Being accommodating, Liang Xiao nodded and closed the door again.
…
An hour later, Liang Xiao opened the door and observed the living room that still lacked President Huo’s working atmosphere.
He went back to check the time, then peeked out again, looking at the row of silent chefs and the bustling assistant team.
Liang Xiao closed the door, opened it again, and stared at the butler who remained stationed in the living room.
The butler steeled himself: “One more hour of studying…”
Liang Xiao couldn’t help turning to conspiracy theories: “President Huo isn’t really developing memory bread, is he?”
The butler didn’t understand: “What?”
“It’s from Doraemon,” Liang Xiao explained. “They print text on bread, and when you eat it, you memorize everything.”
He coughed slightly, his ears turning red: “Actually, there’s no need… I quite enjoy studying lines together with President Huo.”
Indeed, without President Huo’s high-pressure regime, it would take him two to three hours to memorize just one page of script. Occasionally, he would even put down his script to play with his phone.
Liang Xiao simply disliked copying text, but perhaps one day, Huo Lan—worried that he might tire from writing—would hold his hand to help him.
If he were sitting on the bed and Huo Lan needed to hold his hand, it wouldn’t be convenient for Huo Lan to remain standing.
Leaning against the door, Liang Xiao’s thoughts began to wander.
Merely memorizing lines was undoubtedly too monotonous. He was required to maintain his stamina and activity level, so he could also move around while studying.
With Huo Lan holding his hand to copy the script, he would likely struggle to stay steady, resulting in poor handwriting. Given President Huo’s perfectionist nature, he would inevitably insist on rewriting it.
With only one copy of the script, both would need to see it, necessitating some overlap in their physical positioning from a flat perspective…
The butler was still stuck on what Doraemon was when he witnessed Liang Xiao turning red before his eyes. Stunned, he began: “Mr. Liang—”
Liang Xiao snapped back to reality and sternly disciplined himself: “I’ll go back and study for another hour.”
The butler breathed a sigh of relief, quickly nodded, and escorted him back to the guest room.
…
One hour later.
Liang Xiao opened the door again to see the living room still lacking President Huo’s working atmosphere, with the row of chefs and bustling assistant team.
The butler: “…Mr. Liang.”
Liang Xiao: “I’ve finished memorizing everything.”
The butler: “…”
Liang Xiao put away his script and sighed: “Just give me a hint. I need to prepare my emotional response based on what surprise I’ll be receiving.”
First attempts succeed with vigor, second attempts falter, third attempts fail completely.
Having copied his entire script, Liang Xiao had nothing left to do. He had even flipped through “The Complete Guide to Cooking Without a Kitchen” twice, thoroughly visualizing the feasibility and process for each dish.
If President Huo needed yet another hour, Liang Xiao was prepared to borrow ingredients from the assistant team and try making a couple of dishes himself.
After struggling with indecision for a while, the butler steeled himself: “Please… follow me.”
He signaled for everyone to continue working as usual, then led Liang Xiao through the living room and through a hidden door.
Having lived there for so many days without knowing about this passage, Liang Xiao asked curiously: “What’s this for?”
“It’s for the servers and cleaning staff so they don’t disturb guests,” the butler explained quietly. “Once we go in, try not to make any noise…”
Liang Xiao closed his mouth and nodded.
The butler led him to another concealed door, carefully opening it to reveal a small crack before stepping aside.
Liang Xiao leaned in to look.
…
Liang Xiao’s eyes widened.
The scene was quite different from what he had imagined. The master bedroom wasn’t particularly chaotic.
The desk had been cleared of all documents, looking exceptionally neat and empty except for a cake base that hadn’t yet been cut into its final shape.
Two master chefs stood vigilantly by the table, one on each side, looking intensely serious and occasionally offering urgent reminders.
President Huo, with his back to the door and shoulders slightly tense, was meticulously refining details of the cake base with a knife.
Separated from the master bedroom by just a wall, Liang Xiao didn’t dare speak aloud. He turned to the butler and silently mouthed: “Isn’t that cake base… a bit large?”
The butler leaned in to take a look and sighed: “When it was first brought in, it was twice this size.”
Liang Xiao: “…”
Liang Xiao: “Am I going to end up with a three-inch mini cake?”
Watching the direction of President Huo’s knife, Liang Xiao thought carefully: “Or perhaps it will completely transform into cake fragments, recognizable as cake only by its soft, sweet texture…”
“…” The butler felt a headache coming on: “It should—”
The butler leaned in for another look, now lacking confidence himself as he tearfully admitted: “It probably will… if that happens, would you still eat it?”
Liang Xiao didn’t really mind and nodded slightly as he crouched with the butler in the corner, whispering: “Why did President Huo suddenly decide to make a cake?”
The butler hesitated, looking at him contemplatively.
Liang Xiao appeared puzzled.
The butler had already heard from the manager about Liang Xiao’s situation. Now, seeing his complete lack of awareness, he felt somewhat helpless but smiled: “Please come with me.”
He led Liang Xiao out through the hidden door back to the living room and explained everything from the beginning: “When you initially joined the production, you filled in your birthday on the forms. At that time, your contract hadn’t arrived yet… President Huo had originally planned to give you the contract as a birthday gift.”
Liang Xiao was surprised: “But I’ve already received it.”
“Yes,” the butler explained patiently. “Since it was given early, it doesn’t count anymore, so he needs to give you something else.”
Liang Xiao hadn’t realized that celebrating a birthday could be so complicated. He opened his mouth, about to confess the truth: “Actually—”
The butler asked: “What is it?”
Liang Xiao actually didn’t celebrate birthdays. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but then he glanced at the tightly closed master bedroom door and recalled what he had glimpsed through the crack.
After battling with the cake base for three hours, their President Huo didn’t look cold or imposing at all.
His shirt sleeves were rolled up high, and he had bits of cake crumbs on him. Even with a knife in his hand, he showed none of his usual CEO decisiveness.
After contemplating for a moment, Liang Xiao couldn’t help but smile: “Actually, I really enjoy making cakes.”
The butler, who had been prepared to convince Mr. Liang to celebrate his birthday, was taken aback and looked at him in surprise.
“I’ve had a dream since childhood,” Liang Xiao said, using a familiar phrasing that came naturally to him. “Whenever I passed by bakeries, I would watch the cake decorators work, yearning for the chance…”
The butler listened in a daze before a thought occurred to him: “Mr. Liang.”
Liang Xiao: “Yes?”
“Did you—” the butler paused, hesitantly probing, “have many dreams when you were young?”
For instance, wanting to be a pharmaceutical worker.
When President Huo had mentioned investing in Feiyang Pharmaceuticals for that “wild omega” from Jiangnan, the butler had been quite vigilant, even blocking all pharmaceutical talents from his phone contacts.
Based on the butler’s understanding of their President Huo, Huo Lan typically wouldn’t force others against their will, but when it came to principles, he could be exceptionally strict.
Just like how President Huo now supervised Mr. Liang’s script-copying because without it, Mr. Liang truly couldn’t memorize his lines.
Back then, Huo Lan’s insistence on teaching young Liang Xiao was likely because Liang Xiao had earnestly deceived young Huo Lan, claiming he had a lifelong dream of becoming a great pharmaceutical worker.
“Yes,” Liang Xiao paused before carefully recalling: “Mainly categorized by age, I wanted to be a scientist, teacher, doctor, chef, internet café administrator, bus ticket collector…”
The butler was astonished: “And you ended up becoming an actor… that’s quite remarkable.”
Liang Xiao smiled: “It’s fine. This is the only dream that wasn’t my original idea.”
The butler was slightly confused: “How so?”
Given the speed at which information was shared between the manager and the butler, Liang Xiao assumed the butler probably knew about his friend in Jiangnan, so he didn’t hide it: “Back in Jiangnan, I was chatting with my friend… I asked him what he wanted to do.”
The butler’s heart skipped a beat as he pressed: “And he said—”
Liang Xiao: “He said he didn’t know.”
The butler paused, calmed himself, and gave a bitter smile: “I see.”
“I really didn’t want to study at the time and kept insisting on chatting with him,” Liang Xiao reflected. “He probably got annoyed with my constant pestering.”
The butler remained silent for a moment before quietly suggesting: “Did you perhaps notice… he was in a bad mood, and wanted to distract him with conversation?”
Caught off guard by this insight, Liang Xiao was stunned: “Is it that obvious?”
The butler made a firm decision to find an opportunity to speak with Mr. Duan first, determined to help Mr. Liang understand the truth as soon as possible: “Please continue.”
Liang Xiao thought briefly: “It’s nothing special… He probably had an elder in his family in this profession. He told me that actors on stage can experience countless lives—they’re very free and they shine.”
The butler responded softly: “So that’s why you wanted to become an actor?”
Liang Xiao smiled: “I didn’t think he was cut out for it… anyway, I didn’t know how to live at that time.”
Back then, he had struggled just to survive, taking any job that paid.
In the depths of exhausting nights, young Liang Xiao would fill his stomach with water, lie on street benches wrapped in a thick coat, using his arm as a pillow while gazing at the stars.
Burning paper slips hadn’t worked—the memories he wanted to forget remained stubbornly intact. When young Liang Xiao opened his eyes, he saw stars scattered across the moonless, lightless sky; when he closed them, he saw the fragmented starlight in a young boy’s eyes.
“I guessed with his temperament, even when he grew up, he probably wouldn’t be free.”
Liang Xiao’s ears reddened slightly as he smiled: “I thought… then I’ll be kind-hearted and shine freely on his behalf.”
The butler looked at him wordlessly.
update plssss🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏