Chapter 69

Fang Shaoyi’s original figure had been too sturdy for the character in the latter half of the movie. After suffering so much in the hospital, he was now the perfect fit for the character. The only part that was slightly off was his hair – his current hair was too short. The character had messy hair that was always unkempt. Every day prior to filming, they always spent a lot of time styling his hair and doing his makeup to purposefully make him appear sickly pale. Even the cracks in his lips and the dried skin peeling off were carefully drawn on.

The first time Yuan Ye saw Fang Shaoyi after he had finished applying his makeup, he hadn’t been able to accept this. He had silently stared at Fang Shaoyi for a very long time. After, he had turned away and remained quiet for a long time too. Disregarding the hair, the paleness and frailness on his face instantly returned Yuan Ye to those days Fang Shaoyi had been laying in the ICU. Each day, he could only go in for ten minutes every morning and evening. He spent the remaining time wandering up and down the hallways. His feelings weren’t only stirred up because of his memories from that period of time, though. These types of makeup always made people think about many different things.

Fang Shaoyi had been born as a glorious person. It was possible that he would be this dazzling for his entire life. He might not ever look this beat down, even in old age, but Yuan Ye still couldn’t help thinking about what he would look like when he got old.

“Does Teacher Yuan think this is okay?” The makeup artist asked him.

“It’s fine. Pretty good.” Yuan Ye stared at the Fang Shaoyi in the mirror. The two of them made eye contact this way; they had made eye contact in this manner many times in the past. The first time had been when Yuan Ye had been seventeen. Back then, he had gone to visit Fang Shaoyi’s film set for fun. Everything had been new and interesting. The Fang Shaoyi in the mirror became even more handsome after getting makeup done. At that time, Yuan Ye had smiled at him without restraint. In return, Fang Shaoyi had given him a gentle smile that was reserved only for him. Right now, the Fang Shaoyi in the mirror was old and frail. After a long silence, the corners of Yuan Ye’s lips tugged up. He gave Fang Shaoyi a faint smile from far away. The smile Fang Shaoyi returned to him also wasn’t only filled with warm and gentle acceptance anymore. It also contained the many, many memories shared between them after almost twenty years of companionship.

Two pairs of eyes stared at each other like this. It was almost as if they had slowly and inadvertently spent the rest of their lives together while making eye contact.

There was a scene where Fang Shaoyi needed to jump out of the old tree after climbing up it to tie a strip of cloth to a branch. Additionally, he needed to fall onto the ground after jumping out and roll because of the momentum. The director didn’t even ask if he could do it; he simply arranged for a body double. Even if Fang Shaoyi had said that he wanted to try, the director wouldn’t have let him. Right now, he was the film crew’s top protection priority. He had never experienced such high-class treatment before. In the past, Fang Shaoyi only used body doubles when he needed to film intimate scenes. He rarely had body doubles for stunts. Previously, he might not have even been allowed to use a body double for jumping off buildings or skydiving. Now, though, nobody even dared to let him try jumping out of a tree.

This couldn’t be helped, though. The film emperor was too delicate now.

Yuan Ye had fallen out of this tree before. While watching the filming of this scene from off to the side, he could feel a slight tingling pain in his ankle. Yuan Ye walked over and patted the tree trunk. He chuckled and said to it, “We worked on developing a relationship daily. Seems like we ultimately failed in doing so. You didn’t even hold back in the slightest when dropping me, huh?”

The director heard this. He scolded, “Was what you did called developing a relationship? Didn’t you only lay up there and sleep?”

“Isn’t that considered developing a relationship?” Yuan Ye turned back and told the director, “Seems to me like it’s just a cruel and heartless tree.”

The director didn’t have the free time to have a silly argument with him. He ignored Yuan Ye. Fang Shaoyi filmed the scene where he had to roll on the ground by himself. After rolling around, he sat up and stared for two seconds at the closest camera, dazed. Then, he stood up and lifted his head to look at the cloth he had just tied.

Such scenes weren’t difficult to film. Fang Shaoyi was still rather in character. Besides, after experiencing such an incident, he had become even more composed.

While not filming, Fang Shaoyi needed to keep a mask on and do his best to avoid the rest of the crew. Ji Xiaotao walked over with a thermos. In it was iced pear juice. Fang Shaoyi unscrewed the bottle and peeked in. He shook his head and said, “I’m not drinking that.”

Ji Xiaotao instantly turned around, looking everywhere for Yuan Ye. Fang Shaoyi furrowed his brows and tugged his mask on. He refused to let Ji Xiaotao cause a commotion. He whispered, “You drink it. Hurry.”

“I drink it?” Ji Xiaotao’s expression was full of rejection. “I’m not drinking it. If Ye ge finds out later, he’ll kill me.”

“What use could this drink have?” Fang Shaoyi’s brows were still furrowed together. He refused to take his mask off. “Hurry and drink it. When your Ye ge comes back later, he’s going to start watching me again.”

In this regard, the film emperor was better than a hundred hims added together. Fang Shaoyi glared at Ji Xiaotao, exasperated at how useless he was. Yuan Ye cocked an eyebrow and sniffed the thermos. Fang Shaoyi pointed at Ji Xiaotao. He even told Yuan Ye, “He stole my stuff.”

“Hm?” Yuan Ye’s eyes flitted between the two of them. “He’s not letting you drink it?”

Fang Shaoyi nodded and made a sound of acknowledgement.

Yuan Ye grabbed the thermos out of Ji Xiaotao’s hands and stuffed it into Fang Shaoyi’s hands. He told him, “I stole it back for you. Go ahead and drink.”

Since leaving the hospital, Fang Shaoyi had become hard to control. He refused to properly drink his water and wouldn’t do anything he was told to do: he had developed a temper. This was a problem that he had only developed after this injury. In the past, he didn’t care about these trivial matters at all. He had even been too lazy to say anything extra about them. If he had the time to say something, he could’ve already finished drinking the water. Right now, he refused to finish drinking the proper amount of water each day, so Yuan Ye was making him drink pear juice instead. The pears were steamed with rock sugar and then iced. This drink helped clear the lungs. After consecutively drinking this for several days, Fang Shaoyi stopped liking it too. He came up with numerous different ways to avoid drinking it.

“I’ll steam some for you tonight. You don’t like drinking the ones Xiaotao steams?” Yuan Ye asked him.

Fang Shaoyi could only nod. Yuan Ye reached out and tugged off the other’s mask. “Drink.”

Fang Shaoyi drank pear juice off to the side. Yuan Ye sat next to him, watching him drink. Ji Xiaotao squatted nearby, scrolling through his phone. He lamented, “Little Yang’s face is honestly too good-looking.”

“Un, it really is. He doesn’t even have any scars or pimples,” Yuan Ye responded.

Yuan Ye had spent every day with Yang Siran on the set of《Hoarse》. After so much time together, they had truly developed a rather close relationship. Yang Siran wasn’t annoying either. He was a pretty good kid. Yuan Ye offhandedly asked, “Where did you see him?”

“On the trending topics list.” Ji Xiaotao handed his phone over for Yuan Ye to look at. “They’re promoting a CP. Seems to me that the CP in the show they’re filming is going really hard.”

“With who?” Yuan Ye asked.

“A kid on the show. He’s not from our company.” Ji Xiaotao scrolled through the few CP photos and said while furrowing his brows, “I need to talk to him when I get the time. It’s okay to do this for promotion, but please don’t start getting realistic. Then he’ll end up being a dumbass.”

“There’s no need.” Yuan Ye burst into laughter. He shook his head and said, “He most likely won’t.”

Yuan Ye was good at understanding people. This was his job. When Yang Siran spoke about Geng Jinwei, the affection practically overflowed from his eyes. It couldn’t be hidden at all. That was the sign of someone who was truly in love. If he could really get together with a kid he was randomly promoting a CP with, that might even be a good thing.

Yang Siran had gotten pretty popular recently. That show had originally been an acting show. However, Yang Siran had sung a song during one of the scenes. As soon as this happened, he had gone viral. The video of him singing got spread around on Weibo multiple times. This was in part due to the company’s promotion. However, he truly was good at singing. People could tell that he had professional training when he opened his mouth. The other half of the CP he was tied to in the show was a twenty-something year old kid who had been starry eyed the entire time he had been singing. Later on, Yang Siran had ended up in the same group as him on the show. He also took pretty good care of the kid.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

The girls liked seeing this. The show had also been purposefully edited to make this relationship seem more realistic. The editors really understood their audience.

Yang Siran had followed Yuan Ye around on set for so long. Even after leaving the film set, he still occasionally asked the other how he was doing. Yuan Ye would also casually chat with him a bit when he was bored.

This day, Yuan Ye sent him a message: Your Xiaotao ge says he wants to talk to you about CPs.

Yang Siran replied very quickly: Hello Yuan Ye ge! Xiaotao ge wants to talk to me about CPs? What CPs?

Yuan Ye was actually just bored, since Fang Shaoyi wasn’t here, so was teasing him. He chuckled and replied: The one from your show.

Yang Siran: Ah! They’re too annoying. Their company keeps dragging me into their CP promotions. I really hate it.

Yuan Ye didn’t reply. Yang Siran followed up with: I already have a sweetheart ah.

The word “sweetheart” sounded quite romantic. Yuan Ye smiled at the screen. No matter what, Yang Siran’s affection was worth respecting. Yuan Ye had never asked him about his and Geng Jinwei’s relationship. If he talked about it, Yuan Ye would listen. If he didn’t, Yuan Ye wouldn’t ask. But right now, Yuan Ye suddenly wanted to ask. Thus, he sent a message over: Little Yang ah.

Yang Siran: I’m here, Ye ge.

Yuan Ye: Your sweetheart......What’s the situation between you two right now?

He was very rarely so curious about other people’s matters, especially in regards to relationships. However, now that they were fairly close friends, he couldn’t help feeling a bit worried. Mainly because in his heart, he actually didn’t think this lengthy one-sided love would end very well. In his subconscious, he had already classified it as a tragedy. After sending this message, Yuan Ye followed up with: I’m just offhandedly asking. You’re not required to answer. Don’t feel pressured.

Fang Shaoyi knocked on the door. Yuan Ye hopped up and opened it. Fang Shaoyi was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He headed straight for the shower after grabbing a change of clothes. Yuan Ye didn’t follow behind him. Thus, Fang Shaoyi said from inside the bathroom, “My chest is uncomfortable.”

“Oh, you’ve got new lines now?” Yuan Ye was smiling as he leaned against the doorway and stared at Fang Shaoyi, head tilted. “I’m done showering. You shower by yourself. Hurry and finish.”

Fang Shaoyi furrowed his brows. “You’re not taking care of me anymore?”

“Do I dare not to?” Half of Yuan Ye’s shoulder was inside the door. The other half of his body was still outside the door. “Take a quick five minute shower and come out. Hurry. I’ll help you do skincare after.”

After saying this, Yuan Ye ran away. There were two messages from Yang Siran on his phone.

—There’s no pressure. I’m not scared of you finding out, Yuan Ye ge.

—Haha, I’m his lover right now.

Doing skincare was quite pleasurable. Fang Shaoyi reluctantly took a shower alone. As soon as he got out, he laid down on Yuan Ye’s lap, eyes closed as he waited for the other to start. Yuan Ye gently blew a puff of air at Fang Shaoyi’s eyes. Fang Shaoyi opened his eyes to look at him. Yuan Ye told him, “You’re honestly too annoying these days.”

Fang Shaoyi instantly lifted his hand and pressed it against the side of his chest. He didn’t even need to say anything.

Yuan Ye burst into laughter. “Keep acting.”

After messing around, they also talked about serious business. Yuan Ye’s fingers pressed against the corners of Fang Shaoyi’s eyes and massaged them. He lowly called out, “Yi ge.”

Fang Shaoyi didn’t open his eyes. “Hm?”

Yuan Ye squeezed his lips together. A while later, he asked, “What are your plans......for the future?”

Fang Shaoyi’s voice was very calm. He no longer used a joking tone. Slowly, he stated, “Same as usual.”

Yuan Ye didn’t pause in his motions. He softly said, “A lot of people are guessing that you won’t keep acting.”

Fang Shaoyi still didn’t open his eyes. He only chuckled and squeezed Yuan Ye’s hand briefly. He gently stroked the other’s palm. A long time later, Fang Shaoyi finally answered, eyes still closed. He asked Yuan Ye, “The me in movies is your dream, right?”

Yuan Ye replied, “Yes.”

Fang Shaoyi said, “He’s my dream too.”