The person walking slowly from the door had his head lowered, but you were still able to make out the delicate and elegant features on him. The crisp white shirt that was buttoned all the way up to his neck, cuffs rolled up revealing slender arms, and his back was tall and straight. He walked a few steps before stopping, raising his eyes to scan the people around him, as though looking for a specific person.
When he raised his head, the deep, dark onyx eyes that were revealed made people feel like they had fallen into a dark pit of snow and ice when they looked into them.
From the first day Gu Xiqiao had come to the set for filming, every single person here had come to know Jiang Shuxuan. Generally, the stage crew wouldn’t allow any onlookers during the shooting, but for him, none of the crew members dared to drive him out.
I mean, look at him. From the strands of his hair down to his fingernails, what part of him didn’t scream out a wealthy and aristocratic aura?!
However, this person looked cold and his personality was even colder, but he was also extremely polite, not disturbing anyone on the set. Sometimes, if it wasn’t for actually seeing him in person around the stage, everyone wouldn’t have remembered his presence as they couldn’t feel him, and that was an extremely mysterious thing.
He was obviously a man that was as stunning as an ancient picture, a man who would catch the eyes of everyone with the light he radiated around his person, and yet they could sometimes ignore him subconsciously?
This was a problem, and it was a problem that everyone present couldn’t solve.
Xiang Kun finally came to his senses, watching the man making his way through the set slowly. He was so excited that he could barely hold the beads that were in his hands properly. They say that sometimes when a person is excited, they tend to share it with the person nearest to them.
Gu Xiqiao was another person that Xiang Kun particularly admired today, and he couldn’t restrain his excitement. “Do you see that, that! That is a true god! Sigh, why am I even telling you this, you surely don’t know who he is, even I’ve not seen him more than a handful of times.”
He recalled that she wasn’t someone from the ancient martial arts world.
“Ah! He’s looking over here! He’s heading here!” Xiang Kun got even more excited when he saw Jiang Shuxuan pause at the door, and walked in, realizing that it wasn’t a mistake that this was the place he meant to come!
And then he suddenly thought, why would Jiang Shuxuan come here? The people around here should have nothing to do with him, then his eyes landed on Li Yu, who was still in the middle of shooting and realized. ‘Ah, he must be here to see Li Yu.’
If you were to talk about the people who had the slightest bit of connection with Jiang Shuxuan here, there would only be Li Yu.
It was hard to blame Xiang Kun for being so excited, it was difficult enough to see Jiang Shuxuan once in your life after all. In The Forum, you could see that as long as there was news about him, it could stay on the homepage for many days. The last time when a shot of his back was taken in the Jiang family house, the post was still hot and still going strong.
The production crew paused for a while, and then they recovered, going back to what they were doing before, taking props, applying makeup and the like.
Xixi could feel Master Jiang approaching, and so it flew up immediately to perch on Gu Xiqiao’s shoulder obediently, in an effort to show that his position in his palace would not be shaken.
At this time, Xiang Kun suddenly felt the chilling pressure that Jiang Shuxuan exuded disappear entirely, and you wouldn’t even see him if you didn’t have your attention on his person.
And then he was stunned again, when he saw Jiang Shuxuan heading in their direction, instead of towards Li Yu like he originally thought.
Two meters, one meter…
He passed him!
“Are there any more scenes to be shot?” The past few days when Gu Xiqiao had been filming, he would always take the time to come here to watch. According to his own words, he liked to watch her in action while she was filming. It was only because today there was some progress on Sun Jiajia in the Special Defense Force, so he had to leave for a while.
Gu Xiqiao put away her phone into her pocket and looked at him, blinking. “I’m done with all my parts.”
There was only about ten minutes in the entire movie of her scenes anyway, and she had been filming for about three days. From her own estimation about what she knew about the industry, that was more than enough time.
Hearing that, Jiang Shuxuan felt regretful. He wouldn’t have gone back to look into the matters if he had known that today was the last of her scenes.
After Xiao Yun finished her current scene, she came over. “Er Qiao, there’s a end-of-shoot feast tonight, are you going?”
She came to pass a message from the director.
“Pass on my thanks to the director and the crew, I’ll not be going.” She was just the third female lead, it wasn’t like it was very significant.
Xiao Yun knew that Gu Xiqiao didn’t really like crowds, so she had already guessed that she wouldn’t want to go.
Xiang Kun finally snapped out of his daze at this time, and he glanced at Jiang Shuxuan, before to Gu Xiqiao, who was smiling cutely and at the same time beautifully. He felt like he was looking on the scene from outside of his body, and he had even wanted to pretend as though he had something to discuss with Li Yu just to try to be closer with Jiang Shuxuan, who would have expected that Jiang Shuxuan had simply come to find Gu Xiqiao instead!
Gu Xiqiao was packing her things up, and suddenly seemed to remember something. She looked at the beads in Xiang Kun’s hands. “Remember the hand that takes the possessions of others is shortened[1], Mr. Xiang.”
“What do I need to do?” Xiang Kun felt his own mouth move without much thought, a mechanical voice coming out.
Gu Xiqiao became serious suddenly. “I’m bribing you to take good care of our Xiao Yun, she will be relying on you in her future path.”
Xiang Kun: Can you not say bribery so openly.
Before he could react, the two people in front of him had vanished from his sight.
“Wake up!” Cheng Zhou saw that Jiang Shuxuan had gone, and he patted Xiang Kun on the shoulder. He and Xiang Kun had worked together many times, and two were close. “You seem to know that person?”
“How can I not know?” Xiang Kun replied, still slightly in a daze. In the ancient martial arts world, who didn’t know the famous Jiang Shuxuan? But there wasn’t any need to elaborate about that here. “That Gu Xiqiao, do you know her?”
Among the ancient martial arts world, he had never heard of Gu Xiqiao’s name, it was as if she had appeared out of nowhere.
At first, he had thought that she was that famous little demon girl, but that girl was supposed to be training in the tower recently, and she was also from a branch family of the Jiangs, so her surname was definitely not Gu?
Although Xiang Kun was a manager in the entertainment industry, that was just something he did on the side. Cheng Zhou was also aware that his identity was something more complicated than just a simple manager, and he also knew that Jiang Shuxuan’s identity was something he shouldn’t get involved in, so he didn’t ask much about it.
***
Xiang Kun took the obsidian bracelet and returned home. In the beginning, he didn’t have much expectation towards the beads that Gu Xiqiao had given him. But after seeing Jiang Shuxuan, he was slightly more anticipating. Since she was a girl that was together with Jiang Shuxuan, she wouldn’t be just a simple girl now, would she?
He only came to realize how terrifying the power of the bracelet was when he was preparing for bed that night, he had taken it off to take a bath, but the instant the beads left his skin, an invisible pressure pressed down on him, making him unable to breathe through it all of a sudden.
With a flushed face as he struggled to catch his breath, he grabbed the bracelet, and as soon as he touched it, the pressure lifted as suddenly as it came.
He could only stare at the bracelet in his hands with an astonished look on his face.
***
“Didn’t you say that you had problems sleeping last time? Tell me about it, I’ll work on it before I return to the lab again.” In the office, Zhu Yuan yawned as he looked towards Xiang Kun.
“It’s fine, it’s been resolved.” Xiang Kun said, touching the obsidian beads on his wrist.
Zhu Yuan rolled his eyes. “Were you just pulling my leg?”
He had been holed up inside A University’s lab these days. If it weren’t for Xiang Kun, he wouldn’t have wanted to leave it in the first place.
“This time I really wasn’t,” Xiang Kun replied, laughing a little. “I met somewhat of an expert and she managed to solve it. She seemed to be involved with the Jiang family too, are you interested to know?” He smirked, with a face that clearly said ‘if you want to know, then beg me for it’ as he looked at Zhu Yuan.
Zhu Yuan’s mind was fully occupied with experiments and cell fusion, and he wasn’t the least curious. Xiang Kun could hold his breath and wait all he wanted.
Tang Qingqiu took a sip of tea as he glanced at Zhu Yuan. “Have you managed to hook up with some beauties these days?” It looked like his entire body had been sucked dry.
“Isn’t that a far cry from facts? Do I look like that kind of person?” Although he obviously liked beautiful women, he was still very clean thank you very much.
“Or, could it be…?” Tang Qingqiu raised an eyebrow.
“Of course not. I recently met a like-minded medical genius who actually managed to work out cell fusion… Sigh, it’s not like you would understand even if I explained it to you. The knowledge in it has far surpassed our current medical knowledge.” Zhu Yuan couldn’t help but let out a heavy sigh at this, he hadn’t left A University’s labs in four days now.
But when he thought about Gu Xiqiao, he hadn’t seen her in the time he was at A University. Catching a glimpse of her was harder than climbing the sky, and he finally understood Professor Jiang’s hardship and helplessness.
Such a medically gifted and talented student, and yet so lazy. Even he was hard-pressed not to just open her head to take a peek inside her brains.
Hearing Zhu Yuan’s complimenting tone was the first for Tang Qingqiu, and he couldn’t help but feel a little curious. “You’re feeling inferior to her?”
“Yes, definitely. I have seen what is most definitely the most talented person in my life, and I feel that if my master was still around, he would happily throw me away in exchange to take her in as his disciple instead.” The more Zhu Yuan thought about it, the higher the possibility was. With Rong Feishuang’s temperament, meeting a lazy bum like Gu Xiqiao, he would certainly have his share of fun with her if he took her as his disciple.
Speaking about talents, Xiang Kun also had something to say about it. “You don’t say, I met a very talented person on set yesterday, but she doesn’t even want to consider entering the entertainment industry!”
His own hobby and interest were to bring in artistes that caught his eyes, but Gu Xiqiao refused to cooperate, and Xiang Kun was still feeling depressed about the entire thing.
“Is it… Xiao Yun?” Tang Qingqiu thought for a while, before recalling the name was something like that, right?
“No, it’s her friend.” Xiang Kun thought about the obsidian beads that she had given him, and felt that her identity was still not something that was simple. She had to be a descendant of some master, a kind of existence that would make waves in the ancient martial arts world. That would most likely be the reason that she wasn’t interested in the small entertainment industry circle, he could understand that. However, it was still such a heartbreaking thing.
Her friend? Tang Qingqiu thought hard about it, but he could only think of Gu Xiqiao. But seeing the look on Xiang Kun’s face which indicated that he didn’t want to talk more about it, he let the topic drop.
He would just go and ask Jiang Shuxuan about it another day, he was very curious about Miss Gu anyway.
The three of them were unaware, the subject of their topic seemed to be completely unrelated, but it was all centered on the same person.
***
Currently, the subject of their topic was sitting at home, scrolling through Weibo.
Gu Xiqiao had almost three million fans and followers on her Weibo now, and that was in just a few days. Of course, Li Yu’s contribution to that fanbase couldn’t be overlooked. And obviously, it was because of her own good looks that she could get the fans, otherwise, they probably wouldn’t even bother about her.
The new post that she had made about the production crew also already had about seven to eighty thousand comments under it.
Being warm and gentle to her own fans, Gu Xiqiao pointed and took a few pictures of Haha. When Xixi saw this, it immediately went to photobomb and wrestled for the spotlight.
And so the result of the picture was like this: A dog as white as a freshly fallen layer of snow that was not as great as those purebreds out there, but when its black beady eyes looked over, it was sparkling like a thousand gems. When you look at them, it is incredibly full of life and joy. Because it just drank some water, its nose was moist, and its eyes looked adorably pitiful, making people not able to resist reaching out to touch their screen, as though by doing so they could touch the real thing.
On top of the dog’s head sat a small flaming red bird, and the red was vivid in contrast against Haha’s white fur. It had grabbed onto a clawful of fur, striking a handsome pose.
“Ahhh! So cute and adorable! I really want to bite them!”
“Wuuuuu, do you still need some dogs in the house, beautiful? Those that are well behaved and educated, and ain’t picky with food, those kind?”
“No selfie, bad review! PS: Dogs are cute, but birds are another level of noble and majestic!”
“Hehe, it’s just a mongrel breed and you guys are falling over yourselves over it? Our Zixian is a Löwchen breed, and that is what I call good-looking. Really don’t understand your peasant mind and eyes!”
“I heard that a Löwchen is very expensive, she’s just a newcomer, I don’t think she got that much cash to throw.”
These comments were quickly swept away by the fans that were enraged over it. So what if it’s a mongrel? Mongrels and local breeds will eat your food, drink your water, and sleep in the bed in your house! Mongrels are the local dog of our country China!
Although it was just a mongrel, it was very lively and spirited, and its small size was adorable. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have attracted the likes of so many people.
Soon, a pro came to deliver a slap in their faces. “Pay attention to the rice bowl next to the dog. The outside is brightly glazed, the body is white and delicate, and the porcelain seems dense. The glaze is also even and clean, it reflects the light off very nicely. It’s definitely the official kiln of the Qing Dynasty, and I guarantee it’s worth at least three million if it goes out on the market.”
Using an antique as a dog’s bowl?! What kind of insanity was this? The one commenter who had mocked Gu Xiqiao slinked away in shame after that comment, and the next day, Gu Xiqiao was once again on the list of hot topics again.
This was not just your regular dog.
The first thing the people who click into the link saw was the white, snowy fur, and then they were subsequently blinded by the dog bowl.
And then they would go over to the original post from Weibo’s front page, and these people would all leave the same comments:
“Beautiful, do you still lack some dogs in your house? How about those who are educated and well behaved? Don’t need any wages, just a bowl like that?”
The more popular a person got, the more unnatural and weirder people would appear. Those that came to her profile also saw her previous Weibo post, and some of them couldn’t help but feel sour at it.
“A newcomer who just wants to ride Li Yu’s tailcoat, it’s not like we see Li Yu taking care of you personally, and you even expose your dog’s picture. You even dare to show off an ugly mongrel? Have you gone crazy from trying hard to be popular?”
[1] A Chinese idiom that roughly means that if you receive a gift from someone, you would find it hard to reject a favor from them when they ask for it.
