CH 21

Ye Fei was speechless. Yan Xiao had said the words “I am only generous to you alone”, both clearly and seriously. As if it was natural that Yan Xiao would treat Ye Fei well, that he was special. As natural as the rising of the sun and the setting of the moon, and as true as the ebbs and flows of the tides.

What did Yan Xiao mean? Did he like Ye Fei? 

For a moment, Ye Fei could not help but ask. However, as his reason slowly returned, Ye Fei let out a long sigh and pretended to be relaxed.

“President Yan, let’s talk about business first.” Afraid that Yan Xiao would say something surprising again, Ye Fei did not give him a chance to speak, and continued, “To be honest, our web dramas aren’t worth S-class resources. You can do whatever you want, we are in business and should keep this without feelings involved.”

“No worries.” Yan Xiao said.

“Then why is it an S-class?” Ye Fei hummed and went straight for the jugular, “What do you think is so good about this show?” 

Yan Xiao said “extremely good” and “everywhere”, using his limited adjectives and descriptors to repeatedly compliment the show. He seemed to be completely different from the person who was picky, critical and quirky about his work.

Ye Fei despised people who were stupid as he found them dull and boring; but Yan Xiao’s behavior only made him feel soft-hearted from its sincerity.

“Understood,” Ye Fei could not bear to continue embarrassing him, gave up his original intention of making this call, and compromised, “That’s it, I’ll let Gu Ruijia handle the contract.”

In order for Yan Xiao not to make concessions for him, he needed to make this web drama a success. He would rather that they both profit from their deal. So things settled down.

After Gu Ruijia found out, he looked at Ye Fei with a look that defied words. “Why were you being so defensive about it? If Feixiao is my man, I’ll see if he dares not to broadcast my show even without a deal.”

“Your man—” Ye Fei’s tongue curled around each word and he looked at Gu Ruijia playfully, “Are you sure you’re straight?”

Gu Ruijia: “…”

“F*ck!” Gu Ruijia’s eyes widened in horror, “Did I say those three words? I’m F*cking, I’m really straight!” He covered his face, as if he could not resist Ye Fei’s teasing gaze , “You—don’t look at me like that!” 

“Got it,” Ye Fei gave him a light kick, “Go and sign the contract.”

Gu Ruijia seemed to have suffered a major blow, and shuffled out the door. As soon as his hand was on the doorknob, he suddenly turned his head and stared at Ye Fei as if he had remembered something.

“No!”

Ye Fei raised his eyebrows. 

“I was almost fooled by you,” Gu Ruijia walked back and stared at him with piercing eyes, “With the way you react towards Brother Xiao, do you still want to divorce?”

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“To be honest, I still haven’t figured it out. Why on earth did you want to divorce? I think Brother Xiao treats you very well.” Ye Fei wanted to give a superficial answer to tide the situation over, but Gu Ruijia seemed to see through his plans and warned, “What’s the point of being friends for ten years? Are we not friends anymore?”

“What do you mean by that?” Ye Fei’s lips curled, “Do you still want to develop an extra relationship with me?”

“Scram!” Gu Ruijia stubbornly refused to give up while rubbing the goose bumps on his arms, “Whatever you say, I have to ask today.”

“F*ck you,” Ye Fei laughed angrily at him, but he had no choice but to reveal his thoughts. “It’s not what you think, we don’t have feelings. It’s true, I don’t like him, he… Of course he doesn’t like me either…” 

Gu Ruijia held back from refuting, and asked Ye Fei again, “What about after the divorce?”

“After the divorce?” Ye Fei ignored the slight discomfort in his heart, and said, “I’ll be free as a bird, and go out to have fun.”

“Then you’ve lost a lot.” Gu Ruijia accused.

“Um?” 

“If you’re sleeping, you can sleep with anyone.” Gu Ruijia pointed out. “Those who are richer than Brother Xiao are not as handsome as him, and those who are more handsome than him are not as rich as him, so why settle for the next best thing.”

“Not bad,” Ye Fei teased Gu Ruijia: “You have now learned to appreciate men from a man’s perspective.”

Gu Ruijia: “…”

Gu Ruijia’s tolerance had hit its bottom line, and he patted the table before standing up. “I’m just a dog if I continue to care!” 

After exclaiming those words, he left in anger. As soon as he left, the smile on Ye Fei’s face disappeared.

When Ye Fei did not smile, he looked cold and unapproachable. His face was the type that everyone would only look at from a distance and admire, but never come up to talk. As he lowered his head with an expressionless face, it would have been a mystery to know what he was thinking.

The phone buzzed twice, but Ye Fei did not look at it. He waited a short while before picking it up. The phone screen lit up with Gu Ruijia’s WeChat message.

[Diligent Gu: I took it at the barbecue place. I don’t have any other intentions, so I will send it to you. [picture]] 

[Diligent Gu: Woof woof woof. ]

Ye Fei clicked on the picture, and stopped.

The photograph depicted him leaning on the sofa with a wine glass in hand, and talking to Zhou Zhensheng on the side. Yan Xiao was looking at him with gentle yet focused eyes.

This was the first time Ye Fei saw the scene of the two of them from a third perspective. Was it a matter of the angle of the photo, or was this how Yan Xiao always looked at him? Ye Fei stared at the photo for a while, and kept his finger pressed at the photo countless times. In the end, he chose not to save it. 

In July, the weather continued to get hotter.

The filming of “Please Sober Up” had become more and more difficult. Fortunately, Ye Fei was generous. Not only would he try to make everyone feel more comfortable, but he would always bring something to the crew when he came on set. The staff were filled with the urge to work at Tianxi for another hundred years whenever they drank the cold sour plum soup he brought, and looked at the beautiful boss.

“Why have you been running to the set recently?” Gu Ruijia asked Ye Fei. Gu Ruijia felt that something was wrong; Ye Fei, who used to be lazy had suddenly turned diligent. In response, Ye Fei stretched his legs, and brazenly boasted, “I have a strong sense of responsibility.”

After all, Yan Xiao was willing to offer S-class level resources for the project. He would really be shameless if he did not pull himself together and shoot a piece of junk. 

Gu Ruijia rolled his eyes at him, before he took out his mobile phone and started swiping Weibo. Ye Fei closed his eyes and was about to nap for a while when Gu Ruijia’s howl caused his drowsiness to vanish in an instant.

“Hahahaha. They got their just deserts.” Gu Ruijia pushed his phone in front of Ye Fei’s eyes, forcing him to watch, “Orange TV’s videos were removed and it entered the hot search because of resources!”

Ye Fei frowned, took the phone and opened the topic.

As the video platform with the largest traffic in China, Orange TV had abundant resources. The populace was able to watch whatever they felt like. However, perhaps due to the authorities or a new ruling by the relevant department, many of their videos were taken down overnight, giving its audience little time to react. 

Ye Fei continued to swipe down, his mind uncomprehending the latest news. What was going on? This had never happened the last time. Until his death, Orange TV continued to be the broadcasting platform with the most resources.

“If you walk too much at night, you can always see ghosts,” Gu Ruijia completely played the part of a villain as he mocked their former contract partner. “Let’s see how crazy they are now. Tsk tsk tsk, I don’t know which Comrade Lei Feng had done them in. If I were another player, I would seize this opportunity and squeeze Orange TV to death.”

What he could see clearly, others were able to see clearly too. The advertising marketing of major players increased overnight, among which Feixiao Video was the most serious.

Feixiao Technology had deep pockets. In addition to online promotion, it placed advertisements in densely populated places such as subway stations and bus stops. At a glance, all the streets and alleys displayed Feixiao Video prominently. While simple and crude, after such continuous brainwashing, Feixiao Video became the first broadcasting platform that popped up in people’s minds. 

In just a few days, the downloads of the Feixiao Video app doubled, and even made it to the top download list of the Apple Store for the first time.

However, this was nothing. It was Yan Xiao, the boss of Feixiao Technology, who initiated a heated discussion on the Internet. He changed his previous behavior and appeared in front of the media cameras in a high-profile manner to promote Feixiao Video.

His appearance had caused a ripple in both the entertainment and financial world. No one could figure out the real intention of his move. Apart from the company’s first game, Yan Xiao was notorious for remaining hidden in every product launch of Feixiao Technology, even at its most profitable game, <<Invincible Warrior>>.

Feixiao Video had been launched for a few years. Why now? Some speculate that Feixiao Technology had taken a fancy to the film and television industry, and intended to expand its entertainment portfolio as part of the company’s business direction. Perhaps it was to diversify the company’s development away from games. 

There was also suspicion that Cheng Minghao was behind this latest push. After Yan Xiao’s latest bout of popularity, he wanted to take advantage of Orange TV’s weakness to seize a share of the broadcasting market.

For a while, theories flew about the Internet.

No matter what, Feixiao Video experienced a beautiful turnaround. They improved their brand recognition and increased the number of user registrations, and their development was at a fast pace.

“My brother is still a bigshot.” Gu Ruijia sighed before he started to gloat over Orange TV’s misfortune. “This time, Orange TV really lost a lot of their customer base. If we had continued our cooperation with them, we would really be in hot soup.” 

After he finished speaking, Gu Ruijia poked Ye Fei with his elbow. “Hey, do you have any inside information? I’m also curious, why did Brother Xiao come out to make a public statement this time?”

Ye Fei looked at his phone with a complicated expression. In the video, Yan Xiao stood in front of the platform and introduced Feixiao Video with a slightly faster speech rate than usual. There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary, and it was as if he was behaving normally.

But Ye Fei knew his little habit——

Yan Xiao would speak in longer sentences when he felt guilty, and when he was annoyed, he tended to speed up his speech in order to end the torture. 

Feixiao Technology was Yan Xiao’s child. Even Cheng Minghao had no way to countersay him. Therefore, it was a lie that Cheng Minghao could have planned this.

Even if he hated it, he forced himself to do it…

Ye Fei closed his eyes and put down his phone.

“Hey, Ye Fei? Are you asleep?” Gu Ruijia waited for a long time without hearing an answer. He could not help but ask again, “What’s the reason? I promise not to spread it, you can trust me!” 

Ye Fei shook his head and said nothing.

“You don’t know either?” Gu Ruijia hopefully whined.

“Yeah, I don’t know.”

I know.