Chapter 446: Red Carpet
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Xiang Wan took her mobile phone and called Hu Bandao directly.
Maybe since everyone was looking at her direction, she spoke in a very loud tone.
“Brother, how can you do such a terrible thing to me?
“Didn’t you set me up by inviting me to hotpot?
“Hah, you have the audacity to take my things and refuse to admit it? Do you know that your girlfriend is using that to attack me? Just what the heck are you planning? Both of you seem to be very good at plotting against others, huh?
“No, no, no, no, I don’t want to hear you out! Hu Bandao, I take it upon myself that it’s my fault to have known you. Please come right away and get your crazy girlfriend out of here. Get her to return my sachet as well!”
The moment she finished her statement, she hung up the phone.
When she saw Du Landuo’s bitter face full of hatred, she suddenly let out a laugh.
“Tch, you’re really pathetic!”
Du Landuo’s face turned gloomier. She was enraged and upset at the same time.
“You wh.o.r.e, you s.n.a.t.c.hed my boyfriend and you’ve got the cheek to show off?”
“I don’t want to know what’s the situation between you two!” Xiang Wan replied, “I’m not in the least interested in your boyfriend at all… Of course, whether you believe it or not is not important to me. The more important thing is… it seems like your boyfriend is really cheating on you!”
“You’re a s.l.u.t! You’re the one who seduced him, right?”
“Me? Seducing him? Open your eyes and take a good look at his appearance and my appearance… Do you really think I’d like him?”
“You… you b*tch! You’re still denying it…”
Her words provoked Du Landuo so much.
That she seemed to have forgotten where she was. She suddenly seemed to have lost control of herself as she raised a hand in an attempt to slap Xiang Wan.
The moment Xiang Wan saw the change in her expression, she tilted her head slightly and caught her hand swiftly before it landed on her face.
Immediately after that, Xiang Wan slapped her.
Slap!
That loud and heavy slap made everyone surrounding them gasp in shock!
Du Landuo also gasped in disbelief.
n.o.body had thought Du Landuo would resort to violence.
Everyone was even more surprised that Xiang Wan retaliated!
Everyone felt confounded as they stood frozen in their spot.
Du Landuo held her face and looked at Xiang Wan with her eyes staring at her wide-opened. “You dare to hit me?”
“Oh! My bad! This is reasonable self-defense out of reflex… It’s not deliberate.” Xiang Wan let go of Du Landuo and looked at her palm which was now red. She frowned and flicked it. “It hurts! Tsk… my hand hurts from the pain. Is your face hurting as well?”
Du Landuo felt irked, really irked…
The palm print on her face looked clear. It went to show how heavy that slap was.
For at least 10 seconds, she was in a daze!
At that moment, Xiang Wan quickly grabbed her sachet back from her.
She took it and turned around, smiling as she faced the onlookers.
“This sachet is mine, but I will never give it to someone else… It’s because this is a present given to me by my boyfriend. Hu Bandao is just a cla.s.smate. We went for a gathering at a hotpot restaurant last night. That was where I lost my sachet there, and he happened to retrieve it for me… That’s what happened! Of course, it’s up to all of you to believe it or not. It doesn’t matter to me.”
After she did the necessary explanation, she turned back to Du Landuo.
She then faced the latter’s reddened eyes. It was clear that Du Landuo might come at Xiang Wan again.
“Let me warn you!” She pointed at Du Landuo. “Don’t touch me, or else… I’ll no longer hold back!”
Hold back?
So giving her a tight slap was already holding back for her?
Maybe Du Landuo had never met someone like Xiang Wan.
Moreover, the Xiang Wan now and the Xiang Wan she met at the Capital months ago were both different people.
She was discomfited and filled with so much hatred because of Xiang Wan.
“Xiang Gongzi, a woman like you will not end up well!”
“Thanks for your reminder! You should worry about yourself more! You should get the actual woman who stole your boyfriend instead! You’re in this sorry state because you got the wrong person!”
“Why are you pretending to be innocent? The woman last night must be you! Hu Bandao told me he went to eat hotpot with you and even brought back your sachet. If even this can be denied, what else would you not bleeping deny?”
“So be it!” Xiang Wan shrugged her shoulders. “I won’t force you to believe it! It’s your business anyway…”
After that, she looked at the time.
“I need to go get my makeup done! And you… I think you might need to touch up your makeup too.”
Du Landuo was looking at her so viciously as if she hoped her gaze could kill her. Nonetheless, she could not find any word to retort back. Her cheeks flushed red because of anger, as well as her slightly swollen cheek.
“You b*tch, just you wait…”
She gritted her teeth as if she wanted to dart towards her as Xiang Wan turned to leave.
This time around, the surrounding onlookers were prepared.
Under Fang Yuanyuan’s instructions, everyone held onto Du Landuo.
“Okay, okay!” Fang Yuanyuan spoke loudly, “All of you are authors who have made a name for yourself, it’s not good to carry things too far, alright?”
“…” Du Landuo pointed at Xiang Wan and sobbed pitifully. “She hit me!”
“You’re the one who started it first!”
Everyone had seen that with their own eyes. Fang Yuanyuan was simply doing her work and was not taking sides.
“But I didn’t hit her!”
“That’s your problem, how you blame anyone!?” Fang Yuanyuan remarked in a softer tone, and Du Landuo changed her expression as she heard that. Fang Yuanyuan then tried to coax her. “Enough, don’t get so worked out. Quickly prepare for the event now, it’s going to start soon…”
Du Landuo could not insist more when her mobile phone rang.
The one who called her was Hu Bandao.
He only told her a sentence.
“You’re too much! I feel so exhausted when I’m with you… Let’s break up!”
“Breakup?” Du Landuo let out a growl and everyone looked at her. The tears she had been fighting to hold back now flowed freely without constraint. “Why are you telling me that? The one who is unfaithful is you; the one who is messing around is you. I didn’t even ask for a breakup. Why are you doing this to me?”
“Fine, take it that you’re the one who asked for a breakup.”
“I don’t want that! Why must we break up?”
“Hur! I’m unfaithful and mess around because I don’t like you! Is that enough?”
“Hu Bandao! You—”
Dduu, dduu, dduu…
He had hung up the phone just like that.
That was a heavy blow! Du Landuo felt devastated.
She had originally come to make trouble for the one who intruded their relationship, but it resulted in her boyfriend dumping her.
The point was, she still loved her boyfriend!
That was the most painful thing for her!
Du Landuo and Hu Bandao got to know each other from that training program as well.
However, the fact that they became an item was all because Du Landuo had gone after him.
Both of them added each other’s WeChat during the training program and chatted for about half a month after the training. Finally, Du Landuo made a trip to Hu Bandao’s city and looked him up on her own accord.
They made out on the very day she arrived in his home city.
That was the reason they got together.
She knew very well that she did not really satisfy Hu Bandao’s ideal expectations of a girlfriend. He did not really like her a lot either. They were not many years apart from each other and could understand each other since both of them were web novelists. After they got together, Hu Bandao actually treated her well.
When Du Landuo and Hu Bandao got together, she notified her close friends that they were an item.
She did not publicize it openly since he did not want her to do that. His reason was that it might affect them both negatively…
At that time, her close friends warned her that when a guy did not want to let others know that she was his girlfriend, it was because he might have other motives.
Du Landuo was actually unhappy to hear all of that and she ignored them all. She believed that they had a long time ahead anyway, and she could melt his heart one day.
When the platform invited her to come to Jin City to attend the Annual Awards Ceremony, Hu Bandao told her that he would come to Jin City to accompany her. In the end, he actually went to invite Xiang Gongzi for a hotpot dinner.
Du Landuo did not go for dinner. Not that something had caught her up, but it was all because she did not want to see Xiang Wan.
She never expected that he would only come back around three or four o’clock in the wee hours.
He reeked of alcohol and immediately slept the moment he returned…
Du Landuo then found that sachet on him when he returned!
“A cheating boyfriend… Boohoo… Men are all bad… Boohoo…”
Du Landuo cried bitterly on the bed in that room.
Two of her author friends consoled her.
Other authors were also consoling her, but her crying only got louder and louder!
…
Xiang Wan was waiting expressionlessly for the makeup artist to put on makeup for her.
However, she was dissing and cussing inside her heart!
Hu Bandao’s explanation was that he received a call from the hotpot restaurant when it was closing time that they found the sachet and asked him to retrieve it.
Since it was already quite late, he didn’t call Xiang Wan. He had thought to contact her the next day, but he had too much to drink with his two author friends and only woke up when she called him up. He didn’t expect that Du Landuo would take the sachet away…
Hu Bandao was the one who made the reservation at the hotpot restaurant.
The employees at the restaurant found the lost sachet and contacted Hu Bandao since they had his number.
This sounded reasonable…
Nevertheless, to get implicated in such matters was really frustrating. She directly blocked Hu Bandao’s contact number.
It was her treasured sachet! She felt that they had tainted it and this made her very unhappy!
Fortunately, she managed to slap that woman and got the sachet back.
Xiang Wan touched her hand that was still hurting without a word.
For the first time, she felt intrigued by the feeling of being a “strong woman” depicted in those strong female protagonist novels.
She actually felt so good when she retaliated back at Du Landuo who was trying to bully her!
No wonder…
No wonder Cui Ming and Meng Chi would turn out this way…
When others stimulated a person’s deepest hatred, the feeling of not being able to retaliate would make one go crazy.
Killing people seemed to be the only way they could vent their emotions.
…
The venue of the event was not at the hotel.
When all the authors were ready to go, it was already six o’clock in the evening.
Everyone ate something light at the restaurant and got on the arranged transport that would take them to the destination.
This was the first time Xiang Wan was invited to such a grand and formal event.
As many celebrities graced the event, there were many fans of all these celebrities waiting outside the venue. There were also ticket scalpers loitering around the venue trying to resell their tickets.
“… This is so grand!”
“Is this a studio of a broadcasting station?”
The venue was so enormous that it gave off a solemn vibe.
Security officers stood straight and still by both sides of the long stairway.
Anyone who entered the hall must go through strict security checks.
Xiang Wan followed a group of authors while they stepped into the venue and the staff guided them along.
“… There are so many cameras!”
“I’m so nervous!”
“Look at my makeup, is it alright?”
“… Had I known it’s of such scale, I would have chosen a better gown for the event.”
The authors talked softly amongst themselves. Xiang Wan lifted her long gown a little as she walked, and she felt a little cold.
There were signing booths wherein cameras could shoot them from all angles according to the lady ushers. After they finished the signing, they would need to walk through the long red carpet to get into the hall.
At that time, the celebrities had not arrived yet. They lined the authors up according to their website.
As the authors seldom had the chance to experience something like this, they were very nervous about it.
All of them were smiling awkwardly but politely. When they walked on the red carpet, their performance was still good…
Xiang Wan looked at the authors walking the red carpet. When it was her turn, she took a deep breath and kept her back straight; she then held her head high and walk as calmly as possible on the red carpet. Anyway, she could not see herself on the camera. She kept telling herself that she was the only person who existed at that moment; other than herself, she could see no one else.
Her nervousness only subsided when she stepped into the hall.
Huff!
The venue was very majestic; it did not differ from those halls hosting major shows that one saw on TV.
Xiang Wan found her seat; she sat down and looked around the hall as she waited quietly…
“Hi, Xiang Gongzi!”
A beautiful woman sat beside her.
“Hi!” Xiang Wan replied politely.
This woman was an author in Wen Quan with the pen name of Xuan Yue.
They added each other in WeChat before and would occasionally chit chat, but they were not really close.
Earlier on, Xuan Yue was also in that room.
Xiang Wan knew that she had seen the whole incident.
The waiting period for the event to start felt very long.
If both of them sat together but said nothing to each other, they would soon feel awkward.
Xuan Yue was someone who could chit chat with others. Xiang Wan also cooperated with her. Basically, they chatted about online literature and the programs of that night’s event. They did not gossip about others…
Actually, this was what Xiang Wan liked to hear in a conversation.
She did not want to make friends by talking about other people’s private lives.
“Look!” Xuan Yue pointed at the entrance of the hall. “They’re coming!”
Xiang Wan followed the direction she pointed.
People had already filled the hall. They could not really tell who was who.
However, when celebrities came into the hall, the spotlights would shine on them; the emcee also welcomed and announced their ident.i.ties to everyone. The fans below the stage went into a frenzy and cheered by shouting loudly.
“Wanwan, Wanwan…”
The p.r.o.nunciation of Xie Wanwan’s name was the same as Xiang Wan.
The thunderous shouts of the fans were rather uncomfortable to Xiang Wan.
… It felt as though they were calling her name.
Of course, she knew that they were not calling her.
They were calling out to their idol, Xie Wanwan.
She wore a pure white evening gown that night which made her seem as lovely as a fairy. It fitted the image that the company had created for her.
Xie Wanwan waved at the audience and sat elegantly on the first row of the hall. After her, the next person who came in was Ye Lun…
Hence, another round of screams and shouts filled the hall.
“Ye Lun! Ye Lun! We’ll love you forever!”
The atmosphere electrified the liveliness of the crowd.
Celebrities were always the center of attraction. No matter where they go, they would attract eyeb.a.l.l.s.
The Annual Awards Ceremony had not yet officially started, but the atmosphere was already fiery!
While she looked at Xie Wanwan and Ye Lun whom she knew from afar, Xiang Wan’s thoughts started to drift away—