Chasing the Light

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The day after the premiere, Liang Xincheng went back to the set in Hengdian to continue filming. At the same time, he also acted as a courier to help Xie Qinfeng deliver the entrusted items to Ding Yao; snacks, an anti-heatstroke suit, and a bunch of medicines for headaches, colds and fevers.

“Teacher Xie asked you to pay attention to your health and not to work too hard. Also, don’t make trouble with him anymore, he’ll come over to see you after a while.”

Liang Xincheng dutifully conveyed Xie Qinfeng’s advice and concern. Ding Yao tore open the snack bag and threw a chocolate bar to Liang Xincheng: “Xincheng-ge, don’t pay attention to him, and don’t help him run errands in the future.”

“How can it be, Teacher Xie is a senior after all.”

“What kind of senior, he is only in his twenties. Why did he act as a senior.” Ding Yao muttered in a low voice as tore open a pudding and took a bite. He then hesitantly leaned over to Liang Xincheng to ask him, “What else did he tell you?”

Liang Xincheng laughed out loud: “Are you really having a fight? You want to know what he said, but you don’t want to call him and ask him yourself?

Ding Yao wrinkled his nose: “No, he’s not happy with me taking this role. I had a fight with him before coming here. I can’t admit defeat first.”

“He’s also doing it for your own good.”

“Who cares. He asked me to cooperate with his rumored girlfriend for my sake, did he deliberately try to annoy me?”

The more Ding Yao said, the lower his voice became. By the time he was chewing the pudding, Liang Xincheng was already feeling a bit vague about their relationship. Liang Xincheng listened and gave a gentle cough. He asked tentatively: “You and Teacher Xie, you…?””

Ding Yao blushed slightly. His eyes flickered as he smiled embarrassedly: “No, Xincheng-ge, don’t tell others, it’s not good to make people misunderstand…I like Xie-ge, but he doesn’t like me, he just treats me like a younger brother.”

Liang Xincheng: “…”

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He did not know whether to say that this Ding Yao was really big-hearted to tell him such things or whether he should be silent about this. This kind of thing was really like looking at flowers in the fog,1雾里看花[wù lǐ kàn huā]: look at flowers in a fog—have blurred vision; see unclearly; and the most confusing thing would be the party involved in this.

“Do you think Teacher Xie only treats you as a younger brother?”

“Then what else?” Ding Yao huffed and bit down a large mouthful of pudding, as if chewing Xie Qinfeng’s flesh and blood, “He always treats me like a child and loves to control me more than my parents and uncle.”

“He only cares about you.” Liang Xincheng didn’t bother to say much. He was not interested in meddling in other people’s affairs, especially emotional affairs.

Even though he knew that Xie Qinfeng’s feelings were definitely not innocent towards Ding Yao, what could he say? Could he say that I have seen Xie Qinfeng kiss you secretly with my own eyes? That was just looking for trouble.

Returning to the hotel after work in the evening, Liang Xincheng ran into someone whom he didn’t want to meet in the elevator. Wei Xishuang, who was waiting for the elevator, took off the exaggerated sunglasses on his face and seemed to be very pleasantly surprised to see Liang Xincheng: “I heard that you’re also here for shooting before, but I didn’t expect it to be so coincidental that we stayed in the same hotel.”

Liang Xincheng nodded indifferently: “What a coincidence.”

His room was on the sixteenth floor while Wei Xishuang lived on the floor above him. He just joined the crews today and came to Hengdian to shoot an ancient costume fantasy drama.

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After getting into the elevator, Wei Xishuang kept chattering. Liang Xincheng flew back to the set early in the morning and continued filming for a whole day. He was so tired that he didn’t have the strength to deal with him. He leaned silently against the elevator wall on one side and almost fell asleep.

“Actually, I went to your set in the afternoon. You were filming at the time, so I didn’t bother you. I just watched and left.”

Wei Xishuang seemed to finally put away that playful tone. Liang Xincheng looked at him curiously, and frowned slightly with puzzlement in his eyes.

Wei Xishuang sighed: “You’d better not fall asleep standing here, go back to your room and sleep again.”

Liang Xincheng stood up straight, Wei Xishuang smiled: “Actually, I want to say hello to you, but I know you don’t want to see me.”

Liang Xincheng felt a little awkward listening to this, and even more embarrassed. As soon as the elevator reached the sixteenth floor and the door opened, he hurried out. Wei Xishuang smiled helplessly behind him and closed the elevator door again.

After Liang Xincheng took a shower, dried his hair and lay down on the bed, feeling drowsy again. He picked up his mobile phone and scrolled through Weibo boredly. When he saw the first content of the hot search, he sat up abruptly as his complexion instantly turned gloomy.

Xia Yuanhang became a hot topic again because of the previous paparazzi studio. This time it was about his family affairs. In the video secretly taken by the paparazzi, Xia Yuanhang had a conflict with his father Xia Xiangzhou at the gate of the community where he lived. Xia Xiangzhou slapped himself and wiped his tears, and Xia Yuanhang not only did not move throughout, he also knocked over the cake Xia Xiangzhou gave to him. He then went inside the community without looking back, while Xia Xiangzhou was stopped by the security outside the gate.

The paparazzi painted the two father and son vividly in a very exaggerated tone, implying that Xia Yuanhang was unfilial and had a bad relationship with his biological father, and drove his biological father out of the house.

This video was released a few hours ago. The official blogs of major entertainment media and the marketing accounts that like to gossip had all forwarded it. There were many different opinions, but Xia Yuanhang’s side had been silent and had not made any response.

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Liang Xincheng refreshed again, and the paparazzi studio released a new follow-up on the matter two minutes ago, saying that he contacted Xia Xiangzhou for an exclusive interview.

Liang Xincheng endured nausea and clicked on the so-called interview video. From beginning to end, Xia Xiangzhou was crying in front of the camera and talking about Xia Yuanhang. He said that he hadn’t returned home once in a few years. After he became popular, he directly changed all his contact information and ignored him as his father. He took the initiative to find his son several times but was turned away, and he was almost beaten by Xia Yuanhang’s bodyguards. Finally, Xia Xiangzhou took off his gloves and showed his hand that was missing two fingers in front of the camera, saying that it was accidentally broken by a machine while working outside. That day, he was really desperate to find his son for some medical expenses, but he was still driven out by Xia Yuanhang.

The interviewer also hypocritically asked Xia Xiangzhou why he had such a deep conflict with Xia Yuanhang, whether there was any misunderstanding between father and son, or whether he had done something wrong that Xia Yuanhang could not forgive before.

Xia Xiangzhou wiped away tears and choked and said: “He hasn’t been close to me since he was a child. His mother used to take care of him when I was busy at work. Later, when he went to college, his mother fell ill and passed away so he basically didn’t go home. And then it became like this. I know he is now a big star, has made a lot of money and afraid that I will ask him for money. I really don’t want this. This time there is really no way, I have lost my job so I have to come to him…”

If he hadn’t seen the ugliness and shamelessness of this man with his own eyes, Liang Xincheng would almost believe Xia Yuanhang was such a bastard that didn’t even care about his father just by watching this video. But it was the shameless people who were the most disgusting, the so-called those who were barefoot were not afraid of those who were wearing shoes2the poor, who have nothing to lose, do not fear those in power. Xia Xiangzhou’s was obviously partnered up with paparazzi who had no bottom line. One asked for money and the other for news. He didn’t care if Xia Yuanhang’s reputation was damaged.

Liang Xincheng didn’t watch the video until the end, he quickly closed the video instead and clicked on WeChat to send Xia Yuanhang a message: “I saw the news about you, how do you plan to respond? Do you need my help?”

1雾里看花[wù lǐ kàn huā]: look at flowers in a fog—have blurred vision; see unclearly;2the poor, who have nothing to lose, do not fear those in power