Zhou Zike followed behind Wen Xin and Guo Xiaoli as they descended from the elevator to the underground parking lot. The company car was waiting not far from the elevator, with two ASE staff members sitting inside. As soon as they spotted Guo Xiaoli and Wen Xin, they eagerly waved their hands. But when they noticed the tall and handsome young man following behind Guo Xiaoli, their hands froze midway, and they exchanged puzzled glances.
The car was driven by Qi Lu. Guo Xiaoli took the keys from him and started the car. Wen Xin went to sit in the back seat and called out to Zhou Zike outside the car, “Zike, come up, let’s go together.”
The two staff members beside them became excited, nudging each other with raised eyebrows.
“You didn’t drive here?” Guo Xiaoli asked Zhou Zike, surprised.
Zhou Zike opened the passenger door and sat inside. He had been absent-minded, simply following behind the two of them since they entered the elevator, and he unconsciously ended up in the parking lot.
Only then did he realize that he hadn’t driven his own car.
“Where do you live?” Guo Xiaoli asked.
Zhou Zike mentioned a street intersection.
“No need to drop you off at your doorstep?”
“It’s too far,” Zhou Zike replied.
Wen Xin sat in the back seat, and from her angle, she could only see Zhou Zike’s neck from up close. However, if she discreetly glanced forward from the window, she could catch a glimpse of Zhou Zike’s cold and indifferent expression through the reflection in the rearview mirror as he looked outside.
“Is Qi Lu okay?” Guo Xiaoli turned the car out of the parking lot and onto the road. “What did the company say to him?”
One staff member replied, “How could he be okay? The poor kid is drowning in self-blame.”
“Manager Lin and the others are the same. They knew how much pressure Qi Lu was under, yet they specifically called him in. They said they wanted to discuss Tang Zhen’s situation with him. What a joke! Do they think they know anything about Tang Zhen? Qi Lu can’t speak, so what can they expect to find out?”
“The blame doesn’t rest on Qi Lu,” Guo Xiaoli said, gazing at the night road dotted with lights ahead. “No matter how much they try to assign blame, it won’t fall on him. Qi Lu has been extremely cautious and careful.”
“Did he go home that day?”
Guo Xiaoli replied, “He hadn’t been home for over half a year.”
“What bad luck! He doesn’t have any accidents on normal days, but the moment he goes home, something happens.”
“Not even a full day,” Guo Xiaoli said. “He had only been gone for three or four hours when Qi Lu left, and then A-Zhen…”
Guo Xiaoli hesitated, as if remembering something, and added, “You can’t prevent this kind of thing. It’s not something you can guard against just by wanting to.”
“No matter what, that kid Qi Lu is so pitiful. He had a car accident right before his debut, which was already unlucky enough. Assisting Tang Zhen seemed like a good way out, but now this. Guo-jie, you have to comfort him properly. We tried talking to him all the way, but it had no effect. He’s still wearing a gloomy face.”
“I’ll talk to him when we meet tomorrow,” Guo Xiaoli said.
“How is A-Zhen now? Did he go straight home without any issues?”
“He’s doing fine,” Guo Xiaoli said. “His condition has improved a lot compared to before.”
Wen Xin chimed in, “He even asked me for his phone today, saying he wanted to reply the messages from his friends.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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A silence fell inside the car.
Wen Xin sniffed and turned her head to look out the window.
She noticed that Zhou Zike remained expressionless, sitting in the front seat as if unaffected by everything and everyone around him.
“I saw him last time during Spring Festival. I could tell something was off,” the staff member sitting next to Wen Xin said. “Who would have thought that would be almost our last meeting?”
“Who didn’t feel that way?” another person said, suddenly leaning forward and patting Guo Xiaoli’s shoulder. “Hey, Guo-jie, let me ask you something.”
“I don’t like gossip,” Guo Xiaoli replied.
“Oh, come on! Just a little question! If you don’t want to answer, then don’t.”
“What is it?”
“Did you see that news circulating online?” the staff member laughed. “They say Tang Zhen called Qiao He before his suicide, mentioning that someone found his phone, and Qiao He’s number was dialed in. Is there any truth to that?”
Guo Xiaoli sneered and mocked, “What a bunch of nonsense.”
“Oh, even people in the company are talking about it. Is it really true or not?”
“Could it be true? Do you believe it?” Guo Xiaoli retorted.
“I don’t believe it. It’s just a weird rumor. I wanted to ask you about it.”
“With A-Zhen’s memory, how could he possibly remember a phone number?” Guo Xiaoli coldly laughed.
From her tone, she showed no intention of concealing anything, making the rumors circulating outside seem absurd.
“Is it true?” one of them said. “Wasn’t Tang Zhen famous for memorizing lines on the spot?”
“That was a long time ago,” Guo Xiaoli said, finding it more and more ridiculous and pitiful as she spoke. “Now, he forgets what he said in the previous sentence. It’s good enough if he remembers which floor he lives on. And phone numbers…”
“Is it really that extreme? He’s still so young. How could he have such severe memory problems?”
“You’ll only understand if you have that kind of illness,” Guo Xiaoli said. “The whole person deteriorates. It’s not an exaggeration at all.”
The car arrived at the entrance of the company building, and the two staff members got out of the car, followed by Wen Xin. Zhou Zike opened the window slightly, letting the night breeze in, and turned his head to see three women outside waving enthusiastically to him and Guo Xiaoli.
“Goodbye, Guo-jie! Goodnight, Zike!”
“Take care, Guo-jie! Bye, Zike! See you next time!”
Guo Xiaoli turned the car around, exiting through another gate of the company and heading straight onto the road.
“What did you do in the afternoon?” Guo Xiaoli asked.
Zhou Zike remained silent.
Guo Xiaoli glanced at Zhou Zike. His sweaty hair had already dried but was disheveled and slightly tousled. His shirt had also dried, with a wrinkled collar. Despite walking alongside them all the way, Zhou Zike hadn’t thought of tidying himself up in the numerous mirrors in the elevator.
“Did you know you were photographed at the hospital entrance this morning?” Guo Xiaoli said.
“Mhm,” Zhou Zike responded.
“Pay attention to your image,” Guo Xiaoli scolded him, carefully maneuvering around a speeding truck. “Don’t you know there are paparazzi and cameras all around you?”
Zhou Zike didn’t take it seriously and responded with another “mhm.”
“Don’t just keep saying ‘mhm, mhm, mhm.’ When will you start taking what I say seriously?”
“I know,” Zhou Zike said indifferently. He sat up straight, took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, and tapped one on the cigarette box.
Guo Xiaoli felt her anger rising at his attitude and suppressed it, saying, “Zike, you’re different from others. You don’t have any other skills.”
Zhou Zike lit his cigarette, and even with it in his mouth, he chuckled. “Mhm, I know,” he said.
There was no intention of defending himself in his response.
Guo Xiaoli became even angrier.
“So, why don’t you take care of your image? How many times do I have to say it?”
Zhou Zike said, “Okay, okay.” He estimated that the scolding and crying from Guo Xiaoli in the morning still haunted him. Zhou Zike took action, flipped down the sun visor, and used the mirror on it to adjust his collar. He even buttoned up the top button of his shirt, which he never did. When he finished, he opened the ashtray in the car, flicked the cigarette ash, and leaned back to show Guo Xiaoli.
Guo Xiaoli glanced at him and then looked at his collar. Unable to hold back, she laughed and said, “Why didn’t you do this earlier?”
Guo Xiaoli repeatedly warned Zhou Zike that cameras were everywhere, and as a celebrity, especially a popular one, he needed to be mindful of it. She emphasized that when he says he’ll return to China, or decides to skip work, he should consider the consequences. She asked, “If you’re caught on camera, how can I come up with excuses for you?”
Zhou Zike remained silent, smoking his cigarette.
Guo Xiaoli continued, saying that even when going out casually, he should still pay attention to his appearance. She mentioned that if he was true artists, being untidy wouldn’t matter as much, but he was an idol. Idols are dreams, and dreams cannot be untidy.
To sustain this dream for a long time, they needed to package themselves. Even in their daily lives, they should hold themselves to the standards of this dream. They couldn’t reveal their true selves or “be themselves.” If they revealed their true selves, the dream would shatter, and the idol image would cease to exist.
Zhou Zike said, “I’m going home to sleep now.”
Guo Xiaoli replied, “Do you think you’re safe just sleeping at home?”
The car slid for a while and came to a steady stop by the roadside. It was time for Zhou Zike to get off at his destination. Guo Xiaoli looked ahead at the empty road, engulfed by the vast darkness of the night. She said, “On the day A-zhen had the accident, there were paparazzi outside the window, and there were paparazzi inside the window. I let them in.”
Zhou Zike unbuckled his seatbelt and was about to get out when Guo Xiaoli reached out and pulled him back in.
“They wore the clothes of the emergency center, and squeezed through the door with the 120 personnel,” Guo Xiaoli supported her forehead with her hand and glanced at Zhou Zike. “I knew some of them. They had been following A-zhen for a long time, but I couldn’t recognize them at that moment.”
Zhou Zike had that photo in his phone—the most famous one, the so-called “suicide scene” of Tang Zhen captured through the window.
He hadn’t seen any others. If there were more, he couldn’t have missed them.
“Qi Lu and those people got into a big fight. If we hadn’t intervened, it could have turned fatal,” Guo Xiaoli said. “Their equipment was smashed too. Otherwise… who knows how it would have ended…”
Zhou Zike asked, “Does he know?”
“Who?” Guo Xiaoli replied.
“Tang Zhen.”
“He doesn’t know,” Guo Xiaoli said. “A-zhen doesn’t need me to remind him. He knows it very well in his heart.”
The car stopped by the roadside, and no one got out for quite a while. Zhou Zike held a cigarette in his left hand, his head lowered as he typed emails on his phone, his right hand’s fingers moving swiftly.
“Zike,” Guo Xiaoli looked at Zhou Zike. “I didn’t expect you to come and see A-zhen today.”
Zhou Zike’s fingers paused.
“Before, when you said you were coming back to China to see him, I thought it was just an excuse for skipping work. But I didn’t expect you to actually come. And from what I can tell, A-zhen is really happy to see you.”
Zhou Zike lifted his head and looked at Guo Xiaoli.
“What do you want to say?” he asked.
“There’s something I’ve wanted to talk to you about since last year,” Guo Xiaoli said.
“What is it?”
Guo Xiaoli decided to pull out the car key. She rested her hand on the window and said, “Back when you and Xiao Yang, when you filled in for ‘Roman Online,’ your relationship with A-zhen was still okay, right?”
Zhou Zike remained silent as Guo Xiaoli continued, “Before that, the company never considered having you participate in variety shows. I thought you wouldn’t be interested, and the company thought you wouldn’t cooperate. But I didn’t expect you to like ‘Roman Online’ so much. Honestly, Zike, since you joined the company, since I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you work so hard, or take on the role of a ‘captain’ like you did back then. We were all surprised, even A-zhen was surprised. The revised versions you wrote are still sitting in a drawer in my office. We saw your dedication, your effort, and your sincerity. The results were great too, the ratings and everything, the achievements were remarkable. Even A-zhen’s performance during that time was quite good. When he hosted ‘Roman Online’ alone, he couldn’t keep up with the guests’ conversations, and we had to heavily edit it in post-production to make it somewhat normal.”
As Guo Xiaoli spoke, she looked at Zhou Zike, and the cigarette between Zhou Zike’s fingers burned for a long time, the ash hanging but not falling.
“At that time, I told you that we would hand over the show to you and A-zhen in the future. If we could secure a better time slot, I would make you the producer. But I never expected Liang Qiuyun to come back and take over this little show he abandoned halfway,” Guo Xiaoli said.
Finally, the ash from the cigarette fell.
“I take responsibility for this, Zike. I couldn’t communicate properly with you back then—”
Zhou Zike put the cigarette butt, which was almost burnt out, into his mouth. “What exactly are you trying to say?”
Guo Xiaoli said, “The decision for Liang Qiuyun to come back wasn’t made by A-zhen. At that time, A-zhen was in no condition to make any decisions on his own.”
