Chapter 41

Su Yi had always done things decisively. The very same day when they returned to the hotel after filming, she had An Xuan pack and leave.

As An Xuan sniffled while packing, sat to the side, comforting her. “Stop crying, it’s fine, you’ll never meet a boss as fierce as me.”

Wu Xue didn’t manage to stop her bark of laughter.

An Xuan felt even worse then, her voice hoarse as she asked, “Yi-jie, you really can’t give me one more chance?”

Seeing that she was crying this hard, Su Yi didn’t want to put things too harshly. “Tomorrow there’s no need to follow me to the set, when do you intend to return to Beijing? I’ll pay for the ticket.”

This was basically putting an end to the topic.

An Xuan knew there was no room for negotiation anymore, and shook her head. “I’m not returning to Beijing yet.”

Oh yeah, she forgot that the other’s boyfriend was still here.

She nodded. “Sure, then let Wu Xue know when you intend to return, let her help you book the tickets. If you have nowhere else to stay, you can stay here for the time being.”

Having said that, she turned and left; Wu Xue followed her out.

“For your next assistant I’ll pick someone more experienced.” Wu Xue contemplated. “At least I need to pick one that won’t lose their job because they’re dating someone.”

Su Yi nodded. “Do as you wish. Oh by the way you’ve been here for this long with me, why aren’t you flying back to Beijing?”

“What for?” Wu Xue shrugged. “My parents have returned to stay in Hainan.”

Su Yi side-eyed her but said nothing more.

Thinking about it carefully, they had been here for this long, and she had yet to see Wu Xue give Liu Minghao a call.

When Su Yi returned to the room, Chu Xi was playing a game on her phone.

Seeing her enter, Chu Xi asked, “You really sacked that assistant?”

“What, I would fake sacking her?” She tied her hair up. “You’ve stayed here for so long, when do you plan on returning?”

“I’m not getting in your way, why are you chasing me away?” After saying that, Chu Xi felt that something was off. Raising her head, she said, “Besides, I didn’t come here to find you. And you promised to teach me how to deal with that rubbish guy.”

Every time Chu Xi’s ex-boyfriend was brought up, Su Yi couldn’t help wanting to laugh. “You still need to deal with him?”

“What do you mean?” Chu Xi asked, a little miffed.

“Relax, he has nothing good waiting for him, just give it a while.”

Just when Chu Xi wanted to clarify more, the phone rang – it’s a WeChat notification.

She opened it and took a look, and was first mildly surprised, before she started smiling.

“Guess, who sent me a message?” Then without waiting for Su Yi to reply she answered herself. “Yang Ruolin.”

This name was one Su Yi was familiar with. She imperceptibly raised an eyebrow, looking unfazed. “Oh.”

Chu Xi didn’t think that this would be her reaction. “Aren’t you curious?”

Little girls were the most fun to tease. Keeping her tone even, Su Yi said, “She’s looking for you, not Chu Ying, why should I be curious?”

Chu Xi was almost turning blue with frustration. “You don’t want to know what she said to me?”

“What is there to say to a little girl like you?”

“She asked me, what is the relationship between you and my brother.” Chu Xi blurted out, unable to wait anymore. “She also said that she’s bringing me gifts, she’s trying to butter me up!”

Her meaning was clear: Why aren’t you doing so?

Su Yi’s livestream had caused quite a stir on the web. Even now, that short footage of Chu Ying appearing in the video was on the hot topic list, anyone on Weibo would see it. And since Yang Ruolin had named her directly, it was even less possible for her not to know about her relationship with Chu Ying.

She sat down opposite Chu Xi. “Tell me about this Yang Ruolin again.”

Chu Xi smiled. “Aren’t you unbothered?”

“No wonder you’re always worried about An Xuan.” Su Yi smiled too. “It looks like you intend to return to Beijing with her.”

“… didn’t I tell you before, she used to stay near us and followed my brother every day. But the games my brother played were shooting guns and jumping over horses, he refused to bring her along every time.”

The image of a little Chu Ying frowning, shaking his head as he refused, instantly appeared in Su Yi’s mind. She even imagined the words he’d have said- “You’re too bad at this, I don’t want to play with you.”

She sneered out loud, and even after covering her mouth she couldn’t stop herself from spluttering.

Chu Xi asked, “… what are you laughing about?”

“Nothing.” She shook her hand. “Continue.”

“My brother stayed in the hostel when he went to school, and entered the army immediately after graduation. She didn’t even have my brother’s number, she had to ask me for it,” Chu Xi said in a low volume. “But I didn’t give her. Afterwards she went overseas to study when I was in high school, and returned a short time ago.”

Su Yi nodded, half understanding, then got up, ready to enter the bathroom.

“Wait!” Chu Xi grabbed her. “You have nothing else to ask me?!”

“What have I to ask?”

“Such as whether she’s pretty, what’s her family like… etcetera?”

“I don’t care much about that, why would I ask. Besides, didn’t you say before that she’s pretty and has a good family? I still remember that.”

Chu Xi’s eyes widened. “Then you’re not afraid she’d snatch my brother away?”

Su Yi smiled, but her lips remained sealed. She wrested her arm free and went straight into the bathroom.

If Chu Ying had even a smidgen of an interest in Yang Ruolin, she would never have had a chance. And now, Chu Ying was already hers, no one could snatch him away.

Not to say that she was really confident. Rather, she had enough confidence in Chu Ying.

***

Since An Xuan wasn’t there, Wu Xue took over the duties of an assistant.

This day, Su Yi felt off since waking up. Her head was splitting, and her throat was hurting.

Wu Xue was rushing around like the world was on fire! Fetching a thermometer, she took her temperature: 38.5⁰ C, a mild fever.

“Take leave today.” Wu Xue looked at her red eyes. “You’re under the weather.”

“It’s not all that bad,” Su Yi said, lying blatantly, then swallowing a few pills in one gulp. “Tomorrow is a rest day, and I don’t have many scenes to film today, I should be able to return in the afternoon.”

Her immune system had always been quite bad. During summers it was fine, but when she was on the set in winter, nine out of ten times she’d get sick. Now, it was almost autumn, and the temperature was slowly dropping. Yesterday, when she returned, she already felt the signs of falling ill. She’d made sure to take some medication before sleeping. However, she hadn’t expected that she still couldn’t get away from it.

She wore a thicker coat attracting quite the attention when she entered the set.

“Why are you wearing something so thick?” Li Min walked over first. “Aren’t you hot?”

Su Yi said smilingly, “It’s entering autumn, I don’t take well to cold.”

Li Min thus didn’t continue nagging. “How about this, Cheng Anan hasn’t arrived yet. To keep from wasting time, let’s change the order of filming and film you and Wu Ke first, have you seen the script?”

“Relax, I’ve read everything, I’ll get my make-up done first.”

Once she was done, she came out. Wu Ke was already standing on the set.

Seeing her head over, the other’s face remained relatively expressionless as he nodded in her direction.

Recently Wu Ke’s attitude towards her had had a huge shift. Before, he would always smile gently, his tone very ambiguous. Now, he wasn’t only cold, he kept making mistakes when filming.

The main issue was that, the mistakes he made were always very strange, not the kind a professional actor would make no matter which way you looked at it. And this sort of phenomenon only appeared when he was acting in a scene with her. Every time he would drag her into multiple NGs.

According to Wu Xue, this was the result of Tu Jinglan’s pillow talk. A while ago some paparazzi had gotten a photo of Tu Jinglan entering and leaving Wu Ke’s room, just that Wu Ke had pushed the news down afterwards.

Su Yi didn’t have much thought about it. Her career path was quite unique, and a lot of times the ill-intent of her co-workers were quite strange and incomprehensible. She couldn’t figure out why, and she’s too lazy to be bothered.

The filming began at once.

“What makes you think I’ll help you?” Su Yi leant against the railings, sneering coldly.

“Because I know, you…” Wu Ke furrowed his brows, apologetic intent on his face. “I’m sorry, I forgot my line.”

“You can forget the first line?” Li Min criticised him, discontent, before continuing on the second scene.

This time, they had almost managed to finish the conversation at the beginning, yet right at the end, Li Min waved her script. “Cut! Wu Ke, your positioning is wrong! You’ve left the camera’s scope!”

Wu Ke was quick to admit his mistake. “I’m sorry, let’s do this again.”

The past few days, Su Yi respected him as a senior, making sure to care for the ‘elderly’, and didn’t fuss about it.

But now her head was spinning and she had to spend more than a few times her usual amount of energy to film something to the level she managed just now, and it was ruined with ill intent by someone, just like that.

She really couldn’t take it anymore.

“You’re the more senior one around.” She hugged her waist, her tone very cold. “The number of mistakes you have made for the past few days must have been more than the number of mistakes you have made for the past few years, no? Wrong placing, forgetting your lines, laughing in the middle of a shoot, it’s all so easy now?”

Wu Ke didn’t expect her to suddenly be so aggressive, and at once his expression darkened. “I’m not in a good condition recently, but no matter what it’s not up to you to lecture me about it, is it?”

Li Min said, “Why are you arguing now?”

“Sorry about this.” Wu Xue hurried over. “She’s actually running a fever today, her temper is rather frayed.”

Su Yi’s expression remained cold, and she said nothing.

Li Min nodded. “Then you go back and take a break, we’ll resume filming later.”

It was not that Li Min couldn’t see what was happening. As a director, Su Yi was an actor she liked, and she was willing to make an exception for Su Yi when picking characters, but other than that she would not do anything.

Su Yi returned to the room, her complexion extremely bad.

Chu Xi was confused. “What is it?”

Wu Xue closed the door, handing her a cup of warm water. “Don’t be upset with someone like that, it’s not worth it.”

Usually, Su Yi would have been able to handle it. She had been in the entertainment industry for quite a while, what sort of actor hadn’t she met before?

But when sick, all of a person’s bad temper would magnify. Keeping it in was hard, and only by spilling it out could she gain some peace.

She took the water, downed it in one gulp and went to sit in a corner. “Nothing’s wrong with me, just let me sit alone for a while.”

She hadn’t sat for too long before receiving a message from Chu Ying.

[Chu Ying: What are you doing?]

[Goddess Su Yi: Filming on the set.]

The reply came really quick.

[Chu Ying: What happened?]

Su Yi was taken mildly aback. [How do you know…]

[Chu Ying: You didn’t send an emoticon.]

[Chu Ying: What is it, tell me.]

Su Yi rubbed her nose.

[Goddess Su Yi: I’m sick.]

[Goddess Su Yi: Fever, I feel horrible.]

[Goddess Su Yi: Wailing.jpg]

Her messages were sent in little chunks.

In the past when she ran into some issue, be it due to illness or some other work-related things, she never spoke about it to those around her. This was because she was well aware that these were things only she could resolve. Others had no duty to help her share the burden of that negativity.

But facing Chu Ying, she was strangely unable to hold it back.

[Goddess Su Yi: And this week I can’t see you.]

The more she said the less she was able to hold back. After typing away on her keyboard, she sent a series of messages in one breath.

Then held her phone, obediently waiting for a reply.

Five minutes passed, the phone still didn’t light up. She couldn’t believe it, and kept checking the phone screen, but the other didn’t send a single word back.

She thought about it, then opened up the dialogue box and entered ‘you’re busy’. She had yet to add a question mark when she felt a cold sensation on her forehead. It’s very comfortable.

A huge hand covered her forehead. She had yet to react when the guy spoke in a low voice.

“It’s burning hot, why are you on the set?”

Perhaps due to the fever, her thought process was a little slow. It took her a long while to slowly turn her head around.

The person behind her bore a huge resemblance to her boyfriend.

No no, he seemed to be… actually her boyfriend.

Chu Ying saw that she was still dazed, frowned a little and shifted his hand down, putting it on her face.

“Pack up, we’re leaving.”

Su Yi’s eyes reddened instantaneously, her tears gushing out at once and refusing to stop no matter how she tried.

She got busy keeping her head down, wiping away her tears.

She knew she was being unreasonable.

She’s so happy.

edited by larkspur!

|