CH 32

Chapter 32 – Surging Undercurrent

But I need a fanservice partner.

Pei Tingsong quickly got up from Fang Juexia. He then heard a ding sound, which was the sound of the door being unlocked. 

“Shit, how could they have the keycards?” Pei Tingsong didn’t have time to push Fang Juexia off his bed, and had to run quickly over to Fang Juexia’s bed.

Fang Juexia stiffly stared at the ceiling, still frozen in his original position, until Ling Yi entered the room with the camera.

“Surprise!” Ling Yi bounced in and said, “It’s time to announce who the lazy king of the group is…”

—This wasn’t quite what he had imagined.

He had thought that Pei Tingsong would definitely be the one still deep asleep, but what he didn’t expect to find was this little tyrant actually neatly sitting upright on the bed, with a pillow placed on his stomach, his face wreathed in a professional smile, and his two hands folded properly on top of the pillow. The entire image seemed rather like a fake of the “Mona Lisa”.

“Morning.”

Pei Tingsong’s pure American English gave Ling Yi the illusion of having walked into the wrong play. It was too strange; based on Pei Tingsong’s normal behavior, he should have been kicked out of the room with two pillows being thrown at him at this time. How could he just casually reply with a “good morning” to him, behaving just like a young lady from a great noble family? He was possessed ba.

On the contrary, after he had entered, Fang Juexia had wrapped himself up in his quilt and had rolled from one end of the bed to the other, now looking like a tamagoyaki. 

Something wasn’t right ah, how was the atmosphere here so strange….

Ling Yi was a smart guy and quickly realized that something was wrong with them. He guessed that they may have just engaged in a quarrel, but what could they have been arguing about this early in the morning?

He cleared his throat, popped up the collar of his pajamas, and pretended to be talking into a walkie talkie. “No. 01, No. 01. The raid task is completed, and no lazy eggs were caught. Getting ready to go to the next room! Over.”

“Wait a minute.” Pei Tingsong’s chin lifted and he asked, “Where did you get our key card?”

Ling Yi’s current expression made it clear that he had just been waiting for this question as he placed his butt down on the side of the bed, fished out three key cards in the manner of a gambling king, and wiggled his eyebrows up and down. “Strong Ge gave them all to me.”

What exactly was all of this?

They had nearly been caught engaging in an adulterous scene while in bed.

Pei Tingsong rolled his eyes. “Get up, I want to sleep some more.”

“Not eating breakfast?” Ling Yi tried to pull his pillow away; his sudden niceness was way too fast. “Pei Little Six, let’s go have breakfast ba.”

The only pillow covering up his shame was about to be pulled away by Ling Yi, so of course, Pei Tingsong would not agree to his suggestion. “I’m not hungry, you go by yourself, I’m so sleepy.” After saying that, he lifted up the quilt, put it over his body, and diligently pretended to sleep. “Remember to close the door for me!”

Really weird.

The camera was right behind them, so Ling Yi knew that he couldn’t say anything, for fear that if he went deep into it, he’d end up digging into some kind of big trouble. As a worldly-wise person, he definitely wouldn’t allow something like that to happen on his watch. 

“Alright ba, anyway, I’ve finished the surprise shot~ Mission accomplished!” Ling Yi got up from the bed and accidentally discovered that when Pei Tingsong had moved the quilt to cover himself, the T-shirt Fang Juexia had been wearing when drinking last night had appeared.

No ah, why would Juexia’s clothes appear on Pei Tingsong’s bed?

Right when Ling Yi had come up with a hundred different answers, none of which made any sense, his eyes, which were comparable to those of Leeuwenhoek’s, took aim and noticed an even stranger point. 

Next to Fang Juexia’s pillow was Pei Tingsong’s cellphone! That fancy purple cellphone case was absolutely Pei Tingsong’s, make no mistake!

Fuck, did he discover some kind of amazing secret?!

Ling Yi’s chest stirred with excitement, wild joy and fear, all of these emotions mixing together, and he quickly hurried the camera Da Ge, who didn’t know what was going on, out of the room. He himself politely closed the door. “Then you guys don’t oversleep oh.”

His little heart was pounding, thinking that after the shooting of the segment was over, he would immediately convey this amazing secret he had observed to their four-person groupchat, take his bros along to happily eat melon, and all of them would gorge on it until they were full!

Only after Ling Yi’s loud voice and the sound of his footsteps got further away, and once he was certain that there wasn’t any possibility of them coming back, did Pei Tingsong flip open the quilt and get off of Fang Juexia’s bed. He also took the T-shirt that had appeared and threw it in front of Fang Juexia, who had turned his back on him by now.

Fang Juexia was obviously stewing in anger and kept himself buried in the quilt, not even poking his head out. Pei Tingsong sat at his bedside, feeling as if he had returned to last night’s awkward circumstances again—where no matter how hard he pulled, he couldn’t pull Fang Juexia’s head out. 

“Hey, Fang Juexia, you really don’t remember what happened last night?” Pei Tingsong couldn’t really believe it; any person who didn’t know better would think that they were following the script of some drama or something. “You really don’t remember even a little bit?”

Fang Juexia slapped down the quilt over his head and then stared at Pei Tingsong without saying a word. His voice had restored to its usual indifferent tone, and completely didn’t contain any trace of his cutesy, brainless self from last night. “Don’t try to deceive me.”

“Me deceive you?” Pei Tingsong was so angry that he started laughing at him, his expression turning into that of an abandoned wife’s. “Do you know what you did to me last night? Who was the one groaning and whining without stopping, who couldn’t be coaxed at all and even had to be hugged to sleep? I didn’t have a second’s leisure before you fell asleep, you know? Now you’ve turned hostile and refuse to recognize me. Fang Juexia, you’re really heartless.”

Fang Juexia narrowed his eyes while still wrapped in the quilt, and expressed doubt at every word uttered by Pei Tingsong. “Impossible.”

“Alright, then I’ll just have to bring out the big moves.” Pei Tingsong was so angry by now that his lungs had started aching. “Do you know what faceslapping is? I’ll give you a taste of a faceslap today.” Saying that, Pei Tingsong picked up the cellphone pressed against the corner of the pillow, found the recording from yesterday, and split his legs to ride astride on this tamagoyaki Fang Juexia. 

“I’m really a genius. I just knew you’d turn your back on me and not acknowledge what you did, so…”

Ding. 

The door opened again.

“I’ll go in first!”

“Shh, shh, shh!”

“What are you squeezing in for, I lost my slipper!”

Pei Tingsong, holding his cellphone, riding on top of Fang Juexia’s body, turned to stare at the other four members—all six members’ faces had turned muddled.

“Um…” Ling Yi was holding a slipper in his hand, and carried a guilty smile on his face. “Everyone was worried about you guys, scared that—scared that you’d start fighting…”

Pei Tingsong proffered a spiritless smile. “Fight, what, like fight on the bed?”

After saying that, he climbed off of Fang Juexia’s body and faced the crowd of melon eaters who had broken in. “Are all of you satisfied with what you saw?”

“Tch, it’s not a good time.” He Ziyan rubbed his chin and commented, “We should have come in later.”

Lu Yuan snapped his fingers as he added, “Wouldn’t it all have been over later?”

Jiang Miao coughed twice as a warning.

Ling Yi said, “It wouldn’t be that fast ba?”

Thump, thump, thump—two pillows hit four people.

“Scram, scram, scram.” Pei Tingsong rolled his eyes and said, “How can I have such a group of bandmates? My life is too hard.” With that, he got out of bed and approached the bathroom with his cellphone in his hand.

Ling Yi cleverly ran over to Fang Juexia and explained, “Are you okay, Juexia? Actually it was… it was the captain who was coming to give you some hangover medicine, and then we all followed him in.”

“I’m fine, my head just hurts a bit.” Fang Juexia sat up, put on his T-shirt, and then went downstairs for breakfast with everyone else after washing up. The ensemble show’s cameraman also followed them, filming their breakfast buffet trip.

Throughout this duration, Pei Tingsong and Fang Juexia got no chance to be alone together. They were even seated far away from each other, and everyone made a lot of noise. After breakfast, they were all whisked away by Cheng Qiang to get styled. 

Probably because they knew that the charity party taking place today would be popular, the magazine had released various clips of the interview videos of Pei Tingsong and Fang Juexia in the morning, which featured several specific questions. Soon, “#TingJue Idol Definition” was trending on the Hot Search list. This kind of question was in itself topical, so it also led to the birth of a lot of trending discussions. These two idols, who had first appeared in the public eye in a boyband, were now being viewed by the public for the first time for something besides their performances and exquisite appearance.

It wasn’t a small number of passersby who were turned into fans from this, and it even led to many people’s prejudice against idols being reversed. Of course, there were also a lot of marketing accounts stirring up shit, claiming that all of this was just part of an interview manuscript that had been written in advance, and was the usual trick employed by a magazine to promote people. All in all, because of the fight between the supportive people and the brainless antifans, their popularity rose up at an unusual speed. 

The two people in the center of the whirlpool were in the dressing room at the moment, listening to Cheng Qiang nag about the issues that needed to be paid attention to at the gala, his words spinning over and over again like a wheel. They were seedlings, ones who had just attained newly sprouted popularity in this circle, and nothing was stable. There were too many people staring at them, and if they weren’t careful, their hard-earned recent popularity would be mercilessly crushed into pieces—This was the entertainment circle.

“Remember, in the last big group photo, let your seniors go up first, and whatever else you do, do not rush forward. Even if your face gets blocked out, it doesn’t matter, grabbing the C position is not a good thing, we really don’t want this kind of topic coming up.”

Ling Yi nodded heavily. “Un—der—stood.”

Jiang Miao said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be in charge of them later.”

Fang Juexia didn’t speak, and didn’t really listen to Cheng Qiang’s words. His headache had been relieved under the effects of the medicine, but he still couldn’t remember the events that took place last night. He just vaguely felt that something had happened, otherwise, they couldn’t have woken up early in the morning while holding each other. 

It couldn’t be that he had gone crazy while drunk yesterday and had done something he shouldn’t have done to Pei Tingsong?

But Pei Tingsong was tall, and he was stronger than him. Even if he really wanted to have drunken sex, his chance of succeeding at it wasn’t high ah.

His mind was too confused and currently possessed no capacity to think about anything else. This itself was very strange—he clearly had a job to do, so why was he still entangled with the events of the night he had spent with Pei Tingsong—this wasn’t like him at all. 

[Do you know how obedient you were last night?]

[Turning hostile as soon as you wake up.]

Repeatedly thinking back on the words Pei Tingsong had spoken at the end, no matter how he interpreted them, they just sounded wrong. Fang Juexia pressed his Jingming acupoints and searched his memory again with his eyes closed.

“Today, Juexia’s hair will be blown out.” The stylist neatened out his hair and continued explaining, “Juexia’s hairline is beautiful, and if we comb his hair up, his facial features will appear more delicate.”

“Do you want to cover up your birthmark?”

Fang Juexia wanted to tell her to do whatever she wanted to, but unexpectedly, Pei Tingsong preemptively opened his mouth. “Why cover it up? It’s not a blemish.”

He looked at himself in the mirror, and then glanced at Pei Tingsong, who was finished with his styling and had lowered his head to listen to some music. 

“Then let’s not cover it up ba.” Fang Juexia smiled at the stylist Jiejie.

All six of them were dressed in white suits that differed only slightly in terms of style and detail. Fang Juexia was in a white swallow-tail suit, while Pei Tingsong was in a three-piece suit, with a long waistcoat. Time was tight, and after finishing their make-up and hair styling, they immediately drove to the location of the charity gala.

The car door opened, and their leader was the first to get out. They heard huge cheers coming from fans on both sides of the red carpet, all of them shouting their names.

Fang Juexia tidied up his suit coat and got out of the car, with Pei Tingsong coming from behind him. They stepped onto the red carpet, and walked step-by-step to the organizer’s signature board. The six people stood side by side with a smile on their faces.

“Welcome, welcome to the popular boy-band Kaleido!”

The cheering of the fans almost drowned out the voice of the host. This red carpet seemed to be endless, and reminded Fang Juexia of a music award ceremony they had attended the year they had debuted. They had arrived early at the sponsor’s red carpet, but they had been stopped and kept outside by the staff, and had to wait for other actors, singers, and even other groups who had made their debut in the same year, to go in first. By the time Kaleido’s six people stepped up, the fans on both sides of the red carpet had grown sparse, and even the proxy photographers had all disappeared.

They had just debuted, but they didn’t even get a chance to introduce themselves. All they could do was to just quickly write down their names on the boards already filled with various signatures, thereby ending the parade of self-esteem with just a scribble. 

“This should be Kaleido’s first time participating in the charity fashion event,” the host introduced and laughed awkwardly, for the fans’ voices were really too loud. “Everyone is really quite enthusiastic, so let’s greet them ba.”

Jiang Miao counted off “one, two, three,” and the six people raised their hands together to introduce themselves, “Hello everyone, we are Kaleido!”

The male host laughed and asked, “Today, Kaleido’s style is of a prince on a white horse?”

Jiang Miao skillfully replied to and dealt with the host. They were receiving unprecedented attention and were the first to enter the venue; they could sign their names on the blank signature board. Countless camera flashes went off at them, with numerous people calling out their names in hopes of getting a press photo.

After entering the venue, they received instructions from the staff, who told them that there was still some time before they could enter the gala room. They were given a specific number for a round table; each round table could sit six to seven people, and Kaleido perfectly managed to  fill up one whole table. 

The lighting in the venue was very dark, with all of the light being concentrated on the stage. Fang Juexia subconsciously focused his eyes on Jiang Miao, who was in front of him. The tables and chairs in the venue were arranged close to each other, and the corridor was narrow and curved.

The visibility here was very low. He could be as careful as he liked, but diagonally in front of him was a chair that had been pushed out and away from the other chairs. 

He couldn’t see it clearly.

When he stepped forward in its direction, Fang Juexia found his waist suddenly being gripped by a hand, which then proceeded to drag him just slightly off track.

Fortunately, he thus managed to avoid that obstacle.

Mission accomplished, but the hand on his waist didn’t remove itself. Long and slender fingers rested in a rather natural manner on the waist-line of his custom-made swallow-tail suit, as if they simply just belonged there. 

People would naturally experience emotional fluctuations from the unknown. 

But Fang Juexia knew exactly who was behind him.

Yet, his heart was currently beating fast, all for this known person.

His heart beat clearly in the dark field of his vision, like flickering fireflies, steadily pushing him forward.

“Found it.” Jiang Miao checked the table number. “Everyone sit down.”

All of them sat down, sitting down based on their standing positions, and by Fang Juexia’s side was Pei Tingsong. The venue wasn’t quiet, there were staff people coming and going, and also other artists who were entering and sitting down one after another.

Fang Juexia didn’t look at him and just whispered, “You don’t have to help me.” 

Even he felt that his voice was a little cold as he said this, but this was the only way Fang Juexia could say it. He had told Pei Tingsong his secret because it had already been revealed and he had had no alternatives at that time. However, he had never expected to obtain Pei Tingsong now “keeping an eye on him” because of this defect, and this was the thing he felt most annoyed about.

He had no inferiority complex, and had never not felt confident because of this problem. 

He was very normal, just like everybody else.

So, he didn’t need to be treated differently.

Pei Tingsong smiled, picked up the wine glass set on the table, poured some sparkling water into it, and placed it in front of Fang Juexia. Taking advantage of this brief moment when he was leaning close to him, he said, “I’m not helping you, I’m helping myself.”

“I know you’re very strong and don’t need me.” His profile was illuminated by the gorgeous lights on the stage. “But I need a fanservice partner.”

“So I’m asking you,” he looked at Fang Juexia, the corners of his mouth carrying a hint of a smile. “Leave me some room to perform.”

Fang Juexia looked away.

His heart was beating in an even more disorderly manner now, as if a hand had physically reached into his chest and forced the second hand of the hidden small clock to move, so it began to collapse and malfunction.

Fang Juexia drank the water in front of him and maintained his apparent composure.

When he looked up again, he caught sight of a group of artists passing by them, wearing complete sets of black suits, and they were all people familiar to him.

“Seven Luminaries is actually sitting next door.” Ling Yi whispered.

Pei Tingsong heard that and propped his chin in his hand as he looked over. He saw one of the guys there, the one with flaxen hair who seemed to face them, and this guy raised his hand and waved it vigorously at them with a social smile on his face.

Liang Ruo—Pei Tingsong chanted this very dull name in his heart. 

He was waving at Fang Juexia ba.

Pei Tingsong turned his head towards Fang Juexia, only to see him remain as calm as usual, while smiling and nodding at that warm guy.

This was a very courteous gesture, Pei Tingsong was clear on that. Not only was he clear, he also knew that Fang Juexia was far from being such a person. He could get excited, could get angry and speak ironically, could start sparkling when talking about his dreams, and could also want to rely on other people. 

This was the Fang Juexia who these people didn’t know about at all.

However, when he thought about it, he had known Fang Juexia for a mere two years, and they had really interacted for only about a month. What did he really know?

He lowered his head, took out his cellphone, and compiled a message. 

Before long, Fang Juexia’s cellphone vibrated. He thought it was a bit strange. 

[Kaleido Pei Tingsong: Don’t you want to know what happened last night? Listen to it yourself.]

[Kaleido Pei Tingsong: shared a recording]

This was the evidence that Pei Tingsong had said repeatedly that he would show him?

He didn’t have earphones right now.

Fang Juexia thought for a moment, took off his coat, and stood up from his seat. He told the captain, “Miao Ge, I’m going to the bathroom.”

“En, go ahead ba.” Jiang Miao added, “I think you just have to go out through that door.”

Fang Juexia nodded and left without looking at Pei Tingsong.

Naturally, Pei Tingsong wasn’t happy; how was it that as soon as he sent him a message, Fang Juexia would get up to go to the bathroom? But he couldn’t just directly follow after him, so he poured himself a glass of water and guzzled it down.

“I didn’t expect that we could sit with Seven Luminaries,” Ling Yi laughed at himself.

Jiang Miao motioned at him to stop talking. Only then did Ling Yi lower his head and pretend as if nothing had happened.

This wasn’t the first time that they had been involved with Seven Luminaries. At the end of the year when they had debuted, Kaleido had, very early on, won the opportunity to perform, but on the day before their performance, they had been informed that the program list had been changed and that their performance had to be cancelled.

They didn’t have a chance to perform, but they still had to go and attend. The six big boys sitting in the audience watched the whole show and saw that their three minute song and dance performance had been compressed into a 13 minute showcase for Seven Luminaries. 

They knew it couldn’t be helped; whoever was popular was whoever had the right to speak. 

That was also that scene that had frustrated Pei Tingsong to the depths of his self-esteem for the first time. It was only then that he understood what his father had said to him—”Your world is too much of an ideal. You should take a look at what ordinary people’s life is like and what it is like to not even be worth being mentioned.”

There were more and more stars gathering in the venue, but Liang Ruo, who was seated at the Seven Luminaries table, stood up and went out of the door that Fang Juexia had walked out of just before.

“I just don’t feel good about it, why can that Liang Ruo just smile cheekily at Fang Juexia as though nothing has ever happened?” Ling Yi couldn’t stay silent for long before he couldn’t stand it any longer. Although he said it very quietly, Pei Tingsong still heard him.

“What did he do?” Pei Tingsong asked.

Lu Yuan turned his cup around. “Liang Ruo’s qualifications definitely didn’t qualify him for being a part of AS’ upper circle of trainees. Him being able to debut while Juexia was instead expelled, and even being able to make an official debut on top of that, there have always been some problems in this story.”

“What’s particularly interesting is,” He Ziyan continued, while leaning on the back of his chair and observing the reactions of the other people in the Seven Luminaries group after Liang Ruo left, “The relationship between the group members doesn’t seem to be very good.”

Ling Yi seemed to have recalled something. “Right, I remember, around the time we were about to debut, that Liang Ruo even came to find Juexia. He was in the company’s parking lot at that time, and I saw him when I was getting some take-out.”

Pei Tingsong frowned. “What happened?”

Ling Yi shook his head. “I don’t know. I also can’t read Juexia’s expressions, but he didn’t return to the dormitory that night, and just slept in the practice room.”

“Stop guessing, they’re probably friends.” Jiang Miao poured water for them one by one. “There are also pictures of the two of them during their trainee period floating around online. Based on those photos… they had a good relationship; they were smiling quite happily in those pictures. None of us are in the know about this, so we shouldn’t discuss these matters any more, especially when this isn’t the place to talk about it.”

Their leader had spoken, and so the others couldn’t say anything more. They could just watch the stage silently and wait for the first program to commence.

It wasn’t easy to find the restroom in this venue. Fang Juexia searched for a long time before finding one, and it was both very luxurious and very hidden. He went to the sink, took out his cellphone, and minimized the volume on his phone.

All of this was too absurd, absurd to the point that Fang Juexia laughed out loud while holding onto his cellphone. 

He would even go all the way out from the performance venue just to find a quiet place to listen to something, all because Pei Tingsong had sent him a recording. 

His finger was about to click open the recording when another person suddenly appeared at the doorway of the bathroom.

“Juexia?”

Fang Juexia looked up when his name was called and saw Liang Ruo coming in.

“That’s great, you’re really here. I was afraid that I wouldn’t even be able to bump into you out here.” Liang Ruo warmly smiled at him and spoke, “It’s really not easy for us to meet. You’ve been good recently ba?”

Fang Juexia held his cellphone and replied quietly, “Very good.”

“I saw your interview on the Hot Search List this morning, it’s really amazing. You’re the same as you were, you haven’t changed at all.” Liang Ruo walked closer as he continued speaking, “Have you been really busy? Did you know, I sent you a lot of messages. I sent you a message on WeChat on your birthday and wanted to have dinner with you to celebrate, but you didn’t reply to it.”

Fang Juexia smiled. He remembered that Seven Luminaries had been holding a concert in Japan on the day of his birthday.

But he didn’t expose him, and replied, “Is that so? Then, thank you. I haven’t used social networking apps for a long time, so I wouldn’t have received those messages.”

“So that’s how it is.” Liang Ruo smiled very brightly and reached out for a hug, but Fang Juexia dodged him. 

This action seemed to hurt him a lot, and the expression on his face suddenly looked lost, but Fang Juexia still looked completely unperturbed. He began to step away to leave. 

“Do we have to be like this?”

Liang Ruo’s words stopped him in his tracks.

“We were clearly very good friends. I was the one who used to accompany you while practicing day and night, wasn’t I?” Liang Ruo raised his head and looked at Fang Juexia, his eyes full of grievances. “I am very grateful to you for what happened back then, but wasn’t it because we were friends that you were even willing to step forward? Why do you refuse to acknowledge me now?”

“You’re actually lying, aren’t you? You’re still totally blaming me.”

Fang Juexia didn’t say anything. He wasn’t good at dealing with such scenarios, and he also felt exhausted and a little out of breath.

He didn’t want to recall his past experiences. He had spent a very long time persuading himself that there was nothing wrong with what he had done, that there was nothing wrong with his action of coming forward, and that there was nothing wrong with persisting in what he believed in. 

“Juexia, what happened in the past…”

Knock knock——

The sudden knock on the door interrupted Liang Ruo’s argument. Fang Juexia looked up to see Pei Tingsong leaning against the door frame while wearing a cynical smile on his face.

“Am I disturbing you guys?”

Liang Ruo turned to look at him and said, “Sorry, we have something right now…”

“Great.” Pei Tingsong didn’t let him finish his words, and with one hand stuck in his pocket, he walked straight in. “I just wanted to disturb you guys.” 

Liang Ruo was suddenly blocked. 

“Fang Juexia.” Pei Tingsong walked up to him, stood in front of him, and tilted his head while asking, “Why didn’t you reply to my WeChat message?”

Fang Juexia was stunned.

He had originally wanted to reply…

Pei Tingsong took hold of his shoulder in one move and said, “Dawdling while going to the bathroom, I even thought that you had gotten lost. Did you listen to what I sent you?”

“Haven’t had the time yet,” Fang Juexia replied honestly.

“You didn’t bring earphones ba.” Pei Tingsong put some wireless earbuds into his front pocket and said, “Go back and sit down to listen to it, isn’t it tiring to just keep standing there ah?”

Liang Ruo seemed to be unable to bear the way these two people just kept ignoring him. He struggled forward for the last time and called out, “Juexia, you…”

Pei Tingsong stopped, and his tone was not good. “Originally, Strong Ge and the captain exhorted me, telling me to not make trouble when we go out. I promised them and everything, but you just have to make me break my promise.”

He turned around and looked down at Liang Ruo from his domineering height, his voice completely odious as he stated, “Don’t think you’re such a big deal. Didn’t he just help you once? You feeling deeply grateful in your heart towards him is just enough.” 

Liang Ruo took a deep breath and argued, “You…what right do you have to comment on our past?”

“Based on the fact that I’m his bandmate,” Pei Tingsong said, while still holding onto Fang Juexia’s shoulder with his hand. “Based on the fact that I’m with him day and night, based on the fact that one-sixth of his dream, when it finally comes true, will have my name written on it.”

Pei Tingsong sneered—

“And what are you?”

Liang Ruo gazed at Pei Tingsong with those innocent eyes.

“Don’t want to say it?” Pei Tingsong acted as if he was pondering over it before speaking, “I’ll think through it for you ah… Former fellow company trainee? Old friends who parted ways? Or someone who displaced him from his debut position?”

“There’s fame and wealth, there’s friendship, and then there’s emotional blackmailing.”

The smile on his face disappeared, and he raised his eyebrows.

“Do you match all that?”