Chapter 25

She stepped back and looked up, chestnut curls, big eyes.
“Shen Xingzhou, what are you doing here? If you’re looking for me, why didn’t you knock… Wait. Shen Xingzhou, how long have you been standing here?”
“You didn’t… wait out here the whole time since I got back, did you?” Wen Jiu’s almond eyes widened, pupils dilating as she blurted out her suspicion.
The hallway’s air conditioning blew through Shen Xingzhou’s hair, tossing the ends of his soft chestnut curls. With the light behind him, his fair, clean features were mostly in shadow, making his usually clear eyes look darker, harder to read.
Just as Wen Jiu tilted her head to try and see his expression more clearly, a faint flush bled into the corners of his eyes, spreading wider and wider.
Then a single teardrop fell, landing on the back of Wen Jiu’s hand.
It wasn’t hot, just faintly warm, but that one tear threw Wen Jiu completely off balance.
Something rippled through her chest, tingling and numb, halfway between heartache and… something else.
She hurriedly tugged Shen Xingzhou into her room and slammed the door shut behind them with a loud bang.
The tissue box was sitting right there on the table, normally easy to find. But with her hands all flustered and her eyes darting around, Wen Jiu somehow couldn’t spot it at all.
“Older Sister, do you… not like me?”
Shen Xingzhou wrapped his arms around her as she was still looking around, lost.
He was much taller than she was. When he hugged her and bent down, his head rested in the hollow of her shoulder. He rubbed against her once, like an oversized dog begging for affection.
His voice was thick with tears, that pear-blossoms-in-the-rain kind of crying, so beautiful it was impossible to put into words.
The little deer in Wen Jiu’s chest was slamming around wildly. She couldn’t bring herself to push Shen Xingzhou away.
“No, I… how could I not like you?” She still hadn’t realized what exactly was wrong here.
Shen Xingzhou muttered, aggrieved, “Older sister said you’d give me an answer when you got back, but you came back, shut the door, and never came to find me.”
Wen Jiu: !!!
Her memory finally snapped into focus, right, she’d kind of… been confessed to today.
She didn’t keep dodging it. Instead, she suddenly reversed the situation, pushing the beautiful boy back against the door, rising onto her toes and leaning in.
Being short was truly a lifelong curse. Wen Jiu’s 165 cm wasn’t exactly tiny, but Shen Xingzhou was 185, and looked like he might still grow taller.
Standing on tiptoe was exhausting and shook every trace of “romantic atmosphere” right out of her head.
Dinner time had long passed. Keeping to a regular meal schedule meant Wen Jiu was starving.
So she simply leaned in and took a quick bite of Shen Xingzhou’s lips.
No flavor. Just a soft, jelly-like bounce.
She rocked back on her heels, but her hands still hadn’t let go of his shirt hem.
Her apricot eyes slid left, then right, utterly awkward.
Their gazes met. Wen Jiu tried to look away, but Shen Xingzhou’s eyes chased hers, following wherever she fled.
She’d been the one to initiate, yet she was the one blushing red.
Wen Jiu felt like even her breath was smoking hot. Her head buzzed like it was about to explode.
Worst of all, she actually started savoring the sensation from just now.
The texture.
Oh. My. God.
What on earth was she thinking?
“E-eat. Let’s go eat.” She shoved Shen Xingzhou aside, yanked the door open.
Just before she stepped out, she instinctively glanced back, first at his clothes, then at her own.
Good. Everything was intact. Nothing about them said “something happened.”
“Jiujiu, we’re boyfriend and girlfriend now.”
Shen Xingzhou only needed one step to catch up with her two. His hand slid down and covered hers, his long fingers wrapping her entire hand into his palm. His way of addressing her had changed yet again.
Heat rushed back up Wen Jiu’s face in a whoosh, this time setting her ears blazing.
“Mm.” She pursed her lips, the answer so soft it was almost inaudible.
But Shen Xingzhou heard it. His mood shot through the roof.
Like a moon breaking free of the clouds, he seemed to glow all over.
He wiped the tear tracks from his own face, then stayed close at her side, not letting her walk alone.
He’d imagined so much, he wanted to take Wen Jiu out immediately for something delicious.
This unexpected confession and its equally unexpected success left everything feeling just a little unreal to him.
Then he suddenly paused, dropping the idea of dragging her out.
Jiujiu had been working all day. He shouldn’t insist on being romantic at her expense. She still had to work tomorrow…
Shen Xingzhou quickly came up with a better plan.
Wen Jiu, meanwhile, was a mess of fluttering nerves. The red in her ears never really faded, and she couldn’t think about anything else.
She took a bite of food and thought of that bite she’d just taken.
She sipped some soup and thought of how that one nibble had been like biting into cotton candy.
Look down: ordinary food.
Close her eyes: Shen Xingzhou’s lips right in front of her.
AAAAHHHHHHH!!!
AAAAHHHHHHH!!!
How was this happening?
On the way back, Wen Jiu actually managed to walk left hand–left foot, right hand–right foot for a couple of steps, and Shen Xingzhou gently reached out to steady her.
She floated through the whole evening in a daze, going to sleep with a silly grin on her face.
So shy.
So happy.

 
Chapter 25

“President Cao, this is our company’s Wen Ling. As you know, she only managed to get the female lead in The Pearl Chronicle because she has a connection with Film Emperor Ji.”
“I can’t say more, confidentiality, you understand.”
“President Cao, do you remember the Ji family banquet the night before Film Emperor Ji announced he was returning to the family business? Wen Ling went that night too. She only came back the afternoon after.”
Inside the private room, Wen Ling’s agent was negotiating opportunities for her.
President Cao sat there on the sofa, his heavy body sagging, cigarette in hand. Smoke curled around his greasy face, making it loom vaguely in and out of focus.
Wen Ling found the sight absolutely repulsive. After a couple of glances, she didn’t even want to eat anymore.
Luckily, she’d already borrowed Ji Yanting’s name. Even though she didn’t have his personal protection like in her dream, leveraging his supposed “connection” had still helped her enough that she didn’t have to fawn over men like President Cao.
The air-conditioning in the room was cranked high, but all she could smell was smoke, thick, choking.
If The Pearl Chronicle didn’t need a full year of post-production and promotion after filming, if she didn’t need the exposure, she wouldn’t have come to this dinner at all.
President Cao’s thick, greasy hand started to reach toward Wen Ling, but after he heard what her agent said, his fake smile stiffened, and he pulled back.
“Filming for The Pearl Chronicle will take another three months. If her schedule is open then, I’ll naturally reserve her a spot for one of my shows.”
President Cao wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t about to be led around by a couple of vague lines.
Ever since Ji Yanting returned to the Ji family, it had been impossible to dig up any real news about him. Whether Wen Ling had truly landed The Pearl Chronicle’s lead through him was still very questionable. He couldn’t outright deny it, but he wasn’t about to blindly believe it either.
Three months. If there really was something there, Ji Yanting was bound to visit the set. Then he’d sniff around again.
Wen Ling’s agent felt his smile twitch, but there was still room to negotiate.
An hour later, Wen Ling and her agent left.
Two people stepped into the small elevator space, both looking polished and glamorous, but trailing the stale smell of smoke behind them like a cloud.
Once President Cao and the others were gone, the smile on Wen Ling’s face instantly vanished, replaced with unmasked disgust. She pinched the fabric of her dress between her fingers, fighting the urge to rip it off right there.
The stench of alcohol and cigarettes, no matter how expensive the brand, became pure filth on men like that.
Once again, Wen Ling thought of her beautiful dream.
If only Ji Yanting could be with her the way he had been there.
Yue Ling should have been her stepping stone.
The heels of her shoes were killing her, every step biting into her skin, but she hardly noticed. Her bitterness surged in waves, like a tide of hatred roaring in to drown what had once been a calm, clean shore.
“Wen Ling, when are you getting Film Emperor Ji to visit the set? Even if he doesn’t want to show his face, you at least follow him back. He has to give some sign, right? If you don’t get him to say something to President Cao and the others, it’ll be hard to secure your future roles.”
When Wen Ling had first told her agent about “her relationship” with Ji Yanting, she’d been deliberately vague. Her agent, who would do anything for money, didn’t think she was Ji Yanting’s girlfriend, he just assumed she was being kept.
He didn’t particularly care which it was. In this circle, as long as you could link yourself to Ji Yanting, you’d never be short on jobs.
That female lead in The Pearl Chronicle had been secured exactly that way.
Because Wen Ling never told him the full truth, her agent firmly believed she’d already slept with Ji Yanting. Once people decide something is true, their words become more convincing. That was how he’d talked the drama’s producer into it.
Wen Ling’s gaze flickered. She wasn’t guilty, just irritable.
What would it take for Ji Yanting to actually visit the set?
Yue Ling. Right, there was still Yue Ling.
Wen Jiu had thought Wen Ling had finally settled down to stop making trouble and focus on filming, but clearly she’d been too quick to relax.
“Wen Jiu, have you heard?” someone whispered.
“Heard what?”
People could easily spend over ten hours a day on set. Busy or not, gossip was always swirling around.
Wen Jiu was sitting in a corner when one of the crew grabbed her to chat.
Shade was hard to come by; if you managed to snag a spot to rest, you had to make the most of it. Playing on your phone was secondary, gossip was the real priority.
“Our female lead, Wen Ling… she’s actually Film Emperor Ji’s girlfriend.”
“What?” Wen Jiu instantly scooted closer and handed the crew member a chilled bottle of water.
The guest star sitting nearby, who’d just finished his 3,000-yuan-a-day scenes and come over to rest, leaned in as well.
“Film Emperor Ji’s girlfriend? She’s going to skyrocket then,” the guest star said, delighted to find a hot melon waiting for him after work.
The crew member waved a hand, then lowered their voice conspiratorially. “Girlfriend, lover, who knows what’s real. You all know how this circle works. Mutual consent is all that matters. But if she can get a female lead as an eighteenth-tier actress, she obviously has some kind of connection.”
Wen Jiu couldn’t figure out what Wen Ling was trying to pull this time.
She’d already gone off-script from the original novel in her relationship with Ji Yanting, yet she still insisted on tying herself to him.
Was she hoping that if rumors spread long enough, the male lead and female lead really would end up together?
Shen Xingzhou came back with water and, the moment he spotted Wen Jiu, his youthful, handsome face lit up with a bright, sunny smile.
He handed her a bottle. It was their first official day as a couple; he was a little shy, but he also couldn’t stop trying to inch closer.
Unfortunately, while Wen Jiu was working, romance wasn’t even a blip on her radar.
She pattered his arm. “Shen Xingzhou, give me your phone.”
Shen Xingzhou didn’t hesitate for even a second, placing his phone straight into her hand.
According to the internet: if your girlfriend wants to check your phone, it means she truly cares about you. Otherwise, why would she be checking your phone instead of some random stranger’s, or a normal friend’s?
He was different.
Wen Jiu kept her head down, totally missing the way his eyes sparkled with little starlights of anticipation.
She opened WeChat and scrolled until she found Ji Yanting.
As Shen Xingzhou’s eldest cousin, his contact info was definitely there.
“Can I just message him directly?” she asked, pointing at the screen.
The moment Shen Xingzhou saw the three characters “Ji Yanting,” his brows and lashes drooped.
So it wasn’t about him at all. She wasn’t going through his phone for him, she was doing it for Yue Ling.
Shen Xingzhou’s voice dropped a little, tinged with disappointment. “You can.”
But when he saw what Wen Jiu actually typed and sent, his brows lifted again, all his earlier dejection sweeping away.
Using Shen Xingzhou’s phone, Wen Jiu wrote to Ji Yanting:
[Hello, Cousin. I’m Shen Xingzhou’s girlfriend, Wen Jiu, and I’m also Sister Yue Ling’s assistant. The three of us are currently on the set of The Pearl Chronicle.
Lately, there’s been talk in the crew that the female lead Wen Ling is your girlfriend. I don’t know whether that’s true or not. As Sister Yue Ling’s assistant, I know what your relationship with her is, so I wanted to verify it with you.]
Shen Xingzhou didn’t care about the rest of the message. All he saw were the words: “Shen Xingzhou’s girlfriend.”
Mm.
If his cousin didn’t reply within three minutes, he’d just call and ask for her.
When Wen Jiu turned back, she ran into Shen Xingzhou’s shining eyes.
They were both squatting. Wen Jiu straightened up and, as she did, bent at the waist and brushed a quick kiss over his lips, fast as lightning, light as a feather.
“Time to work. We have to protect Sister Yue properly; we can’t let rumors hurt her. When I get off work, I’ll come find you. I won’t forget.”
Wen Jiu’s voice wasn’t that classic, soft Wu dialect tone like Lan Mingyan’s, nor was it the refined, gentle elegance of a noble lady like Yue Ling. Her voice was like the very first rainfall of spring, fine and soft, with a faint sweetness. When it fell, it carried that fresh, green scent that only belonged to springtime.
A little patch beneath Shen Xingzhou’s ear quietly flushed red.
He nodded, his dark eyes suddenly turning soft and dewy as he gazed at her. “Mm.”
He kept staring at Wen Jiu’s retreating back as she went off to work, unable to look away for a long time.
The guest star and crew standing nearby: …
Wen Jiu hadn’t taken Shen Xingzhou’s phone with her, so she didn’t see Ji Yanting’s reply.
The whole morning passed in a blur of work, and the afternoon was just as packed.
Today’s shooting schedule was intense, with a lot of actors on set.
In The Pearl Chronicle, there was no empress. Yue Ling’s noble consort was the highest-ranked woman in the imperial harem. According to the setting, the concubines had to come pay their respects every so often.
The director packed all those “morning greetings” scenes into a single day and demanded they get it done without mistakes.
Renting that location cost fifty thousand a day. With a crowd of concubines crammed into the frame, plus the third and fourth female leads and all the guest actresses, the day’s miscellaneous costs stacked up fast.
The tighter the schedule, the higher the pressure.
They only got a short thirty-minute break at noon. After resting in the nanny van, Wen Jiu followed Yue Ling back out.
In this kind of heat, only someone as naturally composed as her Young Lady could keep her mood steady and her forehead mostly dry. Just walking next to her was enough to calm Wen Jiu’s heart.
Makeup artists touched up faces, stylists fixed hair, and the entire set fired back up under the blazing forty-degree sun.
The courtyard was wide but windless, thronged with people. Inside the main hall where the paying-respects scene was filmed, more than thirty people were crammed together. Even the staff were forced to shrink back into corners.
The windows were open, but the air didn’t move. It was a sealed, scorching heat, the temperature soaring straight past forty-three degrees.
Wen Jiu hurriedly slapped two layers of cooling herbal patches onto Yue Ling and tied several icy silk bands around her arms.
Her Young Lady really was heat resistant, a born actress.
Wen Jiu, on the other hand, was dying. Even with the fan on her, sweat still ran down her back.
Shen Xingzhou came over with iced water and some kind of cold pack he’d gotten from who-knew-where, pressing it to the back of her neck and making her feel instantly better.
Wen Jiu didn’t know how hard acting actually was, but she was sure this kind of work suited only people with insane stamina.
After several takes, and with everyone racing the clock, no one was allowed to flub lines, miss a mark, or lose their expressions.
Most of the actors were just workers, they wanted to finish early and go home. But there were always a few desperate to get screen time. Even in this suffocating heat and high-pressure atmosphere, they still fought for positions in frame, stealing shots without missing a single line or reaction.
Wen Jiu’s eyes were opened. As she fanned herself, she very kindly fanned Shen Xingzhou too.
He was caught off guard and lit up like a starry sky.
When the director finally called cut, the noise rose again across the set.
Voices boomed everywhere. Wen Jiu ran over to fan Yue Ling, her ears buzzing from all the sound.
In her left ear, someone shouted, “Film Emperor Ji is here to visit the set!”
In her right ear, someone said, “I just scrolled past a video of Film Emperor Ji, man, he’s so handsome.”
Ji Yanting, as the brightest star in the industry, did his reputation justice. Even during breaks, scrolling through random videos, his name still popped up.
Wen Jiu had heard “Ji Yanting” and “Film Emperor Ji” so many times she’d developed immunity; the words went in one ear and out the other.
After a while, the director stood up and led a group of people out. His booming voice carried back over the crowd. “Film Emperor Ji, what an honor! Welcome, welcome!”
Wen Jiu: ?!
Huh? He really came?