CH 12

Zhu Xiaoxiao was scrolling through Weibo when she saw #XuJingzheThreeLinePoem hanging at the top of the trending list. The topic was full of a bunch of poetry aficionados. Zhang Man was very proud of this hashtag. She even paid a marketing account to promote the new drama, Green Water, under the hashtag.

When Yang Jierui found out, he didn’t want to admit defeat, so he bought a hashtag as well, #LiangYuRecitationSkills. Of course, what followed was the promotional content for Liang Yu’s holiday film. It was like fighting in an arena, one after another. 

“Why are you doing all this promotion for someone else?” Yang Jierui waited until the first wave of promotional events were over before giving Liang Yu a call. “Don’t you know that whoever’s name comes first gets the most publicity? His name was the only one on the trending list! How is that fair? Weren’t you the one reading the poem?!”

Liang Yu was sitting in the break room. He had just finished taking off his makeup and was waiting for Xu Jingzhe to pick him up. He nonchalantly replied, “What? Did I recite the poem badly?”

“…” Yang Jierui was absolutely speechless. What did that have anything to do with what he was saying?!

Xu Jingzhe didn’t let anyone else drive the nanny van this time. Instead, he drove the car himself. He was already a well-known figure within the circle, but the car he picked was just like his personality, low-key and steady. 

The Mercedes-Benz CLS350 Shooting Brake wasn’t exactly common in China, so, when the car pulled up at the entrance, the film crew already knew who it was.

Xu Jingzhe got out of the driver’s seat. He greeted the director and producers first. The other two starring roles in this holiday film were number one domestic star Mai Jiu and rookie actress Jiang Yueming.

Mai Jiu was familiar with Xu Jingzhe. Jiang Yueming viewed Xu Jingzhe through somewhat of a filter. She nervously addressed him as “Mr. Xu”.

Mai Jiu laughed. “Don’t be nervous. Jingzhe doesn’t care about stuff like that.” He pointed towards the back. “Are you going in to pick him up, or are you going to wait for him to come out?”

Xu Jingzhe was just about to say that he’d go inside to pick him up, but there was suddenly a commotion in the crowd. Liang Yu quickly cut through all the people. He was still wearing sunglasses at night. He refused to wear his coat properly either. Rather, he chose to drape it over both of his shoulders. The reporters weren’t afraid of being swept away at all. They wanted nothing more than to press the lens of their cameras against his face.

Mai Jiu was beside himself with laughter. He joked, “Our superstar is here.”

Liang Yu instantly caught sight of Xu Jingzhe. He took off his sunglasses. He also deliberately took off his coat, revealing their matching outfits.

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When the two of them stood next to each other, the picture was naturally very easy on the eyes. All of the media reporters had been waiting for this moment. The time for interviews had already passed, but some of them were still throwing out questions. Liang Yu would not answer them. He didn’t even spare them a single glance. Xu Jingzhe had a slightly better temper. He waved at the cameras. Then, he opened the passenger door of the car for Liang Yu.

“Have you watched the livestream?” Liang Yu asked before Xu Jingzhe had even started the car.

Xu Jingzhe smiled. “I saw it. In fact, I watched it with Luo Yaoye. She’s a fan of yours.” 

Liang Yu: “Luo Yaoye? Is she the heroine? That’s not bad.”

Xu Jingzhe was a little surprised. “You know her?”

Liang Yu: “I met her at an awards show in Hong Kong. We played mahjong together.”

Xu Jingzhe: “…” 

He was starting to wonder just how much Liang Yu loved playing mahjong. Why did it seem as though he’d played mahjong before with everyone?

“She’s pretty,” Liang Yu suddenly said. He stared at Xu Jingzhe’s profile and said lightly, “What do you think?”

Xu Jingzhe didn’t understand why he was asking, but he played along and said, “She is rather pretty. After all, she’s from Hong Kong. They have a certain kind of style to them.”

Liang Yu let out a huff. His elbow was resting beneath the window glass. He had his cheek resting upon his hand, but he wasn’t speaking. 

It took quite a while before Xu Jingzhe realized that the atmosphere wasn’t right. He was a little bit dumbfounded. “What are you thinking right now? I’m ‘dating’ you right now. There’s no way I’m going to get into a scandal with someone else.”

Liang Yu said bitterly, “It’s not like we’re real.”

“It has nothing to do with whether the relationship is real or not.” Xu Jingzhe spoke with a smile, but his attitude was earnest. “There are a lot of interests involved in our relationship. We can’t afford a single mistake from your team, my team, even ourselves. Even if the relationship is fake, I’m still going to be responsible for you, your team, and myself.”

“I can’t speak for anything else, but I can promise that I’m a very professional person.” Xu Jingzhe looked over at Liang Yu. He seemed to be coaxing a child, clingy and spoiled. “Mr. Liang, you should trust me. I’m really a very ‘single-minded’ person.” 

Yang Jierui was probably pissed off by Zhang Man’s marketing tactics. However, after thinking about it, they were all just doing their jobs. They really didn’t need to give each other a heads up about marketing their own artists. Plus, Liang Yu had pretty much handed this opportunity over to them himself. In fact, Yang Jierui was starting to feel as though the cabbage he had painstakingly raised was being stolen away by a pig.

The issue was that the cabbage didn’t seem to think that this was a problem.

“Stop rushing up to help other people.” Yang Jierui tried to persuade his family’s cabbage. “Xu Jingzhe’s Green Water hasn’t even started filming, yet it’s already gone viral on social media. Are you kidding me?”

The promotion for the holiday film was very important. Liang Yu and Xu Jingzhe’s ship had cooked up a lot of heat for the new movie, but humans were always bound to be greedy. Yang Jierui didn’t want too much of the hype to be shared with Xu Jingzhe’s new drama. After all, they’d taken on a value-adjusted mechanism. There was a lot of pressure. 

“I have to contact Zhang Man. Next time there’s a promotional event, make sure to bring Xu Jingzhe along. We helped them make a lot of profit, so we need to make some of it back,” Yang Jerry said. “You can give him some money for the appearance, but we can’t share anything else.”

Liang Yu was sitting across from him. It wasn’t clear whether he was actually listening. He had an independent studio. It was an office building that he had rented within the inner ring of the city. There were quite a few people working there. The idols under Yang Jierui’s management had been participating in talent competitions, and one of them actually managed to get popular. It had been half a year since he made his debut in the group. In fact, Liang Yu had always been very ambitious. He wanted to develop his own entertainment company.

He still didn’t speak. Yang Jierui couldn’t understand what his boss was thinking. He spoke a lot of nonsense only to find that Liang Yu’s attention wasn’t on him at all.

Yang Jierui was truly helpless. “Boss, why don’t you tell me exactly what you’re thinking?” 

Liang Yu finally reacted. He asked, “If we were to give him money, how much would be appropriate?”

“?” Yang Jierui didn’t have a clue. “This needs to be discussed with Zhang Man. They probably won’t ask for too much.”

Liang Yu was silent for a while before he said, “Tell Chen jie to negotiate. Then, report back to me.”

Yang Jierui didn’t know why he suddenly managed to think things through. He was afraid that Liang Yu would regret it, so he immediately agreed. 

Zhang Man was surprised that Yang Jierui had suddenly contacted her in order to give Xu Jingzhe money. She turned around and told Xu Jingzhe, but Xu Jingzhe didn’t understand either.

“Do they really want to give us the money?” Xu Jingzhe wanted to confirm.

Zhang Man: “That’s what they said. They’ve already sent over their department of financial affairs. Do you want to meet up with them?”

Xu Jingzhe asked Zhu Xiaoxiao to flip through his schedule. After making sure that there weren’t any scheduling conflicts, he said, “It doesn’t need to be so formal. Also, it doesn’t really matter how much money they give. It’s up to them.” 

Zhang Man hummed in response. However, in the end, she still wasn’t quite sure. “What if they give us too much?”

Xu Jingzhe laughed. It seemed as though he knew Liang Yu very well. He said firmly, “I don’t think Mr. Liang is that generous of a person.”

Zhang Man: “…”