Chapter 54

Chapter 54

It was her being called with sound, not a text message.

After knowing Yan Huai for so long, yesterday was the first time she had heard him send a voice message.

He didn’t usually use WeChat for social interaction. When chatting, his messages were extremely concise—if two characters could express something, he would never use three.

When that voice message came through, Yan Wei was in the dressing room at the set, removing her makeup.

The campus drama couldn’t compare to the investment of the show with Cheng Yan. Even the dressing room was much more rudimentary, and there was only one young makeup artist who barely met professional standards, only responsible for applying makeup and not for removing it.

When they finished filming last night’s scene, it was already past ten.

Only Yan Wei and Feng Ning were left in the dressing room. Although she was still in a “cooling-off period” with Yan Huai, she hadn’t reached the point where she wouldn’t even look at his messages. Seeing there were no outsiders around, she didn’t even look for headphones and directly tapped on the voice message.

It was only two seconds. Before she played it, she thought there wouldn’t be anything special.

But after opening it, the moment that “wife” came out, Feng Ning, who was pouring makeup remover onto a cotton pad, shook her hand and almost spilled half the bottle.

Yan Wei: “……”

In her phone, the man’s voice was very low, mixed with faint signal static, like a subtle electric current that slipped through her ear canal and stirred a faint, numb itch.

Her hand also trembled, and she uncontrollably tapped it again.

Then that deep male voice sounded once more.

Yan Huai’s speaking speed wasn’t fast, his tone very low, the ending softened.

Only half a beat later did Yan Wei remember Feng Ning was still there, so she quickly turned off the screen and looked over at her.

Feng Ning gave her an ambiguous smile, with a “I get it” expression, and capped the bottle of makeup remover.

“……”

Yan Wei’s face remained calm, but inside she was already in complete chaos.

A man like Yan Huai—when he’s gentle, he really can kill someone.

He was clearly in a cooling-off period… why was he still trying to seduce her.

Yan Wei pursed her lips, her expression not great. Then, when Feng Ning turned away, she lit up her phone again and bookmarked that voice message.

Scrolling further up, all of it was messages Yan Huai had sent.

He didn’t have much free time, so there weren’t many messages in a day, but after a long period of accumulation, scrolling up revealed several pages.

Yan Wei felt these messages all needed to be saved.

Next time Yan Huai dared to treat her like that again, she would pull out these chat logs and throw them in his face!

Just thinking about it made her feel a lot more relieved.

But Yan Wei still didn’t reply to him.

At night when she went to bed, all she could hear in her ears were Yan Huai calling her “baby” and “wife.” Those voices looped over a dozen times, and she didn’t fall asleep until past one in the morning.

She had to catch an early flight the next day, and the lack of sleep resulted in a faint dark circle under her eyes.

Just before, while she was doing makeup in the backstage area, the makeup artist even added an extra layer of concealer under her eyes.

There were still more than ten minutes before filming started. The host pulled a chair over and sat beside her. It seemed because Yan Wei was here for the first time and they were worried she wouldn’t relax, so he found a new topic to chat with her.

“How late did you sleep last night?”

The host’s surname was Song, the flagship host of Banana TV. Everyone usually called him Brother Song.

Yan Wei lifted her eyes. “A little past one.”

Brother Song also turned serious and nodded. “Sleeping that late, were you memorizing the script?”

Yan Wei nodded.

Last night she really couldn’t fall asleep in the end, and she actually picked up the script and started memorizing lines.

In the middle of the night, because of Yan Huai’s “wife,” Yan Wei had, for once, worked hard in frustration.

Brother Song patted her shoulder. “Keep it up. You’ll definitely get better than you are now.”

Yan Wei’s eyes curved slightly as she smiled and thanked him.

The hosts went on stage to start recording before the guests, and after a few more words, Brother Song went up.

The background and lighting were already set. The four hosts above were giving the opening speech.

Yan Wei felt a bit nervous and quickly took several deep breaths while waiting to go on stage.

Although she had acted in dramas, filmed commercials, and even recorded a few episodes of Let’s Travel Together, this was her first time on a variety show like Saturday Meet.

Unlike Let’s Travel Together, where there were only a few guests, here there were thousands of audience members sitting below the stage, watching every one of her movements.

Yan Wei had just clenched her fingers tightly when the staff in front called them to go on stage.

The opening was a five-person group song. Yan Wei only had a few solo lines. After the performance ended, the audience burst into applause.

She heard the crowd below clearly and enthusiastically shouting names—mostly “Su Mu” and “Fu Chengyu.”

Hearing the names of these two men she instinctively found uncomfortable, she subconsciously raised her hand and touched her ear.

The host then began introducing everyone.

Perhaps to take care of the newcomer, the first person to introduce herself was Yan Wei.

Her self-introduction lasted only a few seconds, very understated and not attention-grabbing.

Brother Song was very talkative, and after following up on her introduction with a few jokes, he turned to the other female guest beside her.

Just as he moved away from her side, Yan Wei heard the system’s voice:

“Host, due to your recent good performance, the main system has made a slight adjustment to the rules.”

Yan Wei’s eyes lit up immediately. “So you’re not going to torture me anymore?”

“…N-no.”

The system was almost thrown off by her question, pausing for two seconds before continuing.

“From now on, even if a torture point cannot be eliminated, the host will no longer be forced to restart from a save point. However, each time the host is tortured, your luck value will decrease by one point. Conversely, if you eliminate a torture point, your luck value will increase by one point.”

“Luck value is an important factor affecting the host’s career path.”

“The main system says that in order to prevent the host from relaxing too much and becoming complacent, another goal has been added.”

“Before the age of twenty-five, the host must win the Golden Elephant Award for Best Actress, which means becoming an international Best Actress.”

Yan Wei: “……”

Since its establishment, in all these years, only one actress had won the Best Actress crown before the age of twenty-five.

And that was twenty years ago.

Yan Wei felt that the main system had simply changed the way it was making things difficult for her.

She asked, “What if I can’t get it?”

The system stuttered. “Th-then you’ll just have to re-reload the save and start over.”

As expected, this was nothing more than a delay to her restart.

Yan Wei asked again, “What’s my luck value right now?”

“One… one.”

Yan Wei: “……”

Turns out, the original owner was actually an unlucky ghost.

The system explained again, “Host might have forgotten, but this one point of luck value was converted from Yan Chen’s jealousy value reaching ten last time. The corresponding reward was the invitation to Let’s Travel Together.”

“But host, don’t misunderstand. The reward only gives you the opportunity. Whether the program team actually uses you or not still depends on the host herself!”

Yan Wei: “……”

System: “When the host wants to actively increase luck value, you can work harder at torturing Yan Chen!”

Yan Wei’s mouth twitched. She stopped paying attention to this overly naive system.

A few minutes later, the hosts on stage had already introduced the last person—

“Cheng Yu is twenty-three this year, right? Have you ever thought about when you’ll get a girlfriend?”

Fu Chengyu, standing far away from her, replied calmly, “I haven’t thought about it yet.”

The fans below immediately started teasing and making noise.

Yan Wei wasn’t deliberately looking over there, but her ears quietly perked up.

Most of the hosts’ questions followed a script, and she vaguely felt the program team would, for the sake of ratings and highlights, ask Fu Chengyu something about his first love.

That thought had just surfaced for less than half a minute when the female host there already asked it out loud:

“I heard Chengyu had a first love. Why did you get together with her back then?”

“She was good-looking, and also quite cute.”

Yan Wei: “……”

What a textbook ex-boyfriend answer.

The host was quite measured and knew what should and shouldn’t be asked. After this topic lifted the atmosphere, she quickly moved on.

The entire recording went relatively smoothly.

Yan Wei was a complete newcomer, and perhaps because of the previously widely discussed “backstage favoritism” incident, the staff on set were fairly considerate toward her.

The rehearsal and recording started at 3 p.m., and it wasn’t fully finished until after 8 p.m.

Yan Wei had a flight at midnight. After greeting the hosts, she didn’t even remove her makeup and hurried to the airport with Feng Ning.

Since it was a domestic flight, the plane took off after midnight and arrived in Tongcheng just before 2 a.m.

Yan Wei was dizzy from exhaustion. She had just stepped off the plane and hadn’t walked far when something even more dizzying came out of Feng Ning’s mouth—

“Sis Wei, have you seen today’s trending topics?”

Yan Wei hadn’t slept enough. At this time of night, she was already low on energy, and her voice was much weaker than usual.

“What trending topic?” she asked.

She was too lazy to even take out her phone to look.

Feng Ning read it word by word: “Fu Chengyu’s former first love girlfriend, broke up years ago and has already found a new lover.”

The title itself was simple, but once Fu Chengyu’s name was added, it instantly shot up in popularity.

Yan Wei’s eyelid twitched slightly as she frowned. “Why did it even make the trending list?”

“Let me check…”

Feng Ning opened the trending topic and looked at it for several minutes. In the end, she summarized it for her: “It’s just that one of Fu Chengyu’s friends posted a Weibo. He said a few things about his first love girlfriend.”

Seemingly noticing Yan Wei was interested in the topic, Feng Ning consciously read out that Weibo post:

“At first Chengyu didn’t let me talk about this, but after watching the rehearsal of Saturday Meet today, I felt like I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Everyone can just take it as me being drunk and talking nonsense—I’ll delete it tomorrow. Chengyu’s first love girlfriend, she chased him for a long time back then, and after they got together, she inexplicably accepted one million from Chengyu’s mother and broke up with him. A while ago, when Chengyu was filming a variety show in Dubai, I happened to be there too, so I went to see him and stayed for a bit.”

Feng Ning paused, swallowed to moisten her throat, and continued reading:

“And then that day I happened to run into his first love. The girl has actually gotten more and more beautiful. Chengyu told me she’s already found a new boyfriend.”

The post was quite long. Feng Ning got tired of reading and skipped a large portion of useless rambling, only reading the concluding summary:

“Some women nowadays really are like that—willing to give up love for money. I also saw that woman’s new boyfriend. He looked average, didn’t seem young either, but his clothes and demeanor looked like he had money… anyway, forget it, maybe it’s true love after all, and older men might take better care of people.”

Yan Wei: “……”

…Was he saying that Yan Huai looked average and was also old?

Yan Wei’s lips twitched. For a moment, she didn’t know how to react.

After a while, only after they left the airport, she finally remembered to ask Feng Ning, “Did Fu Chengyu respond?”

Feng Ning shook her head. “Maybe he’s already asleep or on a flight too. He probably hasn’t seen it yet.”

Yan Wei nodded and didn’t continue the topic.

The two of them walked to the roadside, still debating whether to take a taxi home or simply find a hotel nearby for the night, when a black car pulled up in front of them.

The headlights were on. Yan Wei squinted before barely recognizing the brand and license plate.

A Bentley—and the plate number was familiar too.

The car stopped in front of them. The window rolled down, and Xiao Wu, the driver, leaned his head out: “Miss Yan, I’ll take you two back.”

Yan Wei saw the man sitting in the passenger seat. His shirt cuffs were undone and rolled up slightly, revealing a very nicely shaped forearm.

She pressed her lips together, stood there for two seconds, then still opened the back door and got in.

Xiao Wu nodded toward the two girls in the back, then started the car. As he did, he turned to glance at the man in the passenger seat and reminded him, “Mr. Yan, please rest for a bit. You still have to catch a flight early in the morning.”

A morning flight—and what time was it now… Yan Wei glanced at her phone. Two a.m.

Her heart softened. She looked up, and just happened to meet Yan Huai’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

The man’s eyes were deep. After a few seconds of eye contact, she heard him ask, “Are you very tired?”