Chapter 513 - 323: Reporter

Chapter 513: Chapter 323: Reporter

Kenneth was trembling all over.

It wasn’t from excitement, but simply from the cold and exhaustion. He was shivering to stay warm.

The logo of the *Sunlight Newspaper* was printed on the chest of his jacket, which didn’t look particularly warm.

Its motto was that under the sun, no news could hide.

It was an entertainment tabloid that mainly focused on celebrity gossip, with the occasional bit of serious content.

Kenneth was this small paper’s reporter, editor, owner, and handyman.

Alright, the paper had a total of five employees, including a cleaning lady—who was his mom—and an intern.

What could he do? Starting a business was just this hard.

Even under such humble conditions, their paper’s weekly circulation had still surpassed ten thousand copies.

He was very proud of this achievement.

But he was still far from his dream. He wanted to turn his paper from a weekly into a daily, with a circulation of over a million copies per day.

The dream was beautiful, but reality was cruel.

Right now, he still hadn’t cobbled together enough content for next week’s paper. All his hopes were pinned on the Demon Shadow Festival.

There was certainly no shortage of content at the Demon Shadow Festival, but there was a shortage of content *he* could exclusively report on.

Just as he was agonizing over how to find an exclusive story, his nearby peers swarmed toward the police line like a school of piranhas that had smelled blood.

It seemed another fairly famous star had arrived on the red carpet.

Kenneth wasn’t very interested in this type of interview. He couldn’t write about this stuff better than his more senior peers.

He was, however, quite experienced in writing about celebrity scandals.

Although he wasn’t planning on fighting for this particular scoop, he didn’t mind listening in.

From a distance, he saw that the person walking the red carpet was a currently popular actress who had shot to fame after starring as the female lead in a blockbuster Shadow of Evil film.

Her acting was average, but her looks were superior, her presence was exceptional, and her figure was perfect.

After his years in the business, Kenneth had figured out that acting ability wasn’t the main indicator of an actor’s success.

Facing a sea of reporters, she was eloquently explaining the design of her formal gown.

It was an outfit made from recycled cardboard waste, which had been cleaned, sanitized, pulped, and then fashioned into a dress.

A strange dress with absolutely no elasticity, one that made it impossible to bend at the waist.

It expressed her wonderful desire to call on people to protect the environment.

Because of the worsening air pollution in big cities, "environmental protection" had become a hot-button term.

Every celebrity had to say a few words about it in front of the cameras, so their fans would exclaim what good people their idols were.

"Tch—"

Kenneth spat disdainfully. It wasn’t that celebrities couldn’t talk about environmentalism—there were indeed good actors who led by example, like Mr. Raul—but the actress in front of him definitely wasn’t qualified.

When she first became famous, Kenneth had tailed her for a while. Extravagant waste was her normal way of life.

And now here she was, standing before the cameras, pontificating about environmental protection.

’From this angle, her acting isn’t so average after all.’

’At least her ability to lie with a straight face is top-notch.’

Following her onto the red carpet was a film crew he’d never heard of. The man at the front looked vaguely familiar; he must have shown his face in some Shadow of Evil film, but Kenneth couldn’t recall which one at the moment.

At first, he suspected they weren’t a legitimate film crew, but maybe some internet influencers there to chase clout.

Even their formal wear was ill-fitting. They were probably cheap suits rented from somewhere.

Whether or not clothes fit properly was a key factor in judging their quality.

This didn’t just mean being the right size, but whether every detail of the clothing conformed to the wearer’s physical features.

Usually, only custom-tailored clothing could achieve a perfect fit.

Take the previous actress’s cardboard gown, for instance. Even though it was made of paper pulp, it perfectly accentuated the curves of her body.

’She really has some skill.’

’The gimmick, the message, the aesthetics—it had it all.’

’No wonder she’s famous.’

But this crew in front of him... ’Alright, they’re probably not even influencers. If an influencer were here to crash the red carpet, they’d at least make sure they looked sharp.’

’There’s no such thing as "oversized" fashion here.’

They were probably just a poor, broke film crew, hoping that an investor at the Demon Shadow Festival would take a liking to them and distribute their work.

In all likelihood, a crew like this wouldn’t have anything worth reporting, but Kenneth still went over with his voice recorder.

Nobodies were more likely to speak without a filter and say something "explosive." It wasn’t serious content, but it could be used as a gimmick.

However, someone was faster than him, snatching the first interview opportunity.

Competition in the media industry was just that direct.

Reporters had to be fast.

"Mr. Lavin, are you attending this year’s Demon Shadow Festival with a new film?"

’Mr. Lavin?’

Hearing his peer’s question, Kenneth found the name a bit familiar.

’Who was that again?’

"Yes, I’ve brought a new film, *Old Clothes*. It’s a story about Augustine City."

"Did you receive any help from Mr. Zhuoge while filming?"

"Yes, Mr. Zhuoge offered some invaluable advice for my script, and I’m very grateful for that. But this film was still primarily completed by me and my fellow people of Augustine."

Listening to their back-and-forth, Kenneth remembered: the Augustine actor from *Silence of the Lambs*.

He’d only been in that one movie, then took on a ton of commercials, and then one day just vanished without a trace.

’A decent actor, all things considered.’

"So, did any of the friends you made on the set of *Silence of the Lambs* make a cameo in your new film?"

The interviewing reporter clearly didn’t care about Lavin’s new film; he kept steering the conversation toward *Silence of the Lambs*.

In the reporter’s eyes, Starling, Raul, and Zhuoge—they were the darlings of the media, the absolute top-tier celebrities. Prying even a tiny bit of new information about them would be a win.