CH 8

Whether it was being caught meeting an actress at night by his own dad or being seen getting a very late night visit by a wealthy businessman daddy whom had not yet been acknowledged, the current situation was quite embarrassing. It was the kind of situation where every extended minute produced ten-thousand-word gossip and headlines that entertainment news fought for. 

Seeing that the situation could no longer be held, Lin Zixi quickly thought of the most plausible explanation at the rate of one per second and chose one.

However, before he even started talking, Gu Zecheng spoke to the two people, Cheng and Zhang, in a polite but final tone, "I have something to ask Lin Zixi. Please leave first."

No explanation at all, just directly clear the place; Party A Daddy was so ruthless and cool. However, thinking that the follow-up explanation job would fall on him according to the contract, Party B Son wanted to buy a plane ticket now.

Big Boss Gu opened his mouth, and Starlet Cheng tactfully made an appointment with Lin Zixi to go to the filming set half an hour early the next day and then left after saying goodbye. Assistant Zhang also left the things in his hand on the coffee table and immediately walked after her.

However, Gu Zecheng opened his mouth again when they were about to reach the door, "I personally value privacy, don't like my private life to be paid too much attention to, and abhor the so-called 'expose' even more. I hope that the two of you will keep my itinerary tonight confidential, so as to avoid trouble for everyone in the future."

Hearing what he said, Cheng Fei and Xiao Zhang naturally promised repeatedly that they would keep it confidential and not spread it out. Their attitudes were as cooperative as required.

But once the two of them walked out of the room and the door was closed, Lin Zixi sneered and said to his dad, "Gossip in the entertainment circle isn’t a commercial secret. Who will speak to you about professional ethics and keeping secrets, ah. I bet you that the first thing the two of them will do next is definitely to call her own agent as well as my agent."

"I know..." Gu Zecheng replied without any surprise. But he had only said half the words before being interrupted by the WeChat ringtone.

Without a doubt, a person who could make a video call to President Gu at this point had to be Grandma Song, who was waiting to check the ‘brothers’ of the Gu family.

"Zecheng, Zeyi, you two haven’t quarreled, have you?" The old woman made a video call with the assistance of Sister Wang. After confirming that they had arrived at the hotel, the next sentence was to ask this.

During the previous phone call, Lin Zixi was a little surprised at why his grandma cared about whether or not his two ‘sons’ had quarreled, but now he fully understood—with his dad's stinky character of loving to lecture others, and harshly at that, if his uncle was really an incompetent playboy, the two brothers probably fought a lot back then.

And as the real grandson pretending to be his uncle, it was naturally impossible for him to be as cocky as the real brother and quarrel with his daddy.

Therefore, the relationship between him and Gu Zecheng was naturally…. "No, everything my brother said is right. How can I quarrel with him, ah." Young actor Lin replied.

Grandma Song did not hear the outlandish tone in his words. Instead, she was especially moved that her little son had finally grown up and matured, and her eyes were wet with emotion for a long time. She told Lin Zixi repeatedly to take care of his body no matter how busy he was filming until Gu Zecheng urged her that it was very late and she should quickly go to rest. Only then did she reluctantly hang up the video.

The time Lin Zixi spent with his dad was short. He could not say anything about other things, but he already knew one thing—one of the strong points of Dad Gu as a person who did big things was that his thinking was particularly clear. This focus was reflected in the way Gu Zecheng could still remember what he was scolding himself before even if he had been interrupted by Grandma’s phone call and video for half an hour.

So after the video with the old lady ended, Party A Daddy switched back to the previous lecturing mode in a second.

"I’ll let the public relations and legal team keep an eye on this matter." Unlike when talking with Cheng and Zhang, in which Gu Zecheng was still amiable and approachable although with the imposing manner of a superior, he showed his displeasure in full light when facing young actor Lin. "Have you carefully read the contract I asked you to sign? One thing after another happened in less than two days. Do you really think I can't teach you a lesson?!"

Dad Gu was irritated, and his son was still depressed by the truth that came out just now.

"I've sent you a text message telling you not to come. It’s you yourself who didn't read it. Yet you blame me now?!" After being disliked all night, even a clay figurine had to be angry somewhat. Lin Zixi also couldn't bear it and complained back.

Gu Zecheng looked at his mobile phone subconsciously, and sure enough, there was a clear and direct reminder from young actor Lin in the unread text message.

He had seldom been beaten in the face and put on the spot like this in the past few years, but Party A Daddy was Party A Daddy. After being embarrassed for a while, he could immediately attribute the problem to Party B. "Who made you have a tryst with an actress in the middle of the night? It's not that you didn't know that I'd come over right away."

"How did Cheng Fei come to have a tryst with me, ah?" Hearing him say that, Lin Zixi laughed, "She probably saw the two of us by accident in the parking lot and had the intention to be my little...cough...sister-in-law. So she specially came to wait for you. She’s obviously more enthusiastic to you than to me."

"What a hideous mess." Dad Gu, who never had anything to do with the entertainment circle except for the one-sided hype of romance before, had frowned more today than he did in the previous year. He massaged his forehead to relieve the headache, "If she really has this intention, she probably won't spread the news about me coming to look for you indiscriminately…. And I'll find someone to knock some sense into your agent."

Lin Zixi had lost his temper just now, but he was actually delighted.

However, thinking about how Gu Zecheng, who was not yet an adult at that time, had been kept in the dark by his mom about having an illegitimate child and was now forced to have a ‘resurrected’ younger brother to comfort his grandma just because of a ‘look alike’ hot search…. Lin Zixi could not help feeling a little guilty and ashamed again.

The other party was his victim daddy as well as his Party A gold master. If it were not for Dad Gu always disliking him and now making him remake Filial Son and Filial Piety for him, he would not be at a loss.

Eh, only remembering the title of the movie almost forgot the content—this movie was about a filial son who was forced to give his superstitious mother a funeral while she was still alive, and he did a good job of it—it was picked since he could not think of anything else.

If a person felt ashamed, his aura would be weakened all of a sudden.

In addition, Gu Zecheng did not deride him anymore, so Lin Zixi could not help but take a step back and look for a way out of the embarrassing situation.

"It's me that has been Mercury/water retrograde for the past six months." He said a little embarrassedly, "It’s not limited to me always going wrong with you. When I was about to sign a contract with an advertisement and a TV series before, I could be cut off by someone giving a price that’s practically free. Even when playing a mobile game..."

"Water retrograde…. You’re thirsty and want to drink water, but you vomit when the water enters?" Dad Gu obviously did not know the new meaning of this traditional Chinese medicine term.

"No, no, no, it's Internet slang, saying people are unlucky." Lin Zixi explained. He took out his mobile phone, skillfully unlocked it, tapped to log in to a popular mobile game, switched to the card drawing interface, and tapped the single draw button. "For example, the cards in this game are divided into five levels from high to low: orange, purple, blue, green, and white. And I basically can only get…. Fuck!"

Looking at the phone screen where a purple card had just been drawn, young actor Lin rubbed his eyes and then turned his head to look expectantly at Party A Daddy beside him—a man who was able to fight in the competitive and risky business world and successfully become a domestic big boss, his luck would naturally not be bad.

Dad Gu originally disliked the young man’s shortcoming as well as fit of anger and wanted to teach his ‘younger brother’ not to speak profanity. As a result, he was shocked by the eyes full of admiration and longing and did not even shake off Lin Zixi’s grip on his hand.

"Excuse me, please do me a favor. Just tap the screen a few times, thank you, thank you." Lin Zixi said and took his dad's hand to press Ten Draws on the card drawing interface.

After a few gorgeous animated interludes, the game unsurprisingly gave nine green cards and one blue card.

…. Lin Zixi, who was convinced that he had just been blessed by the God of Wealth Daddy with the ability to get a purple in one hit, was a little stunned, but he still reluctantly used Gu Zecheng's finger to press Ten Draws again.

It was not bad this time. There were two blue cards, and the luck value was almost doubled, from 1 directly to 2 (the maximum value was 100).

The results of the two Ten Draws were not much better than when he drew it himself. Lin Zixi let go of his dad's hand while secretly sighing that being opportunistic was indeed unacceptable.

However, Gu Zecheng took his mobile phone away, held it in his hand, and, somewhat unconvinced, began to draw cards voluntarily.

Seven greens, three blues, nine greens, one blue, eight greens, two blues, nine greens….

Looking at over ten thousands of gems that he recharged with his own money and was now being squandered a thousand at a time by his own dad, young actor Lin felt that he had a stomach ache.

At this moment, the animated interlude representing the ten draws flashed once again, revealing the result of Gu Zecheng's current ten consecutive draws—

Six greens, three blues… one purple!

What kind of purple card was that?

It was a sparkling bright purple card, one in a hundred draws, and contained the mutual expectation of the Gu family’s father and son. It was exactly the same purple card that Lin Zixi had just gotten from the single draw!

This duplicate card was then automatically broken down into scattered fragments.

After his father stiffened for a moment, at the moment he was going to tap Ten Draws again, young actor Lin grabbed the phone back in one go and pressed the lock screen button.

….

……..

Lin Zixi was considered to have understood. In fact, he was not called Mercury retrograde, he was called inherited Mercury retrograde!

Translator’s note:

水逆 = Mercury retrograde = bad luck or unlucky (internet slang)

水逆 = water retrograde = a disease name (TCM term)