Her role as Tian Yu in *Drawing the Sword* made her a household name across the country. Standing by her side was Zhou Yiwei, a complete unknown whose name hardly anyone had heard of.
The two had been together for five years, and Zhou Yiwei had poured his heart and soul into the relationship, but Tong Lei always harbored a lingering unease—he couldn’t give her the life she wanted.Watching her fellow actresses marry into wealthy families one after another, and then looking at his beat-up Santana, she felt increasingly resentful.
That’s when the wealthy businessman Zhou Xuhui came into the picture.He booked an entire floor of a restaurant for her birthday, had a Rolls-Royce pick her up and drop her off every day, and showered her with villas and diamonds. At the time, he was still in the middle of a divorce battle, but Tong Lei couldn’t be bothered with that—she decisively broke up with him.
Everyone said she’d married into wealth. The
wedding was lavish; she lived in a villa and had a driver and bodyguards whenever she went out. But her life as a wealthy socialite lasted only a few years. Zhou Xuhui’s company ran into trouble; he was convicted of financial fraud, leaving Tong Lei with 140 million in debt.Her mansion was seized, her luxury cars were auctioned off, and she fell from grace overnight. Instead of divorcing to
distance herself from the situation, Tong Lei returned to acting to pay off the debt. Over three years, she starred in eighteen productions, taking on any role that came her way, and was dubbed the “model worker of the entertainment industry.”Now she lives with her daughter in a rural area of Zhejiang, where she filled in the villa’s swimming pool to grow vegetables, rides an electric scooter to the market, and eats 10-yuan boxed meals on set. Meanwhile
, Zhou Yiwei—who once drove a Santana—has finally made it big.He made a name for himself in *Dying to Survive* and went on to win the grand championship on *The Actors’ Birth*. He married Zhu Dan, had a child, and their life keeps getting better and better.
This plot twist is like something out of a fable. The once-poor young man worked his way up step by step to become an Academy Award-winning actor, while the wealthy woman who used to ride in a Rolls-Royce had to start over from scratch after accumulating over 100 million in debt. Tong Lei later said, “I used to think that marrying well was the key to success, but now I realize that standing on my own two feet is the most reliable path.”
In life, no path is walked in vain, nor are there any free rides. Those who think they’ve taken a shortcut often end up having to take a much longer detour to get back on track.
