The Best Actor Insists On Living With Me!-Chapter 1661 - 1651: Sea of Sand (Part 3)

These days, there’s one big taboo: a persona collapse.

If you’ve always been a bad person, never doing good, it’s whatever. But if you start out with a good-guy persona and end up doing something jerky, once your persona collapses, the backlash is much worse.

Take Xia Siyu for example, she used to be full of scandals, so when the "simp" rumor surfaced, she did get criticized for a good while, but she didn’t care at all. By the second and third episodes, she started saving money and kept outsmarting the production team as well as helping Bo Yan with chores, suddenly her reputation improved. Plus, the sympathy for never winning any awards and her optimism in facing difficulties—at least the audience perception of her was pretty good.

Someone even commented: "Feels like it’d be fun hanging out with her. She’d find things for you to do when there’s nothing going on, but when there’s something, she’s pretty reliable. She’s often at odds with the production, but not overly willful, facing problems thinking about solutions rather than complaining. Much better than those women who panic at every little thing. She’s bossy but actually kind. Most importantly—she’s pretty. So honey, when are you coming home with me?"

The replies underneath were unanimously:

"Ugh, shameless."

"You’re dreaming of peachs."

"She’s clearly my wife (dog head emoji)." 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"She’s my husband!"

Everybody knows that Xia Siyu, after all these years, with ups and downs, doesn’t have many hardcore fans left. But having changed her approach, she no longer needs to rely on rankings, voting, or comment reposting to boost her status. She’s gaining casual fans, building goodwill among passersby. So in the future, when people see her name on a poster, they’ll be drawn to the cinema.

The effect is already there, actually "Youth 2" was quite ordinary, but because Xia Siyu starred in it. She’s rarely been in any bad films, pretty reliable, and while the box office wasn’t a runaway success, it hit 800 million, perfectly meeting the producers’ expectations.

This intangible word-of-mouth is very important for an actor truly carrying a show. Maybe you’re not anyone’s fan, but just seeing a show or movie with her in it makes you feel it’s worth watching.

Not even Shang Feifei has reached this effect. Among the younger generation, only two people have this kind of reputation: one is Bo Yan, the other is her.

If in the future, as her acting skills improve, this reputation might further intensify.

Of course, one variety show indeed brought a lot of criticism to Zhou Weiwei. But she is an up-and-coming Xiaohua, so these haters don’t really bother her.

In any case, she’ll mainly shoot TV dramas, while Xia Siyu leads in movies, one focusing on ratings, the other on awards, and they aren’t even in the same company. Almost no conflict, no intersection.

Even if this time, people found Zhou Weiwei unpleasant, they also know: "Don’t give her more attention, comparing her to Siyu, that’s just raising her profile, isn’t it?"

It’s not wrong to say that, the two have never been on the same level since debuting, if not for "friendship," no one would see any connection between them.

**

The hustle and bustle outside didn’t disrupt their variety show process.

From the next morning, the third and fourth episodes started filming in earnest.

This time, four groups of guests, a total of eight people, stood together.

The director group began to announce: "Welcome back to our variety show. As we all know, love, this eternal topic, while sparking emotional and hormonal collisions, must also endure the test of storms and setbacks."

Xia Siyu from below complained: "Where’s the rain in the desert?"

The director’s team was used to her nitpicking, so they had to say: "It’s just a metaphor! This time, you’re going to face a very harsh challenge. In the span of three days and two nights, you’ll be crossing the desert. Our destination is the Moon State. Upon arrival, you’ll get the final checkpoint’s pass."

As soon as the director finished, the crowd below exploded: "Director, you’re not joking, right? Crossing the desert? Us?"

Even though most of them had been to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, those deserts were just about playing with sand at desert hotels, completely different from actually crossing dunes. Given the production’s nature, while they’d ensure their safety, it surely wouldn’t be smooth sailing, right?

The director nodded: "Moreover, you can’t use modern vehicles in the process."

Xia Siyu said: "Translation: you walk, or ride a camel. Speaking of which, can we ride camels?"

She had ridden camels in Dubai before, found it very fun. The feeling of wilderness adventure was irresistible. She had always wanted to go, just never had the chance. Now she can, on a sponsored trip.

And she’s not afraid of sunburn, her skin is naturally pale. Just basic sun protection would do. When she was younger, playing on the beach and in the sun on Sicily Island every day didn’t darken her. It’s all thanks to her mother’s genes, so wilful.

The senior couple next to her seemed a bit troubled since the woman wasn’t in the best of health, but guessing the production would have staff to take care of them, they weren’t too worried. Zhou Weiwei had no special fondness for the desert, but her recent online reputation wasn’t great, her agent reminded her to be mindful and show more effort. But she had concerns: "Where will we sleep at night? What’s for lunch?"

The director replied: "This desert crossing will be led by professional guides. But for accommodation, we’ll sleep in tents. As for food, each group will get 300 yuan as shopping funds shortly."

Xia Siyu quickly paused: "Director, this 300 yuan isn’t even enough for us to take a taxi from Moon State to the airport."

The director chuckled: "Don’t worry, according to the order of arrival at Moon State, there will be different means to the final checkpoint. This cost is covered by the production team. The 300 is for food and various supplies for the next few days."

Xia Siyu turned to Bo Yan and said: "Did you hear that, we go by different means. This place is in the middle of nowhere, I suspect the final checkpoint probably isn’t here at all, maybe a thousand miles away. The means to get there could be by plane, train, or bus."

She was right! Indeed, the final stop was a newly built amusement park, a thousand miles away in Yancheng. The production team had prepared plane, train, bus, etc., methods just depending on who was faster or slower.

"Because this journey is quite dangerous, everyone is prepping and setting off together. The vast desert is filled with merciless yellow sands, everyone please display a spirit of mutual assistance and cooperation, and don’t leave anyone behind."