Chapter 12

I just wanted to see you.

Even Yuan Ye himself became surprised after saying this. He actually hadn’t wanted to speak it out loud. He had only wanted to say the first part – let’s nicely finish filming this show.

But since he had already said it, he could stop hiding it. He couldn’t hide it anymore anyways. Yuan Ye coughed, then scoffed at himself. He asked Fang Shaoyi, “Can I take that sentence back?”

Fang Shaoyi silently stared at him first. A moment later, he finally said, “You can try.”

Yuan Ye squatted there, blindly feeling around in the grass. He patted a spot and stated, “Yuan Ye has unsent a message.”

Fang Shaoyi stood up. He held his hand out in the other’s direction. Yuan Ye looked up and smiled at him, then took his hand and stood up with his help.

Yuan Ye’s words had placed him in an extremely low position. Whatever he had said in the beginning became irrelevant. As soon as “I just wanted to see you” came out, they all became attempts at seeking compromise and admitting defeat. But seeking compromise with Fang Shaoyi didn’t make Yuan Ye feel uncomfortable or lesser in value. After all, this was his Yi ge. Saying such things were nothing.

Following this, the two returned to normal in front of the camera. They joked and chatted, seemingly fine. At night, before bed, one washed his face while the other sat, legs crossed, playing with his phone. It was quite peaceful.

One day later, they entered the desert. Dune buggying was something Yuan Ye liked too. After a day of playing around, he ended up with almost half a kilo of sand in the shower. Actually, if this program removed the part where they needed to be filmed by cameras all the time, it was actually very fun. It was only travelling everywhere and trying everything. There was no definite goal, nor was there a need to keep a phone in your pocket to return people’s messages. Pretty nice.

After filming, Yuan Ye went straight back to his own house, just like last time. Fang Shaoyi returned to his film set. Post-filming each time, Yuan Ye felt like he had lost half his life and needed to spend two days recovering. However, this time, there was more of a break before the next scheduled filming, which was to take place twelve days later.

During this time in between, Yuan Ye completely relaxed. On a certain day midway through, he needed to go record a show for the same TV station. It was considered promotion and had been one of the clauses in his contract. At least one person needed to attend from their family; Yuan Ye volunteered himself.

Yuan Ye took advantage of this break to go back to his parents’ place. The first thing his mom said after seeing him was, “My goodness. How come you’ve lost so much weight?”

Yuan Ye burst into laughter. He patted his mom’s shoulder and said, exasperated, “Can you not repeat this same phrase everytime you see me?”

He walked around but didn’t see his dad. Yuan Ye raised his voice and shouted in the house, “Where is Professor Yuan Anping?”

His dad’s voice sounded out from the balcony, scolding, “Your voice is loud enough to be heard two kilometers away from here.”

Yuan Ye smiled and walked over, teasing the birds his dad kept as pets. He asked, “No class today, Professor Yuan?”

Professor answered, “Where would I get so many classes that I need to teach everyday? I only have two classes a week.”

“Okay. Rest on your off days,” Yuan Ye said.

Since young, Yuan Ye hadn’t spared his parents any worrying. Now that he was older, they stopped worrying. He was a thirty-something adult: his life was his own. He didn’t need anyone else to worry about him. Yuan Ye hadn’t even hidden the news of his divorce from his parents. Back then, they hadn’t been able to stop him no matter how they tried. Eventually, though, Fang Shaoyi and Yuan Ye had ultimately still gotten divorced.

But the old couple hadn’t said anything. They hadn’t rubbed salt in Yuan Ye’s wound by mocking him, hadn’t said, “See, I told you already that you would regret it.” They simply hadn’t brought it up. Yuan Ye’s personality had been like this from a young age. Nobody could talk him out of decisions he had already made. He would accept whatever losses or sufferings that resulted, never complaining.

“Where’d you go this time?” His mother asked him during dinner.

Yuan Ye said, “Inner Mongolia.”

“When will it broadcast on TV? I’ll watch too.”

Yuan Ye shook his head while smiling. He gave her some more food. “Forget about it. Don’t watch. I’m too stupid on it. After watching, you won’t even be able to recognize me anymore.”

“So you still act like you’re not dumb?” His mom laughed. “You’ve been dumb for so many years already. I’m used to it.”

Yuan Ye paused. After, he said, “It’s not the same kind. This kind has no dignity.”

His dad responded as he glanced over, “But you still went?”

Yuan Ye chuckled. “I already signed the contract. I agreed, so needed to go. Besides, it’s quite a lot of money. Why pass up on that, right?”

His dad didn’t continue talking to him about this, only responding, “In your first thirty years of life, you only did things to make yourself happy. Hopefully, you can live like this in the future too. As long as you’re happy. But life can’t always be only happy. Every person will go through difficult times. Follow your heart. You see the truth and have a clear understanding of things. We won’t say any more.”

Yuan Ye froze for a moment. After, he looked at his dad with a smile. He had no alcohol, only a cup of juice. He forced his dad to pour a cup of juice too, then used his own cup to bump into his dad’s. He took a gulp. His dad was disdainful of how weird he was being, but still drank as well.

“Just eat your food normally,” his dad scolded. “So annoying.”

“But why did you drink it if I’m annoying?” Yuan Ye cackled. He loved this strict but gentle expression on Professor Yuan’s face.

Actually, Yuan Ye’s environment growing up had been very unrestricted. His parents had basically let him grow up freely. They very rarely controlled his actions – either way, he wouldn’t listen even if they did. In comparison to Ning Lu and Guan Zhou, his family was the least overbearing. When Ning Lu had been young, his dad had broken two belts whipping him. Guan Zhou didn’t have it as bad, but his family was still quite strict with him. He had to attend extracurricular classes everyday.

Only Yuan Ye spent the whole day fooling around. However, his grades were also the best. Completely unreasonable.

Originally, this show wasn’t scheduled to start airing until next month, but something unexpected had suddenly happened to a different show on the channel. Because of certain sensitive topics, one of the guests on the show had to be removed. The government had sent down an order, blocking the show from broadcasting. The production crew could only take that show off air first and replace it with this one. Their next step would be finding someone else to take that guest’s place, or something similar.

So, teaser photos, from when they had been filming for the show previously, appeared online out of the blue. These were released couple by couple. This was Fang Shaoyi and Yuan Ye’s first time on a variety show, so people talked about them the most. Later on, the production team also released some gifs on Weibo for promotion. The guests all needed to repost that original post. Yuan Ye gave his Weibo account to Ji Xiaotao, telling him to deal with it. He was too lazy to do so himself.

Yuan Ye only looked over everything roughly in the beginning. After that, he never bothered to again.

One day, he was in the middle of casually chatting and joking around in his group chat with Ning Lu and them when he suddenly received a phone call. Yuan Ye cocked his eyebrow as soon as he saw the name.

“Yo, CEO Geng?” Yuan Ye greeted after answering.

The person calling was Fang Shaoyi’s past manager, Geng Jinwei. Right now, he was the person in charge of Fang Shaoyi Studio. Fang Shaoyi had been under his management since his teenage years. Back then, he had just graduated. After, he almost immediately got chosen by Fang Han. Now, everyone knew that Fang Han hadn’t made a wrong decision. This was someone who could get things done by any means. He was currently one of the gold medal managers in the industry. However, his relationship with Yuan Ye had always only been average. They got along fine, but weren’t as close as Yuan Ye and Ji Xiaotao.

Geng Jinwei wasn’t like Ji Xiaotao, an innocent white bunny. If he had such a personality, he wouldn’t have been able to become a manager either. All these years, Fang Shaoyi had never accepted roles in shitty films. Instead, he always managed to get a continuous flow of high quality offers. Aside from the fact that he was Fang Han’s son and truly a good actor, this was also because Geng Jinwei had the means and connections to get and keep such resources. He knew exactly how to succeed in this industry.

He and Yuan Ye rarely contacted each other in private. Yuan Ye almost never received calls from him, so was now slightly surprised.

Geng Jinwei greeted him, “Long time no see, Ye di.”

This person also had an old smoker’s throat. His voice sounded extremely deep and hoarse. Yuan Ye said, “It has been pretty long. What’s up, CEO Geng?”

“CEO my ass.” The other chuckled and scolded, “Geng ge. What, you two got divorced so now you won’t even call me ge? Then does that mean I’ll have to call you Teacher Yuan?”

“Hahaha, I’m just joking,” Yuan Ye said.

Geng Jinwei wasn’t the type to call if nothing was wrong. But it wasn’t anything extremely bad. He only asked Yuan Ye, “Have you gone online in these past few days? Someone started talking about how you guys are divorced. Did you see?”

Yuan Ye furrowed his brows. “What? I didn’t look.”

“No worries. Just a post. I’ll have someone delete it later.” Geng Jinwei continued, “I’m not here to ask you about that, though. I just want to ask you, Ye di.”

Yuan Ye made a noise of acknowledgment and said, “Ask.”

Geng Jinwei asked, “What are your thoughts about the situation between you and Fang Shaoyi?”

This question was too direct. Something snapped in Yuan Ye’s brain. After, he laughed and said, “What are my thoughts? I have no thoughts. Say whatever you guys need to say. I don’t mind either way. If it really gets publicized someday in the future……I just want as few consequences as possible for Fang Shaoyi. You could say I cheated? I’m fine with anything.”

Geng Jinwei didn’t bother being polite through the phone. He cussed before saying, “I can’t deal with you guys messing around. Geng ge’s old. I told you guys to drop out of this show but you both wanted to film it. Going on such a show when you’re already divorced, are you treating everyone else like they’re idiots? Nobody’s going to get off easy when the truth comes out.”

“I already thought about that.” Yuan Ye rested against his sofa, squeezing the phone in his hand. He closed his eyes and leaned back so that his head was also on the sofa. “If such a day really comes……blame it all on me. The divorce was because of me, I was also the one who wanted to go on the show. As for the specifics, you don’t need me to tell you. You definitely have a better idea than me. On that day, there’s no need to worry about me, Geng ge. I’m not an entertainer, nor am I part of your guys’ entertainment industry. I don’t care either way.”

“You don’t understand Fang Shaoyi?” Geng Jinwei laughed coldly. “Is he that kind of person?”

“He’s not, but you are,” Yuan Ye chuckled. After chuckling, he said, “Really. I’m not scared of anything. No matter what, bring it on. I’m someone who relies on my pen to eat. How many writers aren’t casanovas? Isn’t that right, Geng ge?”

Geng Jinwei didn’t continue the conversation. He only said, “We’ll speak about it later. Without any accidents, it probably won’t be revealed. Even if it does, I can still keep it under control. You two are going to be the death of me someday.”

Yuan Ye laughed again. A few sentences later, they ended the call.

Yuan Ye closed his eyes and leaned back. He pinched the spot between his eyebrows. A moment later, he picked up his phone and logged into Weibo.

Netizens were starting to make summaries of his and Fang Shaoyi’s romantic history again. Before, others had posted about it. Now, those posts had been dug out again. Yuan Ye clicked into each of them. Some things still caused one to feel warm and gentle even when only reading others’ commentary on it.

Yuan Ye opened a video. It was from the day Fang Shaoyi had won his first film emperor award.

The video was several years old. The quality wasn’t very high, but Yuan Ye could still clearly see that extremely dazzling person standing in the center of the big screen. Fang Shaoyi was wearing a suit. He held the trophy and stood there, looking extremely handsome. At the time, he said, “Thank you Director Qin, thank you to the film crew, and also thank you to all the seniors who acted alongside Little Fang. You guys have helped me mature a lot. Thank you.”

After saying this, he glanced down at the trophy in his hand. Then, he waved it around. With a focused and gentle gaze, he smiled and said, “I want to give today’s award to my love, Yuan Ye——Wild Monkey, happy birthday.”

The author has something to say:

Yuan Ye: Why do you guys always want me to sprain my ankle?