Chapter 40

Chapter 40

The trending topic was removed by Yan Wan. It was just a random photo taken by a passerby, without any forewarning or hot lead to keep it going. The three people in the photo weren't particularly intimate, and after some wild speculation, the heat died down quickly. Yan Wan withdrew the trending topic without much effort.

But this commotion had meant that Qing Ze's trending money was wasted. In the later part, except for Qing Ze's fan club, no one was really focusing on him. The idea of promoting Qing Ze's subsequent activities through the buzz of this scandal was no longer possible.

"However, Qing Ze didn't lose out this time," Qi Wei said on the phone, clicking her tongue. "He cried in front of Yan Wan, and Yan Wan offered him a travel variety show. That resource was originally meant for the new girl at Huan Zhou Entertainment, but it was snatched by Qing Ze."

An Ye took a slow bite of a scallop before speaking, "He's always like this. Yan Wan likes him that way."

Qi Wei coldly sneered, "Control freak."

An Ye smiled.

Yan Wan was a control freak, unable to accept his artists saying no. In the eight years that Yan Wan had managed An Ye, every time An Ye said no, the outcome was never pretty.

But Qing Ze was different.

Qing Ze knew when to assess the situation, he was flexible and adaptable. When he was on top, he could switch assistants four times in a single night, and when he was in a bad position, he would cry and show weakness in front of Yan Wan.

The relationship between him and Yan Wan, using each other, was far more blatant than hers with Yan Wan.

So, An Ye had thought about having Qing Ze as her potential guardian, because this person wouldn't disappear from the entertainment industry. As long as she stayed in her current position, Qing Ze wouldn't abandon her, at least not let her starve.

Just like Qing Ze wouldn't hand over her crazy pictures to Yan Wan, as long as she could still be of use, Qing Ze would stand by her side. But once he did, he would certainly want something in return.

Unlike some people, whose fan clubs had made it to mid-level management, after receiving a little benefit, they immediately handed it all over to the law firm.

Tsk.

An Ye finished the second scallop.

Shi Tuo made a sauce with grapefruit vinegar, chili, garlic, and mustard. Even when she chewed slowly, the scallop seemed to vanish as soon as it entered her mouth.

There were only three, and she had already eaten two, but the more she ate, the hungrier she became.

Qi Wei was still studying the trending topic. She had her own small team, and even at 10 p.m., she was so busy that she couldn't sit still. After giving An Ye a detailed briefing, she quickly hung up the phone.

Every ineffective exposure actually leaves a trace. Yan Wan couldn’t just solve this with a few scoldings. He would treat this exposure as a cumulative impression, saving it for the final blow.

Yan Wan's main goal was to make An Ye obedient, to show her how crazy she could get when immersed in her roles. He wanted her to be like Qing Ze, obedient and knowing when to show weakness.

Qing Ze was a fast-moving product, while An Ye was a luxury item.

That was the positioning Yan Wan had for both of them. He wanted these two valuable commodities to stay in their assigned positions without looking elsewhere.

A product couldn't have its own thoughts.

An Ye was actually very cooperative. As long as she was given good scripts, she didn’t mind the positioning Yan Wan gave her.

But Yan Wan said that with the global economic downturn, luxury goods weren’t selling well, and her value would soon drop, so he wanted to turn her into a fast-moving product.

How many years could a 28-year-old actress with only acting skills and no other gossip or traffic be consumed for? How many years could a 28-year-old best actress, who was so obsessed with acting that she became spiritually disoriented, be consumed for?

Yan Wan had clear numbers for all these prices.

He didn’t hide it, and An Ye could even imagine that after everything was set in stone, Yan Wan would lay out the numbers in front of her, telling her that the earnings from the ten years of films she had acted in were less than the profits from selling herself out for five years.

The differences in values were not worth arguing about.This is also why An Ye rarely argues with Yan Wan.

But the question Shi Tuo asked her earlier, "Yan Wan scolded you?" still made An Ye feel a slight sense of grievance, for some inexplicable reason.

If this were a dream, she might have answered with, "Yeah, Yan Wan always scolds me as if I’m worthless," even though she also feels like she’s worth nothing.

But this is not a dream.

An Ye ate the last scallop, then, after swallowing, used the small fork that hadn’t been used yet to poke Shi Tuo's arm.

Shi Tuo was eating seafood noodles. While An Ye was on the phone, he had been working on his laptop, eating a bite of noodles and typing a few lines of text, as comfortable as if he were at home.

So An Ye poked him hard.

Shi Tuo let out a hiss, nearly spilling the entire bowl of noodles onto his laptop. He hastily closed the laptop, looking at the four small indentations on his arm from the poke, and furrowed his brows at An Ye.

An Ye was casually eating crushed chili from the dipping sauce with chopsticks, as if she wasn’t the one who had poked him with a fork, but instead, it was the white cat on the floor.

Shi Tuo: "..."

Twice now. Earlier this morning, when he was eating bread and drinking milk, she had attacked him with the same kind of strange method. Now, as he was eating noodles, she poked him with a fork.

Shi Tuo: "...I'll get you a bowl..."

But he’d already eaten from this bowl, so he changed his mind: "There are some leftover ingredients in the kitchen. Wait a bit, and I’ll make you another bowl of noodles."

He was so hungry that it was almost unbearable.

"No need, I’m full," An Ye put down her chopsticks. "I can’t have noodles this month, these refined carbs."

Shi Tuo looked at her.

She stood up and started clearing the dishes, really making it seem like she didn’t intend to eat anymore.

So why did she suddenly poke him?

Shi Tuo grabbed his own chopsticks and lightly poked An Ye’s arm with the metal tip. He applied some force, and she felt a slight sting from the metal on her skin.

An Ye glared at him.

"It’s not a dream," Shi Tuo told her naturally, "Leave the stuff, I’ll clean up after I’m done eating."

An Ye continued to glare at him.

Shi Tuo sighed and put down his chopsticks.

"There are six more scallops in the steamer," he said. "The scallops bought today aren’t big. Nine scallops weigh about 100 grams, with less than 80 calories. Even with the dipping sauce, it wouldn’t exceed 150 calories. Didn’t your nutritionist tell you the minimum calorie intake per meal?"

"Go eat some more," he picked up his chopsticks and knocked on her bowl.

He had been calculating what she ate today: half a bottle of milk for breakfast, lunch after meeting Qing Ze, when he suggested they eat. Lan Yifang had brought out a fat-loss meal, which was just some vegetables mixed with a little cheese. For dinner, she had three scallops.

"I think your mental strength is impressive. If I ate that little, I’d have lost my mind by now." He said, "Insufficient food intake will mess with your brain."

An Ye: "..."

Though she felt that her occasional confusion between dreams and reality had nothing to do with eating less, she still felt somewhat subdued by Shi Tuo’s calm, righteous attitude. She stood up, went to the kitchen to bring out the remaining six scallops, sat back down on the chair, and dragged the chair with a loud scrape.

Actually, she wanted noodles.So she handed the empty scallop shell towards Shi Tuo: "Give me two noodles."

She had eaten everything anyway.

Shi Tuo didn’t bother arguing about whether this was the same bowl of noodles he had eaten earlier. He picked out three long noodles: "Can't you take a bowl? At least you could drink some soup."

"Tomorrow's schedule. If it's salty, I'll get bloated," An Ye carefully took the noodles, ate one bite, and raised an eyebrow. "Did you go to Singapore to study cooking and nutrition?"

She had wanted to ask before. The fat-loss meal he made her while she was asleep was clearly not just taken from the fridge. And when he calculated the calories of the scallops so effortlessly, it surprised her. The bowl of seafood noodles, which looked oily and spicy, turned out to taste quite refreshing.

She was glad she wasn’t taking on any roles right now. It meant he could make her another bowl.

It was really delicious.

"Mm." Shi Tuo didn’t deny it. "My mom wasn’t feeling well before, so I learned a bit. And when you return to the country, you’ll benefit from it."

The dignity of a top student.

An Ye didn’t ask any more questions.

The past ten years, many things, just in a few words, she could feel the struggles—his, hers.

Now, as she ate this delicious food, she was so comfortable that she almost doubted if she was in a dream, so she didn’t want to ask anything that might ruin the atmosphere.

"It’s snowing." After finishing and cleaning up, An Ye curled up on the soft cushion between the sofa and coffee table, flipping through the contract Shi Tuo had given her. When she looked up, she happened to see the snowflakes falling densely outside the floor-to-ceiling window.

"It’s been snowing for a while," Shi Tuo didn’t even lift his head.

Last week, the forecast had predicted a big drop in temperature and possibly widespread snow. But in Baigang City, there were ten snow warnings every year, and nine times out of ten, it was sleet. It was rare to see snowflakes falling like this.

Things are more precious when they are rare.

Snow in the south made people happier than snow in the north.

An Ye, a southerner, even turned Lao Bai's cat head towards the floor-to-ceiling window, forcing it to look at the snow for a while.

Lao Bai found it annoying, flicked its tail twice, slapped An Ye, and walked away.

An Ye lowered her head and continued to read the contract Shi Tuo had given her. Although Shi Tuo said this was just the first draft, with the framework in place, many details still needed to be discussed, An Ye, as an outsider, could tell that most of the things she was concerned about were already written down in detail.

This was a long-term legal advisory contract with her personally. The responsibilities and fees of Party B were clear, and the price was quite favorable.

An Ye was no longer a newcomer star. She understood market prices very well.

"Can you make money this way?" An Ye poked Shi Tuo's slippers with her foot.

It was a subconscious action. She had done this too many times while doing homework together in the past. It was only when her toes were already touching Shi Tuo’s slippers that she realized—after ten years, should she still be doing this?

But it was done.

So, she kicked Shi Tuo’s slippers away with her toes.

"With the penalty for breaking the contract and the potential termination fee for endorsements due to revealing your health condition..." Shi Tuo’s eyes shifted from the laptop to look at her. "I know your financial situation. After breaking the contract, you’ll need quite a bit of money to start your own studio. If I don’t give you a discount now, I’m afraid you won’t come to our law firm next year."

An Ye rubbed her nose, recalling how, on the first day after their reunion, she had let Lan Yifang give Shi Tuo her entire asset list.

She had acted impulsively.It’s been ten years, yet he’s still so annoying.

An Ye stretched her leg and kicked his other slipper away.

“But I have money.” Shi Tuo started looking at his laptop again. “If you start a studio and run out of money, you can take it from me.”

…

An Ye looked up, momentarily forgetting to refuse, and asked out of curiosity, “How much?”

Shi Tuo looked at her: “The annual salary expenses for a ten-person studio, roughly.”

“…Lawyers make that much money?” Didn’t he just graduate less than three years ago?

“I made money in my previous industry, and I’ve been saving up too.” Shi Tuo finished sending an email and closed his laptop. “But once the contract is terminated, you won’t be able to avoid the death schedule for the short term. If you start a studio, you’ll have to support yourself and your team.”

“Mm.” An Ye responded, flipped the contract to the last page, organized it, and handed it back to Shi Tuo. “I have no issues.”

This was probably the most obvious change in An Ye over the past ten years—she never used to have this much patience to read through each clause, especially legal documents. Normally, she would shout for Shi Tuo and then not care.

Ten years later, she carefully read every clause and then told him she had no issues.

“I have a problem.” Shi Tuo said, “A personal request. It doesn’t need to be added to the contract, but as a verbal agreement between me and you.”

An Ye looked at him.

“I’m back in the country now, and I won’t leave.” Shi Tuo said slowly. “I’ve signed with you as mutual intended guardians, and the notarization is done. We’ll sign this legal advisory contract later.”

“Mm?” An Ye looked at him.

Shi Tuo paused for a minute before continuing, “So, I hope… I can be your only exclusive… lawyer.”