Chapter 70
Wait, a kiss scene?
Ji Wei took out his phone, opened Weibo, and found a video he had previously saved.
—Director Li Wen on Star Podcast discussing Lu Shenxing in Becoming King.
He confirmed with Lu Shenxing again, “The movie starting next month should be Becoming King, right?”
Lu Shenxing nodded slightly.
Ji Wei bent down, his gaze level with Lu Shenxing’s. He held the phone with the video in front of the man and asked, puzzled, “But didn’t Director Li say that the character of Ninth Master is a eunuch?” He could recite the character’s life story. “He entered the palace at the age of eight and rose to a position of immense power, wielding the imperial seal on behalf of the emperor, all within twenty years. Where would a kiss scene come from?”
Hearing his words, the man was silent for a moment, then looked up at him and replied with a normal expression, “I misremembered.”
Ji Wei put his phone away, a thought nagging at him. How could he misremember whether there was a kiss scene or not?
It seemed that even his idol would get rusty if he didn’t act for too long. He sighed, turned, and went into the study.
He sat down at the computer and started today’s stream.
“Today we’re playing an old game. Those who like text-based games should know this one, The Invisible Guardian.”
Ji Wei adjusted the microphone, set the volume to a suitable level, and then launched the game.
[Look what I stumbled upon?! I stumbled upon a live stream!]
[Cub Wei is so diligent! He just finished recording the variety show yesterday and is streaming today. I love summer vacation!]
[The Invisible Guardian?! I’m a huge fan of this game!]
The game took a while to load, so Ji Wei started introducing the background. “The protagonist of the game is based on the quintuple agent Yuan Shu, who held five identities: Communist Party of China, Central Bureau of Investigation and Statistics, Bureau of Investigation and Statistics, Wang Jingwei Puppet Government, and the Green and Red Gangs.”
The Invisible Guardian was a text-based interactive movie game. Players could choose different options to watch different movie plots, but the content was even more stunning than the format.
In this spy game, the most profound feeling for players was that you couldn’t trust anyone, and that faith was eternal.
[It’s actually a spy game? That’s so hardcore!]
[I’ve never played a game of this genre. Will it be a bit mind-bending?]
[+1, it reminds me of the fear of being dominated by anti-Japanese drama tropes. But I could listen to Cub Wei just chatting all day!]
Because the game had a rich text plot, Ji Wei rarely spoke except to read the options. The game itself was excellent enough.
In The Invisible Guardian, being a good person meant you wouldn’t survive.
Your childhood sweetheart and first love, she didn’t know what you were doing. She only knew that you killed her father and defected to the Japanese army.
Facing your junior who had always admired you, who worked for the Wang Jingwei Puppet Government with a look of naive innocence, you could only bring yourself to kill her…
From the moment you became a spy, you were destined to be cut off from the light, silently guarding this country from the darkest places.
Of course, you could also give up.
You could choose to go to Japan as a Japanese soldier and live out your later years in peace. But the Aioi Bridge where you settled, due to its conspicuous design, happened to be the target of the first atomic bomb in human history. Some players joked that this was one of the hundred ways for an undercover agent to die.
The last time Ji Wei played this game was two years ago, but he had memorized all the strategies. He told the Japanese officer’s daughter the historical truth, avoided shooting the female agent from the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics… and perfectly avoided all the death flags.
[The streamer’s strategy is very solid!]
[An incredibly smooth experience!]
[I looked it up, there are four endings in total. I want to see them all! If I played it myself, I’d definitely be looking at a guide on my phone while clicking options on my computer. There’s no experience in that.]
[Hahahahahahaha, that’s me!]
The number of viewers in the stream started at 170,000 and grew to 400,000 by dinnertime.
[There are so many death flags in the game. If it were me playing, forget about going undercover, I probably would have been sent to Yan’an at the beginning…]
[Why do I feel like going to support Yan’an is the best ending (dog face)? The four endings are each more tragic than the last…]
[It’s not that they’re tragic, but being undercover always involves sacrifice. But sigh!]
When Ji Wei finished his meal and continued streaming the remaining chapters, he was surprised to find that the number of viewers had exceeded one million. The moment he saw it, he rubbed his eyes, suspecting he had seen wrong.
Although his Weibo followers had reached over eight million, the vast majority of them followed him because of the variety show. Only a small portion would watch his game streams.
He suppressed his doubts and continued streaming. At eight o’clock, the stream ended. He received a message.
[World Destroyer]: Bro, you’ve been called out!
Ji Wei wasn’t particularly surprised. He himself felt that the popularity of his stream had grown too quickly. He usually didn’t accept donations, but today he had received over one hundred thousand yuan in donations.
He clicked on the post sent by World Destroyer.
[Original Poster]: Is Ji Wei Bilibili’s golden boy? His spy game stream has a million viewers. His previous game streams had less than five hundred thousand. The officials must have changed the data and put him on the homepage, right?
[1L]: Ji Wei hasn’t signed with Bilibili. Why would Bilibili promote him?
[2L]: He gained a lot of fans from his last stream of This War of Mine, right? This time the theme is similar. I don’t think a million is that surprising. If you look around on Douyu and Huya, you’ll see it’s nothing special.
[3L]: I can understand the OP’s surprise. A game of this genre really can’t have a million viewers. I’m inclined to think someone is promoting Ji Wei.
…
[423L]: As a Ji Wei fan, I didn’t want to give this any attention, but I really can’t stand it anymore. Ji Wei has over eight million followers on Weibo. Is a million viewers in his stream really that exaggerated? I’m impressed. People will hate on anyone these days.
[424L]: He had over seven million followers on Weibo during his last stream, right? The game he streamed was even more popular, but his stream viewers were less than four hundred thousand. Think about it.
This post became more and more heated, eventually making its way to Weibo. Ji Wei looked at the post, also confused. Did someone buy him followers?
Just then, he received a call from his father. “Hello—”
A noisy sound came from the other end of the line. Ji’s Father raised his voice and asked, “Weiwei, what are you doing?”
“Studying,” Ji Wei said, glancing at the computer screen he had just turned off, his expression unchanged.
Out of professional habit, his father had always been very strict about his studies.
Who knew that his father’s next words would almost make him drop his phone. “You can study anytime. Doesn’t The Invisible Guardian have four endings? Hurry up and play the last one. Your Uncle Huang and I are waiting to watch.”
Ji Wei was speechless. “…Why are you suddenly watching my stream?”
“This game is quite interesting, a bit like watching a movie. It would be great if it could be made into a spy drama,” his father’s voice came from the other end of the line.
Ji Wei hung up the phone, marveling at the strange appeal that the spy genre had for his father. Even his father had stooped to watch his stream.
He reopened Weibo, wanting to see the comments on that post. When he opened it, he was stunned—
[Cherry]: What’s so surprising about a million viewers? My dad watched The Forbidden City’s Little Shop the day before yesterday. I told him Ji Wei was streaming a spy game, and he immediately went to watch it.
[American Bing Cherry]: Hahahahahahahaha, my parents are the same. They watched the variety show the day before yesterday, and today they watched the stream. I was the one who opened Bilibili for them. My mom was cracking sunflower seeds and asking why he wasn’t showing his face.
[Claudia]: Auntie is a lookism admirer too. But The Invisible Guardian is a quality game. My dad urged me to buy and download it. It was the first time I’ve ever had that experience.
[Glass Teacup]: Can the fans of The Forbidden City’s Little Shop say that although the show’s ratings aren’t very high, it’s very good at attracting middle-aged and elderly fans?!
Ji Wei felt that his previous statement was not comprehensive enough. To be precise, the spy genre had a strange appeal to all middle-aged and elderly people, especially men.
The original poster on the forum had at first insisted that the Weibo posts were all from a water army. But as more and more people spoke up, and it even started trending, and the usernames didn’t look like they belonged to a water army, he finally went silent.
The tone of the comments under that post was completely different from before.
[859]: Where’s the OP? You have the courage to spread rumors out of thin air but not the courage to apologize?
[860]: I didn’t expect Ji Wei’s audience appeal to be so good. His national recognition is almost on par with a third-tier celebrity, right?
[861]: He’s the top star of Bilibili. As an old fan who has watched him grow from a small streamer with three thousand followers to today, I feel quite emotional.
Ji Wei was about to turn off his phone and play the zither for a while when he suddenly received a call from an unknown number.
Seeing that the area code was from Shanghai, he hesitantly answered. An enthusiastic voice immediately came through, “I’m Wilson. I’m in Shanghai for the charity match. I heard from the organizers that you might be coming too. Are you coming?”
“I’m not sure yet…”
Before he could finish, Wilson started planning their tour of Shanghai. “In the morning, we can go to Disneyland. I haven’t been to the one in Shanghai yet. I want to see how it’s different from the one in America…”
“By the way, you’re coming, right?”
Ji Wei listened to him talk nonstop for half an hour and really couldn’t bring himself to say no. He sighed and said, “I’ll go.”
“See you in Shanghai then!” Wilson said excitedly.
After hanging up, Ji Wei sent a message to the charity match staff, saying he was willing to participate.
He walked out of the study, took a shower, and got into bed. Lu Shenxing had a night light on and was half-lying in bed reading a book, which seemed to be about psychology.
He stayed up very late.
Because Ji Wei woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and the light was still on.
***
Lu Shenxing woke up very early. He toasted four slices of bread, two for himself and two for Ji Wei.
He spread a thick layer of honey on his own, and only placed a single cherry on Ji Wei’s. His little one didn’t like things that were too sweet.
Ying Guanxiao arrived on time. Seeing the extra portion of toast on the dining table, he said, flattered, “How did you know I hadn’t eaten?” He was about to reach for it when the man pointed to the toaster. “Make your own.”
Ying Guanxiao was speechless. He knew Old Lu wouldn’t be so kind!
Lu Shenxing changed his clothes, put on a mask, and Ying Guanxiao pushed him out the door. “There are five dessert shops near Yan University, but I checked, and only one is owned by someone with the surname Liang.”
Lu Shenxing lowered his eyes thoughtfully.
“Actually, the doctor said,” Ying Guanxiao suddenly remembered the doctor’s advice, “you can use a cane now, you don’t need a wheelchair. It’s a hassle to get around.”
Lu Shenxing didn’t speak.
Based on Ying Guanxiao’s many years of knowing him, he probably thought that using a cane… was too ugly. He had an image to maintain in front of Ji Wei.
Eating a public display of affection so early in the morning, Ying Guanxiao was in a bit of a foul mood.
They stopped in front of a shop called Le Le Desserts.
Ying Guanxiao sized up the shop’s decor. The color scheme was beige, with cartoon stickers on the walls. Inside, there were many cute dolls on the tables, like Totoro and Nezha.
You could see the owner’s effort, but you could still feel a sense of cheapness. He didn’t know why Lu Shenxing wanted to find this shop. There was no one in the shop, so it probably wasn’t very good. Perhaps it was a hidden gem?
Liang Heng came out of the kitchen, wearing a blue apron. “Hello, what would you like to have?”
“Do you have brownies?” Lu Shenxing asked.
“Yes,” Liang Heng nodded.
“One, please.”
Ying Guanxiao looked at the price list on the wall. “I’ll have a croissant and a cup of Americano.”
He wasn’t like Lu Shenxing, eating dessert so early in the morning.
“Please wait a moment.” Liang Heng turned and went into the kitchen.
Ying Guanxiao pushed Lu Shenxing to a table by the window and pulled out a chair opposite him.
The Berlin Film Festival, originally scheduled for February, had been postponed to July. It could be said that the competition for this year’s Best Actor award was the most intense in a decade.
As the Berlin Film Festival drew closer, Ying Guanxiao couldn’t help but feel nervous. “How confident are you about the Berlin Film Festival?”
Lu Shenxing lowered his eyes. “Eighty percent, I guess.”
Ying Guanxiao breathed a sigh of relief. Lu Shenxing had always been conservative in his self-assessment. If he said eighty percent, then the Silver Bear Award was his without a doubt.
“Your order is ready.”
Liang Heng brought over their order. Just as he was about to leave, he heard the masked man suddenly ask, “Judging by your accent, you don’t seem to be from Yancheng. You sound more like you’re from Yushan.”
Liang Heng was slightly surprised and smiled. “You have a good ear. My household registration is in Shandong. I only moved to Yancheng this year. I used to study in Yushan.”
Ying Guanxiao cut his croissant and was about to take a bite when Lu Shenxing turned his gaze to his face. “You have something to do. You can leave first.”
Ying Guanxiao was speechless. He didn’t.
But since Lu Shenxing had said so, he sighed, took his croissant, gulped down his coffee, and walked out of Le Le Desserts.
But after walking out, he couldn’t help but look back into the shop with worry. If he remembered correctly, Ji Wei was from Yushan.
***
After Ji Wei woke up, Huang Bo was already busy in the kitchen. He saw the two slices of toast on the dining table, silently walked over, picked them up, and ate them in small bites. Although they were cold, they must have been left for him by his idol.
Huang Bo brought out a bowl of fragrant chicken soup with rice and freshly squeezed orange juice. Ji Wei was actually full after eating the toast, but facing Huang Bo’s expectant gaze, he had no choice but to finish it all, feeling extremely full.
So full that when Chen Yan called him to hang out, he immediately agreed, wanting to go for a walk.
Chen Yan dragged him to a mall to pick out a ring for his girlfriend. “You should get out more. What’s a boy doing staying at home all day? You’re not a little girl from ancient times.”
“Do you think she’ll like this style?” Chen Yan pointed to one on the counter. “It doesn’t seem to match her temperament.”
Her?
Ji Wei tried his best to remember. “Is your girlfriend still the one with short hair?”
“No.” Chen Yan paced around the counter, looking. “I met a girl on the plane when I was on vacation in Australia a few days ago. She’s so cool.”
“Oh.”
Ji Wei realized that as long as he was a little busy, he couldn’t keep up with Chen Yan’s rich love life. Sometimes he really envied Chen Yan, who could love someone so fearlessly.
Most of the time, it was Chen Yan and the sales associate talking back and forth. He didn’t understand these things and just stood quietly next to Chen Yan.
After half an hour, Chen Yan finally made a decision. As he was paying, he suddenly remembered, “What brand is your wedding ring?”
“A small brand, I think.” Ji Wei thought about the English on the packaging. “Bulgari.”
His idol had told him it wasn’t worth much when he gave it to him.
The person packing for Chen Yan laughed. “Bulgari is the most famous high-end jewelry brand in Italy. If that’s not considered valuable, then there’s nothing valuable in my store.”
Ji Wei was stunned. His idol must have said that so he wouldn’t feel burdened, since they had just met.
Chen Yan looked at Ji Wei and shook his head. He took the box, walked out of the jewelry store with Ji Wei, and called his girlfriend. “Honey, I have a surprise for you tonight. Just you wait…”
After Chen Yan finished his well-practiced phone call, Ji Wei couldn’t help but ask, “How can you like so many people?”
Chen Yan was extremely puzzled. “Isn’t it simple? I see her, and I want to be with her.”
“Is that what love is?” Ji Wei stopped in his tracks.
“What else could it be?” Chen Yan added, “It’s just that my love lasts for a shorter time, maybe a week, maybe a month.”
“Your love lasts for a longer time, so long that you might only love one person, Lu Shenxing, for your entire life.”
Ji Wei could no longer hear the rest of the words. Only six words appeared in his mind.
He, loves, Lu Shenxing…
He pressed his lips together and asked uncertainly, “Do I love Lu Shenxing?”
“Of course you do,” Chen Yan said without hesitation. “Just now when you mentioned him, the expression on your face became so gentle.”
Ji Wei subconsciously touched his face. Was it… that obvious?
A love that even Chen Yan could see, yet he had been telling himself it was just a fan’s admiration for his idol. But it wasn’t. He was becoming more and more greedy, wanting to be with Lu Shenxing, wanting to be with Lu Shenxing forever.
In the beginning, he had just wanted to look up to him silently.
Ji Wei suppressed the emotions in his heart, feeling so helpless for the first time. He took a deep breath and asked in a low voice, “But what if he doesn’t love me?”
Chen Yan looked at him as if he had heard a joke. “If he doesn’t love you, why would he marry you?”
“He just wanted to get married. As for who it was—” Ji Wei clenched his fists, “it probably didn’t matter.”
“But he really is a very good partner.”
So good that he didn’t want to let go.
Chen Yan’s mind started working. “If he doesn’t love you, you should pursue him.”
“How do I pursue him?” Ji Wei looked up blankly.
To be honest, Chen Yan was stumped. Although he had a lot of experience chasing girls, he couldn’t really articulate it on the spot.
He sized up Ji Wei. A simple shirt and trousers, but even so, he seemed to shine in a crowd.
Chen Yan rubbed his chin. “Let’s go buy you some clothes first.”
***
By the time Ji Wei returned to Hua Ting with bags full of clothes, it was already afternoon. As he stepped out of the elevator, his back trembled slightly. He had never worn such formal clothes before, but Chen Yan said that mature men were more popular.
The house was quiet.
He almost thought no one was home. It wasn’t until he passed the study that he saw Lu Shenxing reading a book, his face devoid of any smile, exuding a very cold aura that made people afraid to approach.
Ji Wei hesitated for a moment, then summoned his courage and knocked on the door.
The man slowly looked up, and the oppressive atmosphere vanished. Ji Wei couldn’t help but wonder if it had been his imagination before.
Lu Shenxing’s gaze stopped on his face, moved to his neck, and then slowly descended inch by inch. The gaze seemed to have a temperature, as if he were being touched.
Ji Wei’s heart stopped for a beat in nervousness, then pounded heavily. He lowered his head and said, his lips dry, “Do I look a little strange in a suit?”
The young man wore a well-tailored black suit. His waist was narrow, his legs straight, and his slender, tall figure was perfectly outlined. It was the look of a young man on the cusp of adulthood.
“It’s not strange.” Lu Shenxing said faintly, “You look good.”
Hearing the man’s words, Ji Wei’s nervousness dissipated for the most part. His tightly clenched fists slowly relaxed, his palms already soaked with sweat. But before he could completely relax—
The man looked at him and said faintly, “You look good without it too.”