I'm Rich - 10
Chapter 10
Hua Hongxi regretted making this phone call more than anything.
A few days ago, when Qi Chengyan had found out that he and Guan Zhiyi were “together,” Qi Chengyan had already called to give him a thorough “lecture.” Later, he'd even wanted to meet him in person, but Hua Hongxi had cleverly dodged every attempt with all kinds of excuses.
And now, after all that hiding and evasion, he'd walked straight into the trap himself.
Hua Hongxi was thoroughly frustrated. He quickly texted Zhiyi: [Whatever you do, don't let us get caught in front of my brother later. We need to act a little more couple-y.]
Guan Zhiyi: [Couple-y?]
Hua Hongxi: [Just put on a show. Hold hands, lean on each other, that sort of thing. You're an actress. It shouldn't be hard!]
Guan Zhiyi: […We can act like a couple who's just gotten together. Express it through expressions, no physical contact needed.]
Hua Hongxi: [I don't know how to do that.]
Guan Zhiyi: [Try to channel that first-love feeling?]
Hua Hongxi: [Forgot what that's like. I got over that phase a long time ago.]
Guan Zhiyi: [You at least understand the shy feeling of having just gotten together, right?]
Hua Hongxi: [This brother has never been shy when dating.]
Guan Zhiyi: […]
Fine, then.
Half an hour later, the supposedly never-shy-in-relationships young master Hua arrived. When he came through the door, Qi Chengyan and Guan Zhiyi were still eating.
“Ge! Zhiyi~” Hua Hongxi walked over to Guan Zhiyi with a beaming smile, then, under the silent gaze of the two, held out what he was carrying a little higher.
“For you.”
It was a massive bouquet of roses, so large it nearly hid his entire face.
And the roses had apparently been sprayed with something on too. The scent was overwhelmingly strong…
Qi Chengyan raised a hand to cover his nose and frowned.
Guan Zhiyi, meanwhile, looked somewhat stiff. “…F-for me?”
Hua Hongxi nodded earnestly. “Didn't you say you liked roses? So I bought you a bouquet.”
She'd never said anything of the sort!
But…after two seconds of pause, she still professionally played along, putting on a bashful-but-delighted smile. “Thank you.”
Hua Hongxi: “You're welcome~ Flowers for a beauty, only fitting~"
“…”
Qi Chengyan watched his cousin's greasy performance with a rising discomfort. Sure, his cousin might have been the one actually related to him by blood, but somehow he had the strange feeling that his own precious cabbage had been devoured by a pig.
Not a pleasant feeling.
But he said nothing. He merely watched.
Maybe… this was what young people were into these days?
Guan Zhiyi took the flowers and set them beside her chair. Once she'd settled them, she glanced at Qi Chengyan across from her. He was leaning back in his chair, his expression calm and unreadable.
“Ge, how come you two are eating together today? What a coincidence. I was actually thinking of taking Zhiyi to a movie later.” Hua Hongxi sat down beside Guan Zhiyi.
Qi Chengyan looked at him and warned, “If you're going somewhere crowded, be careful."
Hua Hongxi: “I know, I know. I'll definitely take good care of Zhiyi.”
“Mm.”
Qi Chengyan surprisingly didn't seem inclined to lecture him further. Hua Hongxi breathed a sigh of relief and started eating. Naturally, while he ate, he didn't forget to demonstrate his affection for Guan Zhiyi in front of Qi Chengyan.
“Zhiyi, here, have this.”
Guan Zhiyi looked at the food Hua Hongxi had placed in front of her and dutifully played along. “Mm…”
“Have some of this too. You actors shouldn't be so obsessed with staying thin. Eat more.”
“I've already eaten quite a lot.”
“Eat a little more. Oh, right, you like desserts, don't you? Should we order another one?”
Guan Zhiyi quickly shook her head. “No, I'm really full.”
“All right, then.” Hua Hongxi smiled brightly at her, and after saying that, he reached out and rubbed her head.
Guan Zhiyi froze for a moment. As Hua Hongxi withdrew his hand with exaggerated gentleness, she instinctively glanced toward Qi Chengyan. He had seen the gesture too, but his gaze merely flickered for the briefest moment before sliding away. His expression looked as though he was politely choosing not to watch the intimacy between a young couple, or perhaps simply couldn't bear watching these kids flaunt their affection right in front of him.
But beyond that, she couldn't read anything else.
For some reason, Guan Zhiyi suddenly felt strangely hollow inside. She didn't even react when Hua Hongxi nudged her a few times.
“Zhiyi.”
“Huh?”
“What are you thinking about? You're so spaced out.” Hua Hongxi kept shooting her meaningful looks.
Guan Zhiyi came back to herself, gathered her thoughts, and smiled at him. “Nothing. I was just thinking about what movies are good lately.”
“Oh, that? I'll find some. You can pick.”
“Okay.”
After Hua Hongxi arrived, he was the one doing most of the talking. Guan Zhiyi occasionally rewarded him with a "oh my boyfriend said something so interesting" expression, and spent the rest of the time lost in her own thoughts.
Half an hour later, the three of them finished eating and prepared to leave.
“Ge, where are you going now? Why don't you come see a movie with us?” Hua Hongxi said.
Qi Chengyan gave him an impatient look. “Watch a movie with you two? Are you crazy?”
Hua Hongxi: “Oh, don't be shy. We're all family here. Zhiyi and I don't mind.”
Qi Chengyan: “Forget it. I have things to do. Go have fun yourselves.”
“Oh. All right, then.”
Qi Chengyan stood, put on his jacket, then turned back to Guan Zhiyi. "You leave tomorrow. Stay safe."
Guan Zhiyi nodded.
Qi Chengyan: “Call me if anything comes up.”
“Okay…”
“Then I'll get going.”
After saying that, Qi Chengyan left the private room. Guan Zhiyi watched him go, thinking about how she wouldn't be seeing him for a long time after this, and felt a weight settling in her chest.
“Ge is really good to you. Better than he is to me,” Hua Hongxi remarked.
Guan Zhiyi said nothing.
Hua Hongxi continued, “Hey, what was my cousin like as a kid? I've lived abroad my whole life, and I only really got to know him after he went overseas. Barely saw him when we were kids.”
“When he was a kid?”
“Yeah. You grew up with him. You must know."
Guan Zhiyi thought for a moment, her thoughts drifting far into the past. “He was great as a kid. Good grades, good-looking, lots of people at school liked him. Um…his personality was good too. Very gentle.”
“Gentle?” Hua Hongxi's eyes widened. “He can be gentle? That's crazy.”
Guan Zhiyi shot him a glance. “Why couldn't he? He always been gentle, okay?”
"I've never seen any gentleness from him…"
"That's because you were too much of a handful. He had to be strict with you."
Hua Hongxi went, “Oh.” Then he said, “Well, I'm pretty jealous of you, honestly. I heard you have three older brothers growing up? And then there's my cousin, who's basically like a brother to you… you were basically spoiled rotten by four big brothers as a kid! Wow, that must've been amazing."
Actually, she hadn't been that close with her two cousins from her uncle's side growing up, and her actual older brother Guan Yuanbai had been quite strict with her from childhood. If they were talking about being spoiled, strictly speaking, Qi Chengyan was the only one who had truly doted on her.
Guan Zhiyi: “It was all right.”
“Don't be modest.” Hua Hongxi scrolled through movie listings on his phone. "Hey Zhiyi, what movie should we watch?"
Guan Zhiyi blinked in surprise. “We're really going?”
“Hm? Were we not?”
“Ge already left. We don't have to pretend anymore.”
Hua Hongxi thought about it and realized she was right. “But then where should we go?"
“How about…we just go home separately?”
“Wow, you really, really don't want to spend any time with me, huh.” Hua Hongxi pretended to be offended. "If that's how it is, I'll go find another girl to watch a movie with!"
“Suit yourself. Go ahead.”
Hua Hongxi's confidence took a thorough beating. “Fine, fine. But I'm driving you home first. If my brother finds out I didn't, I'll get another earful.”
Guan Zhiyi was equally straightforward. “Okay. Let's go.”
**
On the day filming for Get Lost, Fat! officially began, Liu Yun took Guan Zhiyi to the place where the cast would be living. It was an ancient town on the outskirts of the capital, with exceptionally beautiful scenery.
On the way there, Guan Zhiyi browsed through the news about the variety show.
The show had been officially announced as soon as the celebrity lineup was confirmed. With a major star like Xiao Ran onboard, the show was already blowing up before filming even started. Normally, that would have been a good thing for Guan Zhiyi too, but as she kept scrolling, she noticed a wave of hate directed at her.
Wait… why were they coming for her? What had she done now?
Speechless, Guan Zhiyi kept scrolling through the gossip, and after a while, she finally figured out what was going on.
It turned out that the cast of The Imperial Court had been leaked, and all sorts of rumors were already flying around.
In The Imperial Court, Xiao Ran played a young general, while Guan Zhiyi played Princess Zhaoyang. The two were a pair of star-crossed lovers. And by coincidence, they were also going to be filming this variety show together before production even started.
So some marketing accounts had begun speculating that their decision to appear on the same variety show was obviously meant to build their chemistry for The Imperial Court. After all, The Imperial Court was a major IP. If the two of them were marketed as a CP, the resulting buzz would be enormous.
But netizens scoffed at the idea:
[Our Ran-ge isn't interested. Why don't you all go follow Ran-ge's Qing Tan, premieres May 3?]
[What CP? Who's Guan Zhiyi? Some random nobody? Never heard of her.]
[She's playing the princess in The Imperial Court? My precious white-moonlight sweetheart? She's going to ruin her!!!]
[Xiao Ran is my husband!]
[Fuck, if Guan Zhiyi dares cling to my brother on the variety show, I'm pulling out the knife.]
[CP is definitely happening. No question about it. Just wait for the "interactions.”]
…
"Who's doing CP? Who wants to cling to him?” After scrolling through the comments, Guan Zhiyi was practically tearing her hair out. “We signed for the variety show before The Imperial Court! How could there possibly have been some ulterior motive!”
Liu Yun: “But if you two can be successfully marketed as a couple, that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.”
Guan Zhiyi stared at her expressionlessly. “Yun-jie, calm down.”
“Other actresses would kill for a CP with Xiao Ran. You know how much exposure you'd get with his current popularity?"
Of course she knew. That was precisely why she was breaking out in a cold sweat.
"But I also know how badly I'd get dragged."
"So what if you get hate? It's more tragic when no one even cares enough to hate on you."
Guan Zhiyi drew a quiet breath. “I don't need this blessing…”
Liu Yun laughed twice. “Don't write it off yet. Whether this CP can even work depends on the chemistry between you two. It has to be marketable first.”
True enough.
Guan Zhiyi put down her phone, making a firm mental note: she needed to steer clear. Absolutely. She couldn't give the editing team any material to work with!
The house arranged for the cast of Get Lost, Fat! was a large wooden townhouse, filled with old-world charm and atmosphere.
As she approached the entrance, a staff member clipped a microphone onto Guan Zhiyi, and the cameraman started following her.
Guan Zhiyi pulled her suitcase and began walking inside.
She'd arrived relatively late. By the time she got there, the other five were already inside the villa.
Two guys and three girls. The guys were Xiao Ran, the huge rising star, and Hou Lu, a crosstalk comedian in his thirties, chubby and quick with his tongue. Next to Hou Lu was Huang Xiao, a female comedy actress, also a bit curvy.
The two remaining girls were Lin Jia'er and Yang Ziruo, both actresses. Yang Ziruo had a literary-sounding, but she herself had the build of a fitness enthusiast, with tanned skin and a little muscle to her figure. Lin Jia'er was slim, but perhaps a little too slim. She looked excellent on screen, but in person, she appeared almost gaunt.
After Zhiyi walked in and greeted everyone with some awkwardness, Get Lost, Fat! officially began recording.
Since the show centered on healthy living, everyone first had their weight measured and made public. For the next month, each cast member would be living here, following the prescribed exercise and diet nutrition, and working toward the body fat percentage target the show had set for each of them.
Guan Zhiyi wasn't tall. Baidu Baike listed her as 165 centimeters, but she was actually 163. Her height being made public was no big deal, but the number on the scale gave her a genuine shock. With no filming recently, she hadn't deliberately controlled her weight, and somehow she'd shot up to ninety-three pounds!
For an ordinary person, that weight at this height was perfectly normal. But for a celebrity actress? It was a disaster!
After stepping off the scale, Guan Zhiyi felt almost dizzy. Suddenly, she was grateful Liu Yun had landed her this variety show. With cameras watching her, she would have much more motivation to lose weight…
---
Author's Note:
I specifically went and checked, and most celebrities under 165 cm weigh somewhere in the eighties range. (so, Xiao Wu, you're way too fat!!!)
---
Comments
Post a Comment