WAM CH29

“What illicit affairs?” Shao Si’s footsteps paused, standing stock still in place.

Gu Yanzhou’s mouth twitched slightly: “Nothing.”

Then the two looked at each other for a long while. Gu Yanzhou leaned against the back of the chair, his expression unchanging.

Seeing his calm demeanor, Shao Si was suddenly unsure if he had actually misheard just now.

At this moment, Gu Yanzhou stood up. He raised a hand to roll down a folded cuff of his shirt and said, “I’ll pay.”

“We agreed it’s my treat.”

As they spoke, they actually started fighting over it.

Gu Yanzhou walked in front, and Shao Si first tried to yank his arm, but it had little effect.

Seeing that Gu Yanzhou was about to pull out his money, in a moment of desperation, Shao Si slipped his hand around Gu Yanzhou’s waist. It looked as if he were hugging him, yet Shao Si himself remained completely oblivious, constantly saying, “Gu Yanzhou, don’t force me.”

“…” Gu Yanzhou froze in place, unsure for a moment whether he should tell him to let go.

Shao Si followed his hand, feeling for the wallet in Gu Yanzhou’s left pocket, and then pinned both the wallet and Gu Yanzhou’s hand down, refusing to let go. Thinking he had cleverly restrained Gu Yanzhou, he then used his free hand to dig for money in his own pocket.

Gu Yanzhou turned his head. From his height, he had a perfect view of Shao Si’s wide neckline, which could easily turn into an off-the-shoulder look if he wasn’t careful.

Recently, as winter set in, the temperature had dropped drastically. Yet this person, as if impervious to the cold, always wore loose and thin clothing.

Actually, Shao Si had brought up this issue with his stylist multiple times. He didn’t want to dress so provocatively either, and more importantly… it was genuinely freezing.

However, every time, the female stylist would just point at his nose and scold him with exasperation: “You’re infuriating! You completely don’t understand fashion!”

“If the ‘fashion’ you’re talking about relies on heat patches to forcibly hold it up, then I guess I really don’t understand.” At the time, Shao Si, who had been playing a game, stopped and seriously asked her, “Lisa, in this kind of weather, can we please stop acting up?”

Stylist Miss Lisa immediately emphasized the mini skirt she was currently wearing, bare-legged without even any leggings underneath: “What kind of weather is this? Where is it cold?”

Shao Si was silent for a long time, only able to utter one sentence: “…Are you women monsters?”

In the end, the bill was still paid by Gu Yanzhou. Shao Si was just about to slam his money onto the lady boss’s counter, but met her half-smiling and somewhat ambiguous gaze.

Shao Si: “…”

Instead, Gu Yanzhou calmly pulled out his card and handed it over: “Card, please. Thank you.”

The lady boss accepted it with a chuckle. No matter what she was doing, her eyes never left the two of them. It wasn’t until she handed the card back that she finally couldn’t help but say, “I wish you two happiness.”

Gu Yanzhou: “…”

Shao Si: “…Have you misunderstood something too?”

The lady boss bent down and pulled a camera out of a cabinet—clearly the type who frequently asked celebrities for photos. Ignoring Shao Si’s question, she only said, “Can I take a picture with you guys? I’m a fan of Director Wang.”

Shao Si casually pinched Gu Yanzhou’s waist and whispered, “Isn’t the connection for this ‘fan’ a bit far-fetched?”

But Gu Yanzhou simply gave the lady boss a slight nod and said, “Apologies, it’s not very convenient today. We still have matters to attend to; I hope you can understand. Definitely another day.”

The lady boss looked to be in her forties or fifties. This shop had been open in the film city for many years, so she wasn’t the type of ignorant outsider.

Hearing this, she smiled without much reaction, only feeling it was a pity as she put the camera down. “Alright, please come again next time.”

Only when the two young men walked out the door did the lady boss pick up her phone and make a call: “Nannan, I saw the two young men you’re always talking about. Are they married? They looked like it to me… one little boy kept holding the other little boy’s waist… Who held whose? I couldn’t tell who was who.”

The other end of the line was a bit noisy. Soon, a girl’s excited voice emerged from the clamor: “Mom, you really saw them? Did you take a picture for me? The one who looks a bit colder is Daddy Shao, he’s very easy to recognize!”

The lady boss thought for a moment: “He wasn’t cold at all…”

“No way,” the girl called ‘Nannan’ fell silent for a couple of seconds. “…Could this be the power of love?”

Power of love, my foot.

This was the power of fighting to pay the bill.

Shao Si still had principles as a person. Even blood brothers had to settle accounts clearly. Normally, if he treated others, he wouldn’t mind it, but the moment he let someone else pay, he habitually felt uncomfortable all over.

As Shao Si’s manager, Li Guangzong was well aware of this quirk. Sometimes when he advanced his own money to buy Daddy Shao a bottle of water, his Daddy Shao would never forget to give him back those two coins.

When he didn’t have coins, he would just toss larger bills; however much he had on him, he’d toss it all.

Once, Li Guangzong merely walked a few steps to grab him an ice cream, yet he received a massive sum of a hundred-yuan bill. The guy even waved his hand dismissively and told him to keep the change.

Occasionally, Li Guangzong was a man with backbone, so he refused that hundred.

As a result, Shao Si seriously started calculating a transfer via Alipay for him.

So now, from a distance, he heard what sounded like people arguing in the hallway. Taking two steps out and opening the door, he heard his Shao Si calling his male god’s name.

“Gu Yanzhou!”

Shao Si was walking backward, facing Gu Yanzhou, emphasizing, “Going Dutch. Non-negotiable.”

Gu Yanzhou looked at him as if watching a house pet throwing an unreasonable tantrum. He didn’t say anything, only pulling Shao Si back when he was about to bump into something while walking backward, scolding, “Walk properly.”

“…”

Li Guangzong stood at the doorway with complicated feelings. He hurried forward to stop Shao Si: “What is going on here? Why are you arguing with Best Actor Gu? You’re getting more and more out of hand.”

Shao Si: “I wasn’t arguing with him.”

Li Guangzong didn’t care what he said, focusing solely on apologizing to his male god: “I’m so sorry, please excuse the embarrassment. Actually, our Shao Si isn’t usually like this. He’s a very sensible child, mature and steady… Please don’t misunderstand.”

From the side, Shao Si said coolly, “I said we didn’t argue.”

Li Guangzong glared at him: “Oh, give it a rest.”

…Are you rebelling against me?

In the end, it was Gu Yanzhou who clarified that they truly hadn’t been arguing, finally allowing Li Guangzong to put his heart back in his chest.

Leaving aside the fact that Gu Yanzhou was his male god, given their current statuses and their senior-junior relationship, it really wouldn’t be good to have bad blood.

He knew Shao Si better than anyone. If you truly crossed his bottom line, he completely wouldn’t care who the other person was; he would just jump up and beat them up. Just like how Qi Ming was beaten until his nose was broken back then.

Before long, Chen Yang also hurried over, carrying several cups of coffee he brought for them.

The few of them sat in the lounge, each reviewing their own materials. Shao Si had his legs propped up high, a thick copy of Introduction to Traditional Opera spread open on his lap.

Sipping his coffee, Li Guangzong suddenly remembered something: “Dad, do you remember that matter from the meeting the day before yesterday?”

Shao Si tilted his head slightly: “What?”

“The livestreaming—” Li Guangzong directly jumped up from his seat. “Three hours of livestreaming time every month.”

He didn’t control his volume well when he spoke, so it was quite loud, instantly causing both Chen Yang and Gu Yanzhou to involuntarily look in his direction.

“Sorry, sorry for disturbing you.” After saying this, Li Guangzong pulled Shao Si up. “Come, let’s go outside and talk… It seems this new rule is being implemented starting this month, but it’s already the end of the month…”

Shao Si followed behind him with unsteady steps, squinting impatiently: “What livestreaming? Why don’t I remember this?”

Li Guangzong was exasperated: “You have the nerve to say that? You were playing Honor of Kings the whole time!”

Shao Si instantly fell silent.

As a result, the two walked to the bathroom entrance. Shao Si leaned against the wall while waiting for Li Guangzong to check his memo. A few minutes later, they finally had to face a massive problem.

“Mandatory livestreaming is fine, and a monthly quota of three hours isn’t an issue either. But no matter how you look at it, this shouldn’t be implemented starting this month. It’s already the twenty-ninth today.”

Faced with Li Guangzong’s complaints, Shao Si appeared much calmer. He raised his wrist to check his watch: “There’s still half an hour before the training resumes. How about I just start streaming now?”

Li Guangzong: “What about the remaining time?”

Shao Si ruffled his hair, his face expressionless, but his tone was incredibly serious: “If I livestream myself sleeping tonight, do you think they’d be willing to watch?”

Li Guangzong: “…”

It was exactly 11:00 AM.

The rumors between Shao Si and Gu Yanzhou were already raging wildly, utterly ambiguous and unclear.

However, when the morning live broadcast of “Entertainment High Sky” staked out the safety exit of the film city and interviewed the two people involved, the wind instantly shifted again.

—What the hell is this? Are they stealing the show? I actually really want to laugh. 

—Aggressive promotion, very good, I concede. By the way, their CP chemistry is seriously about to overflow from the screen. 

—The two above, stop talking, let’s talk about “Mask”. 

—Hahahahaha the one talking about “Mask”, stop right there, don’t leave!

So, when Shao Si huddled in the innermost stall of the restroom and started a livestream without any warning, everyone exploded again.

The number of viewers skyrocketed.

A few minutes later, the stream had already started lagging to a black screen for many people.

Shao Si sat on the toilet lid with his legs bent. Due to mild myopia and the comments scrolling so fast it blurred his vision, he had to lean in closer, squinting to read the screen.

Countless instances of “marriage” and “Gu Yanzhou” flashed past his eyes endlessly like bolts of lightning.

“Can we mute people here?” Getting tired of looking, Shao Si frowned. “How do I do it?”

Li Guangzong’s voice came through the door panel: “No, you can’t. Don’t mess around.”

Following the emergence of the word “mute”, the comments uniformly turned into: Let’s chat about “Mask”.

—“Mask” is truly a milestone in modern literary history. 

—Indeed, it’s an unsurpassable legend. 

—Personally, I think its most outstanding feature is its use of surrealist techniques for elaborate progression, and the incredibly clever cross-usage of timelines, blending absurd elements into reality. 

—…Sorry, I can’t keep making this up.

Shao Si was usually busy with work and rarely interacted with them, especially in a mixed bag of a place like Weibo. Looking at it now, he actually found it quite novel.

Just then, he noticed a comment asking where he was, saying that the few tiles behind Daddy Shao looked a bit odd, and asking if he was in some newly built room set for the crew.

—White tiles. This must be Scene Forty-Six. Everyone, turn your books to page 120; white tiles appear three times on this page. 

—The tech god above.

 —Are we crazy? Why is there such a strong literary atmosphere? 

—Say no more, I’ve already placed an order on Taobao. Wait until I’ve read this book, then I’ll battle you guys.

Shao Si held up his phone and gave millions of people a tour of this cramped restroom, finally focusing the lens back on himself sitting on the toilet lid: “…Did you get a clear look?”

Millions of online netizens: …