Xie Tangqing was naturally drawn in by Xian Sui, who had just stepped over. Feeling rather awkward about lingering any longer, she exchanged brief pleasantries with the two people opposite her and departed on her own. Gu Fanzhou turned his face to look at Xian Sui. “Weren’t you told to go rest? Is something the matter?”
“I,” Xian Sui found it hard to explain the emotion that had materialized out of thin air just now. “I heard Miss Xie was chasing you, and I wanted to help you out of the sticky situation.”
“Her affairs are well within my management. Earlier she came to inquire about you, after Xie Zhuangqiu had already disclosed my relationship with you to her.”
Gu Fanzhou was referring to the incident back in the hotel private room when Xian Sui was taken away right in front of Xie Zhuangqiu. To make Xie Zhuangqiu drop his intentions, he had lied that Xian Sui was his lover.
Xian Sui couldn’t help blinking, finally fully grasping the conversation between Xie Tangqing and Gu Fanzhou from just moments ago. “Will she come again?”
“She will come as an investor.” To keep Xian Sui from pressing further, Gu Fanzhou quickly changed the subject. “Stop gossiping and get back to the lounge.”
Seeing that Gu Fanzhou was about to leave, Xian Sui hurriedly dug two medicine bottles out of his bag, the sound of pills rattling against each other audible inside. He intercepted Gu Fanzhou in two or three steps and shoved the items into the other man’s hands. “A gift for you, hangover pills. You can use these if you need to drink next time.”
Gu Fanzhou stared down at the medicine bottles in his hand for quite a while before accepting them. “Thank you.”
He quickly bypassed Xian Sui and headed toward the lounge, failing to notice that the other person stayed right in place, watching him disappear from view.
The moment Gu Fanzhou stepped into the lounge, his phone rang. Rushing to prepare for the next scene, he didn’t check the caller ID carefully, otherwise he certainly would have declined the call. “Hello.”
“Fanzhou, your stepmother’s birthday is coming up in a few days. Remember to come back and celebrate,” his father’s voice sounded from the other end of the line. Gu Fanzhou’s expression instantly shifted, and he couldn’t help letting out a scoff. “Gu Jingcheng, if you’re coming down with senile dementia, go book an appointment at the hospital. That woman and I are complete strangers; why on earth should I celebrate her birthday?”
“Is that any way to speak to your biological father?” Gu Jingcheng sounded thoroughly furious on the other end. “Your younger brother has gone abroad to study and only comes back once every year or so. I don’t want her birthday to be too desolate.”
“By that logic, you’re hoping to invite me back just to wreck the party?”
Gu Jingcheng had a son with his second-marriage wife, who was a decade younger than Gu Fanzhou and studying middle school abroad. They rarely even saw their parents, and Gu Fanzhou treated it as if he didn’t have this younger brother at all.
“How many years has it been, why are you still like this?” Gu Jingcheng managed to suppress his temper on the other end, his tone tight.
“You should rather ask yourself why you’ve remained so entirely shameless for all these years.” Gu Fanzhou had no intention of wasting any more time and was about to hang up without a second thought when Gu Jingcheng suddenly spoke up. “I have the whereabouts of your biological mother in my hands.”
Gu Fanzhou’s finger, poised to press the end-call button, had to freeze. “What did you say?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.” This time, it was Gu Jingcheng who hung up on him first. Gu Fanzhou was obviously deeply displeased at being outmaneuvered by the other man, casually opening a bottle of mineral water and gulping down half of it, as if trying to wash down his simmering anger that way.
Gu Fanzhou tried calling Gu Jingcheng back, but aside from an in-person meeting, the other party clearly refused to leak any further information to him. Though he felt frustrated enough to practically toss his phone off the upper floor, he still instructed his driver to head toward Yejian City. Lingshu City, where he currently was, was roughly an hour’s drive from Yejian City, and it was still daylight when he arrived.
Having been absent from the villa for many years, the servants surprisingly still remembered him, actively welcoming him through the gates of the Gu family estate. The interior decoration of the villa had been completely revamped, clearly updated according to the current master’s preferences.
“Young Master Gu, Old Master Gu and Ms. Liang are both in the dining room. Please go right in.”
“Got it.” Gu Fanzhou pushed open the dining room doors. Gu Jingcheng and his wife were already seated at the head seats, and apart from a birthday cake, the table was laden with plenty of dishes.
Upon seeing Gu Fanzhou, Gu Jingcheng immediately waved him over to take a seat at the table. Gu Fanzhou remained standing without moving an inch. “I think that won’t be necessary. As you well know, unless it concerns my mother, I wouldn’t have come back at all.”
“Fanzhou, I’ll say it once more: sit down.” Gu Jingcheng locked a very firm gaze onto Gu Fanzhou’s face.
“Fond of playing these scenes of filial piety, are we?” Gu Fanzhou sneered, finding a seat as far away from the other two as possible. “Let me tell you, I don’t have much patience. You’d better cough up what I want before I flip this table over.”
Gu Fanzhou’s threats bounced right off him. Acting as if he didn’t understand Gu Fanzhou’s outburst, Gu Jingcheng pushed the birthday cake to the exact center of the table on his own accord, turning his head with a smile to hand the plastic knife to the woman beside him. “Go on, you’re the birthday star, you make the first cut.”
The woman, clearly flattered into a good mood by Gu Jingcheng, cut a slice of cake and handed it to him, placing the second slice at Gu Fanzhou’s spot, though the latter looked right past it as if it didn’t exist. Gu Fanzhou sat like an outsider, watching the two of them perform an utterly tedious little play, until the topic was steered toward him by the woman.
“Fanzhou isn’t all that young anymore, either.” The woman turned her gaze toward Gu Fanzhou, curving her lips in a feigned display of friendliness. “I see entertainment news describing Fanzhou as a total workaholic, never even spotting any female celebrities around him.”
“He’s twenty-eight, it’s indeed about time to settle down.” The moment Gu Jingcheng opened his mouth, Gu Fanzhou shot a sharp glare across the table. Gu Jingcheng clearly knew he hated having this topic brought up, and was purposely trying to rub him the wrong way right now.
“Age isn’t the real problem here. You’re over sixty and still managed to pop out another son to start a whole new family, didn’t you?” Gu Fanzhou sneered.
“Fanzhou, watch your tone,” Gu Jingcheng showed no trace of shame despite being provoked. “My health isn’t great. If I get worked up over something and forget where I put those files, that wouldn’t be good.”
Gu Fanzhou suddenly deeply regretted not grabbing the birthday cake straight out of the box and smashing it right into Gu Jingcheng’s face the moment he walked through the door.
“It’s not like we’re rushing you to settle down, but you haven’t even been in a relationship,” the woman leisurely poked a piece of cake on her plate with a fork. “People who know assume you just haven’t met the right match, but people who don’t might think Fanzhou isn’t interested in women at all.”
Unable to stomach any more, Gu Fanzhou knocked his plate of cake straight down onto the floor.
“What’s wrong, Fanzhou? Did I say something out of line?” The woman put on an innocent act.
“Cut the act,” Gu Fanzhou felt as disgusted as if he’d swallowed a fly. “Enough, Gu Jingcheng, I have no interest in playing house with you. I suppose your so-called clues about my mother were just another trick to string me along. Getting a kick out of poking my sore spots, are you?”
No matter what Gu Jingcheng and his wife called out after him, Gu Fanzhou shoved the front doors open and stormed out of the dining room without looking back. He had a servant guide him to his former bedroom, which remained precisely as it had been in the past, evidently having been specially cleaned up recently.
He shed his suit jacket, tossing his tie aside at random. For some reason, upon hearing the woman’s remark about not being interested in women, the image that flashed into Gu Fanzhou’s mind was Xian Sui’s face, the tear mole he had dreamed of the day he got drunk, the profile blurred in cigarette smoke on the balcony, and the wrist he had gripped while wearing that vibrant red qipao on set.
This was no good sign. Gu Fanzhou pushed open the bathroom door of the bedroom, turning on the showerhead to let the water pour straight down over his head.
At that exact moment, his phone started ringing. Fearing it might be an emergency, Gu Fanzhou turned off the shower and picked up the phone to check the caller ID. It was Xian Sui.
Hesitating for a moment, Gu Fanzhou answered the call anyway. “It’s this late, is something wrong?”
“Brother Gu,” Xian Sui paused. “About the script, can you help me?”
Gu Fanzhou felt as though a raw nerve had been struck. “I’m out of town right now, it’s not convenient.”
“Where are you? Can I come find you?”
“It’s too late. I’ll head back tomorrow.” Gu Fanzhou hung up the phone, suddenly feeling a strong aversion to hearing Xian Sui’s voice at this moment.
“Then I’ll wait for you.” Xian Sui hung up the phone. Ever since shooting the scene where he watched Fu Minglou’s retreating back, his mood had inexplicably stayed low.
“Brother Xian Sui,” his assistant was preparing the items he needed to carry for the next day, “honestly, it’s just a kissing scene, and it’s not even for the next shoot. You can usually handle these things just fine, brother.”
Xian Sui didn’t know how to explain it. He simply wanted to see Gu Fanzhou, and had used such a lame excuse purely for that reason.
He fished his cigarette pack out of his pocket, thought better of it, and tucked it back away. Smoking wasn’t a good habit; Jian Shuyu could smoke, but Xian Sui couldn’t.
That night, Xian Sui slept restlessly for no apparent reason. He drove alone to the outskirts of the villa complex where Gu Fanzhou lived, only to be stopped at the security gates.
He dialed Gu Fanzhou’s phone number, and the other end connected quickly.
“I’m outside your place,” Xian Sui spoke first. “Have you arrived?”
“Almost here.” Not long after receiving the reply, Xian Sui spotted Gu Fanzhou’s car driving up from behind in his rearview mirror. As it passed the security checkpoint, the driver exchanged a few words with the guard, and then Xian Sui’s car smoothly passed through as well.
“Are you out of town for work?” Once Xian Sui entered the villa doors, Gu Fanzhou made no move to hide it. “Back in Yejian City. My home.”
Xian Sui still remembered the family background of Gu Fanzhou as described in the original novel, and figured this trip wouldn’t be a pleasant experience for the other man.
“If we aren’t filming, let me sit with you for a bit.”
“Accompany me in drinking.” Gu Fanzhou retrieved a bottle of red wine from the rack, opened it, and poured both empty wine glasses on the table to the brim.
Xian Sui didn’t say anything, picking up the glass in front of him and downing it in a single gulp. Seeing him do so with such readiness, Gu Fanzhou naturally wasn’t about to let himself be outdone.
“Brother Gu,” Xian Sui hesitated repeatedly before finally asking, “what on earth happened?”
Gu Fanzhou’s pouring motion halted abruptly.
“My father cheated during my early childhood and divorced my mother. Ever since the divorce, my mother’s whereabouts have been unknown.”
The wine in the glass was filled to the brim once more. Gu Fanzhou drank it empty again and again, continuously refilling his glass.
“It was just this morning that I finally found out she’s been abroad all this time.”
Gu Fanzhou let out a self-deprecating laugh.
“You know what? My father wasn’t a good man, his new wife has no sincerity, and in the end, it turns out even my mother didn’t love me.”