The days of the two living together gradually settled into a routine. Every day, a servant would come over from the main residence to do the cleaning, but only when the two weren’t home. So to them, it didn’t really feel like anyone had been there. However, the traces of two people living here were plainly obvious and completely undisguised. Occasionally, when the butler came along to check on the young master’s living conditions, his feelings were quite complicated.
The young master was cohabiting with someone. If it were a girl, it would definitely be a cause for celebration. But judging from various details in the house, it was clearly a boy, and he didn’t seem to be very old either. The clothes hanging outside to dry still had cartoon characters printed on them. This made it a bit hard to explain.
Still, the young master finally had someone he liked, and their relationship was progressing well—they were even living together now. At least now, he’d have someone to accompany him through life. It was just a pity that the gender was a little off. But then again, thinking of how the young master had never shown interest in anyone before, it was already quite good that he had someone he genuinely liked. As for the issue of gender, it could be overlooked. It was still better than really spending a lifetime hugging Little Pudding.
Speaking of Little Pudding, the butler couldn’t help but look around. The dog bowl was very clean, and there wasn’t any dog hair in the house. But then again, Little Pudding hardly shed, so it was normal not to see any fur. Still, raising a dog would usually make the house at least a bit messy. He wondered who was doing the tidying up when the servants weren’t there. If it was that boy, then that was quite good—at the very least, it meant he could take proper care of the young master’s daily life. But two men living together with a dog—sigh—what kind of life was that supposed to be?
Watching the servant meticulously clean every corner of the house inside and out, the butler finally clasped his hands behind his back and did a round of inspection. After confirming there were no problems, he took them and left. He would have to report the situation to the madam when he got back. At the very least, she needed some mental preparation.
Meanwhile, Zuo Ning, who was working hard, had also gradually found his rhythm. The film he’d previously shot—its director had insisted on using actual film reels. Every reel cost money, so many of the scenes were rehearsed several times until there were no issues before the camera was turned on. But if the result wasn’t good enough, they’d shoot again, making corrections over and over. It was a very serious and meticulous process.
But this drama seemed to be using digital equipment. If a take wasn’t good, it could just be deleted and redone. So the actors went straight into shooting. If they were lucky, it passed in one go; if not, they’d just keep shooting until it was satisfactory. As a result, during filming, everyone wasn’t so tense. There was laughing and joking—some people even held popsicles in their hands to cool off. When it was time to shoot, they’d hide them behind their backs, and when the director yelled “cut”, they’d quickly pop them into their mouths and take a few bites.
Zuo Ning had also made a few good friends in the crew whose personalities meshed well with his, and Ni Hao was one of them. Although Ni Hao’s appearance fit the current standards of beauty quite well—more on the delicate and soft side—when he stood next to Zuo Ning, it was obvious he looked a shade darker. Ni Hao’s fair complexion was already famous in the industry; many female celebrities didn’t even dare stand next to him. But now he had encountered someone even fairer than himself. The first post he made of a selfie with Zuo Ning on Weibo said: If anyone dares say I’m fair again, I’m gonna lose it.
In the photo, the two of them were dressed in xianxia-style costumes, their long hair flowing, but both had their sleeves rolled up high, sitting in front of an electric fan, gnawing on watermelon and smiling brightly.
That popularity king could land on the trending page just by casually posting a Weibo. His fans, who had been keeping a close eye on his activities, all knew he was filming a drama. And the other lead in the drama was a rookie who was already showing clear signs of skyrocketing to fame. His movie had just recently finished its theatrical run and had earned a box office total of three billion yuan. He was currently a hot topic. Unfortunately, this rookie seemed very low-key. He hadn’t appeared during the early promotional phase, and there weren’t many press releases about him online. The buzz was all generated spontaneously by netizens. Some people were even speculating whether the agency backing him was too small and didn’t know how to promote him or where to get more resources. As a result, despite having all the right conditions for a hype-driven breakout, the opportunity was seemingly missed.
Now that fans saw their idol in a selfie with this little xianxia-looking guy, the hardcore fans still stayed calm, but the appearance-driven fans couldn’t hold back at all.
【I became a fan of our Hao Hao because of his absolutely unrivaled, devastatingly beautiful face. In this whole industry, you can count on one hand the celebrities who can take a selfie with him and not be outshone. I didn’t expect to find another one today! Who is this Lu Ning? How have I never heard of him before? I’m becoming a fan. He’s too handsome!!】
【Aaaaaah, I’ve saved the photo! Never thought I’d spot a little xianxia prince through my own idol! So my idol’s debut drama is with this xianxia boy? Xianxia boy, please take good care of my idol, okay? Crossing over from singing to acting isn’t easy. Please protect him!】
【Oh my god, what’s the name of this new drama? I have to watch it!!! With both of these gorgeous faces holding down the cast, even if the whole drama is full of bad acting, I’ll still stick around for the visuals!!】
【Just one devastatingly handsome guy is already a knockout. Now it’s a double knockout. These days, do good-looking boys only make friends with other good-looking boys?】
【Seriously, they’ve redefined what it means to be fair-skinned. Tell me, what skincare products are you two using? Dark-skinned girls dream of being that fair.】
【These days, men are even prettier than women. How are women supposed to survive? Tell me, how are we supposed to survive?!】
Ni Hao showed him the fans’ comments. “Your movie just finished screening, this is your prime promotional period right now. How come your team hasn’t made a single move? Even if the drama crew has started filming, they could definitely set aside time for you to do promotion. The more attention you get, the better it is for the ratings of our drama later. The director would definitely be happy about that. Just look at the comments online. Some people want information about your resources but don’t even know where to find any.”
Zuo Ning lay on the lounge chair, eating a popsicle. “No promotions. Too tiring. Isn’t it nice to just film quietly and simply like this? No hype, no hate, and not so much pressure from public opinion. So relaxing.”
Ni Hao knew who was backing him from behind, and figured that if there was one thing he wouldn’t be short on, it was resources. Wasn’t it common in the industry to see people who still couldn’t make it big, no matter how much they were promoted, yet still had a pile of envy-inducing resources? The forces behind those people weren’t necessarily stronger than Lu Ning’s. So Ni Hao was just saying it casually. Seeing that Lu Ning seemed to genuinely enjoy acting rather than wanting to become wildly famous, he didn’t press the issue any further.
Skipping past that topic, the two naturally started talking about food. Both of them were the kind who wouldn’t gain weight no matter how much they ate. And since Ni Hao currently didn’t have any album plans, he was eating even more freely, without any restrictions. They were just discussing how, if they could wrap the last scene of the day and finish early, they’d go out to eat together, when their assistants walked over holding scripts.
Each of them took the items their own assistant handed over, and both looked up at them in confusion.
Yang Shun spoke first: “There’s been a change in today’s schedule. Seems like there’s an issue with one of the actors later, so a few scenes have been moved up to today. These are the next few scenes. Go ahead and take a look and get familiar with the lines first.”
Zuo Ning let out a long sigh toward the sky. He had been planning to leave early today, go eat something tasty first, and then cook dinner himself for Lu Chenghe tonight!
Lu Chenghe received a message from Little Pudding and found out that his filming schedule had been changed at the last minute. The message even came with a pitiful crying-on-the-ground emoji. He smiled and sent back a head-patting sticker to show comfort, then had his assistant buy some fruit and send it over to the set. The weather was getting hotter, and filming really was exhausting. Eating some fruit could at least help cool down a bit.
For several days in a row, the originally scheduled filming progress had been completely disrupted. During the actors’ break time, the director had even met with a few people who seemed to be there for auditions. Always immune to all kinds of gossip and news, Zuo Ning only found out after asking Yang Shun that an actor had gotten into a car accident. Although the person wasn’t seriously injured, just with a broken leg, it would take time to recover. So that actor’s scenes had to be recast and re-filmed. Some of the previously shot footage would also need to be scrapped and redone. That’s why they had been searching for a replacement lately.
Hearing Zuo Ning ask his assistant about it, Ni Hao, who was fanning himself beside them, looked at him in surprise. “You seriously didn’t know? This kind of big news even made it to the trending searches. Are you really someone in the entertainment industry?”
Zuo Ning pulled out his phone and scrolled through it. “I rarely read the news. They don’t let me. Drunk driving, huh… does that count as breach of contract? If you get hurt and lose your role but still have to pay compensation, wouldn’t that be way too miserable?”
Ni Hao shrugged. “In this flashy, glamorous industry, how many people can really hold themselves back? A life of booze and luxury, who wouldn’t like it? Just another young guy who slipped up. Happens all the time.”
The role that ran into trouble actually had quite a lot of scenes. It was a morally ambiguous character, neither entirely good nor evil. Plus, the director had high standards when it came to looks, wanted someone young, the acting couldn’t be too raw either, and most importantly, they had to be affordable. So finding the right person took some time. That’s why they moved several scenes involving the main characters’ interactions to the front of the schedule to avoid wasting time.
Zuo Ning asked Yang Shun to check with the assistant director to see if there were already any backstage connections going on for that role. If someone was planning to pull strings to get in, then he wouldn’t get involved. But if no one had been decided and they were still blindly casting within the circle, then he could also recommend someone to try out. After all, it was a chance.
When Lan Shao received the message from Lu Ning, he was quite surprised. He even read it over several times, almost unable to resist messaging back to ask if it had been sent to the wrong person. But in the end, he held back and simply replied with a “thank you”. As a trainee, standing out was truly difficult. So many people were competing, and if you didn’t fight for things, you might never get your turn in this lifetime. So many of those who started out with him had already quit because they couldn’t take it anymore. Now that there was an opportunity right in front of him, if he didn’t seize it, he’d be a fool.
After checking with his agent and confirming that it would be fine for him to take the role if he got selected, Lan Shao quickly tidied himself up and headed over to the audition location based on the time and address Lu Ning had sent him.
The assistant director knew who had recommended this person, but Lu Ning had made it clear: go through the standard procedure—if it works, it works; if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t. Naturally, the assistant director wouldn’t say anything more to the director. Still, upon seeing the newcomer, he was quite satisfied with the person’s appearance—handsome, but with a bit of a bad-boy edge, not overly righteous. Actually, quite fitting for the role.
When he brought the person in for the director to have a look, the assistant director couldn’t help but whisper in the director’s ear: “A total rookie, a trainee from some company, comes cheap.”
Lan Shao would never know that, out of all the people who auditioned, he was chosen in the end because, under the same conditions, he was the cheapest.
Because they’d been filming nonstop lately, once a replacement was found, everything previously shot had to be scrapped and redone. As a result, the actors who didn’t have many scenes with that role were temporarily given time off by the director.
But ironically, Zuo Ning, who had been full of energy when busy, ended up falling ill the moment he had a break.
He had been delighted to get a few days off. On the very day they wrapped, Zuo Ning happily dragged Lu Chenghe out to eat barbecue—the kind that cost a fortune. Before heading home, they even stopped by an arcade and won a bunch of stuffed toys. He had been his usual energetic self. But by the middle of the night, he suddenly developed a fever.
In the deep of night, Lu Chenghe, who was sound asleep, suddenly felt like he was holding a ball of fire in his arms. He was jolted awake. When he touched Little Pudding lying on his arm, he found him burning up. He rushed to give him medicine, applied a fever patch, and wiped him down with a wet towel.
Zuo Ning, dazed and feverish, let him fuss over him without resistance. He didn’t even have the strength to open his eyes, but still murmured Lu Chenghe’s name in a hazy voice.
Lu Chenghe wrung out the towel and wiped his sweaty forehead, hearing him call out his name. He patted his head gently and said, “I’m right here. Good boy, go to sleep. Once you fall asleep, it won’t feel so bad. When you wake up, you’ll be better.”
Zuo Ning let out a low whimper, trying to kick off the covers—he was burning up. It felt like he was in the middle of a desert, like a fish about to die of thirst.
Lu Chenghe had already turned off the air conditioning and opened all the doors and windows for ventilation. Still, he wrapped Little Pudding in a small blanket. Seeing him struggle to kick it off, he simply pulled him into his arms. “Don’t move around. Just sweat it out and you’ll be fine.”
Zuo Ning caught the familiar scent and instinctively rubbed against him. “So hot…” he murmured.
Lu Chenghe gently stroked him. “Who told you to get sick? A demon getting sick like a human, you’re probably the most useless demon ever.”
Zuo Ning mumbled in a daze, “I’m useful.”
Lu Chenghe let out a soft chuckle. “Alright, alright, you’re useful. You’re the most useful.”
Zuo Ning groaned, “Chenghe…”
“Mm?”
“I feel awful.”
Lu Chenghe touched his back. He had just wiped him down not long ago, and now it was covered in sweat again. “Where does it hurt?”
He waited a while, but Little Pudding only let out soft whimpers now and then, clearly not conscious enough to respond. Lu Chenghe pulled him closer into his arms and took his temperature again. It hadn’t gone up, but it hadn’t gone down either. Holding the flushed, sweat-drenched person in his arms, he let out a helpless sigh. “If this fever doesn’t go down soon, you’re getting a shot.”
Maybe the medicine had finally started to work. After tossing and turning a bit, Zuo Ning gradually drifted into a deeper sleep. Lu Chenghe wiped him down again and changed him into a fresh set of clothes. Seeing that his temperature had dropped a little, he replaced the fever patch and then lay down with him in his arms.
Still, the whole night he slept lightly, worried the fever might come back. Every now and then, he’d reach out to check.
As dawn approached, Lu Chenghe gave up on sleep entirely. He took Zuo Ning’s temperature—it was finally back to normal. He tucked the blanket more snugly around him, then got up to shower.
When Zuo Ning woke up, his whole body felt like it had been taken apart and put back together wrong. He was completely limp in bed, too weak to even crawl up.
He reached out and felt the space beside him—Lu Chenghe wasn’t there. Struggling, he reached toward the nightstand for his phone. It was already eight o’clock—way past their usual morning run.
He lay there like a corpse, stomach growling loudly, but he didn’t want to move at all.
Hearing footsteps, he looked up and saw Lu Chenghe. At once, he let out a pitiful whimper and said, “Chenghe, I think I’m sick. Everything hurts.”
Lu Chenghe stepped forward and sized him up for a moment. “Your complexion looks rosy. Are you just making excuses to get out of the morning run? Get up. If you don’t, there’s no food for you today.”
Seeing that Lu Chenghe didn’t believe him, Zuo Ning nearly burst into tears from frustration. He turned away, facing the other direction. “I really don’t feel well. Who’s lying to you? No one ever believes me.”
Lu Chenghe chuckled and walked over, giving his butt a pat. “Are you even human? Get up and take your medicine.”
Zuo Ning turned his head to look at him. “What medicine? I don’t have the strength. I can’t even crawl out of bed.”
“Anti-inflammatory meds,” Lu Chenghe said, and without waiting, directly picked him up. “You tormented me the whole night last night. As a little demon spirit, forget not being able to summon wind and rain, how is your constitution this weak?”
Zuo Ning swallowed the medicine with the help of Lu Chenghe’s hand. “So I caught a cold, huh? No wonder I had a headache yesterday afternoon.”
“You were already feeling unwell yesterday afternoon and didn’t tell me? You just had to drag it out until your fever got so bad you had to go to the hospital for an injection—then you finally calmed down, is that it?”
Zuo Ning clung to Lu Chenghe, rubbing against him. “I’m already sick, and you’re still lecturing me. Aren’t you going to the company today?”
“If I go, am I just supposed to leave you here at home to fend for yourself?”
Zuo Ning pouted and said cheerfully, “I heard that if you pass your cold to someone else, you’ll get better. There’s no one else here anyway, so why don’t you make a little sacrifice and let me pass it on to you?”
Lu Chenghe pinched his cheek. “So I really have been raising a little ungrateful wolf, huh? I took care of you all night last night for nothing, and now you want to pass your cold to me.”
After breakfast, Lu Chenghe went downstairs to wash the dishes. But by the time he came back up, the person who had just been making a fuss was already fast asleep again. Lu Chenghe didn’t go anywhere the entire day. He just stayed in the room, watching over this little ancestor. Maybe it was really his weak constitution; even though the fever had already gone down and hadn’t returned, his body still felt so awful that he stayed in bed for two whole days.
Over at the film crew, Lu Chenghe had someone request a few more days off. Reportedly, they happened to be catching up on scenes that needed to be reshot for another actor, so the timing worked out just right to free up his schedule. It wasn’t until Little Pudding had fully recovered his energy and started bouncing around like a lively dragon again that Lu Chenghe kept him cooped up for a few more days before finally letting him go free.
But soon after, his little ancestor gave him a huge surprise. In the hazy light of early morning, the little creature who always loved curling up in his arms to sleep suddenly started rubbing against him unconsciously while still fast asleep, clinging to him in his dreams.
