WAM CH17

For a moment, the two were locked in a stalemate. The hands Shao Si used to strangle Gu Yanzhou’s neck weren’t applying much force, but they trembled incessantly. His ten fingers were pulled taut, curled into sharp arcs, with the veins bulging on the back of his hands.

Gu Yanzhou looked into his eyes and added, “Wake up. Look at yourself right now, you’re like a madman.”

Those words seemed to strike a chord within Shao Si. He slowly released his grip, covered his face, and remained silent for a long time without speaking another word.

In this neither large nor small makeup room, the air abruptly grew oppressive, making it hard to breathe.

After a long while, Shao Si finally spoke in a hoarse voice: “Probably. I might be crazy, but only by being crazy can I feel a little better.”

As he spoke, a few strands of hair fell between his fingers. His facial features were obscured by his palms, revealing only the line of his chin.

Gu Yanzhou watched him for a moment and spoke up to remind him: “The person has already left.”

“She left,” Shao Si swatted his hand away, immersed in his own agony. “I know she left! Gu Yanzhou, you don’t need to remind me every second! Regardless, I just can’t control myself, I’m suffocating with pain, I—”

“I said, Lu Jiahui has left.”

“…”

The second half of Shao Si’s sentence came to an abrupt halt, and he blinked his red and swollen eyes.

It was a bit awkward.

Only now did he belatedly realize what that earlier sentence—’the person has already left’—actually meant.

Truthfully, Captain Wang had already given a vocal reminder earlier, but his emotions had been too agitated for him to pay attention.

“Good acting, very immersed,” Gu Yanzhou said. “Can you get off me now?”

Shao Si glanced at their current posture and discovered he was straddling the man quite boldly and arrogantly. Gu Yanzhou’s coat was even bunched up from him pulling on it.

He hurriedly stood up and retreated backward, though his facial expression didn’t change because of this, nor did he feel embarrassed in the slightest. Only his voice was still a bit hoarse when he spoke: “It was all required by the plot, I shouldn’t need to apologize to you…”

Before he could finish speaking, Shao Si wasn’t paying attention to where he was stepping and retreated too hastily. He accidentally stepped on a plastic cup or something—whatever it was, nine times out of ten it was what he had casually smashed during his improvised performance earlier.

Seeing him lose his balance, Gu Yanzhou reached out and grabbed him to prevent him from falling backward.

However, with this pull, the one pulling failed to control his strength, and the one being pulled couldn’t control his momentum.

The moment Shao Si realized he had pinned Gu Yanzhou underneath him, his mind went blank.

Furthermore, beneath him, Gu Yanzhou’s collar was wide open. One of his shirt buttons had popped off, revealing a lean chest. His physique was excellent; he definitely spent a considerable amount of effort in the gym usually.

…

However, a burst of intense pain in the bridge of his nose snapped him back to reality. Lying on top of Gu Yanzhou, all other thoughts vanished except for the pain.

Gu Yanzhou was probably hurt from the impact as well; after all, he was the one at the bottom. He recovered for a moment, raised a hand, and pushed Shao Si’s head: “Hey, get off.”

Shao Si was in too much pain to be in the mood to speak. He mumbled twice, but Gu Yanzhou couldn’t hear what he was saying.

Then, Shao Si very cooperatively rolled to the side twice, rolling off of him, and lay motionless on the ground, clutching his nose.

Gu Yanzhou propped himself up on his arms, looked at him lying on the ground with his face scrunched up, and asked, “Are you alright?”

Shao Si: “…I’m fine. Good thing this isn’t a prosthetic, otherwise it would have been knocked flying.”

At this moment, Captain Wang’s voice rang out again: “Excellent, this operation has been successfully completed. However, Shao Si, you need to be careful. Lu Jiahui will very likely approach you next. He is a cautious person. Although this tactic can confuse him, feeding him false information to bait him into biting the hook, he is absolutely not stupid either. Before taking action, he will definitely conduct investigations from all sides.”

Since early morning, Captain Wang had been leading the surveillance teams scattered on the streets near the academy, lying dormant in cars parked randomly on the roadside, reporting and summarizing various information, issuing commands, and controlling the rhythm of the entire operation.

He knew these two were professional actors, but this level of on-site performance was completely unexpected.

It was too realistic and vastly increased the success rate of their subsequent operations.

Lying on the ground and listening to Captain Wang’s words, Shao Si felt his head starting to ache too. “Ah… is he that annoying?”

Afterward, Captain Wang gave another worried set of reminders about not dropping the ball at critical moments and such. It went in one of Shao Si’s ears and out the other. However, he did hear clearly what Gu Yanzhou, beside him, said about letting go of his hand.

Thus, Shao Si released the hand covering his nose. Gu Yanzhou took a couple of looks and found two ice packs from a small mini-fridge in the corner for him.

Gu Yanzhou squatted down and handed him the ice packs: “I have other matters, I’m leaving first.”

Shao Si took them: “Thank you.”

Captain Wang felt a bit defeated: “Are you two even listening to me properly? Did you remember what I just said?”

Shao Si pressed the ice packs against the bridge of his nose while giving a perfunctory reply: “Listening, listening, remembered.”

Gu Yanzhou left through the back gate of ‘St. Peter’s’ Academy; Chen Yang had been waiting for him there for three hours.

Shao Si sat in the makeup room for a while longer, not getting up to walk back until Li Guangzong texted him to say his next scene was about to start.

Just as Captain Wang expected, from the moment he returned and entered Lu Jiahui’s line of sight, Lu Jiahui continuously and surreptitiously assessed him.

Even from a distance, the gaze was impossible to ignore.

Li Guangzong held it in for a bit before he couldn’t help but complain: “Dad, looking at him acting like this right now is truly creepy, I’m a bit scared.”

Shao Si discreetly curled a finger at him: “Don’t wimp out. Compared to that, there’s a more important matter before you right now.”

Li Guangzong asked curiously: “What matter?”

“Help me see if my nose is swollen.”

Although Li Guangzong found it baffling, he still carefully and earnestly scrutinized it for a moment: “I don’t think so, what happened to your nose?”

“It’s good that it’s not,” Shao Si used his phone camera to check a few more times. Confirming it wasn’t swollen, he said mercilessly, “Alright, you can go back to being scared now.”

Li Guangzong: “…” Fuck you.

Ten minutes later, Lu Jiahui walked over to them.

He was very smart; he didn’t just come to find him alone, but brought Liu Qi with him.

Holding her script, Liu Qi smiled at Shao Si, walking even faster than Lu Jiahui: “Brother Shao, do you have time to run lines? I’d like to learn from you.”

Lu Jiahui pulled up a chair and sat next to them, chiming in: “Qiqi is very eager to learn, we hope you can give her some pointers.”

There was nothing wrong with the words, but that look in Lu Jiahui’s eyes…

Shao Si had always been very sensitive to things like gazes.

Hidden within those eyes was a deep desire to pry.

[…Treacherous,] the system popped out. [Can you withstand it, Daddy Shao?]

Shao Si’s head ached slightly: [Where did this ‘Daddy Shao’ title come from? How did you become my kid too?]

[That’s what your fans on Weibo are calling you right now.]

Oh.

Weibo, he hadn’t browsed it for a while.

Since Lu Jiahui had really come over, Shao Si had to keep up his act.

A man who had just suffered a mental breakdown in the makeup room over the woman he loved at noon—how should he behave right now?

When Shao Si ran lines with Liu Qi this time, it was quite different from before.

His tolerance for Liu Qi’s acting had noticeably decreased. His wording when pointing out mistakes was a bit heavy; it could be said he didn’t spare the little girl much face.

“Since you’re here to act, the most basic thing is to memorize your lines thoroughly. If you can’t even remember your lines, what are we even talking about?” When Shao Si finished his final sentence, he left Liu Qi completely dumbfounded.

Everyone fell silent for a moment. Suddenly, Shao Si stood up and asked Li Guangzong if he had any cigarettes.

He asked Li Guangzong for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, then turned his head and said, “Sorry, my mood isn’t very good today. Let me have some quiet time alone.”

With that, he left in a hurry.

Shao Si walked to the smoking area, his hands trembling as he pulled a cigarette from the pack and lit it with practiced ease—this was a skill he had perfected while filming Undercover. He had specifically learned the posture for smoking and the motion of lighting a cigarette.

He narrowed his eyes and exhaled a puff of smoke. Through the haze, he could see Lu Jiahui’s expression from a distance, and he knew it was a success.

No matter how deep his shrewdness ran, he would never expect several colleagues to team up and set a trap for him.

Furthermore, Shao Si liking Yang Yinyin wasn’t entirely without a trace to follow.

Back when Shao Si took a low fee to make a cameo in The Young Wife Returns to the Village, his attitude towards Yang Yinyin on set was noticeably different.

Lu Jiahui had guessed whether he wanted to hit on Yinyin; he just hadn’t expected him to be so deeply infatuated.

Shao Si still left early today, and even earlier than usual.

Upon getting into the nanny van, Li Guangzong let out a long sigh: “…I’m alive again, I was so nervous today I could die.”

The unfamiliar police officer from the morning was still in the car. His expression was clearly more relaxed than it had been in the morning, carrying a bit of a smile: “You can take off the communicators now. Thank you so much for cooperating and helping us, it played a huge role in breaking the case.”

Li Guangzong chuckled too: “This is our duty as citizens, there’s no need to be polite. We hope you solve the case soon, right Xiao Si?”

“Mhm,” for the first time, Shao Si didn’t express disgust at Li Guangzong’s empty pleasantries. “Hope the case is solved soon.”

Upon arriving home, Shao Si took a bath. When he stepped out of the bathroom, his hair was still dripping wet. He wasn’t in a hurry to dry it, letting the water droplets converge into streams and slip down his neck into his clothes.

Then he grabbed a can of cold beer from the fridge and half-lay on the sofa, taking occasional sips.

A boring variety show played on the TV, and as Shao Si watched, he grew a bit sleepy.

At this moment, the phone on the table buzzed twice.

Propping up his head, Shao Si grabbed the phone with half-closed eyes.

[Gu Yanzhou]: Call me back when you see this.