Chapter 67

Chapter 67

Chi Tuo found out about how poorly An Ye's shoot went today through the small group chat for the studio Qi Wei had created. He had back-to-back meetings all day and hadn’t checked his phone once. By the time he met with his last client at around 10 p.m., the group chat was already flooded with messages.

Ma Lantou: [This is the 30th take. I think Director Yang is about to hit someone.]

Ma Lantou: [Video 50]

Ma Lantou: [New record. This is the 50th take.]

Qi Wei: [......I honestly can’t tell the difference between this video and the ones before……]

Ma Lantou: [I can’t either! But Sister An and Director Yang are literally making a spreadsheet to run permutations. They're even discussing whether to start with the left foot or the right……]

Qi Wei: [……Still not passed yet?]

Ma Lantou: [Assistant Director Qian came over. Seems like they’re going to continue tomorrow.]

Qi Wei: [Make sure to give Teacher An a foot soak with that herbal decoction later. Those cloth shoes of hers must be worn through by now—it's all gravel road.]

Ma Lantou: [Sister An is still running.]

Ma Lantou: [Video 142]

Qi Wei: [Yang Zhengyi’s really doing detention now? Your set’s closed today, right? Any reporters around? Send me some shots of the surroundings.]

Ma Lantou: [Video]

Ma Lantou: [Sister An insisted on running. The green screen’s already been taken down. Everyone else has clocked out.]

Qi Wei: [She’s literally acting with her life on the line……]

Qi Wei: [What exactly are they trying to capture in this scene?]

Ma Lantou: [No idea. It seems like none of them really know, so Sister An is experimenting.]

Ma Lantou: [It’s been over an hour. The set supervisor came by to ask if they were wrapping up. Should be ending soon.]

Ma Lantou: [Wrap.jpg]

Qi Wei: [@Xiao E, the PR from City of the Rising Sun asked me if they can include this footage in the behind-the-scenes reel. What do you think?]

Xiao E: [Don’t include it. It’s embarrassing.]

Qi Wei: [OK OK]

An Ye had kept running for another two hours after the whole crew had wrapped. She asked Lan Yifang to record every take and send them to Yang Zhengyi for review.

Chi Tuo watched every single video. After a long hesitation, he restrained himself from calling An Ye.

She was probably exhausted. After Lan Yifang had sent that final "wrap" message, there had been no more activity in the chat. Based on Chi Tuo’s experience, the two of them were probably soaking their feet in the trailer by now.

Finally, a bit of rest.

Chi Tuo locked his phone screen. To keep himself from giving in, he threw the phone into Lao Bai’s cat bed.

Lao Bai loved electronics. Ever since he’d been brought home, all of Chi Tuo’s remote controls regularly disappeared into the cat bed. As soon as Chi Tuo tossed the phone over, Lao Bai quickly pawed it twice, tucked it under his belly, and started “incubating” it.

Chi Tuo took off his suit jacket and tie, then headed into the bathroom.When he bought this apartment, it was already fully furnished. He hadn’t changed a thing—except for the master bedroom’s bathroom, which he had completely torn out and redone. It was a dull black, slightly expanded in size, with a black bathtub and a small LCD TV installed.

The bathroom was Chi Tuo’s psychological safe zone. On days when the pressure was inescapable, hiding in the bathroom and letting the hot water envelop him was the only real way he could release stress.

He could totally understand why people with a lack of security might choose to sleep in a bathtub. He sometimes had that impulse himself. The only reason he hadn’t actually done it was because of his insomnia.

He didn’t know whether it was returning to Wangcheng or the recent emotional turbulence, but his sleep quality had been erratic—either he slept like the dead for several hours, or he couldn’t close his eyes for even a minute.

He felt that was even worse than before, when he was half-dead every day but could still manage two or three hours of sleep.

This kind of inconsistency—when things were good, he feared they’d turn bad; when things were bad, he missed the good—left him even more unsettled.

So recently, his mood had been irritable, and the way he handled things had started to become abnormal.

He took off his dress shirt.

Turning his back to the mirror, he glanced at his own back.

There was a burn scar about the size of a fist on his back, from one of Zhang Rou’s many suicide attempts—she had set a fire, and he’d rushed in to save her, ending up with the burn. Now, the burn scar was covered in a deep bruise, clearly marked in the shape of a stick.

Yan Wan had to be dealt with. But the things he was involved in were connected to the internal power struggle over shares at Huanzhou. Since Lian Yi hadn't successfully taken over yet, she still wanted to protect him. Qi Wei’s repeated PR efforts had already destroyed Yan Wan’s future. If they didn’t throw him behind bars, An Ye would be in danger.

Normally, by Chi Tuo’s standards, when evidence was solid and all that remained was a matter of political maneuvering, there was no need to stir the pot. Once An Ye finalized her termination and Huanzhou’s financial statements came out, the internal struggle would reach a conclusion. Whichever faction came out on top, the first thing they’d do would be to eliminate Yan Wan, who knew everything and had already been dismissed.

But Chi Tuo hadn’t slept the night before. In a fit of irritability, he couldn’t resist adding fuel to the fire.

That afternoon, he had gone to Huanzhou to discuss the financial settlement—just a routine meeting. As with every previous time, Yan Wan was lurking by the parking lot entrance, trying to corner him.

Chi Tuo knew Yan Wan had been trying to “talk” with him for a while, though about what exactly, he didn’t know. From what he understood, Wang Shanshan was still afraid of causing trouble. Ever since she had clearly realized from her talk with Chi Tuo that Yan Wan had committed a crime, she hadn’t dared to take his calls.

Chi Tuo had been worried Yan Wan might try something, so he’d had someone tail Wang Shanshan these past few days. That’s how he knew Yan Wan had gone to Wangcheng twice, only to be turned away at the door both times.

Under normal circumstances, with the matter already almost fully negotiated, there was no need for him to get out of the car and talk to a dog in the water like Yan Wan.

But this wasn’t a normal situation. His damned insomnia, combined with the anger brought on by revisiting memories of the past through Wang Shanshan, made him decide to personally give Yan Wan a final push.

So he got out of the car.

With just a few words, he completely enraged Yan Wan, then deliberately exposed his back right in front of the security cameras, to someone who was clearly already emotionally unhinged.

And then, he got clubbed.

Not long after, the top-tier agent Yan Wan made it into the evening news for assaulting a lawyer in a fit of revenge.

Chi Tuo called the police, had his injuries documented, and gave a very detailed statement about the reasons behind the attack. He refused any attempts at mediation. Yan Wan was detained.

Huanzhou might still try to protect a loyal dog, but they wouldn’t protect a rabid one.

Chi Tuo saved the salary of the people he’d hired to monitor Wang Shanshan, and in exchange got a 42-centimeter-long minor injury.

He bared his teeth at the bruise in the mirror.

Still worth it.

It’s just that his left hand couldn’t handle any major movements these days, and even his gait gave away that something was wrong. He didn’t dare show up on set.

He’d have to hold out for two more days.

Anyway, An Ye was in seclusion. She didn’t even touch her phone except after wrapping up for the day. According to Lan Yifang, when An Ye was in seclusion, she never went online or read the news.Chi Tuo moved his left shoulder in front of the mirror again and couldn’t help clicking his tongue.

He really wasn’t thinking straight. He had underestimated Yan Wan far too much. He hadn’t expected the man to actually go crazy and charge at him trying to smash the back of his head. Fortunately, even though he was exhausted, his reflexes were still intact. If that blow had actually landed on the back of his head with full force, it would’ve become a full-blown criminal case in the news.

Chi Tuo lingered in the bathroom for a long time.

His left hand was already inconvenient to use, and the hot bath had made him a bit dizzy. When he came out, he barely dried off, just wrapped himself in a towel and walked out.

He wanted to take advantage of his current full-body fatigue to collapse into bed and see if he could finally fall asleep.

When he opened the bathroom door, he caught sight of the living room’s main light on through the cracked bedroom door.

Chi Tuo’s hand paused.

He thought for a moment about whether he had turned on the main light when he came in. Usually, that was unlikely. The switch for the main light was designed awkwardly—you had to walk all the way to the floor-to-ceiling window to turn it on. He was too lazy for that. Normally, he just flipped on the entryway lights and called it a day.

There was a baseball bat in the nightstand drawer. Chi Tuo silently walked over, grabbed the bat, and stood behind the bedroom door.

There were soft footsteps outside.

Chi Tuo frowned.

If a stranger had come in, there was no way Lao Bai would’ve made no noise...

Unless that noise had already been dealt with.

His palms were starting to sweat. His mind short-circuited a bit, and he didn’t stop to wonder why a thief would turn on the glaring living room light. As the footsteps drew closer, just before the person entered the room, he suddenly reached out, pressed down on their shoulder, hooked the bat against their neck, and pinned them to the wall.

And then—

“An Jiujiu?!” Chi Tuo immediately let go, his voice cracking in shock.

He had struck hard at first. The rest of the movements had followed on instinct. Even though he’d realized halfway through that the shoulder under his hand felt far too delicate and had tried to ease up, the bat had still definitely pressed against her neck.

An Ye clutched her neck, eyes wide, coughing hard.

Chi Tuo dashed into the living room to pour her a glass of water, then rushed back and moved her hand aside. “Let me see your neck.”

“Did I hurt your shoulder?”

“Where did I hit you?”

He rattled off one question after another.

An Ye waved her hands, shook her head, coughing until her eyes teared up, finally managing to force out a raspy sentence: “Did you… seriously spend time abroad getting hardened or something?”

“Huh?” Chi Tuo’s soul had practically left his body. His brain was stuck on how hard he’d just hit her.

“I…” An Ye finally caught her breath a little, but then she froze at the sight of Chi Tuo standing in front of her, hair still dripping wet.

There were too many urgent questions at once, and she didn’t know where to start.

“Did your shoulder get hurt?” Chi Tuo didn’t dare press her shoulder, only lightly placed his hand there to test it and asked, “Does this hurt?”

“…” An Ye felt like that was no longer the main issue.

She thought for a moment and picked one key point: “That burn scar on your back—was that from Yan Wan today too?”

The scar looked pretty brutal.Chi Tuo: “…Huh? No.”

“Just that one hit?” An Ye asked again.

Chi Tuo slowly came back to his senses, vaguely feeling something wasn’t quite right, but his focus had already been pulled elsewhere. “You came over because of that? Weren’t you in seclusion and off the internet? It’s so late—aren’t you filming tomorrow?”

“Today’s shoot didn’t go well. Director Yang wants to revise the script, so I don’t have scenes tomorrow.” Out of all his questions, An Ye only answered one.

“Where did you get that baseball bat?” An Ye picked another key point.

“I…” Chi Tuo was still holding that baseball bat. He’d been clutching it when he ran to the living room to pour her water, when he checked her shoulder, and even now while facing her—he hadn’t let go of it once. Realizing that, he directly tossed it into the corner with a loud clang.

“Are there a lot of people trying to hurt you?” An Ye followed up with another question.

“…No.” Chi Tuo scratched his head. “Just a habit. Back when I was in Canada, sometimes the cases involved too much money, and I was afraid something would happen, so I got used to hiding a few weapons in the bedroom for self-defense.”

An Ye nodded. “Oh.”

Chi Tuo looked at his fingers.

His mind finally, very slowly, registered something: his fingers were wet.

Because he had just come out of the bathroom.

“Mhm, you’re not wearing any clothes.” An Ye was quite pleased he had finally realized it. “And when you ran out to get me water just now, your towel fell off.”

Stark. Naked.

He had been strutting around in front of her like that for a full five minutes.

Chi Tuo: “…”

He stiffened, slowly stepping backward.

He wanted to cover the front, wanted to turn around—but in that moment of mental chaos, his brain wasn’t telling him whether it was better to cover the front or the back.

…

Why was he even thinking of covering the back.

Where the hell was his towel?!

“If I start laughing out loud now, are you going to cut ties with me?” An Ye’s face was red from holding back her laughter.

Things had been so chaotic earlier that she hadn’t actually seen much.

But now she could see everything clearly…

“No…” Chi Tuo finally shuffled back into the bathroom, his voice as stiff as a corpse reanimating, then added, “I’ll make you take responsibility…”

Just before he closed the bathroom door, he caught a glimpse of An Ye’s stunned expression after hearing what he’d said.

Chi Tuo lowered his eyes.

Closed the door.

And started contemplating whether to smother himself, poison himself mute, or just shove himself headfirst into the toilet and flush.

So basically…What exactly did he do, what did he say…