Chapter 19

Chapter 19: Cold Shower, Hands on Him Nan Shu's nape inexplicably turned cold, her palms sweating from nervousness, but she still forced herself to stay calm. Since she had chosen to play dead, there was no logic in suddenly coming back to life halfway. She said, "Yes." Xie Zeyan said nothing more, pulling at his lips with a self-deprecating smile. After things ended last night, she had simply dusted off her hands and walked into her room without looking back, leaving him alone in the bathroom to take a cold shower for half an hour. If it had been Liang Xubai who brought her home, would she have done the same? He didn't dare to think about it—she seemed to have no guard up against people at all. Afraid she might wake up feeling unwell this morning, he had canceled the meeting at the group headquarters. Yet while he was still in the kitchen brewing honey water, he saw her fleeing the house like she was escaping a disaster, without leaving so much as a single message. Now she was back, pretending to have forgotten what happened yesterday, desperately wanting to wipe the slate clean. Was she really that afraid of having any kind of connection with him? • In early October, the weather turned cool, and the leaves on Wutong Avenue began to yellow. Nan Shu reluctantly ended her month-long slacking period. Just before joining the production team, she finished drawing the final chapters of her comic After Renting with the Arrogant School Heartthrob, and even cooked up a few extra steamy scenes along the way. The readers were thoroughly fed. 【AHHHH I knew that guy was scheming all along!】 【I thought it was a one-sided crush, but it turned out to be mutual!】 【Looking for pure love in a pink comic, wuwuwu these little lovebirds I'm literally crying】 ... When she first started conceptualizing this comic, Nan Shu had set it up as the female lead's crush coming true. But as she got deeper into the creation, the characters seemed to develop a will of their own, and she changed the one-sided crush into a mutual one. Or perhaps, she had a bit of selfishness in it. In reality, examples of "the person I like happens to like me too" were too rare, and she selfishly wanted the comic world to have a perfect ending. A reader asked Nan Shu in the group when her next comic would start. Nan Shu's production period this time was over a month, and she could just brainstorm her new comic during the boring moments on set. Surnamed Nan Not Called Guagua: 【Wait two months for me! Next one's going to be an Oreo cookie for everyone to devour!】 The comment section was as lively as a team-building event, with everyone telling Nan Shu she absolutely had to go down the wrong path. The day she joined the production team happened to be a weekend, and Xie Zeyan was home too, sitting on the sofa handling work, his laptop keyboard clacking away. Nan Shu dragged her suitcase out of her room. Huituichang seemed to sense something, blocking Nan Shu's feet to stop her from leaving, a whimpering sound coming from its throat. Nan Shu was already reluctant to part with Huituichang, and seeing it like this made her feel even worse. She picked up Huituichang and took a deep sniff of its face. "Mommy's going to go make money, okay? When I make money, I'll buy Huituichang lots and lots of dog food, and I'll buy a big house for Huituichang to live in." Xie Zeyan's hand paused on the keyboard. He glanced at Nan Shu, letting out a light snort inwardly. She'd always been thinking about moving out. After comforting Huituichang, Nan Shu walked over to the coffee table and picked up Guagua. A couple of days ago, Xie Zeyan had updated Guagua's system with quite a few new technologies. Guagua could now connect to the internet for deep thinking, and could even take voice commands to chat with people. After Nan Shu discovered this, she had Guagua roleplay as a gentle guiding husband, a possessive obsessive stepbrother, and a domineering controlling older man. She was still considering whether to add a "green tea puppy" command when Xie Zeyan took Guagua away with a cold face. "Its battery is going to burn out." The next day, when she wanted to play with it again, the feature was already gone. Nan Shu debated whether to bring Guagua to the production team. After thinking it over, she decided against it. The shooting schedule this time was heavy, and the script was a brand new challenge for her. She was afraid she'd be too busy to even take care of herself. She put Guagua back on the coffee table, shifted her gaze, and it finally landed on the man in front of her. Xie Zeyan was wearing a pair of thin-framed glasses, his expression indifferent, as if he hadn't noticed at all that she was about to leave for a business trip. Actually, since that day, Nan Shu could vaguely sense that Xie Zeyan was angry with her. Although he still acted as usual, walking Huituichang every day, and his tone of voice showed nothing out of the ordinary. Thinking about it, it made sense. Even though she had been drunk that day, running her hands all over Xie Zeyan was still very offensive. After all, the two of them were just ordinary friends—or at most, if you wanted to be more intimate about it, roommates. When they first moved in together, she had still harbored a bit of hope—maybe something would happen between them. But it seemed she had messed everything up. Nan Shu pursed her lips bitterly, suppressing the slight swelling in her chest, and dragged her suitcase toward the entryway. Her steps were slow. Just as she reached the door, a tall, lean figure pressed in heavily from behind, and a hand with well-defined knuckles took her suitcase. "I'll walk you down." Nan Shu let out a soft "Mm." The company had arranged an SUV for her this time, and the car was already waiting downstairs. The two entered the elevator one after the other. After Nan Shu pressed "1," she nervously twisted her fingers together, not knowing what to say. "How long is your production period this time?" Xie Zeyan's voice suddenly cut through the air, carrying a faint echo in the empty elevator. Not expecting Xie Zeyan to ask on his own initiative, Nan Shu paused for a moment before answering, "A little over a month." Xie Zeyan lowered his gaze and said nothing more until they exited the elevator. It wasn't until he had seen Nan Shu into the car and the door was about to close that he finally spoke. "Nan Shu." "Take good care of yourself on set." • Once she joined the production, the days seemed to fly by on fast-forward. Nan Shu was often so busy she didn't even have time to eat. Without an assistant by her side, she had to ask a colleague from the crew to grab a rice ball for her from Lawson. Xie Zeyan sent her videos of Huituichang every day without fail, morning and night, but his tone was entirely businesslike—very much like the first time she'd asked him to walk the dog. It was just so impersonal. Hate the man-machine, hate the man-machine. Guagua was more human than him! After four days of intense filming, Nan Shu finally got a rare quiet evening to herself. She was so exhausted she skipped dinner entirely and went straight back to the hotel to collapse onto the bed. Her way of recharging was reading novels and scrolling through low-effort short videos. Given how much she'd been reading scripts lately, the sight of text was starting to make her dizzy, so she opened a short-video app instead. She came across a video titled "What My Dog Does All Day When I'm Not Home." Nan Shu was curious about what Huituichang did at home, but under the current circumstances, she felt too awkward to ask Xie Zeyan for a video call. Instead, she opened the monitoring app on her phone. She'd bought this camera before her trip to Shanghai for that commercial shoot, and after Xie Zeyan moved in, he'd been aware of its presence. The camera was connected to the living room. In the frame, there was only Huituichang, sitting on the floor, pawing at a red ball. Xie Zeyan wasn't there. Nan Shu glanced at the time on the screen—it was almost eight o'clock. Surely he wasn't still working overtime? The startup phase really was busy. Even when she'd been at home, she'd watched Xie Zeyan deal with all kinds of documents every day. Once, when she'd passed by, she'd caught a glimpse of the screen—it was full of foreign text she couldn't understand. Xie Zeyan said it was German. "You can actually read German?" Nan Shu had been delighted at the time. She considered herself quite talented with languages and asked Xie Zeyan to teach her a phrase. Xie Zeyan thought for a moment, then said, "Ich mag dich." Nan Shu repeated it earnestly: "Ish mahk deesh." She said it twice more, then asked Xie Zeyan if her pronunciation was accurate. Xie Zeyan curved his lips and said it was very accurate. Nan Shu then asked what the phrase meant. Xie Zeyan said it meant "hello." Nan Shu was still reminiscing about that moment when Xie Zeyan's figure suddenly flashed across the monitoring feed. The man walked out of the bathroom, wearing the same black robe from last time, a white towel draped around his neck. Even with the grainy video quality, one could still tell his physique was exceptionally well-proportioned. So he'd been taking a shower just now. Nan Shu followed Xie Zeyan's movements in the frame. He walked to the balcony, picked up the dog bowl he'd washed that morning, returned to the dining area, poured some kibble into the bowl, and finally brought it to the living room, setting it down in front of Huituichang. Xie Zeyan's phone rang. He leaned lazily against the sofa. Whatever the person on the other end said made his brows knit together. She couldn't quite make out the words, but his expression looked serious. Huituichang finished its food and flopped down onto Xie Zeyan's lap. The man was still on the phone. Huituichang stretched out a paw, trying to snatch the phone, only to have its head gently pressed down by Xie Zeyan. About two minutes later, Xie Zeyan hung up. He set the phone on the sofa and played with Huituichang for a while, then suddenly picked up the phone again and filmed a video of the dog. Nan Shu instinctively switched to WeChat, and sure enough, a thirty-second video popped up on her phone. She opened it. Huituichang was gnawing on a duck plush toy, its pink tongue lolling out. Seeing Xie Zeyan holding up the phone to film it, the dog lunged at the camera with its paw, and a short, low chuckle from the man came through. Just as the video was about to end, a glimpse of Xie Zeyan's hand flashed across the frame. It was only two seconds, but Nan Shu caught it immediately—a wound on the back of his hand. The injury wound its way up from his hand, as if slashed by something sharp. The deep red gash stood out starkly against the man's pale, cool-toned skin. Nan Shu wanted to ask Xie Zeyan how he'd gotten hurt, but then she thought better of it—he probably wouldn't respond to her right now anyway. She'd just let it go. After replying to the video, she tossed her phone aside and lay flat on the bed, drifting off to sleep. • Nan Shu wasn't the only one buried in work these days. Mingyu's business spanned a wide range, and as CEO and Vice Chairman, Xie Zeyan was equally swamped as the year drew to a close. On top of that, Mingyu's Second-Generation Robot had just entered its trial operation phase, and it was obvious to everyone that Xie Zeyan placed particular importance on this project. He'd been overseeing this project since his days studying abroad, and Guagua was the first-generation product of that very initiative. Today, Xie Zeyan had been in meetings all day. When he returned to his office from the conference room, Zong Yi was sprawled on the sofa like he owned the place. When he walked in, Zong Yi's eyes shifted away from his phone screen. "Brother Yan, mind if I borrow some of that Da Hong Pao tea of yours?" Xie Zeyan ignored him, sat down at his desk, and flipped through the top two documents. His brows furrowed as he picked up the phone on the desk and said in a displeased tone, "Either redo it, or the entire project team gets replaced." "Calm down, will you?" Zong Yi brewed the tea and placed it on Xie Zeyan's desk, then asked, "What's been going on with you these past two weeks? Who owes you money or something? Your face has been sour as hell." "And this wound on your hand—you got hit by a car on the way to the south side for that deal, right? Look how deep this gash is. You didn't even bother to treat it." Xie Zeyan glanced at the wound on the back of his hand and let out a mocking smile. "Doesn't matter anyway. No one cares." "Tsk tsk tsk, look at you—the eldest young master of the Xie family..." Whatever Zong Yi said went in one ear and out the other. Xie Zeyan opened his phone and tapped into Weibo—the thing he'd been doing most often lately. At the top was a video posted by some paparazzo, uploaded just over ten minutes ago. "Hey ladies and gents! It's your boy Wang Dafu here with a fresh scoop. So recently, I caught footage of one of our well-regarded up-and-coming actresses throwing a diva fit on set. She made them reshoot the same scene over a dozen times. Poor little stunt actor hanging from the wires—heard they even got hurt..." Attached was a blurry video. Even though it was shot with a long-lens camera, the faces of the two actors couldn't be made out—only their general figures. Still, some sharp-eyed netizens managed to pick up clues. [Isn't this the Chronicles of the Deep Abyss set?] [Oh god, the "up-and-coming actress" they're talking about—could it be He Xiyue? I actually really liked her.] [Am I the only one curious who was on the wires? That's so rough. Over a dozen takes—they must be injured for sure.] [Probably some stunt double. Can't see clearly. Poor thing. Money really doesn't come easy.] Zong Yi, standing nearby, glanced at Xie Zeyan's phone. "Isn't that Jingjia Film Studio?" Something occurred to Zong Yi. "Oh right, Brother Yan—Sheng'an's President Wang called me this morning. The meeting's been pushed to next week. I happen to be heading to the studio tomorrow to visit the set." Zong Yi's girlfriend was filming, and he'd finally carved out some time. Xie Zeyan was silent for a moment, then turned off his phone. "I'll go with you tomorrow."