CH 72

October 27, 2022kaychandra

Chapter 72: Figuring it Out

The filming of ‘Cultivation’ hadn’t finished yet, but it was already attracting a lot of attention. Plus, it was revealed that Gongxi Qiao was the male lead of the movie, so many reporters tried to worm their way in to interview him.

Senhe Entertainment also became more and more famous in the industry because of Gongxi Qiao, making Xiang Hong so happy that he treated Gongxi Qiao like nobility.

It was the time of Senhe’s quarterly meeting, and all of the company’s entertainers, busy or not, had to make time to come back to the meeting. Gongxi Qiao didn’t want special treatment, so even though Xiang Hong didn’t require him to be there, he still rushed back to the company after filming his own scenes.

Senhe’s large conference room was big enough to seat several hundred people, and the company gave him a seat in the first row, with Chen Ke’s seat next to his, showing how much the company valued him. Of course, half the reason the top management of the company treated him so carefully was because of Gongxi Qiao’s own identity, and half was because the top management wanted to please Xi Qing, the VIP.

As everyone knew, the Bai family had lost the strength to stand shoulder to shoulder with Xi Qing because the previous head of the family had acted in an unruly manner. It caused a lot of damage to the family and also caused dissatisfaction among the upper echelons of the relevant government departments.

Nowadays, the prestigious families were dominated by the Xi clan. Xi Qing, the head of the family, had an identity that spoke for itself. The status of Gongxi Qiao, who was recognized as Xi Qing’s best friend, naturally couldn’t be measured by his status of fame within the entertainment industry.

The artists within the company were also aware of this, so not only did they not have a problem with Gongxi Qiao’s special treatment, there were even many people who went up to him to curry favor and take advantage of the opportunity to take a photo together and put it on Weibo to make use of Gongxi Qiao’s fame to get their faces seen.

Although he was aware of the thoughts of these entertainers, Gongxi Qiao didn’t feel disgusted, but smiled and cooperated with them in the photos. In any case, they were all entertainers of the same company and they hadn’t offended him, so it didn’t matter if he helped them.

For the company’s newcomers, facing a big shot like Gongxi Qiao, they were more or less nervous and in awe. So when Gongxi Qiao smiled and cooperated with them for the photo, these rookies in the entertainment industry all had the idea that Qiao Shao was really a good person.

Soon everyone arrived. As the boss, Xiang Hong first talked about the company’s culture and future cooperation intentions. After all the newcomers were swayed and had a lively flush to their cheeks, he started to get to the main topic.

No wonder Xiang Hong was in such a good mood. Senhe had a good momentum now, and even Ringstar was ready to cooperate with them interactively for a win-win situation. As the largest entertainment company in the circle, Ringstar had always gone about with their noses in the air[1]. They wouldn’t even bother to take a look at a second-rate company like Senhe. Now, though, they even took the initiative to propose cooperation, so you could say that this would make Senhe happy.

Thinking about this, Xiang Hong looked at Gongxi Qiao with gentle eyes. It was really very wise to spend a large sum of money to sign Gongxi Qiao.

After the meeting, the company prepared a buffet dinner party downstairs. Gongxi Qiao and Chen Ke had little interest in the dinner party, but to avoid trouble, the two still appeared in the restaurant with the others.

“Xiao Qiao,” Xu Chao walked up to Gongxi Qiao with his dinner plate, picking out dishes while saying, “I haven’t seen you in game much lately. Very busy in the crew?”

“No.” Gongxi Qiao yawned. “In order to squeeze in a few days of vacation, I’ve been working overtime recently, and I’ve been treating everyone to a lot of food and drinks so that the rest of the crew won’t complain.”

“Then you’re really working hard,” Xu Chao knew that the ‘Cultivation’ crew asked the artists to keep things confidential, so he didn’t ask about things within the crew and instead advised Gongxi Qiao to take care of his health.

“I’ll take care of it, don’t worry.” Gongxi Qiao took some food on his plate and found a table with Xu Chao to sit down at. Soon Mi Yue also squeezed over. After the three of them occupied a small round table, although the other artists had the intention to come forward to curry favor, they were at a loss because there were so many people.

“I heard that you recently took on a well-produced drama?” Mi Yue was on a diet, so there were only a few slices of fruit on her plate, in addition to a little vegetable salad.

“Mm-hmm,” Xu Chao nodded, “the atmosphere of the crew is pretty good.”

Mi Yue nodded. She looked up and looked around. Her eyes lingered in the corner for a moment before she whispered, “Xiao Qiao, have you heard the news?”

“What?” Gongxi Qiao felt that the beef was a little overcooked and not as good as the Xi family chef’s craftsmanship.

“Our company has an artist who…… with the new head of the Bai family, ahem.” Speaking of this, Mi Yue also deliberately cautioned, “the Bai family and the Xi family don’t have a good relationship. You should be careful that that artist doesn’t scheme against you.”

Gongxi Qiao was a bit amused. Even if there was really an entertainer in the company who was being kept by Bai Qi, this entertainer wouldn’t be foolish enough to come and mess with him. It wouldn’t do him any good. Unless this person already saw him in a bad light and wanted to take revenge on him after having Bai Qi’s backing. But there weren’t many entertainers within Senhe who were familiar with him, let alone had a grudge or something.

“Who is Bai Qi seeing in our company?” Xu Chao made a casual remark.

“I think you two are too indifferent. It’s rumored all over the company in private.” Mi Yue’s voice was lowered, “Half a month ago, Lin Kang got the male lead in a movie. How do you think that role came about?”

“Lin Kang?” Gongxi Qiao usually didn’t care about such things. At first, he was a bit surprised to hear that Lin Kang, who looked quite cold and detached, could be willing to be kept. “Him? How is that possible?”

“Who knows what’s going on? I heard that the movie he was in was originally starring Liang Yumeng, but because Liang Yumeng was injured, the two sides broke the contract, and it ended up being delayed until now.” Mi Yue didn’t like or dislike Lin Kang. She was only worried that he wouldn’t be able to get along with Gongxi Qiao because of the Bai family, so she cautioned him.

“Are you talking about that movie ‘Dream Come True’?” Xu Chao frowned. Although he didn’t like Liang Yumeng much, from an objective point of view, Liang Yumeng was more suitable for the lead role in ‘Dream Come True’.

Since the release of ‘National Industry’, Liang Yumeng had people slinging mud at him one after another, and he gradually disappeared from the public eye. Now, when Xu Chao heard that the main character of the movie originally made for Liang Yumeng had been changed to Lin Kang, who wasn’t very famous, his tone was a little subtle, “It seems that Lin Kang isn’t that high-minded.”

Gongxi Qiao didn’t know Lin Kang very well, so he chose to be silent. It just so happened that Lin Kang was walking towards the dessert area at that moment, and he couldn’t help but look at the man twice more. There was still an inexplicable weird feeling in his heart. He had this feeling when he first met Lin Kang at the company, and even he couldn’t figure out what was going on.

A female entertainer who was in the dessert area turned around and accidentally bumped into Lin Kang. After the other party apologized, Lin Kang didn’t say anything, but just pursed his lips.

Gongxi Qiao noticed this action of his and was taken aback, his eyebrows furrowed.

“What’s wrong with you?” Xu Chao noticed Gongxi Qiao looked a little off and reached out to pat him on the shoulder, “Don’t worry, the Bai family won’t dare to touch you. If Lin Kang really dares to have other thoughts, I’ll beat him up with you.”

Gongxi Qiao raised his eyebrows at Xu Chao. “You know a lot about the prestigious families.”

When Xu Chao told him that he had witnessed Gu Nan’s embarrassment, he thought it was a bit strange. Gu Nan had a humiliating incident involving Xi Qing and few people in the circle knew about it, so how did Xu Chao, an unknown entertainer, get involved in that occasion?

If Senhe, a second-rate entertainment company, really had a spot available for such an occasion, they wouldn’t be able to give it to Xu Chao, right?

“Ahem,” Xu Chao laughed uncomfortably, “I have a bit of a connection with the Xu family of the Imperial Capital.”

“A bit?” Gongxi Qiao continued to raise his eyebrows.

“Uh……” Xu Chao continued to laugh dryly, “My family is a side branch of the Xu family. My family doesn’t support me entering the entertainment industry, so I have to struggle on my own.”

It dawned on Gongxi Qiao. No wonder Xu Chao was so lazy, and his agent still put up with only having him as an artist, and he dared to help Gongxi Qiao publicly speak out on Weibo, not caring what others thought. So it turned out he was actually a hidden scion of a powerful family.

“Xu Shaoxuan is your cousin?” Gongxi Qiao then realized that the eyebrows and nose of Xu Chao and Xu Shaoxuan were very similar, only that Xu Shaoxuan’s whole person looked a bit more gentle than Xu Chao.

“A distant cousin. He’s the heir to the main branch, and I’m just from the side branch, so we rarely interact with each other,” said Xu Chao, bowing his head to pick up rice with his chopsticks. He didn’t look at all like a son of a prestigious family should look.

Mi Yue and Gongxi Qiao looked at each other, speechless. They suddenly felt that Xu Chao had made the right decision not to tell everyone that he was the son of a prestigious family, otherwise the classy reputation of the prestigious families would have been ruined by him.

Halfway through the meal, Gongxi Qiao left, rushing to the set to shoot an afternoon scene. Only when it was time to remove his makeup did he notice that he was hungry.

“Is President Xi coming to the set today?” Chen Yi, who was also removing his makeup, asked. “I saw that these past two days, you seemed to go back in the nanny car.”

“The last few days I’ve been shooting night scenes, so I didn’t ask him to drop by,” Gongxi Qiao lifted his wrist and looked at his watch, “but he might come tonight.”

“President Xi is really buddy-buddy with you,” Chen Yi said with emotion. “How come I never met such a good friend?”

Gongxi Qiao smiled and said, “You don’t have a best friend, you have a sweet girlfriend.”

“That’s true.” Mentioning his girlfriend, Chen Yi’s face showed a satisfied smile. After Gongxi Qiao left the dressing room, he reacted. A girlfriend and a male buddy, how could those be the same thing?

Gongxi Qiao just walked out of the dressing room when he saw two bit actors quarreling, because one of them used a trick to steal his opportunity to show his face. If Gongxi Qiao didn’t happen to appear, the two of them would probably have fought.

Gongxi Qiao knew that there was competition between the bit actors, so he just pretended not to hear and smiled at the two of them, and walked towards the car parked outside.

When he reached the car, Xi Qing had already gotten out and opened the door for him. He handed him a bottle of milk after he sat in the car. “Have you eaten?”

Gongxi Qiao shook his head. “At noon today, I went back to the company for the quarterly review meeting and didn’t eat much at all. I’ve been hungry for a while.”

Xi Qing also took out a box of cakes. “Pad your stomach first, and then have a good meal when you get back.” These two days, Gongxi Qiao went back to live in his own villa. He was also busy with work, and the two of them hadn’t seen each other for two days, so it was hard not to miss him.

Before coming, he was worried that Gongxi Qiao hadn’t eaten and drunk well, and had prepared drinks and cakes specially, just to prevent this situation.

“When are you going to Iris country?” Xi Qing looked at Gongxi Qiao’s forehead which had red marks left by the wig adhesive. He couldn’t help but feel distressed and reached out to carefully touch the edge of the red marks.

Gongxi Qiao didn’t avoid his action. He took a sip of milk, swallowed the cake in his mouth and took a tissue to wipe his mouth while saying, “I’ll go there with the crew next week. I’m mainly involved in the filming of ‘Cultivation’ this week.”

“That’s good.” Xi Qing handed him a gilded invitation letter. “The Xue family is holding a cocktail party tomorrow night and Xue Chong asked me to give you this invitation.”

Now the whole Xue family knew that Xue Chong was a braindead fanboy of Gongxi Qiao, so much so that Gongxi Qiao’s calligraphy and paintings were also highly esteemed in the prestigious family circle. Unfortunately, Gongxi Qiao’s calligraphy and paintings were rarely released.

Gongxi Qiao definitely had to give face to Xue Chong, so he immediately gave Xue Chong a call. After expressing his gratitude for the invitation, he then explained that he would definitely attend the Xue family’s cocktail party on time.

“The Xue family isn’t bad.” Xi Qing looked at the invitation that Gongxi Qiao had put aside. “Let’s go together tomorrow.”

Gongxi Qiao knew Xi Qing was trying to support him, so that no one in the prestigious families would speak out of turn and upset him.

Sometimes he felt that Xi Qing was broad-minded and insightful, but sometimes he felt that this person was silly and cute.

Why would anyone secretly do something for their crush and not say so? If he was actually an emotionally clueless young man, how could he have guessed that the man had done a lot for him?

That night, Gongxi Qiao went to bed early and seemed to hear a knock at the door in a daze, but turned over and went back to sleep.

The next morning, when he woke up, he found a bottle of medicine at his bedside. He reached out and touched his forehead, then looked down and smelled the faint smell of medicine on his fingertips.

The person who knocked on the door last night was Xi Qing? Picking up the medicine placed at the bedside, Gongxi Qiao sighed. He was able to sleep so heavily in this room. It seemed that his body’s instincts no longer treated Xi Qing as an outsider.

After changing clothes and walking out of the room, Gongxi Qiao stood at the second floor hallway railing and saw Xi Qing sitting on the sofa in the downstairs hall reading the newspaper, and smiled. “Good morning.”

Hearing Gongxi Qiao’s voice, Xi Qing put down the newspaper and looked upstairs. “Good morning.”

The smile on Gongxi Qiao’s face became more and more obvious as he looked at the smile that the other person squeezed out of the corners of his mouth.

It would be better to just…… be together like this.

T/N:

1. Noses in the air: 眼高于顶 literally “eyes over the tops of their heads”, an idiom that means basically the same thing