Early the next morning, Xiao Bai got up to brush his teeth just as Jia Zhi Qing opened the door and came in looking exhausted.
“You went out for morning exercise?” Xiao Bai’s eyes widened. As far as he could remember, Jia Zhi Qing had never once gotten up this early. Even with a stomachache, he would drag things out until the last possible minute before going to the hospital.
“No! I just got back!” Jia Zhi Qing rubbed the overnight stubble on his chin and collapsed onto the sofa.
Xiao Bai asked curiously, “From where?”
“That Pervert Lian’s house!” From this day forward, “Pervert Lian” was firmly established in Jia Zhi Qing’s mind.
Xiao Bai fell silent for a moment. “All night?”
So the conclusion was that he had stayed at Lian Jue Xiu’s home for an entire night?
Xiao Bai thought about it. “Playing Dou Dizhu?”
Jia Zhi Qing rolled his eyes. “One landlord and one peasant—how are they supposed to fight? They might as well make crickets fight.”
“Then why?”
“Because his house is in some city more than three hundred kilometers away!” At this point Jia Zhi Qing’s resentment shot through the roof. “And the reason was that he didn’t have any clean underwear to change into!”
Clean underwear was indeed important. Xiao Bai nodded understandingly. “……Oh.”
Xiao Bai’s schedule was packed today. In the morning he had to go to the Tears of a Man set to film the kidnapping scene, and in the afternoon he had to rush to tape Nemesis of the Shameless.
Jia Zhi Qing had asked Gao Qin for half a day off, so Xiao Bai had no choice but to squeeze onto the bus to work.
When he arrived on set, Yan Su Ang was still nowhere to be seen.
Tan Fei and Chen De Zhang, however, were extremely energetic and threw themselves into filming. They had probably been pent up after yesterday’s wasted wait.
When Xiao Bai was kidnapped, it genuinely felt a little like being kidnapped. By the time the scene ended, his arms and body were covered in bruises from the ropes.
But the process went unexpectedly smoothly.
They finished nearly the entire kidnapping sequence in only two hours.
After this, Xiao Bai would have some free time. He probably would not need to return to the set for more than a month because Lian Jue Xiu intended to go back and film Yan Su Ang and Chen De Zhang’s material from the beginning.
Just as Xiao Bai finished his scenes and was about to leave, Lian Jue Xiu suddenly broke away from the others and walked over. “I heard Yan Su Ang went up into the mountains to shoot an advertisement.”
Xiao Bai’s heart, which had been drifting like a kite with a broken string, finally snagged on a tree. “Oh.”
“Oh?” Lian Jue Xiu folded his arms. “That’s all? One ‘oh’?”
Xiao Bai looked at him in confusion.
“Aren’t you going to ask why I’m telling you?”
“Does there need to be a reason?”
“Doesn’t there need to be a reason?” After staring at each other for an entire minute, Lian Jue Xiu voluntarily surrendered. “Forget it. Sigh. Go.”
Xiao Bai turned to leave, but Lian Jue Xiu suddenly hurried after him for another two steps. “I’ll walk you out.”
“Oh.”
“How was your friend after he got home?”
“He didn’t look human anymore.”
“……”
And so, under the eyes of the entire set, the great Director Lian diligently escorted Xiao Bai all the way out.
Chen De Zhang and Tan Fei stood nearby desperately repenting.
“Was I… too rough just now?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“If I’d known, I would’ve tied him more loosely.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Chen De Zhang suddenly redirected his blame toward Tan Fei. “It was all you. You kept saying, tighter, tighter.”
“……”
Tan Fei said aggrievedly, “That was my line.”
“……”
Chen De Zhang rubbed his chin. “I heard a long time ago that Xiao Bai had powerful backing. That’s why he could kick Luo Pei Jue out halfway through and join GO! GO! SU… SUPER STAR.”
Tan Fei said, “Isn’t GO! GO! SU… SUPER STAR going off the air?”
Chen De Zhang’s ears perked up. “Where did you hear that?”
“Inside information.” When it came to gossip, celebrities were no different from ordinary people—as long as the negative news was not about themselves. Tan Fei lowered her voice. “I heard GO! GO! SU… SUPER STAR’s ratings have been dropping day after day, and the big boss is too embarrassed to invite Luo Pei Jue back. So they’re just cancelling it.”
“I heard it isn’t only GO! GO! SU… SUPER STAR. Nemesis of the Shameless is going off the air too.”
Tan Fei was startled. “No way. Nemesis of the Shameless still gets pretty decent ratings.” At least whenever she had time, she watched it. Watching other people’s family dramas satisfied the raging gossip addiction she could not freely indulge as a public figure.
“Apparently Xiao Fu Ping’s health can’t take it anymore. He’s already been hospitalized twice this month.”
Tan Fei sighed. “That really is a shame.”
No matter how powerful Xiao Bai’s backing was, there was absolutely no way he could carry Nemesis of the Shameless alone.
Chen De Zhang said, “Speaking of which, what exactly is Xiao Bai’s background?”
Tan Fei looked surprised. “You don’t know?”
Chen De Zhang said, “You do?”
Tan Fei answered woodenly, “I don’t either.”
“……”
A long moment later.
The two sighed simultaneously. “He really does have powerful backing. Even the secrecy is airtight.”
NCC’s studios had always been in high demand.
So before Nemesis of the Shameless began filming, the entire place was usually thrown into chaos.
When Xiao Bai arrived, several staff members were changing the set.
Xiao Fu Ping was reviewing the script. When he saw Xiao Bai, he smiled faintly and patted the seat beside him.
Xiao Bai obediently sat down.
“How has filming been going lately?”
Xiao Bai thought about it. “A little better than before.”
“A little better?” Xiao Fu Ping curled his lips in amusement. “That is the least sincere kind of perfunctory answer.”
“But it really is only a tiny bit better.”
Xiao Fu Ping asked, “Are you planning to keep acting in movies from now on?”
Keep acting in movies?
Xiao Bai froze. His plans had always been made one step at a time: do one thing, accomplish the goal, then move on. Acting in movies forever was something outside his plans. “I think I still want to go back to the butcher shop eventually.”
“……The butcher shop?” Xiao Fu Ping had never imagined that answer. He stared for a long while before slowly saying, “Oh. I see.” He had already planned what he was going to say next, but now every step had been thrown into disorder.
……How am I supposed to say it now? Xiao Fu Ping frowned in distress.
Fortunately, the producer clapped his hands. “Are we ready?”
Nearby, two sisters who looked about thirteen or fourteen stood timidly in a corner.
“Are they the sisters looking for their parents?” Xiao Bai asked softly. He had received the material for today’s interview two days ago.
Xiao Fu Ping nodded.
Xiao Bai rubbed his fingers against the sofa. “I really like this program.”
Xiao Fu Ping did not lift his head, but his gaze fixed on a single point.
“Because it can help a lot of people.”
Xiao Fu Ping slowly raised his head. The producer was leading the sisters over.
“This is Grandpa Xiao, and this is Big Brother Xiao Bai,” the producer coaxed gently.
Xiao Fu Ping smiled. “Hello. Which one of you is the older sister, and which is the younger?”
“……”
The producer stared at the spectacular difference in their heights and thought, What an utterly pointless question.
The two girls apparently agreed that the question did not deserve an answer. They remained hidden behind the producer.
Xiao Bai pulled a lollipop from his shoulder bag and offered it to them with a smile. “Here. It’s really tasty candy. I like it a lot too.”
Whether it was the temptation of the candy or the temptation of Xiao Bai’s smile, the sisters were obviously less tense than before. They slowly peered out from behind the producer, their gazes moving between Xiao Bai and the lollipop.
Xiao Bai patted the sofa beside him. “Why don’t we all sit together? Sitting here by myself is really boring.”
The sisters looked at the producer. The producer nodded.
The older sister took the younger one’s hand, and the two finally shuffled step by tiny step toward the soft, comfortable-looking sofa.
Xiao Bai gently placed the candy in their hands.
Slowly, shy smiles appeared on their faces.
The atmosphere instantly became extremely harmonious.
—Except for Xiao Fu Ping, who had been left off to the side long enough to nearly dry out.
The program itself was quite simple.
They talked about the girls’ former life, why their parents had left home and abandoned them, and used the broadcast to appeal to the missing parents to come home as soon as possible.
While recording, Xiao Bai’s and the sisters’ eyes became like faucets: one would shut off while another opened, then the first would start again as soon as the second stopped. Xiao Fu Ping ended up responsible for talking and passing tissues at the same time.
By the time filming ended, Xiao Fu Ping looked at those six impossibly red eyes and was forced to deeply examine whether he might be too cold-blooded. While the other three had been sobbing their hearts out, he had actually sat there making solemn, rational analyses.
The orphanage came to pick the sisters up. Xiao Bai reluctantly followed them all the way to the entrance and promised that whenever he had time, he would definitely visit them at the orphanage.
“Xiao Bai.” On the way back to the studio, Gao Qin approached from the opposite direction. “I’ll drive you home.”
Xiao Bai said, “I need to get my bag.”
Gao Qin brought one hand out from behind his back. The shoulder bag was already in it. “Can we go now?”
Xiao Bai took the bag, slung it diagonally across his body, then obediently followed behind him.
“I received the official notice today,” Gao Qin said casually. “Nemesis of the Shameless will stop airing the week after next.”
The lobby was vast and empty.
Gao Qin could hear his leather shoes clack, clack against the floor.
Xiao Bai’s footsteps were very soft, just like his breathing.
In the automatic glass doors ahead, two figures were reflected: one tall, one short; one composed, one silent.
This kind of thing happened to entertainers all the time. When Feng Ya Lun first debuted, several opportunities that had seemed practically confirmed had slipped through his fingers at the last moment. Gao Qin had always handled those situations directly, since with Feng Ya Lun’s personality, they were not impossible for him to accept. But with Xiao Bai… he began wondering whether he had been too blunt.
The automatic doors slid abruptly apart.
As though waking from deep thought, Xiao Bai raised his head blankly, saw the black-cloth night sky outside, then lowered it again and softly answered, “Oh.”
Gao Qin looked at the figure leaning beside a silver-gray Lamborghini ahead and slightly curved his lips. “The station has already agreed to put you on another program afterward. So there’s no need to worry.”
Xiao Bai still kept his head lowered. “Mm.”
“I’m not driving you home.”
Xiao Bai looked at him in surprise.
Gao Qin glanced at a certain someone walking toward them, then headed in another direction. “There’s free labor standing right there. Might as well use it.”
Only then did Xiao Bai’s gaze finally move forward—to that certain someone.
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