CH 11

Chapter 11

Lin Zixi felt a bit ill at ease all day long because he had to go to Gu’s house again to play the role of Gu Zeyi. Fortunately, the director did not pin his hopes on the acting skills of these leading actors. Lin Zixi only got NG twice and then ended the whole day of filming.

The B group of The Legend of Concubine Ling still had to do nighttime filming, but there was no young actor Lin's scene in it. So he said goodbye to the cast and crew after removing his makeup and took his assistant back to the hotel.

Once he and his assistant, Xiao Zhang, went back to their respective rooms, he quickly packed up his stuff and put them in his backpack. Then he put on a hoodie paired with slacks and went to the hotel’s underground garage. The driver sent by Gu Zecheng was already waiting there.

Lin Zixi said hello to Wang Yong, the one who had helped him drive his car home before, and went to open the door of the right back seat. As a result, he found that Party A Daddy was already sitting in this unspoken ‘leader’ seat. 

Gu Zecheng turned his gaze from the file in his hand to him for a second. Then he looked at the watch on his wrist, "You’re ten minutes late."

"I was filming the scene of injuries on the battlefield today, so removing the makeup was a little troublesome." Lin Zixi dutifully closed the door on Dad Gu's side after he finished speaking, went back to open the door on the other side, and took a seat in the car.

Gu Zecheng no longer struggled with the issue of Lin Zixi being late and began looking through the file in his hand again after ordering Wang Yong to drive.

Young actor Lin originally thought that his dad was just sending a driver to pick him up. Unexpectedly, the other person actually came. The two of them would have to sit side by side for more than two hours in the car, and he could not help but feel a little reserved at first.

He spent almost half an hour in the car expressionless, watching the other two people in the car driving and handling official business respectively. He eventually couldn’t stand staying idle and took out his mobile phone.

Lin Zixi's mobile phone was not on silent mode, so when he opened the mobile game, the background sound effects of the game were particularly obvious in the silent car.

Dad Gu turned his head and gave him a glance as the corner of his eyes swept across the brightly colored game interface on the phone screen. He looked back at his file without saying anything, but his brows clearly wrinkled.

Young actor Lin hurriedly turned the mobile phone to silent mode. After a few furtive glances at the man beside him and finding that the other party seemed to not look at him anymore, he relaxed and played his game.

Lin Zixi did a few daily tasks, played a copy, and went to the main storyline task after he rose to A level. He did not know if it was because he had accidentally disintegrated a purple card when talking to Chen Yunyun the day before, but he played the storyline task three times and failed them all.

Young actor Lin struggled for a while and eventually bowed his head to the operator. He charged 10,000 gems to his account and went to draw cards.

Facts proved that today was also the day of inherited Mercury retrograde. Lin Zixi lost more than half of the newly recharged gems and did not get a single useful card.

He sighed angrily and rotated his sore neck only to find that Gu Zecheng, who was sitting next to him, had already stopped working. It was unknown how long he had been watching since turning his head to watch him draw cards. After being aware of Lin Zixi's gaze, he looked away as if nothing had happened.

A business tycoon whose face in the game was so dark he could go to Africa to be a tribal chief watched another African tribal chief draw cards with relish. Then he was caught and showed his true nature. This scene was a bit embarrassing.

However, young actor Lin now already had a little understanding of his dad's unreasonable character of ‘switching over to boss mode in one second, embarrassment coming and going without a trace".

Sure enough, Gu Zecheng did not say any excuses or cover-ups and started lecturing directly, "Do you only play games that have no technical content and rely solely on luck, wasting time and money?"

Party A Daddy’s angle when lecturing people was rather peculiar, and Lin Zixi could not help but ask, “Is there any game that doesn’t rely on luck and doesn’t waste time and money?”

Dad Gu, who did not even know what ‘Mercury retrograde’ was a few days ago, could actually name two or three games now. Moreover, they were all first class e-sport games with high-end vibes that had recently been supported by the country vigorously.

After nominating these competitive games, Gu Zecheng continued to say, "When other people play a game, even if they can't participate in international competitions to win glory for the country, they can at least do live streaming business. When you play a game, you just keep spending money to draw cards…."

Speaking of this, Dad Gu paused for a while before adding another shot, "And still fail to draw any good cards."

Lin Zixi inexplicably felt that his dad’s words were a bit familiar, but he did not think much about it and just made a few corrections, “Those players who can participate in competitions and place in the ranking or earn money from live streaming are only a small minority. They must have talent and good luck as well as be willing to spend time training. Among millions of domestic players, there’re not many who can be famous. Most people are just wasting time and money, ah."

He continued before Gu Zecheng started talking, "Moreover, every player is a drag if their luck isn’t good. If I play a mobile game, at most it’s only me who’s unhappy. If I’m to be a drag on my teammates in a competitive game, it’s my whole family who’s going to be scolded."

Gu Zecheng disagreed and said, "So what if your skills aren’t good? You’re not going to count playing games as your main business. Aren’t there those who’re surnamed Qin and Wang in your circle who regained their popularity through game live streaming? You have to spend money to be able to play this game, but can it help your career somewhat?"

Hearing this, Lin Zixi could not help but try to defend himself, "There’re a lot of stars who play games, but not all of them are playing e-sports. Those who do live streaming are also not many nowadays…. Qiu Lianyi is recognized as the number one young actor in the circle, yet he plays the children's dress-up game, The Little Flower Monster!"

Dad Gu closed the file in his hand and turned his head to look at him, "Why do you have no motivation at all and only compare everything with the worse instead of the better?!"

Young actor Lin had no ambitions for his career at all. If he did 100 consecutive draws in a live streaming and failed to come up with a purple, maybe he could still market himself as ‘The Number One African Tribal Chief’ and gather a big wave of fans.

But now, he suddenly didn't want to argue with Gu Zecheng anymore because he realized why he felt that his conversation with his dad just now was a bit familiar.

Damn, wasn’t this just like the game version of when you were a child, your parents asked why you could only score 80 while pointing to the child who had scored 100 in the class, and you explained that your desk-mate barely passed the exam to defend yourself, so your parents, feeling resentful towards you for failing to meet their expectations and impatient to see your improvement, scolded you for being unpromising and then gave you a good beating?!

When Lin Zixi was a child, his mom had always pursued ‘all-round education’ and rarely criticized him for his academic achievement. Things like ‘children of other people's families’ had always been very far from him. Who knew that when he grew up and became a quite popular star, his Party A Daddy, who came back to ‘recognize a relative’ through a freak combination of factors, actually pursued this kind of education method of expecting his child to succeed in life.

While sighing ruefully in his heart that he would probably have run away from home a hundred times if he had really grown up with his dad, he looked all over the place, wanting to divert Gu Zecheng's attention and end this topic.

Then he saw the words on the file that Dad Gu had just closed—XX Live Streaming Platform Project Cooperation Plan—and he at once guessed that Gu Zecheng had learned that nonsense from this.

Lin Zixi asked in a little surprise, "I thought your group’s doing heavy industry and electrical appliances. I didn't expect that you’d also be interested in this kind of industry that’s supported by hot money like e-sports and live streaming?"

Gu Zecheng also looked at the file in his hand, "I entrusted a friend to greet the operator of your mobile game, and he gave me this today."

Lin Zixi realized in a flash that his dad’s friend probably thought that since Big Boss Gu had to entrust someone to handle things, it was definitely not as simple as just a few orange cards. After a few days of pondering, he might have figured out that the ‘answer’ was ‘President Gu was interested in game related industries’. So he was especially accommodating, thinking of leaning against a big tree to make a fortune.

Who knew that Gu Zecheng really only wanted to help Lin Zixi with a few orange cards through the back door.

Thinking that the orange card was already on the way, young actor Lin could not stop himself from grinning from ear to ear. He quickly turned to his dad radiantly and promised, "If you really open a live streaming platform, I can do live streams and advertise for you for free. I won’t live stream e-sports, but drawing cards is okay."

Dad Gu glanced at him and then at his mobile phone and at him again, and finally said unhesitatingly, "No, I'm afraid of becoming unlucky."

….

…………

"...If you’re not unlucky, you can draw another purple then!" Lin Zixi gritted his teeth and spoke while handing his phone to Gu Zecheng.