Chapter 95

AAAAAAA

"Even cleaners have shift breaks." Chao Yin looked at the young woman standing there staring at her shoes, too mortified to look up, and squeezed her hand gently. "When there's a conflict between colleagues, talk it through properly — don't let it get ugly. You're a professional security team brought in by Nangua Video. I trust your ability to handle this."

"You're absolutely right, Editor-in-chief Chao." The team leader laughed along, offered a few compliments, then turned on the player. "Get over here and apologize to Xiao Wang."

The player's face was iron-grey, but he didn't dare antagonize the team leader. "I'm sorry, Ms. Wang."

Every NPC in this instance was working against him.

Curly Hair knew perfectly well the apology was worthless. She didn't acknowledge it, and turned to murmur to Chao Yin. "Chao-ayi — I have something on tonight. That's why I didn't go out with Xiao Chao."

Chao Yin thought again of the man who'd been walking with Sheng-sheng, then turned to the team leader. "You've all been working hard."

"Not at all — it's what we're here for." Seeing that Chao Yin had no intention of making trouble for them, the team leader relaxed. He personally walked both women to the end of the path before turning back to his team.

"Team leader — I'm sorry. I caused trouble for the team." Facing the team leader's expression, the player took the initiative to apologize.

"You know what you did was causing the team problems?" The team leader's anger hadn't fully cooled. "Do you know who that was just now? That's the 时光 editor-in-chief. Half the major names in the industry count her as a close acquaintance. Wang Xiaojuan knows even the editor-in-chief — what kind of paparazzo would she be?"

The player had no answer. Could he explain to this NPC that most of the players who'd infiltrated this instance were assigned paparazzo roles by default?

Wang Xiaojuan had only been in the instance two or three days. How could she possibly be friends with the compound's big NPC boss's son?

Unless she'd used some kind of memory-altering tool on these NPCs — implanted memories that didn't exist?

If that meddling editor-in-chief hadn't appeared and disrupted everything, Wang Xiaojuan would already be dismissed by now.

The team leader was still visibly angry; defending himself would only make it worse. The player kept his head down and apologized again. "I'm sorry, team leader. I'll be more careful with my assessments going forward."

That reminder of his usefulness in catching paparazzi brought the team leader's temperature down noticeably. "Tonight some of the artists have livestream duties. There may be exterior shots of the compound. Everyone stay alert — do not let any paparazzi get photos of the artists."

"Yes, sir!"

The player lowered his head. Four days left until the instance ends. I can't rush.

*

The night view along Linhai's waterfront was stunning. Many tourists had come specifically for photos.

Chao Musheng had bought two pairs of sandals and made them both change into them. He looked down at their feet and laughed. "Is this your first time wearing sandals somewhere this crowded?"

The young man's feet were clean and pale, the nails neat and lustrous. Xu Chenzhu blinked. "Probably."

Sand pushed up underfoot; the unfamiliar texture made Chao Musheng wiggle his toes. "There's someone selling ice cream up ahead. I'll go get some."

"Handsome — are you here for the show too?" The ice cream vendor was cheerful and talkative. She opened the freezer and let Chao Musheng choose.

"There's a show tonight?" He selected plain flavor for the bodyguards, vanilla for himself and Xu Chenzhu. "What kind of show?"

"Drone performance — the waterfront is full of couples tonight."

She glanced at Xu Chenzhu, who had followed Chao Musheng over, and gave a smile that said I see everything, I have no objections. She bagged the selections and held them out. "Have a wonderful evening, you two."

"Thank you." Chao Musheng took the bag and paid. "Wishing you brisk business."

"Here — vanilla." He distributed everything: the two vanilla ones kept out, the rest passed to the bodyguards.

"The vendor said there's a drone performance later." He unwrapped his, smiling. "We have good timing."

The sea breeze lifted his hair, as happy as its owner.

Xu Chenzhu took the wrapper he'd discarded and passed it back to a bodyguard. "Why vanilla?"

"I had the smell of grass and wood in my head and just bought the first thing." He laughed at himself. "Forgot that vanilla and fresh grass are completely different scents."

Grass and wood...

A cheer went up through the crowd. The drones had launched.

A dense constellation of lights blinked into being, like stars shaken loose from the galaxy. Chao Musheng tilted his head back. "It's beautiful."

A group of teenagers came charging through the crowd toward them, shouting and shoving. He reached out and pulled Xu Chenzhu closer. "Watch out."

The vanilla sweetness of the ice cream mingled with the faint green-wood scent that always came from Xu Chenzhu. Chao Musheng let go of his arm. "If they ever make a grass-and-wood flavored ice cream, I'll have to try it."

The sweetness dissolved on Xu Chenzhu's tongue. His heart was hammering. He turned toward the young man beside him — and found him already looking back up at the sky.

Xu Chenzhu smiled quietly, drew his gaze back, and looked up with him.

The drone performance had fully launched, and as the Kunlun company logo took shape in the sky, Chao Musheng understood — this was an act put on by a drone performance team commissioned by Kunlun's Linhai branch.

He finished his ice cream in a few quick bites, stuck the stick between his teeth, photographed the display with his phone, and posted it to the president's office chat.

The president's office work group was dead quiet outside work hours unless there was an emergency task. The president's office chat group, however, talked about everything except work.

After Chao Musheng posted the drone photo, the replies came in a cheerful rush.

[Watching the branch company's drone anniversary show — Xiao Chao must be in a good mood.]

[Seeing the boss didn't blame you — we can finally relax.]

Blame him?

He noticed the message, saw that Xu Chenzhu was still watching the show, and quickly typed back.

[Dawn to Dusk: Relax. How could the boss possibly wrongly accuse someone as blameless as me.]

He came out of the chat and took a photo of Xu Chenzhu in profile, face tilted up to the sky.

"Zhaozhao?" Xu Chenzhu looked down at him.

Chao Musheng put away his phone. Above them, the drones had reshaped into the branch company's flagship product.

They watched the performance through to the end. As the drones descended toward the ground, Chao Musheng said with feeling: "That was genuinely beautiful."

"Yes." Xu Chenzhu looked at him. "Very beautiful."

"Shall we move on?" The ice cream stand Chao Musheng had bought from was now so mobbed he couldn't make out the vendor through the crowd. Good for her.

They didn't rush. They walked along the beach at an easy pace. There were people everywhere with bubble machines; Chao Musheng was ambushed by bubbles several times.

"Do you want to play with one?" Xu Chenzhu noticed him watching someone's machine and started to turn, assuming he wanted one.

"Mr. Xu — I don't actually want one." He stopped him. "I was trying to work out whose bubble landed on my face."

A couple ran past them, taking turns shooting bubbles at each other. Chao Musheng got a face full again.

"Fine." He wiped his face. "In honor of their obvious happiness — let's get out of range quickly."

Xu Chenzhu glanced at a bodyguard. A moment later, a bubble machine appeared: not only larger than the couple's, but light-up.

Chao Musheng took it. As they passed the couple, he pulled the trigger and released a long stream of bubbles at them — then turned away with studied nonchalance and drifted smoothly toward Xu Chenzhu.

Xu Chenzhu laughed.

"Shhh." Chao Musheng grabbed his wrist and ran.

"Hey — someone's attacking us!"

The bodyguards, left behind: "..."

Who are we. Why did we come out tonight.

Both of them had long legs and were quickly far ahead. Chao Musheng looked back — the couple hadn't caught up. He laughed with narrowed eyes. "Not easy to catch us, is it."

He looked down and noticed he was still holding Xu Chenzhu's wrist. He gave a quiet cough and let go. "Mr. Xu — have your accommodations for tonight been sorted?"

"I have a property in Linhai." Xu Chenzhu could still feel the warmth where Chao Musheng's hand had been. "I'll see you back first."

"Oh." Chao Musheng looked down. "I'd been thinking — if you were staying at a hotel, you might as well stay in the white building with me."

"You're the company's representative for this event. If I were staying there, I'd be overshadowing you." Xu Chenzhu put his hands behind his back; the other hand's fingers turned slowly over the inside of his own wrist. "I trust you to do well on your own."

Chao Musheng stopped for a moment. He hadn't expected Xu Chenzhu to have thought it through like that.

He had, genuinely, come to this event wanting to do something for his mother — to add to rather than borrow from her standing.

Was Xu Chenzhu worried his presence would take the spotlight from him?

*

Back inside the charity compound.

"Don't pay too much attention to what other people say." Chao Yin walked with Curly Hair, who had been looking at the ground with every step. "My first job after graduation wasn't going well either."

"I was the top scorer in my city at the gaokao. Then I started university and discovered there were many top scorers like me." Chao Yin stopped and waited for Curly Hair to come level with her before walking on. "After graduation, for the sake of better prospects in the capital, I lived in a basement flat. I worked two jobs in a day. To get an interview assignment, I'd spend nights reading through archives and days making tea for my superiors."

"Work has no hierarchy." She smiled warmly. "Don't listen to people's idle talk. Trust yourself."

"Chao-ayi." Curly Hair looked up at her with unguarded admiration. "Thank you."

She really hadn't mocked her. She hadn't looked down on her at all.

"You're young — you have many options still ahead of you." Chao Yin adjusted Curly Hair's slightly crooked cap. "I changed jobs quite a few times in my earlier years too. Each one brought me experience that eventually made me editor-in-chief of 时光."

"Mm." Curly Hair looked down. The corners of her eyes were warm.

"Come on." Chao Yin smiled. "Dinner first. Work after."

*

With so many players exposed as paparazzi in quick succession, the remaining players had grown extremely cautious. Some had even used tools to blur their own identities — making themselves appear as NPCs to other players' eyes.

In a large-scale event like this, the venue was full of countless workers. Players hid among them, trusting no one.

When Curly Hair and Chao Yin entered the restaurant, she spotted two likely players: one wiping tables and collecting dishes, one scrubbing floor cracks in a corner.

Neither of them had what you'd call a dignified assignment.

"The man who went out with Sheng-sheng tonight — he seemed familiar. Is he a close friend of Sheng-sheng's too?"

"You mean Mr. Xu?" Curly Hair answered without thinking. "He's Xiao Chao's boss."

Mr. Xu?

Kunlun's boss?

Chao Yin's brow lifted. No surprise showed on her face. The waves inside were considerable.

That was why he'd seemed familiar — the head of Kunlun itself.

She had only ever seen him in print photographs. In those, he'd been distant and impeccably put together, in the way that permits no informality. The person she'd just met had looked like a different person entirely.

"Sheng-sheng and Xu Chenzhu seem to be on good terms privately." She set down her cup. "Is that right?"

"Yes." Curly Hair studied her plate. "Xiao Chao is very trusted by his superiors and colleagues."

"Good." Chao Yin said. "With the kind of maneuvering that happens in this industry, I was worried Sheng-sheng might end up misunderstood by the company's senior management because of the Luo Yixuan situation."

"Please don't worry, Chao-ayi. That's absolutely not going to happen."

Curly Hair was completely certain: even if Boss Xu saw Luo Yixuan sitting in Xiao Chao's living room, Boss Xu would conclude that Luo Yixuan had ulterior motives — not blame Xiao Chao by a single degree.

Boss Xu was mysterious and powerful, but when it came to Xiao Chao, he was hopelessly, completely gone.

He could blame the rest of the world and never find fault with Xiao Chao.

*

"That one's a player too, right?" Two players hunched near each other, eyes fixed on Curly Hair sitting with the compound's big NPC boss at a table across the room.

"I know her." The other said. "She went into an exploration instance before. Didn't clear it — but she came out alive."

Before her, not a single player had made it out of that particular exploration instance.

"She's having dinner with the main NPC boss." A note of envy. But then the security team caught their eye, and both ducked back to their work.

So many security guards on site — and most of them were low-priority background characters without visible NPC data values. How were they supposed to find the one who'd been selling out players?

*

"It's eight in the evening. The artists' livestream activity has started." The team leader addressed his team. "Keep your masks on. Don't accidentally end up in someone's frame — we don't need to look like ugly ducklings beside the pretty artists."

The player was watching through the restaurant's floor-to-ceiling windows as Curly Hair ate with the editor-in-chief. The hatred was past what he could contain.

Why were all of Wang Xiaojuan's tools so effective — when his S-class consciousness alteration couldn't hold a security team leader for more than a few seconds?

He opened the system and hit the complaint and report function.

[Ding! Following system review, player data within the instance is normal with no violations detected. Points deducted: 300, for frivolous complaints against other players.]

WHAT.

Stupid system.

If everything was normal, why did the editor-in-chief treat Wang Xiaojuan differently from everyone else?

Everyone had only entered the instance two or three days ago. How had Wang Xiaojuan managed to become friends with the main NPC boss's son in that time?

Refusing to accept this, he filed a second complaint — this time alleging a malfunction with his own tool's data.

[Ding! Following system diagnostics, player tool data is normal. Tools losing effectiveness rapidly: the system requests the player reflect on whether they are operating incorrectly, or whether they are simply not trying hard enough in the instance. Please do not file repeated invalid complaints and increase the system's processing load. Points deducted: 500 as a warning.]

WHAT WHAT WHAT.

Eight hundred points lost in a few minutes. The player drew a long breath and closed the system interface.

Garbage system. Beast of a Main God. A dung heap of an instance.

*

"Hi everyone — I'm Song Xu." He waved at the camera, watched the viewer count spike, and smiled. "I've heard a lot of you are curious about our accommodation here, so I'm going to take you on a little tour."

Two artists happened to pass by and were caught by Song Xu's camera in a "chance encounter." Both were signed to Kunlun's entertainment division. Song Xu greeted them, let them appear in frame for a few minutes, then moved on.

[Wow — the organizers went all out, this is Linhai's famous seaside villa. Booking this whole place must have cost an enormous amount.]

"Right — this is Linhai's famous seaside compound." Song Xu remembered his livestream brief. "Although the compound's owner didn't charge anything. The owner is a committed philanthropist — after hearing that the event was charity-focused, they offered the venue free of charge, and also donated twenty ambulances to the local medical system."

Song Xu took his viewers on a full circuit of the compound, satisfying plenty of curiosity. When artists crossed his path, he smoothly redirected his camera each time.

At this hour, the artists all knew about the livestream schedule and wouldn't cause the kind of "accidental live exposure" that was popular in novels.

[Can you take us to see the main gates? They must be impressive.]

Song Xu checked his manager outside the frame. The manager gave an OK.

"Of course." He turned the camera to his face. "Right now I'm taking you all on an immersive tour right through the main gates."

From here to the main gates was a long walk. Song Xu answered audience questions as he went.

Questions about who was a couple with whom, who had cheated on whom — he treated as invisible, only picking out questions he could safely answer.

[Song Xu — who's that gorgeous civilian in yesterday's 时光 official photos? ]

[Song Xu — is the good-looking civilian a new debut from some company?]

[Don't pretend you can't see these, Song-dog. What's the civilian's identity?]

What civilian?

Song Xu put on an expression of theatrical wonder. "Oh — everyone look at the koi in the pond, aren't they gorgeous?"

He swung the camera toward the pond, then looked sideways at his manager and mouthed: what civilian?

His manager pulled up the 时光 official post and pointed to a figure in the corner of one photograph.

That's Mr. Chao, the assistant.

Song Xu thought of Song Cheng's fate. He swallowed.

He pulled up the comments. There were fan accounts for other artists mocking him to the passers-by who'd noticed, calling Mr. Chao a nobody trying to go viral by riding others' coattails.

He had to laugh. That artist's double eyelids were surgically made. The jawline was implanted. And that face wanted to say Mr. Chao was there to steal credit?

Some audacity.

Song Xu swung the camera back to his face. The livestream was still asking about the civilian.

[From the way Song-dog is refusing to answer, you can tell it's just another young heir trying to debut by stepping on established artists.]

"What civilian?" Song Xu could see someone in the comments deliberately steering the narrative. He walked steadily toward the gate. "If you're asking about the young man in the conference room yesterday — the one who's better-looking than me and has incredible presence — then I can tell you with complete certainty: he's not an artist. He's a company representative."

The comment section, already scrolling too fast to read, accelerated further.

[HAHAHA certain fans who said he was riding coattails — hope that face sting.]

[Just because Song Xu says so doesn't make it true. He's probably just cosying up to a powerful person.]

[Some fans really shouldn't be this upset — so your idol got outshone by a civilian's looks. Maybe just perform fewer roles as a legendary beauty and protect your audience's standards.]

[Am I the only one who wants to know what company he's from?]

"Why are you all so curious about everything?" Song Xu sent frantic looks at his manager.

His manager had already received confirmation from Secretary Liu that Mr. Chao's identity could be publicly disclosed. He nodded.

"He's not a representative of some small company." Song Xu had finally reached the main gates. He stopped. "He's a Kunlun headquarters senior figure — representing Kunlun at this event."

[!!!]

A Kunlun representative — at that level, who would dare cause offense?

The comments filled with rows of exclamation marks. Fan accounts from various artists who'd been peeking at the screen were frantically going back to delete their unfriendly comments from the official post.

But spectators moved faster — screenshots of the more extreme statements were already circulating across platforms, to widespread ridicule.

An artist whose looks couldn't measure up to a civilian's, with tactless fans breaking down and attacking the civilian for it — only to discover the civilian was someone all the artists' own company heads had to carefully court. The story arc was exactly the kind these observers lived for.

The defining characteristic of this crowd was that they didn't follow celebrity culture — but they were always first on the scene when something was happening.

Wherever there was something to watch, there they were.

Song Xu's viewer count surged by a hundred thousand curious spectators within minutes.

"As for our Kunlun representative's looks in person — not just good-looking. Transcendently good-looking. Our entertainment division head has said privately: if any of us had even a fifth of the representative's looks, we'd already be famous across the whole country."

[Song Xu is very skilled at flattering leadership. If he's really that good-looking, why doesn't your company launch him as an artist?]

"Not flattery — every word is true." Song Xu laughed, mildly offended. "He's a Jinghua high-achiever. He walked into the company and solved a technical problem that had been stuck for months. I've heard the head of the R&D team went to the president's office and threw himself on the floor begging for him to stay. Someone like that would be wasted in entertainment."

[He's that impressive?!]

[That new technology Kunlun launched last month — this person probably had something to do with it.]

[It is well established that tech geniuses tend to have hair and appearance that are rather...]

"Song Xu?" Chao Musheng had just gotten out of the car and spotted a Kunlun entertainment artist holding up his phone. He pushed Xu Chenzhu — who had been half out the door — back inside. "Are you livestreaming?"

Song Xu's phone jolted. He'd accidentally caught Chao Musheng's face in frame — along with a leg belonging to Xu Chenzhu, who had started to step out. He dropped the phone angle immediately. "Mr. Chao — I'm, I'm so sorry, I didn't know you'd be in frame."

"It's all right." Chao Musheng saw him go pale. He smiled reassuringly. "Can I say hello to your viewers?"

Song Xu raised the phone with trembling hands. Steady. Do not shake.

"Hello everyone — I'm the Kunlun company representative participating in this event." Chao Musheng waved at the camera. "Please give your attention and support to Kunlun entertainment's artists and productions. And I hope everyone, while looking after your own lives well, might find room to follow some charitable causes. Wishing you all happiness. Thank you."

The comment section went dead for one beat — then erupted.

[AAAAAAAAAA]

[Song-dog — your entertainment head was right. If you had even a third of his looks, I'd stop calling you a dog.]

[THIS GUY I'VE SEEN HIM BEFORE — he's the one who touched the lion's head!]

[THERE WAS SOMEONE ELSE IN THAT CAR, I saw the good-looking guy push them back in!!]

[Can the person in the car come out and let me get in?]

Chao Musheng stepped out of the camera's range and got back in the car. He leaned toward Xu Chenzhu. "Mr. Xu — that's one of our company's artists doing a livestream outside."

"I saw." Xu Chenzhu's phone screen was on — showing Song Xu's livestream.

The comments were coming in every imaginable variety. He fixed his eyes on the one asking the person in the car to come out and give up the seat.

The line of his mouth pressed flat.