FLME Ch13: Wrap-Up

Jian Heng stated that he was physically and mentally traumatized, overwhelmed, and only gossip could soothe his soul.

Yu Wen said if you want to listen to gossip, just say you want to listen to gossip; skip the long pre-cast animation.

“Then say it already,” Jian Heng urged.

Yu Wen cupped his chin and frowned in deep thought, looking like a worried little glutinous rice ball. After a long while, he mumbled, “I can’t think of anything else.”

Jian Heng was certain he was just brushing him off.

Yu Wen was pestered until he had no choice but to say, “Alright, alright, next time I hear some gossip, I’ll tell you right away, okay?”

“There’s a next time?” Jian Heng asked in surprise. “Could it be that being an actor is your side gig, and being an FBI agent is your main job?”

Yu Wen thought of the labor agreement sitting at home and pretended to be deep. “Perhaps it’s destined by fate. I just naturally have a melon-eating physique. Wherever I go, there is gossip.”

He used a very outrageous excuse, and what was even more outrageous was that Jian Heng actually believed it.

“Hello, King of Melons.” Jian Heng solemnly shook his hand. “If you attain wealth and honor, do not forget me.”

Yu Wen pouted.

Finished annoying him, Jian Heng turned and wanted to leave. Yu Wen was quick with his hands and grabbed him, “Wait, help me film a video.”

“What video? A vlog?”

Jian Heng took his phone and expertly found an angle with perfect lighting. Just as he tapped record, he saw Yu Wen take out several bottles of vitamins from his bag and pour a little from each one, the pills forming a small mountain in his palm. He faced the camera, opened his hand to show them, “Teacher Xie, I didn’t forget.”

He tossed the pills into his mouth, swallowed them down with a gulp of warm water, and at the end, proudly flashed a peace sign at the camera.

Yu Wen took the phone back. Jian Heng: “…Who is Teacher Xie?”

Yu Wen: “My assistant.”

Jian Heng leaned over for a look, saw a few lines of chat history, and fell silent.

“Aren’t you homophobic?”

Yu Wen: “Yep.”

Jian Heng opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Yu Wen: [Teacher Xie, Teacher Xie, do you think I’d look good in this hoodie?]

Yu Wen: [Copied link…]

Xie Heyu: [I have this one, you want it? I’ll bring it to you this weekend.]

Yu Wen: [That wouldn’t be good hahaha, I’ve already taken a lot of your accessories. Besides, your size probably won’t fit me, it’ll be too big.]

Xie Heyu: [You can wear it, the boyfriend style is trendy right now.]

Five minutes passed.

Xie Heyu: [I didn’t mean that I’m your boyfriend.]

Yu Wen: [Goose_laugh.jpg]

Yu Wen: [Teacher Xie, sometimes you’re really cute.]

Xie Heyu: [Mn.]

Another five minutes passed.

Xie Heyu: [Thank you.]

Jian Heng seriously analyzed this chat log and concluded: “You are not homophobic at all.”

You clearly like it to death, okay!

Yu Wen sent the video to Xie Heyu and was typing rapidly. With no time to humor Jian Heng, he casually brushed him off with a couple of “Mm-hmms.”

Yu Wen: [Today’s vitamins, got!]

Yu Wen: [I’m eating properly, don’t listen to the boss. I know health is important, I won’t slack off.]

Yu Wen: [Angry_kitten_hands_on_hips.jpg]

Xie Jiamao had ordered Xie Heyu to supervise him every day. Not only that, but the boss also frequently made surprise video calls, practically treating Yu Wen like a kindergarten baby who couldn’t take care of himself.

Yu Wen felt quite a headache.

He was just a picky eater, not suicidal. He would occasionally pinch his nose and force down a few bites, and essential things like vitamins were never skipped.

No matter how much he disliked fruit, he would still buy oranges from street stalls to eat.

Xie Heyu was a college sophomore with heavy coursework, and he often needed to do odd jobs for the startup Starlight Media. Where would he have so much energy to split his attention to watch him?

These ignorant adults!

The other party didn’t reply, presumably in class. Yu Wen switched back to his main screen and only then saw Chu Han’s last message.

[How did you know?]

Yu Wen thought that this really wasn’t something that could be easily explained in a short time.

So he answered honestly: [It sounds absurd, but when he was looking at the paternity test report, I was at the scene.]

After replying to all the messages, Jian Heng was still beside him, arms crossed, scrutinizing him up and down.

Yu Wen belatedly turned his head to look at him and asked, “Mr. Jian, is there anything else?”

Mr. Jian pushed his non-existent glasses, “There is only one truth—”

Yu Wen put on a posture of listening respectfully.

“You are gay.”

Yu Wen’s brain crashed for a second.

“Don’t go crazy here,” he said.

“Alright, alright, just a joke.” Jian Heng took off his Detective Conan persona and asked leisurely, “Is your Teacher Xie handsome?”

Yu Wen’s just-settled heart instantly grew vigilant. “Why? Our Teacher Xie is still a pure and innocent college student, don’t you dare have designs on him!”

Jian Heng: “I’m not gay…”

Yu Wen: “Who knows for sure.”

Homosexuality wasn’t rare in the entertainment circle. Since the same-sex marriage policy was implemented a few years ago, more and more artists came out. Yu Wen didn’t discriminate against homosexuals, but he felt Xie Heyu didn’t look gay, and he couldn’t bring trouble to Teacher Xie.

Jian Heng met his eyes, conceded defeat under his firm gaze, and gave up trying to communicate.

“Fine, I’ll change the question. From 1 to 10, how many points do you give your own looks?”

Yu Wen thought about it.

“Seven, I guess.”

He knew his appearance was good, but his looks didn’t grow on his own aesthetic preferences.

Jian Heng: “From 1 to 10, how many points do you give Teacher Xie?”

Yu Wen said cheerfully: “10!”

Jian Heng: “When you guys get married, can I sit at the head table?”

Yu Wen: “…”

He gained some happiness by teasing his colleague, but soon Jian Heng couldn’t be happy anymore.

The next few scenes were his hell.

[Puyang Xi carried Jiang Qiuyue’s corpse up the mountain for burial. Familiar faces appeared one after another. Those fellow disciples who used to laugh, play, fool around, and cause trouble with him had turned into cold corpses soaked in blood, like stiff sculptures outlined by oil paint and vermilion brushes, silently exuding the aura of dead objects.

The Yunxiao Sword Sect had no survivors. This was a result that could be foreseen early on.

But when this moment truly arrived, Puyang Xi still felt dizzy, the sky’s light exceptionally glaring.

In the short three months of lurking in Yunxiao Mountain, how much was true affection and how much was fake, only the Demon King himself knew.

The people who attacked the mountain began to aggressively campaign, intending to turn the entire Yunxiao Mountain upside down, digging three feet into the ground if necessary to find the holy relic. Only Puyang Xi quietly collected the corpses of his old friends, tidied their appearances, wanting to find a fengshui treasure spot on Yunxiao Mountain to bury them.]

Every time a corpse was retrieved, it was a memoir of a blunt knife cutting flesh.

The final ending was that the crowd didn’t find traces of the holy relic on Yunxiao Mountain. Puyang Xi naturally took over Yunxiao Mountain. After burying his old friends, he sent heavy troops to guard it.

A few years passed, and the holy relic remained untraceable. One saying was that the demon relic was destroyed long ago in the war between immortals and demons, and all these years had just been smoke bombs; another saying was that the Demon King had lurked in the Yunxiao Sword Sect for months and now heavily guarded Yunxiao Mountain, allowing no entry, so the relic must still be hidden there, just hard to find.

Thus, Yunxiao Mountain once again became the target of public criticism, and Puyang Xi became the new target.

By a strange combination of circumstances, he inherited the Yunxiao Sword Sect’s will, perhaps becoming the new savior.

…

Did that Seventh Shidi truly leave his sect?

Who knows.

After filming this scene, Jian Heng asked the wardrobe teacher for a three-foot white silk cloth and tossed it over a tree branch.

Yu Wen: “Teacher Jian, what are you doing?”

Teacher Jian: “Hanging myself.”

Yu Wen: “…”

Teacher Jian’s heart was like dead ashes, having no desire to live. He calmly tied a knot in the white silk, stretched his neck, and placed his head inside.

Yu Wen threw out a dramatic reaching pose: “No! Teacher Jian!”

Jian Heng said sorrowfully, “You all passed away, it’s so meaningless for me to live alone in this world. Let us meet in hell…”

Zhu Xinyi hadn’t changed out of her costume yet. She stood to the side, sucking on a popsicle while watching the two of them act out their little scene.

Yu Wen pleaded left and right, but Jian Heng refused to listen, condemning bitterly, “You only lost your life, but I lost all of you!”

Yu Wen: “No—”

The cameraman was quick-eyed and deft-handed, capturing this scene and saving it in the behind-the-scenes footage.

After filming the grand finale, Yu Wen still needed to go to the next set to film a few short snippets about his background. This was to supplement Chu Zhiyao’s bizarre koi persona.

Before being picked up by Liu Zhenzi and brought back to the sect, he had a happy and fulfilling family. Later, a severe drought hit his hometown, his relatives passed away one after another, and he became a refugee orphan.

During natural disasters, people habitually prayed to gods and Buddhas. Everyone in Chu Zhiyao’s family believed in gods and prayed daily. Unfortunately, the gods didn’t seem to deliver them from suffering and never heard their pleas.

Before she died, his grandmother held his hand and muttered, “Good grandson, good grandson, Grandma is going to die. Don’t be afraid, Grandma will protect you, protect my good grandson so that everything goes smoothly…”

His loved ones were watching over him, protecting him.

The gods did not favor mortals, but mortals had their dearest kin.

That night, Yu Wen wrapped up filming.

The director presented a bouquet of flowers. Yu Wen lingered on set, taking countless wrap-up photos. It was his first time joining a crew and his first time experiencing the charm of being an actor; for a moment, he really felt a bit reluctant to leave.

Chu Zhiyao’s character arc wasn’t fully fleshed out, but it won in its completeness. From beginning to end, including various details, it was worth savoring. Yu Wen had a lot of affection for this character. He snapped selfies and couldn’t resist posting on Weibo.

[Yu Wen: Xiao Chu, there will always be someone protecting you [Image][Image]…]

Down below, fans successively showed their support, and some asked what genre the drama was. Yu Wen picked a few to reply to, earnestly recommending it: The script is very good, everyone can look forward to it.

He hadn’t watched many dramas and wasn’t sure what the current market standard was, but for a low-budget web drama to write a core of tragedy wrapped in comedy like this, he felt it was already exceptionally good.

The wrap party was scheduled for half a month later because Jian Heng’s scenes weren’t finished yet. Next, the crew would change locations to film Puyang Xi’s scenes in the demon realm. Given that there were still scenes to shoot that night, the director didn’t let them drink, but Jian Heng still hugged Yu Wen’s leg, crying with snot and tears, “My Xiao Yu, you’re leaving me…”

Yu Wen suspected he had secretly drank, but had no evidence.