Li Xing

Li Xing is the third female lead in the drama and a minor actress whose near-anonymity becomes central to a sharp subplot about envy, reputation, and the violence hidden behind entertainment-industry competition. Almost faceless to the audience and far less established than Shen Tang, she first appears as a seemingly courteous colleague seeking an ordinary rehearsal. Her dissatisfaction with her place in the industry then develops into an attempt to damage Shen Tang publicly and, finally, physically, with consequences that destroy her career.

Identity and Professional Position

Li Xing is not a newcomer, but her face is so difficult for viewers to recognize that she is treated almost like a faceless extra within the production. The distinction matters: she has experience, yet lacks the visibility and status that might convert experience into secure professional standing. Her role as the third female lead gives her access to the production and its performers, but not the prominence she believes she deserves.

The contrast with Shen Tang is especially humiliating for Li Xing. Shen Tang is herself a low-status actress burdened by relentless rumors and a public image built around scandal, while the company’s publicity team routinely pairs her with male celebrities to exploit attention. Even so, Shen Tang attracts conversation, recognition, and commercial value. Li Xing cannot accept that someone surrounded by hostile publicity remains more prominent than she is. Her resentment therefore grows not from simple obscurity but from the conviction that attention has been distributed unfairly.

Rehearsal and the Photo Scandal

Li Xing initially approaches Shen Tang through a plausible professional request. She asks Shen Tang to come to her hotel room to rehearse lines, and the two finish almost at midnight. Li Xing’s room is close to Shen Tang’s, around the corner, which makes the meeting appear routine and gives the later confrontation a confined, immediate setting.

Afterward, Shen Tang finds an uninvited person standing outside her own door and comes to suspect Li Xing’s involvement in the circulation of photographs. When Shen Tang visits Li Xing and asks whether she was responsible, Li Xing responds with a kindly smile and asks what has brought her there, then claims not to understand the accusation. Later, when Shen Tang presses her again, Li Xing insists that accusations require evidence and points out that her phone is in her room because she had not even brought it with her.

Li Xing does not openly confess. Instead, her assistant admits online that she casually took the photographs but did not know how they had leaked, suggesting that the images might have escaped accidentally when the phone was sent for repair. The explanation protects Li Xing by shifting responsibility onto an assistant and an allegedly accidental leak, but the timing and implausibility make it a transparent excuse. The assistant’s statement preserves Li Xing’s deniability while confirming that the scandal was connected to her immediate circle.

Escalation into Violence

The photo controversy does not satisfy Li Xing’s hostility. Watching people converse happily with Shen Tang intensifies her discontent, and her malice reaches a breaking point. She notices a prop hook beside her, takes it, and hides it behind her back while approaching Shen Tang. The object changes the scene from covert professional sabotage to an imminent physical attack.

Li Xing first presents the confrontation as if it might be resolved through a public apology. When Shen Tang demands that she apologize on Weibo for three consecutive days, Li Xing appears ready to agree. Instead, while speaking, she swings the hook violently at Shen Tang’s face. Her aim is not incidental injury: she wants to destroy Shen Tang’s face because she believes Shen Tang uses her appearance to earn money. The attack therefore joins personal envy to a resentful judgment about beauty, celebrity value, and the economic power of an actress’s appearance.

Shen Tang reacts reflexively, catching Li Xing’s hand with one hand and shielding her face with the other. The defense prevents the intended facial injury, but it also exposes the seriousness of Li Xing’s conduct to the people around them. What Li Xing had attempted to keep at the level of rumor and deniable manipulation becomes an unmistakable act of deliberate assault.

Consequences and Ending

The production responds decisively. Li Xing is fired for deliberately injuring another person, must pay a substantial sum, and faces imprisonment. The incident is treated as exceptionally vicious rather than as an ordinary dispute between actresses. Shen Tang’s scenes are moved to a later date so the production can continue without immediately requiring her to work around the disruption.

Li Xing’s downfall is presented as the consequence of choices she makes repeatedly: cultivating a covert explanation for the leaked photographs, allowing her assistant to absorb blame, and then converting resentment into an attack with a prop weapon. Shen Tang feels some guilt about the disruption, but those around her understand the circumstances and do not blame her. She has no sympathy for Li Xing because the punishment follows Li Xing’s own decisions.

Narrative Significance

Li Xing’s arc reveals how the entertainment industry’s demand for visibility can turn obscurity into a pressure cooker. Shen Tang’s scandal-driven fame is commercially exploited by her company, while Li Xing’s lack of recognizability leaves her with neither public attention nor the professional security she thinks she has earned. The contrast shows that public condemnation and public recognition can coexist: Shen Tang is mocked, paired with celebrities for publicity, and treated as a source of traffic, yet that same attention gives her a stronger position than Li Xing.

The subplot also distinguishes performance from accountability. Li Xing can perform kindness, confusion, and innocence when Shen Tang confronts her, and the assistant can perform an explanation that supplies plausible deniability. Those front-stage gestures collapse when Li Xing attacks in full view of the other women. Her professional identity is consequently judged not by the role she plays in the drama or the courteous image she presents, but by the concrete harm she deliberately attempts to cause. The result is an unusually severe reversal: the actress who wants to destroy Shen Tang’s face loses her job, incurs a major financial penalty, and leaves the industry through prison rather than recognition.