Wen Jin was invited to the show from the start of the book and asks for Ruan Jinghong to be invited at the end of chapter 11. The show starts at chapter 19 and ends at chapter 68, so over 1/3rd of the story is just them doing these tasks on the variety show. That is way too long, its way too boring, there's multiple characters that get introduced and I don't really care about any of them. There's like a side couple that gets introduced in this segment, and while I usually like them, one of these girls was just trying to get on Ruan Jinghongs side the whole show, interrupting romantic development and just generally being annoying, so I couldn't care less. I don't even know if they will show up much later on, but I assume they will show up at least a bit if they were introduced like this.

Ruan Jinghong is just kind of a dumb character, and she really doesn't pick up on really obvious hints. I'm not entirely a fan of those types of characters, especially if you have to later on say "oh she just has a pessimistic attitude towards love and a self defense mechanism of just ignoring the signs because she doesn't want to get hurt". She's not just dumb romantically but she simultaneously considers herself an actress who only has even a little success because of her looks and also considers herself not particularly attractive, which does not add up. And this isn't even beginning to go into the problematic sh*t that happens where I am at, and the authors problematic views about it. Ruan Jinghong is being drunk, so drunk she won't remember any of this when she wakes up, with a drink that apparently can cause hallucinations when mixed with other drinks, and therefore is super cuddly. Wen Jin says she wants to take her payment for being cuddled and fondles her for an hour without permission. You might say, "wow that sounds like s*xual assault", to which I would say "you are right!". The author however, tries to say this isn't s*xual assault, saying that Ruan Jinghong made the first move (being a cuddly, hallucinating drunk), saying close girls fondle each other all the time and compares it to being woken up by her girlfriend with a kiss. You might be able to tell that these aren't really good points, considering Ruan Jinghong "started it" by not doing anything s*xual at all, those close girls aren't hallucinating and drunk, and the characters are not girlfriends, to say nothing about the difference between kissing and fondling. They confess after all this but they don't even end up girlfriends after, "Ruan Jinghong says I like you but I'm not ready for a relationship". The author really wrote something kinda problematic and then instead of just being like "the character is not perfect and can do something problematic that they might regret later" tried to justify why it wasn't actually problematic and its totally fine.

So the beginning is pretty good I think, when they were on the one tv show I think there were parts where it went on very long for things I barely cared about like the mu*der mystery but overall I think it was pretty good. I think the story started to go downhill once they started getting together. There are also other things that I think were pretty bad like the famous female lead realizing that they were friends (the other female lead did not know that her online friend and famous female lead were the same person) and this was taken advantage of a lot, which I feel like could destroy a relationship, especially because it was intentional. Not that I've advocating for this but the famous female lead should of at least left hints by mentioning similar things happening to her, that way at least when its revealed she can play dumb. At chapter 76 (I'm assuming, taking this chapter # from another review pointing out this issue, the famous female leads takes advantage of the other female lead when they were drunk (To clarify the female lead committing the s*xual assaults was not drunk) which is always a issue with a novel, although I kind of skipped over it and just pretended it didn't happen. (As a note I was skim reading that part so while I know it happened I don't actually remember much about it, hence why I'm not making it a bigger issue since in a lot of novels this is a huge issue that I would probably instantly drop for since with most novels you need to like the main cast and this is something that would make you hate them. I really think the author should of at least made the famous female lead drunk or something when doing it... It wouldn't excuse the action but it would at least add a level of accident to it, where right now it is literally just them taking advantage of the other person being drunk.

Anyway, the part of this novel that really made me dislike it and make me stop caring is two things. First once they got together the novel felt like it was becoming more of a smut and flirting novel, and I just got tired very fast of basically the same conversations happening. The other bigger issue that made me actually drop it (To clarify I was dissatisfied but would probably continue reading because content, but this made me drop it) was the entire case where the less well-know female lead was kidnapped. To give some context on the arc, the famous female lead had a guy who was obsessed with her and he got jealous causing him to target the (I'm just going to call her cat female lead now, shortened to CFL) cat female lead. To do this he worked with an actor who disliked CFL due to a misunderstanding and hired the part-time director. It started with a threat from the actor he hired, I'm just going to call her bit*h because I forgot her name and she acts like a b*tch. Anyway, bit*h threatened her to leave the cast which she ignored, then later that night an anon from the group chat for that project sent her a bunch of graphic images of actors dying in accidents which the famous FL sees causing her to send her aid with the CFL. When the famous FL asks if there was anything suspicious we get to my first issue. The CFL for whatever reason, decides to not mention the fact that someone literally threatened her. Now, this pisses me off because its dumb and prevents the famous FL from adding protections, but I can excuse it because its the first time and it could be excused with not wanting to worry the other person. But then the next day on set when she is on wires not one but two issues occurred due to tampering, and even at this point there is still no action being done. At this point you have threatening pictures sent, then on camera tempering with machines that could lead to a serious injury or death, and yet nobody decides to contact the police or even investigate. At this point the CFL still doesn't say shit, its still not being mentioned. I for the life of me cannot understand this, at this point its just pure negligence that she got kidnapped, caused by them lacking the most basic communication skills on both ends while also not taking any kind of percussion other than sending an aid. Then surprise surprise she gets kidnapped. At this point b*tch, who is backing out because she doesn't want to get involved with mu*der and just wanted to get CFL to quit the set, realizes the issue but instead of just contacting the police with the information she knows, instead she decides to go to the location sent to her by the evil guy and only after seeing the car there calls the police. Why. What is even the point... You have a strong suspicion that she was kidnapped, you have evidence of someone wanting to plot the crime, but instead of reporting it so the police can arrive sooner instead she decides to follow for no reason delaying help for the entire travel time for no reason. Then this dumbassary continues further with the famous female lead going to the location and entering with only 6 guards... Again, this is just so f*cking s*upid, you have no idea what is inside or how many people there are. What would you do if there was a significant number. I know that its a f*cking novel so everything will work out but during this entire arc the characters who are suppose to be smart just continue to make the absolute s*upidest decisions. So many modern novels do this type of thing, where they have a situation like this occur and then nobody decides to call the f*cking police for some reason. What would they have done if the CFL didn't get lucky by having the evil guy be a dumbass giving her a chance to lock herself in a room and protect herself? The book doesn't go into details but its explained that there was a camera and something about scandal's so she probably would of been violated and had that be uploaded ruining her life. This is caused from so many issues on so many fronts that its just plain s*upidity... After receiving the threat they don't tell the director or someone in charge... After having the machinery tampered with it at no point gets investigated (by the actual staff)... When the vice-producer suddenly wants to reshoot some scenes at night nobody thinks anything of it (idk if this is normal in china)... When someone thinks she was kidnapped they don't call the police... There are just so so so many things that make me feel like every single character lacks a single thought since not once are the police involved until after everything is resolved. Of course everything is resolved because its a book but it just really makes me hate every single character. The entire arc is just bad, I really don't know why so many authors add these because I have never once seen one of these arcs executed in a good way. They work (barely) in isekai novels because the person who does the saving has powers, but with these modern day ones there are police, laws, regulations, ect. Idk, it just really bothers me how characters that have been built up to be smart are then displaying idiotic actions solely for the sake of a bad plot.

forcing yourself onto someone, even "only kisses" is never a good option, it doesn't matter if the other peron loves you too, kissing a passed out person who isn't in a relationship with you isn't good