Chapter 27
This afternoon, they had to record the opening sequence for tomorrow’s live broadcast.
The six guests met up. Nan Dengwei, seemingly unintentionally, casually asked Shen Wu, “Shen-ge, which room are you staying in? I didn’t see you when I was coming and going.”
“2808,” Shen Wu said, and politely asked back, “What about you?”
Nan Dengwei smiled, “2708, right below your room.”
“Are you in a room with Xia Fanxing or Liang-ge?” Shen Wu asked nonchalantly, truly just making small talk.
But Nan Dengwei said strangely, “I’m in a room by myself.”
Shen Wu was stunned. On second thought, there were five male guests in total, so someone had to have a single room.
That wasn’t strange.
Nan Dengwei keenly caught the loophole in Shen Wu’s words, had a guess, and quickly asked, “Could it be… you’re in a room with Senior Meng?”
Shen Wu: “…”
Meng Huaizhi, you’re done for! The main character shou knows you’re not upholding your male virtues!!
Silence was tantamount to affirmation. He gave up and grunted in agreement, giving Nan Dengwei a positive answer.
Nan Dengwei didn’t seem to care much and asked again, “Did you choose the room yourselves?”
Shen Wu shook his head, “The show’s team arranged it.”
“Oh…” Nan Dengwei finally stopped asking and lowered his head in thought.
Meng Huaizhi, who was nearby, had heard the entire conversation clearly.
Three days ago, when Fang Ci learned of his request, he had eagerly offered to arrange the most luxurious king-size bed room for them.
He thought for a moment and felt that it was too much. After some discussion, they ended up with the standard room they were in now.
The afternoon recording, plus the waiting time, took less than three hours in total.
Considering that it was inconvenient for Meng Huaizhi to go out, the two of them ordered room service for dinner and ate in their room.
Meng Huaizhi went to open the door to get the food. Shen Wu saw the words “Longfeng Restaurant” printed on the packaging and asked strangely, “Is there a Longfeng Restaurant on the island too?”
Longfeng Restaurant was a chain of Cantonese restaurants. Shen Wu was a native of the capital city, but he had a preference for the light, sweet, and savory Cantonese cuisine. Longfeng Restaurant was the most famous in the entire capital city.
Longfeng Restaurant always had a long queue. Except for occasional family gatherings, Shen Wu was too lazy to go to the trouble when he was alone and would just eat whatever. He had been home less in recent years and hadn’t tasted this familiar delicacy for a long time.
Shen Wu hadn’t expected there to be a Longfeng Restaurant on Nan Island.
“No,” Meng Huaizhi replied faintly. “The delivery guy came by boat.”
Shen Wu: “…?”
“Just kidding,” Meng Huaizhi said. “It’s out of the delivery range here, so you can’t order it on the delivery app. So I called the restaurant and had it delivered from off the island.”
“They deliver just because you called?”
“Mm, for a large order of over a hundred people, they’re willing to go through mountains and rivers to deliver.”
“Over a hundred people?”
“I treated the show’s team to a casual meal.”
“So generous,” Shen Wu’s peach blossom eyes curved, and he praised sincerely, “As expected of a top-tier star.”
Amidst the rustling of the plastic bag, Shen Wu seemed to hear him say softly again, “I remember you liked to eat this when you were a child.”
Shen Wu happened to have just put a small steamed bun in his mouth. He squinted his eyes in satisfaction and sighed, as if replying to Meng Huaizhi’s words, “It tastes exactly the same as when I was a child.”
Meng Huaizhi smiled and then picked up his chopsticks.
From boarding the plane in the morning until now, everything had been going very smoothly, but an accident happened while they were happily eating.
Shen Wu was enjoying his meal when he accidentally bumped into the soup bowl placed at the corner of the table, and the soup spilled all over him.
From the hem of his shirt to his thigh, it was all soaked in an instant.
Meng Huaizhi shot to his feet. “Are you okay?”
Dinner was almost finished, and only this bowl of lukewarm soup was left.
“I’m fine, it’s not hot.”
Shen Wu tried to wipe it with a paper towel to salvage the situation, but it was a lost cause. These clothes and pants were unwearable.
After calling room service to clean it up, Shen Wu encountered another problem.
The twin standard room had two beds, one facing the window and one near the bathroom, with a floor-to-ceiling glass wall in between.
But this glass was frosted. When Meng Huaizhi had gone to wash his hands, he could clearly see the shadowy figure printed on the glass.
He was a mess and uncomfortable everywhere, but Meng Huaizhi was still here, and they weren’t a real couple… Shen Wu cautiously tested the waters first, “I need to take a shower. What about you?”
Meng Huaizhi seemed not to have understood at all and only said, “I’m fine.”
“Do you… want to go for a walk?” Shen Wu rubbed the tip of his nose.
Meng Huaizhi finally understood Shen Wu’s intention to get rid of him. He didn’t ask any more questions and readily nodded, “Okay.”
Shen Wu sighed in relief in his heart, thinking that a Jinjiang male lead was indeed the class monitor of the male virtues class, not only avoiding a “chasing his wife to the crematorium” scenario for himself but also saving him, the ex-husband, from embarrassment.
The glass of the bathroom facing the bed was set to atomization mode, but the outline of the bathroom was still vaguely visible.
The room card needed to be left on the wall for power. Meng Huaizhi had gone out empty-handed and would have to be let in by him when he came back, so there was no need to worry about Meng Huaizhi suddenly bursting into the room.
Even so, Shen Wu was still on edge while taking a shower.
After showering, he remembered an important thing.
He had thought it was just a two-day business trip and had left with just a shoulder bag.
In the shoulder bag, besides a set of pajamas, there were no other clothes.
For tomorrow’s live broadcast, he had to change into a role-playing costume, not his own clothes, and he had pajamas to wear tonight. But the problem was, he didn’t have any clean underwear.
Shen Wu first came out of the bathroom in a bathrobe and saw Meng Huaizhi’s suitcase in the corner. He thought to himself that the difference between a senior who had debuted for six years and a newcomer was now apparent.
He naturally didn’t think this was a difference brought by age. Xiang Zixu, who called him “ge” all the time, was actually older than him but more careless than him.
After thinking for a moment, Shen Wu found the phone by the bed and called the front desk, “I need a pair of disposable shorts, sent to 2808.”
“Okay, sir. Is there anything else you need?”
“How long will it take?”
“About twenty minutes?” The front desk lady was not very sure. They rarely had such a request. “I’ll have a colleague go out and buy it now.”
Shen Wu thanked her, hung up the phone, and sat on his bed to wait.
He didn’t know where Meng Huaizhi had gone for a walk.
Before long, there was a knock on the main door.
It should be the person delivering the shorts.
Shen Wu decisively dropped his phone and went to open the door.
The door opened, and the moment the two gazes from inside and outside the door met, the two of them froze like a mirror image.
After a long while, Shen Wu’s hand was still on the doorknob, his dazed gaze fixed on that familiar face.
Meng Huaizhi also looked at him and was the first to break the silence, “You’re done showering?”
“…Mm,” Shen Wu slowly let go of the doorknob. “Where did you go for a walk?”
“I just sat on the rooftop terrace for a while,” Meng Huaizhi said.
It was a January night, and it was still over ten degrees on Nan Island. But the sea breeze at night was particularly strong, and it was still cold.
Shen Wu quickly moved aside to let Meng Huaizhi in.
He inexplicably felt a bit of cold from putting himself in his shoes and subconsciously tightened the collar of his bathrobe.
Seeing Shen Wu in a bathrobe and not moving for a long time, Meng Huaizhi instantly figured out the cause and effect and asked, “Did you not bring a change of clothes?”
“Mm,” Shen Wu nodded. “But I have pajamas.”
As the male lead, Meng Huaizhi’s shortcoming was perhaps that he was too cold and distant, but on the bright side, this also meant that he was a very measured person.
He didn’t ask why Shen Wu was wrapped in a bathrobe and hadn’t changed into his pajamas.
A few minutes later, the hotel staff finally arrived.
Shen Wu took the disposable shorts at the door, and with a flash, he was in the bathroom next to him. When he appeared in front of Meng Huaizhi again, he had changed into clean clothes both inside and out.
The top button of his pajamas was also fastened, very well-behaved.
Before going to bed, Meng Huaizhi suddenly mentioned the New Year, “It’s almost the New Year. I should go to your house this year, right?”
“Grandpa does say that often,” Shen Wu turned over to face Meng Huaizhi. “It’s fine if you don’t come. It will save you from getting involved in an argument.”
Although he said that, in reality, although Meng Huaizhi was a junior, Shen Tianheng had to give him some face and would not glare at him.
But they were just a contract couple. They would get a divorce as soon as Shen Wu’s fans reached two million, which wouldn’t be long. They had already been in different countries for three years, so there was no need to go to the trouble of pretending to be a loving couple in front of their family now.
“I’ll go,” Meng Huaizhi said.
Shen Wu was noncommittal. After a long while, he rustled the quilt and said as if to himself, “Why do I feel a bit cold?”
Meng Huaizhi suggested, “You can sleep on my side.”
“Isn’t your side the same?”
“It’s a one-and-a-half-meter bed. We can sleep together.”
“…” Shen Wu was silent for a moment, then turned over, leaving his back to him with a sentence, “Uphold your male virtues.”
“What male virtues?”
“I read it in a novel.”
“What novel?”
Shen Wu curled up in the quilt, his back to him, and ignored him.
Meng Huaizhi got out of bed first and silently turned up the heat. As if that wasn’t enough, he took out a spare quilt from the closet and put it on top of Shen Wu’s.
The curled-up Shen Wu automatically uncurled and tried to kick off the extra quilt. “I don’t need an extra quilt. It’s too hot.”
Meng Huaizhi pressed the quilt back down, unconcerned, “You’ll feel cold after you fall asleep.”
Shen Wu looked at the person above him, a bit speechless.
Isn’t your persona in the novel a high-and-mighty flower? Why do you look a bit like a dad-type now?
Shen Wu sighed helplessly, “…This is the first time I’ve felt married.” The concrete feeling was the unbearable weight of a few pounds of quilt.
“Alright, alright, just turning up the heat is enough. I’m only a little cold. I really don’t need an extra quilt.”
After a long discussion, seeing that Shen Wu’s face was a bit flushed from being covered, Meng Huaizhi finally put the quilt back in its original place.
It seemed he hadn’t forgotten the word “married” that had come out of Shen Wu’s mouth.
He walked back and made another suggestion, “That small apartment of yours in the dorm is too small. You can move in with me. I have a property very close to your racing team.”
Shen Wu’s heart stirred. “What about you?”
Meng Huaizhi: “I’ll live with you.”
Shen Wu was silent for a moment.
“Uphold your male virtues,” he finally complained again, pulled the quilt over his head, and refused to communicate further.
For some reason, Meng Huaizhi was not satisfied with just looking. He felt an itch in his hand and wanted to poke the ball of quilt a few times.
Shen Wu fell asleep just like that, but he was not sleepy. He lay back on his own bed and closed his eyes to rest.
A few hours later, the twin room was silent.
Meng Huaizhi suddenly lifted the quilt and got out of bed.
Shen Wu was lying on his back, his arms spread out on the outside of the quilt, sleeping very comfortably.
Meng Huaizhi just stood there, looking down at him.
After a long while, he couldn’t help but bend down, reach out, and gently brush away the stray hair that was touching the corner of his eye, gently stroking his forehead.
His fingertips were carefully lifted, tracing over the high bridge of his nose and his beautifully curved lips.
He felt that it was not enough. He thought for a moment, reached out again, and put the two arms that were on the outside back into the quilt.
Shen Wu, who was being moved in his sleep, frowned in dissatisfaction and mumbled.
Meng Huaizhi was slightly startled. After confirming that Shen Wu was not awake, he whispered another “good night” and went back to bed.
But he was sleepless all night.
The darkness let his thoughts run wild, and fragments of memories danced around, flashing through many moments he had spent with Shen Wu.
Finally, it stopped at the moment he had come back from his walk, when Shen Wu had opened the door for him.
The young man’s short hair after his shower was as moist as his eyes, dark and bright, making his skin look even fairer and more translucent. On the tip of his upturned nose was a light brown mole.
This mole was not a burden on his handsome face, but it was also hard to ignore.
A mole on the tip of the nose, just like peach blossom eyes, was a sign of attracting bees and butterflies.
His mind was full of Shen Wu, Shen Wu in a bathrobe.
The open V-neck, the large expanse of delicate white skin, the beautifully curved collarbones.
His mind was full of the person he called his younger brother.
