CH 14

Although it was rare for Lin Zixi to be able to take a day off, how dare he slept until noon like he usually did on his day off the first time he stayed overnight in his gold master daddy’s home?

Even though he had stayed up all night to play games until two o'clock in the morning, he still got up early in the morning and had breakfast together with Dad Gu and Grandma Song, whose work and rest routine was regular.

The old lady was originally a believer in the classic health maintenance concept of ‘must eat breakfast well’. Now that her ‘little son’ had finally returned, she treated one meal as three meals, letting Sister Wang prepare a half table of food for him alone.

Although young actor Lin did not deliberately go on a diet like some stars, at any rate, he was also a person who relied on his appearance to make a living and still had certain requirements for maintaining his figure. So how dare he really finished off all these things. In the end, he had to make a special show of ‘friendly elder brother and respectful younger brother’, desperately picking up side dishes and adding porridge to Gu Zecheng while saying, "Once Big Brother gets busy at work, you don’t know when you can eat lunch, right? Oh… it’s also hard work. So you must eat more in the morning."

Big Boss Gu initially thought that Lin Zixi was suddenly so courteous to him because he wanted something from him. Since looking like he was estranged from his own ‘younger brother’ in front of his mother was not good, he had to accept everything Lin Zixi foisted on him without question. But when he was already full, and the person beside him was still adding food to his plate endlessly, he figured out right away that in fact, this idiot was purely using certain means to let others suffer losses instead of himself.

Gu Zecheng put down his chopsticks, wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin, got up, and left the seat. "You two continue to eat. I have a meeting at nine o'clock, so I’ll leave first."

He walked toward the front door as he spoke but turned around halfway through and, seemingly concerned, said, "Is Xiao Yi too tired from filming recently? I feel like you’re a lot thinner than before…. Your health is the most important thing. It's okay to accept less dramas."

After Dad Gu stabbed the knife, he went to work happily. Poor young actor Lin, however, was about to throw up because of this sentence since the old lady resolutely pressed him to eat. Having grown up in a single-parent family, he finally had the same opportunity as most netizens, which was to experience something known as "there is a kind of hunger called 'your grandma thinks you are hungry'".

After Lin Zixi finished eating this meal with great difficulty, Grandma Song began to discuss two things with Sister Wang seriously. One was "what to eat for lunch today", and the other was "which drama played by Zeyi should I watch first?".... It scared him so much that he quickly found an excuse, saying that his agent had arranged a job at the last moment. Then he fled out of the Gu’s house as fast as possible. 

Young actor Lin took Gu Zecheng’s car when he came over from the movies and television base the day before. Now that he wanted to go back, it was quite a problem—he did not have his own car to drive, and he did not have the cheek to call Assistant Xiao Zhang, whom finally had a day off after his hard work accompanying him on the crew every day, to come over and drive him back.

Fortunately, the current mobile phone software was very convenient. Within a few minutes, Lin Zixi downloaded an app and called a taxi.

He put on the hood of his hoodie and pulled his peaked cap really low. Then he walked out of Gu Zecheng's house entrance to the gate of the community and got into the car under the suspicious eyes of the security guard.

Young actor Lin sat in the passenger seat and did not dare to relax. He said, "Go to Huating Hotel at Hengguo Film and Television Base", and started swiping his mobile phone to conceal his face tightly, for fear of being recognized by passers-by on both sides of the traffic lane.

Mr. Driver was a nearly fifty-year-old uncle with the characteristics of a typical middle-aged male taxi driver—chatty, gossipy, and love to be a nosy parker.

Like Lin Zixi, who came out of this city’s most high-end community suspiciously, named the suburb as his destination, and was obviously afraid to let people see his face to boot…. In the eyes of Mr. Driver, Lin Zixi was basically equivalent to a criminal who broke the law and violated discipline, and he himself was equivalent to being an accessory/accomplice to the criminal.

Mr. Driver was also warm-hearted and enthusiastic. After driving not far, he began to fish for Lin Zixi’s information like he was just chatting casually. From "where are you from" to "how could you need to take a taxi living in Guanlan Bay" to "you don't live in Guanlan Bay, why did you come out from there so early", he asked all of them.

This meticulous questioning like when checking household registration was so straightforward it hurt young actor Lin’s head and made him a little regretful for not calling his assistant to pick him up. He just perfunctorily glossed over each question with "yeah, yeah, ah, ah”. After enduring for a long time, the man sitting next to him finally stopped, no longer questioning him.

But before Lin Zixi could breathe a sigh of relief, the central control lock on the car door beside him suddenly locked with a snap, and the driver also turned on the turn signal to exit the elevated highway ahead of time.

"What’re you going to do?!" Lin Zixi was on guard all at once and turned his head to look at the man beside him while surveying the surrounding road conditions. He considered if he should just wrest control of the steering wheel directly in case the other party was a kidnapper.

But Mr. Driver was more upright than him, "I’m going to send you to the police station! The way of Heaven is fair, but the guilty will not escape! The eyes of the masses are sharp!"

...What the hell was this shit?!

"What the hell are you doing?!... What kind of tricky program is this?" Young actor Lin was a bit stupid and began to scan the decoration inside the car back and forth, trying to find the hidden camera.

While locating the nearest police station, the driver said, "Humph, sneaking out of Guanlan Bay early in the morning and still hiding your face…. But it's no use. I tell you, don't say me, the security guard of the community must have been checking the surveillance video now. You can't run away!"

"Don't, don't, don't, don't, don’t! I'm not a bad guy!" Only then did Lin Zixi understand what was going on. He promptly took off all his hats and showed his face.

The currently popular young actor took a taxi and went into the police station…. He felt like he would suffocate just thinking about the headlines that the media and marketing accounts might use at that time. So he quickly put on a sunny and friendly smile, "Misunderstanding, it’s all misunderstanding. I’m actually afraid of being recognized."

Facing such a young and handsome face, could passers-by recognize young actor Lin? I did not know. Mr. Driver did not recognize him anyway—a young male idol in his twenties like young actor Lin was common in China after all; for middle-aged and elderly men, there was basically no such person in their dictionaries.

Mr. Driver watched him carefully for a long time and vaguely thought that he might have seen this man on a billboard or the outer packaging of a product, but he really couldn't remember who this man was and what his name was.

However, in view of Lin Zixi's young and handsome face, he also realized that he might have taken a star’s order. The atmosphere suddenly became a little embarrassing.

Mr. Driver had been driving a taxi for almost 20 years though and had experienced many strong winds and big waves. Not long after he drove the car back to the elevated highway, he became active again and began to gossip about various entertainment circle rumors with Lin Zixi.

As a result, young actor Lin felt his head hurt even more. He was also depressed because he had revealed his identity (whether the other party recognized him or not, it was another matter), and he could not just answer the other party perfunctorily as he had done at the beginning. He also took a lot of trouble thinking about how to fudge the issue without being impolite—otherwise, in case someone with aspirations dug up and broke the news one day, whether it was ‘playing a big name and looking down on the working people at the bottom’ or ‘having a big mouth and spreading other people's private affairs indiscriminately", any of them could be used to stir up public opinion until it became a scandal, harming his interests and making him lose a large number of fans.

Two hours later, the car finally drove to the hotel. Lin Zixi paid the fare and took a photo with the other party. Then he hurriedly got out of the car and fled faster than when he came out of Gu's house.

TL's note: 

Because I'm busy, there won't be an update next Monday. So, chapter 15 will be out on Thursday, June 2nd.