I Share the Same Face with a Monster - Chapter 4

Chapter 10

Sister Lin soon realized I couldn’t do a proper fan-service smile anymore.

She took me to shoot a commercial.

The photographer called out, “Zhiyi, sweeter.”

I tried my best to smile.

The photographer frowned.

“That’s not the feeling we’re going for.”

Sister Lin stood off to the side, her expression darkening.

After the shoot, she dragged me into the break room.

“You were in such good shape last night. What happened today?”

I said, “I didn’t sleep well.”

Sister Lin stared at me.

“Don’t throw a tantrum with me.”

“That face of yours doesn’t belong to you alone.”

The words stabbed into my ears like needles.

I looked up.

“Then who does it belong to?”

She froze for a second.

“The company. The brands. The fans. And yourself.”

She said it so smoothly.

So smoothly that I suddenly wanted to laugh.

But I had already lost the smile most suited for this moment.

So I simply looked at her.

For the first time, Sister Lin looked away under my gaze.

Chapter 11

The second time I borrowed the face, I did it of my own accord.

It was for a livestream interview.

The host was notorious for asking female celebrities about their faces.

Have you had work done?

Are you afraid of aging?

Who do you think is prettier, you or Su Man?

Sister Lin said, “This show gets huge traffic. We can’t turn it down.”

I sat in the dressing room, staring at the mirror.

“Can you go in my place?”

The Faceless Man appeared in the mirror.

“I can.”

“What’s the price?”

“One expression.”

“What is it this time?”

“Crying.”

I froze.

“What kind of crying?”

“Crying in front of the camera.”

His voice was very calm.

“You’ve practiced it many times.”

I looked at the mirror.

In my second year after debuting, I cried once on a variety show.

I cried beautifully.

From then on, the company arranged countless moments of “genuine emotion” for me.

Long ago, I stopped being able to tell whether shedding tears in front of a camera counted as truly being sad.

Chapter 12

“All right.”

I agreed.

The night of the livestream, I fell asleep backstage.

When I woke up, the show was already over.

The internet had exploded again.

The host asked, “Do you think audiences pay too much attention to actresses’ faces because you don’t have any respectable work to show for yourself?”

In the video, “I” was silent for two seconds.

Then I smiled.

“Why don’t we ask you instead?”

“You’ve been a host for twenty years. Why is your signature work still asking women whether they’re pretty?”

The comments flew across the screen.

Sister Lin screamed over the phone.

“Xu Zhiyi! Are you insane?”

I listened, but my heartbeat only grew faster and faster.

It wasn’t fear.

It was satisfaction.

The satisfaction of tearing off a layer of skin in public.

The Faceless Man asked me from the mirror, “Are you satisfied?”

I looked at the face in the video.

“I am.”

He said, “Good.”