Chapter 82: Chen Yibai is Online!
Fortunately, neither the watch nor the piano got damaged, and Chen Yi Bai finished the promo shoot in one piece, walking out of the set unharmed.
The agent took back the phone, gave him a sideways glance, and asked, “Ever thought about getting a piano?”
No other reason, she just thought it was a shame that he had such talent but rarely used it.
Chen Bai had no such plans. He said, “There’s still a mountain of debt over my head. I can’t think about that.”
“At the rate you’re working, it’ll only take a few more years.”
The agent grew a bit curious and asked, “You do a few movies a year. The time will fly by. What do you want to do after you’ve paid off your debt?”
Chen Bai had never thought about it before. After a moment of reflection, he said, “Make money and retire.”
Predictable. Just as she thought, his goal was to keep making money. Nothing new there, so she turned to look at the familiar streets outside and the sky, which was so cloudy it was hard to see far ahead. “We’re almost there. When you get out, make sure you take your umbrella. It looks like it might rain again today.”
The car arrived at the entrance of the neighborhood, and Chen Bai got out.
He didn’t have any luggage that needed carrying today, and seeing as the sky was about to rain, he had to hurry home before it started. The others stayed in the car and waved at him through the window.
After the car left, Chen Bai turned and walked toward his building, pulling out his phone as he went.
After safely arriving home, he sent a message to his good neighbor, who was currently out of town, and also informed Mrs. Jiang and Mr. Xu, who had been keeping an eye on things.
Mrs. Jiang and Mr. Xu originally wanted to invite him to stay at their place, but although he had returned to A City, he was still busy with work, frequently coming and going. Staying home was more convenient, so he declined, opting to just report back to them when he got home safely.
After showering and changing into his casual clothes, by the time he emerged from the bathroom, it had already started raining outside.
It was now past 7 p.m., well beyond dinnertime. Since he would be out all day tomorrow for work, there was no point in buying groceries that he wouldn’t be able to finish. If he dealt with it haphazardly, there was a risk of getting caught by Mrs. Jiang. After some brief consideration, Chen Bai decided to grab his umbrella and head out.
If he remembered correctly, there was a small noodle shop nearby. Though it was a bit of a walk, it was cheap and filling. He still had some time today, and after eating, he figured he’d still have time to squeeze in a quick livestream.
He headed out, taking a path he rarely used.
It was a rainy Saturday, and with fewer people heading home from work, the streets felt more deserted than usual.
The noodle shop was still open, and since it was past dinnertime, it was mostly empty. He decided to eat there.
“……”
Swoosh—
The sound of rain hitting the ground and trees outside continued steadily. When the glass door was pushed open by a customer entering the store, the sound suddenly amplified, filling the air.
After quickly finishing his meal, just as a new customer walked past, Chen Bai, who had been chatting with the shop owner while eating, put down his chopsticks and put his hat and mask back on. Once again, he blended in as an ordinary customer, looking like he might rob the place.
He stood up, pushed open the glass door, and as he opened his umbrella, he politely said, “Goodbye, boss.”
The owner, busy greeting the new customer, waved back with a smile.
The rain had intensified during his meal, and now, as he stepped back into it, Chen Bai felt his umbrella grow heavier under the downpour.
Heading back the way he came, he took advantage of the walk to juggle holding his umbrella with one hand while pulling out his phone from his pocket with the other. Switching to his alternate account, Chen Er Bai, he began editing a live stream notification with one hand.
He carefully selected a picture of his dinner, his pupils reflecting the glow of the phone screen. Just as he typed the final word, he reached the edge of the road, where the traffic light turned red.
Every time he crossed this intersection, he seemed to hit a red light. Just another ordinary day in the unlucky life of Chen Bai.
He watched the stream of cars pass by, feeling that the lights were oddly blinding. Shifting his gaze from the traffic, he looked to the side, where the greenery of the roadside plantings caught his eye.
Something was there.
The streetlamp’s light was partially blocked by the trees, and in the shadowy base of the bushes, he could make out what looked like a yellowish-white lump.
Then he saw that the lump moved.
It was a very slight movement, barely noticeable unless you looked closely. With several seconds left on the red light countdown, Chen Bai squatted down under his umbrella, not in a hurry.
A car passed by, briefly illuminating the base of the bushes. This time, he saw it clearly—yellowish-white fur and trembling ears.
It was a small dog, its eyes closed, and its hind legs were tinged red, likely from a wound.
There was no one else around, just the sound of rain.
Chen Bai hesitated for only a second before putting his phone back in his pocket and reaching down toward the base of the bush.
At the nearby pet hospital…
Rain poured down outside, but inside the waiting room, Chen Bai stood up immediately when he saw the doctor coming out of the room.
The doctor explained as he walked, “The puppy is about two or three months old and has a severe case of parvovirus. It’s been infected for some time, and the chances of recovery are around fifty-fifty.”
When the puppy first arrived, its fur was yellowed and matted, making it hard to tell its breed. Under the proper lighting, they realized it was a purebred dog. The vet speculated that its previous owner had abandoned it, unwilling to treat the parvovirus infection. Its hind leg injury probably occurred during that time. Sadly, they saw cases like this often.
If treated early, parvovirus has a good chance of being cured, but because this puppy had been infected for a while, the odds were much lower.
The doctor didn’t sugarcoat anything, explaining the situation clearly: “Treatment will take time, and it won’t be cheap. As I mentioned, we can’t guarantee success, but we’ll do everything we can.”
Chen Bai, realizing his wallet was about to take a hit, closed his eyes and nodded. “Go ahead with the treatment.”
The doctor then took him to fill out some paperwork.
While Chen Bai filled out the forms, the doctor prepared the puppy’s medical file on the computer, saying, “Good thing you found it today. The puppy was already dehydrated. If it hadn’t been brought in, it likely wouldn’t have made it through the night.”
Chen Bai nodded, writing down his name.
When he handed the paperwork back, the doctor glanced at it and chuckled. “You’ve got the same name as that famous celebrity.”
Chen Bai didn’t recognize the name, but apparently, some of the vet’s coworkers were fans. If they had been on duty, they might have been thrilled.
Tugging at his damp hat brim, Chen Bai smiled faintly. His mind was still preoccupied with the puppy and the money he had just spent, so his smile was shallow, almost unnoticeable behind his mask.
After paying the bill on his phone, he asked, “Can I go see it?”
The doctor said yes.
Chen Bai went to check on the puppy.
After the examination, the puppy had been moved to another room, lying on a small table surrounded by a barrier. A blanket was placed beneath it to keep it warm, and it was hooked up to an IV.
Because of the treatment, the puppy couldn’t be bathed or dewormed, so it was still a dirty little bundle of fur, its coat matted and giving off a slight odor.
A nearby vet had just finished treating the wound on its hind leg and wrapped it in a bandage.
The puppy, likely in pain, opened its eyes for a brief moment and looked toward Chen Bai. Its body remained still, but it sniffed in his direction, as if trying to recognize his scent or commit it to memory.
That brief moment of eye contact was all it could manage before it fell back asleep, its vital signs stable.
With the vet handling the rest, Chen Bai didn’t need to stay. He arranged to come back and check on the puppy the next evening, and then he left.
As he walked into the rain again, back to the familiar intersection with yet another red light, Chen Bai suddenly remembered that he hadn’t sent out his live stream notification yet. Stepping back a bit, he adjusted the timing and sent it out.
Although it was later than planned, he still needed to stream. That little puppy had taken quite a chunk out of his savings, and he needed to make up for it.
For the next few days, Chen Bai kept a busy schedule. During the day, between tightly packed work shifts, he would make time to check the messages from the vet, staying updated on the puppy’s condition. At night, he visited the hospital to take a look for himself.
Thanks to the vet’s careful care and Chen Bai’s considerable financial investment, the puppy survived the most dangerous period. It finally stopped bleeding and began to recover. The fifty-fifty survival rate had shifted in their favor.
——
The agent had been feeling that something was off lately.
Over the past two weeks since returning to City A for work, the Chen Yi Bai, the actor, had been spending much more time on his phone than usual. After work, he avoided lingering and always hurried away, insisting on being dropped off in unfamiliar locations rather than at the gate of his usual residence. And each time he hopped out of the car in a new area, he disappeared quickly.
After some time spent hesitating and observing, one day while driving him home, the agent finally asked, unable to hold back anymore, when she heard him request another random drop-off: “Chen Yi Bai, are you dating someone?”
Messaging every day, not going straight home, and acting all urgent—it all pointed to the behavior of someone in love, even though it seemed unlikely.
“Mhm,” Chen Yi Bai, still engrossed in reading messages from the vet, absentmindedly responded. Then, realizing what his agent had just asked, he jerked his head up, confused. “Hm?”
His casual “Mhm” startled the agent, and her question startled him back. Both of them looked up in surprise.
Eyes wide, Chen Bai exclaimed in disbelief, “Where would I even find time to date anyone?”
The agent continued, explaining her reasoning.
Chen Bai, hearing this, twitched the corner of his eye and got into a posture for a heart-to-heart conversation. “It’s a long story,” he began.
“Make it short,” the agent replied.
“I found a stray dog.”
Summarizing the events of the past few weeks in a single sentence, Chen Bai added, “It’s still at the pet hospital. It just had a bath today. Want to come see it, Sister Qian?”
Gao Qian “?”
Gao Qian decided to come along.
They parked by the roadside and walked together toward the pet hospital, watching as Chen Bai skillfully navigated inside.
The pet hospital operated 24/7, so no matter how late it was, someone was always on duty. The staff had clearly become familiar with him—or at least with his hat-and-mask disguise—as they kindly informed him where “Yi Wan” was.
“Yi Wan?” sister Qian asked, puzzled.
Chen Yibai explained that since the dog didn’t have a name, he had temporarily called it Yi Wan (meaning “ten thousand”) because, well, it had already cost him ten thousand yuan.
He smiled, his tone flat and emotionless, with a hint of resigned defeat.
The agent couldn’t help but widen her eyes in surprise.
For someone as stingy as him to spend ten thousand yuan on a dog he didn’t even know—she now fully understood just how much he liked dogs.
Yi Wan had just finished its bath that day and was no longer in its usual spot. Finally free to move around, the dog wasn’t as playful as expected. As they entered the play area for the dogs, the staff said, “Yi Wan doesn’t seem very active; it’s playing with toys in the corner.”
So, Chen Bai went to take a look.
There, occupying half the room, was a small white dog lying in the corner, playing with a toy shark.
The shark toy looked familiar, but that wasn’t important. What mattered was that he didn’t see the yellowish, scruffy dog he had known as Yi Wan.
Just as he was about to ask where Yi Wan was, the white dog, seemingly noticing the commotion, perked up and, with the shark toy in its mouth, began running toward him.
As the dog ran, its fur swayed with the movement. Its ears flopped around, and with one injured hind leg, it hobbled forward on three legs, each leg running in its own direction, chaotically making its way over.
It was a Samoyed, an energetic and friendly one at that. Though it was still recovering and quite skinny, the impact was still strong when it crashed into his arms.
As the dog’s tail wagged so fast it was a blur, the agent asked, “Is this Yi Wan?”
This didn’t seem to fit the description of a dog that wasn’t active.
Suddenly finding himself with a dog in his arms, Chen Bai instinctively petted its head. Turning to the agent, he looked at her with wide eyes and said, “I don’t know.”
Gao Qian “?”
All the signs pointed to it: the shark toy matched the one he had bought for Yi Wan, and there were no other dogs around. This was definitely Yi Wan.
One bath had transformed it from a scruffy, yellow stray into a fluffy, pristine white dog.
While rubbing the dog’s head and feeling its large nose sniffing around his chest, Chen Bai pulled out his phone and dialed his friendly neighbor, who had likely just finished work, to show them Yi Wan’s incredible transformation.
It was, as always, a video call, and it was quickly answered.
The person on the other end must have just finished showering. Even through the screen, Chen Bai could see the steam. Water droplets slid down the person’s face and disappeared into the towel around their neck. After staring for a moment, Chen Bai gave them a big thumbs up and said, “Comrade Old Xu, you’re looking sharp.”
Noticing the background and ceiling behind him, Old Xu asked, “Are you at the hospital?”
Chen Bai confirmed and flipped the camera around. “Let me show you Yi Wan.”
The camera panned from Chen Bai, who was wearing a hat and mask, to the fluffy white dog wriggling in his arms. The dog was moving so energetically that the camera struggled to capture anything but a blur of white.
Unaware that he was on a call, a staff member came over to check on the dog.
When the staff member saw the dog bouncing around like it was practicing lion dancing, they froze for a moment. After confirming twice, they finally realized that this was indeed Yi Wan—the same Yi Wan that didn’t like people or activity.
Squatting beside them, the staff member said, “That’s strange. Yi Wan wasn’t close to any of us. I thought it just didn’t like people.”
Turns out, it wasn’t that Yi Wan didn’t like people; it just had preferences.
Seeing the bond between the dog and its rescuer, the agent, recalling his covert behavior over the past two weeks, asked, “You’ve had this dog for weeks now. Why didn’t you tell us?”
If he had told them, they could have sent more toys for the dog to enjoy.
Petting the dog’s head, Chen Bai replied, “I was planning to help find it a new home, and since I wouldn’t see it after that, I figured there was no point in saying anything.”
“Ah?” the agent responded.
“Ah?” the staff member echoed.
“You’re really not going to keep it?” Gao Qian glanced at Yi Wan, who was snuggling into Chen Bai’s arms, and said, “You’ve already spent almost ten thousand on it, and it’s so attached to you. Can you really bear to give it up?”
Chen Bai looked down and gently rubbed the dog’s ears. “I’ll be joining a film crew at the end of the month. Most of the year, I’ll be away and won’t be able to take care of it.”
He added, “I have a friend who really likes dogs, but they’re not very mobile, so they probably can’t take care of one. I’ll have to find someone else to adopt it.”
The dog’s ears were sensitive, not letting just anyone touch them, but it happily let Chen Bai rub them, closing its eyes in contentment.
Realizing the reality of the situation, the agent thought for a moment and had to agree—it made sense.
The staff “…”
Hearing the mention of a film crew, the staff on the side felt like they were falling behind in the conversation.
Without going into detail about his work, Chen Bai finished rubbing one ear and moved on to the other, trying to explain to Yi Wan how to find a good adopter.
In simple terms, the method was: act cute for five minutes, and you’ll live a life of luxury forever.
Yi Wan didn’t understand what luxury meant. It just kept snuggling closer into his arms.
Watching the fluffy ball of fur and Chen Bai’s hand, which seemed unwilling to leave the dog’s head, the agent asked objectively, “Can you really bear to let it go?”
Chen Bai scratched the dog’s chin.
“You could ask Auntie Jiang. They have a big house with lots of people and a large yard.”
His friendly neighbor, who had been quietly listening to their conversation through the phone, finally chimed in, “They’d probably be happy if you asked them.”
The suggestion was that Yi Wan could live at their estate while he was working. Chen Bai didn’t respond immediately.
Visiting occasionally was one thing, but leaving the dog there long-term felt like too much trouble.
Flipping the camera back to face himself, Xu Sinian, the neighbor, noticed the hesitation in Chen Bai’s half-lowered eyes but didn’t push further. He just said, “They really do love animals.”
Chen Bai pondered it but couldn’t make a decision right away, so he turned the camera toward Yi Wan, giving a full display. Yi Wan, though clueless, cooperated.
After the display, knowing the busy actor had work the next day, the considerate Chen Bai didn’t keep the call long. He waved goodbye and told his neighbor to get some sleep.
When the call ended, the room fell silent. The staff, who had been quietly listening, turned red in the face and ears, trying to hide a smile.
“You should try giving your aunt a call,” the agent said, noticing him putting his phone away. She crouched down beside him, petting the fluffy white dog, and sighed. “I think if you called her, she’d be really happy.”
From the perspective of his friend Xu Sinian, some things were hard to say directly. But as someone not involved, the agent could say what needed to be said.
Meeting his gaze, she continued, “Didn’t your uncle and aunt always tell you to call them when you needed to talk things over? That wasn’t just small talk.”
Ever since she learned of the existence of those two, every time she overheard him on a call, she’d hear that same line. If it were just politeness, they wouldn’t repeat it so many times.
The problem was, Chen Bai was so used to handling things on his own. At most, after dealing with a problem, he might send some sarcastic texts to his close friends. But with anyone else, it was just a simple smile and a casual “It’s fine.”
“If something happened to your uncle or aunt, you’d want them to tell you, wouldn’t you?”
As an observer, the agent could see that Mrs. Jiang and her husband genuinely treated Chen Bai like their own son, even if he didn’t see them often. She patted his hat and added, “Aside from your friends, it’s okay to rely on others once in a while.”
Maybe someone had been waiting for such a call for a long time.
Chen Bai sat in quiet thought. Meanwhile, Yi Wan, eager to engage, pushed its toy shark into his hand, wagging its tail furiously as if offering him its most prized possession.
Chen Bai “…”
Accepting the little gift from Yi Wan, Chen Yibai’s fingers twitched slightly before he reached for his phone.
Mrs. Jiang’s contact was easy to find—she had called him just recently, so her number was at the top of his list. He tapped a few buttons and dialed.
The phone barely rang twice before it was answered, as if someone had been waiting for the call.
Listening to the familiar voice on the other end, Chen Bai petted the dog’s head, his pale eyes lowering as he said, “Auntie Jiang, I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”
