Yan Junye slipped out while the other man lowered his head to light a cigarette. The dogs he had just met were happily playing together.
As before, he sat down on his haunches before daring to speak among the dogs. "Got any tea on Li Yong?"
A Labrador with noticeably shorter fur than the golden retriever answered him. "He's nothing special. He throws his family's money around and forms cliques to make himself look impressive."
"We don't really know much else. We only got here a day ago."
Yan Junye had just experienced all that firsthand too. It looked like he would have to rely on his own flawless acting to get the tea this time!
"Running around instead of obeying orders. How does Chang Yu train his dog?" Li Yong came after him, deliberately raising his voice.
The director was wary of the Chang Family, but he wasn't.
"Xiaotu, come here." Chang Yu stood and called to Xiaotu among the dogs.
Yan Junye immediately ran over obediently.
Not only was he obedient, but he also rubbed affectionately against Chang Yu from every possible angle.
He wanted that idiot Li Yong to know that he wasn't stupid. He simply didn't take orders from idiots.
Chang Yu stroked his head. His voice wasn't piercingly loud; it resonated from his chest, steady and powerful:
"Of course the dog I trained only listens to me. Surely you understand even that much, Mr. Li?"
A flash of embarrassment crossed Li Yong's face, but his confidence and arrogance soon returned. "Right now, Xiaotu needs to cooperate with me for the shoot. If he won't cooperate, what good is being smart?"
The director could sense the hostility between these two CEOs, neither of whom was easy to deal with. The air was thick with gunpowder.
Unfortunately, he couldn't afford to offend either of them, so he could only keep his head down and his mouth shut.
"Who says he can't act?" Chang Yu said. "He acts better than you."
He witnessed Xiaotu's acting skills practically every day.
If he couldn't hear his thoughts, he would never have known this dog had two faces.
Li Yong's face turned livid with anger. How dare anyone compare a lousy dog to him?
Playing along, Yan Junye raised his head and barked, tattling to Chang Yu.
[He said to my face that you're inferior to him in every way. He's blatantly looking down on you!]
[He also said that no matter what he did to you, he could leave you unable to make a sound!]
Chang Yu narrowed his eyes as he studied Li Yong. Was he gay too?
No matter how he looked at him, Li Yong didn't seem like a top.
If anyone was going to cry out, it would be Li Yong, wouldn't it?
Thoroughly led astray, Chang Yu successfully developed a grudge against Li Yong. But there was no rush. There was still a long day ahead.
Before filming began, Li Yong needed to have his costume photos taken, and Yan Junye had to join him for a few shots.
Chang Yu handled all communication with Xiaotu during the shoot.
Once the photos were successfully taken, Yan Junye went into the makeup room with Li Yong to get ready for their first scene.
For the dog, that just meant brushing his fur and putting on a few head accessories.
Even after his makeup was done, Li Yong had his manager take pictures of him. Yan Junye had had enough of this dawdling man.
He went out ahead of him and heard the photographer who had just taken their costume photos asking around, "Has anyone seen my camera?"
After finishing the shoot, he had packed up his equipment and left it on the table.
The director and several others had come over to talk to him, so he hadn't stayed beside it.
But this was the first time he had ever seen a camera go missing on a production set.
The director reassured him. "Don't worry. Someone on the crew must have mistaken it for theirs and taken it by accident. I'll help you find it."
Only crew members could enter the filming location.
He couldn't very well say a crew member had deliberately stolen it, so he could only phrase it tactfully.
Meanwhile, he was inwardly roaring, Who the fuck told you to steal someone else's stuff?!
Even if he had to turn the whole set upside down, he had to find that camera.
Otherwise, it would be bad if news of the missing camera got posted online and caused an uproar.
-A camera? The one Li Yong's manager was holding just now looked a lot like the camera used for the costume photos.
Could Li Yong have stolen it?
Yan Junye went to find Chang Yu, who was sitting to one side working intently. Chang Yu had already heard Xiaotu's thoughts.
He beckoned. "Director, Li Yong wants you to come over."
Chang Yu and Xiaotu followed the director into Li Yong's makeup room, even making a point of pushing the cameraman to the front.
The man and dog worked together perfectly.
"Isn't that my camera?" Seeing his precious camera, the cameraman could no longer hold back, even if the person before him was someone he couldn't afford to offend.
"Why did you take my camera?"
"Oh, it's nothing. I borrowed it to take a few pictures." Li Yong didn't think he had done anything wrong at all. "Take it."
That arrogance really made him deserve a beating.
When Li Yong saw that the man wasn't leaving and was even staring at him, he said irritably, "You don't think I actually want that crappy camera of yours, do you? Do you think I can't afford a mere camera?"
"A few tens of thousands might bleed you dry, but it's pocket change to me. Besides, I'm an unyielding man of principle. There's no possibility I'd steal."
There were plenty of rich people who were stingy yet inexplicably believed they were in the right. Everyone had now seen one for themselves.
The honest, dutiful cameraman gritted his teeth in anger.
The director stepped in to smooth things over.
The incident didn't escalate. Those who needed to leave dispersed, and those who needed to work went back to work.
They had thought the matter was over. Who could have imagined that Li Yong, despite being in the wrong, would embellish the story, claim the cameraman had insulted him by accusing him of theft, and write a post about it on Weibo?
Li Yong had five million followers on Weibo. The cameraman didn't even have an account.
Fans spoke up for their idol and dug up the cameraman's name, family details, and even his home address.
Furious, the director went to confront Li Yong. "Wouldn't it have been better to let this go? You even posted it online using your own account. Do you have to drive him into a corner?"
He had worked with the cameraman before. He was good-tempered and kept to himself. People like that were the easiest to bully. If he did something drastic, this would become a serious matter.
Sympathy was one thing, but he couldn't help clear the cameraman's name right now.
He had yet to find another investor who could replace the Li Family's funding.
Especially today, the crucial first day of filming, he couldn't allow the television drama he had spent two years preparing to fall apart.
"If he dies, I'm not the one who killed him." Li Yong wore a disdainful expression that said, "You've got it wrong, haven't you?"
Yan Junye heard every word.
The more he saw of Li Yong's ugly behavior, the more disgusted he felt. He really couldn't understand what was handsome about him.
Amid the chaos on set, all the dogs who had missed out on the tea came to ask Yan Junye, who had squeezed inside, what had happened.
"Oh, Li Yong stole someone's camera." Yan Junye swished his tail as a few more ideas came to mind.
He deliberately lowered his voice and covered his mouth with a paw, as though sharing a secret. "There's something else."
"Li Yong said he has an anal fissure, and he's bleeding heavily."
Those words were like a huge rock suddenly crashing into a still lake, sending water splashing and ripples spreading.
What did you say?!
Yan Junye convinced himself and nodded. "Li Yong said it himself. The cameraman only let it go because he felt sorry for him."
"But then he turned around and accused the cameraman of slandering him."
The Labrador asked curiously, "How did he get an anal fissure? Is he a bottom, and things got out of hand while he was doing it?"
"Maybe he's constipated."
"But how's he going to film with an anal fissure?" They still had a beach sports scene to shoot that day.
The dogs began discussing it animatedly. Even Chang Yu started doubting his own ears.
An anal fissure? Unyielding?
Xiaotu really had mastered homophone jokes and throwing words together.