“Watching the live stream? You seem really interested.” Wen Zhenghan casually walked over.
He tossed his coat onto the back of the sofa and sat at a diagonal angle from Xiang Lingyun, his gaze fixed on him.
“Just watching casually.” Xiang Lingyun crossed his legs and lazily changed the channel.
The living room had the most cameras. He wasn’t planning on revealing anything.
Wen Zhenghan glanced at Xiang Lingyun again.
Xiang Lingyun chuckled: “Zheng Ge, what are you looking at me for? Is there something on my face?”
Seeing that Xiang Lingyun truly seemed to be watching casually, Wen Zhenghan finally let go of that inexplicable suspicion in his heart.
Chu Wei wiped sweat with a towel, got off the elliptical machine with his head down, and walked out of the gym.
He glanced at Wen Zhenghan on the sofa, holding back a surge of anger in his chest.
The moment Wen Zhenghan had stepped into the living room, he was stunned in place. Don’t think for a second he hadn’t noticed.
If Wen Zhenghan really had nothing going on with Shen Fu, why would he react so sensitively to anything related to her? Even freeze up at a live stream? What kind of fake devotion was that?
During the day, Chu Wei had gone to the company and got scolded. On the way back, he immediately told his assistant to search all the keywords of Wen Zhenghan and Shen Fu.
He found that when the show premiered, someone in the bullet comments had said Wen Zhenghan was photographed two months ago waiting at a film set for a certain female celebrity. The silhouette of the person getting into the car looked a lot like Shen Fu.
At the time, someone immediately argued back saying Chunqiu Entertainment, Shen Fu’s company, was hyping themselves and nothing of the sort happened.
But after seeing that, and connecting it with everything from the past few days, the more Chu Wei thought about it, the more uncomfortable he felt.
He thought Shen Fu didn’t care about him anymore. Turns out it was because of Wen Zhenghan!
So Shen Fu would rather get scolded to go on this show, also because of Wen Zhenghan?!
He had been so self-absorbed at first, thinking she was doing it for him. How ridiculous. The heart palpitations, the heartbeat racing, the renewed feelings, the imagined reconciliation these days, it had all been in his head.
That wasn’t even the worst part. The part that infuriated him most was: Shen Fu had already compromised herself so much, yet Wen Zhenghan was still showing lovey-dovey affection with Zuo Mei on the show, while also stringing Shen Fu along.
D*mn b*stard!
Before going on the show, Chu Wei had admired Wen Zhenghan as a senior. Now he detested him just as much, wishing he could land a couple punches on him.
Chu Wei threw down the towel, strode over, and grabbed the wine on the coffee table, drinking a large gulp.
Xiang Lingyun: “……That’s my wine.”
Chu Wei wasn’t good at drinking. Taking such a big gulp made his face flush instantly.
He used the surge in his stomach as fuel and said to Wen Zhenghan, coldly: “Zheng Ge, why did you come back so early, did the commercial get canceled?”
Wen Zhenghan heard the provocation in his words and said lightly: “Little Chu really knows how to joke, so is this the part where I’m supposed to laugh?”
Chu Wei sneered: “Laugh or not, the mouth is on your face. Just like legs grow on your butt, no one can stop you from doing the splits.”
Wen Zhenghan: “……”
Even Xiang Lingyun, who considered himself someone with a bad temper and sharp tongue in the industry, couldn’t help but look up at Chu Wei in shock.
Was he insane?
The camera was still live-streaming.
Wen Zhenghan frowned: “Chu Wei, are you drunk?”
Chu Wei said: “Zheng Ge, didn’t the show require you to make up for yesterday’s hand-holding time? You came back so early today, it must be because you wanted to continue holding hands with Mei Jie as soon as possible, right? Gu and I wore mascot costumes the entire day. We were exhausted.”
Wen Zhenghan’s tone cooled: “Exhausted but still worked out? Little Chu is really quite dedicated.”
Chu Wei spread his hands: “No choice. We young people have lots of energy. Unlike some people who came to the show for days and never worked out once. Can’t handle it?”
Wen Zhenghan’s darkening expression was nearly out of control. He said coldly: “Idols eat youth for a living. Actors don’t reach their career peak until their thirties.”
Chu Wei: “Her acting is quite good, you know?”
Wen Zhenghan: “The younger generation is to be feared.”
Chu Wei enunciated each word: “Heh. Heh.”
Wen Zhenghan: “……”
“……”
Xiang Lingyun suddenly felt that sitting with one leg crossed was inappropriate in this atmosphere and quietly lowered his leg.
The kid had really lost his mind.
The barrage was stunned: 【……】
Although many previous dating shows with amateurs had had fights, this time, other than Shen Fu, everyone participating was a big name with status. They thought the whole show would continue being as harmonious as the past few days until it ended.
But they never expected the gunpowder to explode this suddenly!
They originally thought that if there were open or hidden fights, they would appear first among the female guests.
But it was the male guests who started fighting!
【Holy cr*p, is Chu Wei drunk?!】
【He even said in interviews before that Wen Zhenghan was someone he respected in the industry. Now he’s dropping the fan persona and stepping on him?】
【But what’s the reason?】
【There’s never been any rumor of conflict between him and the Film Emperor.】
All of Chu Wei’s fans were scared stiff.
Was their Gege triggered by last night’s incident created by antis, and lost control of his emotions?
D*mn it, his “polite, respectful junior idol” persona had completely collapsed.
The die-hard fans in the group chat were panicking like ants on a hot pan: “D*mn it, he’s definitely hitting the trending searches tonight. Why isn’t the club president here at such a critical time? Hurry up and contact the company’s crisis PR. I’m going to cry.”
“But to be fair… my Gege seems more attractive like this…”
“Your head is attractive. Didn’t you see that our eighty-three fan groups dropped to seventy-six?”
The camera crew in the corner of the living room trembled three times, looked at the director, and whispered: “Should we pause the livestream?”
“Pause my *ss. Keep filming.” The director looked ecstatic.
Sure enough, within five minutes, the viewership skyrocketed and the trending list was hit instantly.
The cameras were all pointed at the guests, none at the TV, so the audience had no idea what Xiang Lingyun had been watching earlier. They were completely clueless about the cause of the sudden fight between Chu Wei and Wen Zhenghan.
Only Xiang Lingyun, who sat watching the drama, guessed some of it.
Chu Wei said “her” just now?
Chu Wei was Shen Fu’s ex-boyfriend from three years ago. His recent behavior also seemed like he wanted to reconcile, but unfortunately Shen Fu had been cold to him the whole time.
He was provoking Wen Zhenghan now because he thought Shen Fu had something going on with Wen Zhenghan?
Xiang Lingyun held his wine glass, his expression momentarily complicated.
Chu Wei might have misunderstood everything. Shen Fu probably wasn’t here for Wen Zhenghan at all, they didn’t even know each other before.
He had blamed the wrong person.
And the one he should really be causing trouble for was sitting right in front of him and Wen Zhenghan, himself.
For a moment, Xiang Lingyun felt like he was viewing everything from God’s perspective, watching the two men in front of him bristle with hostility. It was both ridiculous and funny.
He also felt a faint sense of superiority, “the big boss is actually me.”
But since he hadn’t planned on letting anyone know about his past with Shen Fu in the first place, now he had to be even more careful.
It was just a reality show. He didn’t want a dog biting him.
He never expected that the usually gentle and simple-looking Chu Wei could be this ruthless once he went crazy.
Gu Qingshuang and Zuo Mei were on the terrace arranging flowers. They noticed the subtle tension among the three men.
Zuo Mei: “What happened?”
Gu Qingshuang shook her head: “No idea, but Zheng Ge came back.”
She leaned closer to Zuo Mei and whispered: “Should I call him over for you?”
Zuo Mei didn’t say yes or no. She only smiled.
Gu Qingshuang immediately smiled and stood up. She walked through the glass door into the living room: “We brewed some tea, would you like some? Gentlemen?”
No one answered.
Gu Qingshuang: “……”
Seeing the tension between Wen Zhenghan and Chu Wei, and Xiang Lingyun lounging on the sofa looking unbothered and uninvolved, Gu Qingshuang walked over and poked Xiang Lingyun’s back: “What’s wrong with them? Do you want to come over and drink tea?”
Xiang Lingyun didn’t even turn his head: “You go.”
Busy watching the drama, do not disturb.
Gu Qingshuang: “……”
She returned, looking defeated.
Zuo Mei placed an acacia branch into the vase: “Why didn’t anyone come over?”
Gu Qingshuang didn’t want to admit she went over and accomplished nothing, so she said: “I don’t know. They seem to have something important to discuss.”
Meanwhile, Shen Fu had just walked out of the studio.
The bearded mentor toyed with his scoring pen on the swivel chair. After hesitating, he said something to the female mentor beside him and quickly chased after her.
The bearded mentor was named Gong Kuan. Besides being a mentor, he was also an experienced actor and director.
In his thirties and forties, he won the Golden Horse for Best Supporting Actor, but because he did indeed look a bit rough, no matter how well he acted he could never become a leading man, so he switched careers and became a director.
After becoming a director, things went very smoothly.
He wasn’t pretentious either. Unlike those so-called highbrow art-film directors who insisted on shooting things no one could understand, he followed the Hollywood Snyder blockbuster system and specialized in commercial films.
Maybe it was a matter of expertise. In the recent years, he had actually made two box-office hits that ranked in the domestic top ten!
He earned quite a lot of money and was considered a capital bigshot now.
So in the industry, everyone still had to respectfully call him “Director Gong,” which was also the reason he dared to be so sharp-tongued.
His new film was in preparation. He planned to create a domestic cyberpunk mythological hero universe. This was a genre that had never appeared in the domestic film industry before. Because the investment was huge and the outcome unpredictable, many filmmakers didn’t dare to touch it.
But Gong Kuan was going to be the first crab-eater.
There was a very ruthless female villain in it who might run through the entire cinematic universe and would require signing a long-term contract for several years.
He had never found anyone satisfactory.
The more well-known actresses hesitated when they heard they had to sign for several years, and they even questioned the character setting.
The less famous ones mostly had terrible acting.
Right now he lacked a beautiful, voluptuous, obedient actress who wouldn’t point fingers at the script, and would film whatever he gave her to film.
And wasn’t this just perfect?
Shen Fu came right to his door.
Gong Kuan caught up.
Shen Fu stopped walking, confused, and asked, “Teacher Gong, what is it?”
Gong Kuan looked her over from head to toe, then folded his arms and asked, “Your performance today was quite good.”
Shen Fu thought for a moment. “I acted as myself.”
Gong Tao: “……”
Gong Tao almost choked. He worked hard to understand what she meant and asked, “Have you practiced before?”
Sort of.
Shen Fu nodded. “Mm.”
She had practiced even this kind of topic?
Gong Tao’s expression toward her instantly changed.
After the variety show Drama Like the Galaxy flopped, the planning team racked their brains to raise the show’s popularity, so the topics they gave contestants were almost all cliché plotlines.
It was like the difference between elegant, sophisticated art that no one paid attention to, and folksy entertainment that drew huge crowds. Many Weibo viewers didn’t like watching profound things. They preferred silly, dog-blood melodrama.
The more cliché, the more discussion.
If lucky, it might even end up on the hot search.
But film academies taught their students almost entirely high-brow scenes.
As a result, many actors who graduated from film schools were full of themselves. They looked down on commercial films and cheesy idol dramas, but still went off to shoot cash-grab projects.
So actors from film academies almost never treated these basic dog-blood plotlines as practice material.
But Shen Fu had.
She had even treated these trashy topics seriously.
“How many times have you practiced?” Gong Kuan asked again.
Shen Fu couldn’t possibly count. She thought about it. “Three years.”
“Three years?”
Gong Kuan almost raised his voice.
He had been mocked by art-film directors for a long time for making movies for the “lower-tier market.” He’d always wanted to prove that no matter what form culture took, as long as it entertained people, it was good culture, there was no high or low.
And he never expected Shen Fu to be even more open-minded about this than he was.
She could calmly say she practiced dog-blood scenes for three years.
This was truly acknowledging that art had no hierarchy.
A kindred spirit.
“Do you want to come act in my film?” Gong Kuan suddenly grabbed Shen Fu’s hand excitedly.
Shen Fu was still dazed from spacing out. “Huh?”
The audience in the studio saw that after Gong Kuan chased her out, he never came back, and they had no idea what was happening.
Even when the next guest came in for guidance, he still hadn’t returned.
【What’s going on? Did Director Gong chase her out to scold her? His temper is rumored to be explosive.】
【Yeah, he was nitpicking the moment she came in. If she performed well, he probably lost face.】
【It’s over, is Meimei okay?】
Now that she had gained a tiny bit more fans, Shen Fu finally had a nickname.
Before, whenever Shen Fu appeared in a program, her fans calling her “Shen Fu Meimei” always got mocked by other fandoms, saying Shen Fu’s fans had no shame and even stole nicknames.
Even the bright yellow support color chosen by her fanclub was attacked once and had to be changed to an inconspicuous dark purple.
Rong Xiaozhen and a few veteran fans in the group sniffled.
It had been an incredibly hard road.
Now they were only at the beginning and needed to work even harder.
Their current humble wish was: when Shen Fu’s situation got better and better, they could reclaim her original support color!
At 10 p.m., Chu Wei and Wen Zhenghan made the hot search.
The entire Limited-Time Heartbeat cast made the hot search.
Ever since the show began airing, it dominated major entertainment ranking lists and frequently hit the hot search with topics like “Wen Zhenghan’s suitcase,” “D’s sunglasses,” “Chu Wei & Shen Fu,” and so on.
The public was used to it.
But no one expected today’s hot search to be interesting.
Two big stars like these were actually fighting!
Both fandoms were in chaos, making threads everywhere.
What the public cared most about was the reason they suddenly fell out. Because of that, the program’s ratings reached an unprecedented peak.
Shen Fu was also dragged onto the hot search.
Rong Xiaozhen mobilized the fans, Liang Xiaochun mobilized the hired posters, and they took the chance to promote today’s highlight video of Shen Fu’s outstanding acting.
“Looking at it this way, Shen Fu’s acting is really not bad. The sense of immersion is so strong.”
“D*mn, I hate Shen Fu, but I actually watched all three minutes without dragging even once. I’m dirty now (crying).”
Some people raised doubts, “She knew the prompt beforehand, right? How else could she act so smoothly?”
This kind of comment didn’t stir up any waves and was quickly extinguished.
And it wasn’t Shen Fu’s fans painstakingly extinguishing it.
Rather, Gong Kuan posted a Weibo that night, and the rumor immediately collapsed on its own.
“Looking forward to working together @Shen Fu”
【Wtf wtf what is this???】
The《Limited Time Heartbeat》live chat was still discussing the afternoon’s incident one second, and suddenly all the topics shifted to Shen Fu.
【Go check Gong Kuan’s Weibo, what does he mean?】
【Working with Shen Fu? D*mn, don’t tell me it’s the cyberpunk universe he mentioned in earlier interviews. That’s the pie I’m feeding my idol with! Don’t tell me it fell onto Shen Fu’s head! I’m breaking apart, brothers and sisters.】
【I watched Shen Fu’s “Drama as the Galaxy” performance this afternoon. It was indeed very good. Gong Kuan was criticizing her at the start, then chased after her, and after that, no one knows what happened. I’m dying of laughter. Did I witness a real-life Wang Jingze “true fragrance” reversal?】
Hundreds of messages instantly flooded Shen Fu’s fan group: “Is this real? Did someone hack Gong Kuan’s account?”
“Ahhhh group leader go ask Chunqiu Entertainment quickly, my hands are shaking.”
New fans started asking whether Gong Kuan was some big director.
“He’s not an art-house famous director, but he makes a lot of money. He’s the type that the film circle looks down on, but audiences love. He’s very good at grasping the audience’s G-spot. If she can act in his film, at least her popularity will increase by several levels.”
Liang Xiaochun was also taking calls until her hands went numb.
When Shen Fu called her at dusk, she immediately went to meet Gong Kuan.
She just didn’t expect Gong Kuan to be so impatient, actually posting on Weibo.
Because he doesn’t look good and loves taking selfies, he barely has any followers, but Shen Fu is now a guest on《Limited Time Heartbeat》. Anything that stirs the wind will instantly hit the trending list.
“Liang Jie, quick quick quick, CCSC is calling. Last time they rejected our request to be on the cover, but just now they called several times in a row.” The assistant hurriedly handed Liang Xiaochun the landline that had been forwarded to her.
Liang Xiaochun stood up, stretched out her hand, and hung up the call.
The assistant was stunned for a second.
“They ignored us before. Now they can’t afford to reach that high.” Liang Xiaochun said with disdain: “A tier-three magazine also wants our Shen Fu to shoot their cover?”
The assistant almost laughed but held it in: “Jie, you’re floating.”
Shen Fu left the villa the same way she returned to the villa.
She took off her shoes, changed into slippers at the entrance, and walked back into the living room. Zuo Mei was sitting on the sofa. When she heard movement behind her, she couldn’t help turning around to look.
How did Shen Fu have such good luck?
She really made it onto the trending list, but in a completely unexpected way.
Her gaze was too obvious. Shen Fu couldn’t ignore it, so she looked back at her: ?
The cameras were still rolling. Aren’t you afraid of being scolded, not pulling back those arrows in your eyes?
Zuo Mei: “……”
She hated most that Shen Fu always had this look, like she didn’t like talking, yet somehow said everything.
Using four ounces to move a thousand pounds. Whenever the spearhead pointed at her, Shen Fu always dodged like a pro.
Xu Tiaotiao ate cherries, glanced at Zuo Mei, and gleefully stirred the pot: “Shen Fu is back. We need to celebrate you today. Mei Jie, is it your turn to cook dinner? Make some seafood Shen Fu loves.”
Zuo Mei: “……”
Seafood. Don’t mention seafood in front of her!
Author’s Note:
Some readers asked about the plot involving the three men in the last chapter.
It was mentioned earlier, around chapter four.
First year Chu Wei: Shen Fu brought him resources, but when their relationship was exposed, he had no backbone and chose to avoid her. (While Shen Fu was deeply affectionate yet also successfully escaping.)
Second year Xiang Lingyun: He liked gentle, weak clingy types. Shen Fu acted that way. He found it boring and suggested breaking up. (Shen Fu cried with misty eyes yet also successfully escaped.)
Third year Wen Zhenghan: Stand-in trope. They broke up because of Zuo Mei and the variety show incident. (Shen Fu was extremely jealous yet also successfully escaped.)
Shen Fu: plan complete
As for the “wrong route capture” mentioned (chapter 10 Shen Fu’s internal complaint), our male No.5 hasn’t appeared yet.
