CH 7

Xi Nian drove back to his apartment, not knowing that he had been already recognized by Lu Xingzhe. His place was arranged by the company, not high-end and barely even able to live in.

With less than two hours before dawn, Xi Nian was still awake. He was leafing through the news online and sighted that in Weibo, Su Ge was selling misery1 resulting in his post being madly retweeted and the number of praises towards him soared.

Huh.

Xi Nian thought to himself, for the first time he saw someone more shameless than himself.

The bedroom was very small, not as good as the villa he lived in after he became famous in his previous life. Xi Nian lay down on the sofa, one hand behind his head while the other injured hand hung quietly on the edge, fingertips almost touching the floor, the burning pain coming from the flesh like a gangrene cannot be shaken off from the bone2.

But he can’t do much at the moment.

There was no popularity, there was no money, and facing this current situation, more often than not, one can only opt to be silent.

This sense of powerlessness is more unwelcome than any frustration.

Xi Nian closed his eyes and calmly counted the time. When it was dawn, he fumbled taking out his mobile phone from his jacket. Unsurprisingly, he saw the topic entry update. After a night of fermentation, Su Ge’s injury and loss of the game has reached the second top of the hot search. The first most popular search was the revealed midnight tryst between the well-known film and television actor, Jian Yihong with a mistress.

Needless to say, it must have been the handiwork of Lu Xingzhe.

Xi Nian moved his stiff legs, then got up to open the curtains. The moment the skylight poured in, he subconsciously closed his eyes because of the sting. It took a long time to get used to it, that said, the interior furnishings were left unobstructed and visible. The black, white and gray minimalist tones transude lack of feeling seemingly like that of its owner.

The entertainment industry is a place where everyone tries to climb up. Either the east prevails over the west wind, or the west wind would overwhelm the east wind3. This truth, he understands better than anyone else. Xi Nian swiped his fingertips on the phone screen inactively, and finally dialed the number he knew by heart.

At this time, Lu Xingzhe hadn’t left the hospital yet. The moment he heard the call ring, he raised his eyebrows and stared at the string of unfamiliar numbers on the screen. He held his arms in both hands indifferently, his expression was incomprehensible, but at the end he still pressed the answer button, his tone was hoarse and lazy: “Who?”

He could probably guess in his mind who was calling, but he wanted to ask this on purpose.

Xi Nian stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, looking through the glass, just in time to see the moment of dawn in the east, he put one hand in his pocket, and slowly spit out two words between his lips: “Your uncle4.”

“Your uncle!” Lu Xingzhe reflexively cursed back directly.

Xi Nian smiled: “Now you know who I am?”

He has a good low voice, as memorable as those eyes of his.

Lu Xingzhe looked at the phone screen and didn’t speak. He likes to think about everything in the worst direction. Ever since he discovered Xi Nian’s identity yesterday, he felt that there must be a reason or certain motive for the other party to approach him.

An unknown celebrity and a notorious paparazzi.

When these two kinds of individuals get together, most of the time it doesn’t mean anything good.

Lu Xingzhe was also a good actor, he did not mention that he has already guessed Xi Nian’s identity, talking carelessly: “I haven’t seen your face yet, how would I know who you are? Are you the kind man who saved my life yesterday?”

The last sentence, which fell on the ears of both parties, was a little meaningful.

Xi Nian never thought of himself as a good person: “It doesn’t matter.”

Lu Xingzhe tapped his fingertips regularly on the edge of the bed: “Then what is important?”

With his eyes lowered, he waited for Xi Nian to expose his purpose. He doesn’t know why but he suddenly felt a lack of interest and felt that there was no need to make a fuss. After all, there’s hardly any clean people involved in the entertainment industry.

Just like how the sun rises from the east day after day and sets from the west━ if there was no interference from external forces, even if Xi Nian is reborn countless times, he would still repeat the old path of his previous life and follow the established trajectory of fate.

As the saying goes, it means that dogs can’t change the habit of eating their shit5.

“I want to talk about a business deal. I’ll double the price for exposing Su Ge’s black material.”

Xi Nian’s stomach was blacker than ink; it didn’t stop him from thinking of using Lu Xingzhen. What stopped him this time was that before he could say this sentence to the other party, his throat seemed to be stuck by something making him unable to make a sound. Instantly his pupils appeared to be magnified because of his astonishment, there was a slight crack in ever present expression, turning stunned and uncertain.

A blue ball of light quietly floated in front of his eyes, a rigid mechanical voice was very solemn: 【Dear host, this behavior has violated Article 32 of the Interstellar Moral Reformation Regulations.  Please immediately stop working towards this direction, otherwise the electric shock punishment will be executed.】

“……”

What the fuck.

If Xi Nian had not been unable to speak, he would have been bursting out with expletives. His sight towards the system was cold, there was an obvious dark surging in his eyes.

There is no room for concession about this kind of thing, but the system still hesitated for a moment after being subjected to such eyes. Despite that. It still warned in a low voice: 【This is wrong, the host must reform and turn over a new leaf.】

After this reminder, it lifted the ban on speaking.

On the other end of the phone, Lu Xingzhe heard no response from him for a long time. He tapped the back of the phone with his fingertips, made a low sound, and raised his eyebrows, “Why aren’t you speaking?”

Xi Nian: “……”

System 009 did not leave, the small body floated up and down in mid-air, and a faint blue-purple currents flashed across the body from time to time, the sound of zhi-la-zhi-la pierced one’s ears numb, revealing a silent threat.

The tendency to seek profit and to avoid being harmed is instinctive. Xi Nian was silent for a moment, before finally deciding that good people should not suffer immediate losses. The words brewing in his mouth before were swallowed back to his stomach, after a pause he asked instead: “…… How’s your leg?”

Lu Xingzhe waited for a long time but he didn’t expect that that was what the other party was going to say. With a hidden meaning in his words, Lu Xingzhe inquired. “You called early in the morning just to ask this?”

Under the watchful supervision of the system, Xi Nian couldn’t do anything in the end. Probably, the sun was too bright in front of the window. He sat down on the sofa again, making a slight noise when his body sank, and casually said, “Well, I’m afraid you’re going to be lame.”

Lu Xingzhe: “……”

He squeezed the phone and didn’t say anything but the palm of his hand had a thin layer of sweat drip down. This line of conversation gave him strange emotions that made him upset, with a small voice Lu Xingzhe muttered: “It’s none of your business if I become lame.”

Xi Nian has pointed ears: “There would be no one to take care of you if you become lame.”

After all, Lu Xingzhe’s parents had already died.

Lu Xingzhe curled his lips when he heard the words. He was suspicious by nature. After a brief moment of subtle emotion, he began to talk, his tone was without a trace of something: “I owe you for what happened yesterday. If you have anything you need help with, you can just say it.”

Of course, he won’t necessarily help if Xi Nian opens his mouth.

Xi Nian really had a lot of things that he wanted Lu Xingzhe to do, but a glance at 009, who was lingering like a hanged ghost was beside him, could only make him temporarily suppress those thoughts. His voice came through the microphone, a little distorted: “No, just take care of your wounds.”

Xi Nian hung up the phone after dropping that sentence, neat and succinct, plus he did not make any demands that Lu Xingzhe had expected, as if he was simply concerned about his injuries.

Lu Xingzhe was stunned when he heard the busy tone coming from the other end. He looked back at the screen of his mobile phone, wondering what was going on. After a while, his fingertips moved slightly and saved Xi Nian’s number.

Tomorrow will be the second round trial of the men’s archery category of the 《Star Movement Association》. How hard was it to meet up? He didn’t believe that Xi Nian wouldn’t go. 

Recently, the entertainment industry has not been very peaceful. Netizens have been bickering about Su Ge’s defeat in the competition. Who would have thought that Jian Yihong’s mistress would be outed, and the melon eaters almost choked to death after eating them.

Lu Xingzhe has been a paparazzi for so many years, and he has seen many waves and storms. As soon as he saw Su Ge’s Weibo post, he knew immediately that the latter was selling misery on purpose. Probability of nine out of ten that his injuries were also false. It was estimated that he did so to save face, and only his fans were kept in the dark.

The comment area was one-sidedly scolding Xi Nian. Few fans spoke up and defended him, the people only stopped sending abuse when they got tired and now switched to a more cynical tone——

They taunted him for getting this first place by luck.

Lu Xingzhe didn’t know what to think so he picked up his mobile phone and sent a message out. Ten minutes later, his private email received a video, which was an unedited version of the match between Xi Nian and Su Ge.

It was a high-definition version, which was much clearer than some vague clips circulating on the Internet. Lu Xingzhe dragged the progress bar and didn’t let go of any details. Finally, he found that Su Ge’s hand showed no signs of injury during the game. It was fair and clean which makes no sense if it was true as it didn’t match the blue and purple pictures on Weibo.

On the contrary, Xi Nian has been emotionlessly adjusting his posture constantly in the second half of the game. The movement of drawing the bow with his right hand was a little stagnant to the naked eye but it can’t be seen if one does not look closely.

“Tsk,” Lu Xingzhe unexpectedly remembered the gauze wrapped around Xi Nian’s hand, curled his lips, and said to himself, “Shouldn’t it be you who was injured…”

There were a total of 32 contestants in the men’s archery group. Nearly half of them were eliminated in the first elimination round. In the evening, Xi Nian received the promotion list sent by Sun Ming.

“This is your schedule for tomorrow, remember not to be late.”

Sun Ming felt that he had done a really humble job as an agent. He had never seen an artist who was so difficult to discipline like Xi Nian for most of his life, and even his tone was rather poor. He chattered, “I told you not to win over Su Ge before. Now look at what have you done, his fans are tearing you up everywhere. What’s the use of fighting for a moment’s passion? What’s the use? ! The boss called me yesterday and gave me a lecture. Do you know why? Because you are short-sighted!”

Xi Nian was not the one to bow down and be scolded, he took the magazine on the coffee table and flipped the page: “Shortsighted is better than you being blind.”

“You━!” When Sun Ming heard this, he felt that Xi Nian had become more and more rampant recently, and his angry eyeballs on the other end of the phone almost popped out: “Xi Nian, you’ve grown quite capable, haven’t you?! Don’t come to cry and beg me in tears when things go wrong in the future!”

“Well, don’t worry, there will be absolutely no begging on my end.”

In the future, the road would return to the road and the bridge would return to the bridge6. Perfumes don’t become toilet cleaners7.

Mài cǎn ━ a Chinese phrase meaning that someone is deliberately showing off misery to win over someone’s sympathy.

Fù gǔ zhī jū ━ A metaphor for hostile forces that invade the interior and are difficult to get rid of. Origin: Shang Ouyang Zhonghu Book, “Yin desserters are like paralysis, like a gangrene attached to the bones.” When Xi Nian called Lu Xingzhen as a gangrene in the previous chapters, he meant him as a person once stuck at you would be very hard to cut off relations with while here, the pain is internal and relieving or remoting it all together is really not feasible.

Bùshì dōngfāng yādǎo xīfēng, jiùshì xīfēng yādǎo dōngfēng ━ One of the two sides involved in a struggle will always have one that has the upper hand. “Either you overwhelm me or I overwhelm you.” Origin: Dream of the Red Chamber Volume 82

Nǐ dàyé ━ A way of exploding foul language in the north. Abbreviation of “xxxx your uncle!”. In the past, uncles were often the patriarch of the family as well as a symbol of authority. Scolding someone’s uncle is equivalent to scolding the other party’s ancestors for 8 generations which is sweeping away respect in front of the other party’s authority as well as trying to hit the arrogance of this opponent. Chinese people’s cursing involves mentioning blood-relationship as it was highly valued.

Jiùshì gǒu gǎi bùliǎo chī shǐ ━ Derogatory, metaphor used to imply that the nature is difficult to change/bad habits can’t be changed easily. This is a real happenstance, dogs do eat shits. In their eyes, it was not a waste or a disgusting thing. It’s a delicacy filled with nutrients that could put their hunger away.

Hòu qiáo guī qiáo, lù guī lù ━ After this, both parties would no longer have anything to do with each other. Synonyms: Burning bridges.

Tāmen xiāngshuǐ bùfàn jié cè líng ━ Two things are not related.