Chapter 18: Chapter 18: The Affiliate Battle and a Night of Triumph
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Lam Moc Tra, twenty, is a perfectly average third-year university student, so average she could hardly be more average. She has no stunning looks and no prestigious family name. At twenty, Tra's biggest dreams are wonderfully down-to-earth: finish her courses on schedule, avoid failing credits and paying to retake them, and save up enough for a FUTA Bus Lines sleeper bus trip to Da Lat with her best friend to flee the heat. Her small everyday joy is rewarding herself after draining classes with a sizzling plate of Hanoi 1982 bun cha or a heaping serving of broken rice with grilled pork, pork skin, and egg loaf without flinching at the bill. But Tra's calm student life officially veers off course when she signs an internship application with StarBrite, one of the top media and entertainment companies. Once a student who only knew how to type documents and build slide decks, Tra enters the behind-the-scenes world of camera flashes, event run-of-shows that drag on all night, and merciless office politics. And the biggest trial of her life has a name: Vu Hoang Hai. He is StarBrite's youngest Project Director, a workaholic who is icy, demanding, and holds standards so lofty they verge on ridiculous. To Hai, interns are just green kids who must be tempered through the toughest grunt work to see if they can last in the industry. Tra once believed the two of them were parallel lines that would never cross beyond a task list. But she never imagined that, through sleepless nights in the prop room, last-minute milk tea runs to calm the crew's nerves, and the moments he stepped in to protect her from the sting of public opinion, a seed of affection would silently take root. This is not a tale of Cinderella waiting for a prince to rescue her. It is the coming-of-age diary of an ordinary girl who, one step at a time and through her own grit and sincerity, walks out of the backstage shadows and into the spotlight, shining with her own light.
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