Referring to - 8

Chapter 8

Whether it was being caught meeting an actress at night by his own dad or being seen getting a very late night visit by a wealthy businessman daddy whom had not yet been acknowledged, the current situation was quite embarrassing. It was the kind of situation where every extended minute produced ten-thousand-word gossip and headlines that entertainment news fought for. 

Seeing that the situation could no longer be held, Lin Zixi quickly thought of the most plausible explanation at the rate of one per second and chose one.

However, before he even started talking, Gu Zecheng spoke to the two people, Cheng and Zhang, in a polite but final tone, "I have something to ask Lin Zixi. Please leave first."

No explanation at all, just directly clear the place; Party A Daddy was so ruthless and cool. However, thinking that the follow-up explanation job would fall on him according to the contract, Party B Son wanted to buy a plane ticket now.

Big Boss Gu opened his mouth, and Starlet Cheng tactfully made an appointment with Lin Zixi to go to the filming set half an hour early the next day and then left after saying goodbye. Assistant Zhang also left the things in his hand on the coffee table and immediately walked after her.

However, Gu Zecheng opened his mouth again when they were about to reach the door, "I personally value privacy, don't like my private life to be paid too much attention to, and abhor the so-called 'expose' even more. I hope that the two of you will keep my itinerary tonight confidential, so as to avoid trouble for everyone in the future."

    

Hearing what he said, Cheng Fei and Xiao Zhang naturally promised repeatedly that they would keep it confidential and not spread it out. Their attitudes were as cooperative as required.

But once the two of them walked out of the room and the door was closed, Lin Zixi sneered and said to his dad, "Gossip in the entertainment circle isn’t a commercial secret. Who will speak to you about professional ethics and keeping secrets, ah. I bet you that the first thing the two of them will do next is definitely to call her own agent as well as my agent."

    

"I know..." Gu Zecheng replied without any surprise. But he had only said half the words before being interrupted by the WeChat ringtone.

Without a doubt, a person who could make a video call to President Gu at this point had to be Grandma Song, who was waiting to check the ‘brothers’ of the Gu family.

"Zecheng, Zeyi, you two haven’t quarreled, have you?" The old woman made a video call with the assistance of Sister Wang. After confirming that they had arrived at the hotel, the next sentence was to ask this.

During the previous phone call, Lin Zixi was a little surprised at why his grandma cared about whether or not his two ‘sons’ had quarreled, but now he fully understood—with his dad's stinky character of loving to lecture others, and harshly at that, if his uncle was really an incompetent playboy, the two brothers probably fought a lot back then.

And as the real grandson pretending to be his uncle, it was naturally impossible for him to be as cocky as the real brother and quarrel with his daddy.

Therefore, the relationship between him and Gu Zecheng was naturally…. "No, everything my brother said is right. How can I quarrel with him, ah." Young actor Lin replied.

Grandma Song did not hear the outlandish tone in his words. Instead, she was especially moved that her little son had finally grown up and matured, and her eyes were wet with emotion for a long time. She told Lin Zixi repeatedly to take care of his body no matter how busy he was filming until Gu Zecheng urged her that it was very late and she should quickly go to rest. Only then did she reluctantly hang up the video.

The time Lin Zixi spent with his dad was short. He could not say anything about other things, but he already knew one thing—one of the strong points of Dad Gu as a person who did big things was that his thinking was particularly clear. This focus was reflected in the way Gu Zecheng could still remember what he was scolding himself before even if he had been interrupted by Grandma’s phone call and video for half an hour.

So after the video with the old lady ended, Party A Daddy switched back to the previous lecturing mode in a second.

"I’ll let the public relations and legal team keep an eye on this matter." Unlike when talking with Cheng and Zhang, in which Gu Zecheng was still amiable and approachable although with the imposing manner of a superior, he showed his displeasure in full light when facing young actor Lin. "Have you carefully read the contract I asked you to sign? One thing after another happened in less than two days. Do you really think I can't teach you a lesson?!"

Dad Gu was irritated, and his son was still depressed by the truth that came out just now.

"I've sent you a text message telling you not to come. It’s you yourself who didn't read it. Yet you blame me now?!" After being disliked all night, even a clay figurine had to be angry somewhat. Lin Zixi also couldn't bear it and complained back.

Gu Zecheng looked at his mobile phone subconsciously, and sure enough, there was a clear and direct reminder from young actor Lin in the unread text message.

He had seldom been beaten in the face and put on the spot like this in the past few years, but Party A Daddy was Party A Daddy. After being embarrassed for a while, he could immediately attribute the problem to Party B. "Who made you have a tryst with an actress in the middle of the night? It's not that you didn't know that I'd come over right away."

"How did Cheng Fei come to have a tryst with me, ah?" Hearing him say that, Lin Zixi laughed, "She probably saw the two of us by accident in the parking lot and had the intention to be my little...cough...sister-in-law. So she specially came to wait for you. She’s obviously more enthusiastic to you than to me."

"What a hideous mess." Dad Gu, who never had anything to do with the entertainment circle except for the one-sided hype of romance before, had frowned more today than he did in the previous year. He massaged his forehead to relieve the headache, "If she really has this intention, she probably won't spread the news about me coming to look for you indiscriminately…. And I'll find someone to knock some sense into your agent."

    

Lin Zixi had lost his temper just now, but he was actually delighted.

However, thinking about how Gu Zecheng, who was not yet an adult at that time, had been kept in the dark by his mom about having an illegitimate child and was now forced to have a ‘resurrected’ younger brother to comfort his grandma just because of a ‘look alike’ hot search…. Lin Zixi could not help feeling a little guilty and ashamed again.

The other party was his victim daddy as well as his Party A gold master. If it were not for Dad Gu always disliking him and now making him remake Filial Son and Filial Piety for him, he would not be at a loss.

Eh, only remembering the title of the movie almost forgot the content—this movie was about a filial son who was forced to give his superstitious mother a funeral while she was still alive, and he did a good job of it—it was picked since he could not think of anything else.

If a person felt ashamed, his aura would be weakened all of a sudden.

In addition, Gu Zecheng did not deride him anymore, so Lin Zixi could not help but take a step back and look for a way out of the embarrassing situation.

"It's me that has been Mercury/water retrograde for the past six months." He said a little embarrassedly, "It’s not limited to me always going wrong with you. When I was about to sign a contract with an advertisement and a TV series before, I could be cut off by someone giving a price that’s practically free. Even when playing a mobile game..."

"Water retrograde…. You’re thirsty and want to drink water, but you vomit when the water enters?" Dad Gu obviously did not know the new meaning of this traditional Chinese medicine term.

"No, no, no, it's Internet slang, saying people are unlucky." Lin Zixi explained. He took out his mobile phone, skillfully unlocked it, tapped to log in to a popular mobile game, switched to the card drawing interface, and tapped the single draw button. "For example, the cards in this game are divided into five levels from high to low: orange, purple, blue, green, and white. And I basically can only get…. Fuck!"

Looking at the phone screen where a purple card had just been drawn, young actor Lin rubbed his eyes and then turned his head to look expectantly at Party A Daddy beside him—a man who was able to fight in the competitive and risky business world and successfully become a domestic big boss, his luck would naturally not be bad.

Dad Gu originally disliked the young man’s shortcoming as well as fit of anger and wanted to teach his ‘younger brother’ not to speak profanity. As a result, he was shocked by the eyes full of admiration and longing and did not even shake off Lin Zixi’s grip on his hand.

"Excuse me, please do me a favor. Just tap the screen a few times, thank you, thank you." Lin Zixi said and took his dad's hand to press Ten Draws on the card drawing interface.

After a few gorgeous animated interludes, the game unsurprisingly gave nine green cards and one blue card.

…. Lin Zixi, who was convinced that he had just been blessed by the God of Wealth Daddy with the ability to get a purple in one hit, was a little stunned, but he still reluctantly used Gu Zecheng's finger to press Ten Draws again.

It was not bad this time. There were two blue cards, and the luck value was almost doubled, from 1 directly to 2 (the maximum value was 100).

The results of the two Ten Draws were not much better than when he drew it himself. Lin Zixi let go of his dad's hand while secretly sighing that being opportunistic was indeed unacceptable.

However, Gu Zecheng took his mobile phone away, held it in his hand, and, somewhat unconvinced, began to draw cards voluntarily.

Seven greens, three blues, nine greens, one blue, eight greens, two blues, nine greens….

Looking at over ten thousands of gems that he recharged with his own money and was now being squandered a thousand at a time by his own dad, young actor Lin felt that he had a stomach ache.

At this moment, the animated interlude representing the ten draws flashed once again, revealing the result of Gu Zecheng's current ten consecutive draws—

Six greens, three blues… one purple!

What kind of purple card was that?

It was a sparkling bright purple card, one in a hundred draws, and contained the mutual expectation of the Gu family’s father and son. It was exactly the same purple card that Lin Zixi had just gotten from the single draw!

This duplicate card was then automatically broken down into scattered fragments.

After his father stiffened for a moment, at the moment he was going to tap Ten Draws again, young actor Lin grabbed the phone back in one go and pressed the lock screen button.

….

……..

Lin Zixi was considered to have understood. In fact, he was not called Mercury retrograde, he was called inherited Mercury retrograde!

Translator’s note:

水逆 = Mercury retrograde = bad luck or unlucky (internet slang)

水逆 = water retrograde = a disease name (TCM term)

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Referring to - 7

Chapter 7

After hehe-ing at his father, Lin Zixi walked toward the elevator in the underground parking lot but then turned back.

"I almost forgot, the elevator in this hotel has access control. If you don't have the key card, you can't go to my floor, ah." He thought for a moment and then said a little embarrassedly, "Why don't I ask my assistant to come over and give his card to you?"

Gu Zecheng glanced at him like he was seeing an idiot, "Of course I’ll go to the front desk to open another room on the 18th floor. Do you think we’ll really sleep together at night?"

Lin Zixi turned around and left without saying anything further.

It was unknown whether his dad’s character was indeed like this or his dad just found him not pleasing to the eye because of the previous ‘look like’ matter that compared them to each other…. With such a method of disliking people, Gu Zecheng could become a business magnate instead of being betrayed and deserted; was it really not because all his subordinates were a group of masochists?!

Lin Zixi, having complained all the way back to the suite provided by the crew, took out a bottle of sparkling water from the refrigerator and drank a small half of the bottle in one breath to calm down. When he put the water back in the refrigerator, he heard someone ringing the doorbell.

It took only ten minutes for him to return to his room, and Gu Zecheng already came. Lin Zixi could not help but lament that the working efficiency of the service staff of this hotel was very high even in the middle of the night. Then he went straight to open the door.

As a result, standing outside the door was not the tall and straight figure of a man he had expected, but a beautiful sexy woman with a curvy body.

"Cheng Fei?" Young actor Lin frowned unobtrusively and asked politely, "Do you have anything to do with me?"

Both Cheng Fei and Lin Zixi belonged to Stars Entertainment, although she signed a contract two years earlier than him. However, unlike him who had always been smooth sailing for several years and became a currently popular young actor, she could barely be considered as a second-tier star so far. This time, she was arranged by the company to play the second female in The Legend of Concubine Ling. Buying a lot of press releases, hot searches, and so on was considered to be the company's intention to push her up again.

Lin Zixi and her had some friendship since they were with the same company, but they were far from being close enough to be able to have a chat in the middle of the night.

Therefore, Lin Zixi smiled courteously but did not mean to invite the other party into the room at all.

Cheng Fei raised the script in her hand, "We’ll have our first rivalry scene tomorrow. I’ve never played with you before, and I'm a little worried, so I want to read through the script with you in advance."

Hearing her say this, Lin Zixi inwardly wanted to "hehe" again.

Reading through the script, my ass!

In the entertainment circle, ‘reading through the script very late at night’ = ‘two people having an affair’. Even elementary school fans all knew this equation. Both of them had been in the circle for several years, yet she still used this ruse on him.

Lin Zixi was generally not interested in gossip or anything in the entertainment circle. He had heard some rumors about Cheng Fei, but he did not take note of them. One, he was not a director or producer, and two, he was not a big name who was able to pull strings to give people resources. He also didn’t know why the other party suddenly paid attention to himself.

Lin Zixi was a little annoyed in his heart, but he became all the more polite and good-natured on the surface. "It's almost 11 o'clock now, so it's a little too late to read through the script. Otherwise, let's go to the set earlier tomorrow morning to prepare. We can also be in a better state for the play with makeup on. Do you think it’s okay, Sister Cheng?"

Six years had passed since Cheng Fei debuted at twenty. The officially 22-year-old's face stiffened, but she quickly regained her composure and said with a mocking smile, “Why’re you so nervous? A rabbit doesn't eat the grass by its own burrow. Even if I want to hype CP with you, I’ve learnt a lesson from the mistakes of Liu Xia, not to mention that a young man like you clearly won’t consider an older sister like me. I really want to play the scene with you in advance. In this TV series, the female lead and the second male are both outsiders. You’re not afraid of being ridiculed as an artist of Stars Entertainment who can’t act at all, but I’m still afraid. I’m certainly not as big-hearted as you!”

    

Lin Zixi was a little embarrassed being exposed and even stabbed at his weak spot (acting skills) by Cheng Fei. Seeing that the other party’s attitude seemed to be open and generous, he was suddenly unsure whether she really just wanted to read through the script with him.

If he refused her again at this time, it would mean that he did not give some face to her, offending an artist of the same company. But if he agreed, his dad, Gu Zecheng, would come over later, and his grandma, Song Wen, would also check up on them.

Lin Zixi was in a bit of a dilemma all of a sudden. After thinking about it, he still moved sideways and invited Cheng Fei, who had been standing at the door, to enter the room. He followed her back to the living room of the suite but did not close the door, leaving it ajar.

He quickly sent a message to Gu Zecheng, asking him to tell him his room number after checking in, and then Lin Zixi would find an excuse to get away.

After that, he called his assistant, Xiao Zhang, in front of Cheng Fei, saying that the two of them were going to read through the script and asking Xiao Zhang to buy some midnight snack and deliver it.

After doing all this, Lin Zixi poured a glass of water for Cheng Fei, who was already sitting on the sofa, and asked, "Then we’ll start now?"

Cheng Fei nodded and looked at the script a few times. When she looked up again, her eyes were already full of tears, and her voice had a hidden bitterness, "Your Majesty believes her but doesn’t believe me?"

In order to let the actors and actresses be familiar and cooperate with each other quickly, many crews would shoot the kissing scenes and bed scenes first, and The Legend of Concubine Ling was no exception.

As a major female lead drama, in order to meet the audience's preferences, it had many kissing scenes between the female lead and the emperor played by Lin Zixi and between the female lead and the general of the enemy country played by Sun Yuwen, but it only one comforting-style light kissing scene between the empress played by Cheng Fei and the emperor.

Of course the two of them would not even do the kissing part of the scene today, but the lines and body movements in said scene still had to be performed.

Lin Zixi walked up to Cheng Fei, raised her chin with one hand, and pretended to wipe her tears with the other hand while reciting his lines, "Why would Zitong think like this? You’re my..."

    

Young actor Lin had not finished saying his lines and abruptly stopped.

This was actually not because he forgot his words, but because the door he had left ajar on purpose in order to avoid arousing suspicion was pushed open, and Gu Zecheng walked in while talking on the phone.

Q: When you and an actress were performing an intimate scene, your undisclosed father came upon you. What do you feel?

A: Lin Zixi, his whole person wants to WTF!

When Gu Zecheng, who had been making business calls without giving thought to read the text message, walked to the living room, he realized that there was not only Lin Zixi alone in room 1808. He terminated the call and looked blankly at Lin Zixi, waiting for his explanation.

Cheng Fei, on the other hand, let go of Lin Zixi's hand and pushed it away. She stood up and walked towards Gu Zecheng, and said in a pleasantly surprised but not shocked voice, "President Gu, why’re you here?!"

Thus, young actor Lin suddenly had a ridiculous guess.

Fuck, Starlet Cheng would not happen to have stumbled across him and Gu Zecheng in the parking lot just now, would she? So she did not plan to seduce him but wanted to use him as a springboard to be his little mom?!!

Seeing his dad's expression, which clearly showed that he did not enjoy this unexpected encounter with a beauty, Lin Zixi made a helpless shrug behind Cheng Fei—the confidentiality agreement in the contract was written well; as a result, he was caught on the first day of his job, which he did not want to either, ah!

In the end, before Gu Zecheng could speak, the locked door behind him was opened again, and Xiao Zhang, who had the second key card of this suite, walked in carrying a large bag of food, "I bought several items nearby. I don't know... Gu Zecheng?!" 

The assistant was assigned by the agent Chen Yunyun, and Chen Yunyun was Stars Entertainment's number one hype expert. Lin Zixi could already predict what kind of press releases would appear later. He turned his gaze towards Gu Zecheng a little dumbfounded while thinking about a problem back and forth in his mind—

Did he now still have time to refund the down payment from Party A Daddy and urgently buy a plane ticket to go abroad?

Previous | Next

Referring to - 6

Chapter 6

The road from Gu's house to the movies and television city was only travelled halfway, and Lin Zixi was so disliked by his dad that he wanted to jump from the car.

Seeing that the atmosphere in the car, which had returned to silence again, became even more stagnant, he turned over in his mind some random small things that definitely wouldn’t attract troubles. In the end, he turned toward Gu Zecheng and asked tentatively, "Do you have an MP3 or CD in your car?"

    

"I rarely listen to music when I drive a car." Gu Zecheng replied this way, but he probably felt that it was also awkward for the two of them to continue being silent like this. So he reached out with one hand and turned on the car radio.

After the radio was turned on, the first station was doing emotional counseling. Dad Gu switched to another FM radio, and this station was selling male health care products. Then he switched to another, and it was a program where listeners competed to be the first to answer a question through a hotline to get prizes….

Gu Zecheng's brows became more and more furrowed, and the strength used to press the frequency switch button on the steering wheel was also increasing. When he tuned to the fifth radio station, melodious music was finally released from the stereo.

Gu Zecheng finally loosened his brows, but Lin Zixi, who was in the passenger seat, suddenly stiffened—there were countless popular songs in this world, but the one played by the radio host happened to be the one he sang.

Originally, as an actor (who was not very qualified in acting), Lin Zixi was worlds apart from the singer circle.

However, in today's entertainment industry, if you, as an idol star,  had never sung a few songs, you would feel embarrassed to hold a fan meeting or do a live broadcast.

So, no matter what rank young actors you were or how off-key you were, almost all of them had released two or three singles. The tones all depended on post-production, and hitting the charts relied solely on fans. Basically, no song in these singles went beyond the fan circle.

Lin Zixi, as one of the currently popular young actors who was able to hold ten-thousand-people fan meetings, was naturally no exception. However, he had a slightly higher level of achievement than those in the close circle. That was, under the operation of the company, he had a few songs that were the theme songs he sang for the TV series he starred in. So even passers-by who were not mixed in the fan circle had a certain probability of having listened to the songs he sang.

And now the radio station was playing the ending song he sang for a TV series broadcasted some time ago.

Listening to the graceful singing voice on the radio, which was so auto-tuned he could barely hear his original voice, young actor Lin expressed, this song might as well not go beyond this circle, okay?!

The full version of the song was only three or four minutes, but Lin Zixi, who was on pins and needles in the car, simply felt every second was like a year. After the song was finally played to the end, he still couldn't breathe a sigh of relief because this unlucky music station unexpectedly continued to play the incidental music he sang for the same TV series.

The TV series was a melodramatic story where the male lead loved the supporting female while the female lead loved the male lead, and when the male lead fell in love with the female lead, the female lead loved the supporting male. And this song was specifically played when the plot reached the part where the male lead and the female lead misunderstood and hurt each other.

As one could well imagine, with the man’s silence and the woman’s tears, this song was so sad and depressing it was a pain in the ass.

Listening to this kind of song, which was in the style of ‘you clearly agreed to not leave each other, but you’d betrayed me long ago’ and still sung by himself, with his own dad, Lin Zixi was so embarrassed that his skin was prickling with goosebumps.

But his dad, the second-generation of a high-ranking military officer and a well-known big boss in the domestic business circle, unexpectedly found the song to his liking. He even retracted the hand that was originally placed on the window and began to tap lightly on the steering wheel to the beat of the music.

The situation in the car was really weird now. On the one hand, Lin Zixi was embarrassed, and on the other, he could not help but want to laugh. Without any better option, he chose to turn his line of sight out of the car window and tried hard not to look at the man beside him.

It was another three weird minutes compared to just now, and young actor Lin seemed to have waited for a century. After waiting for a long time, the song finally petered out to silence.

At this time, Gu Zecheng, not having enough of the song, turned his head and asked him, "Do you know the name of the song just now?"

Of course Lin Zixi knew it! Anyone might not, but he had to know it, ah!

    

But the key question was... in the current situation, could he speak out that the song just now, which scored 60 points for the original voice and 101 points after the auto-tuning (one more point for the post production team despite their arrogance), was sung by himself?!

After being asked so by Gu Zecheng, Lin Zixi was a little at a loss. He was unsure whether he would paint a positive image in front of his own father or be disliked again if he now announced that the singer was himself.

    

However, he was not at a loss for long because after a brief commercial, the voice of the host of this station came from the radio, "Just now we played the ending song and incidental music sung by Lin Zixi for Ling Long Yue…."

Gu Zecheng paused and then asked in a disbelieving tone, "Is there someone in the entertainment industry who has the same name as you?"

Lin Zixi coughed sheepishly, "The post production master was quite awesome."

Gu Zecheng tapped his finger on the steering wheel a couple of times and eventually said, "Then you sing."

Lin Zixi coughed several times and finally began to sing under Gu Zecheng's urging gaze.

He had not sung this song for a few months, and now he was singing it (badly) in front of his own father. At the beginning, he sang a little flat and out of tune.

    

However, he had received urgent training and been coached by a professional after all. After he sang a few lines, he gradually got into the song. By the time the song reached the chorus with the words "you clearly agreed to not leave each other, but you’d betrayed me long ago", it really had the feel of the official single after auto-tuning.     

Gu Zecheng, driving the car quietly, never interrupted him and only commented after he finished singing. "Your post production team was indeed awesome." 

　　

This was probably a poor evaluation, right?

Lin Zixi scratched his head unnaturally and heard the man beside him add, "But it's actually more malleable than your acting skills."

　　

...Big brother, will you die if you don't dislike your son?!

　　

Young actor Lin, who had been praised by everyone in the past few years since becoming popular, kept being snubbed since their official meeting until now and was finally unable to bear it anymore. Pulling out a seemingly very sincere smile, he asked, "Have you watched my TV series? Which one is it?"

　　

"I haven’t." Gu Zecheng replied unhesitatingly.

Lin Zixi smiled more sincerely, "You haven't watched the TV series I starred in, but you always criticize me. That's not good, right? Taizu Youyun said that without investigation, you have no right to speak."

　　

"I’ve investigated." Dad Gu shot a glance at him, "'The Disgrace of CFA'. Before your acting skills get better, I don't think I need to watch your TV series."

….

…………

The thinking of his dad and the anti fans was surprisingly consistent, and it was impossible to refute. Young actor Lin felt that he was really here to pay his mom's debt.

Having received an excess of blows in one night, Lin Zixi remained silent during an hour’s drive to the hotel where the crew was staying.

Gu Zecheng also stopped speaking. Fortunately, the music station on the radio had been playing various styles of songs, and the atmosphere in the car was suppressed to the point that it was not too bad.

When arriving at the destination, Gu Zecheng naturally couldn't ask the doorman to park his car. After he drove into the unmanned parking lot, he and Lin Zixi got out of the car.

"Your room number is 1808?" After locking the car, he said, "You go back to your room first. I’ll find you later."

"Oh. Bye-bye." Lin Zixi waved dispiritedly and walked towards the elevator.

　　

His dad stopped him with another sentence, "You may be more promising in singing than acting, so you can consider transforming."

　　

Although he could barely regard this speech as an affirmation and encouragement to him, the domestic music industry had been so chaotic that even the great gods had to rely on going to variety shows to promote their existence. Regarding Gu Zecheng's words, young actor Lin only wanted to greet him, ah, no, which was their common ancestors of eighteen generations.

However, you had to be polite when treating your own dad, and still a victim dad at that.

　　

"Thank you, hehe." Lin Zixi replied.

Previous | Next

Referring to - 5

Chapter 5

After Gu Zecheng drove the car out of Gu's house, his originally smiling face immediately became expressionless. As if the person beside him did not exist at all, let alone a conversation, even a glance from the corner of his eyes was not given.

Lin Zixi sat stiffly in the passenger seat and stared aimlessly at the road ahead. He did not dare to look at his dad because it would look like he was peeping at him, but he also didn’t dare to look out the window because it would look like he was impatient and disrespectful.

The two of them, one driving and the other watching the road (literally), were both silent for nearly half an hour. Lin Zixi only felt that the atmosphere in the car was getting more and more awkward, and he finally couldn't help turning his head to Gu Zecheng, "Just let me off once you find a suitable spot. I'll ask my assistant to pick me up. Hengguo is so far away; it’s inconvenient for you to send me there." 

Unexpectedly, Gu Zecheng did not appreciate him at all and replied with a sneer, "You know it's inconvenient, yet you dared to contact my mother in private…. You really did a good job in paying lip service!"

Lin Zixi had indeed been in the wrong this time. A word "yeah" had caused his dad to be caught off guard. Now that he was being criticized to his face, he was even more disturbed. He touched his nose in embarrassment and put the blame on his grandma with a little guilty conscience, "It's the old woman herself who came to our filming set. I'm afraid that if I didn't acknowledge her this time, it’d be difficult to explain later..."

"Why is it difficult to explain?" Gu Zecheng glanced in Lin Zixi's direction with disgust, "Just say that you’re now on a secret mission and have to pretend to be another identity. Isn’t that all right?!" 

Lin Zixi curled his lip upon hearing this.

When Gu Zeyi died in a car crash back then, he was ‘sent by the country to perform a secret mission abroad’. Now, after finding him to act as a substitute for his little uncle, he was also ‘performing a secret mission and pretending to be another identity’—the country said: What an enormous blame!

"I'll explain it like this to my mother and tell her to stop looking for you. You yourself..." Gu Zecheng continued talking but was interrupted by the ringing of his mobile phone halfway through.

He first answered the phone through the Bluetooth headset and said a few words, "Mom... um, no, I didn't lecture him... oh…." Then he transferred the call to the car's Bluetooth.

"Zeyi, ah…. Your big brother didn't lecture you again, did he? He's all for your own good, that’s why he always controls you. Don't be angry with him." Grandma Song's voice came from the other end of the phone.

Lin Zixi pondered, his dad could ‘create a life’ with his mother at the age of sixteen, so this little uncle who could make his dad always lecture and discipline must have been worse. He then replied with a smile, "Mom, your worries are groundless. My brother only asked me about my situation in the past few years and didn't lecture me."

"Oh, then I'm relieved." The old lady laughed loudly and clearly and then said the main reason she called, "I thought about it just now. Zecheng, it’ll be almost in the wee hours when you come back after sending your brother off, which is really too late. So don't go back home tonight, just stay with Zeyi. It’s a chance for both of you to have a long chat since you haven’t seen each other for so many years…. But you mustn’t quarrel!"

Lin Zixi could not help holding his breath when she was halfway through speaking.

Never mind making his dad, whom was obviously on the verge of exploding, send him to Hengguo, she still asked the two of them to stay together in a room for one night—on doing a bad turn to his grandson, his grandmother was at professional level!

Lin Zixi did not even dare to turn his head in Gu Zecheng's direction to see the other party’s expression.

Anyway, no matter how grave and gloomy Dad Gu's face was now, the words he said were nevertheless filial and considerate, "Okay, Mom. Don't worry, I'll be staying with Xiao Yi tonight. You went to Hengguo today and prepared a big table of dishes in the evening. You’re also tired, right? So let’s rest early. We’re already in our thirties; don’t keep worrying about us.” 

The old lady sighed and replied, “Never mind. Your brother came back for the first time in so many years, how can I not keep worrying, ah. After you arrive at the hotel, give me a call so I can put my mind at rest…. Well, you concentrate on driving at night. Let's stop talking now…. Don't forget to call me later."

Grandma Song's phone call took less than five minutes in total, and the road where Gu Zecheng was going to let Lin Zixi off and leave by himself was already blocked.

Lin Zixi felt that he was about to suffocate when he thought that he really had to bring Party A Daddy, whom his mother owed compensation, into his hotel room.

As a result, his dad, as if this episode had never happened, was actually able to carry on the conversation before the phone call and continued to lecture him, "I’ll make the old lady stop looking for you, but you yourself must also remember your own identity! If I know that you seize the opportunity to take advantage of my mother..."

Gu Zecheng paused for a moment and sneered, "It's not uncommon for an actor to die because of an accident on the set!"

Lin Zixi, having heard what was said, was like “WTF?!” and turned his head in shock to look at the man beside him, whom looked like he was not joking at all.

What about a country ruled by law or keeping away from the political circle and concentrating on being a business leader?!!

A small disagreement led to an accident. Lin Zixi felt that the image of Gu Zecheng he had constructed in his mind over the years as ‘an ignorant juvenile victim defiled by a female rogue’ was already tottering on the verge of falling apart, and it had not been more than three days since the two officially met.

However, there was one thing Lin Zixi could basically confirm now—Gu Zecheng should really not know that he was his son and, unlike him, was not putting on a play for the two of them.

It was reasonable to say that with his father's current display of strong personality, if he was going to find him to play the role of his uncle, not to mention everything, at least he would investigate his family background and the identity of his parents—his dad clearly knew his itinerary, address, license plate number, and passport number.

But for some unknown reason, after seeing his information, Gu Zecheng unexpectedly didn't realize that there might be a blood relationship between them.

Lin Zixi thought about it for a long time but could not figure out what actually happened. In the end, he simply decided not to think.

In any case, he did not plan to recognize the ancestors and return to the clan, and Gu Zecheng also didn’t recognize him, his own son…. He only needed to keep a low profile and act well. After a few years, his grandma would pass away, and it could be considered that he had done his filial piety to the utmost towards his father and grandmother, his two elders. At that time, no one owed anyone.

What's more, the reward Gu Zecheng gave was worthy of his status as a currently popular young actor.

In all honesty, taking money to act as his daddy's younger brother…. He certainly didn't lose anything for such an awesome job.

Lin Zixi figured out all this and suddenly felt that he had the confidence to face his own dad. After taking a deep breath, he turned his head towards Gu Zecheng and said, "You really don't need to guard against me like guarding against a thief. I really don't have any bad intentions for your Gu family. You must have also investigated my information and know my income, expenses, and current economic situation. I don’t like branded cars, famous watches, or luxury goods, and I also don’t plan to get into venture capital. When my artist management contract with the company ends after eight years, there’ll be absolutely no problem with having a big deposit of tens of millions, which is enough for the rest of my life…. I really don't need to run counter to you for money."

Hearing his words, Gu Zecheng, who was driving with one hand, actually gave him a few careful looks. However, the words he said were filled with dissatisfaction, "You’re already satisfied just like this…. You really have no ambition at all. No wonder people said that your acting skills have always been poor."

....

........

If you had ambition, you would be met with an ‘accident’. If you had no ambition, you would also be snubbed and criticized…. Lin Zixi felt that if he had really been brought up by Gu Zecheng, he might have left home eight hundred times.

Previous | Next

Referring to - 4

Chapter 4

The most bizarre thing in this world was not that your father came to ask you to play the role of his brother, but that your father gave you a no less than a hundred pages employment contract when he asked you to do it.

Gu Zecheng proved himself to be a person who did big things. It had only been three days since hot search push of ‘Lin Zixi looks like Gu Zecheng’, and the contract he gave to Lin Zixi was so detailed that it already included how he and his company should carry out PR response process and so on in the event that the media found him entering or leaving Gu's house.

Not to mention the ‘Party B must not disclose the contents of this contract to third parties without the permission of Party A’ and ‘Party B must not assert or imply to third parties that he has a blood relationship with Party A and thus make profits from it’. . . . These were obviously things to be avoided as taboos.

    

Party B Lin Zixi dozed off while flipping through the thick file in his hand, calculating in his mind whether he should just forget about it and simply go to country A.

There were thousands of clauses and bylaws in the entire contract, not to mention there were still nearly fifty pages about Gu Zeyi's life, social relationship situation, interests and hobbies, special habits, and so on as well as ‘work guidelines’ that he needed to keep in mind . . . . Party A Dad was not giving him a way to survive, ah!

The lines he normally needed to memorize when shooting a drama were not necessarily this many.

In fact, according to Lin Zixi's current savings, living abroad for a few years might not be a problem. But if he avoided a problem by walking away from it just like this, how to explain it to his mom, whom was the initiator of this evil, was a difficult problem.

Lin Zixi looked up his mom's phone number in his phone contacts. He wanted to call her to ask clearly about what actually had happened to her and Gu Zecheng back then. His finger slid back and forth on the screen for a long time, but he still didn't give her a call in the end.

No matter what actually had happened at that time, and no matter if Gu Zecheng was still single at the age of forty, it had nothing to do with his mom. What he could be sure of was that the woman who gave birth to him and raised him had now formed a new family, with a gentle and diligent husband and a smart and cute little daughter, living a full and happy life.

Using the matter of twenty years ago to disturb his mom’s happy and peaceful life . . . . Lin Zixi resigned himself to being a not so considerate and filial son, but he was still able to tell right from wrong.

When the appointed time was about to arrive, Lin Zixi finally called the phone number Gu Zecheng left him.

"I've finished reading the contract. I still need time to memorize the information about your honorable little brother, but the rest isn’t a problem." Calling the man after five in the morning, Lin Zixi did not even greet him and went straight to the point.

And Gu Zecheng, who clearly had woken up long ago, did not say anything superfluous either, "I'll wait for you in the office. Come and sign in half an hour."

The hotel where Lin Zixi lived was very close to Gu Zecheng's office. He originally thought that the half an hour given to him by Gu Zecheng was for him to prepare. Only after waiting for half an hour did he find out that this time was reserved for the lawyers who specially rushed over.

Two of them.

So, after being a ‘little bastard without a dad’ for twenty three years, Lin Zixi ‘recognized the ancestors and returned to the clan’ through an unconventional way.

Congratulations!

When Lin Zixi signed the employment contract under the witness of the lawyers, it was not yet seven in the morning.

Because Gu Zecheng had given him a one-month ‘employment’ grace period to memorize Gu Zeyi's information, he made a plan in his head while driving home to ‘memorize two pages a day starting from tomorrow and do it once again in the last four days’. Then after returning home, he successfully played a certain card-drawing mobile game for a whole day to decompress.

However, the plan could never keep up with the changes. Lin Zixi welcomed a special ‘illegitimate fan’ in the crew of The Legend of Concubine Ling the next day—his grandma fan who was also his own grandma.

"Ze Yi..." The old and gray-haired old woman, who had lost her beloved son long ago, called in a low voice with teary eyes. Lin Zixi, who was about to enter the set, walked over to her side stiffly.

Although the Gu family had broken up the loving couple and almost made his mother abort him, from the beginning, it was basically the fault of his mom, who was already twenty-year-old then, getting involved with a minor.

Lin Zixi did not have as much shame and guilty conscience towards Grandma Song as he did when facing Gu Zecheng, but he also didn't have any resentment towards her in his heart.

Now that he was called so earnestly and cautiously by her, he, who probably had a brain seizure from drawing too many useless cards yesterday, actually didn't hold back and replied, "Yeah."

Thus, as soon as Gu Zecheng, who immediately rushed back home after hearing the news at six o'clock in the afternoon, opened the door, what he heard was his mother's joyful call, "Zecheng, quickly come and see who is back!"

    

Dad Gu, who thought that his team of lawyers had drafted the employment contract flawlessly but was ruthlessly slapped in the face the next day, suddenly felt like strangling his ‘little brother’ who always played his cards unreasonably when doing things.

Lin Zixi, who was sitting upright and still on the sofa, ‘leaped’ to his feet nervously. He stood up all at once and called out a little stiffly to Gu Zecheng, who came over after handing his coat to Housekeeper Wang, "...Big brother..."

The face of the man he called was originally terrifyingly gloomy, but when the man walked to the place where the old lady could see, his face already changed into a look of surprise. When he came to Lin Zixi, he punched him on the shoulder first and then hugged him and said with a smile, "You kid’s finally back. Brother’s still worried that you can’t find your home."

Lin Zixi lamented that his own dad's acting skills were better than his professional actor skills while answering cooperatively, "I've been busy. When I have time later..."

Before Lin Zixi finished saying the sentence "I'll go home to visit more", he felt the arm around his shoulder tightening obviously. Accepting the persuasion, he immediately changed his words, "Ah... it's a pity that I have too many filming and activities during this time. We’ll talk about it again later."

Gu Zecheng let go of him with satisfaction, but the words he spoke sounded quite regretful, "Xiao Yi is developing very well now, and I'm afraid he’ll get more and more busy in the future. That’s why he hasn't had much time to accompany you in the past few years, Mom." 

The old lady did not mind at all. She took Lin Zixi's hand and said with a smile, "Your big brother has always been stubborn. Zeyi, why did you learn from him? It doesn’t matter if you are busy; Mom understands your work demands. Anyway, the movies and television base is near here, so when Mom misses you, Mom will just go to the movie set to visit you. Don’t worry, Mom will just be... an onlooker and promise not to disturb your filming."

Hengguo Movies and Television Base was said to be on the outskirts of S City, but it was at least two hours away by car. To let an old lady who was almost seventy years old trouble herself like that to visit the younger generation . . . . Not to mention that it was his own grandma, even if it was other people's grandma, Lin Zixi also felt that his life would be shortened by being too blessed.

Being his own uncle, calling his own dad brother, and calling his grandma mom; Lin Zixi already felt that he had lost half his life. How could he still dare to agree to the old lady's proposal.

Looking at Gu Zecheng standing behind Grandma Song with a gloomy and cold expression, Lin Zixi coughed dryly and immediately changed the subject. "My big brother has come back. How about we have dinner now? Mom, you’re cooking in the kitchen just now. I just smelled it, and I'm so hungry my chest’s sticking to my back."

The ‘son’ who had not returned for many years came back, and the old lady who had specially prepared a table of dishes was immediately distracted. She got up from the sofa right away and went to the dining room with her two sons.

Grandma Song and Sister Wang had been busy in the kitchen, and Lin Zixi had not been allowed to watch them because they wanted to surprise him.

Now, seeing the six dishes and two soups arranged on a table, Lin Zixi had to admit that her grandma's craftsmanship was indeed good. Although most of this dinner consisted of spicy dishes that he could not eat, everything really seemed to look and taste great.

It was reasonable to say that the elders should move the chopsticks first at the dining table, but the younger son finally returned after ‘leaving home’. As a mother, she was naturally waiting with anticipation for him to taste whether the flavor of her cooking had changed or not.

Lin Zixi could not argue, so he had to pick up his chopsticks and take a honey shrimp ball that was a little distance away from him.

Who knew that just as he reached out to the plate, Gu Zecheng, who was sitting beside him, stopped his hand and then picked a large piece of Sichuan poached sliced fish from the bowl full of floating chili peppers in front of him into his plate.

"Xiao Yi, don't you like to eat the Sichuan dishes made by our mother the most? Mom specially made so much for you today, so you can eat more." Dad Gu said with a smile on his face.

A certain Party A looked kind and loving, but Lin Zixi could definitely hear the implied meaning in those words.

The day before, a certain Party B, who thought it was still early, played mobile games for a whole day while ignoring his proper jobs and simply didn't look closely at Gu Zeyi's information in the contract. Now he was about to break out in a cold sweat.

Young actor Lin, unlike his uncle who liked to eat spicy food, was well-known in the circle to be unable to touch spicy food. Every time the crew prepared a boxed lunch on the set, his assistant, Xiao Zhang, would especially mark it in large red font with ‘Lin Zixi's special meal (not spicy)’.

Lin Zixi usually didn't touch spicy food one bit, but now he was under someone’s roof and this piece of Sichuan poached sliced fish was made by his own grandma and picked by his father out of the bright red dish in the bowl…. He gritted his teeth and put it into his mouth, and then his tears instantly came out from the spiciness.

In order to cover up, he stared at the old lady and said in a choked voice, "It hasn't changed at all. It's still… the taste of home, Mom..."

Thus, his grandma's tears also came out, and she said repeatedly, "It's good that it hasn't changed, it's good that it hasn't changed. Zeyi, eat more."

As a result, while the old lady spoke, she also filled Lin Zixi's plate with various fiery dishes.

Lin Zixi was really about to cry now. He took a deep breath, forced himself to look happy and say "Thanks, Mom", and started going all out to eat the food at risk of his life.

Although he was going all out at risk of his life, he was someone who could not eat spicy food after all. Even if he was so ‘moved’ his nose and eyes were running, the speed of food disappearing from his plate was still not very fast.

What's more, when he was half dead from the spiciness after finishing with great difficulty all the dishes that Grandma Song had picked up for him, the old woman immediately replenished his plate even fuller than before.

Young actor Lin, foreseeing that he was going to become the first star in the entertainment circle to grab the headlines for going to the hospital because of forcibly eating spicy food, quickly looked at his dad with watery eyes and winked madly.

Dad Gu had been silently watching him and the old lady staging the ‘deep love between mother and son’. After receiving the SOS signal from him, he finally opened his mouth, "Mom, you didn't make purple rice with coconut milk for Xiao Yi today. Among what you make, isn’t it the one he likes the most besides the spicy dishes?"

Grandma Song was reminded by him and immediately put down her chopsticks. She went to the kitchen to cook the purple rice without even eating her dinner first.

Gu Zecheng gave Sister Wang a wink, and the other party immediately rushed to the kitchen to help. Next, he turned to Lin Zixi, whose good-looking face was already flushed, snorted coldly, and then moved all the food on Lin Zixi's plate to his own plate.

After he finished doing this, he glanced at Lin Zixi with a bad expression on his face and said impatiently, "What’re you doing still looking distracted? Pick what you can eat! You can't even eat spicy food; so squeamish." 

Although there was no necessary connection between being unable to eat spicy food and being squeamish, Lin Zixi, who was rebuked, was not going to wisecrack at all. He was holding a honey shrimp ball while a sentence was playing on a loop in his heart—Brother, you’re indeed my dad!

Well, there's nothing wrong with that sentence.

Thus, when Grandma Song came back from the kitchen, most of the food on the dining table had been swept away by the two brothers.

Lin Zixi wiped the honey sauce from the corners of his mouth with a tissue and gave a praise while burping, "Mom, you’re really the best at making spicy food."

Gu Zecheng also picked up the remaining shrimp ball and said, "Mom, Xiao Yi has just come back today, and you immediately follow his taste. Sister Wang will cook as usual in the future. He’s already an adult; don't always spoil him." 

The old lady, who was coaxed to a distraction by both of them, said to Gu Zecheng, "You're already an adult, too. Why is it you eat with your brother just like you’re fighting with him today?" Nevertheless, her face was filled with pride and satisfaction as a mother.

Lin Zixi felt very emotional as he watched Grandma Song, but his face remained calm and collected. He only said to her, "I specially asked for leave from the crew this afternoon. I still have scenes to film tomorrow morning, so I need to put on makeup before 6 o'clock. Now that I’ve finished eating, I'd better go back to Hengguo earlier. Then I can read the script and what not at night."

Grandma Song had just cooked the purple rice, but her ‘little son' said he was leaving. She was naturally unwilling, but the other party had a job to do after all, and the movies and television base was also far away. So she had to nod and compromise, "You’ve been tired all day. Don't drive by yourself, and let your brother drive you back. Find a driver to help you drive your car there."

….

………………

Seeing Gu Zecheng, who had also been tired from work all day, nod and agree on the surface while in fact put on a fake smile, a line from The Legend of the Red Lantern flashed in Lin Zixi’s heart:

"Tie Mei! Your dad is not your own dad, and your grandma is also not your own grandma!"

Previous | Next

Referring to - 3

Chapter 3

Lin Zixi originally thought that someone who could send three cars to follow him in the middle of the night was not a kidnapper but a certain person who had used all kinds of tricks to compete with him for resources some time ago.

As a result, when Gu Zecheng got out of the car, Lin Zixi was so frightened that he almost stepped on the gas pedal as a brake.

Gu Zecheng, wearing a black cashmere coat, walked to Lin Zixi's car unhurriedly. Half bending over the driver’s side door, he knocked rhythmically on the car window three times with a gloved hand.

Lin Zixi was totally unprepared for his first face to face contact with his victim father, and his heartbeat soared to 180.

He swallowed desperately and finally mustered enough courage to lower the glass window all the way with a trembling hand.

Gu Zecheng, who had blocked someone’s path in the middle of the night, did not give an explanation. He directly reached into the car and raised Lin Zixi's chin, scrutinizing left and right. Then he said, "It's indeed very similar. No wonder you dared to hype looking like me."

Young actor Lin, who had been living at home for two days but got struck by a disaster from the sky, expressed that he was immensely wronged.

However, Lin Zixi had been secretly observing and investigating Gu Zecheng over the past few years. He knew that under the current circumstances, explaining that everything was the fault of his agent and company could only make him look like he was shifting the blame, which no doubt would only add fuel to the fire.

In addition, Gu Zecheng’s attitude really didn’t seem like knowing about his life experience, so he calmed down a little. He bit his lip and said truthfully, "The company originally wanted to use a different topic, but an accident happened. They had to find another topic to serve as a stopgap. I really didn’t intend to take advantage of you . . . . Look, isn’t the topic of ‘look like’ gone the next day? But if it really caused you any inconvenience, please contact my company. We’ll definitely try our best to make up for it. I hope you’re magnanimous enough to forgive me, Sir."

Lin Zixi spoke beautifully, but Gu Zecheng did not fall for it. After releasing Lin Zixi’s pinched chin, he sneered, "It was gone the next day? Humph, that’s me asking them to remove it. In the end, it still enabled you to attract troubles."

Lin Zixi originally thought that his own agency was stingy and only willing to spend one day's money; who knew that the hot search and the press release were removed by Gu Zecheng. He had just said those words, and he was slapped in the face. He coughed awkwardly and then said very sincerely, "How should we compensate you then? Just say it. As long as we can do it, we’ll do it at all costs."

Gu Zecheng took out an envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to Lin Zixi, saying, "I have an air ticket to country A for tomorrow morning. I bought it with your passport. Don't come back after you get there, and don't show up in the public eye. That's all."

Lin Zixi was stunned to be swept abroad before he recognized the ancestors and returned to the clan.

It was okay for others to use his dad to hype sex scandals, whereas he only hyped "look like" and was going to be hustled abroad . . . . This was doing his son a bad turn, right?

He swallowed and, clinging to the car window, looked at Gu Zecheng eagerly while carefully confirming, "You’re joking, right?"

"I’m not if you can’t come to an agreement." After Gu Zecheng finished speaking, he put the envelope back, turned, and walked to his own car.

Then, as he reached the black SUV, a subordinate in a suit helped him open the door, but Lin Zixi did not keep up and went back to open the trunk of his own car instead.

Gu Zecheng said coldly, "How long are you going to dawdle? Come here!"

Lin Zixi heard this and replied helplessly while taking out a warning triangle from the trunk, "This car is in my name. In case an accident is caused by casual abandonment, it’ll definitely make headlines on the entertainment news."

Gu Zecheng paused and waited for Lin Zixi to choose a place to put down the warning sign before instructing the man on the passenger seat of the other car, "Wang Yong, you drive the car for him."

After that, he said to Lin Zixi, "I’ll give you another five seconds. If you’re late, you’ll go abroad directly."

"I’m coming!" Lin Zixi threw the car key to Wang Yong, running quickly to the other side of the SUV while speaking, and rushed in before Gu Zecheng sat down.

After getting into the car, Gu Zecheng did not immediately speak as Lin Zixi had imagined but instead turned on the reading light and flipped through the thick file in his hand.

The place they were going was not that kind of exclusive and stylish private members’ club that Lin Zixi thought; rather, it was Gu Zecheng's office.

In the middle of the night, the secretary actually still poured tea for the two of them and left the Yixing clay teapot in the room before going out. Lin Zixi, who could not help indulging in flights of fancy, faced his own dad alone.

He was a little nervous as well as a little awkward watching Gu Zecheng take a sip of tea from his cup and then hand him the file he had read all the way.

Lin Zixi humbly extended both hands to receive the file almost instantly and saw two words—Employment Contract—printed on the title of the file outside the clip.

As the situation was, he would not be surprised if this file was the result of investigation of his identity, but an employment contract or something . . . . Lin Zixi looked at the man across the desk in confusion.

And Gu Zecheng finally broke the disconcerting silence between them. After tapping his fingers on the desk a few times, he said, "I used to have a younger brother who was a few years younger than me. Unfortunately, he had an accident ten years ago and passed away. Although my mother on the surface seems to have accepted the incident, she has never been able to get through it in her heart. In the past few years, she has become older and a little muddled. So sometimes she thinks that my younger brother is still alive."

"Originally, we lied to the old lady that my younger brother was sent by the country to perform a secret mission abroad, so he couldn't contact his family all year round. She has always believed it." Gu Zecheng paused after saying that and then sneered at Lin Zixi, "Coincidentally, the news of a certain person hyping his likeness to me was seen by my mother a few days ago. She believes wholeheartedly that this person is my little brother who has been drifting outside for many years!"

Lin Zixi originally was pretending to drink tea to cover up. Hearing this, his hand shook, and he almost spilled his tea.

Mother, did you foresee this kind of amazing leap of plot when you gave birth to me?!

The grandson of the Gu family who had been wandering outside for many years looked at his biological father and asked a little hesitantly, "Then... what do you mean?"

"You have two choices now. One is to get out of my sight and go abroad tomorrow morning. Don’t think you’ll be able to enter the country again before my mother is one hundred years old. The other one..." Gu Zecheng raised his hand and pointed towards the hundred-page contract in Lin Zixi's hand, "Sign this contract and play the role of my little brother in front of the old lady!"

Lin Zixi felt a little confused in his head. The company randomly hyped a topic, and he was about to be promoted to be his own little uncle.... 

There was only one plan for the present, that was to stall.

Lin Zixi made a decision and said very sincerely, "Look, your contract is quite thick, and I may not finish reading it in a short time. Or else, I’ll take it home and read it carefully. I’ll give you an answer before 6 o'clock tomorrow morning. Is this all right? You see, if I just agree to sign now, just in case there’s any of your stipulations that I can’t do, you’ll have to buy me an international ticket again later. At that time, everyone will be more embarrassed."

Gu Zecheng reckoned that he had considered ten of Lin Zixi's reactions, but he did not expect that it would come to this. For a moment, he was a little blank.

Only after a few seconds did he speak with an insincere smile, “Superstar Lin’s house is far from here, so I’d better let my man send you to a hotel to stay for a night. Give me an answer before 6 o’clock tomorrow morning. Do remember it well."

After that, he made a phone call and ordered three impeccably attired tall men who looked like bodyguards to come over and 'escort' Lin Zixi all the way to a nearby hotel, that was part of Gu Zecheng's industry, to read the contract carefully.

Other people were forced into desperate action, and Lin Zixi was forced to stay in a five-star hotel, which also came with bodyguard service to guard the door.

He took a good bath in the spacious bathtub of the presidential suite, relieved his fatigue, took a deep breath, and finally, with a pious attitude, looked through the file that was awfully thicker than his script.

He saw that the most critical point after ‘Party A (Employer): Gu Zecheng | Party B (Employee): Lin Zixi’ was—’Party B agrees to take the job of playing the role of Gu Zeyi in front of Mrs. Song Wen according to the needs of Party A.’

. . . .

. . . . . . . .

As it turned out, that grandma fan who 'looked for trouble' when his fans were visiting him in the movie set before was really his grandma?!!

Previous | Next

Referring to - 2

Chapter 2

There was someone looking for troubles among the visiting group of fans. If it were not for the other party being an old woman, dozens of enthusiastic sister fans on the scene would be able to show how they tore apart a living person.

When Lin Zixi had just debuted, he encountered an incident where the other party could not remember his name, but this was the first time he was mistaken for someone else. And it still happened in front of his fans, making Lin Zixi feel very embarrassed.

He could only comfort himself that fortunately, in order to save Sun Yuwen some face, Chen Yunyun did not plan to hype the fans' visit. Otherwise, this laughable matter would have been big if there had been paparazzi on the scene.

That grandma fan from someone else’s fan club might be a bit muddled since she was already old. Fortunately, the woman who came with her was still able to handle the situation. Seeing that the harmonious and happy atmosphere of cheering, talking, and laughing instantly dropped to a freezing point, the fortyish woman in a pantsuit hurried to persuade the old woman, "Auntie Wen, we’ve seen him, so it's time to leave. Don't disturb Xiao Yi's work here; he’s very busy."

When she said that, although the old woman still held Lin Zixi's hand tightly, she gradually calmed down visibly. She sighed and said, "Ze Yi, there’s nothing to be done if you’re busy with work, but no matter how busy you’re, you must find the time to go home. Your big brother and I are waiting for you."

After speaking, the old woman reluctantly followed the woman who came with her to leave the movie set. She turned her head to look at Lin Zixi several times in between. Maybe seeing him have no intention of urging her to stay, she finally left with a desolate expression.

Once the troublesome old woman, who even brought up another relative, left, the fans who came to visit hurriedly comforted their idol and showed their loyalty one by one.

Lin Zixi was someone who had seen the world after all. He quickly adjusted his mentality, looking like nothing had happened. In turn, he was all concerned about how his fans came, how to go back, what to do when they stayed out-of-town, what to eat later . . . .

In any case, the little sister fans in his fan club were moved to tears and directly shouted that they would support their sunshine boy idol for a lifetime.

Therefore, although there was a small episode in the middle, the company and the fans who were able to come were satisfied with this visit to the booting ceremony of ‘The Legend of Concubine Ling’. And other fans from all over the country waiting in front of computers for front-line high-definition photos to lick were also satisfied.

As for Lin Zixi himself, who had been surrounded and watched at close range for more than an hour, his opinion was unimportant and not worth mentioning.

Although The Legend of Concubine Ling had started, there were still two days before the leads formally joined the crew.

Lin Zixi's agent, Chen Yunyun, who was particularly capable of finding troubles and doing things, took the opportunity to arrange an activity for him, which was to attend an award ceremony.

Speaking of the award ceremony, it was not a particularly high-end and classy thing. It was just the annual TV drama celebration held by S TV station, one of the four major domestic satellite TV stations.

Basically, every satellite TV, as long as it was not too bad, would hold this kind of TV drama award every year. Whether it was the best, the most popular, or the most fashionable award, everyone got his/her own share. As long as you could show up, the organizer could figure out an award for you.

To sum up, there was no gold content in it; it was just to make fans happy.

The reason why Chen Yunyun arranged for Lin Zixi to attend this annual TV drama celebration of S Satellite TV was that the shooting location of The Legend of Concubine Ling was in the movies and television city on the outskirts of S city, so the time was suitable and the round trip was convenient.

Another reason was that the currently most popular domestic young actor, Qiu Lianyi, had already decided to attend this event.

Lin Zixi and Qiu Lianyi roughly followed the same route—no acting skills yet supremely good-looking. It was reasonable to say that they should travel together sparingly since two kings had better not see each other.

However, in the era when the Internet was developed and BL culture was in vogue, two young actors at a similar age who had acted in the same drama could not only be rivals but could also hype CP.

Lin Zixi graduated from CFA and signed to the current company after his first drama, which was an adaptation of a martial arts novel where he acted together with Qiu Lianyi as a male lead.

When this drama was filmed, it was changed to look like the doujin of the original novel to the point that even the original work fans were unable to spoil the TV series.

However, driven by highly good-looking actors, good platforms, and aggressive marketing, it became a popular work both online and offline. All of a sudden, Lin Zixi and Qiu Lianyi’s careers were pushed to the next level, and the CP seed ‘LianXi’ also grew since then.

Well, yes, it was this ‘LianXi’ that Lin Zixi's pure fans together with his company, which was planning to support a newcomer, tried to overturn by hyping a BG CP a few days ago.

Whether it was the CP fans who genuinely felt that the two people really had an affair or the wicked melon eaters who thought that the combination of two handsome guys warmed the heart and delighted the eye, ‘LianXi’, this existence that was supported by many people, was one of the several big evil cult organizations in the entertainment circle. The two companies where Qiu Lianyi and Lin Zixi belonged to then decided that not only would they not kill the CP, but they would also add fuel to the fire from time to time by sending out sugar, marketing, and hyping.

Regarding this, Lin Zixi said that whoever loved to be a dragon slayer warrior could do it themselves. In any case, he would not do it.

When Lin Zixi was a child, he was often bullied because he did not have a father and looked like a pretty doll. When he got older, he became a bad boy who bullied others in return. When he was in high school, he went through a seeking death phase and even got close to the boss of a small gang around the school. He was still pretending to be obedient in school, but he was a veteran of many fights outside the school.

Lin Zixi saw Qiu Lianyi for the first time on the movie set. On the surface, they exchanged cordial and friendly greetings, but his back felt numb from the beginning. He had never felt like this before even when fighting with the toughest hooligan.

The first impression of "the other party was a fierce character" was so deep to the extent that even after the two of them got acquainted with each other, Lin Zixi's evaluation of Qiu Lianyi was still: a pretty good person but unprovokable.

Now this "unprovokable" fierce character was sitting on the left of Lin Zixi, leaning in his ear and whispering, "I notice that the benefactor’s yin tang is dark. I’m afraid there’d be a bloody calamity."

The breath wafting over from the man made Lin Zixi shiver. Just as he was about to rush someone, he found that the on-the-spot live broadcast camera was turning towards their directions. He immediately adjusted his sitting posture and leaned in Qiu Lianyi's direction, but what he said was actually, "Stop talking nonsense! You’ve never learned fortune telling by face reading."

"If the benefactor begs the old monk, the old monk will disassemble it for the benefactor. If the benefactor doesn’t believe it . . . it’s up to you." Qiu Lianyi stopped his words halfway as the S Satellite TV’s camera went over them. Seeing Lin Zixi being noncommittal and not forcing him to continue, he sat up straight again.

Lin Zixi was actually a bit curious after being goaded like this by him. Just as he was going to beg the 'master' to disassemble it, the award-presenting guest in front suddenly called out his name.

"The Internet’s Most Popular Actor—Lin Zixi!"

Lin Zixi looked at Qiu Lianyi at the split second his name was called out, and Qiu Lianyi, in tacit understanding, was also looking at him cooperatively. Thus, the two people immediately hugged each other, and the pair occupied about 2 seconds of screen time on TV. 

After finishing the act that could make CP fans and the melon eaters madly take screenshots, Lin Zixi stood up to accept the award.

Such an exaggerated award of 'The Internet’s Most Popular Actor' was certainly not very exciting. Lin Zixi briefly thanked his fans and company on stage and quickly stepped down.

After him, Qiu Lianyi won 'The Most Commercial Actor Award'—for his acting skills in 'LianXi Fufu'. Even if S Satellite TV made everyone win an award and exaggerated it, they were still not shameless enough to award the best actor among the two of them.

When Qiu Lianyi was done receiving the award, Lin Zixi had forgotten about the bloody calamity from Master Qiu’s fortune telling by face reading.

When he drove home alone after the celebration and found that he was being followed by three cars, he finally remembered Master Qiu’s words, but it was already too late.

He could only pick up speed, wanting to get rid of the people behind, while sending a WeChat voice to Qiu Lianyi, who had turned off his mobile phone, "Qiu Lianyi, have you discovered something beforehand?! You actually didn't tell me directly... fuck!"

Although there was nothing wrong with Lin Zixi sending the word 'fuck' to that person’s WeChat, but he really didn’t say it to 'Master Qiu'.

He just saw the person who got off the back seat of the black SUV that had pulled ahead of his car and forced him to a stop.

Well, it was his 'look-alike', Gu Zecheng.

TL's note: 

Yin tang = the point located between the inner edges of the eyebrows, at what is also known as the "third eye" area of the forehead

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Referring to - 1

Chapter 1

On Lin Zixi’s last day off, he woke up in the ‘early morning’, went to eat breakfast, and dropped his phone.

Fortunately, although the mobile phone he endorsed was aimed at mid-to-low-end consumers, the quality was still okay. The corner of the bare phone knocked into the floor when it fell from a high altitude, but the phone could still be used as usual as he picked it up to call his agent, Chen Yunyun.

    

"Sister Yunyun, what's the matter with the hot search on Weibo?" As soon as the call was connected, Lin Zixi asked without saying hello, "Why is the number one hot search ‘Lin Zixi looks like Gu Zecheng’?!"

   

"Oh." Chen Yunyun on the other end of the phone replied in a cold tone, "Not only on Weibo, you can also see it when you open the news websites. Anyway, the hot search and the front page have already been bought, so don’t waste it.”

   

Lin Zixi was baffled when he heard it and asked in astonishment, "Why did you say to not waste it? Didn’t the company ask me to hype CP with Liu Xia? I heard Xiao Zhang said that he has already revealed some warm-up news in various forums last week."

    

"The news reveal was done, but unfortunately, before it got hot, your good fans and 'LianXi Fufu' fans upturned Liu Xia. Even her previous beautified photos were dredged up. I let a few big fans stop them, but they kept going." Chen Yunyun was not calm and collected this time, sneering, "Still hyping CP? It's already good if the company doesn't insist on hiding her."

  

It had been four years since Lin Zixi made his debut by acting in a TV series in his junior year in university, and he was aware of how capable of fighting his fans and certain BL CP fans were. He coughed awkwardly and said, "But you also can’t use this topic as a substitute for it, ah. Who is Gu Zecheng? I'm only a half-red, not even purple little star. Isn’t it the same as courting death when I touch his porcelain? You quickly remove all the hot search and press releases."

   

"Don't worry, some people had hyped sex scandals with Gu Zecheng before, but we never saw him respond. And it's not just one person who thinks that you look like him. Even if it’s said that you look like him, can Big Boss Gu force you to have plastic surgery?" Chen Yunyun over there was called by someone. She comforted Lin Zixi without any worry and then exhorted, "You go to bed early tonight. Tomorrow is the booting ceremony of The Legend of Concubine Ling, and Xiao Zhang will pick you up at 7 o’clock. Don’t get up late." She then hung up the phone.

  

Lin Zixi stared blankly at his mobile phone for a long time, but he could not calm down.

    

Others did not know, but he clearly knew in his heart. Of course he looked like Gu Zecheng—because that's his father.

    

The kind of blood relationship between a biological father and his illegitimate, unrecognized son.

    

In summary, the fucking story of Gu Zecheng and Lin Zixi, except for some details, was like this. An ignorant girl and a second-generation young master of an army officer went from friends to lovers. Their first sexual intercourse bore fruit. After the incident was known, the couple was separated. The girl took the break up fee from the boy’s family, but she was reluctant to have an abortion as per the deal. In the end, she went far away to give birth to and raise the child by herself.

    

As for the details, the college girl who was a home tutor back then was already a senior, while the second-generation high school student who was tutored was only a sophomore.

    

So before Lin Zixi, who had been bullied in his childhood because he came from a single-parent family, knew the truth, he always felt that his own dad was a beast, a coward, and not a human at all. After his mother got drunk before her second marriage, he finally got to the bottom of who was the man who had provided the Y chromosome to him. Then when he calculated that man’s age with his fingers, there was only one thought left—

    

Mother, you’re the one who’s a beast!

    

His mother hardly mentioned anything about his biological father, and now that she had formed a new happy family—even his half-sister was almost nine years old—although he was curious about what had happened to them in the first place, he also understood that it's not good to question her closely.

    

However, as the only beneficiary of the wrong and improper romance that happened at the wrong time, Lin Zixi, who could come to this world safe and sound, always had a guilty conscience of being sinful and shady when facing Gu Zecheng's news and images.

    

Well, maybe it's the mentality of a convicted criminal facing the victim?

    

He had met Gu Zecheng in person once when he participated in a charity event, and it was enough to scare him to a heart attack. Now, a hot search drafted by his company actually linked them together . . . . This was simply asking for his life, ah.

    

The so-called people were sitting at home, and disaster came from the sky.

    

Lin Zixi, who had taken advantage of the gap between his announcements to stay at home for a weekend and gotten up on Monday to ‘Lin Zixi looks like Gu Zecheng’ everywhere, felt ill at ease for a whole day on his last day off.

Even if the thirty cards he drew out in succession when playing a mobile game were all worthless cards with no useful seeds, it couldn't give him more blows.

    

He had only one wish—of course it's not world peace—which was for XX or XXX studios to quickly and urgently released big news about whichever star taking drugs, visiting prostitutes, cheating, or coming out of the closet. Anything was okay as long as it could push this press release down.

    

Monday was usually not the time when the gossip entertainment studios were active, so naturally there was no big news breaking.

    

But maybe the company's PR department was stingy and had not given enough money, because when Lin Zixi checked Weibo the next morning, the hot search that caused him headache had dropped from the first place to the fiftieth. Just one more place, and it would fall off the list and be invisible.

    

Only then did he voluntarily eat a mouthful of oatmeal porridge with peace of mind, got into the nanny car driven by his assistant, Xiao Zhang, and went to the opening scene of The Legend of Concubine Ling.

    

The Legend of Concubine Ling belonged to a kind of insincere TV series that ‘randomly searched a popular novel, blew it into a super IP, and then looked for a few young actors and actresses, relying on fans for free publicity and the broadcast platform to determine the ratings’.

    

It was still a major female lead TV series.

    

When it was still a novel, the readers tore at each other resoundingly and fought up a storm when they argued over which one was the red rose and which one was the white rose between the first male and the second male. 

    

It stood to reason that with Lin Zixi's current heat, there should be a better choice than this TV series.

    

However, because The Legend of Concubine Ling was invested by his own company and stuffed with countless of their own actors and actresses as the third male, fourth male, nth male, second female, third female, nth female…, Lin Zixi, a big brother from this company, had no other choice but to act according to the arrangements.

Fortunately, Lin Zixi had nothing to pursue in his career. He had no hobby of pursuing luxury goods, and he had earned enough money from his actor salary, endorsement fees, and so on in the past few years. Now he was basically waiting for his ten-year contract to end quickly (oh, there were still eight years to go before the contract expired). So he naturally acted as he was told and had no complaints.

    

Lin Zixi did not have much career pursuit, but the one who was invited from another company to play the second male did.

    

From the moment that man agreed to and signed the acting contract, the major marketing accounts had never stopped posting ‘Lin Zixi Lost’, the kind of ‘comparison’ Weibo with a special double-label selection of pictures, magazine photos vs. TV series screenshots.

    

You know, Lin Zixi looked really good.

    

His mother, a single mother, had always had a line of suitors. As for Gu Zecheng, he almost had no opponent in the political circle and the business world in terms of appearance.

    

Lin Zixi, who only absorbed the advantages of both of them, was considered as one of the most handsome guys in the entertainment industry. Even those who criticized him for his poor acting skills as ‘a disgrace to the CFA (Central Film Academy)’ inevitably had to admit that Lin Zixi was handsome.

    

Otherwise, it was impossible for him to keep a huge group of diehard fans, chicken blood fans, and fighting fans with just a couple of representative works.

    

So, as soon as the adulation of the second male, Sun Yuwen, was spread, Lin Zixi's fans blew up.

    

The TV series had not been filmed yet, and the two groups of fans had already gone through big wars so many times.

    

Lin Zixi’s support club had decided a long time ago that they would organize their first visit when The Legend of Concubine Ling began shooting—it was to see their idol, greet the production team, and most importantly, take a look at the appearance of the restless second male.

    

Fans had to be organized to visit any of the actors at the movie set. Lin Zixi naturally couldn't refuse, so when the booting ceremony was over, he immediately asked assistant Xiao Zhang to take him to meet the fan group waiting around the site.

    

Among the thirty or so front lines who came to visit this time, there were a few whom Lin Zixi was already quite familiar with and able to name as well as a few he had some impressions of.

    

Lin Zixi greeted them, said a few words, and noticed that among the enthusiastic little sister fans, big sister fans, and mother fans, there was also a grandma fan.

    

The grandmother accompanied by a woman seemed to be about 60 years old, splendidly dressed and elegant looking, yet she looked more excited than the other enthusiastic fans. Her eyes were fixed at Lin Zixi, and they were brimming with tears.

    

Being liked and even got visited by such an old woman, Lin Zixi was of course very flattered and hurriedly walked to her side to greet her.

    

As a result, as soon as he walked to the grandmother's side, the other party grabbed his hands and cried affectionately, "Ze Yi!"

    

……

…………

Fuck, who was this?!

TL's note: 

After one and a half years, I finally found a story that I really wanted to translate. The number one requirement for me to choose a story to translate is that it must be a simple, fun, and happy story with the kind of characters that I like.

This story, in spite of the taboo relationship, is a fun and happy one with no angst and, to my surprise and utter delight, lots of uncensored sex scenes.

Also, I've kept a few Chinese terms/idioms in this translation because it's easier for me and I think you're already familiar with them. In case you don't know about them, "touching porcelain" is explained here, and "the red rose and the white rose" is the mistress and the wife.

For now, a new chapter will be posted every Monday and Thursday.

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