Chapter 56: Ambition

The living room was very quiet.

The apartment Shen Xici rented wasn’t small. When he sat alone in a chair reading his script, he would occasionally look up and feel it was empty.

But with one more person, it was completely different.

Especially since Sheng Shaoyan’s entire presence was too strong. Even standing in a bustling crowd, he would be the first person one noticed.

Just like now, Shen Xici was a bit at a loss. The other’s gaze and aura were invading his senses, making everything his eyes saw, his ears heard, and his nose smelled, Sheng Shaoyan.

It was like being trapped in a densely woven spiderweb.

He forced himself to break free from it. “You’re still up?”

He regretted asking as soon as the words were out, because the answer was too obvious. The question felt like he was just trying to make conversation.

Sheng Shaoyan’s gaze was somewhat piercing. “You’re not asleep either.”

The living room fell silent again.

He had been wanting to explain things clearly to Sheng Shaoyan, and now was a good opportunity. Shen Xici broke the silence: “A’Shao, tonight I was at a crew dinner party. Zhong Yue was worried I wouldn’t be able to find the way since it was my first time, so he came outside to meet me. The photos taken by the reporters were all deliberately misangled to create buzz. He and I are just colleagues on pretty good terms. You were there when Zhong Yue had an anaphylactic shock. Because of that, he’s just looking out for me a little more.”

As Shen Xici spoke, he was actually very worried Sheng Shaoyan would show an expression of “why are you telling me this,” which would make him seem overly presumptuous.

Fortunately, the lion’s ruffled fur settled down quite a bit.

Colleagues on pretty good terms.

Sheng Shaoyan nonchalantly pressed on, “What else?”

What else? What else was there?

Unsure what Sheng Shaoyan was asking, Shen Xici hesitated for a moment, then simply continued like he was giving a rundown: “I asked if I should debunk the rumor. Teacher Wen said the crew would post a big group photo from the gathering, so there was no need to specifically debunk it. Director Wan hasn’t been feeling well recently, so the party ended early. Zhong Yue, Teacher Wen, and the others were going for another round, so I left first. Teacher Zhong came to see me off, and we chatted a bit about the ‘Capital City Massacre’ crew. The ecological environment in that villa area is quite good. I even saw some small animal dart past in the garden and almost tripped. Luckily, Teacher Zhong caught me, and then you came.”

As Shen Xici spoke, he paid attention to Sheng Shaoyan’s expression, noticing that when he mentioned the small animal darting past and Teacher Zhong catching him, Sheng Shaoyan’s mood seemed to improve a little more.

A small animal? Teacher Zhong catching him?

What a strange point of focus.

“As for the question you asked me before getting out of the car,” Shen Xici’s tone was very cautious, not wanting Sheng Shaoyan to think he was giving a casual answer, “I have always considered you a very important person.”

He didn’t dare say “most important.”

He was afraid the word was too heavy, but would sound too light in another’s ears.

Shen Xici often felt his life was too thin. It seemed he had met many people, yet he couldn’t grasp and keep any of them. He didn’t dare to reach out and grab, didn’t dare to build a deep and lasting relationship with anyone.

He sometimes wondered, if it weren’t for Grandpa He’s words that he was “fated to have something missing,” would he not be so timid, so hesitant and indecisive?

A very important person? This wasn’t the answer Sheng Shaoyan most wanted to hear, but it was satisfactory enough.

“Have you bought a car?”

The question was too abrupt. It took Shen Xici two seconds to react. “No, I don’t know how to drive.”

Even in his past life, when he bought a car, it was usually his assistant and staff who drove him around. He himself had never touched a steering wheel.

“Mm, next time if it’s too late, tell me, and I’ll come pick you up.” As if knowing what Shen Xici was about to say, Sheng Shaoyan answered first, “If I’m too busy, or not in Ningcheng, I’ll have the driver come.”

Accepting this proposal well, Shen Xici nodded. “Okay, I’ll contact you in advance next time.”

It was the same in his past life. If his assistant had something to do or wasn’t available to drive him, Shen Xici would either take a taxi himself or Sheng Shaoyan or his driver would come to pick him up.

Suddenly asking him if he had bought a car, and connecting it to Zhong Yue’s “should I give you a ride,” Shen Xici chose his words very carefully: “A’Shao, do you… not like Teacher Zhong very much?”

“Yes, I don’t like him.”

Even if there was no hug or hand-holding in the garden, just the act of knocking on a hotel room door at dawn to deliver things, and the keychain Shen Xici was still using, was enough to make Sheng Shaoyan’s perception of Zhong Yue drop to freezing point.

Rarely hearing Sheng Shaoyan express his likes and dislikes so directly, Shen Xici was puzzled. Could it be that during the filming of “Mountain Range Line,” Sheng Shaoyan and Zhong Yue had a conflict he didn’t know about? It seemed this conflict wasn’t small either.

The problem seemed to be temporarily resolved for now. Shen Xici went to the closet to get a clean blanket and pillow and put them on the sofa. The sofa’s material looked quite comfortable, and its length and width were also considerable. For Sheng Shaoyan’s build, lying on it wouldn’t be too cramped.

But thinking about the sequela of headaches and insomnia after Sheng Shaoyan recovered his memory, Shen Xici thought for a moment and suggested, “How about you sleep in the bed tonight, and I’ll sleep on the sofa? You have work tomorrow and need to rest well.”

He had actually thought about whether they should sleep in the bed together, like in the rental house in Sui County. But for some inexplicable reason, he subconsciously suppressed this suggestion.

“No need.” As he spoke, Sheng Shaoyan took two steps forward, suddenly reached out, and gently touched Shen Xici’s eyes. As the other’s eyelashes trembled slightly, he gently wiped with his fingertip, taking away a fallen eyelash from the corner of Shen Xici’s eye.

Shen Xici only felt the warm, itchy sensation still lingering on his eyelid. For a moment, he didn’t know how to react. “A’Shao, you…”

A low voice with a soft magnetic quality sounded by his ear: “Go to sleep. Good night.”

The lights were turned off, and there was no light source in the house, only the neon glow from outside seeping in. The outlines of the furniture were vaguely visible.

Sheng Shaoyan changed into his pajamas and lay on the sofa. A faint light spilled from the crack under the bedroom door. He watched quietly until the bedroom light went out before closing his eyes.

Like a dragon guarding the treasure under its claws.

Before he was seven, he lived with his mother, Katerina, in an ordinary neighborhood, in an ordinary little house. Everything was relaxed. Katerina loved nature and adventure. He would go hiking through the forest with her on weekends, identifying various plants, observing the small animals hidden under the leaves, setting up tents in the wild, and looking up at the starry sky.

From the moment Sheng Huaizhou found him, his life took a sharp turn.

By the campfire in the forest, Katerina treated him as a conversation partner with full reasoning abilities, telling him that he had now been found. Regardless of whether he returned to that enormous family or not, there would always be people watching his every move, wary and fearful of him.

Because of his status as the eldest grandson, it directly involved inheritance rights, trusts, family assets, and a series of other things—things that were most tempting to people’s hearts.

Katerina looked at him and asked, “Do you want to go?”

Sheng Shaoyan nodded and answered firmly, “I want to go.”

The firelight reflected on Katerina’s beautiful face. She wasn’t surprised by this answer at all and smiled, “I know. You’ve been smart and ambitious since you were little.”

Her voice was very gentle as she said, “A lion should live on the vast grasslands, experience battles in the storm, and become the king that leads the pride. You are the same, my son. You will surely become a brave and wise king in the future.”

Sheng Shaoyan had known about his enormous ambitions since he was young. They were like boiling magma, making him want to stand at the top of this world and look down on everyone.

He was unwilling to submit to the framework that social rules set for ordinary people.

At seven, he was led back to the Sheng family by Sheng Huaizhou and was given a new name and identity. After Sheng Junlan’s accidental death, as Sheng Junlan’s only son and the Sheng family’s eldest grandson, he was pushed into the position of heir by Sheng Huaizhou.

Forcing himself into a strict, precise, and flawless trajectory, maintaining absolute rationality, and not being swayed by any emotions or preferences were his bargaining chips to secure that position, and also the price he paid for his ambition.

However, Shen Xici was like a switch. Once he got close, the emotions that his precise brain had rejected would immediately make a comeback, rushing like a flood to break the dam.

It was like that before, and it was like that now.

Every single time.

In the darkness, no matter how he analyzed or deduced, the conclusion Sheng Shaoyan reached was very similar—

Shen Xici might not have any ambition or designs on him. On the contrary, it was he who was ambitious, wanting to possess Shen Xici, wanting to get a unique love from Shen Xici.

On the morning of October 2nd, the official Weibo of the movie “Mountain Range Line” released a large group photo from the crew’s dinner party. Both Zhong Yue and Shen Xici were in it. Fans and passersby mocked below, saying that this photo made the marketing accounts’ all-nighter useless—the love story between the film emperor and the newcomer they wereall became scrap drafts. Shen Xici even trended again because of this.

Someone specifically posted a Weibo: “My focus is a bit off, but let’s have a rational discussion. In this large group photo from the movie premiere day crew dinner, even several staff members are present, but why don’t I see Xu Lingjia?”

The number of comments broke a thousand in no time.

” —With acting that bad, the efforts of Zhong Yue, Wen Yage, He Yunli, Tao Le, and Shen Xici were almost ruined by this one bad apple. If I were him, I wouldn’t have the face to go.”

” — Didn’t Zhong Yue personally say that where there’s Xu Lingjia, there’s no him? This attitude shows he was really screwed over and will never forgive, right?”

” — Thank goodness there’s no Xu Lingjia. As soon as I see him, I remember his stiff, wooden acting. The ladder standing next to him acted better than him! If Jiarui Media wasn’t pushing him so hard, could he even touch the threshold of a film crew?”

” — Where are Xu Lingjia’s fans? Why are they gone? Before the release, they mocked Shen Xici every day, cursing his acting as bad. Why did they stop cursing after the release? Fortunately, Xu Lingjia didn’t have many scenes, otherwise the quality of this movie would definitely have been dragged down. Among a group of god-tier actors, with Xu Lingjia’s elementary school-level acting, wouldn’t he really feel embarrassed?”

It was already the second day of its release. The fans, major influencers, and various film critics who were going to see the film had already seen it and given their different evaluations. Most of them believed that Zhong Yue and Wen Yage’s acting skills were still very high, but compared to before, there was no major breakthrough. The acting skills displayed by the young actor Tao Le and the veteran actor He Yunli under Director Wan Shan’s lens had a different texture than before, especially He Yunli, who shocked people every time with how well he could act.

Everyone, without exception, focused on Shen Xici, and also mentioned what Director Wan Shan had said before the movie’s release: “contributed a very excellent performance to this film” and “the audience will also find it a pleasant surprise.”

On the tablet screen, it was full of “Shen Xici’s acting is indeed a pleasant surprise,” “The leaf flute playing is too good! Requesting Shen Xici to open a class!”, “This acting and these looks are a crushing presence among the current entertainment industry newcomers!”

Suddenly, the tablet was fiercely smashed, followed by a few loud “crashing” sounds as everything on the table was swept to the floor by Xu Lingjia.

The hotel room was a mess, and the mirror reflected a face contorted with rage.

Shouldn’t Director Wan Shan’s words have been praising him? Weren’t many people supposed to think he acted well? The trending topic #A’ZhengGoesHome# was clearly supposed to hang for more than a week. He was supposed to become a household name, win awards at award ceremonies, and the official media—why hadn’t they proactively published articles praising his acting as they did in the prophetic dream?

Why were the people who should have been praising him all praising Shen Xici?

It shouldn’t be like this…

It shouldn’t be like this!

Xu Lingjia suddenly panicked. The feeling of something slipping out of his control made his face turn deathly pale. With trembling hands, he frantically clicked into his own fan forum, scanned past countless comments from black fans, and suddenly his eyes fixed on one.

” — Jiajia has so few scenes. Didn’t Jiarui Media invest in this movie? Why does Jiajia have so few scenes?”

Right, it must be because too many of his scenes were cut. The scenes where he acted well, those highlight scenes, were all cut!

His godmother was so useless, she couldn’t even protect the length of his scenes. When the director said he wanted to cut them, she easily compromised.

What’s the use of a good actor, or good acting? After being cut again and again, how could the audience possibly see it?

Xu Lingjia sat on the edge of the bed, his left hand tightly gripping his still-trembling right hand, constantly telling himself that fortunately, he still had “Double-Faced.” In “Double-Faced,” he was the male lead. He had also invested a lot of money and would invest more in the future. No one would dare to cut his scenes!

On the cracked screen, an article by a film critic was displayed.

“Shen Xici’s performance has a sense of precision and restraint that is extremely rare among young actors. In all his scenes, he has no hysteria, no great crying or laughing. He doesn’t even have a single line, but through his eyes, micro-expressions, and natural body movements, he completed an excellent performance, precisely conveying very delicate emotions, allowing every audience member to enter his world and cry and laugh with him.

…

Under the camera, his gaze is soul-stirring. The drama he acts out with a single glance is more infectious than a long passage of lines recited by many actors with strong tones.

I believe that one day, he will become every director’s dream.”