"Ah! It can’t be that serious, right." Liu Tangtang opened her little mouth, completely unaware of how serious this was for her. It was just a tiny little signature.

Besides, she’d hired one of those pros who are insanely good at imitation. The signatures shouldn’t get noticed. Precisely because of that mindset, in her eyes, it was just a trivial matter. Hardly counted as a big deal.

And anyway, she’d already finished signing all three thousand copies of the album. If they made her sign them all over again, wouldn’t that cost her little life?

"When a star doesn’t even have the most basic integrity anymore, no matter how popular she gets, it’s only temporary. You have to understand what it is your fans actually like about you. If they just purely like your singing voice, or just your looks, Nangong sis can solemnly tell you this: when those fans all grow up and mature, and you’re still standing in the same place, one day they’ll all walk away from you."

"At that time, what you lose won’t be just a few fans. It’s very likely your whole career on this path will come to an end. I’m saying all this, not to scare you.

When it comes to being a person and doing things, integrity is extremely precious. Maybe you don’t have enough life experience right now. People can be vicious. You’re riding this wave of popularity at the moment—who can guarantee no one will try to smear you?"

Nangong Bing was like a mother lecturing her children. She was trying to pour all the experience she’d accumulated over the years into her words and pass it on to them.

"Cousin, you’re exaggerating. It’s just this once. We won’t do it again next time." Just thinking about the three thousand signed albums made Huahua feel drunk. Three thousand copies—she figured her hand would swell up from signing.

"How can this kind of thing be ’just this once’?" Hearing that, her dark brows twitched twice again.

To Nangong Bing, integrity mattered more than anything. If a person didn’t even have the most basic integrity, how could they hope to do well in life?

For a star, the most precious thing is their image. Integrity is just the positive side of that image.

If you don’t even want your integrity, then you have no image. And a star with no image at all—what else is there to talk about?

"This isn’t just about your public image and integrity. It’s more about your future. You’ve only just taken your first steps, and you’re already playing yourselves like this. What about later? Brother Lin is throwing all his resources at you without holding anything back. Do you really want to see him disappointed?"

This was also the first time in history Nangong Bing had ever actually lost her temper at the two of them. She hated that these two girls didn’t have the slightest bit of calculation in their heads.

Right now Huayu Group was spending so much effort to groom them. If anything went wrong at a critical moment like this, the jealous ones would definitely make a huge fuss, use the power of the media, and crush them to death without them even knowing how they went down.

"Okay, okay. Cousin, don’t be mad at us. We’re still young, we don’t know any better. Worst case, we just won’t do it again next time. This time Tangtang and I will resign everything from scratch, okay?"

Knowing their cousin was already angry, Huahua quickly stepped forward and gently shook her shoulder, trying to butter her up with a pitiful expression.

"Hee-hee~ Nangong sis, you’re so right, you suddenly made Tangtang understand a lot. Since we can’t do it that way, then worst case we’ll just re-sign them all tomorrow."

"As long as you understand. Some things are not as simple as you imagine. In this life—especially when it comes to your own future—every step has to be carefully calculated. One wrong step can lead to every step after being wrong, and it might be hard to ever get back up again."

Nangong Bing shook her head helplessly. Her life experience was something the two of them together couldn’t compare to.

Most of the time, most things are about taking it one step at a time and slowly growing.

Cutting corners and playing tricks might get you short-term success, but it won’t last. The one you end up ruining may only be yourself...

The next morning...

The signing event went ahead as scheduled.

Nangong Bing still didn’t feel safe leaving it to these two silly girls, so she went along in person to supervise them through the signing session. Luckily, she was careful enough.

Before the signing even started, she noticed that during the event, Meng Youjing had in fact hauled over a whole cart of pre-signed albums, ready to distribute to the fans.

Thankfully, Nangong Bing intercepted them on the spot. If those albums with forged signatures had been released, the consequences would’ve been unimaginable.

Over this matter, Meng Youjing’s face burned with shame. Nangong Bing didn’t blame her, nor did she tell Huahua and Tangtang about it.

Anyone would get hand cramps after signing several thousand albums, no matter who it was. But on this, Nangong Bing was adamant about a pragmatic, hands-on attitude. She absolutely refused to allow any fakery. If it ever got exposed later,

the only ones destroyed would be the two of them.

Afterwards, from the morning signing all the way until ten at night, the two girls had signed so much they couldn’t even hold chopsticks anymore.

Yet once Nangong Bing sat down in the private room, the first one whose face started burning was still Meng Youjing, because the whole forged-signature scheme had been her idea.

"Cousin~ my hand hurts~"

"Nangong sis, my hand hurts too, it hurts so much I can barely use chopsticks."

The two girls started whining to Nangong Bing in the private room. But Nangong Bing’s attitude was extremely cold. It was just a small thing like autographs, and they’d managed to turn it into this. She honestly couldn’t understand it.

Not to mention, if she hadn’t caught them herself, what they did earlier would’ve caused a huge disaster.

Right now she was just giving them a small punishment. For the two of them, this would only do good, not harm. This was the best way she could think of to teach them a lesson.

"You’re already grown-ups. Your hands go soft just from signing, what, do you expect someone to feed you two your meals as well?" Nangong Bing said coldly. There wasn’t the slightest warmth in her voice.

And Meng Youjing, sitting off to the side, kept her head lowered the whole time, not daring to say a word.

If she could treat even her own cousin like this, you could imagine how strong this domineering-CEO-type woman’s methods were. As their agent, she hadn’t just failed to plan things out properly—she’d actually caused trouble for their future by playing little tricks. The meal in front of her tasted like sand, utterly flavorless.

She knew very clearly that she’d already been pretty incompetent as their agent. Sitting on the shoulders of a giant as big as Huayu Group, not only did she fail to do her best, she’d even tried this kind of shortcut.

Thinking about it, she herself felt she’d completely lost face.

It was as if Nangong Bing could see what Meng Youjing was thinking inside.

She didn’t call her out. Instead, she personally poured her a glass of vodka and gave her a gentle, understanding look. That tiny look was enough to move Meng Youjing so much she almost burst into tears.

Of course, Nangong Bing knew that Meng Youjing had done it because she felt sorry for the two girls and had resorted to this last-ditch idea. That was something she could forgive.

For this meal, some people were eating with tears in their eyes, and some were eating in extreme discomfort. But to Nangong Bing, the past two days might have just been a drain on her Time, while for these two girls, it was a lifelong big deal!．＇

(It’s August, throw me the guaranteed Monthly ticket in your hands. Can we break 100!)