"Go on in first. I'll come find you in a little while."
Xu Chun murmured in acknowledgment, then turned and went into the hall without so much as glancing at Jiang Xiuyan.
After Xu Chun left, neither Xie Jianyuan nor Jiang Xiuyan spoke. The atmosphere returned to a suffocating silence.
Suddenly, Xie Jianyuan moved. He took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. The faint glow stood out in the darkness, his face hidden in the shifting light and shadow.
"Do you like him?" Xie Jianyuan exhaled deeply and flicked the ash from the cigarette between his fingers, asking the question without expression.
Jiang Xiuyan felt a painful tightness in his chest. The person he liked was right in front of him, yet he couldn't say it. Faced with Xie Jianyuan's question, he remained silent.
Xie Jianyuan clicked his tongue impatiently. "I'm asking you a question."
Jiang Xiuyan looked away and said hoarsely, "Why are you asking?"
Xie Jianyuan said, "Don't worry about that. Just tell me whether you like him."
Jiang Xiuyan said, "...No. I was drunk."
Xie Jianyuan's lips curved. "Good." He took a few more drags, then stubbed out the cigarette. "I don't care how you fool around, but don't get any weird ideas about him." His tone carried a warning.
Hearing those words, Jiang Xiuyan felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck him out of a clear sky. A rumble thundered in his ears, and he swayed, nearly losing his footing.
How could he fail to understand what Xie Jianyuan meant? Yet at that moment, he would rather not have understood, so he wouldn't be in such unbearable pain.
"...Don't you dislike men?" His face was deathly pale, and even his lips seemed to have lost their color, a far cry from his usual calm and steady demeanor.
Xie Jianyuan turned his head slightly to look at the figure in the hall. His lips curved faintly, but he said nothing.
That painfully conspicuous smile made Jiang Xiuyan's heart ache, but he still had to pretend nothing was wrong. He managed a pale smile.
"When did it happen?"
In truth, Xie Jianyuan couldn't make sense of his own feelings for Xu Chun either. His motives for approaching Xu Chun had indeed been less than pure at first. What Xu Chun had said back then had stirred his competitive spirit, and the people who had stirred it in the past had all come to bad ends. But for some reason, Xu Chun was different.
If he had to make a comparison, Xie Jianyuan would have ruthlessly trampled those people underfoot once he achieved his goal, then walked away. With Xu Chun, rather than doing that, he wanted to catch up to him and stand beside him.
And for some reason, when he heard Jiang Xiuyan confess to Xu Chun, a surge of anger had risen in him out of nowhere. It was a feeling he had never experienced before.
Xie Jianyuan glanced at Jiang Xiuyan, his gaze turning a little cold. "That's none of your business, is it?" With that, he walked into the hall, leaving Jiang Xiuyan standing there alone in a daze.
His back was slightly hunched and his head lowered, his thoughts unknown. Seen from behind, he looked particularly forlorn and lonely.
"...Jianyuan."
He murmured the two syllables under his breath, but the owner of the name could no longer hear him.
Inside the hall, Xie Jianyuan searched for quite a while before finding Xu Chun, who was talking to his manager.
"Brother Chun."
Hearing someone call him, Xu Chun turned and saw Xie Jianyuan. He froze for a moment, then smiled.
"Can I help you?" His voice was gentle but distant, and a flawless smile graced his face.
Seeing his smile, Xie Jianyuan felt strangely irritated. He wanted to tear off this man's perfunctory, hypocritical mask and watch him cry and beg for mercy beneath him, until that mouth could no longer say anything infuriating and could only let out broken moans.
When he came back to his senses, the realization gave him a fright.
How could he have such a perverted thought? Had he really fallen for Xu Chun, as Jiang Xiuyan had said?
Looking at Xu Chun's oblivious, puzzled face while he fantasized about him in his head, Xie Jianyuan felt a twinge of guilt.
But there was no denying it—he was aroused.
Xu Chun waited a long time, but Xie Jianyuan just stood there in silence. His mind grew even more unsettled, and a rare trace of impatience appeared on his face.
Because of what had just happened, he was in an absolutely foul mood.
"Brother, why did you run off again?" a clear, sweet, childishly innocent female voice called out.
Xu Chun looked over and saw a girl of seventeen or eighteen. She ran up and grabbed Xie Jianyuan's arm.
"Qianqian, stop fooling around." Xie Jianyuan rubbed his brow and spoke in a low voice, sounding somewhat helpless.
"How is she fooling around?" Mother Xie walked over. "I took my eyes off you for a moment, and you disappeared."
As she spoke, she carefully looked Xu Chun up and down. Her condescending manner made him somewhat uncomfortable.
He smiled and said, "I'll leave you to talk. I won't intrude."
He was about to give the family some space and turn to leave when someone suddenly grabbed his arm.
Xie Jianyuan held his arm and looked at him earnestly. "Brother Chun, don't go yet."
After saying that, he smiled at Mother Xie. "This is my senior. He's given me a lot of guidance on acting."
"When did I..." Xu Chun's eyes widened in bewilderment, but before he could finish, Xie Jianyuan gave his hand a measured squeeze, and he obediently fell silent.
"So that's how it is." Mother Xie's gaze became much more sincere as she looked at Xu Chun. Smiling, she said, "Thank you for looking after my son."
Xu Chun could only play along with an awkward laugh. "Not at all."
For the entire banquet, Mother Xie kept Xu Chun cornered, asking him one question after another and probing to find out whether any female stars in the industry had been foolish enough to make advances on Xie Jianyuan. She called them fox spirits at every turn. Finally, she patted Xu Chun's hand and, thinking she was being discreet, urged him to keep a close eye on Xie Jianyuan and not let any unwanted admirers near him, leaving Xu Chun torn between laughter and tears.
In early March, Twin Cities officially began filming, and Xu Chun returned to life on a film set after a long absence.
The early scenes were filmed on location. Xu Chun and the others were filming deep in the mountains, where there was a small town on a mountainside. The orphanage was in that town.
Filming did not follow the story in order; the scenes were shot out of sequence. Xu Chun and the others were filming the orphanage period first.