Xu Shuangrong

Biodata

Background / History

Xu Shuangrong was born into poverty and suffered extensively during childhood. She resolved to become a top star and award-winning actress, intending to surpass and crush the people who had bullied her. Xie Mi’s recollection of the original novel describes this ambition as having hardened her into someone willing to disregard morality and use others to achieve her goals 29. Later developments challenge whether all the childhood mistreatment implied by the original novel actually occurred, particularly its portrayal of her stepfather 344 345.

After several unsuccessful dramas, she sought opportunities to approach award-winning actor Xiao Jingxi. Although she knew he had a girlfriend, she pursued publicity as his romantic partner. Their subsequent hit drama made her a rising actress, and Xiao Jingxi broke his usual practice of rejecting dating rumors to promote their pairing 1 29.

Childhood and Disputed Family History

Public discussion of Xu’s childhood reveals that she came from Yuwan Village, reported her stepfather to the police at twelve, and subsequently grew up in an orphanage. Her stepfather was sentenced to five years for alleged long-term domestic abuse. She also received financial assistance for low-income students during college 343 344 345.

The original novel presents this history through suggestive fragments rather than a complete account: washing clothes in freezing river water, disliking her fierce-looking stepfather, and eventually securing his imprisonment. When the story becomes public during the show, many viewers interpret it as an explanation for her insecurity and later conduct 344.

Xie Mi disputes that interpretation. Drawing on the original author’s later Weibo comments and her own reading of the novel, she proposes that Xu’s stepfather was a kind man whom Xu framed to escape the fishing village. In Xie Mi’s account, Xu deliberately displayed self-inflicted injuries, cultivated witnesses’ sympathy over several years, and used the resulting abuse case to obtain an orphanage placement and educational assistance in the city. Xu rejects this as speculation, and Xie Mi herself acknowledges that the original text leaves room for interpretation; the accusation is not presented as a separately proven legal finding 345.

School Years and Lai Bingxuan’s Accusation

In high school, Lai Bingxuan offered Xu a paid task, but Xu threw the money back and declared that poor people had dignity. When Xu was subsequently bullied, rumors identified Lai as the instigator. Asked to clear Lai’s name, Xu appeared frightened and offered explanations that only strengthened the reporters’ suspicions. Lai eventually struck her publicly, cementing the impression that she was a bully 69.

With help from an anti-bullying organization, Xu transferred schools and later entered the Film Academy. Lai remained branded a bully and eventually joined the dating show to confront her 69.

When the matter is revisited on the show, Xu admits that she heard information at the time but failed to clear Lai’s name. She attributes that failure to her distressed condition and says Lai had already transferred by the time she was ready to help. Lai rejects the explanation, while viewers increasingly distinguish Xu’s own victimization from her decision to let an innocent classmate take the blame 130 131.

Original Novel’s Storyline

These events belong to the original plot remembered by Xie Mi, not necessarily the altered storyline.

• Dating-show romance: Xu Shuangrong and Xiao Jingxi initially staged their flirtation for publicity. She developed genuine feelings only near the end of the show, and they ultimately became a couple 1 8 29.
• Career ascent: She used You Hongxuan, Qiu Chengye, Liu Woxing, and other people as stepping stones toward success. You Hongxuan fell in love with her and met a miserable end after being used 2 29.
• Conflict with Lai Bingxuan: She isolated Lai from the other guests, who eventually worked together to bankrupt the Lai family while Xu remained behind the scenes 47.
• Yu Jinche’s obsession: Yu discovered her true nature but willingly allowed her to use him. After she abandoned him, he imprisoned her for a month 38.
• Liu Woxing’s dependence: Xu became Liu’s sole emotional refuge while Liu remained under her family’s control. Liu’s access to entertainment news and ability to influence public opinion made her especially useful to Xu 198.
• Qiu Chengye’s support: Xu encouraged Liu’s pairing with Qiu, gaining his goodwill and later benefiting from his resources 125.
• You Hongxuan’s injury: You broke his leg saving Xu after she fell from a wire rig, ending his prospects as a sports major 367.
• Horse-riding rescue: Yu deliberately frightened Xu’s horse to arrange a heroic rescue, but Xiao saved her instead. Xiao protected her during their fall and suffered more serious injuries, prompting a change in her feelings and a surge in publicity for their pairing 450.
• Ending: She confessed her schemes to Xiao Jingxi, who accepted her despite knowing she was not innocent. Their successful romantic ending coincided with the original Xie Mi being stabbed to death by an extreme shipper fan 1 29.

Appearance

• Build and complexion: Slender, with a fair face; her vulnerable presentation is repeatedly compared to a little rabbit 5 26 28.
• Makeup: Fresh and understated, with large-diameter colored contact lenses that make her eyes appear dewy and bright 4.
• Expressions: Frequently presents herself with gentle smiles, lowered eyes, rosy cheeks, or tearful vulnerability 4 15 29.
• Show disguise: Wears a rabbit mask during the introductory matching round 3 4.
• Clothing: Later appearances include a white chiffon dress with her long hair tied up, a white nightgown during the letter-reading segment, and a gold outfit for the masquerade ball 158 165 294.
• Theatrical styling: Arranges fourteen custom-made looks for her female-hero role, including a red costume for an action scene 104 105.
• After her exposure: By the aftermath of her arrest, she has lost her usual glamorous presentation and appears bare-faced, pale-lipped, and dull-eyed 603.

Personality

Xu Shuangrong’s public persona is gentle, considerate, resilient, and unassuming. She readily offers concern, defends respected industry figures, and appears to prioritize others’ well-being. This presentation repeatedly wins approval from viewers and reinforces her image as a sweet, innocent actress 6 12 31 44.

Beneath that image, she is calculating and intensely ambitious. She researches useful acquaintances, cultivates intimacy deliberately, and uses apparent vulnerability to redirect blame or secure sympathy. When Xiao Jingxi ends their promotional partnership, she accepts graciously in front of him, then cries after he leaves—preserving his favorable opinion while encouraging viewers to condemn him 29 30.

Her composure is strong but not absolute. Shen Yeqing’s deliberate refusal to engage frustrates her, and Xie Mi repeatedly disrupts plans that depend on predictable reactions. By the aquarium confrontation, Xu recognizes Xie Mi as the largest disruption to her schemes and feels that she is slipping beyond her control 3 28 49.

She strongly associates other people’s prescribed suffering with her own advancement. After learning the original plot, she resents Liu Woxing’s escape from family control because it deprives her of the dependent ally she expected. She conceptualizes their futures as opposite sides of a scale: their improvement threatens her destined success 198 340.

Her adaptability extends to presenting calculated honesty as personal growth. She admits her ambition and lack of feelings for Xiao to Xie Mi, but privately explains that these admissions are intended to gain Xie Mi’s trust and turn her into a more useful pawn. Her claims of envying Xie Mi’s freedom and abandoning fame therefore form part of a continuing strategy rather than a demonstrated renunciation of her goals 242 246.

Despite her willingness to endure setbacks, she remains sensitive to humiliation and reluctant to sacrifice her image. She initially cannot bring herself to perform an undignified crawling challenge, and she later forfeits rather than impersonate a toilet 329 330 481. Conversely, she accepts reduced acting opportunities and mistreatment from a professional rival when she believes enduring them can support a future rehabilitation of her reputation 501.

When directly confronted, she defends using people as a legitimate shortcut and insists that her life concerns only herself. Her final escalation to a deliberate car crash demonstrates the ruthlessness beneath her controlled presentation. Even after her arrest, she refuses to concede and continues accusing Xie Mi of stealing a future that should have belonged to her 346 602 603.

Power Progression

Abilities & Skills

Acting and Emotional Presentation

• Maintains a gentle, accommodating expression even after embarrassing interactions, such as Shen Yeqing rejecting her concern over his injury 6.
• Performs staged romantic gestures convincingly enough to sustain the highly popular Xiao Rong pairing 8 11 21.
• Uses shifts from outward composure to private-looking distress to influence how viewers interpret a conflict 29.
• Her apparent heartbreak convinces Xiao Jingxi that she has genuine feelings for him, leaving him guilty and more inclined to look after her 47.
• Presents immediate emotional identification with a script, crying over the female hero’s romance and prompting fans to praise her suitability for the lead 98.
• Revises her stage role to include fourteen elaborate costumes and prominent scenes involving the guzheng, a solo dance, and a sword dance. Her conventional heroic performance receives audience praise, although other guests dominate the subsequent online discussion 104 105 107.
• Recreates the original novel’s description of her first meeting with You Hongxuan simply by listening to her system recite it, reproducing the gestures and smile intended to make him fall in love 367.
• Retains professional performance skills despite her feud with Xiao; their genuine mutual hostility suits a secret-agent photo shoot’s transition from trust to suspicion 418.

Social Strategy and Public Opinion

• Researches Liu Woxing’s preferences, chooses to share her room, and holds nightly conversations about life, dreams, and philosophy to become her best friend 30.
• Attempts to exploit Liu’s access to entertainment media by implying that Xie Mi secretly seduced Xiao Jingxi 29 30.
• Frames criticism as concern for someone else, as when she condemns Lai Bingxuan’s treatment of Xie Mi 47 48.
• Limit: Her strategies fail when others reject the intended interpretation. Liu refuses to blame Xie Mi, while Xie Mi openly challenges her attempts to use her against Lai 30 47 49.
• Uses information about Liu’s private frustrations to present herself as similarly constrained and secretly rebellious, inviting Liu to break the production team’s meal restrictions with her 134 158.
• Chooses temporary silence after a scandal, reasoning that eager self-defense will alienate viewers while her status as a bullying victim can gradually restore sympathy 132.
• Attempts to profit from notoriety when an image-rehabilitation speech increases attention even as it polarizes viewers 165.
• Tries to make Xie Mi responsible for a team’s results by praising her as the obvious captain. Liu recognizes the maneuver, and Xie Mi explicitly identifies the implied transfer of blame 326.
• Accepts supporting work beneath a former rival and silently endures on-set mistreatment, considering both the work and the potential sympathy useful to her recovery 501.
• Later limit: By the later show segments, many casual viewers recognize her attempts to provoke conflict. After accusing Xie Mi of targeting Yu Jinche, she checks the livestream and finds that most comments criticize her own performance of innocence 557.

System-Assisted Abilities

• Plot knowledge: Consults her system about original relationships, character functions, and opportunities to restore advantageous storylines. It identifies Liu, Qiu, and Lai as strategically important targets 109 125 198.
• Mind Reading: Uses limited system-provided opportunities to hear thoughts through physical contact. Demonstrated targets include Xie Mi and Liu Woxing; an attempted use against Shen fails when he avoids contact 109 134 355.
• Time travel: Can travel to a chosen point in the past, where her younger self continues to exist separately. Her body in the departure world falls unconscious, and the system states that she returns after completing the mission 143.
• Information limits: Her system cannot initially find information about Shen Yeqing in the original plot. Its access to the novel also does not extend to the author’s later external explanations 109 344 345.
• Secrecy limit: Xie Mi can hear her conversations with the system, undermining plans that Xu initially believes are private. Xu repeatedly tests this possibility and later openly confronts Xie Mi about it 109 130 292 323 346.
• Reliability limit: The system frequently offers jokes, admits that it cannot devise a solution, or underestimates the other guests’ reactions. Its powers do not guarantee that Xu’s schemes succeed 120 130 143.

Observation and Game Play

• Correctly identifies Xie Mi’s hidden task—feeding cookies to three male guests—and briefly takes first place by invalidating Xie Mi’s completion 10.
• Limit: Xie Mi has observed her own thirty-second eye-contact task from upstairs and immediately overturns her advantage 11.
• Proposes eliminating Xie Mi and Shen Yeqing first during a team contest because they are the strongest opponents 92.
• Identifies Shen’s elevated heart rate around Xie Mi as an exploitable weakness and pushes Xie Mi toward him to test it 221.
• Uses a go-kart challenge to test whether Xie Mi can hear her system conversations, while also considering a collision that would let her appear to be the victim. Xie Mi avoids the maneuver and wins by a lap and a half 292.
• Deliberately allows Lai to capture her in an impersonation game so that she can join the hunters and limit Yu Jinche’s lead 481.
• Agrees to dance with Qiu Chengye to test whether doing so will trigger a punishment connected to the banquet’s hidden prompts 525.
• Steals Liu and Xiao’s strap during the couples’ competition after Xie Mi takes hers. Her team with Yu nevertheless falls to fourth place 578.

Cooking

• Regularly cooks for herself because it costs less than ordering takeout 44.
• Takes over the seaside barbecue after Xiao Jingxi’s excessive use of oil causes a fire; her technique appears the most reliable among the guests 44.

Swimming

• Is an excellent swimmer. Xie Mi remembers the original novel using that ability in a staged fall-into-the-water scheme against Lai Bingxuan 274.
• Stages an apparent suicide in a rooftop pool to elicit Xie Mi’s sympathy, then surfaces and climbs out when Xie Mi declines to rescue her 274.

Relationships

• Xiao Jingxi — Hit-drama co-star and contracted promotional partner in the Xiao Rong pairing. Their publicity arrangement ends during the show, but she later rekindles his interest while presenting herself as a supportive friend 1 29 50. He turns against her after witnessing her destroy a stolen phone and recognizing the contrast between her conduct and public persona 141 142. Their feud becomes public during the letter-reading segment and escalates into mutual exposure of manipulative and embarrassing behavior 165 242 243. Xu later seeks cooperation between them as the original protagonists, but Xiao resents having been used even in the original plot. They eventually act as allies against Shen and Xie Mi, although he withholds important information from her 370 418 485.
• Xie Mi — Rival and an intended tool in several schemes. Xie Mi knows her original-novel background, refuses to accept her innocent presentation, and warns her against using her as a shield 29 30 49. Xu comes to regard her as a dangerous plot-aware outsider, alternately trying to discredit her, win her trust, and test her ability to hear system conversations 109 220 242 246 292. By their direct confrontation, Xu openly vows to reclaim her expected future 346. She later reads Xie Mi a description of her original character, prompting Xie Mi to recover her memories. Xie Mi ultimately supplies the evidence that exposes Xu’s responsibility for the car crash 596 602.
• Liu Woxing — Roommate and cultivated best friend. Xu values her media influence, but Liu refuses to turn against Xie Mi and later mediates the dispute with Lai 30 48. Xu uses Mind Reading on her and attempts to exploit her desire for freedom, following the original plot in which Liu’s emotional dependence made her useful 134 158 198. As Liu becomes more independent, she recognizes Xu’s attempts to use praise of Xie Mi as a means of shifting responsibility 326.
• Shen Yeqing — Initial masked date and later race partner. He rejects her advances at conversation, admits his apparent hearing difficulty was deliberate, and openly mocks her claim that Xie Mi needs protection from Lai 3 14 28 48. His apparent absence from the original plot makes Xu suspicious; she investigates his feelings for Xie Mi and unsuccessfully attempts to read his mind 109 221 355. A later workplace visit gives her no useful opening, and when she helps Xiao restrain him, Shen knocks both of them unconscious with a brick 415 485.
• Lai Bingxuan — High-school classmate with whom she shares a deep grudge. Lai joins the show intending to make her miserable, and their confrontation escalates into an online publicity battle 47 48. Their history reveals that Xu allowed Lai to be blamed for bullying committed by others. Lai later challenges her evasive explanations and learns to resist provocations rather than react as Xu expects 69 130 131 447. After the car crash is exposed, Lai intends to pursue legal action against her 602 603.
• You Hongxuan — In the original novel, falls in love with her on the dating show and is used by her, leading to a miserable outcome 2. He breaks his leg while saving her, ending his athletic prospects 367. In the altered storyline, he does not appear when expected; Xu mistakes a sheep-masked Xiao Jingxi for him and attempts to recreate their original first meeting 367.
• Qiu Chengye — One of the people she uses during her original-novel rise to success 29. In that storyline, promoting his relationship with Liu earns Xu access to his resources 125. He later becomes one of the injured parties pursuing consequences for her deliberate car crash 602 603.
• Yu Jinche — Original-novel admirer who recognizes her manipulative nature but accepts being used until she abandons him; he subsequently imprisons her 38. In the altered storyline, Xu believes she has restored his interest and brought his original romantic trajectory back on course 272 298. He also tests her knowledge of “Run, Yu Jinche” and creates discomfort for her during group activities 323 473. His eventual apparent cooperation with her proves to be a double-cross: he has already chosen to help Xie Mi 602.
• Ruan Feng — Industry acquaintance whom she greets warmly and defends when he clashes with Xie Mi 11 12.
• Her system — Provides plot information, Mind Reading, and time travel, while participating in her schemes. Their exchanges are often argumentative because of its jokes and unreliable advice. It even nervously professes admiration for Xie Mi when Xu tries to use it to intimidate her 109 130 143 346.
• System L — Proposes cooperation against Xie Mi and Shen Yeqing when Xiao refuses to act as Xu’s pawn. Xu accepts the partnership for the purpose of defeating their shared opponents 418.
• Stepfather — Imprisoned after Xu reported him at twelve. Public accounts identify him as an abuser, while Xie Mi argues that he was a benevolent guardian whom Xu framed to advance her own life; Xu disputes that interpretation 343 344 345.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Dating-Show Debut

Publicity Partnership Breakdown

Seaside Trip and Lai Bingxuan’s Arrival

Temple Conflict and Theatrical Performance

School Scandal and Time-Travel Intervention

Attempts to Replace Xiao Jingxi with Xie Mi

Open Conflict over the Original Plot

Declining Reputation and Uneasy Alliances

Final Schemes and Arrest

Notable Quotes

Xiao Jingxi, ending their promotional partnership:

“I am about to join a new production. You've been very thoughtful, so let's stop promoting the drama together.” 29

“All I know is that, when it comes to someone I like, his well-being will always matter more to me.” 44

“As your friend, I'll help get you and Ms. Xie together. And in return, when I get to know the other male guests later, you have to help me too.” 50

“I deliberately encouraged people to ship me with Jingxi because I wanted to use him to gain fame. I have no feelings for him whatsoever. Every emotional moment I had on the show was an act, because I knew it would earn the viewers' sympathy and turn them into fans.” 246

“Xie Mi, from now on, we'll each rely on our own abilities. I'll take back everything that should have been mine.” 346

“Don't get carried away. What you stole is still stolen! You're not from this world, and you never will be!” 603

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