Chapter 66: Friend

Cheng Mingye had finally found a grand opportunity to praise him, and he was nothing short of passionate and eloquent. “You have no idea how accurate Master Shen’s predictions are! Other masters are all vague, talking about ‘blood-light disasters’ or ‘an inevitable calamity,’ but only Master Shen, using his metaphysical senses, pointed out with incomparable precision that it was the brakes of my Pagani that would fail. And then, my brakes really did fail halfway! I am truly a son of the heavens. The heavens couldn’t bear for anything to happen to me, so they specially sent Master Shen to save me!”

His words brought several rich second-generation kids, who had been quietly lurking in the live stream to eat melon, out of the woodwork.

“Case solved, case solved! I’ve been curious for a long time why Cheng Mingye suddenly stopped racing. I thought his brother had cut off his allowance and was being strict with him. I never thought this was the root of it!”

“The timing matches up. Didn’t Cheng Mingye fail to finish that race at the end of April? He stopped halfway. Not long after, he sold his Pagani. It’s said he even invested in some movie. I was wondering why he still attended every race but, no matter how much anyone tried to persuade him, he stubbornly refused to get on the track. So it turns out he had guidance from a metaphysics expert behind the scenes!”

“Cheng Mingye, you have access to such an amazing figure and didn’t share? Just you wait, you’ll be besieged at the next dinner gathering!”

Contemporary young people did indeed adhere to a scientific worldview, but checking their horoscope for the next day before bed, forwarding talismans for Mercury retrograde to go away at the beginning of the month, and calculating when they would get rich despite their dark circles were all standard operations.

When it came to metaphysics, sleep was the last thing on their minds!

“—Is he that miraculous! Shen Xici actually has a hidden identity!”

“—I’m immediately sticking a small card of the Son of the Mountain God on my headboard. Master, can you bless me so I don’t encounter unreasonable clients?”

“—Accurately predicting the details of a car accident? Master Shen is too powerful! How can I get a fortune reading from Master Shen? Are fifty tickets to ‘Mountain Range Line’ enough!”

“—Holy crap, if it were me, I would also support Master Shen for life! When can Master Shen do a reading for me too? I have new dreams to dream now.”

“—So what if he doesn’t have a patron? Isn’t Shen Xici still a rotten person who bullies people on set, insults industry veterans, and has low moral character!”

“—Friend up front, are you on a 2G network? So many people have already said Shen Xici has debunked the rumors, debunked them! Are you really not looking? Why don’t we switch out of the live stream and see what’s number one on the trending list?”

The number one and two trending topics, #TruthBehindShenXici’sOnSetBullying# and #OriginalVideoOfDirectingActing#, were both bought by Ge Lanjing. Practice makes perfect. Shen Xici was very clear that money should be spent when it needed to be. You can’t take it with you when you’re gone. For example, he hadn’t been able to bring over the money from his account in his past life.

But having a good mindset was one thing. Seeing the amount of money spent, he still couldn’t help but gasp.

Too expensive, too expensive, it was simply breathtaking!

All he could say was, thankfully, the popularity from being cursed these past two days was extremely high. As soon as the trending topics went up, the discussion level rose rapidly, so they didn’t have to pay to extend the time on the trending list.

After discussing, they decided not to have A’Yang release the original video he recorded. Instead, Ge Lanjing contacted a rather famous paparazzi reporter.

The reporter was called “Card God.” He had worked with Ge Lanjing before. The moment he heard the content of the video, his eyes lit up—how could he not accept traffic that fell from the sky?

Card God quickly released a vaguely pointing teaser, leading fans of various celebrities to guess whose melon was about to be dropped, afraid that Ge Lanjing would change her mind and go cooperate with someone else.

When the time in the teaser arrived, Card God didn’t waste any words and directly released the complete video Shen Xici had. The video wasn’t long, only a few minutes. Fans of all celebrities were squatting on Card God’s Weibo, waiting to eat melon. With the mentality of seeing which idol’s house was about to collapse, they all clicked on the video. As they watched, they thought, “Huh, what’s the situation?!”

These past two days, Shen Xici had been living on the trending topics. No one was unaware of his on-set bullying incident. In a very short time, Card God’s Weibo post exploded.

“—Came here from Brother Thorn’s live stream. These two were actually just acting? Shen Xici was imitating the director scolding someone, not scolding Uncle Wu? Then what were the hundreds of comments I made cursing Shen Xici these past two days?”

“—Brother Thorn’s tour group has arrived. It was actually Wu Cisheng who lied? Shen Xici was wronged? That statement on Shen Xici’s Weibo wasn’t fabricated, it was documentary literature? Let me take a moment, this melon is too big!”

“—It’s really hard to say Wu Cisheng didn’t do it on purpose!! Deliberately having Shen Xici imitate the director, deliberately filming and editing it, then posting it online as evidence of him being bullied! Shen Xici probably never thought that just by chatting, a huge pot would fall on his head. He’s definitely the most tragic character of the year! Card God, you are truly my god! The domestic entertainment circle would be so boring without you!”

The tens of millions of melon-eating masses in the live stream first swarmed to the Weibo trending topics, contributing huge popularity to several related topics. Then, as if it were a group activity, they swarmed to Wu Cisheng’s personal page, leaving comments under his most recent Weibo post.

“—Brother Thorn’s tour group. To think I sympathized with you so much and chased after Shen Xici cursing him for so long with real feelings. I can’t believe it was actually fake, I’m so angry! You just wait, I’ll come here to check in every day from now on!”

“—Brother Thorn’s tour group. The older the ginger, the spicier it is. You’re really quite skilled, huh? So proficient at harming people. What good does it do you to ruin Shen Xici’s name?”

“—Hiding in the back without responding or making a sound, thinking this matter would just pass like that? Using fans as a weapon, taking advantage of their sympathy. This matter isn’t over!”

On the evening of the 11th, for the first time since the edited video was released, Wu Cisheng responded directly.

“@Wu Cisheng: I am also a victim.”

A simple sentence, and the major marketing accounts had new material. Headlines like “New Doubts Arise in Shen Xici Incident, Was Wu Cisheng Used?”, “If Shen Xici and Wu Cisheng Are Both Victims, Who Is the Mastermind?”, “It Wasn’t Wu Cisheng Who Wanted to Harm Shen Xici, Who Set Up This Trap?” could be seen everywhere. Any random marketing account could write a few lines about it.

When netizens eat melon, one of their favorite elements is conspiracy theories. With Wu Cisheng’s single sentence, dozens of versions were imagined. Basically, they were all about Wu Cisheng being used without his knowledge, and now that the truth was exposed, he was being pushed out to take the blame and be the scapegoat. Each version was analyzed with sound reasoning, making perfect sense.

Until an actor named Xu Jianning posted on Weibo.

“I played the crown prince in ‘Empty City Stratagem’ and also Xiao Song in ‘You in the Night.’ But these weren’t major roles, so everyone probably doesn’t have much of an impression. I also often can’t remember that I once loved acting so much, spending whole nights poring over scripts and characters, wanting to act better and stand higher.

“On the set of ‘Night,’ I was in the same group as Wu Cisheng. He was a senior, a veteran actor with a great reputation. I had seen his plays before I entered the industry and had great respect for him. At first, he would ask me to do small things like pouring tea. Later, when it was inconvenient for him in his costume, he would ask me to wipe the dust off his shoes. I didn’t know how to refuse and always helped. He said I was very good and started to guide my acting.

“How easy is it to destroy an actor’s faith, especially a young actor? Wu Cisheng, relying on his status as a senior, constantly cursed me for having a poor foundation, no aptitude, knowing nothing, being unable to understand or empathize with the character. He said a three-year-old could act better than me. Every one of my expressions, every one of my physical movements, was wrong. I was trash, I was scum, I was disgusting, I was the main culprit holding back the entire crew’s progress.

“Whenever my face was filled with pain and I was crying while clutching the script, Wu Cisheng would look at me with satisfaction and say it was okay if I couldn’t act well, he would help me.

“After ‘Night’ wrapped, I couldn’t act anymore because I didn’t believe I could understand a character or portray them. I left the industry. After staying at home for two months, unable to distinguish day from night, I took a handful of sleeping pills. I was discovered by a friend who came to see me. They threw away my pills and dragged me to see a psychologist.

“Only then did I know that Wu Cisheng’s so-called acting guidance was actually PUA, filled with malice, belittlement, and humiliation. He took pleasure in watching me struggle hopelessly and manipulating my pain.

“Wu Cisheng has created many good characters in the past, and the impression many people have of him is positive. If I had spoken out before, no one would have believed me, so I remained silent, waiting for the day the festering, stinking wound would heal, although it was very likely I would never see that day.

“But when I saw everyone so easily deceived by his one sentence of defense, I realized that I could no longer hide in the darkness, at least not now.

“Even if I have to rip open my wound, I must let everyone know who the real bully and abuser is!”

This article was forwarded to Shen Xici by Lu Jiming.

The top-floor VIP ward was very quiet. Through the hospital room window, the bustling neon lights of Ningcheng could be seen in the distance. He Yi was a top high-end private hospital in Ningcheng. As the film crew’s location moved back to Ningcheng, Shen Xici was also transferred to He Yi.

It was still raining outside, and the wind blowing in from the window carried a moist vapor. After Shen Xici finished reading, his heart felt like it was clogged with a ball of wet cotton.

On the phone, Lu Jiming was cursing loudly. “When he agreed to come for the audition, I was quite happy. Who hasn’t seen one or two of the roles Wu Cisheng has played? His acting is indeed quite good! Who knew that he looks so bright and righteous on TV, but in private, he’s such a pervert! Xu Jianning is so pitiful. I went to watch him play the crown prince in ‘Empty City Stratagem.’ His acting is definitely top-notch among newcomers. Such a good seedling was cut down by Wu Cisheng!”

Shen Xici looked at the last sentence Xu Jianning wrote. “What are they saying online?”

“It’s gone crazy already. Xu Jianning posted his chat records with Wu Cisheng, the voice messages Wu Cisheng sent when guiding his acting, the hospital’s diagnosis, the medicine he took, everything. This is as solid as evidence can get! I went to listen to the voice messages. The things that bastard surnamed Wu said made my blood pressure shoot up. Being cursed like that for several months, it would be strange if Xu Jianning didn’t get depression!” Lu Jiming sighed again. “This is truly someone who has been rained on and wants to hold an umbrella for you. Now everyone online is telling Wu Cisheng to apologize to you and Xu Jianning, but Wu Cisheng is hiding his head like a turtle, not making a sound.”

Shen Xici asked, “Can we terminate our contract with Wu Cisheng?”

Lu Jiming laughed. “Why do you have the same reaction as Cheng Mingye? Cheng Mingye is very well-informed from surfing the internet. He called me and said that no matter what, we have to kick out that guy surnamed Wu. His brother’s legal team will provide support. The breach of contract fee they get from Wu Cisheng will all be used to improve the meals for the staff and extras!

Don’t worry, it’s not just us. The menswear and appliance brands that Wu Cisheng endorsed, their official Weibo accounts reacted very quickly and have already issued statements saying they are terminating their cooperation with Wu Cisheng.”

After chatting for a few more sentences, Lu Jiming asked, “How’s your injury?”

“It’s better. Is there anything urgent?” Because he couldn’t feel pain, Shen Xici himself wasn’t too sure how his injury was or if it was getting better. He could only infer from the daily check-up reports that it probably hadn’t worsened and there were no sequelae or complications for now.

Lu Jiming said excitedly, “No, no, I was just saying, once you’re better, hurry back to the crew to film. Let me tell you, I went to the Sheng family’s Jie Zhou Garden today. It’s so beautiful! I was even taken to visit the inner garden, which is even more beautiful than the outer garden! When you come back to the crew, you must come and have a good look! And, there’s no entrance fee for coming and going. The ticket is eighty yuan! For the two of us, that’s a saving of one hundred and sixty yuan!”

There was a “click” at the door. Soon, footsteps approached. Sheng Shaoyan, dressed in a black suit, walked around the corner, still carrying the scent of the night rain.

After stopping, Sheng Shaoyan took off his suit jacket and hung it up. He then casually removed his cufflinks and loosened his tie. Just these simple actions held a strange, attractive tension.

In his ear, Lu Jiming was describing what the inner garden of Jie Zhou Garden, which was not open to tourists, looked like. As he spoke, he suddenly asked, “Are you not listening to me properly?”

Shen Xici’s heart trembled. His gaze moved away from Sheng Shaoyan. “How could that be? I was listening.”

“Really?” Lu Jiming’s tone was suspicious. “Then let me ask you, what kind of vase did I just say was placed in the Pear Blossom Dock of the inner garden?”

Shen Xici recalled for a few seconds. “There was a celadon plum vase.”

He remembered that in his past life, when the pear blossoms were in full bloom, he and Sheng Shaoyan had gone to the Pear Blossom Dock together. A branch of blooming pear blossoms was inserted in that celadon-glazed porcelain vase. It had a very elegant feel, like “rain washing the celadon, clouds tailoring the jade petals.” He had a very deep impression of it.

Just as he was thinking he probably hadn’t answered this question wrong, he heard Lu Jiming say, “I caught you! Not only were you not listening to me properly, but you’ve also been to the inner garden before!”

Shen Xici was taken aback, not expecting that such a simple question was full of traps.

Where is the trust between people?

“I was wondering. Not only did Mr. Sheng lend us both the inner and outer gardens of Jie Zhou Garden for filming without charging a venue fee, and even cooperated with the crew’s arrangements, but the key point is, the person who liaised with me was extremely polite, cautious, and terrified, as if I were some important figure he couldn’t afford to offend in the slightest. I’m a newcomer director with nothing to my name. I know my own worth. The more I thought about it, the more it felt wrong!” Lu Jiming cleared his throat. “Fess up. The matter of you borrowing the garden wasn’t through some network of connections at all. You just know that Mr. Sheng, right?”

Shen Xici leaned against the hospital bed and quickly glanced at the man who had taken off his tie and loosened the collar of his shirt. He paused before answering, “Yes, I know him.”

Lu Jiming’s words were full of the pride of “I knew it.” “And I also know that your relationship is definitely not ordinary, right? Hurry up and tell me, what exactly is your relationship that he’s willing to lend us such a large garden at his home to mess up?”

What was their relationship?

The fingertip that Sheng Shaoyan had blown on before was a little itchy. Shen Xici’s fingers unconsciously drew several horizontal lines on the bedsheet. He looked up and happened to see Sheng Shaoyan standing by the bed, seeming to have also heard what Lu Jiming said, and was now waiting leisurely for his answer.

Shen Xici lowered his eyes, pursed his lips, and after a good while, said into the phone, “He and I are friends.”

As soon as the words fell, Sheng Shaoyan, who had been waiting by the side, suddenly moved. He took two steps, leaned down, and propped his hands beside him, his unique aura enveloping him. Their gazes met for an instant. Sheng Shaoyan turned his head, his lips drawing close to his other ear, his voice carrying a deep magnetism, its meaning unclear. “Friends?”

The end of the word lifted slightly. Sheng Shaoyan let out another light, short laugh. “Do you think he’ll believe that?”