Chapter 4
Lu Xiao turned to look at Meng Xuehuan. The news seemed a bit sudden for him—his expression had frozen, brows knit as he skimmed the script at ten lines per glance, checking whether it crossed his bottom line.
He found two kissing scenes in total: one accidental bump, one on a snowy night.
If it were before, seeing Meng Xuehuan look so conflicted, Lu Xiao would have stepped in to stop it.
This time… he hardened his heart and refused to look at Meng Xuehuan’s difficulty.
Lu Xiao kept a stiff face; his heart was cold, and so was his gaze.
Seeing the scratch marks on Lu Xiao’s neck, the screenwriter Suo Tao’s slightly uneasy heart swelled. He grew more and more fluent, making it sound as though adding kissing scenes could boost box office by another billion.
Meng Xuehuan had the illusion that there was light in Suo Tao’s eyes—if films didn’t need approval, he could probably improvise a vigorous bed scene on the spot.
Meng Xuehuan gave this gifted screenwriter an encouraging look. Bed scenes wouldn’t pass review, but they could chat under the covers.
The producer’s head was about to explode. He’d asked the screenwriter to pitch the script, not to persuade the two leads to kiss!
Couldn’t he see how cold both Lu Xiao’s and Meng Xuehuan’s expressions were?
“That’s enough—take a break,” the producer said, pouring Suo Tao a cup of pu’er tea to sober him up. He wasn’t even drunk yet, and he was already acting it.
Suo Tao stopped talking and asked, “Do the two teachers think it’s okay?”
Meng Xuehuan replied professionally, “I’ll do my best to cooperate with reasonable script requirements.”
Lu Xiao gave a slight nod. Meng Xuehuan really was forcing himself.
The producer hadn’t expected an extra gain today. Feeling buoyant, he voiced an idea he’d just been mulling over. “Could the two of you do a joint interview—about your views on this film—or maybe appear on a variety show? Proper promotion, to wash Shao Dancheng out of the related keywords.”
The film had already had one round of promotion; afterward, Meng Xuehuan’s name had been tied to Shao Dancheng’s—bad luck. The film still needed a few more days of preparation anyway.
Lu Xiao: “A variety show? An interview?”
The producer thought he was being sarcastic—Lu Xiao’s face was turned toward him. Just as he was about to speak, he heard Meng Xuehuan say, “An interview.”
Lu Xiao: “Mm.”
So he wasn’t mocking me. The producer breathed a sigh of relief. Damn, you two are so in sync—during the interview, we must add a telepathy Q&A. Fans love that. Seeing such a sweet pair, who would still think about Shao Dancheng?
Producer: “Then let’s strike while the iron’s hot and do a livestream tomorrow? Tease it tonight. Let the audience see the real Meng Xuehuan—upright and unafraid of shadows. If we dare to livestream, it proves there’s no problem at all.”
Netizens loved to speculate that Meng Xuehuan had powerful backing suppressing the issue. If that were true, he should be lying low for a while. Daring to livestream at the peak of controversy showed that higher-ups weren’t pushovers either.
Producer: “Lin Mu, take a photo of them eating together. When you get back, warm things up a bit.”
Lin Mu: “Got it.”
Meng Xuehuan and Lu Xiao sat close together. Lin Mu sat on Lu Xiao’s side, raised his phone, and snapped a photo of the two.
God-tier looks ×2, straight out of camera.
With the business done, they began eating.
Lu Xiao noticed a plate of honey cupcakes on the table and quietly rotated it to Meng Xuehuan’s side. He remembered that Meng Xuehuan liked sweets.
Sure enough, Meng Xuehuan took a honey-glazed cupcake, took a bite, and frowned slightly. He hadn’t expected that in such an expensive restaurant, the honey used would be so inferior.
Most people might not taste the difference, but Meng Xuehuan was the strictest queen-bee quality inspector. He held the cupcake, hesitating.
Lu Xiao: “Not good?”
Meng Xuehuan: “Too sweet.”
Lu Xiao tested the waters. “Then… give it to me?”
Meng Xuehuan shook his head and finished the cupcake in two or three bites. Wasting food was bad, and giving inferior honey to Lu Xiao was worse. He could give Lu Xiao the finest honey under heaven.
Meng Xuehuan had such clear boundaries. Lu Xiao consoled himself—what’s a leftover? They were about to film kissing scenes anyway.
After dinner, back in the car, Lu Xiao said, “I’ll drop you off first.”
It had been a long time since they’d seen each other; silences came easily. Meng Xuehuan thought for a moment and said, “I’ll transfer half of my endorsement fees to you.”
Aside from the small goal he’d already spent, there was still a huge sum in his account—the other half of all his endorsement fees over the past two years.
According to their agreement, endorsement fees were split fifty-fifty with Lu Xiao.
The moment Lu Xiao heard Meng Xuehuan trying to settle accounts, his head started to ache. As usual, he deflected. “We’ll settle it together after the divorce.”
Meng Xuehuan: “Divorce…”
Hearing the word “divorce” from Meng Xuehuan’s mouth made Lu Xiao’s heart leap into his throat. He was afraid Meng Xuehuan would take the opportunity to bring it up again. Back when their group exploded in popularity, Meng Xuehuan had mentioned it once.
At the time, Lu Xiao had reacted fast, immediately putting on a scoffing attitude. “Popular? This is nothing.”
And he wasn’t wrong. Before, it was the group that was popular; after they untied themselves, their individual careers flourished even more.
At this point, Lu Xiao responded just as swiftly. “You’ve hit a rough patch in your career right now. Let’s bind ourselves together for another round of public promotion and get through it. We share hardships.”
Meng Xuehuan said, “I know.”
Recently, several endorsement contracts were up for renewal. When renewing, a celebrity’s public reputation and projected development were closely tied to pricing.
If endorsement fees dropped, Lu Xiao would also suffer losses. Using Lu Xiao’s reputation to vouch for him would keep his endorsements rock-solid. Another wave of joint promotion would make them even more popular, and endorsement fees could rise again.
All of this had been explained to him clearly by his agent on his very first day in the industry.
He had simply been lucky enough to catch the tailwind of Lu Xiao’s ambition to reach the very top of the entertainment world, and was chosen as a teammate to package and promote together.
Lu Xiao had a rotten personality—once he got bored with a circle, he’d slap his butt and leave. Before his sudden whim to enter showbiz, he’d spent two years racing abroad, pouring in massive amounts of money: maintaining a team, developing cars, even custom-making fuel. Ten billion wasn’t enough.
After winning an F1 championship, Lu Xiao waved his hand and retired on the spot, making a whole crowd of fans cry in anger.
After reaching the summit comes retirement. The entertainment industry was no different.
Lu Xiao competed abroad under the English name Alen. When he left, he didn’t even take the name with him. His agent suggested making his résumé public, but he refused.
He divided his life into stages with extreme clarity—arrogant to the core. It was evident that when he exited the entertainment industry, he would take nothing with him.
Being Lu Xiao’s fan was a heart-pounding experience.
Having learned his lesson, the agent feared that after making Lu Xiao famous it would all come to nothing, so he racked his brains to persuade Lu Xiao to form a boy group. That way, he could use the Lu family’s resources to promote several people at once, and when Lu Xiao eventually left the industry, at least something would be left in hand.
In the past two years, singing-and-dancing boy groups were especially effective—easy to attract fans. Lu Xiao pragmatically said it was worth considering. The agent searched everywhere for teammates, putting more effort into it than finding Lu Xiao a wife: good looks, clean background, high education, potential… flawless, so that the Third Young Master wouldn’t look down on them.
In the end, Lu Xiao only took a fancy to one person—Meng Xuehuan—and even required that they register their marriage before starting joint promotions.
The reason was simple.
The Lu family didn’t allow Lu Xiao to take endorsements.
The Lu Group was enormous; for Lu Xiao to endorse products would be lowering his own value. There was also a ninety percent chance he’d end up endorsing a subsidiary of his own group or a competitor.
If an endorsed product blew up in scandal, it could implicate other things—losing the big picture for a small gain.
Without endorsements, income from the business side would plummet. As one rose, the other fell; as his teammate, Meng Xuehuan would benefit greatly. All the high-end business deals Lu Xiao couldn’t take would pile onto Meng Xuehuan.
He enjoyed Lu Xiao’s resources and split half the endorsement fees with him.
Originally, there was no need to register a marriage.
But that day, before signing the contract, Lu Xiao looked at him for a while and suddenly said, “We need to register first.”
Asked why, he said, “I’m afraid you’ll run.”
Meng Xuehuan instantly understood. Right—after all, they didn’t really know each other. A profit-sharing contract might have loopholes, but once it became marital community property, there’d be no running away.
At first, Meng Xuehuan had been a little puzzled. Lu Xiao had played with racing projects worth tens of billions—did he really need to register a marriage just for endorsement fees? The legal team wasn’t incompetent.
Lin Mu explained, “It’s precisely because he played with racing that his father issued a death order: this time in the entertainment industry, he must make money. Otherwise, if he wants to play with anything else next time, the family won’t give him funds. So it has to be foolproof.”
Meng Xuehuan said, “I understand.”
Lin Mu added, “Lu Xiao has a kind of psychological??. Since you’ve registered with him, even though it’s a marriage in name only, during the marriage you can’t cheat, can’t shoot intimate scenes—you have to keep yourself clean.”
Meng Xuehuan thought about his mission of a ‘marriage flight,’ then about the pressing construction project. Land-use policies were getting stricter and stricter; even with money, you couldn’t build as you pleased. The marriage-flight matter could be put aside for now.
Putting it aside turned into two years.
Out of the corner of his eye, Meng Xuehuan glanced at Lu Xiao to his left. They had agreed to divorce once they became “popular”—but in Lu Xiao’s mind, what counted as popular?
What was the upper limit of the entertainment industry?
In literature there’s no first place; in martial arts there’s no second. The entertainment industry couldn’t be like racing, crossing a finish line to clearly determine first and second.
Lu Xiao was so smart—had he secretly noticed this problem too?
Secretly.
Meng Xuehuan had secretly realized it and didn’t plan to say anything.
As a human, failing a marriage flight wasn’t a big deal.
The only slight trouble was that, as a queen bee, if he kept the status of a virgin queen, a new queen would be born in the clan after a few years.
Just like in a beehive: when a queen’s egg-laying ability weakens, worker bees build replacement queen cells to cultivate a new queen. The old queen leaves the hive or is killed.
Of course, human society wasn’t that extreme. The clan’s previous queen was still alive and well; after stepping down, she went traveling, and the clan would support her for life.
Still, for Meng Xuehuan to step down at such a young age would be a bit embarrassing, and staying in the clan would feel awkward.
Meng Xuehuan had already prepared himself to live apart from the group, losing a bunch of followers. He hoped that by then he would have helped the clan achieve four small goals.
But today, he felt a spark of hope again!
Satisfied, Meng Xuehuan hugged the script, said goodbye to Lu Xiao, and got out of the car with Lin Mu. After the group disbanded, Lu Xiao had started anew, leaving the agent to him.
In the underground parking lot sat a red Ferrari supercar, assigned to him by the company.
Because he had just been thinking about racing in the car, Meng Xuehuan couldn’t help glancing at it a few extra times.
Aside from occasionally driving it to the seaside to take a couple of photos for Weibo to show off, he rarely drove it—the noise was too disturbing.
Lin Mu followed his gaze. Ah, a useless supercar.
Every three months, Lu Xiao would come over to help Meng Xuehuan drive it in for maintenance, insisting on overseeing the whole process himself.
Lu Xiao’s gaze also fell on the supercar as he calculated the next maintenance date. The mileage between the two services would probably be zero again.
Lu Xiao said, “I’m heading off. Go to bed early tonight.”
Meng Xuehuan replied, “See you tomorrow.”
Lin Mu picked exactly eight o’clock, logged into the studio account, and posted the photo taken during dinner, with the caption:
[Guess what new collaboration this is? Tomorrow at 12 noon, Sea Star Live, link ID (4157901): an exclusive interview with Meng Xuehuan and Lu Xiao. Stay tuned.]
The number of reposts skyrocketed. CP fans howled with excitement—having a joint appearance right after announcing their relationship, the perks were just too good!
The comments below were full of guesses about what the new collaboration might be. Some said a song, some a variety show, and some even guessed that Lu Xiao would step in to replace Shao Dancheng.
But very quickly, no one cared about the actual news anymore. Everyone’s attention was fixed on the scratch marks on Lu Xiao’s neck.
At a glance, they were clearly made by fingernails!
[Zooming in on the degree of scabbing on the wounds, preliminary estimate places the injury time at 12–18 hours ago. Working backward, that’s between 2 a.m. last night and 8 a.m. this morning.]
[Additional note: the scabbing isn’t uniform, so they weren’t left at the same time—more like intermittently.]
[Are you a forensic pathologist??? Ahhh forensic sis you’re so good at shipping CPs. CPs like us who die and revive need talents like forensic experts! I can even tell how many times they did it.]
[Totally shipped this “autopsy-style” CP analysis.]
[Boss sorry, I misunderstood—you didn’t wake up late.]
[You didn’t wake up late, you just didn’t sleep at all! Was it too intense, couldn’t hear the phone ringing? Huh?!]
[So it’s not just me eating well, you guys are eating well too. Auntie smile.jpg]
[Meng Xuehuan looks so cool and aloof, but wow he really knows how to claw people in bed—did Lu Xiao bully him too hard? Cow-cat dancing.gif]
Meng Xuehuan: “……”
He looked at his own fingernails.
Did Lu Xiao know he was this capable on the internet?
