Chapter 226 - 225: This is nothing
Rex remained silent for a long beat, his gaze fixed on the crowd but his mind clearly elsewhere. Then, he let out a low exhale, glanced at her with something that hovered between admiration and sadness.
"You’ve got guts," he said quietly. "Most people would’ve folded by now. Given in, sold out, become what the world told them they had to be. But you? You’re still standing. Still fighting. That matters more than you think."
Lena blinked, clearly not expecting the compliment—especially not delivered in such a calm, grounded tone. Her lip twitched slightly, caught between a smirk and something more vulnerable.
"You trying to be charming again?" she asked.
Rex shrugged. "Just telling the truth. That’s rare enough in this place to count as a compliment, right?"
She didn’t answer immediately, but the silence between them softened.
As a waiter passed by with a tray of drinks, Rex casually took a glass of red wine. Lena followed suit, grabbing her own and downing it in a few swift gulps. Rex blinked. "Hey, hey—slow down," he said with a raised brow and a half-smile.
She didn’t reply, just wiped the corner of her mouth and exhaled like someone releasing a week’s worth of stress in a single breath.
Rex lifted his glass slightly in a loose toast. "I believe you’ll eventually shine, you know. Don’t worry so much. Compared to most people, you’ve already got a solid foundation. Beauty, brains, real training—and something they can never fake: pride. Hollywood might be closed off, yeah, but sometimes all it takes is meeting the right person at the right time. One crack in the wall is all you need to slip through. And once you’re in? You won’t just survive—you’ll blaze. So don’t lose heart. Your light’s too real to stay hidden forever."