Chapter 31: Soothing

Bright yellow caution tape cordoned off the film set. A crew member who had rushed over stood gravely just outside the line, dutifully blocking any unrelated personnel from entering.

In the distance, long-lens cameras flashed wildly, capturing the sudden chaos amid the clamor—their clicks piercingly sharp.

The medical vehicle on standby outside the production crew had already sped onto the abandoned highway, its shrill siren slicing through the night sky. Several stand-ins exchanged uneasy glances, but their fingers flew across their phones, rapidly uploading the firsthand news to the internet.

Less than five minutes later, #Fu Yanzong Film Set Crash# shot straight to the top of the hot search charts.

@Entertainment Buzz: Breaking! Serious car crash on the set of Hidden Face. Lead actor Fu Yanzong’s Pagani lost control and slammed into the guardrail. The scene is total chaos. Eyewitnesses say costar Su Tang is badly hurt and has been rushed to the hospital. Fu Yanzong’s condition is still unclear…

The comments section exploded.

“Come on, tell me how the production’s safety measures let this happen??”

“How’s our Tang Tang doing… For this kind of scene, they shouldn’t be skipping stunt doubles just to build a ‘dedicated actor’ image, right?”

“You guys, is Quick-Lie Sister trying to get herself killed?”

“This is too much—arguing under a post like this? Besides, not using stunt doubles is just doing your job, not some PR stunt. Fu Yanzong’s always been into racing; it’s no secret. Probably a safety lapse or freak accident. Why blame the actors?”

“Some Lip Pearl fans, I don’t have time to bicker with you. Watch your karma and pray for your own idol instead.”

“Praying for safety 🕯️🕯️”

“Safety…”

…

The emergency department at City Center Hospital blazed with lights.

The disinfectant smell hung thick and bitter in the air, mingling with sweat and anxiety, seeping silently from the cracks in the white porcelain tiles. Footsteps echoed up and down the corridor, hurried and chaotic, weighing on the hearts of the restless crowd outside the operating room.

“The patient’s blood pressure is dropping—”

“Epinephrine, ready!”

A gurney sped in from the end of the hallway, its metal wheels screeching across the floor.

The red “In Surgery” light snapped on. Several production crew members sat anxiously on the benches, waiting. The assistant director took Zhou Rang’s phone and made call after call, his voice low but trembling: “Suppress the media reports. Wait until things stabilize before issuing the official statement!”

“Don’t tell the investors yet either… No exaggerating, we need confirmed news from here first… President Song…? Keep President Song in the dark for now, after all—”

The director wiped cold sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He was about to hang up when a low, icy male voice came from behind him.

“Hiding what?”

He froze. His turn was sluggish, half a beat slow, before he sluggishly made out the newcomer’s face.

It was Song Linyu.

His face was deathly pale, drained of all color. To anyone who didn’t know better, they might have thought he was the one gravely injured.

His black hair, damp with night dew and cold sweat, clung to the sides of his face, framing his cool brown eyes. He looked like a handful of green algae dredged from a swamp, as if he might shatter at the slightest touch.

The assistant director could tell that Song Linyu had probably been on his way to some important meeting. The black trench coat he wore had clearly been carefully adjusted before he left, but now it draped over his lean frame, only accentuating his exhaustion.

“P-President Song…” The assistant director clutched the phone, explaining as cautiously as he could. “We were planning to notify you once things stabilized, so you wouldn’t worry…”

The icy red glow from the operating room light cast a hazy crimson fog in everyone’s eyes. Song Linyu stared silently at the lit sign for a long moment, saying nothing. Finally, on instinct, he slowly closed his dry, stinging eyes.

Then, unable to hold back any longer, he braced himself against the wall and doubled over.

The stomach was an emotional organ, and in that instant, Song Linyu felt a churning spasm of pain in his gut, nearly bringing on vomit.

His pale palm pressed against the sharp edge of the wall, the veins on his wrist bulging blue. He seemed like a sheet of thin ice on the verge of cracking.

Seeing him like this, the assistant director stood by, heart pounding. “President Song, do you need a doctor?”

Song Linyu didn’t respond. His thin, protruding shoulder blades strained against the coat on his shoulders. The corridor lights bathed him in a pallid glow, and the surrounding clamor faded into a muffled blur, like voices behind thick frosted glass.

In that moment, his world narrowed to a single sound: his own cold, cruel, desperate self-reproach.

—It’s all because of you that things turned out this way.

I shouldn’t stay by his side. Why am I so selfish—

Click.

The sound of the door opening shattered his chaotic thoughts.

A doctor in a blue sterile cap emerged from the operating room, glancing down at the chart in his hand. His tone was steady and professional, tinged with faint puzzlement. “Patient Su Tang’s surgery went smoothly. All bleeding has been controlled. The cranial CT shows no significant damage, blood oxygen saturation is holding steady above 98%, and postoperative vitals are recovering faster than expected.”

The doctor looked up, scanning the varied expressions in the corridor. He continued, “He can be moved to a regular room once the anesthesia wears off. Family doesn’t need to worry—his physical condition is excellent… Honestly, exceptionally so, almost unnaturally. I recommend a thorough checkup after recovery.”

The air stilled for a second.

Song Linyu jerked his head up, his pupils contracting sharply, as if jolted awake from a long nightmare. He pulled himself from the brink of emotional collapse, his voice barely audible. “…Su? What about Fu Yanzong?”

“Fu… Teacher Fu isn’t here.” The assistant director answered reflexively, pointing in a direction. “He’s in Room 307 on the third floor. Not seriously hurt…”

Before he could finish, Song Linyu turned and left without a hint of hesitation, making the assistant director’s earlier worry about “him pulling funding over Su Tang” seem like a bad joke.

So, Song Linyu had looked like that because he thought the one in surgery was Fu Yanzong…? They…?

The assistant director stood there dazed for a moment, suddenly realizing he might have uncovered something unusual.

/

Meanwhile, in the VIP area on the third floor of the north building, Room 307.

Fu Yanzong had changed out of his dust-covered clothes and wiped his face with a clean towel. He lounged lazily on the hospital bed in a loose blue-and-white patient gown.

He hadn’t bothered buttoning the collar properly, leaving the top two buttons undone. For convenience, he’d even grabbed a nurse’s precious black ballpoint pen from beside the bed and twisted his long hair into a slightly messy bun.

This exposed the skin from the nape of his neck to his collarbone clearly—muscles defined and rippling, lines beautifully sculpted, now carrying a fragile air unique to illness.

But Fu Yanzong himself showed no awareness of being in a hospital. Even with his left wrist wrapped in an elastic bandage, he casually played a match-3 game on his injured hand, thoroughly engrossed in a way that made him seem anything but a patient.

“Brother Fu, didn’t the doctor say not to move it around?” Xiao Sun couldn’t help reminding him. “It’s a ligament sprain at least. Take it seriously.”

Fu Yanzong glanced at Xiao Sun, who was peeling an apple nearby, and said indifferently, “I’ve had worse ligament strains on wire stunts plenty of times… No need to fuss. It’s minor.”

As he spoke, his eyes flicked to the half-peeled apple in Xiao Sun’s hand, the hint unmistakable.

Xiao Sun fell silent and suddenly felt all the tears he’d shed for this man earlier were wasted. Dutifully, he scraped off the peel with a small knife and presented the perfectly prepared, delicious apple to his boss.

After hesitating, he still spoke up. “But Brother Fu, that was way too close… The car was smashed up like that, and you’re fine. Mr. Su, though—he took a bad fall. Heard he broke a few ribs and went into surgery.”

Fu Yanzong took a bite of the apple. Sweet juice flooded his mouth, satisfying his sudden craving for something sugary. In a good mood, he lifted the corner of his eye, where a small mole sat, and said with gleeful schadenfreude, “Oh? That’s too bad for him.”

Xiao Sun: …

Fu Yanzong chewed the fruit slowly, thinking to himself that of course he knew what game Su Tang was playing. If Su Tang could still use his cheat, it meant after the first failure, he’d forced an “unavoidable” crash into the guardrail.

And since Su Tang was in the car too, things couldn’t possibly go to an extreme—his own life would always come first.

Su Tang thought Fu Yanzong was clueless about what happened, that he could just reload the cheat and fake danger. But Fu Yanzong had a simple solution: no matter the situation—even if he didn’t know the details—when danger struck, just yank Su Tang over as a human shield.

Let him reap what he sowed and taste the bitter fruit.

That Pagani Huayra BC Roadster was a gift from Song Linyu, and Fu Yanzong knew cars. Song Linyu wouldn’t just pick the priciest one. On the contrary, knowing Fu Yanzong’s habit of speeding, he’d had experts customize it with extensive safety upgrades—especially for the driver’s seat.

Fu Yanzong’s reaction speed was in a league of its own compared to Su Tang’s. One had been challenging high-difficulty tracks since childhood, while the other balked at practicing action scenes for even a few extra days. For Fu Yanzong, sizing up the situation faster and yanking the guy over as a human shield was child’s play.

Of course, there was no need to explain any of that to Xiao Sun.

Fu Yanzong glanced at the time on his phone screen. Remembering he still had to give Song Linyu a piece of his mind, he tapped into their chat and said to Xiao Sun without looking back, “Later, let the production team know. Post on my Weibo to reassure the fans that I’m fine, and get someone to deal with all those media outlets peddling bullshit…”

He paused there for a beat.

Xiao Sun tilted his head in confusion. “Anything else, Boss?”

“Nothing,” Fu Yanzong said offhandedly. “He probably hasn’t seen it.”

There were no new messages from Song Linyu on his phone, which meant the guy hadn’t spotted the trending topics climbing the charts yet—he was still buried in work. That was a good thing. After all, the media had a knack for sensationalizing rumors, and seeing that crap wouldn’t do Song Linyu’s condition any favors.

Fu Yanzong mulled this over, his fingers poised to type something proactive into the chat box. But in that instant, an odd intuition hit him—the room’s atmosphere had turned thick and frigid. His fingertips froze, and he lifted his head, sensing eyes on him.

Xiao Sun was staring hesitantly at the door, which had been nudged open just a crack.

Fu Yanzong followed his gaze, and his breath hitched ever so slightly.

Song Linyu stood there.

His eyes were rimmed red, his damp lashes clumped together, though no tears brimmed in them. It wasn’t so much that he’d been crying as that his eyes were threaded with bloodshot veins from sheer emotional overload.

Song Linyu looked like he’d sprinted the whole way—disheveled and ragged. He braced himself against the doorframe with one hand, his chest heaving wildly for a moment before he slowly straightened up. He stood in silence, his gaze fixed on the man propped against the hospital bed.

Even after staring for a good while, though, he didn’t step inside. He just lingered at the threshold, like a penniless traveler afraid to approach a priceless treasure.

A moment later, he lowered his trembling gaze to the pristine white floor tiles, staring at them for what felt like ages. Finally, he parted his lips and rasped out, his voice nearly gone, “How bad is the injury?”

Then, in a murmur so soft it was almost to himself—laden with grievance—he tacked on Fu Yanzong’s earlier words.

“I saw it.”

…You got hurt, and I saw it.

Fu Yanzong opened his mouth to respond, but for the life of him, nothing suitable came to mind right away.

He waited a beat, then turned his head and said coolly to Xiao Sun, “I’m good now. Why don’t you head out and get some rest?”

Xiao Sun nodded eagerly, murmuring a quick greeting to Song Linyu as he slipped past at the door. At last, he escaped the bewildering scene.

“Close the door,” Fu Yanzong told Song Linyu.

Song Linyu looked up at him, his hand instinctively gripping the cold door handle. He shifted his body sideways and stammered in a panic, “Then I—”

“Close the door, then come in.”

Fu Yanzong repeated himself patiently, watching Song Linyu struggle to process through the emotional fog. He spoke slowly, unhurried, like he was coaxing a startled little animal.

Then he curved his eyes into a gentle smile, held out his arms to Song Linyu, and issued his final command in the softest tone.

“Song Linyu,” he said. “Come here. Let me hold you.”