, first to consider was a round about way
of turning down the production of part II, meaning
that they would need to look for a different female
lead.

Hearing that, the director had the most mixed feelings.

When Silver Start entertainment reached out to him
and mentioned that the female lead would most likely
be Xu Lisa and that he had found out that Xu Lisa owned 30% of Silver Star's stock, he was
extremely reluctant in using her.

Back then, Xu Lisa was still the Queen of negative
Publicity that was hated by just about everyone
on the net nobody would have believed it if they
were told that Xu Lisa would have real fans one
day. As such, even though they knew full well that
"Blossoming Us" would be a series, they only signed
Xu Lisa for season one. Contrarily, the male lead
Shen Yi and the other two important roles were
signed for all three parts of the series.

Nevertheless when the filming was completed Xu
Lisa's interpretation and completeness of the
script had well exceeded what he had expected. She
had made a lot of newbie mistakes at the beginning
but who'd have thought that her learning curve would
be so sleep. Her improvement in leaps and bounds
everyday was visible to the naked eyes.

By the day of the closing ceremony, her acting
and reciting skills were already better than many
new up and coming actresses. With his very astute
observation, she would for sure become a shining
star one day and sky would be her limit.

All things considered, the decision of only signing her for one season would seem to be very inappropriate.

In fact, quite give the feeling of "so you ignore me
today, you won't even have that chance tomorrow."

The director knew full well that in any series,
switching actors/actresses in the middle brought the
biggest visual impact to the viewers. With Xu Lisa's
exit, this project would more likely than not go
downhill from this point forward. Smiling bitterly he
managed to say politely, "Okay, don't forget the small
people."

The dinner gathering was over and everybody
walked out in groups of twos and threes.