Chapter 25
The next day, Shen Wu was filming on set.
During a break, Shen Wu was studying the script when he received a message from “M”: Come to tent number seven.
Shen Wu looked at Nan Dengwei in front of him. Nan Dengwei, who had graduated from a formal film academy, was practically half his acting teacher.
He closed the script, thought for a moment, and said, “Xiao Nan, can you come with me to tent number seven?”
Nan Dengwei agreed without asking why.
Shen Wu led the clueless main character shou to a tent in a remote corner.
Nan Dengwei always had a faint smile on his face. When he saw the person in the tent without any warning, the smile instantly froze. He bent down and greeted him with trepidation, “Senior Meng.”
Shen Wu explained simply, “I was just running lines with Xiao Nan, and we’re not done yet.”
“You have scenes together?” Meng Huaizhi asked.
“Mm, not many,” Shen Wu said. “It’s mainly Xiao Nan teaching me. Although he’s only playing a small supporting role, he’s carefully studied the scripts of all the main characters and knows them better than I do…”
It wasn’t that he was speaking well of Nan Dengwei out of his duty as a wingman, but Nan Dengwei’s level of professionalism was completely beyond his imagination.
The main plot of the novel was about the two of them falling in love. Nan Dengwei’s career path was not given much ink, and from a god’s perspective, it looked very easy, as if it happened overnight. It was only after Shen Wu had personal contact with Nan Dengwei that he knew that his career was completely steady, one step at a time.
Putting those thoughts aside, Shen Wu asked Meng Huaizhi, “What are you doing here?”
And this time, he had come alone.
Meng Huaizhi: “I had nothing to do, so I came to visit the set.”
He handed over a huge plastic bag and added, “I saw a dessert shop on the way and just bought some.”
Shen Wu took the paper bag. It was heavy, and he had to hold it with both arms. “What did you buy?”
He took out a box of tiramisu, and his movements suddenly paused. He suddenly remembered the time he had drunk the milk tea given by the main character shou in front of the male lead.
“Why did you buy so many desserts? I don’t really like sweets,” he made a random excuse.
“Mm, I know,” Meng Huaizhi was prepared. “These are all low-sugar. There are also lollipops.”
Shen Wu: “Ah…”
Meng Huaizhi stated a fact calmly, “Don’t you drink milk tea on set every day?”
Shen Wu was silent for even longer.
If he had known, he wouldn’t have brought Nan Dengwei over. He didn’t want to get involved in a love triangle at all.
“I only drink sugar-free,” Shen Wu rubbed the tip of his nose and spouted nonsense with a straight face. “Because I’ve had milk tea, I can’t eat these even more. I’m filming now and need to maintain my figure.”
He then waved his hand and, without another word, pushed the tiramisu and the entire large plastic bag into Nan Dengwei’s arms.
“Xiao Nan, you eat it.”
Meng Huaizhi followed the direction the plastic bag was pushed and finally looked at Nan Dengwei.
Meng Huaizhi’s gaze was faint, but Nan Dengwei felt as if he were sitting on pins and needles. “…”
He was holding the cake, not knowing whether to eat it or not.
“Uh, Shen-ge, Senior Meng,” Nan Dengwei had a flash of inspiration, his eyes darting around. “There are a lot of desserts here. Why don’t I take them to Director Wen and the others to share?”
Before Shen Wu could speak, Meng Huaizhi grunted in agreement first, as if he couldn’t wait for Nan Dengwei to leave.
“Then I’ll be going now,” Nan Dengwei quickly fled.
After a while, Meng Huaizhi spoke in the silence, asking Shen Wu, “Do you want to play the male lead?”
“What?” Shen Wu was taken aback. “Isn’t the male lead Qi Shijun?”
“Mm, I’m just asking if you want to play him.”
“Why are you asking that? Are you going to get me the male lead role? Forget it. Director Wen and the others all say that the second male lead has more highlights and is tailor-made for me. I also think the second male lead is better.”
After Shen Wu finished speaking, he waited for a few more seconds, but Meng Huaizhi didn’t answer, just looking at him with an unreadable gaze.
Shen Wu felt his heart inexplicably skip a beat. Under a strange intuition, he said, “You’re not going to pull strings for me, are you? I can’t act, and that’s not very ethical…”
Meng Huaizhi asked in return, “What do you think?”
Shen Wu said with certainty, “You’re not that kind of person.” Not in the novel.
Meng Huaizhi didn’t speak, his smile faint and quite intriguing.
Shen Wu was puzzled and frowned.
But he saw the corners of Meng Huaizhi’s thin lips curve up for a rare moment. The moment they curved up, the coldness that kept people at a distance faded, so much so that Shen Wu unknowingly spoke his mind, “If you pull strings for me, you’ll end up in a ‘chasing your wife to the crematorium’ scenario.”
Meng Huaizhi also frowned. “Chasing your wife to the crematorium…?”
Shen Wu: “…”
He realized his slip of the tongue and quickly tried to remedy it, “Look, in novels, no matter how much the male lead pampers the female lead, there has to be a bottom line. If he’s blinded by love and uses his power for personal gain, it’s very low. The person the female lead likes should not only pamper her but also be a kind, moral, and capable person who is excellent in all aspects.”
Shen Wu’s words were well-reasoned, and he himself felt that they made sense.
Unlike others who had read countless novels and were still muddle-headed, he had a whole dramatic love story engraved in his brain.
Meng Huaizhi was silent for a long time after hearing this.
He wasn’t sure if having different feelings for a fourteen-year-old younger brother was included in the scope of “low.”
Shen Wu didn’t pay much attention and continued to analyze from another perspective, “There are too many romance scenes between the male and female leads. I can’t act.”
How could he act when he had never even been in a relationship? He couldn’t even act as himself.
When the words “romance scenes” were mentioned, Meng Huaizhi’s eyebrows raised slightly. After Shen Wu’s long speech, he came to a conclusion, “Then you should still play the second male lead.”
“Aren’t I playing it right now?” Shen Wu chuckled, making a pointless remark.
Meng Huaizhi glanced at him lightly, and a very faint smile crossed his lips.
On the other side.
Nan Dengwei handed the bag of hot potatoes to the unsuspecting director and wandered around aimlessly, lost in thought. He accidentally bumped into someone.
“Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going, I’m sorry…” Nan Dengwei took a step back first, then looked up.
“It’s fine.”
He was stunned at first glance.
The man was tall and slender, with a gentle and handsome appearance. A pair of silver-framed glasses rested on his high-bridged nose, giving him a kind of distant and elegant scholarly air.
Nan Dengwei had seen many handsome men and beautiful women in the entertainment industry, and with a top-tier handsome guy like Shen Wu wandering around under his nose every day, he had already developed a certain immunity.
The moment he saw this man, more than being amazed, he felt a sense of familiarity. Every feature had a familiar shadow, but he couldn’t remember where it came from for a moment.
He stood still and asked curiously, “Sir… are you?”
Shen Ping’s hands were in the pockets of his trench coat, his eyebrows lowered, and he smiled gently, “Mm.”
He looked at him for a moment and then averted his gaze, looking into the distance behind him, as if searching for someone.
In the distance, Shen Wu inadvertently glanced over. Perhaps due to the pull of blood, by a stroke of luck, his gaze met the man’s empty one in mid-air.
The hazy eyes behind Shen Ping’s glasses lit up, and the corners of his lips lifted high as he silently greeted him.
Just like countless times before.
It was not strange for Shen Ping to suddenly appear on the set.
Unlike the top-tier Meng Huaizhi, whose movements were inconvenient, as Shen Wu’s only unconditional supporter in his career, Shen Ping would visit him at the racing team or his dorm from time to time.
This time, he had probably come to visit the set.
But Shen Wu, contrary to his usual self, seemed to have been scalded. He hurriedly withdrew his gaze and pretended not to see him with clumsy acting.
His eyes were lowered, and his fingers clenched the sleeve of the person next to him. He called out in a trembling voice, “…Huaizhi-ge.”
After that one address, there was nothing more.
Meng Huaizhi looked at Shen Wu’s pale fingertips.
As if sensing something, he turned to the side and saw Shen Ping in the distance.
“Are you hiding from Shen Ping?” he asked softly.
“Mm…” Shen Wu turned his face away and looked at the ground beside him. Even so, he didn’t want to criticize his brother behind his back and only said, “I don’t want him to find out that we’re only in a contract marriage.”
He had tossed and turned at night, thinking over and over, and had found a reasonable explanation for all of Shen Ping’s strange behavior.
Shen Ping didn’t want him to be well.
This thought was like a huge rock that made it hard for him to breathe, but once it appeared, it could no longer be suppressed. Shen Ping’s constant indulgence had indirectly led to his death; Shen Ping’s unconditional support and protection had instead made him drift further and further away from his parents…
In the novel, he had encountered engine problems several times during the F1 season that started at the end of March. The engine would stop working, emit white smoke, catch fire… causing his car to break down halfway or crash into the barriers. Although he was not seriously injured each time, it had scared his parents enough.
After the race, when he went home, he had, as expected, had another big fight with Shen Tianheng. This time, Shen Tianheng was probably so angry that he completely disregarded their relationship and directly put him under house arrest, cutting off his source of living expenses and ordering his friends from the racing team not to help him.
In the end, it was naturally Shen Ping who had let him out and said that he would always be his solid backer, supporting him in any career he loved.
And not long after that, he had died. His race car, due to an out-of-control engine, had broken through the barriers and crashed into a solid wall.
If Shen Ping’s support for his marriage to Meng Huaizhi was also because he didn’t want him to be well…
Shen Ping seemed to know better than him that the heartless Meng Huaizhi could not possibly fall in love with anyone.
And it was only after he knew the plot of the novel that he belatedly realized this irresistible fate.
So he felt even worse.
Shen Wu tugged at Meng Huaizhi’s sleeve and said with his eyes lowered, “I don’t want my brother to know that we…”
He repeated it again, then suddenly paused and looked up.
Meng Huaizhi pulled his hand, which was clutching his sleeve, away.
“…are only in a contract marriage,” the remaining half of the sentence was still pushed out by his muscles, so light that it was almost inaudible.
He didn’t know if Meng Huaizhi had heard him clearly.
His features were still cold and indifferent, but the hand that he had taken was hot.
Shen Wu’s eyes widened in shock.
Meng Huaizhi’s expression did not change. He calmly met his gaze, like the silent blue sea holding up a piece of broken driftwood.
Under his sleeve, where his gaze could not reach, his long fingers, like a swimming fish, passed through his fingers and silently clasped them.
Shen Wu’s mind went blank, and he stared at Meng Huaizhi in a daze.
If he had been thinking about how to avoid Shen Ping just now, now he had completely thrown the matter to the back of his mind.
From a great distance, Shen Ping could only make out the identities of the two superior figures, and the posture of their clasped hands.
He couldn’t see much of their micro-expressions, but Shen Ping knew the Shen Wu he had watched grow up.
In the past, every time Shen Wu saw him, he would run over with a bright smile and call him “Ge” in a clear voice.
The younger Shen Wu, who was only as tall as his knee, would call him “Gege” in a childish voice, hug his leg, and beg him to play with him.
The even younger Shen Wu couldn’t even speak, couldn’t call him gege, and couldn’t even walk steadily.
But he was still determined, stumbling towards him.
Nan Dengwei didn’t notice Shen Ping’s daze and kindly offered a plan, “Sir, who are you looking for? I can go and call him for you…”
Shen Ping’s thoughts were in a turmoil. After a long while, he answered Nan Dengwei’s words absent-mindedly.
“It’s fine, thank you.”
He thanked him politely, nodded slightly to say goodbye, and in Nan Dengwei’s gaze, he returned the way he came, gradually walking away.
Their fingers were intertwined, and it was unclear who was holding whom.
His body moved before his brain. By the time Shen Wu reacted, he had already pulled Meng Huaizhi back into the tent.
Nan Dengwei watched the strange man walk away. As if sensing something, he turned around and looked in the direction he had been looking.
There was no one.
Shen Wu had taken Meng Huaizhi to a deserted place to hide. Now he really felt as if he had been scalded.
Whether it was his violently beating heart, his blank mind, or the real touch of their palms.
It was all scorching hot.
Without any warning, a strong force pulled the two clasped hands apart.
“…That’s enough,” Shen Wu said.
He lowered his head deeply, as if he had not yet recovered from the low mood brought by Shen Ping, and his voice was also muffled.
Meng Huaizhi looked at his hand that had been shaken off.
After a moment, he looked up. Shen Wu in front of him had already turned around, hiding his face and showing him the back of his neck.
He was slightly taken aback.
The small, crescent-moon-like ear on his fair neck seemed to have a faint red hue.
Shen Wu composed himself, turned back, and showed no sign of anything unusual.
When he had seen Shen Ping just now, Shen Wu’s state was clearly not right.
From childhood to adulthood, Shen Wu had always admired and trusted his older brother. Of course, he was much closer to him than the outsider Meng Huaizhi.
It was rare for such brothers to have a conflict, unless it was Shen Wu being unilaterally willful and unreasonable. Shen Ping was a gentle and tolerant older brother.
In everyone’s eyes, it was so.
But in Meng Huaizhi’s eyes, Shen Ping was also an outsider.
And Shen Wu was not.
So he only asked Shen Wu, “What did Shen Ping do?”
Shen Wu was taken aback and forced a smile, “…Nothing.”
Meng Huaizhi looked at him seriously, discerning every single one of his micro-expressions, and then said, “If you’re unhappy about something, you can tell me.”
Shen Wu would rather he chattered on, asking him in a high-and-mighty manner why he was throwing a tantrum at Shen Ping, or accusing him of being unreasonable.
But he only asked what he was unhappy about.
Shen Wu pressed the tip of his nose, lowered his slightly sore eyes, and said nonchalantly, “Are you… going to stand up for me?”
As his hesitant voice fell, a firm “mm” immediately sounded.
Shen Wu didn’t want to talk about Shen Ping anymore and just joked, “If only you could switch with him.”
Meng Huaizhi was silent for a moment. “I can stand up for you, but I won’t switch.”
He firmly and resolutely rejected this blood relationship that had fallen from the sky.
“Alright,” Shen Wu didn’t mind either.
As if thinking of their intertwined fingers just now, he brought up the contract marriage again, “You cooperated with me in acting just now. If you need it next time, I’ll act with you too.”
And not long after, he gave the order to see the guest out, “You seem to be quite busy lately, right? There’s nothing else. You can go back early.”
Meng Huaizhi had come to visit the set and had left in less than half an hour, without even seeing the director Wen Qiehua.
He had come all this way, seemingly just to see Shen Wu.
Shen Wu shook his head, ignoring that strange feeling. He went to Wen Qiehua and received a round of emotional thanks.
“Xiao Shen, you’re too polite. This dessert shop is quite expensive. I can’t finish it. If you don’t mind, can we share it with everyone?” Wen Qiehua smiled amiably.
Shen Wu: “?”
Nan Dengwei winked at him.
Shen Wu understood. It was not convenient to say that Meng Huaizhi had come to visit the set, so it seemed that Nan Dengwei had pushed all the credit onto him.
Wen Qiehua rummaged through the bag and suddenly said, “Eh?”
Shen Wu saw a beautiful and exquisite tin gift box, filled with colorful… lollipops.
Shen Wu had a lollipop in his mouth every day on set. Wen Qiehua immediately handed the gift box to him. “You can keep the lollipops for yourself. My son also likes this brand. They’re made with xylitol and don’t hurt your teeth. They’re just a bit expensive, so his mom is reluctant to buy them for him often.”
Shen Wu took the lollipops Meng Huaizhi had bought in a daze.
He casually unwrapped one. The translucent pink lollipop had a light fruity scent.
Wen Qiehua immediately leaned over. “Hey! Your luck is pretty good. This go-kart pattern is the hidden version.”
Shen Wu saw the slightly raised go-kart pattern on the lollipop, and Wen Qiehua smiled and said in his ear, “Cute, right? A bit childish for a little kid, but it should be just right for you.”
Shen Wu burst out laughing, and the low mood brought by Shen Ping was completely gone.
He twirled the plastic stick and watched the pink candy sparkle in the sun.
