CH 9

Lin Zixi held the mobile phone tightly, watching Gu Zecheng choke.

The exchange rate of gems and real currency in this mobile game he played was 5 to 1, which was equivalent to his dad spending 2,000 to draw a (disintegrated) purple card.

Young actor Lin was more or less one of the first-line stars in the new generation of stars. Naturally, he would not care about this bit of money. What he felt distressed about was that after going through this forced labor, his Mercury retrograde was estimated to be impossible to change for the better.

And Gu Zecheng, who received his disappointed gaze, was also very depressed.

Dad Gu had always been envied and hated all his life as a winner with a smooth life. With his lucky aura, he never lost when he was fighting. Otherwise, he would not have been provoked by his own temper to do a hundred consecutive draws until the mobile phone was snatched, which finally made him regain his sanity.

Looking at the dejected expression, which was completely different from the previous practically-glowing-with-ardent-hope-and-expectation one, on the face of the person beside him, Gu Zecheng felt a momentary sense of inexplicable confusion in his heart.

"Cough." He coughed dryly and tried his best to make up for it, saying, "How much money I spent just now, I’ll double it for you."

"It's not about the money..." Lin Zixi, who was still a little stupid from the blow, shook his head and said listlessly, "Xuan can’t save an African, and krypton can’t change his life, ah!"

Of course Dad Gu could not understand this kind of slang in the game circle, "What?"

Lin Zixi sighed, "Even if you give me 100,000 gems, what comes out is probably waste cards, which are still waste cards."

All the cards that came out of the 10,000 gems spent just now were all waste cards. Gu Zecheng could not help but cough dryly again, trying to get back some face for himself. "At least… I didn’t get the white ones.”

"In any case, recharging to draw cards is also spending money. No matter how shady the game party is, they must arrange a green card at a minimum, ah." Young actor Lin simply hit the nail on the head.

Although Big Boss Gu had not set foot in the game industry, there would inevitably be a connecting point between their business concept. Hearing Lin Zixi say this, he had some doubts, "Since the game can control the result of the card draw, how can they design the appearing probability of the purple card to be so low? Aren’t they worried that consumers won’t be willing to stick to their game? Are you gamers more loyal, or are the purple and orange cards considered limited editions and have additional conditions to obtain them?”

"Neither..." Lin Zixi gave his unrecognized dad a careful glance and said very firmly, "My problem’s simply a bad bloodline."

Lin Zixi's words had a double meaning. Gu Zecheng obviously didn't understand the connotation at all, but he could see the slight resentment in young actor Lin's peach blossom eyes.

Although Gu Zecheng had an extremely bad impression of Lin Zixi because of the ‘look alike’ touching porcelain and a pile of nuisances afterwards, when he was stared at by the beautiful eyes that made countless fans and passers-by lick the screen, he actually had some indescribable feelings of guilt and distress.

Dad Gu thought about it and said, "Which company is operating your game? I'll find someone to contact them, so they can give you a few orange cards behind closed doors? But..."

"Dad!" Lin Zixi had spent tens of thousands for dozens of Ten Draws in this lousy mobile game, and there were not even a few purple cards. Now, seeing that there were actually still ‘some’ orange cards within sight, he could not stop himself from shouting the word from the bottom of his heart even before Gu Zecheng finished speaking.

Gu Zecheng originally wanted to continue to ask Lin Zixi if anyone knew that this game ID belonged to him. As a result, he was stunned by this affectionate call of dad.

Lin Zixi realized his mistake as soon as he blurted the word, but fortunately, people like Dad Gu probably didn’t hang around the Internet very much, so he could explain it away, "It's quite popular to call Dad now…. The game operator is the official father, and the shopping website is the website father. Even I have a group of daughter fans. This is respect and love…. You don't have a Weibo; if you do, I bet the ones who comment there are all sons and daughters."

"Children nowadays…. Why are they so casual?!" Dad Gu frowned and, suffering from his old disease, was about to start lecturing people again, "I don't care about others, but you can't shoot your mouth off like them. Especially in front of my mother. If you dare to inconsiderately call like that, let's see how I'll deal with you."

Young actor Lin took a deep breath, holding back the smile he almost showed, and replied very sincerely, "How can I do it, ah. I promise I’ll behave myself and call you 'brother'!"

It was said that the four unshakable things in life were "crossing the window together, carrying guns together, visiting prostitutes together, and dividing the spoils". Of course, Lin Zixi could not rush Gu Zecheng into doing these things together, but it seemed that after they had drawn cards together, the tense atmosphere between the two of them somehow eased a little.

Lin Zixi pondered whether this was the revolutionary friendship between the African tribal chiefs while swiftly sending the name of this mobile game he played, the operator company, and his account ID to Gu Zecheng's WeChat.

On average, he drew a purple card himself every 100 times and still got a duplicate card frequently. If he wanted orange cards with a lower drop rate, he had to rely on his Party A-Gold Master-Dad.

Even if he dismissed other unmentioned factors, just for this bit of reliance, he had to hug Gu Zecheng's thick and solid golden thighs tightly during the period when he pretended to be Gu Zeyi according to the contract.

When hugging thighs, it was important to start from caring about trivial things. You needed to make people feel the warmth that came from good nurture and education.

"It’ll take more than an hour from here to your company. Do you want to find someone to drive you tomorrow morning?" Lin Zixi asked.

"I've already made arrangements." Gu Zecheng nodded. He did not elaborate and instead urged, "If the old lady wants to see you again, I’ll inform you to go to my house. But next time you definitely must’ve memorized the information about my younger brother. Don't make mistakes again."

Thinking of Gu Zeyi's life on dozens of pages in the contract, Lin Zixi felt a headache. But in order to make a good impression in front of his dad, he had to grit his teeth and nod while showing a confident expression on his face, "Don't worry, I’ll do my best to know it by heart." 

Dad Gu smiled and soon went back to his own suite without saying anything more.

Young actor Lin looked at the time; it was past zero now. He considered whether to take a look at his little uncle's information first but eventually decided to give up the treatment and just lie down and sleep.

But at this moment, his mobile phone rang, and there was a new WeChat message.

It was Master Qiu's reply that was two days late, "There’re two trained people in the venue looking at you with abnormal expressions, but I think you should be able to deal with them."

Soon Qiu Lianyi sent another message: "Text me back if you haven’t died yet."

Lin Zixi directly sent a "hehe" emoji.

"It’s good if you’re still alive." Qiu Lianyi started to pretend to be dead after replying with this. No matter what Lin Zixi said again, he did not respond.

Young actor Lin even sent seven or eight emojis in succession without getting a response. In the end, he felt bored himself, so he simply took a shower and went to sleep.

The next day, the crew of The Legend of Concubine Ling was going to focus on shooting the kissing scene. Afraid of making the actors and actresses embarrassed, the director had cleared the set early. Besides the necessary cast and crew members, there was only the agent of Wei Chenchen, the one who played the lead female.

Wei Chenchen had been taking the fresh and pure starlet route. Speaking of which, this scene was still her first kiss on the screen.

In order to take care of her feelings, Lin Zixi even asked his assistant, Xiao Zhang, to wait outside the venue. Including the director, assistant director, producer, plus camera, lighting, etc.—the recording team was omitted because it was all dubbing in the later stage—there were only ten people in total on set.

However, Wei Chenchen was so nervous that she had a dozen or more NGs and failed to shoot the first kissing scene. In the end, the director, who was at his wit’s end, temporarily decided to shoot a fake kissing scene by changing the camera angle. Only then did the scene finally pass.

Starlet Wei's attitude was surprisingly very good. After the shooting was done, she apologized to Lin Zixi, the director, and the producer again and again.

Lin Zixi hurriedly comforted her, "I was also nervous about shooting the kissing scene. Luckily, it's you who’re the first to NG, or else I must’ve made a mistake…. If it spread out, it’d be me deliberately taking advantage of you. Then people would form a group to come to my Weibo to scold me."

Wei Chenchen's eyes suddenly widened, and she blurted out, "Haven’t you already...cough... shot a lot of kissing scenes?" 

No matter how many kissing scenes young actor Lin had shot, his real first kiss had not been given out yet.

And Lin Zixi understood the words in the middle that Wei Chenchen had swallowed back.

Probably because of his good looks and peach blossom eyes, the biggest misunderstanding of him in the entire entertainment circle was that ‘this handsome brother is definitely a player’. Although Stars Entertainment had spared no effort in building young actor Lin's ‘pure, innocent, and loyal’ persona, it was obvious that no one outside the fan circle ate this set.

Losing fans was generally the reason why other agents dissuaded their artists from being in a relationship or making said relationship public. Chen Yunyun, however, said this directly, "If you date someone in the circle and break up, there’s no need for the other party to use ruthless marketing. Just put out one or two rumors, and you’ll have to carry the title of 'scumbag' for the rest of your life."

In fact, there was no need for Chen Yunyun's warning. Lin Zixi was not interested in the female stars in the circle, or, to be precise, in any woman.

Well, a certain popular young actor already realized that he was actually gay since high school. If this incident broke out, it was estimated that it would make headlines for three days without having to pay for it out of his own pocket.

However, from childhood until adulthood, young actor Lin had rarely been attracted to any man, and he had nothing to do with the gay circle. When watching movies, he usually paid special attention to downloading them from websites that did not require registration and delete them afterwards, so he was not worried that this thing would be dug up by the paparazzi.

However, uncommon sexual orientation would be avoided as taboo by mainstream society after all. Although there were many homosexuals and bisexuals in the entertainment circle, there would always be a lot of cheating and few coming out.

So Lin Zixi actually looked very favorably on his ‘absolutely fickle’ quasi-scumbag design.

Now that Wei Chenchen was asking such a question, he immediately smiled and said, "Isn't it because my actress partner is too pretty? So I'm still nervous even though I've shot many kissing scenes in the past, ah."

Starlet Wei blushed this time, and her eyes brightened. It was a sharp contrast to the suddenly gloomy face of the agent behind her.

Thus, young actor Lin, who was afraid that he would really provoke people and did not want to be a thorn in their side, immediately fled to the director's side to watch the replay of the scene shot just now.

TL’s note: 

Xuan can’t save an African, and krypton can’t change his life (玄不救非，氪不改命) means that metaphysics can’t save unlucky players, and charging money to the game can’t change their fates. It’s explained more clearly here.

Africans refer to unlucky players, while Europeans refer to lucky players.