Chapter 18

Wang Lin & Shen Wenyu: "..."

The two fell silent in unison. Wang Lin silently put down the watermelon in his hand.

Ning Luo's gaze followed the watermelon without wavering.

[My heart is dead, but my mouth isn't! I want to eat, eat, eat, eat, eat!]

Sun Shaoyi's inner thighs still hurt. Seeing him like that, she sneered and unceremoniously scooped up the biggest slice of watermelon, taking a bite. "It's bursting with juice. So sweet."

"Gulp."

Ning Luo swallowed.

[Damn it, they're actually tempting me. Why can't I just off all my coworkers?! Every last one of them! I'll hire assassins to kill them after work!]

Shen Wenyu held back a laugh and followed suit, picking up a skewer of charcoal-grilled pork belly dripping with oil. "Look at this pork belly—such perfect marbling, lean and fat layered together, sizzling with oil, just a little spice. Perfect."

He shook his head and sighed dramatically. "What a pity. People dieting can't eat it."

Ning Luo ground his teeth.

Enduring the humiliation, he sat down beside Shen Wenyu and tipped up his face with a flattering smile. "Big brother."

Shen Wenyu was delighted to hear him call him that and teased, "What do you want?"

"Can I have just a little?" Ning Luo held up his fingers to show a speck the size of a fingernail. "Just a little."

"Please?" He looked at Shen Wenyu pitifully, his voice soft and pleading, brows drooping like an innocent little puppy.

Shen Wenyu was struck. His resolve wavered.

"...Just a little?"

"A little!" Ning Luo nodded frantically, his eyes fixed on the skewer, filled with longing.

Thinking one bite wouldn't hurt, Shen Wenyu hesitated before handing it over, stressing, "Just a little."

"Mm-hm." Ning Luo nodded and aimed his mouth at the meat at the very bottom.

Then he tipped his head back and stripped the entire skewer clean in one go.

"Ning Luo!"

Shen Wenyu snatched it back with lightning speed, but Ning Luo clamped down and refused to let go, his head chasing after the skewer. In the end, he successfully got three chunks of meat into his mouth.

Feeling the rich, oily fragrance of the meat in his mouth, his eyes welled up with moved tears. Covering his mouth, he watched Shen Wenyu warily while chewing bit by bit with puffed cheeks, reluctant to swallow it all.

Looking at the bare skewer, Shen Wenyu was so angry he laughed. "Just wait for extra training tonight."

Ning Luo made a heart over his head at him, taunting him with utter abandon.

Sun Shaoyi watched from the sidelines and scoffed. "That little trick was enough to fool you?"

She should have kept quiet. The moment she spoke, Ning Luo remembered the watermelon grudge. All his resentment over dieting surged back, and three pieces of grilled meat were nowhere near enough to save the situation. He said faintly, "Sister Shaoyi, you looked so elegant eating watermelon just now."

Sun Shaoyi looked wary. "? Are you sick?"

Ning Luo pinched a little heart at her with his thumb and index finger and said shyly, "You looked like Robinson Crusoe coming back from a hunt and eating his spoils. There was a kind of wild beauty to it."

Wang Lin froze, then burst out laughing. "Hahahahahahahaha!"

Ning Luo smiled and gave him a little heart too. "Director Wang, stop laughing. I can see your tonsils."

Wang Lin: "..."

Fuck, he'd laughed too soon.

This kid was firing at everyone.

Assistant Taozi came in a step late and saw the scene.

She had long said that people dieting while cutting carbs and not eating enough were extremely irritable.

Yet Director Wang and the others still dared to dance on a minefield.

Taozi looked at them with admiration.

Who said only those standing in the light counted as heroes?

Those standing there naked counted too.

Three days after Ning Luo started dieting, he couldn't take it anymore and moved back into the production team's hotel.

Looking at the familiar little hotel room, he shed tears as wide as noodles.

The first day away from his Simmons bed, he missed it.

His two assistants were helping him unpack.

Xiao Song asked, "Brother Luo, why did you suddenly move back?"

Ning Luo said solemnly, "I can't receive special treatment. I need to share hardship and joy with the entire crew."

Standing by the windowsill with his hands behind his back, he said, "Staying with the crew lets me immerse myself in the role at any time and maintain my best condition. This is my responsibility toward my work."

Xiao Song was filled with reverence. "Brother Luo, you're truly dedicated!"

Taozi said, "Eh? I thought it was because Aunt Zhang cooks every meal, but you can only look and not eat, and you couldn't stand it anymore."

Ning Luo: "..."

Well said. Don't say it again next time.

He would crack.

After packing up, they got ready to head to the set. While waiting in the hotel lobby for Xiao Song to bring the car around, Ning Luo saw several vans pull up.

"Did another production crew arrive recently?"

Taozi glanced over too. "Probably. This whole area is full of film studios."

Wang Lin hadn't mentioned it, so they probably wouldn't be staying long. When Ning Luo saw Xiao Song drive over, he put the matter out of his mind and got into the car.

Meanwhile, the two people who had just gotten out of one of the vans looked in the direction he had left.

Ning Xibai frowned. "Was that Ning Luo just now?"

Cui Xiangyang looked where he pointed and only caught sight of half a body climbing into the car. Remembering how Ning Luo had made a fool of him at the last banquet, his expression turned ugly. "Why do I see him everywhere? What bad luck."

Ning Xibai said, "A-Yang, don't say that. He's my brother. You know his crew is based here."

"You treat him as your brother, but he might not see you as one. Otherwise, he wouldn't have made Uncle Ning send you to stay with the crew." Cui Xiangyang looked resentfully at the departing van.

While waiting for his scene on set, Ning Luo sat on a little folding stool scrolling through his phone.

The magazine shoot from last time was being promoted today, so he needed to go online and repost it on Weibo.

Less than a second after reposting, his phone began chiming nonstop. When he refreshed the page, he found a row of reaction images beneath it.

[Big Sis's Scattered Emotions: You still remember how to post on Weibo? I thought you were playing dead. [Ning Luo peeking out sneakily]]

[Professor Sun of Hongshan Psychiatric Hospital: Good afternoon, Mr. Luo. How is your mental state today?]

[Tasted Every Handsome Guy's Lips: Wifey! Mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah! [Ning Luo pouting for kisses]]

Ning Luo only took one look before losing the courage to keep reading. He hurriedly reposted it and called it a day.

But the netizens were excited by his promotional post.

[Holy crap, it's that magazine he did with Lu Tingzhou!]

They had only seen the leaked behind-the-scenes footage before, so they immediately grew curious about the final product and clicked into the magazine's feature page.

[I heard it's a concept-themed magazine, and there's some acting involved.]

[Thinking about Ning Luo's acting... girls, I'm sitting this one out.]

[I'll stockpile ten boxes of Baoshu dish soap before I watch.]

[I'm not afraid. Let me go! I refuse to believe it can be bad with a Best Actor involved.]

[Respect. You're a real one.]

[Respect. You're a real one.]

Bearing the hopes of countless netizens, this brave user clicked into the feature page and decided to march generously toward death.

The first thing they saw was a photo of the two together.

Inside a dim cave, the Mute Slave, dressed in black stained red with blood, had both hands bound. His slender wrists were cuffed and suspended above him as he knelt on the ground. His chin was forcibly lifted by a jade bone-piercing fan, while the elder twin stood behind him, smiling as he admired his current humiliation.

Black hair slipped over their shoulders, tangling with strands stained by blood and grime, impossible to distinguish apart.

Blood dripped from the end of the fan.

The Mute Slave's eyes were full of the savage hatred of someone who wanted to eat his flesh and drink his blood, yet he was suppressed so thoroughly that he could not move an inch.

The netizen's hand on the mouse trembled slightly.

After a long while: "Fuck, they're enemies-to-lovers? Why am I kind of hooked?"

The eye acting was practically sparking, okay?!

Other netizens who finished looking were equally stunned.

[Fuck, this? Ning Luo??]

[Ning Luo has this kind of presence???]

[After seeing it, I only have one thought: this pairing is kind of shippable.]

[It's over. I'm shipping them. I've lost my mind.]

[Ning Luo, you hooked up with a Best Actor. You're really famous now. You must usually—forget the rest, I'm devouring this sugar!]

[Fuck, people can ship this too??]

The moment signs of people shipping them emerged, Lu Tingzhou's fans became unhappy. The public square was soon in an uproar.

Xu Ling had expected this long ago. She told Taozi to keep an eye on Ning Luo and make sure he did nothing, leaving it to the professionals.

After agreeing, Ning Luo didn't take it to heart. He logged into an alt account he hadn't used in ages, intending to document his miserable dieting life.

But the moment he logged in, he saw the little red dot above the notifications. Being a compulsive person, he assumed it was some marketing account's push notification and clicked in to clear it.

To his surprise, it wasn't. A user named L had liked his post and followed him.

"Who's this?" He zoomed in on the person's profile picture with two fingers, studied the cat on it for a moment, confirmed he didn't know them, and directly messaged, "Who are you?"

The other person was actually online and replied leisurely three minutes later.

[L: A Lu Tingzhou fan.]

[L: I saw that you like him too, so I added you.]

Ning Luo replied politely:

[Crotch on Fire: Okay, then we're sisters now. Heart heart.]

[L: I'm a man.]

[Crotch on Fire: Okay, male sister.]

Without waiting for a reply, Ning Luo urgently needed the restroom. He tossed over a "Talk later, gotta go," logged out, and left.

Nie Wentao was busy working nearby when he heard a burst of laughter.

Following the sound, he saw Lu Tingzhou sitting on the sofa with his gaze lowered, chuckling softly. The smile at the corner of his lips was as gentle as a spring breeze.

"What did you think of that made you so happy?"

"Nothing." Lu Tingzhou put away his phone, his smile not fading. "I just think Ning Luo is indeed very interesting."

Nie Wentao said, "Speaking of him, the internet will probably make a fuss for days over the magazine you shot together. Your fans will be the first to be unhappy."

Lu Tingzhou could guess the reason without asking. "Keep it under control. Don't let it get too out of hand."

"I'll go say something. But you seem to like that Ning Luo quite a bit?" In all these years, Nie Wentao had never seen him take such care of a newcomer. He rarely involved himself in these matters.

Lu Tingzhou didn't deny it. "He helped me. Naturally, I should look after him."

The restrooms on set were crowded that day, so Ning Luo had no choice but to use the public restroom outside. It took him a little longer to return.

When he came back, he found the set in an uproar. He walked a few steps toward the crowd and spotted a head of red hair.

That distinctive hair color could only belong to Cui Xiangyang.

Cui Xiangyang stood with his hands on his hips, making sweeping pronouncements around the set. "Look at this trash equipment your crew uses. You're really dirt poor. If you ask me, why keep dragging this out when you have no money? Just disband already."

The assistant director looked where he was pointing and twitched at the corner of his mouth.

Idiot. That was the newest and best imported equipment, freshly delivered. It was expensive as hell.

Back when Wang Lin had no money, he had tolerated some of Cui Xiangyang's nonsense and dared not speak up. But seeing him act like this now, he no longer even felt angry.

Put simply, the gap was too vast. He couldn't be bothered to look up to him anymore.

He lifted his eyelids. "Stop bringing your cheap feet onto this precious ground. Get lost already."

It took Cui Xiangyang a moment to realize he was being insulted. "Wang Lin, is this how you talk after begging me for help?!"

Ning Luo happened to squeeze into the crowd just in time to hear that.

[Why are you so triggered? How are you even more sensitive than Haitang's bottom?]

Wang Lin and the other two: "..."

Fuck, they got it instantly.

Ning Luo's gaze shifted and landed on an inconspicuous person standing beside Cui Xiangyang.

The person had a dark red birthmark on his face, right beside his eye, making him highly recognizable.

[Hiss, could this be Qiao Zichen, the lapdog's lapdog? The one who carries Viagra around all year and tries to stuff a box into Cui Xiangyang's mouth whenever he gets the chance?]

[I bet he definitely has some on him right now. A whole box! Cui Xiangyang really has accepted the blessing of dying from exhaustion.]

The impatient expressions of Wang Lin and the others underwent a qualitative change.

In short, they got excited.

Then what were they waiting for? Search him!