Wen Yue did not even know how he eventually got home.
The next day, when Wen Ming saw that he still had not come downstairs, he knocked on the door and dragged him out of bed. “Big Brother, did you really stay outside watching them for that long last night?”
Because of Fu Hui, the mall had been cleared in advance, so Wen Ming had left first.
Wen Yue looked at Wen Ming with an utterly dazed expression.
You don’t know… You don’t know anything…
“What don’t I know?” Wen Ming asked.
Only then did Wen Yue realize he had unconsciously spoken his thoughts aloud.
“Nothing.” Wen Yue’s first reaction was to hide the secret.
But then he felt a little brotherly sympathy for Wen Ming, who had made one mistake and somehow managed to miss every important development afterward.
Wen Ming was baffled by his strange stare. “What exactly happened? Last night…” Wen Ming’s voice changed slightly. “Did you see how intimate Lan Xi and Fu Hui are?”
Wen Yue said nothing. Wen Ming let out a breath first. “Why go looking for ways to torture yourself?” Wen Ming knew enough to stay away.
Slowly, Wen Yue recovered more memories of the previous night.
He had watched Fu Hui reach out and pluck Lan Xi off his shoulder.
The overwhelming shock and jealousy of that moment still lodged inside his chest.
He hadn’t seen wrong!
Later, Fu Hui’s bodyguards had driven him home. If he had behaved strangely at any point along the way, maybe they would have killed him on the spot.
When had Fu Hui learned that Lan Xi wasn’t human?
“Big Brother?” Wen Ming called again.
Wen Yue suddenly got out of bed and rummaged through drawers and cabinets until he found it: that feather.
He clutched the feather so tightly that his entire arm trembled with the force.
He looked almost possessed.
Wen Ming stared in astonishment. “You actually kept a bird feather all this time…”
The corner of Wen Yue’s mouth twitched. He cut him off sharply without thinking. “It’s Lan Xi’s!”
Wen Ming remembered the handmade wallet.
“Wasn’t that the feather you found in the room? Did you steal this one from the wallet?”
“…”
Wen Yue still could not calm down, so he called Lan Xi.
Rarely, Lan Xi actually answered.
“Hello.” Hearing the voice through the phone, Wen Yue still found it hard to believe.
He got stuck for several seconds before saying, “You can shrink.”
Lan Xi said nothing.
Wen Yue continued murmuring, “Your wings are black.”
“…” Lan Xi could barely be bothered with him, but Wen Yue’s almost deranged tone was still rather entertaining.
Wen Yue took a deep breath. “Lan Xi, I have a question. Did you marry Mr. Fu because he used your secret to threaten you?”
Lan Xi: ?
Lan Xi said, “You’ve gone crazy.”
Wen Yue’s voice grew hoarse. Only he knew how crushing the disappointment was. “It wasn’t?”
Wen Yue remembered the day they had gone to the hospital and searched everywhere without finding Lan Xi.
Then Lan Xi had suddenly appeared, and Wen Yue seemed to have seen blood on his fingertips.
After that, they heard that the driver who rammed Fu Hui’s car had died, and died horribly…
Wen Yue’s throat tightened.
His mind alternated between images of Lan Xi and Fu Hui being impossibly intimate and memories from long ago, when Lan Xi had still lived with the two brothers at the villa.
Lan Xi was putting on riding protective gear. He said lazily, “You should find yourself a doctor. Take some medicine, Wen Yue.”
Then he ruthlessly hung up.
Wen Yue stiffly put away his phone and turned to meet Wen Ming’s thunderstruck expression.
“Big Brother, what the hell were you talking about just now?”
After calming down a little, Wen Ming said, “Big Brother, were you hit too hard by what you saw? Should we find a doctor and get you checked?”
Wen Yue spent half an hour telling him the entire story.
After listening, Wen Ming said, “Let’s find a Taoist priest.”
“You still want to capture Lan Xi?”
“No. I want to find out whether the two of us need an exorcism first.”
“…” Wen Yue finally understood the misery Lan Xi must have felt back when the brothers refused to believe anything he said.
On Lan Xi’s side, he put away the phone and clicked his tongue. Now do you understand what a huge honor it was that a demon treated you that way back then?
Fu Hui called immediately afterward. “Who were you talking to just now?”
Lan Xi did not hide it. “Wen Yue.”
“Why did he call you?”
Lan Xi laughed. “He asked whether you threatened me into marrying you.”
Fu Hui calmly swore. “Is he a fucking idiot?”
Lan Xi said, “I told him to find a doctor.”
Lan Xi was in a hurry to hang up. “I’m done talking to you. I’m going riding.”
“Want me to pick you up later?”
“Mm-hm…”
The little succubus was already starting to sound impatient, so Fu Hui ended the call at exactly the right moment.
The surveillance footage from the day before had already been dealt with.
However, the fact that Fu Hui’s people had cleared the mall ahead of time drew some attention instead. People online guessed that some extraordinary big shot must have visited. But not a scrap of information leaked. After speculating for a while without finding a single clue, everyone was just about to let the matter die.
Then a netizen posted: [There was an insanely gorgeous person at the mall yesterday. Could it have something to do with him?]
Naturally, a whole crowd refused to believe it.
How gorgeous could someone possibly be?
A celebrity?
But after people checked around, no celebrity had attended any event there the day before.
Then someone posted a photograph of Lan Xi’s profile.
It had been taken while Lan Xi and Luo Jin were shopping.
The post immediately exploded.
A succubus’s beauty was simply unreasonable. It did not obey the natural laws of the human world at all.
Even a mere outline of his face was enough to stun the netizens crowding around the post.
[How have we never seen a beauty like this before?]
[No, I’ve actually run into him at another mall before. Back then his hair was black and really short. I just thought it was wrong to post a stranger’s photo online, so I only shared it privately with friends.]
Online trends fermented so quickly that before long, even Lan Xi at the riding club heard about it.
Someone held a phone in front of him and eagerly showed him what the netizens were saying.
The people who came to this riding club were all fairly prominent figures in the capital’s social circles.
At first, they had only recognized Luo Jin. But then they saw Lan Xi’s purple hair, which was far too distinctive to miss.
Among those who had attended Mr. Fu’s wedding banquet, word had already spread privately that Mr. Fu’s partner had purple hair, and that the Luo family’s second young master especially loved clinging to him.
With that, his identity was obvious.
Someone tried to curry favor. “If you don’t like people discussing you, I have some connections. I can get those pointless online posts cleaned up.”
Lan Xi twirled the riding crop in his hand. “Why wouldn’t I like it?”
The people around him found their attention unconsciously drawn to his fingers. How can someone even have hands this beautiful?
Lan Xi smiled with extraordinary charm. “They’re all praising me.”
They were all saying he was unbelievably beautiful.
Lan Xi flicked through page after page with a bend of his finger.
[Does beauty like this actually exist?]
[Holy shit, this is literally character-model level.]
[Can hair really be dyed to look like that?]
[He’s so beautiful he doesn’t look human, does anyone get me? There’s seriously this bewitching, ghostly vibe around him…]
Lan Xi was delighted by what he read. He practically wanted to eat two huge bowls of food while using the comments as a side dish.
He immediately lost interest in riding. He wanted food.
The others exchanged looks and, of course, accompanied him to eat.
All kinds of dishes were brought out. Before anyone had taken more than a couple of bites, someone clever took the initiative to chat him up. “Look, all the netizens are praising you.”
Lan Xi tipped up his chin.
Very good. None of them were blind!
“Some people are even asking why someone like you hasn’t entered the entertainment industry. A face like yours not appearing on screen is a loss.” The man smiled enthusiastically. “If you’re interested, you absolutely have to contact me. I can tailor movies and television dramas specifically for you…”
He thought for a moment and added, “Do you like singing? Put out a couple of albums and they’d definitely sell like crazy too.”
After staring at Lan Xi for two seconds, the man immediately felt his thoughts drifting almost beyond his control. Instinctively, he said, “There’s really something… magical about you. You should be onstage, on screens, watched by countless pairs of eyes all at once…”
No one around them thought this was deliberate flattery.
They secretly nodded in agreement.
No wonder Mr. Fu actually married a man. If it were them, they wouldn’t be able to resist either. What a pity not everyone could be Mr. Fu.
Lan Xi was extremely satisfied by what he heard and genuinely became interested. “Then what do I do?”
The man opposite him hurriedly handed over a business card first.
Lan Xi glanced at it. The man’s surname was Zhang.
President Zhang said, “Could you sing a couple of lines first?”
Surely a beauty’s singing voice would be just as beautiful.
Lan Xi cleared his throat and tried singing two lines he had learned from television.
The entire table went silent.
Lan Xi tilted his head in confusion. “What? Was it bad?”
“It was pretty good, but I think you’re even better suited for the big screen.”
“Oh.”
“If you’re free tomorrow, would you like to visit our film studio?”
Lan Xi nodded, and just like that, the matter was settled.
At the side, Luo Jin felt his position as chief eunuch becoming precarious. Aggrieved, he squeezed forward and invited Lan Xi to race horses with him.
Lan Xi was full and happy beyond measure, so he graciously agreed.
The great beauty changed into riding clothes, planted a boot in the stirrup, cinched his narrow waist, and mounted the horse with striking vigor.
He was not afraid of falling, and he possessed absolute charm and control over animals. By the end of one lap, he had left everyone else far behind. Even the coach was stunned.
President Zhang was already planning exactly how Lan Xi could be marketed after entering the entertainment industry.
Outside the arena, the bodyguard dutifully recorded the entire thing and synchronized the footage to Fu Hui in real time.
Fu Hui quickly watched the clip, forcibly suppressed the urge to replay it over and over, and turned back to continue his meeting.
When Lan Xi returned home that evening, a set of riding clothes was lying on the bed waiting for him.
He hooked one finger under the edge of the clothes, lay against the side of the bed, and smiled at Fu Hui while licking his lips. “Fu Hui, are you going to be the horse?”
Fu Hui lifted his eyelids.
Standing tall beside the bed, he lowered his head to look at Lan Xi. “Mm.”
Lan Xi happily announced from the bed that he was going to become a celebrity.
Fu Hui: “…”
Fu Hui was very unhappy about it, but he did not say so.
By morning, Lan Xi was still nestled in his arms. In a tired voice, he asked, “If I do this, will everyone kneel down and worship me?”
Fu Hui said, “No.”
Lan Xi woke up at once. “Why?”
“Because we’re living under the red flag.”
“?”
“There’s no slavery anymore. People aren’t allowed to go around kneeling to others.”
Lan Xi lost a good third of his interest. “Oh.”
But that day, he still went to visit President Zhang’s film studio first.
President Zhang was extremely enthusiastic about Lan Xi entering the industry. He could not wait to use the opportunity to climb up to Fu Hui’s branch.
So naturally, he hoped to strike while the iron was hot and move things along quickly.
After the tour, President Zhang gathered several well-known agents, producers, directors, and screenwriters from the industry.
Everyone took one look at the lineup and understood that Lan Xi had an extraordinary background, so of course they carefully indulged him.
But even while indulging him, they still needed to learn a few basic facts about him.
The producer was the first to make conversation. He asked Lan Xi, “Have you studied film, television, screenwriting, or anything related? It’s fine if you haven’t.”
Lan Xi asked, “What’s that?”
The producer froze.
The director picked up the conversation. “Young Master Lan studied finance, right?”
Lan Xi frowned. “What’s that?”
Everyone exchanged looks and began sensing that something was wrong.
Luo Jin immediately cut them off. “What is this, a household-registration check?”
The director stammered, “N-no…”
Their usual method of making conversation was to talk about where everyone had graduated and their experiences studying abroad. Even if two people were not alumni, discovering they had studied in the same country could instantly make them feel closer and help build rapport.
“Let’s not talk about that…” Everyone hurriedly changed the subject and began discussing other things.
In the end, the meal still broke up on an unhappy note.
That evening, Fu Hui came to pick Lan Xi up. Before the bodyguard could open the car door, Lan Xi yanked it open himself and dropped heavily into the seat, furious. “I don’t want to be a celebrity anymore!”
Fu Hui’s eyelid twitched. He immediately caught Lan Xi around the waist and softened his voice. “What happened?”
Lan Xi said angrily, “They heard I didn’t finish elementary school and said it wouldn’t be good for me to enter the entertainment industry.”
Fu Hui: “…”
Right.
He had almost forgotten. Even in the entertainment industry, someone who had slipped this thoroughly through the net of compulsory education was rare.
Elio’s Notes: 九漏鱼 is Chinese internet slang for someone who “slipped through the net” of the country’s nine years of compulsory education, meaning someone considered strikingly undereducated.