CH 18

Chapter 18: Update

Gu Qingchi didn't like Xie Luyu.

Whenever he heard the name “Xie Luyu”, Gu Qingchi would always be reminded of unpleasant things. He didn’t care about a lot of things, but this was the sole exception. He couldn’t control it.

Xie Luyu was special to him from the very beginning.

Even if he was on the road, whenever he saw Xie Luyu's advertisements or heard Xie Luyu's name, he would subconsciously raise his head.

But it didn’t really matter whether he liked him or not.

Under normal circumstances, they would probably never have anything to do with each other for the rest of their lives.

But the world was just that unpredictable. Now, Xie Luyu was so close to him, in contact with him day and night.

He thought that he could ignore it, but he couldn't.

What happened, happened.

Gu Qingchi was like a cat who had gotten the short end of the stick. Every time he saw the big dog from the neighbor's house, he would take the initiative to avoid it.

But one day, Kitty Gu was completely soaked and wanted to hide away in a corner when he was stopped by the neighbor's big dog. It rumbled and licked Kitty Gu clean. Then, it hauled the kitty back to his warm doghouse.

From then on, whenever Xie Luyu’s name came up, Gu Qingchi remembered not only the nightmares but also the warm soup in the kitchen that night.

But that was it.

Gu Qingchi thought.

In the next few days, Xie Luyu took all of the cooking tasks for himself, and he did them on his own.

"If this goes on, I’m gonna starve to death. This is for the sake of my survival."

Every day, he would make different kinds of dishes. He even made some dishes from around the world a couple of times.

After discovering that Gu Qingchi preferred saltier dishes, the food he made started to cater more and more towards his tastes.

Gu Qingchi hadn’t notice this. However, after eating the food, he found that they were all dishes that fit his appetite, and he even ate half a bowl more than usual.

Xie Luyu: There’s quite a sense of achievement.

***

The filming period lasted five days and quickly came to an end.

On the day filming ended, Ye Li came to pick up Gu Qingchi.

"I picked out two magazine cover photo shoots for you, and I’ve already contacted them."

He opened the car door and let Gu Qingchi into the car.

"One is a second-tier magazine called Fashion Frontline. The other is called Lady, a women's magazine. This one’s not bad. Their style’s rather elegant, even Xie Luyu’s been featured on their magazine, but I was only able to get you on the inner pages. The pay’s not much either. Don't worry, let’s get a steady foundation first. It’s normal to take some losses in the beginning. When you become more famous, you’ll have a lot more opportunities."

These were all very good resources. They were resources Ye Li had gotten in exchange for favors. They had hardly charged the magazines anything at all. It was essentially taking a loss for the sake of gaining some exposure.

The purpose was just to get Gu Qingchi some publicity.

"Fasten your seat belt, we're leaving. Ah, by the way, how did filming go?"

Gu Qingchi thought for a while and spoke hesitatingly.

"Okay, I think."

Ye Li comforts him.

"That's okay, just relax. Consider it as gaining experience for the future."

Gu Qingchi hummed in response. He hesitated on whether or not to tell Ye Li to avoid gigs with Xie Luyu when arranging jobs for him in the future.

However, after thinking about it, he felt like he might be thinking too much of it. He was a nobody, but Xie Luyu was an internationally renowned actor. Both internationally and domestically, he had received countless awards.

There probably wouldn’t be any chance of them meeting in the future.

Besides, he didn't want to upset Ye Li. It didn’t feel right for him to start making demands before he had even started the job.

Ye Li was still as energetic as ever.

"The photo shoot is scheduled for a pretty late date. The episode you just filmed will probably be broadcasting by then. Variety shows usually go through production quickly. If you are lucky, you can attract a wave of fans. Ah, that’s right, don't post to Weibo casually in the future. Be sure to tell me your account password later.”

Gu Qingchi hadn’t slept very well these past couple of days. He rested the back of his head on the headrest of the seat. He closed his eyes and extended his jaw into a beautiful arc. When speaking, his Adam's apple moved up and down, giving him a sexy edge.

"I don't have Weibo, only WeChat. Do you want it?"

Ye Li was a little surprised. There were very few young people who didn’t use Weibo these days.

"That’s also good. This way, no one’ll be able to dig up dirt on you in the future. You don't have to give me your WeChat, just don't add any messy people. Don't forget to add me on WeChat. I’ll create a Weibo account for you, get you verified, add the “V”[a1]  to your account. I'll take over managing it straight away."

Gu Qingchi didn’t have any objections. He didn’t really play around with these kinds of things. He would always find them very troublesome, but, if Ye Li asked him to, he would still go register for an account. Right now, he was more than happy to let Ye Li take over the account directly.

"How's the little Dragon Li doing?"

"It’s been regularly getting its shots. Right now, it’s at my house. It’s just that the cat is always scratching at my sofa, it’s way too naughty. It also eats a lot, I think it’s gotten fatter. Other than that, nothing much has happened, pretty smart cat.”

Ye Li walked with Gu Qingchi to his building.

"There’s nothing scheduled for the next couple of days, make sure you get plenty of rest. I'll pick you up for the magazine photoshoot in a few days. I’ll bring the cat over some other day."

***

Pan Xiaocheng had been the one to pick up Xie Luyu. Xie Luyu was the only artist he had under him. Xie Luyu was so successful that Pan Xiaocheng didn't even need to help him gain resources.

In the end, the work that he did the most was managing public relations for Xie Luyu. Xie Luyu's ability to cause trouble was on the same level as his acting skills.

Today, Xie Luyu would be cold and indifferent during an interview with a reporter. Tomorrow, he would turn around and leave as soon as seeing some other celebrity. These could all be considered small issues. At least the public relations were still useful in these cases.

Most of the time, the problems that Xie Luyu caused couldn’t even be fixed through public relations.

Essentially, Pan Xiaocheng was very idle, so he took care of all aspects of Xie Luyu’s day-to-day life. Unexpectedly, he, an agent, had become a fussing old mother.

Plus, because of his well-built figure, he had even been confused for Xie Luyu’s bodyguard.

This time, Pan Xiaocheng also came to pick up Xie Luyu.

He didn’t drive the car here himself. Xie Luyu had his own driver as well as a nanny van.

The company provided Xie Luyu with three cars, a nanny van, and two luxury cars. The luxury cars were used to keep up appearances when attending various events.

However, it wasn’t necessary. Xie Luyu himself owned a garage full of luxury cars. Any one of them was better than the two cars that the company allocated to him.

Xie Luyu was fully armed with a mask and sunglasses. After getting in the car, he took off his jacket, sunglasses, and mask and closed his eyes to rest.

Pan Xiaocheng was surprised.

"Didn't you go to relax? How come you’re lying down right away? Are you in a bad mood?"

Xie Luyu spoke without even opening his eyes.

"How in the world was I supposed to relax? I did all the cooking for four days. On the first day, when I didn’t do the cooking, I spent the whole day wiping the floor.

He frowned, opened his eyes, and turned to look at Pan Xiaocheng.

"Do you have some kind of grudge against me? This crappy variety show was all chopping wood and fetching water, it almost tired me to death."

Actually, the time he spent there was very good. In fact, it couldn't be better. It was rather tiring, but that wasn’t even worth mentioning. He lived in the same house with Gu Qingchi for five days, this could practically be considered cohabiting.

Today was the last day of filming, so Xie Luyu was in a bit of a bad mood.

Also, also, Gu Qingchi was clearly very cold to him. He was even colder to him than he was to others.

But Xie Luyu didn't show express any of that. Pan Xiaocheng could not be allowed to know. It wasn't because they weren’t familiar with each other, or their relationship wasn’t deep enough, but rather it was because they were too familiar with each other.

He had been looked up to as Xie ge for so many years. He couldn’t afford to lose this face.

Pan Xiaocheng was a little puzzled.

"This variety show is quite popular. There’s no way they’d be that bad."

He touched his head.

"It seemed pretty fun when I watched it."

Xie Luyu scoffed and continued to rest.

He secretly gave himself a V sign.

He thought to himself.

How am I such a genius?

***

After Ye Li registered and verified Gu Qingchi's Weibo account, he stopped worrying about it.

Ye Li didn’t much attention when the variety show started broadcasting either. He even called Gu Qingchi to comfort him so as not to let the newcomer’s mentality collapse. When separated by the internet, people could become a lot more vicious, especially on Weibo.

Many newcomers weren’t used to it and were easily influenced.

Turns out, Gu Qingchi didn't even know that the variety show was broadcasting that day, and he hadn’t gone on Weibo either.

Ye Li paused for a few seconds.

He seemed to have discovered that, so long as there wasn’t anything going on, Gu Qingchi could live with his Dragon Li at home, separated from the world without a care in the world.

"Not bad, Weibo isn’t anything good, you should use it less."

After hanging up, he opened Weibo and logged into Gu Qingchi's account.

Then, he was startled by the sudden outpour of notifications from his phone.

Gu Qingchi’s follower count had already reached several hundred thousand.

Ye Li repeatedly checked that he hadn’t logged onto the wrong account by mistake.

The only Weibo post on Gu Qingchi's Weibo was the one mentioning the company. The tone was very formal and official.

Now, that post had hundreds of thousands of likes and over 10,000 comments.

The only thought in Ye Li's head was, what a loss.

They hadn’t charged a price for the magazine cover shoot. It was really such a big loss.