Yuan Yuan

Yuan Yuan is Shen Tang’s junior assistant, but her function in the story extends well beyond routine office support. She is the person who repeatedly carries information into Shen Tang’s life, stands beside her when public attention turns hostile, and responds to danger with fear that is nevertheless overcome by trust. Through Yuan Yuan, the pressures surrounding Shen Tang’s career become visible at an intimate, everyday level: rumors arrive as workplace news, opportunities require exhausting preparation, and even a frightening night at a remote production location is endured as a shared ordeal.

Identity and Introduction

Yuan Yuan is introduced as a baby-faced junior assistant who pokes her head into Shen Tang’s office after Wang Brother summons Shen Tang to a conference room. Her assignment is simple on the surface—deliver instructions—but the scene establishes her as a direct link between Shen Tang and the machinery of the entertainment company. She tells Shen Tang that Wang Brother wants her in the conference room, and Shen Tang immediately understands that a decision has been made and that Wang Brother will attempt to extract whatever remaining value he can from her.

That first appearance also places Yuan Yuan within Shen Tang’s vulnerable professional position. Shen Tang is a low-ranking celebrity whose reputation is dominated by scandals, and the company’s public-relations strategy exploits her notoriety by pairing her with male celebrities and treating her as a source of attention. Yuan Yuan does not control that system, yet she is close enough to its effects to witness the rumors and their consequences. When someone spreads the claim that Shen Tang is being kept by an old man, Yuan Yuan is indignant and worried, asking whether the rumor should be clarified. Shen Tang chooses not to respond, but Yuan Yuan’s reaction marks her as someone who recognizes the personal harm concealed beneath the industry’s claim that bad publicity is still publicity.

Work, Mediation, and Professional Loyalty

Yuan Yuan’s practical role recurs whenever Shen Tang must move between different parts of her life. She calls Shen Tang to tell her that she has reached the hot search, becoming the messenger of Shen Tang’s sudden online visibility. She also appears in connection with Shen Tang’s contractual marriage: when Shen Tang is leaving for the company, she encounters Assistant Cen, who is delivering breakfast from Gu Huaian, while Yuan Yuan remains part of the ordinary work structure surrounding her. At another point, Shen Tang looks toward her own car and sees only the driver and Yuan Yuan; Wang Brother is absent, a small but telling contrast between the assistant who remains present and the manager who fails to appear.

Her assistance is not merely administrative. During preparation for an audition, Yuan Yuan cheers Shen Tang through the final thirty minutes of exhausting training. The encouragement is cheerful but also concrete: she insists that only the last half hour remains while Shen Tang, tired and hungry, can barely answer. After the audition, when Shen Tang leaves frowning and shaking her head, Yuan Yuan immediately reassures her that another opportunity will come and that she believes in her. Her loyalty therefore operates through both labor and morale. She helps Shen Tang endure the physical demands imposed by Pei Kesong’s preparation while also cushioning the emotional impact of an uncertain result.

Yuan Yuan accompanies Shen Tang to the audition where Qi Yue appears in a different professional capacity despite having retired from the industry. Her presence situates her not as a distant employee but as part of Shen Tang’s working unit, moving with her between cars, sets, auditions, and commercial obligations. The assistant’s repeated proximity gives continuity to a career otherwise marked by sudden changes in reputation, employment, and public image.

Livestreams, Games, and Shared Media Spaces

Yuan Yuan’s relationship with Shen Tang also develops through mediated social spaces. Shen Tang receives a message from Miao Miao asking her to play King of Glory, and later encounters Gu Huaian online after he has reached the King rank. Yuan Yuan is not always the person playing beside Shen Tang, but the gaming episodes belong to the same network of informal companionship in which Shen Tang’s identity is less controlled by company publicity. The game allows relationships to form through teamwork, rank, insults, and performance rather than through official entertainment-industry roles.

The livestream offers a sharper version of that tension. Shen Tang maintains a professional smile while black fans flood the room with abuse, knowing that the popularity will increase and that she will earn money from the company split. The stream is ostensibly intended to help farmers by selling agricultural products from remote mountainous areas with surplus fruit, yet its commercial success depends partly on the spectacle of Shen Tang absorbing hostility without breaking character. Yuan Yuan’s position beside Shen Tang in other work contexts helps illuminate the labor behind that composed public image: the smile is a performance, while the assistant’s presence belongs to the backstage world that sustains it.

Fear, Trust, and Protective Companionship

The clearest test of Yuan Yuan’s character comes after a disturbing incident on a production trip. Shen Tang and Yuan Yuan share a small suite while heavy rain falls outside, and both remain too unsettled to sleep. Yuan Yuan begins to speculate about what may have happened, then hears something that recalls an earlier jumper and fears that a murderer may be coming for them. Tears immediately gather in her eyes, and she calls for Shen Tang in distress.

Yuan Yuan’s fear does not make her useless or disloyal. Shen Tang has already sent a distress message to the police and asks whether Yuan Yuan trusts her. Remembering Shen Tang’s earlier uncanny encounters, Yuan Yuan nods and places her trust in her. The exchange turns their working relationship into a protective bond: Shen Tang supplies decisive action, while Yuan Yuan supplies an emotionally honest response and the willingness to remain with her despite danger. Trust here is not abstract sentiment; it is a choice made while the two women are isolated, frightened, and uncertain whether violence may reach them.

That scene also reveals Yuan Yuan’s emotional permeability. She reacts bodily before she can fully organize the threat into an explanation, with shock and tears preceding reassurance. Her fear is shared with Shen Tang rather than concealed behind professional composure, making the assistant a counterpoint to Shen Tang’s practiced ability to keep smiling while audiences insult her. Where Shen Tang turns public hostility into income, Yuan Yuan registers its human cost directly.

Narrative Role and Significance

Yuan Yuan is characterized through recurrence rather than through a separate dramatic agenda. She calls with news, delivers instructions, accompanies Shen Tang in cars and at auditions, cheers her through training, worries over malicious rumors, and remains beside her during moments when the entertainment industry’s supposedly glamorous surface gives way to exhaustion or danger. Her small actions create a dependable rhythm in a plot filled with scandal, contractual arrangements, online conflict, and sudden threats.

Her importance lies precisely in the contrast between institutional exploitation and personal care. Wang Brother treats Shen Tang as a resource whose notoriety can be monetized, while Yuan Yuan attends to whether Shen Tang is safe, discouraged, hungry, or frightened. The company’s public-relations team turns Shen Tang into a disposable scandal brand; Yuan Yuan continues to address her as “Sis Tang Tang,” a familiar form that preserves companionship inside an impersonal system. As the story moves between hot searches, livestreams, games, auditions, banquets, and investigations, Yuan Yuan remains one of the figures who makes Shen Tang’s survival feel collective rather than solitary.