"This is all I have."
The old man handed the poster to Adrian Hawthorne. Tang Xiaonan glanced at it—they were all movie stills of the female lead, Jessica, with her charming smile and a captivating glance over her shoulder. Although the costume and makeup were a bit dated, the actress was a true beauty, far more stunning than the cookie-cutter internet celebrity faces of the future.
Tang Xiaonan remembered this version of Jessica. The actress was Cecilia Cole, a sweetheart star from Portloria in the seventies and eighties. Her ancestral home was even in Zylos Province, making her a classic southern beauty. *Three Smiles* was Cecilia Cole's most famous work, a sensation that swept the nation back then. She was, by all accounts, an A-list star.
"Thank you, sir."
Adrian Hawthorne thanked him gratefully and pressed a couple pounds of biscuits into the old man's hands. The man was wearing a faded Zhongshan suit, his frame was gaunt, and his face was sallow—clear signs of malnutrition.
