Capítulo 25: Young Master Attitude

Su Qiao heard Mo Chen's sharp gasp of laughter. But he was the only one who seemed to find the situation funny. The others, Director Ma included, stared gobsmacked at her like she'd grown an extra head.

In the eyes of others, she must be insane to contradict her employer so rudely like that. This was a public space and she had shown a blatant disregard for Lin Zizhou's face. Even putting themselves in her shoes, her outburst made no sense. Even if the Su Family were as influential as they gave the impression of being, they didn't have business dealings in the entertainment industry the way the Lin Family did. Their reach couldn't extend this far. If Lin Zizhou wanted to cancel Su Qiao's career, he could destroy her overnight. It wouldn't even cost him much. He could shelve her without a second thought, turn her into a benchwarmer for newer actresses by refusing to allocate any of the company's resources to her. No more advertisements, no more spokesperson deals, no more film roles, no more reality TV gigs.

But of course, as mentioned above, this was all in the eyes of others. Normal people, even those who worked in the entertainment industry, didn't have a good understanding of the way Su Qiao's society functioned. Everyone was connected to everyone in some sort of way, be it political, business, or even a personal relationship. Even though Su Qiao had fallen out with her father, she still hadn't been kicked off the Su Family's register yet, although it was a matter of time if the plotline didn't completely derail itself. But until that day, Lin Zizhou would have to give her father due consideration when debating his next move against her.

Not to mention, if he tried, Su Qiao had other options. Yao Xun wouldn't leave her in the lurch, for one. If she needed to ramp up the pressure on Lin Zizhou, she could even go through Yao Xun to cut a deal with Zhou Ye.

If push came to shove, she even had Lin Zixun's number now. Although that phone call had annoyed her, she hadn't been so foolish as to delete the caller ID off her phone. Any contact that potentially had a use in the future was a good contact.

So no, despite what everyone thought, Su Qiao had every confidence that she could mitigate any trouble she got into with Lin Zizhou. If he were every bit the cunning businessman he liked to market himself to the world as, he wasn't going to burn all his bridges before he crossed them.

But that didn't mean he wasn't going to lose his cool. She watched with satisfaction as his expression turned thunderous.

"Watch your words, Ms Su," Lin Zizhou seethed. Su Qiao nearly laughed in his face. She was 'Ms Su' to him now? Did Bai Meixin complain to him about how Su Qiao was so cold, so mean to address her little sister as 'Ms Bai' in front of everyone? This use of formal address served just one purpose in these two scenarios; to put some distance between them. "It's ironic that you should bring up professionalism after speaking to your boss with no respect whatsoever."

Su Qiao couldn't bring herself to summon even a shred of remorse. "I give respect where respect is due. This is a film set, not your office in DFE's headquarters."

She first indicated Mo Chen, then Director Ma. "This here is Film Emperor Mo, an actor who has won multiple awards and is currently standing at the pinnacle of the industry. And this here is Director Ma, who has won 'Best Director' at the Golden Falcon awards for TV series before and who is a veteran in the industry."

Following this, she waved a hand at large to point out the rest of the room and all the crew present. "And here we have a good half of the team, including our lighting director, members of Makeup and Wardrobe, and a small army of assistants who all have important jobs." She gave them a solemn nod in acknowledgement and received a couple of sheepish waves in return. It wasn't often that anyone paid the people running this show on the sidelines any attention.

She looked at Lin Zizhou with polite condescension. "May I ask Mr Bigshot CEO here, who gave you the right to waltz in and start making everyone's lives difficult? Out of, what? Interest in a young nubile thing, you've decided that there would be no harm in amending a characterisation to help this actress perform her role better. But have you considered what this would mean for anyone else?"

If Lin Zizhou's expression had been dark before she'd begun ripping into him, it was now murderous. "Su Qiao," he said, no longer able to keep up any pretence of being a gentleman. "Don't push it too far, how many people have you already offended—"

Su Qiao blinked up at him with mocking innocence. "Oh? Is Mr Bigshot CEO offended because I'm pointing out his mistakes?" She hummed thoughtfully. "If I recall, DFE has invested in this production right? If you ask our line producer, I'm sure he'll be more than happy to give you the breakdown of the budget. If you can stop him from crying over the ledger, of course. Lin Zizhou, you work in the entertainment industry too but you don't know everything. Have you thought about how long it'll take the scriptwriters to liaise with the novelist and change the personality of an important character in the plot? How about the knock-on effects on the rest of us? The venue's rent will have to be extended, actors and actresses will have to shift their work schedules and might have to renegotiate their salaries to make up for lost job opportunities."

She strode over to Bai Meixin, who almost backed away from her.

"S-Su Qiao," in her panic, Bai Meixin forgot to use her sickly-sweet voice to refer to call her 'Big Sister'. But Su Qiao didn't do much more than reach out and pluck gently at the bold fabric of Bai Meixin's skirts. The print was brighter than anything Bai Mexin would choose to wear and it did seem at odds with the meek saintliness she liked to portray.

"Even aspects that may seem paltry to you, like costuming, will have to be reevaluated." She rounded on Lin Zizhou with a flat stare. "So please, Mr CEO, before you go around suggesting bullshit like that, consider whether you're inconveniencing anyone with that young master attitude of yours."

Su Qiao had never seen Lin Zizhou this angry before. She knew he used to get irritated with her all the time but he'd never openly blown his top. She had thought that this was because he'd loved her despite their personality differences and had tried reining in her exuberance too to try and match his preferences. They were two very distinctive people, she had reasoned, and she had been willing to make the effort to compromise for the sake of being with him.

Now that she was no longer in love, Su Qiao was more than happy to test his limits.

Lin Zizhou opened his mouth to reply but suddenly, a small fair hand clutched at his sleeve.

Bai Meixin trembled like a leaf as Su Qiao regarded her. But she shouldered on bravely despite.

"Big Sister," she mumbled. "It's my fault, not—not CEO Lin's. Please don't falsely accuse him, CEO Lin's company is also one of the investors in this production and it is normal for him to want the production to do well. Perhaps his suggestion wasn't the best solution but…but I believe he was just voicing it out of concern."

[What a pretty little monologue.]

Su Qiao cocked an eyebrow. "Concern for the production or concern for you?"

Bai Meixin turned the shade of a ripe tomato. "N-naturally, the production."

Before Su Qiao could reply, Mo Chen interjected with an earnest, "Thank you very much, Little Lin Zong, but we don't require such inconsiderate concern."

But to an extent, Bai Meixin's objective had been met. Su Qiao couldn't be sure whether her oh-so-casual mention of investors had a deeper agenda or was a simple coincidence but it served as a reminder to Director Ma that he was letting one of his actresses mouth off to one of his patrons. Weighing them up against each other, he had to side with the money because otherwise, the entire production would come to a standstill.

"Su Qiao ah," he said in a worried murmur, sliding over to where Su Qiao was to have a quiet conversation with her. "What are you doing? This isn't a big matter, we can always discuss things more thoroughly with CEO Lin until we achieve a comfortable decision for everyone. Why kick up such a fuss? This isn't like you at all." He didn't ask Su Qiao to apologise though, just did it for her.

"Lin Zong," he said with a placating smile that looked strange on his stern face. "Please don't take Su Qiao's words to heart, she's still very young and didn't moderate her language—"

Lin Zizhou shot him an unimpressed look. "What's this? Su Qiao is 'still very young' so she doesn't need to take full responsibility for her actions?" His pointed reference to the script was grating.

Su Qiao was about to ask Lin Zizhou whether DFE was really going to run the risk of pulling out of such a viable investment option when Bai Meixin latched onto her arm, startling her so badly that she forgot her argument.

"Big Sister!" Bai Meixin cried out. "Don't fight with CEO Lin anymore, it's not worth the consequences. I know that you have everyone's best interests at heart but going about it this way…if the entire production comes to a halt because of your stubbornness, won't it be you who caused the inconvenience in the end?"

"It won't."

The voice that interrupted didn't belong to anyone present. It caused a bit of confusion, with everyone looking all over the place for its source, only to land on the phone that Mo Chen held outstretched. There was someone on the line and he had been placed on speaker.

Su Qiao shot it a funny look. She recognised that voice but didn't understand why it was coming from Mo Chen's phone.

The caller ID displayed was 'Big Young Master Lin'.

Lin Zizhou's face completely blackened.