Thank you, Apricat, for the kofi. Here’s a bonus chapter.
In the end, Rong Ke met Yan Zhi at the entrance of the period drama filming location, where Yan Zhi looked completely out of place.
Inside the location, a scene was being filmed, and the extras loitering nearby were all dressed in ancient costumes. Yan Zhi, on the other hand, stood bored by the roadside, looking like a glitch straight out of a period drama, incredibly eye-catching.
“Don’t you know how to ask for directions?” Rong Ke approached Yan Zhi and asked.
“I asked two people,” Yan Zhi replied, “but they gave me different directions.”
“That’s because there are two separate parking lots.”
Relying on Yan Zhi’s vague memory, Rong Ke led him to the correct parking lot.
Yan Zhi’s car was a Ferrari SF90, which Rong Ke felt he had seen somewhere recently, though he couldn’t recall where.
“Give me your phone,” Rong Ke extended his palm toward Yan Zhi as they were about to part ways.
This request was somewhat presumptuous, considering they had only met twice, with the first encounter hardly counting.
In essence, they were little more than strangers, and Rong Ke had never made such a demand even to Jiang Si.
Without inquiring about the reason, Yan Zhi unlocked his phone and placed it in Rong Ke’s hand.
“Domestic navigation apps are quite well-developed now,” Rong Ke entered the App Store and downloaded Gaode Map. “Use this to find your way next time.”
Yan Zhi watched Rong Ke’s actions and responded, “Okay.”
The download was quickly completed, and Rong Ke handed the phone back to Yan Zhi, but the latter kept his hands in his pockets, showing no intention of taking it. “Could you also download Weibo for me?”
Rong Ke paused for a moment, maintaining a polite smile. “Of course, Your Highness.”
Yan Zhi asked with interest, “What did you just call me?”
Rong Ke replied, “Your Highness.” Troublemaker.
“My Chinese isn’t very good,” Yan Zhi said, “but it seems you’re implying that I’m troublesome.”
He could discern that?
Rong Ke genuinely praised him, “Your Chinese is excellent.”
Yan Zhi let out a chuckle.
Of course, his Chinese wasn’t bad at all. Rong Ke’s praise was just a disguised way of admitting that he did find him troublesome.
Accustomed to adulation, this was the first time someone had blatantly regarded him as a nuisance.
However, despite his verbal complaints, Rong Ke still downloaded Weibo and registered a new account for Yan Zhi using his phone number.
After changing the username to Yan Zhi’s name, Rong Ke said, “You can change the profile picture yourself later.”
Changing the profile picture would involve accessing the photo gallery, which was a highly private matter. Rong Ke had no interest in prying into others’ privacy.
However, Yan Zhi didn’t seem too concerned. “You can change it for me. Just pick any photo.”
With a tap of his finger, Rong Ke brought up the preview of Yan Zhi’s photo gallery on the Weibo interface.
Rong Ke’s smooth operation suddenly halted when he saw that the newest photo in Yan Zhi’s gallery was the viral screen capture of him from the drama “Inferno Case”.
The photo was casually taken by pointing the camera at the TV screen; it was clearly not meant for collection purposes.
Combining this with Yan Zhi’s earlier invitation, he must have taken an interest in that particular scene.
The second photo was an aerial cityscape, composed with a discerning eye for framing and colors, revealing a solid foundation in photography. Judging from the familiar buildings, it was likely taken at Yan Zhi’s new office.
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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Dea Tjc Itl ralii vlvc’a ajxf la. “Mbiibk sbeg Qflyb jmmbeca.”
Ktlr alwf, Ebcu Bf vlvc’a lcveiuf atf “qglcmf’r” ktlwr. Lf iloafv tlr tjcv, rlucjilcu Tjc Itl ab ajxf yjmx atf qtbcf. “Rfalhfcr jgf ubbv ja vluulcu eq lcobgwjalbc. Gbc’a obiibk qfbqif gjcvbwis.”
Yan Zhi accepted the phone with an “okay”, then found Rong Ke’s account in the search bar. “Is this the one with 520,000 followers?”
Rong Ke watched helplessly as Yan Zhi clicked “Follow”.
“…”
Yan Zhi drove as boldly as his persona, the engine’s roar audible from afar even after Rong Ke walked away.
His phone remained lifeless. After being left on read by Jiang Si for so long, Rong Ke had lost the initial desire for an explanation, reaching the opposite extreme—even if Jiang Si came to explain now, he couldn’t be bothered to listen.
A WeChat notification popped up on his phone—it was still Yan Zhi.
[Yan Zhi: Not following back?]
[Rong Ke: Don’t use your phone while driving.]
[Yan Zhi: Waiting at a red light :)]
Rong Ke mainly used Weibo to browse news and didn’t plan to interact with Yan Zhi on the platform.
But thinking that Yan Zhi probably didn’t use Weibo much, Rong Ke figured a mutual follow wouldn’t hurt. He opened the new follower with the cityscape profile picture and followed back.
On the trending topics, Jiang Si was still making waves.
Rong Ke checked the real-time feed and saw the screen filled with blessings. Jiang Si and Liu Qing’s CP fans were going crazy, plastering their content as if celebrating New Year.
Occasionally, there were a few haters or former fans who left negative comments, and upon opening the comment section, they were quickly shut down and flamed in the comments.
[Disgusting, gays shouldn’t pretend to be straight, okay? I used to ship him with XX, thinking about it now makes me sick.]
-When has Jiang Si ever pretended to be straight? Don’t make baseless accusations.
-Your profile picture already exposed you, don’t bring hate to your idol. Who knows, your fave might come out as gay someday too.
…
[These gays should get out of the entertainment industry, they’re ruining my eyes]
-We’re in this day and age, and you’re still discriminating against gays?
-A friendly suggestion: gouging out your eyes might work faster.
…
With such a unified public opinion, Rong Ke didn’t believe there was no organization behind it.
Jiang Si and Liu Qing had co-starred in a republican-era mystery drama before, forming the standard male-female-male trio. Jiang Si played a wealthy young master, Liu Qing a forensic doctor, with a female lead as the inspector.
Although there were no explicit romantic plots in the drama, fans generally assumed the official couple was the young master and the female inspector.
Now that the young master and the forensic doctor were revealed to be together, the official couple fans wouldn’t let it go so easily.
However, Weibo remained harmonious, indicating someone was controlling the public narrative.
Whatever.
Rong Ke lost interest in looking further. If he did not go back to the set, he’d miss the lunch delivery.
In the afternoon, Rong Ke had a few scenes, but filming didn’t start until very late. His condition was poor, and he repeatedly forgot lines, concerning his co-stars, who felt it wasn’t his usual standard.
After wrapping up, the sky outside the studio had already darkened. Rong Ke apologized to the director and cast before leaving and finally checking his phone, which was on silent mode.
The long-dormant phone finally sprang to life, showing a missed call ten minutes ago and an unread WeChat message.
[Jiang Si: Baby, I just got free, give me a call back.]
Rong Ke stared impassively at the message. Was Jiang Si truly “just free”, or realizing any more delay would make the explanation unconvincing?
Of course, Rong Ke had no intention of calling back. As he was about to put his phone away, Jiang Si’s call came through again.
Rong Ke let it ring until it was about to disconnect before calmly answering.
Jiang Si sounded normal, but Rong Ke detected the underlying tension he tried to hide. “Baby, did you see Weibo?”
As a staff car passed by, Rong Ke waited until it was gone before speaking after crossing the road. “How long has it been since you last called me ‘baby’?”
Jiang Si faltered, avoiding the question as he stiffly began explaining, “The company thinks it’s time for me to rebrand. I can’t just rely on popularity forever. They arranged for me and Liu Qing to go public, hoping I can focus on movies from now on.”
Rong Ke let out a chuckle. “Did you forget your lines again? The logic doesn’t seem very coherent.”
Jiang Si had indeed forgotten his prepared excuse, hurriedly adding, “Well, I’m now concentrating on movie roles, right? But I still have a strong reputation as an idol, so the company thinks if I have a steady partner, it makes me seem more mature and helps me take on deeper roles.”
What a bullshit excuse.
Rong Ke’s tone remained flat. “You have a steady partner, Jiang Si.”
“That’s the thing,” Jiang Si paused, “you’re not famous enough.”
He was still trying to justify his excuse.
Rong Ke almost laughed out of exasperation, finally abandoning the last shred of hope—did he really expect Jiang Si to have a reasonable explanation?
“Did you two sleep together?” Rong Ke asked directly.
“You’re overthinking—”
“Don’t treat me like an idiot.”
Silence fell on the other end before Jiang Si responded in a resigned tone. “Just once. The company couldn’t control it anymore, so they made me come out proactively.”
Just as expected.
Rong Ke gradually came to a halt at the roadside.
Was he completely unprepared for it? Not exactly.
Jiang Si had always been exceptionally lenient towards cheating male celebrities, almost foreshadowing that he himself would cross that line someday.
“You know, being on set together all day makes things happen easily,” Jiang Si hurriedly explained in the face of Rong Ke’s silence. “In idol dramas, the male and female leads sleeping together is perfectly normal. It was just this one time for me.”
“Just this one time?”
Jiang Si seemed to realize that explaining was futile, taking a deep breath. “I know I was wrong.”
How refreshing, Rong Ke thought sarcastically.
The fact that Jiang Si was apologizing meant he knew this had crossed Rong Ke’s bottom line.
“No need to say more,” Rong Ke let out a sigh. “Let’s break up.”
After the honeymoon phase faded, their relationship had mostly been sustained by inertia.
Like a ball moving at a constant speed, as long as no external force is applied, it will continue moving.
Rong Ke’s relationship could be said to have had tremendous inertia.
He lacked any particular goals in life or work, so as long as nothing major happened, he wouldn’t seek change.
—Even though he had already vaguely sensed problems arising between him and Jiang Si.
But now an unstoppable force had struck, and he could no longer maintain the status quo.
This time, it was Jiang Si’s turn to fall silent.
After a while, he spoke, “I’m really busy now, let’s talk again when I’m back.”
“There’s nothing more to say,” Rong Ke stated. “It’s over.”
“Who breaks up over the phone?” Jiang Si cut him off. “Cool down first. I have things to handle, let me hang up for now.”
Listening to the dial tone, Rong Ke was puzzled—was he the one trying to break up, yet got hung up on instead?
How fucking interesting.
Night had completely fallen as Rong Ke quickened his pace.
But he had only taken a couple of steps when a Weibo notification popped up on his phone, informing him that his mutual follower @Yan Zhi had posted.
Out of curiosity, Rong Ke opened it to find that the “prince,” who couldn’t use navigation apps and was too lazy to register for Weibo, had somehow gotten his account verified. His new profile picture, swapped from the plain cityscape, was now a breathtakingly attractive selfie.
…Didn’t he tell Yan Zhi to just randomly pick a photo?
Yan Zhi’s first Weibo post was a casual self-introduction video filmed on his phone. The content was concise: “Hi everyone, I’m Yan Zhi, and I’m on Weibo now.”
In the video, he wore a loose V-neck shirt, his collarbones alluringly exposed, exuding a languid sensuality.
The comments exploded rapidly. Rong Ke checked the trending topics, unsurprised to find #Yan Zhi Joins Weibo# among the top ten entertainment trends.
Returning to the comments, he saw the man himself interacting with fans.
[Oh my god, is this really THE Yan Zhi?]
– Yes
[Turns out Yan Zhi’s Chinese is so fluent!]
– Of course
[Did you hear that MQ withdrew Jiang Si’s endorsement deal for the new year?]
– Yes
– Commenter: Could you reveal who replaced him? /doghead
Wait.
A bad premonition suddenly arose within Rong Ke.
He exited and tapped back into that comment, only to see Yan Zhi had directly tagged him.
– @Rong Ke
Rong Ke’s world went dark for a moment.
Suppressing the urge to strangle someone, he watched helplessly as his Weibo was instantly flooded by a horde of gossip-hungry crowds.
And the “busy” Jiang Si immediately followed up with incessant calls.
Author’s Note:
Yan Zhi: Help me randomly pick a photo for my profile picture (choose one you think is handsome)
Rong Ke: *picks a landscape image*
‘Did you fell for me at first sight?’
‘No..’ proceeds to search him using his bf to put him on the cover, finds his current work, makes a trip to his workplace, gets his wechat+weibo
Jiang si saying it was just one time.
Rong ke gets the cover
Rong ke: It was just this one time i replace you.
That Jiang guy is really terrible. Only he is allowed to treat people badly and look down on others? Heh.
And I guess Yan Zhi currently has an aesthetic appreciation for Rong Ke, without romantic or sexual intent.
Thank you for the chapter~
Thank you for the chapter!! I love Rong Ke so much uwu
🌸💖🌸💖
Jiang Si announced his new relationship on Weibo and had the nerve to be angry when Rong Ke dumped his a** over the phone. Wow.