CH 12

Paparazzi

They all stayed at the same hotel so it was indeed on the way. Although it was raining outside, it was hard to say that there wouldn’t be any dedicated paparazzi on watch. If she got in Xie Yan’s car today then the headlines tomorrow would be [Breaking! Xie Yan drove a girl back to a hotel in the middle of the night, seemingly intimate! A female actress from the same crew?]

Su Shen could already foresee what would happen as a result. The media loved to make things up, making a mountain out of a molehill. What’s more, the fans would explode if they saw them entering the hotel in the same car.

“No thanks, I…”

“Su jie, I asked the crew team and they said that they don’t have enough umbrellas right now. They said that they will lend it to us after they finish packing in another ten minutes or so.” Xiao Zhou ran back gaspingly with two transparent raincoats in her hand, “This…”

“Let’s go.” Xie Yan glanced at her and then walked ahead.

Zhao Tong was also stupefied. He then smiled and said, “Let’s go, it’s really on the way.”

That was his only way of comforting himself right now.

Su Shen also sighed when she saw this and turned around to Xiao Zhou, “Go and return the raincoats to the crew team. We’ll leave with them.”

Xiao Zhou was dazed in place, she had never imagined that one day she would get to ride in her idol’s car!

“I…I’ll go and return it to them.” Xiao Zhou excitedly hurried away with the raincoats.

The eaves were dripping with rain with some dropping onto her arms. Today, Su Shen only wore a pair of joggers and a pink t-shirt. It was a bit chilly at night with the wind and rain.

Xiao Zhou quickly came back and didn’t know if it was because she ran or of her excitement, her face was flushed. The fundamental part of being an assistant to artists was that you could not chase stars. This was written in the contract. Although Xiao Zhou suppressed it, Su Shen knew that every time Xie Yan filmed, she would reveal a fangirl expression. She must’ve fulfilled her dream of being in close contact with her idol today.

Zhao Tong opened up his umbrella and appeared to walk one of them out. Su Shen looked at Xie Yan who was also holding up a black umbrella and nudged at the preoccupied Xiao Zhou, “Go.”

“Ah? No, no, no!” Xiao Zhou glanced at Xie Yan’s back and blushingly ran to Zhao Tong, “I… I’ll go with Zhao ge!”

Zhao Tong: “…”

He silently said sorry to Hua ge. For special circumstances, there would naturally be special treatments accordingly. It wasn’t his fault today, it was this da ge who was so unexpected.

“Then… Yan ge, we’ll go ahead first and see if there’s any paparazzi.” Zhao Tong coughed and kindly shifted the umbrella towards Xiao Zhou’s side. Then, he led her through the rain.

They were the only two left. Su Shen took a deep breath and with a few steps, went up to his umbrella and softly said, “Thank you.”

Xie Yan looked down slightly and saw her hair whorl. He didn’t say anything and walked straight into the heavy downpour. 

Su Shen followed his steps but Xie Yan was too tall. A lot of the rain fell on her with some splashing on her face but she didn’t lean too close to him.

The two of them kept a distance of a fist. The heavy rain splashed onto the umbrella making pitter-pattering sounds. In the middle of the night, the lights on the film site were dim yet you could clearly see the tiny raindrops in the air.

She didn’t know when but she noticed that the rain near her was less. She slightly looked up and saw that most of the umbrella was slanted toward her. The color of Xie Yan’s black coat also darkened a lot.

“Your clothes got wet.” Su Shen said whilst grabbing the umbrella handle and shifting it toward him.

“Don’t move.” Xie Yan stared at the road ahead.

Su Shen pursed her lips and insipidly said, “Thank you.”

Xie Yan glanced at her from the corner of his eye. He still couldn’t see the slightest emotion on her bare face. Just that, there were a lot of raindrops on her fair and slender arm. He unawaringly inclined toward her and said, “Your pastries are not bad.”

Su Shen looked up slightly and could only see a silhouette covering his face. This seemed to have been the second time that he has mentioned her pastry.

Even an idiot would understand what he meant. Su Shen blinked and suddenly said, “If you like, you can come over to my house with Wang Cheng, Tong Le and the others. I’ll treat you guys to a dinner.”

“Okay.”

He answered without hesitation.

Su Shen found out why he was so kind to her. It was completely because he took a fancy to her cooking. It turned out that no matter how aloof a person was, they would also bow down to good food.

Afterwards, they continued to be silent and left the film site. Outside, the road had little to no traffic with a Hummer parked on the side. Su Shen and Xie Yan walked over and the rear door opened.

When Su Shen got in, Xiao Zhou was already inside with her phone in her hands. She kept on glancing at Xie Yan who was behind Su Shen.

It wasn’t until Xie Yan got in that the door was closed. The car quickly started to move. It was just that the atmosphere in the car was a little awkward.

“Your clothes got wet. Why don’t you take it off before you catch a cold?” She suddenly said, breaking the strange atmosphere inside the car.

Zhao Tong, who was sitting at the front, also hurriedly looked back. When he saw that Xie Yan’s coat was half wet, he unconcernedly joked with Su Shen, “Improbable. Our Yan ge was fine even after filming a scene in a pool during the middle of winter with minus ten degree weather. It was just that he almost broke an arm during filming but other than that, nothing happened.”

“Ah? Broken an arm?” Xiao Zhou subconsciously said. But afterwards, she found that she was too abrupt and immediately looked down flushed.

“Yea, he was in luck. Even the doctor said it was a miracle to have only almost broken an arm from falling from such a high altitude.” Zhao Tong couldn’t help but laughed.

Su Shen wanted to laugh a little but she endured it.

Contrariwise, Xie Yan suddenly looked up, “Do you really want me to break my arms and legs?”

Zhao Tong: “…”

He shut his mouth and silently turned around.

“Was it during Secret Route?” She looked sideways and found that he had taken off his half wet coat. His black t-shirt inside wasn’t that wet. It was just that it exposed the lingering scar on his arm.

“En.” He closed his eyes and leaned back.

Secret Route was the film that allowed Xie Yan to obtain his first best actor acting award. It was about mercenaries with the content being very bloody and violent. It was said that a lot of the scenes had to be deleted before it could pass the censorship screening. The full version of the film could only be found overseas now. Xie Yan had a great amount of action scenes and at the time, the news also reported that he was injured. She just didn’t expect that it would be so serious.

“Su Shen, let’s exchange WeChats. You can invite me to dinner in the future.” Zhao Tong knew that this da ge didn’t like talking so he asked Su Shen. He also had been thinking of Su Shen’s pastries too. 

“Okay.” Su Shen didn’t refuse. After all, the more friends the more connections.

Xie Yan opened his eyes slightly and saw the two of them exchanging WeChats. He didn’t speak.

She intermittently talked with Zhao Tong all the way until the car stopped at the entrance of the hotel. In order to avoid any problems, Su Shen got off the car with Zhao Tong’s umbrella and walked into the hotel while the rest of the people in the car tacitly stayed put. 

As soon as she left, the driver turned around and said to Xie Yan, “Yan ge, there’s a suspicious car behind us. They’ve followed us all the way until now.”

After he said that, Zhao Tong immediately turned around and looked back. Although it was raining heavily outside, there was a van parked on the side of the road not far away with its lights turned off.

“I recognize this van, it’s the paparazzi from that Nebula Studio. They’ve been following us ever since we got to set.” Zhao Tong’s expression changed and suddenly realized the seriousness of the matter. He couldn’t help but frown and looked at Xie Yan, “Su Shen just got out of our car. She wouldn’t have been photographed, right?”

If she did, Hua ge would definitely kill him!

The heavy rain was still pitter-pattering against the windows. Xie Yan was silent for a while and then slowly said, “Go and buy whatever they took over.”

Zhao Tong was stunned after he heard that. He didn’t expect that his Yan ge would be so familiar with these kinds of things. It was true that most of these news stories were bought over by money now.

“But… what if they don’t agree?” Zhao Tong was a little worried. After all, this wasn’t any ordinary news. This was an accident that had happened only once in ten years.

Xie Yan indifferently looked at him, “Then, increase the price.”