Chapter 3 - “Take The Yang Qi For One’s Own Use” (She wanted to appease him, and after HuanYu had gone bankrupt at that.)

WanWan chuckled. "Don't worry. Nothing serious. He just wouldn't be able to commit any evil acts for a while."

Mu ZhenYu leaned back and propped his feet up. With an almost indistinguishable smile, he asked, "You've poisoned him? Aren't you afraid that someone would find out?"

WanWan shook her head. "Like I've said, I have my ways."

Mu ZhenYu didn't say anything further. He looked profoundly into her eyes and wished he could tell what was the truth.

WanWan, on the other hand, looked boldly back at him with a "fearless" look. She even waved her hand casually as she said to him, "Do you believe me now? I didn't collude with him to set you up."

Having said that, she turned and walked into the bathroom to tidy up.

He couldn't tell which parts were true and which weren't.

Mu ZhenYu picked up the magazine again, but he was unable to focus now.

Everybody knew that Mu XiYuan hated his brother, and he had a lot to do with HuanYu going bankrupt. Ever since Xu WanZhi went to Mu XiYuan's room to poison him yesterday to her saying that she was afraid of thunders and insisted on sleeping in his room…

She wanted to appease him, and after HuanYu had gone bankrupt at that.

His lips curved up, and he casually took a sip of his coffee.

Inside the bathroom, WanWan looked at the delicate little face in the mirror – it wasn't as pretty as she used to be, but it was still up there among normal humans.

The fox demon clan was very blessed with their looks and had traditionally played the roles of demons that'd suck men's qi or otherwise inflict injuries, fatal or not fatal, on others. As an exceptional fox demon, naturally WanWan had never been involved in any immoral dealings such as "take a human's yang qi for one's own cultivation". Which was also the reason why she failed to transcend at her 500 years' point.

Nonetheless, one could never be too careful. She may not have used it much, but she had an idea of how this "take a human's yang qi for one's own cultivation" skill worked.

At the hotel the night before, when she was pressed beneath Mu XiYuan and he was kissing her, she had no choice but to deploy that technique.

Normally speaking, any man who hadn't goofed around excessively in the s*xual way would be filled with yang qi. And there would be no impact having a little bit of their qi stolen through their tongues. Mu XiYuan, on the other hand, lived the extravagant lifestyle and didn't have a lot of yang qi left in him. After she had used her technique on him, immediately it was like he had been wrung dry. Which would explain why he felt low on energy and lethargic.

That man had tried to take advantage of her; that was but a light punishment for him.

After she had tidied up, Mu ZhenYu had already left the house.

She gave her assistant Xiao Yuan a call and confirmed her itinerary – the only thing she had that afternoon was filming the last scene of a web drama, "Not Enough Time To Love You" There was nothing else.

The original owner was a third-tier actress who had no acting skills, and she was stuck up and tried to leech off other people's popularity left and right. She flattered some while stepping on others and tried to make it seem like she was a couple with the film emperor. She had more than rightfully earned herself the title of "Queen of Negative Publicity".

Nevertheless, the fox demon clan was known to be smart, cunning, and transformational. They were also graceful and beautiful. There's no career that's more fitting for someone like WanWan than acting. She was confident that she'd be able to be rid of all the negative publicity in six months or less – in that case, she'd be able to live a comfortable life even without the $50 million from Mu ZhenYu.

Starting this very moment, she was going full-steam-forward as Xu WanZhi

Right after breakfast, she received a call from her manager, Sun-jie. "Jiang YueXian will be at the Capital Airport this morning. You go over there, make a round, and take a couple pictures to leech off some of his popularity."

Jiang YueXian was that award-winning film emperor that she had been trying to pair herself up with.

Xu WanZhi gave her a straightforward answer, "Nah, I don't think I will be going. I need to look over the script for this afternoon."

"You are not going? Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to find out his itinerary? With your current level, how do you expect to make any money if you don't leech off of someone else's popularity?"

Exactly how difficult could it be to find out about someone's itinerary? Sun-jie's voice was piercing, so Xu WanZhi moved her phone further from her ear. "I don't want to fake being a couple with him anymore. It's such a shameful act."

"I don't care if you find it shameful or not. This is an assignment straight from the top. You are doing it whether you want to or not."

The call was terminated. Xu WanZhi had it figured out; the original owner might be a cannon fodder who was engaged in all sorts of bad dealings, but as far as making herself seem like a couple with Jiang YueXian, that really wasn't her idea to begin with.

And so, she naturally didn't go to the airport.

10 AM in the morning. The film emperor's pictures from the airport were all over the internet and all of his female fans were drooling all over them on Wechat. Among all of them came a very hot topic.

Zhou LiQian: #Welcome back! But how come we didn't see @Xu WanZhi in this picture? Smile smile smile.#

Under that the comments were a bunch of criticisms.

[Good one!]

[I hadn't even noticed until LiQian brought it up. The Stinky Queen didn't strike today.]

[That was so odd. Did Xu WanZhi break her legs today? Was that why she wasn't there to harass XianXian?]

[LiQian Alliance. HAHAHAHAHA.]

[LiQian, we are begging you to take care of her in the show and not let her come out to harm anyone else!]

Zhou LiQian, the one who posted the hot topic, was the female lead in the web drama "Not Enough Time To Love You" that Xu WanZhi was going to film that afternoon. She was a first-tier girl who has been trending up recently.

Zhou LiQian and the original owner had not been getting along since the beginning of the filming of the show. Using her status as the female lead, Zhou LiQian had been swaggering in front of and walking over the original owner. The original owner wasn't exactly a pushover either and had her fair share of retaliation. The two of them had been fighting with each other both openly and secretly for the last two or so months.

Take this as an example, Jiang YueXian had just posted on Wechat and Zhou LiQian couldn't wait to knock on Xu WanZhi.

The film emperor's girl fans had already been bashing Xu WanZhi daily for trying to leech off of the film emperor's popularity. With the ignition from Zhou LiQian, everybody had exploded and started talking sh*t about her. Those who were badmouthing her had gone all the way to Xu WanZhi's own Wechat.

She got bashed if she went to leech off his popularity and she got bashed when she didn't. Aye!

Xu WanZhi couldn't be bothered with these minor details; she just turned off her cell phone and started reading the script.

"Not Enough Time To Love You" was a niche web series, and Xu WanZhi played the role of a cannon fodder who insisted on being the third wheel between the male and female leads. The scene today was after the female lead had already turned dark and went directly over to the cannon fodder's place, slapped her across her face, and revealed all of her plots. And that was the last scene for the cannon fodder.

Xu WanZhi was speechless; why was she a cannon fodder anywhere she went?

That afternoon, she took the little minivan to the filming location. As soon as she exited the car and walked over to the set, she could hear a high-pitch female voice whining, "Director, the main focus of this show was fast pace story arc and heated conflicts. If there's slapping in the scene, we must do it for real instead of a pretend slap. We should film it straight in front of the audience. Besides… if it was the wife coming to confront the mistress, it doesn't make sense to stop at one slap and some nasty verbal exchanges. She'd at least have to bring a few others with her and give the mistress a real beating. That's what the audiences really wanted to see, wouldn't you agree?"

The one talking was Zhou LiQian.

This was going to be Xu WanZhi's last scene. Naturally, Zhou LiQian would want to take this opportunity and deal the most damage to her.

Xu WanZhi chuckled. A beating? She must be joking. Alright, let's see who's going to be the one on the receiving end here.

Xu WanZhi walked inside at an even pace with a coconut in her hand.

By now, the director was trying to talk down Zhou LiQian. "Xiao Xu has her backer too, you know? You should tone it down. Why ruin your future over something so minor? You will be going your own way after today's scene. What is the point of all this?"

Seeing that Xu WanZhi had arrived, Zhou LiQian had taken it up another notch. She walked over to Xu WanZhi, pointed straight at her nose, and said, "Everybody in this circle has a couple backers! Isn't her backer that Mu ZhenYu who had just gone bankrupt? Hoho! Many slapping scenes are real nowadays. That's called sacrificing for the art. Do you not want me to slap you for real because you're worried that I just might mess up your plastic surgery?"

Truth be told, even in the book, Xu WanZhi was a natural beauty. But perhaps because she was too pretty, on top of all her other gossips, many called her a plastic surgery monster.

Many there busted out laughing after Zhou LiQian had finished talking.

The very next moment, Xu WanZhi quickly lifted up her left hand, grabbed Zhou LiQian's hand, rotated her wrist, and subdued her with her arm pinned behind her back. She casted a spell in her right hand and with a little bit of force, crushed the fresh coconut in her hand into three pieces.

Xu WanZhi smacked down the remnants of the coconut in front of Zhou LiQian and chuckled. "Sure. You want to fight? Let's see whose plastic surgery will be displaced first."

She had lived in the time when everybody cultivated. Let it be flowers, birds, fish, insects, beasts in the air, or beasts on the land, every one of them would cultivate toward becoming a demon. Never mind all the living things, even a pile of sh*t on the side of the road would wish to be stepped on by a highly cultivated monk so it could absorb some of his qi to increase its own cultivation level.

Would she let just a regular human bully her after living in that dog-eat-dog world for 500 years? What a joke that would be!