After the Pretty Cannon Fodder Was Coveted by the Best Actor - Chapter 4

As far as Xian Sui knew, Gu Fanzhou had been staying at a hotel arranged by the production crew during this time, which had very convenient transportation right near the set. Since he couldn’t quite call himself familiar with Gu Fanzhou yet, he inevitably felt a bit embarrassed. “Is it convenient? Won’t it disturb you?”

“Or would you prefer I throw you out here, or maybe you insist on going to open a room somewhere else?” On the surface, Gu Fanzhou’s attitude seemed very impatient, but he still had his assistant search for nearby hotels to see if any rooms were available. “It’s really hard to book a room in this kind of weather.”

Knowing that Gu Fanzhou, or rather Gu Fanzhou’s assistant, would have to go to such great lengths on his account made Xian Sui feel even more apologetic. “If it’s convenient for Brother Gu, I’ll put you to trouble then.”

The assistant backed the car out, and after driving for just over ten minutes, they arrived at the hotel. Xian Sui followed behind Gu Fanzhou and took the elevator up to the room. Before even entering, Xian Sui saw a strange man waiting at the door who clearly knew Gu Fanzhou. After greeting each other, the two of them were about to head down to the restaurant to eat.

Leaving before long, Gu Fanzhou used his room card to open the door so that Xian Sui could go in and rest temporarily.

He sat down on the solid wood chair closest to the door and found a message from his assistant saying that the road here was severely flooded and the car had stalled halfway. The assistant asked where Xian Sui was now so he could figure out a way to pick him up.

Xian Sui explained his current situation, and the assistant said he happened to be nearby, rushing over shortly after just as expected. Not daring to step into Gu Fanzhou’s room casually, he simply spoke with Xian Sui from right outside the doorway. “It’s rare for President Xie to come over too. I just passed by the restaurant and saw Brother Gu chatting with him.”

“President Xie?” This obviously referred to the strange man Xian Sui had just seen at the hotel room door, but it was the first time he had heard such a title.

“Our Star Entertainment boss, Xie Zhuangqiu. He’s a very busy man and rarely shows his face on ordinary days. Gu Fanzhou signed with Star several years before you did. But there are rumors that Gu Fanzhou has long wanted to terminate his contract and go out on his own to set up his studio.” Standing for too long, the assistant simply sat cross-legged right at the doorway with zero posture. “Everyone in the industry knows that Xie Zhuangqiu’s younger sister is chasing Gu Fanzhou, but she hits a wall everywhere she goes. That guy is a workaholic Best Actor; for so long, not even a single whisper of a scandal has ever leaked out. Some people even suspect he might be a work robot.”

Xian Sui suddenly ignited with gossip: “So she still hasn’t given up?”

“Nope. Come to think of it, she’s quite persistent. During a previous interview, Gu Fanzhou rejected her publicly, but even so, she still persists.” The assistant was about to continue speaking when his ears caught the sound of footsteps not far away, causing him to immediately jump up from the ground in a fluster. “Brother Gu is coming. Brother, call me if you need anything.”

When Gu Fanzhou returned, Xie Zhuangqiu was already nowhere to be seen. He naturally entered the room, casually pulled the door shut behind him, and, acting as if Xian Sui didn’t exist, unbuttoned his jacket on his own accord. “Leave this place once the rain stops.”

Xian Sui simply gave an affirmative response in reply. His gaze subconsciously swept around the room; it only had the most basic daily necessities, a significant portion of which were provided by the hotel, lacking any strong sense of living atmosphere.

Gu Fanzhou began flipping through the script by himself, and the rain stopped just as he reached the halfway point. The air in a room with closed windows for a long time always felt a bit suffocating, but Gu Fanzhou acted as if he didn’t feel it at all. Instead, Xian Sui took out two portable scented sachets from his pocket and placed them on the bedside table before finally standing up to say goodbye.

Gu Fanzhou’s hand injury was said to be nearly fully healed. After reshooting the earlier scenes, the subsequent scene was filmed near the center of the street. Jian Shuyu broke into the officers’ station, and Fu Minglou intercepted him in time, preventing any major disaster.

Jian Shuyu didn’t need to return to the City of Night during the day. Having some free time, he hand-crafted pastries himself, put them into a food box, changed into ordinary civilian woman’s attire, and had a rickshaw puller take him to the orphanage in the center of the city.

He came here often, so many of the children recognized him. As soon as they saw Jian Shuyu, they surrounded him asking for pastries. Jian Shuyu patiently distributed them one by one. Today he had specifically brought a kite along, and after the children had eaten and drunk to their fill, he let out the kite string.

Jian Shuyu couldn’t bring too many kites, so several children shared one. He personally taught the children how to get the kite up into the sky, and seeing them running around in the courtyard made his mood instantly much more relaxed. Before he could even finish packing up his food box, Jian Shuyu abruptly noticed a child dart out from the bushes and run quickly out of the courtyard.

He kept calling out the child’s name, and the children who had been flying the kite with that child earlier gathered around Jian Shuyu, saying that the kite string had broken, which was why the child chased it outside.

Jian Shuyu pacified the remaining children, asked the orphanage aunties to look after them, and then left the orphanage to chase after him. He only caught a glimpse of the child leaving along the street, and which direction he turned afterwards was impossible to know.

He asked quite a few passersby along the edge, but no one had noticed such a child. It wasn’t until he reached the fence of the military officers’ station that he saw the child had just squeezed through a gap to retrieve that kite. Jian Shuyu panicked inwardly, worried that something might happen to the child, so he gritted his teeth, climbed over the fence, and went to pull the running child back out.

Just as Jian Shuyu pulled the child into his arms, someone abruptly lunged at him from the other side. Just as he was about to cry out in surprise, the other party covered his mouth first.

“Who’s there?”

“Reporting to the officer, nobody seen.”

“Useless trash, go over there and keep searching!”

The patrolling soldiers walked far away, and Jian Shuyu’s heart beat violently twice. It turned out he had just brushed past disaster earlier. When he looked clearly at the face of the person in front of him, he realized that the one who had just saved him was Fu Minglou, whose left arm was still bleeding profusely. “Young Master Fu, you’re injured.”

“Your child?” Fu Minglou didn’t mention his own injury. “You came here just to look for him?”

Jian Shuyu didn’t have time to explain so much and stated that Fu Minglou’s injury needed to go to the hospital immediately. Seeing Jian Shuyu’s panicked look, and intending to calm him down first, Fu Minglou led him and swaggered right out through the entrance of the officers’ station, not running into any soldiers along the way.

Seeing Jian Shuyu step forward to look at his injury, Fu Minglou hurriedly took half a step back. “Send your child back first.”

“Since you can come and go freely here, why would someone still hurt you?” Jian Shuyu blurted out. Seeing that Fu Minglou had no intention of answering, he more or less understood. The person the soldiers wanted to hurt was him, and Fu Minglou had taken that bullet for him just now.

“Don’t ask, go back first.” Fu Minglou turned around and left on his own accord. Knowing that chasing after him would be useless, Jian Shuyu had no choice but to send the child back to the orphanage first.

Still unable to let go of Fu Minglou in his heart, he entrusted someone to inquire about him and learned that Fu Minglou had undergone surgery at Convenient Hospital and was still recuperating. When Jian Shuyu went to see him during the day when he had free time, he found that the person had almost fully recovered and had even packed his things, preparing to be discharged.

Jian Shuyu specifically brought pastries to express his thanks. Fu Minglou accepted them and didn’t say anything else besides telling him to watch the children well.

“Next time you come to the City of Night, Shuyu will invite the young master for a drink.”

Fu Minglou couldn’t help but chuckle: “I just got out of a hospital bed, and you’re inviting me for a drink. You really know how to take care of people.”

“Can you still joke? It seems the young master is in good spirits.” As if infected by it, Jian Shuyu couldn’t help letting out a soft laugh.

“Can’t drink alcohol for a while yet,” Fu Minglou put on his jacket. “Let’s wait a few days. It always feels like a loss not to take advantage of benefits when they’re there.”

Jian Shuyu chuckled lightly: “It’s a deal, Young Master Fu.”

When filming ended, Xian Sui’s gaze was still dazed as it lingered on Gu Fanzhou. Gu Fanzhou still had gauze wrapped around his arm due to plot requirements. Xian Sui kept his gaze on it and suddenly asked, “Brother Gu, is your hand really okay?”

“I’ve already been able to finish filming this section, do you think it’s okay?” Gu Fanzhou looked like he had very little patience, and the Fu Minglou in Xian Sui’s mind clashed once again with the person in front of him.

Probably this could be considered a good thing, Xian Sui thought.

There was still time to shoot the next scene. Xian Sui took a brief rest, browsed through the script, and then went to the fitting room to change back into a qipao.

His makeup was as flamboyant and gorgeous as ever, like a rose fallen upon the snow.

Stepping out of the fitting room, Xian Sui discovered that there were extra people on set. His assistant hurriedly rushed over to remind him that Xie Zhuangqiu had brought his younger sister to visit the crew.

Many people took the initiative to greet Xie Zhuangqiu, but Xie Zhuangqiu let them mind their own business, leaving only Yu Zhifu behind to chat with him about the film.

Perhaps noticing that Xian Sui had been curious about Gu Fanzhou being pursued when they were at the hotel, the assistant intentionally gave Xian Sui a suggestive look and motioned toward the corner on the other side: “That’s Xie Zhuangqiu’s sister, Xie Tangqing. She’s signed with Star and is quite a popular young actress too.”

Xie Tangqing seemed to have brought a gift for Gu Fanzhou, but Gu Fanzhou showed no intention of accepting it whatsoever, treating Xie Tangqing with the exact same impatience he showed Xian Sui.

Xian Sui couldn’t make out any deeper meaning, so he uninterestingly withdrew his gaze, only to accidentally lock eyes with Xie Zhuangqiu not far away.

Xie Zhuangqiu smiled radiantly at him, and Xian Sui politely responded in kind.

Xian Sui vaguely heard Xie Zhuangqiu asking Yu Zhifu, besides matters concerning the film itself, who the person sitting over there wearing a qipao was, noting that he had never seen him before.

“Xian Sui? Little Xian. It’s pretty much his first time acting seriously; it was really hard to find a suitable guy to play this role.”

“A guy?” Xie Zhuangqiu bypassed Yu Zhifu and stopped directly in front of Xian Sui. “Little Xian, right?”

“President Xie.”

Xie Zhuangqiu stared at his face for a moment and abruptly reached out his hand toward him.

Xian Sui instinctively tilted his head to dodge, and the other man let out a light laugh, plucking away a strand of hair on the side of his cheek. “Don’t misunderstand, I just wanted to remind you that your hair is messy.”

“Sorry to trouble President Xie.”

“Director Yu told me there are still scenes to film later,” Xie Zhuangqiu looked completely harmless on the surface. “You don’t mind me watching from the sidelines here, do you?”

“Of course, I don’t mind.” Xian Sui smiled awkwardly.

Logically speaking, visiting the crew and asking Director Yu about things should have been enough; coming specifically to ask Xian Sui directly felt very unnatural.

Unless, rather than visiting the crew, Xie Zhuangqiu preferred to watch Xian Sui.

Over on Gu Fanzhou’s side, he shook off Xie Tangqing, put down his script, and got ready for his position. Xian Sui followed the staff members into the City of Night, catching out of the corner of his eye that the last person stepping leisurely through the door was Xie Zhuangqiu.

After recovering from his injuries, Fu Minglou came to the City of Night to fulfill the drinking appointment, and Jian Shuyu happened to run into some customers looking for trouble.

Not only did it require kissing Gu Fanzhou’s lips, but there were also large areas of exposed skin scenes.

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