Xiao Bai cheered up for the rest of the drive, smiling as he recounted all the amusing events of the past two days—the Jia Zhi Qing traffic-ticket incident, the Jia Zhi Qing staying-out-all-night incident, Director Lian’s three-hundred-kilometer quest for clean underwear, and so on.
But no matter how entertainingly Xiao Bai told the stories, Yan Su Ang remained gloomy and spoke as little as possible.
Even Xiao Bai, slow as he was, eventually realized something was wrong. “What’s wrong with you?”
Yan Su Ang had been waiting for that question until he was nearly ready to explode. Now that it had finally come, he immediately slammed on the brakes.
The car happened to stop directly below Xiao Bai’s apartment building.
Xiao Bai looked curiously at the stubbornly silent Yan Su Ang, then at his home only a short distance away. After thinking for a long while, he said quietly, “Then I’ll go home.”
“……”
He’s seriously just going to leave me here and go home?
Yan Su Ang’s anger flared. With a click, he locked every door.
Xiao Bai turned back and comforted him. “I’ll go upstairs and get you a lollipop. There really aren’t any left in my bag.”
“……”
To hell with the lollipops! Who said I wanted a lollipop?!
Yan Su Ang’s temper burned even hotter.
“I didn’t know you wanted one. Otherwise I wouldn’t have given that one away.” Xiao Bai looked at him with an expression that clearly said, You really wanted that lollipop.
Yan Su Ang’s expression softened slightly. “So I take priority over that guy?”
Xiao Bai nodded. “Of course. We’re friends.”
Yan Su Ang suddenly came to his senses.
Right. What was there to be proud of about taking priority over a random stranger? He really was becoming more and more spineless and unprincipled.
After wallowing in self-pity for a moment, he gave a dry cough. “Friends should be honest with each other, right?”
“Mm.” Xiao Bai’s eyes rolled thoughtfully. “But just now you asked what was wrong with me, and I told you what was wrong with me. Then I asked what was wrong with you, and you refused to tell me what was wrong with you. So you’re the one who isn’t being honest.”
A ring of what’s wrong began circling Yan Su Ang’s head.
Xiao Bai waved a hand in front of him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Yan Su Ang caught his hand, took a breath, and abruptly pushed his sleeve up. Looking at the blue-purple marks left by the ropes, he asked heavily, “Where did these injuries come from?”
“Mm?” Xiao Bai looked at the bruises on his own arm. Only after a while did he understand what Yan Su Ang meant. “Oh. The ropes did it.”
“Ropes?” Yan Su Ang’s face immediately turned iron-blue. “Who tied you up? Jia Zhi Qing?”
“Achoo!” A tremendous sneeze rang out from a window somewhere in the building.
Inside the car.
Xiao Bai stared. “What does Zhi Qing have to do with it?”
So it wasn’t Jia Zhi Qing?
Fine. Apparently he was not utterly beyond redemption. Only guilty of nine of the ten cardinal evils.
Yan Su Ang silently crossed “domestic violence” off the list. Which left…
“Were you bullied at the company?” An image instantly formed in his mind of Xiao Bai being tied up, dragged into a bathroom, and harassed. His fists clenched until the knuckles cracked.
Xiao Bai looked at his rapidly darkening expression in confusion. “No. Tang Long tied me up while we were filming.”
“Tang Long?” Yan Su Ang frowned. He had almost forgotten that Tears of a Man contained a scene where Xiao Bai was kidnapped. So this is what it means to lose your judgment because you care too much?
He sighed and lowered the window, letting the cold air clear his head.
It had been a long time since he had felt this anxious or this furious. The longer one stayed in the entertainment industry, the more one’s temper settled. It did not disappear—it simply became like a dormant volcano, unable to find the right moment to erupt. When he had first seen the bruises on Xiao Bai’s arms, the magma inside that volcano had seemed to surge violently back to life in his chest, making him want to drag whoever had hurt Xiao Bai right in front of him and beat them mercilessly.
Even now that he knew the truth, he still could not swallow the anger. Filming was filming, but how could they have been so careless with their strength? Yan Su Ang’s dissatisfaction with Chen De Zhang shot straight to the limit.
“Are you okay?” Xiao Bai asked worriedly, studying his perfectly sculpted profile.
Yan Su Ang suddenly turned his head. The wind blew into the car, lifting his bangs across his eyes, but it could not conceal the heat buried within them.
“Xiao Bai.”
It was no different from the way he usually called him, yet Xiao Bai suddenly became nervous. “Mm.”
“Do you like me?”
He was afraid Xiao Bai would be hurt, afraid Xiao Bai would be sad, afraid Xiao Bai would become discouraged… All those emotions blended together and left him grasping desperately for reassurance.
His heart felt emptier than ever. He desperately wanted a promise—even just a smile would do—something to fill the hollow place inside him and settle him down.
Yan Su Ang gazed greedily at the pure face before him. No matter how many thousands of times his fingers and lips had traced it in dreams, he still felt he had never seen enough.
Xiao Bai met his gaze without reservation and nodded vigorously. “Mm!”
Flowers burst into bloom throughout Yan Su Ang’s heart. He immediately pursued the matter. “How much do you like me?”
Xiao Bai thought about it. “Dad, Mom, Brother Xiong, Zhi Qing, Brother Gao, Brother Ya Lun… Mm, Brother Ya Lun ranks ahead of Brother Gao. Mm, you rank with Brother Ya Lun…”
“Okay, okay.” Yan Su Ang hurriedly interrupted before his wonderful mood could accidentally be destroyed again. In fact, most of it was already gone. “You’re saying I rank behind Jia Zhi Qing?”
Xiao Bai said, “You’re tied with Brother Ya Lun.”
“……”
Fine. Jia Zhi Qing lived beneath the same roof with Xiao Bai every day, so Yan Su Ang could understand why their bond ran deep—though he absolutely refused to forgive it. But Feng Ya Lun had already flown far away into the wide world. Why was he still squeezing himself into the competition?
At the extreme of anger, Yan Su Ang somehow became helpless instead. He smiled bitterly. “So in your heart… I’m tied for fifth place?”
Xiao Bai looked at the bitterness practically dripping from his smile. “What about me?”
Yan Su Ang immediately held up one finger. “First!”
Xiao Bai froze for a long while. “Then what about your mom and dad?”
“They rank each other first. Why should I insert myself as a third party?”
Xiao Bai slowly tried to digest what he meant.
Yan Su Ang had a sudden flash of inspiration. “Parents shouldn’t be ranked together with friends, right?”
Xiao Bai nodded.
Good. First and second eliminated. Yan Su Ang continued, “And the dead can’t return to life. Brother Xiong should be placed somewhere higher and broader. He shouldn’t be ranked together with the living, right?”
Xiao Bai thought about it, then nodded again.
Excellent. Third place eliminated too. Fourth was… Jia Zhi Qing. Yan Su Ang discovered that this man truly was an enormous boulder crushing the road toward his happiness. “As for Jia Zhi Qing…”
Xiao Bai stared at him with wide eyes.
“Doesn’t he already have a reporter girlfriend? So he’s disqualified from the competition,” Yan Su Ang declared with perfect righteousness.
“What competition?”
“It’s…” Yan Su Ang took Xiao Bai’s hand, unfolded one finger, and announced, “I rank number one in your heart!”
Jia Zhi Qing, Feng Ya Lun, Gao Qin… all of you go tend your own little patch of land. Why are you all squeezing into my Xiao Bai’s heart? I already think there isn’t enough room for me alone.
Xiao Bai watched his serious expression for a long time before suddenly saying, “That seems a little childish.”
“……”
Yan Su Ang stared at him in disbelief.
He had actually been called childish by Xiao Bai…
And thus Great God truly became a god—
and ascended straight to heaven.
The next day, Yan Su Ang returned to the Tears of a Man set.
The lively production instantly sank into low pressure.
The moment Lian Jue Xiu arrived, he asked the script supervisor in confusion, “We haven’t started filming yet, so I should still count as amiable and approachable. Why is everyone so quiet?” If he had not recognized every face around him, he would have thought he had walked into the wrong place and arrived at a funeral hall.
The script supervisor pulled on an extra layer and pointed toward Yan Su Ang.
Yan Su Ang was sitting rigidly in a chair without saying a word, staring coldly at Chen De Zhang as he had his makeup done.
The poor makeup artist’s scalp went numb beneath the edge of his gaze. She had already transformed Chen De Zhang’s eyebrows from Crayon Shin-chan’s into two earthworms and still had not managed to get them right.
Lian Jue Xiu remembered the icy looks Yan Su Ang had given him a few days earlier and rubbed his chin. “Menopause?”
Today’s scene was the one where Shao Zhen Qi, played by Yan Su Ang, was kidnapped by the gang of robbers led by Tang Long, played by Chen De Zhang. Faced with the threat of death, Shao Zhen Qi remained strong, unyielding, and uncompromisingly upright, causing Tang Long to see him in a new light. Wanting to test whether Shao Zhen Qi’s integrity would remain unchanged no matter what setbacks he faced, Tang Long decided to let him go.
The appeal of the scene lay in the clash between Yan Su Ang and Chen De Zhang over good and evil, righteousness and wickedness, morality and desire.
So the scene was loaded with tension.
The instant Lian Jue Xiu called action, the entire room filled with gunpowder.
Anyone who saw the way Yan Su Ang glared at Chen De Zhang would have concluded that Chen De Zhang was depraved beyond redemption, guilty of every crime imaginable, and utterly hopeless.
They had barely spoken two lines when Lian Jue Xiu called cut three times in a row.
“Which one of you kidnapped the other?!” Lian Jue Xiu was so furious he wanted to tear his own scalp off. “Fine, the kidnapped man is righteous and confident—but why is he also looking down from above? And the kidnapper is speaking so softly it sounds like he’s afraid he’ll disturb somebody’s afternoon nap. Are you filming a comedy?”
Chen De Zhang felt deeply wronged.
Great God’s gaze had genuinely looked as though he intended to execute him by a thousand cuts. His own imposing aura had shrunk automatically beneath it.
Lian Jue Xiu suddenly leaned closer to Yan Su Ang and asked softly, “Bad mood?”
Yan Su Ang did not deny it. “Is it that obvious?”
“Nonsense. We could measure it with a thermometer.” Practically everyone had put on an extra layer.
Yan Su Ang curled his lip.
“Chocolate or coffee?” Whenever they filmed together, chocolate was the usual treatment for frustration and coffee for exhaustion.
Yan Su Ang ground his teeth. “Boxing gloves.”
“Full service?” Lian Jue Xiu frowned. “What do you think this is, a massage parlor? Why would I offer you the full package?”
“Boxing gloves. Gloves for punching.”
Elio’s Notes: 拳套 (quántào, “boxing gloves”) and 全套 (quántào, “the full set/full service”) are exact homophones in Mandarin, which is why Lian Jue Xiu deliberately—or perhaps conveniently—mishears him.
Lian Jue Xiu stared at him for a long while before nodding to himself. “Definitely menopause.”
“Get lost.”
After that profound exchange—or at least what appeared profound to everyone watching—Great God’s pressure finally eased enough for him and Chen De Zhang to reach some balance. If one ignored Chen De Zhang occasionally stumbling over his lines and Lian Jue Xiu occasionally roaring, the rest of the filming could be considered fairly smooth.
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