“Qiao Wan doesn’t know Liu Zhu?”

The dinner fell silent like a pond under frost. A dozen pairs of eyes turned as one toward Nana Toki and Liu Zhu, standing beside Zhou Wen like two figures under a dim lantern.

People had heard from the crew that Qiao Wan’s temper was odd, like wind swirling along a cliff. But Liu Zhu was a heavyweight in the industry, a hill of money and power with roots spreading wide like banyan roots. Most folks wouldn’t dare cross him; Qiao Wan speaking like this meant her climb ahead would be a cliff of thorns.

A man sprang up from the crowd like a startled pheasant, trying to lay a plank over the stream for both sides. “Come on, Qiao Wan, once a stranger, twice acquainted. Even if you didn’t know him before, you do now. Be good. Go bond with Brother Liu.”

Nana’s mind was cool as iron, her tone sharp as a blade. “Bond with him? That old lecher isn’t worthy.”

Her patience was thin as paper in a flame. She wasn’t worried about getting her agent out of this box alive; if they pushed her, she’d drop her main quest like a stone and teach this pack of idiots a lesson like a sudden summer storm.

“Qiao Wan, don’t spit on goodwill.” Liu Zhu’s words rolled like a dull drumbeat. “You clawed your way to the A-list with blood and sweat. Do as your Brother Liu says tonight, and at least you’ll bag a Best Actress. Otherwise, keep acting like this, and you’re playing dice with your own future.”

Humiliated twice, Liu Zhu’s temper snapped like a rope. His fat hand jolted down, the table rattling like rain on a tin roof. His jowls quivered like jelly, his look suddenly fierce as a stray dog cornered. “I’ll make it plain. When dinner ends, you leave with me. My people keep casting you and lifting you. If you refuse, hmph—within a week you’ll be swept out of this circle like dust with a broom.”

“So… you’re planning to put me on the casting couch, right?” Nana smiled like cold moonlight on water, and some people felt their scalp prickle like ants marching.

Something was off about Qiao Wan, like a shadow that shouldn’t be under a lantern.

“Yeah,” Liu Zhu barked, puffing himself up like a rooster. “I’m gonna take you, and you’ll agree whether you agree or not.”

“Is that so…” Nana’s mouth curved wider like a crescent blade, but her eyes held zero warmth, flat as winter ice. Her voice was clear and cold, booming in the still room like a temple bell. “What should I do then? I’ve poured years of heart into this. I’d hate to ruin it in one night.”

“That’s better, Qiao Wan, that’s being sensible.” The tension released from Liu Zhu’s throat like a loosened clamp. He thought she’d softened, and his tight face smoothed like silk. He laughed loud and crude. “Come drink with me first. I can ignore what you said.”

His mung-bean eyes narrowed into slits, his gaze crawling over Nana’s body like a greasy snail.

Nana didn’t answer. She bent and took up a bottle of red wine, its dark glass long as a swan’s neck. Everyone thought Qiao Wan would bow her head like a reed in wind. Nana stepped up to Liu Zhu, her face shifting like a stormfront—and she drove the bottle down onto his skull.

Crack!

Pain stabbed his head like a thorn under the nail. He hunched, reached up by reflex, and felt crimson slick as pomegranate juice—wine or blood, he couldn’t tell.

The woman in his arms collapsed onto the carpet like a startled fawn, terror blooming on her face. Nana didn’t give him a second breath. She seized his collar and slung him onto the table like tossing a sack.

Clatter-clatter!

Clatter-clatter!

Bowls, chopsticks, dishes rained onto the floor like hail, breaking in a chain of sharp sounds. Slammed onto the table, Liu Zhu’s eyes rolled up like a blown-out candle. He fainted. The people around were petrified, statues under lightning; one second she was talking, the next she flipped the table, no warning at all.

The actresses blanched, petals gone pale in cold wind. They stared at Nana like she was a flood-beast breaking a dam.

“He wanted to couch me? He doesn’t even know his own weight.” Nana tossed aside the jagged half of the bottle like a thorny shard, then returned to Zhou Wen and helped her up, gentle as lifting a willow branch.

“You all keep eating. I’m not feeling well, so I’ll head out. Let’s reschedule.” She offered a friendly glance that slid like a blade wrapped in velvet. Her smile was cold as steel. The room stayed dead silent, eyes on her filled with fear like birds pressed flat by storm.

Only after she left with Zhou Wen did the room wake like a hive struck by a stick. Phones flashed, police and ambulance calls piling up, chaos boiling like congee in a pot.

Outside the banquet box, Nana guided her agent back to the private room where she’d been eating with Shuyao Qin. Shuyao had been counting ceiling tiles like stars to kill time. She wanted to ask where Nana had gone, but when she saw Nana guiding a drunken woman in, her words slipped back down like a fish diving.

“This is…”

“This is my agent. We were at a business dinner.” Nana didn’t hide it from Shuyao Qin; she unfolded the events like unrolling a painted scroll.

“You mean… you beat up that Liu Zhu?” Shuyao’s face lit with surprise like fire catching dry leaves. “Aren’t you afraid you won’t survive in the industry?”

“Not at all,” Nana said, breezy as spring wind. “If he makes things impossible, you can keep me.”

She called a server and asked for sobering medicine, then lifted her gaze with a smile like peach blossom at dawn. “I’m not hard on the eyes. CEO Qin won’t turn me down, right?”

Her eyes held starlight, a whirlpool where one misstep could drown a boat.

“But my company still owes a lot of debt. How do I keep you?” Shuyao’s worry clung like mist.

“Then we’ll pay it back together.” Nana moved to Shuyao’s side, her voice soft as vines twining around heartstrings. “When your company’s in the clear, you can keep me. Okay?”

Shuyao felt dizzy, led by the nose like a kite tugged by a thin line. “Mm…” A soft sound escaped her, and she avoided Nana’s gaze like stepping back from a red line, afraid that one more look would push them over.

Knock-knock-knock—

The timing was neat as a drumbeat at dusk. Nana thought the server had arrived with the soup, so she shelved her teasing like closing a fan and opened the door. A familiar face stood outside.

“You?”

Nana recognized the man—the one who had tried to give Liu Zhu a way out earlier. Her eyes narrowed like a knife’s edge. “Did you follow me?”

Her gaze chilled, and inside she weighed how to silence him like burying a secret under fresh snow.

“Hey now, Miss Qiao Wan, don’t look at me like you’re a storm about to break,” the man said, smiling like oil on water. “What happened back there was forced by circumstance. You’re magnanimous; let’s not dwell on it. And no, I didn’t follow you. I’m here to talk.”

Li Yu slid into the box like a cat, even closing the door behind him with gentle hands. He wore a smile that didn’t fear the wild dog he’d seen earlier.

“You don’t look like someone asking for a favor,” Nana said, settling into a chair and crossing one leg like a scythe. A lazy, street-slick sexiness rose off her like smoke. “Cut off a finger to show sincerity, then we can talk.”

Li Yu froze, a moth tapping glass. Was this woman a bit anti-human?

“Miss Qiao Wan, aren’t you worried Liu Zhu will retaliate?” His voice dipped low, like warning about a scorpion under a stone. “He holds grudges.”

“Let him,” Nana said, palm propping her chin, her face unreadable as a lacquer mask. “If he can play, I’ll play to the end.”

Li Yu’s mouth twitched, his script tearing like wet paper. “Don’t you want a more peaceful way to solve this?”

“What’s peaceful?” Nana’s tone flicked like a whip. “Is he planning to charge me medical fees and call it settled?”

Li Yu sighed in dots. “Here’s the thing. I want you to star in a film. If you agree, I can bury what happened tonight, sinking it like a stone in a deep lake.”

“Oh?” Nana’s eyes thinned like slits of light. “Who are you to have that kind of pull?”

Something about him was off, not a random extra drifting in the crowd. Him naming her meant there was another door behind the wall. Nana thought hard, a fox watching a snare, careful not to step where teeth waited under leaves.