Chapter 72: Transmigrated as a Stingy Phoenix Man (72)
“Cen Yu.”
Lou Baichuan was practically late in making his appearance. The moment he walked into the office area, he called out Cen Yu’s name.
Even though he kept his voice quite low, it still drew the attention of several people around them—or rather, the people in the office had been closely watching every movement here from the very beginning.
Cen Yu looked up at Lou Baichuan, clearly sensing the underlying concern beneath his cool exterior.
“Come into my office for a moment.” Lou Baichuan nodded, then turned and walked into his private office first.
Cen Yu closed his laptop directly, pushed back his chair, and stood up. As he did, Gao Lanyuan beside him finally spoke up.
He looked at Cen Yu. “…Yu Xinyu…”
“Yeah, my boyfriend,” Cen Yu replied casually.
Disregarding Gao Lanyuan’s reaction, he walked straight toward Lou Baichuan’s office.
Pushing the door open and stepping inside, he saw that Lou Baichuan hadn’t even taken off his jacket yet. He was simply standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, gazing out at the high-rises outside. It wasn’t until Cen Yu walked in that he turned his head. “Have a seat.”
Closing the door behind him, Cen Yu sat down directly across from Lou Baichuan.
With the desk between them, Lou Baichuan sat down first, opened his laptop, and began discussing various work arrangements with Cen Yu. He spoke in scattered details, almost as if he were manufacturing conversation just to keep an uncomfortable silence from settling between them.
Cen Yu let out a quiet sigh in his heart, thinking that Lou Baichuan really was a good person—even in a situation like this, he still wanted to preserve his dignity.
“What did upper management say?”
Cen Yu cut straight to the chase.
Lou Baichuan’s fingers paused over the keyboard. A heavy silence descended upon the office. Lou Baichuan stared at Cen Yu sitting before him—the man still wore that same indifferent expression, as though the storm of comments flooding the internet held no real sway over him.
He didn’t know how to break the company’s decision to Cen Yu. Granted, upper management had phrased it very diplomatically.
They had simply asked: Isn’t Cen Yu really busy recording the variety show lately? Why not let him take a few days off first?
As for how many days that leave would last or when he should return, not a single word was mentioned.
Perhaps from start to finish, what the company feared wasn’t public opinion on the internet at all, but rather Yu Jinheng—they worried that Cen Yu’s attitude toward Yu Xinyu would draw Yu Jinheng’s displeasure.
After all, everyone knew Yu Jinheng was genuinely doting toward his younger brother.
Yet from Lou Baichuan’s perspective, he didn’t believe Yu Jinheng would target Cen Yu over something like this, nor did he think the man would bother going after a company like theirs. He felt the balding boss was truly worrying over nothing. Still, facing Cen Yu’s calm gaze, he found himself unable to utter a word of that.
In the end, he took a deep breath and said, “The company thinks it’s best for you to take a few days off first.”
He put on a relaxed front. “Since you have the show to record and just got back, you must be pretty tired anyway. Take a rest for a while before we talk again.”
Lou Baichuan truly was a considerate man.
Cen Yu felt a surge of quiet appreciation in his heart; even the message telling him to get lost could be delivered with such grace.
Then again, he had no intention of sticking around anyway. He looked at Lou Baichuan. “No need.”
“I’ll submit my resignation today.” He looked at Lou Baichuan with a slight smile. “I’ll have to trouble you to approve it then, Brother Chuan.”
Lou Baichuan’s brow furrowed. He wanted to say something, but in the end, he only offered, “There’s no need for that.” He looked at Cen Yu earnestly. “You don’t have to do this.”
Cen Yu didn’t say a word. He simply stood up and looked at Lou Baichuan, then followed his gaze to take in the view through the floor-to-ceiling window. Only then did he look down at Lou Baichuan. “To me, it’s necessary.”
Meanwhile, over on the production team’s end, chaos had erupted into a heated debate. Some felt the drama was great publicity, while others worried it might offend the Yu family.
In the end, they failed to reach a consensus, settling instead on praying that they could gauge the Yu family’s stance before the second episode’s recording began.
Sang Qianshan had naturally seen the video online as well. He cursed Yu Xinyu up and down for being a complete, useless waste—how on earth had this footage leaked out?! He was just about to ask his agent if they could somehow flip the narrative when he caught his agent staring back at him with a deeply troubled face—
“My lord, please don’t get involved in this.”
“…How do you think a video like that gets leaked?” The agent felt Sang Qianshan was letting his concern cloud his judgment. “That was literally taken from inside his apartment! Who else besides Yu Xinyu himself could have gotten their hands on that footage?”
If the video had indeed been released by Yu Xinyu himself…
Then whether it was his intentional appearance in front of the camera back then, his remarks during the interview, or these sudden leaked videos—all of it had clearly been orchestrated under Yu Xinyu’s direction.
If he truly wanted to crush Cen Yu, it would take nothing more than a single word from him.
After all, no one was going to offend both Yu brothers just for the sake of a nobody like Cen Yu.
The more Sang Qianshan thought about it, the angrier he grew. He grabbed his phone, intending to post a statement on Weibo, only for his agent to snatch it right out of his hands. The agent rapidly changed his account password, terrified that Sang Qianshan would lose his mind and post something reckless.
Sang Qianshan stared at his agent. “Fine.”
Just as he was about to call Cen Yu directly, he noticed a text message from Cen Yu popping up on his screen—
[Cen Yu: I’m fine, don’t lose your mind.]
As if all the strength had been drained from his body in an instant, Sang Qianshan looked at his agent. “Give me my phone.”
The agent gave him a guarded look.
“Give it to me.”
Seeing that Sang Qianshan was genuinely furious, the agent obediently handed the phone back to him. Grabbing the phone, Sang Qianshan walked straight into his bedroom, shut the door, and dialed Cen Yu’s number.
The call went through almost instantly. Contrary to what he had envisioned, Cen Yu’s voice sounded no different from usual—
“What are you calling me for?”
“…I…” Sang Qianshan wanted to ask how he was holding up, yet he worried about rubbing salt in his wounds, causing him to hesitate back and forth.
“I’m completely fine,” Cen Yu said directly, as if reading his mind. “Save the comforting words, I’m busy right now.”
“Busy with what?” Sang Qianshan asked, bewildered.
“I’m resigning and packing up my stuff,” Cen Yu said, sounding as though he really were packing.
“…You resigned?!”
“Well, I found myself a golden thigh to cling to, didn’t I?” Cen Yu let out a soft chuckle. “As a gold-digging phoenix man like me, how could I not hold on tight to a big thigh?” With that, he added, “I’ve still got things to take care of, hanging up now.”
By the time Sang Qianshan tried calling back again, he couldn’t get through at all.
Cen Yu didn’t actually have much to pack. Adhering strictly to the principle of being ready to bolt at a moment’s notice, his desk was virtually empty, holding nothing besides a water cup.
He didn’t even bother taking the cup, tossing it straight into the trash.
Slinging his laptop over his shoulder, he prepared to leave. He glanced over at Gao Lanyuan beside him. “I’m heading out.”
Gao Lanyuan stood up immediately. “I’ll walk you out.”
Baffled, Cen Yu simply assumed it was a gesture of workplace camaraderie. Since it wasn’t official off-work hours, the elevator was virtually empty with just the two of them inside.
“…What do you plan to do next?” Gao Lanyuan asked before Cen Yu stepped out of the company’s main entrance.
Cen Yu turned to look back at him. “What else? Be a kept man.”
With that, he gave a wave. “My ride’s here, I’m heading off.”
Right before Gao Lanyuan’s eyes, Cen Yu scampered over to the company entrance and slid into the ride-hail car he had just booked—
Gao Lanyuan watched Cen Yu open the door and climb inside. The man didn’t look back even once, as if he held zero nostalgia for this place.
Indeed, there’s nothing here worth being nostalgic for, Gao Lanyuan let out a self-deprecating chuckle.
Swiping his badge, he stepped back into the elevator and returned to their floor…
Walking back to his desk, he spotted the water cup Cen Yu had tossed into the trash bin. After a moment’s hesitation, he picked the cup up and placed it into his own bag.
Right after that, he walked over to Lou Baichuan’s office, knocked on the glass door a few times, and stepped inside—
“Brother Chuan, I’m submitting my resignation.”
