WAM CH5

When Gu Yanzhou received the text message, he was at the gym, shirtless, with a towel draped around his neck. Having just stepped off the treadmill, he was leaning against a simple counter, resting. He was dripping with sweat. A few drops slowly fell from the ends of his hair, ran past the corners of his eyes, and clung to his eyelashes, causing him to squint uncomfortably as he looked at the screen.

The text message notification sound was quite loud. Gu Yanzhou’s manager, Chen Yang, who had been working on the sofa across the room, couldn’t help but look up and ask casually, “Who is it?”

Are you free to grab a meal?

Gu Yanzhou read those few words back and forth a couple of times, then casually tossed the phone aside. He cracked open a can of cold beer and, along with the hiss of the pull tab, said, “No one important.”

Hearing this, Chen Yang raised two fingers to adjust his glasses. Thinking of the recent mess in the entertainment circle, his thoughts wandered far and wide as he warned, “Whatever you do, absolutely do not start dating. The paparazzi are constantly watching you… even if you do want to date, you can’t keep it from me. I need to help you manage things. It’ll be troublesome if you get photographed. The rumors about you and Yang Yinyin from a while back still haven’t died down. Just because you two worked on a drama together, they forcefully shipped you two as a couple.”

Gu Yanzhou didn’t respond.

He took two gulps of beer, then grabbed his phone and stood up to head upstairs. “Don’t overthink things. I’m going up to take a shower. You can leave whenever you’re done with your work. Just remember to close the door behind you when you leave.”

“Ah, wait,” Chen Yang suddenly remembered something. “I heard Director Wang introduced you to a kid named Shao Si today?”

“What about him?”

“He’s quite popular right now, his career is booming—a rising star in the circle. It would be great if you two could tie yourselves together to hype up some popularity. But we have to make sure there are no issues with his character. Otherwise, if we hype you two up as good brothers and he gets into a scandal, it’ll drag you down too… Shao Si has been in the industry for five or six years with basically zero negative news, so I imagine his character should be alright.”

He was making all these wonderful plans on his end, completely missing how Gu Yanzhou’s frown was deepening. After finishing his hypotheticals, Chen Yang asked quite expectantly, “What do you think?”

Gu Yanzhou’s footsteps paused for a moment before he continued walking forward. “Not much.”

Chen Yang was baffled by the response. He vaguely felt that his Yanzhou’s attitude towards this Shao Si was a bit different—one could even say he seemed a bit averse to him.

Meanwhile, on the other end, Shao Si was sitting on the toilet lid, racking his brains trying to figure out how to salvage this car crash of an accident.

Li Guangzong burst into the restroom carrying his jacket, searching for him: “Dad, are you still there? Which stall are you in?”

Li Guangzong knocked on them one by one. When he pushed open the final stall door, he saw Shao Si sitting on the toilet lid with his phone, looking relaxed and pretentious. One leg was half-bent, his foot resting unceremoniously on top of the toilet lid. His head was lowered, the black hoodie and his hair making his neck appear exceptionally pale in contrast.

“Let’s get out of here. You were right, that Qi Ming is practically retarded.” Li Guangzong hadn’t just come in to find him; judging by his appearance, he had suffered some sort of inhuman torment during Shao Si’s absence. “That Yang Ze isn’t a good person either… try to interact with them as little as possible in the future. Are we leaving? I’ve already had the driver pull the car up to the entrance. Also, put your leg down right now. If someone snaps a picture of you, they’ll say you have no class and destroy public property, stepping on toilet lids. Put it down, hurry.”

“What paparazzi would have nothing better to do than run into a bathroom to photograph me,” Shao Si lifted his head. Aside from sleepiness, there was no other expression on his face. He said nonchalantly, “By the way, I accidentally asked your male god out for a meal just now.”

Li Guangzong: “Huh?”

“I said I asked Gu Yanzhou out for a meal.” While speaking, he finally lowered that half-bent leg. Emphasized by his ripped jeans, his leg looked exceptionally slender and long. “Gu Yanzhou, your male god.”

With that, Shao Si held up his phone and showed the screen to him.

—Are you free to grab a meal? —Sorry, I’m busy.

Li Guangzong was clearly still a bit dazed. He had no idea how his Shao Si and his male god—two people with absolutely no connection whatsoever—suddenly got involved with each other.

Therefore, his brain didn’t process it for a good while, and he could only repeat, “…Oh, you asked my male god out for a meal, and you even got rejected.”

Then, ten seconds later, his eyes widened and he pressed, “This is too sudden! Why did you ask my male god out for a meal?! What do you want to eat with him for?!”

Shao Si stood up, took his jacket from Li Guangzong’s hands, and walked out. “No need to know why; anyway, I got rejected. Let’s go, take me back so I can sleep.”

He walked away stylishly, leaving Li Guangzong to belatedly mull over the line ‘Sorry, I’m busy.’ He couldn’t help but feel something was fishy. His male god was clearly the gentlest person in the world, yet no matter how you looked at it, those few words seemed a bit cold.

Once Shao Si got home, he slept like the dead. God knows what supported him to walk out of the bathroom after a shower and then collapse onto the bed. His scenes the next day didn’t start until the afternoon, and he had no other scheduled activities in the morning.

This was his most relaxed day in the upcoming three whole months. After this, he would have to dedicate himself entirely to the Undercover crew, filming day and night.

Gu Yanzhou frequently came to visit Director Wang on set. If at the very beginning, only the two managers, Li Guangzong and Chen Yang, were sensitive enough to feel that Gu Yanzhou’s attitude towards Shao Si was a bit strange, then after several times, Shao Si himself noticed it too.

Even someone like him, whose days consisted solely of acting and catching up on sleep, could sense Gu Yanzhou’s faint repulsion towards him.

It wasn’t very obvious when they met normally. With so many people around, Gu Yanzhou’s attitude towards him was quite polite. Whenever he came to see Director Wang and brought hot drinks for the entire crew, there was always one for him too.

That is, until one time Li Guangzong insisted on dragging him over to thank ‘Senior Brother Gu’.

Shao Si refused, slouching in his chair with his legs crossed, the script spread open on his lap. “I already said thank you when I took the milk tea. Make another trip over? There’s no need, it’ll look too deliberate.”

“…Improve your relationship, Dad. Prove that you’re a good, humble kid who seeks guidance.” After spouting a bunch of nonsense, Li Guangzong finally couldn’t help but expose his ultimate goal. “If you don’t go over, I won’t have any excuse to talk to my male god.”

Shao Si only offered a cold sneer in response. A moment later, he couldn’t help but say, “Son, do you know how the paparazzi will write about you if you act like this? …A drama queen.”

Li Guangzong: “…”

However, heaven seemed to side with the ‘drama queen’. Just as Shao Si finished speaking, he saw Director Wang waving at him from a distance, gesturing for him to hurry over: “Xiao Si, come here for a moment. Bring your script, let your Senior Brother Gu explain the scene to you.”

Hahahahahahaha, awesome!

Li Guangzong coughed to keep himself from laughing out loud.

Thus, Shao Si was forced to carry his milk tea and script and walk over. “Hello, Senior Brother Gu.”

Gu Yanzhou: “Hello.”

At this moment, Gu Yanzhou had taken off his jacket, with the top three buttons of his shirt unfastened. His expression was gentle, but looking down past his collar, his collarbones and the faint glimpse of his chest gave off an oddly aggressive vibe.

Shao Si was genuinely terrible at chatting with people, especially colleagues, so he didn’t know what to say next: “Senior Brother Gu, which scene are we discussing?”

“I’m really sorry.” Gu Yanzhou discreetly raised his wrist to check his watch, then picked up his jacket and stood up. He gave a slight nod to him and Director Wang. “I just remembered I have other matters to attend to. Let’s do it another day. Definitely another day.”

Shao Si: “…” What is that supposed to mean.

Afterwards, Li Guangzong consoled him: “He’s a major Best Actor, it’s normal for him to be busy. Be understanding, be understanding… As long as the milk tea is hot and tasty, it’s fine.”

The matter was considered swept under the rug.

Busy filming every day and casually prying information from anyone in the crew who had contact with Yang Yinyin, Shao Si’s fulfilling life quickly made him forget all about Gu Yanzhou. He didn’t even notice that the ‘another day’ Gu Yanzhou had mentioned when taking his leave never arrived.

The name Gu Yanzhou reached Shao Si’s ears again when Li Guangzong, while taking a photo for his Weibo, casually checked his following list and discovered that Gu Yanzhou hadn’t followed him back.

At the time, Shao Si was memorizing his lines in his nanny van, leaning against the seat back, looking utterly boneless and lazy. “Can I unfollow him?”

Li Guangzong was deeply distressed. “Dad, that wouldn’t be good. People will catch wind of it and stir up trouble. He probably just forgot… my male god is very busy… Uh, instead of that, if you have time, why not interact with your fans more?”

Shao Si: “Oh.”

However, Li Guangzong noticed that Shao Si started checking Weibo much more frequently afterwards.

Of course, compared to other artists, this “more frequently” was still virtually nothing. At the absolute maximum, it was just taking it out once every seven or eight days while halfway through a meal to casually scroll through it.

Li Guangzong simply couldn’t believe that Shao Si was actually taking the rare initiative to care about the fact that ‘Gu Yanzhou didn’t follow back’.

Even though he knew Shao Si minding the lack of a follow-back was mostly just a matter of male pride and had absolutely nothing to do with who the other person was.

Furthermore, Shao Si even put on an act, refusing to admit his petty thoughts, explaining to him: “I only go on Weibo to pay attention to news and current events.”

Li Guangzong’s chopsticks trembled: “Is that so?”

“What else? Why would I have nothing better to do than constantly stalk his profile? Look—the child who was kidnapped into the mountains by human traffickers a few days ago has been found. It took eight years. Little Son, take a look, this shows our country’s case-solving ability is still quite good, worthy of praise.”

Li Guangzong thought to himself, With this kind of incoherent nonsense, damn it, I almost believed you.

“Take a look at this too.” After finishing his meal, Shao Si put down his chopsticks, swiped his finger across the screen twice, and read out loud like a news anchor: “The web broadcast volume of The Young Wife Returns to the Village has cumulatively exceeded one billion across all episodes, setting a historical precedent in the rural romance genre.”

Even though the voice reaching his ears was delightful to hear—clear, a little cool, with a habitual huskiness at the tail ends of words; he had always felt that if Shao Si quit acting and became a singer, he would definitely be famous too—Li Guangzong still couldn’t help but snap his chopsticks in anger.

“Shao Si, don’t you ever let me hear the words ‘The Young Wife Returns to the Village‘ again!”