Feeding

It was easy to imagine the sensation caused when the first teaser for Exchanging Lives began airing repeatedly on television stations under Huaxia Imperial Entertainment. People from all walks of life who had been following the major child-trafficking case switched their channels to Huaxia TV. The station executives, who had been stomping their feet and cursing over plummeting ratings after several big-name stars jumped ship, were delighted to discover that ratings had risen steadily over the past two days. During the periods when the teaser clips aired, the peak rating had actually reached 23.22%, comparable to this year's top-rated drama.

No one had expected a teaser less than two minutes long to achieve such an impressive promotional effect. It not only made viewers across the country remember the little hero who had dared to fight criminals, as well as the show Exchanging Lives, in a fresh and memorable way, but also planted a seed in the hearts of many children his age. Before Lu Heng had even officially debuted, he had already gained a huge wave of young male and female fans.

The Wei family's little princess was one of them.

Hearing his niece's question, Wei Zhanjie nodded with a smile. "That's right. This is our little hero. You can call him Brother Lu."

"Hello, Brother Lu!" Wei Jiayi stretched out her arms toward Lu Heng and said with innocent expectation, "Brother Lu, pick me up."

Seeing the Wei family's little princess express her fondness so directly, Lu Heng smiled again.

He remembered the "bestie" he had gotten to know through fighting in his previous life.

When Lu Heng had first arrived at the Wei family's home to film the show in his previous life, the little princess had not liked him.

Most little girls of seven or eight would loudly say so if they disliked something, making their displeasure very clear. But Wei Jiayi had grown up in a family like the Weis and was accustomed to the adults' polite pretenses. When it came to people she disliked, she had her own unique methods.

In front of everyone, she would fuss over you with apparent concern, ask all sorts of questions as if she were merely curious, then use her innocent, childish bluntness to casually dismiss your habits and values as worthless. She would make you understand that your very existence was utterly out of place in your surroundings.

She would also occasionally play harmless pranks in the adults' eyes. For example, she might suggest that everyone have Western food, then volunteer to teach Lu Heng how to use a knife and fork. The moment he accidentally scraped his dinner knife against the plate with a piercing sound, she would burst out laughing and complain, "Brother Lu is too clumsy. We should just let him use chopsticks..."

Those innocent laughs and slightly coquettish complaints had once been what Lu Heng feared most. Those elegant, subtle gestures were like a mirror that exposed every detail, clearly reflecting every trace of his roughness and awkwardness. They left him at a loss, and the longer he stayed in that magnificent place as beautiful as a fairyland, the more he felt he had nowhere to belong, the more ashamed he became of his poverty and shallowness.

That was why, when Star Entertainment secretly sent someone to approach him after filming ended, Lu Heng had eagerly accepted the olive branch they extended. It was as though doing so would allow him to escape the small, lowly, foolish self he had revealed.

Only much later did Lu Heng learn from Wei Jiayi that the reason she had initially rejected him was because she had gathered from the adults' scattered conversations that her beloved second brother, Wei Linxuan, would soon leave home to live in a remote rural village, while the unfamiliar Lu Heng would become her new second brother.

Seven-year-old Wei Jiayi did not understand what a reality show was. She only knew that Lu Heng's arrival had replaced the brother she loved most. Just like the idiom her grandfather had taught her, he was someone who had taken over a magpie's nest.

It was not until filming ended, the program officially aired on television, and her second brother returned home once again that Wei Jiayi realized what she had done wrong.

But by then, Lu Heng had already signed with Star Entertainment. The apology Wei Jiayi wanted to make was stuck in her throat by Lu Heng's "betrayal." It was not until two years later, when Wei Linxuan acquired Star Entertainment and Lu Heng became an artist under Huaxia Imperial Entertainment once more—eventually becoming the company's top star under its full support—that the Wei family's little princess finally offered Lu Heng her belated apology at an annual party.

With a smile, they let bygones be bygones. More than that, they even became fairly compatible "besties" afterward.

But in this life, Wei Jiayi had formed her first impression after watching the video of Lu Heng bravely saving someone, and had thoroughly become someone's little fangirl.

"Brother Lu, will you marry me when I grow up?"

Still holding Wei Jiayi and caught up in memories of his previous life, Lu Heng had not yet reacted when a soft, wet kiss suddenly landed on his cheek. He jolted so hard in fright that he nearly threw her.

Feeding

Lu Heng's still-shaken expression made everyone laugh. A young man in his twenties who looked somewhat like Wei Linxuan leaned against the doorway and called inside in Mandarin with an obvious foreign accent, "Grandpa, our little princess found herself a husband!"

A reprimand immediately came from inside, telling the young man not to talk nonsense.

The young man merely shrugged indifferently, then held out his hand to Lu Heng with a smile. "Hello, I'm Wei Hongxuan, Linxuan's older brother."

With Wei Jiayi in his arms, Lu Heng could not free up a hand, so he could only nod and say with a smile, "I'm Lu Heng."

After speaking, he gazed at Wei Hongxuan with clear, bright eyes full of expectation. He actually wanted Wei Hongxuan to take Wei Jiayi from him.

Instead, Wei Hongxuan merely nodded, maintained his suave gentlemanly demeanor, and turned to leave. All he left Lu Heng was a dashing retreating figure.

Fang Yuqing, who arrived shortly afterward, smiled and took Wei Jiayi from him. With a smile at the corners of her lips, she greeted him gently, "You must be Xiao Heng, right? You rode the train all night. Are you tired? Come in quickly."

Lu Heng could clearly hear someone behind him suck in a breath. It was the cameraman and the directors crying out in excitement. Someone even whispered, "It really is Fang Yuqing!"

Lu Heng could understand that excitement perfectly. It was the instinctive reaction that arose naturally in male creatures when they saw a member of the opposite sex radiating an utterly captivating charm.

No matter how many actresses praised by the public as "beautiful women" Lu Heng had worked with in his previous life, he had to admit that Fang Yuqing's beauty was different from all of theirs. Her delicate, flawless features and gentle aura, as though naturally softened by light, made hearts race with every smile and frown. It was a splendor that transcended the boundaries of gender. If Wei Linxuan's looks could still bring words like handsome and refined to mind, then with Fang Yuqing, any ornate praise piled upon her would seem trite.