FLME Ch63

The makeup artist pushed the door open again, feeling that the atmosphere inside the room had become even more subtle.

Teacher Xiao Yu and the manager sat in their respective spots, one adjusting the stray hairs on their forehead, and the other looking down at their phone. Neither spoke a word, nor did they exchange glances. Their interaction was so stiff, it felt as though it could crack at any moment.

However, the makeup artist sensitively picked up on a certain underlying ambiguity beneath this awkwardness. 

It didn’t feel like they were upset with each other—more like they were trying to avoid suspicion.

She laughed at her own thoughts and walked over to the mirror, noticing that Yu Wen had taken off his jacket. “Teacher Xiao Yu, are you feeling hot? Your face is red, like a blushing peach,” she teased.

Yu Wen smoothed out the hair messed up during the hug and awkwardly said, “A little, maybe the air conditioning is set too high…”

The makeup artist picked up the remote and lowered the temperature by two degrees. She then noticed that the curtain had somehow blocked the camera, so she walked to the window and pulled it aside. As she passed by the manager, who was one of the youngest male managers in the industry, he was still focused on his phone, his brows furrowed as if dealing with some kind of difficult issue. His ears and the side of his neck had a faint reddish tint.

“Young people are just full of fire,” thought the makeup artist. “Both of them, their necks are turning red from the heat.”

By the time they finished the makeup shoot and headed home, the sky had already darkened. Xie Heyu drove, while Xiao Zhou and Xiao Zhong chattered away in the backseat, discussing how perfectly Yu Wen’s look fit him today, and how eye-catching it would be in the final shots. Xiao Zhong even said, “Who knows, maybe it could win an award—Best Supporting Actor wouldn’t be too far-fetched, right?”

“…You guys really dare to dream,” Yu Wen said, full of disbelief. Should he say that birds of a feather flock together? Starlight Media’s employees were just like their boss—always opening champagne before the game was even halfway through. No, actually, the game hadn’t even started yet, and they were already popping the bottles.

Xiao Zhou adjusted his glasses and seriously analyzed, “‘Moon Harbor’ is adapted from a short suspense novel. In the original, there’s no romantic plotline between the male and female leads. Director Miao’s script elevates them to the level of soulmates, but they’re not a couple. If you have to point out a romance, all of it lies in your character. If it’s shot well, Teacher Xiao Yu will definitely benefit the most.”

Xiao Zhong chimed in, “Yeah, yeah! Suspense dramas are the best for winning awards. If someone from the main cast is bound to win, why can’t it be our Teacher Xiao Yu?”

The main storyline of “Moon Harbor” is quite compelling. The female lead is a modern-day police officer who accidentally travels through time, and after a massive explosion, returns to the present. But because she hasn’t entirely escaped the strange magnetic field of the time travel, and because she’s haunted by the deaths of over six hundred people in the explosion, she embarks on her second, third… countless journeys back in time.

Each time she travels back, she returns to the same starting point. The place where she always reappears is called Moon Harbor, the very location after which the drama is named. She is a stranger from modern times, stranded in this harbor named after the moon.

The story unfolds from the male lead’s perspective. At the beginning, a harbor manager comes to report to the Fu family, saying that a strange woman has recently appeared near the docks. She seems to have swum ashore from the sea in the middle of the night and has been sitting at the pier ever since, staring into the distance and refusing to leave. The manager, sounding quite familiar with the eldest young master of the Fu family, doesn’t dare make a rash decision and asks him to come handle it.

When Fu Mingshen arrives, he finds the woman sitting at the pier, swinging her legs and gazing far away. Her hair is very short, just grazing her ears, and it’s blown messily by the wind. When she smiles, there’s a spirited sharpness to her.

She says, “Shen-ge, good morning.”

She’s a very strange woman.

Fu Mingshen is certain that he has no recollection of her in his memory, yet she is incredibly familiar with him, down to his food preferences, his manner of speaking, and his daily habits… She even knows her way around the entire Fu family residence.

Who is this woman? What’s her background? What’s her scheme?

The story begins here.

Through a series of investigations, the female lead’s suspicions shift from one person to another, until she eventually zeroes in on Song Mingzhu. Song Mingzhu’s dual personality gradually surfaces under her relentless pursuit. This confrontation is the most intense part of the early plot, full of twists and turns. The female lead investigates, the male lead assists, and Song Mingzhu continuously evades suspicion only to be targeted again…

The adrenaline never stops.

Of course, Song Mingzhu is not the true culprit. While his personality does overlap with the sociopathic traits the female lead had theorized, his obsession is actually with his brother, and he hasn’t fallen into complete despair where he wants to drag everyone else down with him.

The dynamics between the male lead, the female lead, and Song Mingzhu are also fascinating. After reading Director Miao’s revised draft, Yu Wen found the relationships between them very interesting. The female lead, with her noble mindset as a police officer, deeply impressed Fu Mingshen, who developed a unique admiration for her. After investigating Song Mingzhu, the female lead felt a great deal of pity for him, having grown up in such a twisted environment. She even tried to instill socialist core values in him. The female lead treated Song Mingzhu very differently. As for Song Mingzhu, he undoubtedly harbored feelings for the male lead, though he himself hadn’t realized it yet.

These three characters form a strange triangle—not necessarily one of love, but of admiration and compassion, yet all arrows clearly point to each other. Yu Wen was dumbfounded after reading it, thinking to himself, “Forget about the arrows, just focus on living your lives properly, that would be much better.”

Xiao Zhou and Xiao Zhong had also read the script and knew how thrilling the plot was, which is why they dared to dream about winning awards.

“Xie-ge, what do you think?” Xiao Zhong tried to pull Xie Heyu into the conversation.

Xie Heyu, who wasn’t much of a talker, especially when driving, had been silently listening. Suddenly being addressed, he instinctively glanced at Yu Wen and smiled faintly, “Winning an award isn’t important. What matters is that your Teacher Xiao Yu loves this character.”

Xiao Zhong replied, “Loving the role and winning an award aren’t mutually exclusive, though.”

Yu Wen grabbed the backrest and turned around to say, “Don’t hang out with the boss too much; don’t learn his bad habit of painting big pies for yourself. We need to be practical, okay? Being happy is the most important. If we don’t win this time, there’s always next time.”

He never placed much importance on his career; this time, he aimed for Song Mingzhu purely because he liked the role. Additionally, he felt that his acting had improved a lot and wanted to experience the feeling of being fully immersed in character creation. If it were tied to his career, he would find it quite meaningless and would prefer to relax.

The two assistants didn’t understand his mentality and naively agreed. Yu Wen turned back and accidentally made eye contact with Xie Heyu, giving a faint smile.

“Oh, what’s this… You can fold little boat hats too?” There was a flat object made from folded newspapers placed casually and prominently in front of the car. Yu Wen noticed it, picked it up, and found it was a little hat to be worn on the head, with some paint still on it.

Yu Wen completely forgot about his past handiwork and laughed, “I can fold this too, just like you…”

Xie Heyu replied, “It’s yours.”

Yu Wen showed a look of surprise and, after a moment, laughed, “Ah, I left it in your car when we were painting… Why are you still keeping it?”

Xie Heyu said, “I was worried you might want it back.”

Yu Wen asked, “What about the truth?”

Xie Heyu replied, “…You look cute wearing this hat, so I kept it as a souvenir.”

Teacher Xie was someone who, when he didn’t speak, was fine, but once he started talking, it was explosive.

Yu Wen discovered that the paper hat showed signs of having been opened, which suggested that Xie Heyu didn’t just keep it; he occasionally took it out to look at it. How should one put it… It was a case of “seeing an object brings back memories of a person.”

He fiddled with the paper hat, feeling a bit shy, and said, “Where did you put it? I often ride in your car, yet I’ve never seen it before.”

Xie Heyu replied, “I used to hide it, afraid you’d discover it.”

Yu Wen said, “…”

He didn’t dare to ask any further, fearing that Xie Heyu might come up with some nonsense again. However, it was evident that after confirming their relationship, Teacher Xie seemed a bit fearless, and then he added, “I’m not afraid anymore; I let you see it on purpose.”

“…” Yu Wen covered his face with the paper hat, his voice weak and buzzing, “Don’t say any more…”

The assistants were still there.

He was still mindful of the two assistants.

Xiao Zhou and Xiao Zhong initially tried to understand, making efforts to join the conversation. However, they soon realized it was a coded dialogue and didn’t understand a word, so they simply lowered their heads to play on their phones, their attention long gone from them.

–

As the car drove into the community, Yu Wen didn’t return to the dormitory but planned to go to Xie Heyu’s house first to grab those glasses and send a photo to Director Miao.

Since the confession mishap, Yu Wen hadn’t gone out for night runs anymore, also to avoid bumping into Xie Jialin; he couldn’t face Uncle, it was really awkward.

Xie Heyu probably knew he felt uncomfortable and repeatedly assured him that there was no one at home. Xie Jialin had gone out to play cards and wouldn’t return until around eleven or twelve.

Yu Wen relaxed and then realized that the phrase “there’s no one at home” also felt a bit strange, but he couldn’t pinpoint what was strange about it.

When they arrived at the villa, there indeed was no one at home, and all the lights were off.

Yu Wen breathed a sigh of relief, and Xie Heyu poured him some water and let him sit on the sofa to wait.

“I’ll go upstairs to get it. Do you want to come up and take a look?” Xie Heyu leaned on the staircase railing, slightly tilting his head, casually asking.

Yu Wen curled his fingers. It wasn’t really appropriate to enter someone else’s room, but this wasn’t just anyone; this was his boyfriend.

Speaking of which, he knew nothing about what kind of person Xie Heyu was in the past.

He put down the water cup, took a few steps to catch up, and took Xie Heyu’s hand, obediently saying, “I want to see, and I also want to see your wardrobe and wear your clothes.”

He meant it literally. He had been craving Xie Heyu’s well-designed, understated, and comfortable sweatshirts for a long time.

Xie Heyu raised his eyebrows slightly, watching him smile innocently, feeling shy to say the dirty thoughts that popped into his head.

Usually smart, in matters of love, he appeared to be the type who could be easily taken advantage of yet still help others count money.

Once they entered the room, Xie Heyu turned around and locked the door.

Xie Heyu’s room was as organized as he was, so neat it seemed to have obsessive-compulsive tendencies. The key was that he remembered where every little thing was. When Yu Wen casually asked about a few accessories he had seen on him before, he could accurately state which shelf and which row from the left to count which item.

Yu Wen pulled out an entire drawer and asked Xie Heyu, “Can you give me this entire drawer? My dear boyfriend.”

He even knew how to act cute, deliberately changing his title to boyfriend and adding a sweet prefix.

Xie Heyu had a lot of accessories, some bought from a small yellow car, others purchased while shopping at the mall. Some were limited editions that couldn’t be found elsewhere.

Yu Wen had a sharp eye and directly pulled out the most precious drawer.

Xie Heyu leaned against the wardrobe door, pondering, “I could, but what’s in it for me?”

“Benefits?” Yu Wen bit his lip, pondering hard, “Hmm… I’ll also give you a gift later, something very precious, okay?”

Xie Heyu shook his head, “I don’t want your big pie.”

Yu Wen was amused by his words and argued, “I didn’t paint a pie.”

Teacher Xie was exceptionally tough-hearted today; no matter what he said, he just wouldn’t agree.

Yu Wen held a drawer of treasures and detected a hint of subtlety in Xie Heyu’s continuous shaking of his head.

After hesitating for a moment, Yu Wen put the drawer down.

“Is this what you want?” He stepped closer, tugged at Xie Heyu’s collar, slightly making his boyfriend lower his head, and then lightly kissed him like a dragonfly touching the water.

Xie Heyu didn’t move.

Yu Wen confirmed it; he wanted to kiss.

He thought to himself, this cool boyfriend was really shy, unwilling to say he wanted a kiss.

But it was also quite cute; he liked it.

Yu Wen asked, “How many kisses do I need to get some beautiful accessories from you?”

Actually, one kiss would be enough, Xie Heyu thought.

But he didn’t speak. His intuition told him that as long as he kept quiet, he could get some unexpected benefits.

Sure enough, when he remained silent, Yu Wen began to talk to himself: “Kiss… how about five kisses? Is that okay? I’m not very good at this, so if you’re uncomfortable, just let me know…”

As he spoke, Teacher Xiao Yu nervously licked his lips and slowly pressed his lips against Xie Heyu’s under his deep gaze.

–

Xie Jialin was in particularly good spirits today.

He ignored his friends’ attempts to keep him at the card table and insisted on going home because he had seen his home’s “dumb gourd” on TV!

Not on TV, but on a projection. Starlight Media had released the much-anticipated “Evil-Hero” after-sales videos in the morning, three segments that had begun to trend since then, and the official “Battle Royale” account had even retweeted those Weibo posts.

Xie Jialin had a slower internet connection and only saw it that evening. While playing cards, one of his friends noticed the video, and since Xie Jialin had introduced his particularly fateful young friend Yu Wen to them, everyone paid a bit of attention when they saw relevant information about Yu Wen.

So, Xie Jialin went to take a look and realized something wasn’t quite right. Although he wasn’t familiar enough with his son to recognize him just by his silhouette, the video was shot by Starlight Media, and there were only a few people in the company. Given the body shape, the likelihood of it being Xie Heyu was quite high.

Thus, he called Xie Jiamao to confirm and received an affirmative reply. Immediately, his face lit up with joy, and he called his friends to enjoy the three clips, which together were less than three minutes long.

After being bombarded with compliments from his friends, Xie Jialin felt elated, thinking that the artistic talent of the Xie family might really be on the rise this time. His son also had some potential to become an art student.

He decided to end the card game early and went home to prepare some delicious food to encourage Xie Heyu to bravely venture into the entertainment industry.

When he entered the house, he was still discussing the matter in the family group chat. The “dumb gourd” was not responding, no matter how many times he tagged or privately messaged him.

Then Xie Jialin saw Xie Heyu’s shoes in the foyer, with another pair next to them that were a bit smaller. He didn’t pay much attention, thinking it was fine since Xie Heyu was at home; they could have a face-to-face chat and come to a heart-to-heart discussion.

He quickly went upstairs, knocked on Xie Heyu’s door, and heard a flurry of sounds inside, not knowing what was happening, only hearing the commotion.

Xie Jialin called out loudly, “Darling son, come out! Dad has rewards for you!”

After a flurry of noise, it went silent inside.

Xie Jialin called again, “Son? Darling son?! Hurry out! Is there anything you want to eat? Do you want anything for the house or pocket money?”

After waiting for about ten minutes, the door finally opened a crack. Xie Heyu’s brows and eyes were shrouded in shadow, looking indifferent.

Before Xie Jialin could speak, Xie Heyu said, “I don’t want to eat, I don’t want anything. I’m busy, don’t bother me.”

…Those short ten words left Xie Jialin speechless. He rubbed his bald head and sighed in frustration.

Raising a “dumb gourd” was really uninteresting; he wasn’t at all as fun as little Yu…

He could only say, “When you finish your work, come downstairs. Dad has something to tell you.”

Xie Heyu expressionlessly nodded. After watching Xie Jialin walk away, he closed the door and walked to the wardrobe in the corner of the wall, sliding it open to reveal a little fish with its face buried in its knees, pretending to be dead.

“…Yu Wen.” Xie Heyu called out, helplessly saying, “We’re not having an affair; why do we need to hide in the wardrobe?”

Yu Wen wouldn’t raise his head, muttering, “You said there was no one at home…”

Xie Heyu remained silent for a moment, “That was a mistake. Sorry.”

After coaxing for a while, Yu Wen finally pulled Xie Heyu’s hand and crawled out of the wardrobe, his legs still weak. Anyone who didn’t know would think they had done something terrible, but in reality, they had just kissed a bit too passionately.

He blinked, nervously asking Xie Heyu, “Is Uncle still here? If he’s not leaving, how do I get out?”

“…”

Xie Heyu paused slightly, contemplating.

“If he’s not leaving, then you can’t go out… You might as well sleep here tonight.”