Later on the day of the lakeside shoot, Aidan captured a wealth of footage by continually prompting the calf to interact with the natural surroundings. Among them were shots of the sunset’s remaining glow spilling across his face, casting a golden outline over his bronze skin. Even someone as strong as the calf was exhausted and starving after an entire day of work, so Gong Nanxing promptly arranged for Qiao Xi to order takeout and deliver camping barbecue equipment, treating everyone to grilled meat by the lake to reward their hard work.
By this point, the starving calf had completely abandoned any thought of dieting. Seizing a large plastic plate, he shoveled everything in sight straight into his mouth, leaving the surrounding older crew members marveling at how vigorously young people could eat.
Once the calf finally appeased the hunger that was making him see stars, he looked up and realized the sky had turned pitch black. Searching around for Gong Nanxing, he noticed he had not seen him eating with the rest of the crew from the very beginning. Unable to find him after a full circle, the calf grabbed his water bottle and started wandering around to look for him. The pitch-black night seamlessly swallowed up the calf’s tall silhouette.
He soon spotted Gong Nanxing resting on a chair parked near the vehicles, busy replying to work messages. It took no guessing to realize he simply disliked the smoky, fiery odor of the barbecue.
“Older brother, why are you out here all by yourself?”
A voice drifted unannounced from the dark, startling Gong Nanxing so badly he jumped. It was only when the calf smiled and bared his striking white teeth that Gong Nanxing managed to make out where he was, infuriating him enough to pinch the calf’s ear and scold him.
“You brat, are you stuffed enough to come over and scare me?”
“Older brother! I did not mean to, it was not on purpose!”
The calf rubbed his ear with a wronged expression, and after confirming that Gong Nanxing had indeed eaten, he wanted to ask something else, but Gong Nanxing grabbed him by the collar and hauled him straight into the car.
“It is getting late, and your school is far away. I will drive you back. Did you forget anything?”
“Send me back to school? Older brother, you are the best!” The calf swiftly clicked his seatbelt into place, shoved his newly acquired water bottle into the side pocket of his backpack, and sat up straight and proper. “Older brother, do I not need to go say goodbye to everyone?”
“No need, I told Qiao Xi. There are two more shoots after this month that I will not be attending personally, but I will instruct them to let you leave early so you do not miss your return to school.” Gong Nanxing started the engine, leaving the lively crowd behind as he drove the calf away.
Most of the time, the calf could not figure Gong Nanxing out. Saying he was shy and introverted made no sense; clearly, he was someone quite adept at interacting with people, yet he always chose to stay by himself during these social occasions. Mr. Gong was truly difficult to read. The calf watched his focused side profile as he drove, lost in thought. Everyone whispered that Mr. Gong was a devil, and while he certainly lacked a warm and sunny disposition, he was actually quite attentive to those around him. By any reasonable measure, he should be considered a good person.
“Stop spacing out. You promised to participate in the offline event during National Day, and I must remind you that offline events require you to speak out loud. Starting from today, I will relentlessly push you to study Mandarin. We still have one hour and forty minutes until you reach your campus, so hurry up and pull out the study materials I sent you.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Gong Nanxing caught sight of the utterly dazed calf. Thinking it absurd for him to just zone out while serving as his driver, Gong Nanxing immediately issued an order. Scrambling in a panic, the calf fished his notebook out of his old backpack and began reading pinyin aloud amidst the flowing traffic with a look of utter despair.
Well, sometimes Mr. Gong was indeed a devil disguised as an angel.
Upon verifying the study results downstairs at the dormitory building that evening, Gong Nanxing maintained his iceberg expression, stepped on the gas pedal, and vanished into the distance. Exhausted to the point of losing his soul after a long day, the calf collapsed face-first onto his bed upon finishing his shower, lacking even the strength to lift a finger as two silent tears of sorrow rolled down.
National Day, oh lord, the offline event host interview required memorizing every single answer in parentheses, the standard Mandarin version. This was pure slaughter! The tall and robust calf curled his body into a tight ball, secretly counting on his fingers to encourage himself: a single event paid seven hundred yuan, so three events totaled twenty-one hundred yuan. Making twenty-one hundred yuan in three days…
Life kissed me with pain, and I responded with springy, chewy, and smooth beef balls…
Before long, Aidan personally emailed the day’s edited demo directly to Gong Nanxing, attaching a smug, teasing expression to the subject line. With a dark expression and a lingering sense of foreboding, Gong Nanxing opened the video. It began with a close-up of the calf’s innocent and clear-eyed gaze, followed by rapid cuts of natural scenery, lakes, flowing water, treetops, and blades of grass. Then came a static shot of the calf walking barefoot into the frame, immediately followed by fast-paced close-ups of his hands tossing aside his leather shoes and brushing across various tactile natural elements like water surfaces, flower clusters, and smooth pebbles.
This was immediately followed by a panoramic view of their campsite, with tent stakes driving into the soft, damp soil by the lake, seamlessly blending into the calf’s earth-toned skin.
The longer Gong Nanxing watched, the tighter his brow knitted. Beside him, Qiao Xi looked back and forth between the screen and his expression, utterly baffled. Wasn’t this shot exceptionally well? It created a powerful sense of place and atmosphere while capturing the calf’s intimate interaction with nature. Putting aside her status as a Mountain employee, several products featured in the video had successfully sparked a desire to buy in her, such as the shell jacket the calf wore, which genuinely looked versatile and remarkably outdoor-ready.
“Damn it…”
Never in her wildest dreams did Qiao Xi expect Gong Nanxing to drop an explicit curse word immediately after watching, before pulling out his phone and dialing a number. Needless to say, the unfortunate soul on the other end of the line had to be Aidan.
“What on earth are you playing at?!”
“Goodness, hearing you say that makes me happier than winning an award in Berlin! You actually understood the video I edited!” Aidan’s exaggerated laughter poured uncontrollably out of Gong Nanxing’s phone speaker, giving Qiao Xi complete peace of mind to eavesdrop on the conversation.
“I told you not to mess around with weird tricks, and yet you went ahead and made it suggestive!”
“Heaven is watching, you truly got the point! Exactly, I needed to tease the audience with ambiguous cinematic language. Since you forbade me from shooting his feet, didn’t I replace all of those shots with his hands and eyes?”
“You had better sleep with both eyes open tonight!”
The sound of Gong Nanxing grinding his back molars sent shivers down Qiao Xi’s spine. Hallelujah, Aidan truly qualified as a brave man.
“Oh, so you are calling me to make changes? Do you want me to swap out the shots?”
“…No changes.”
Wait, Big Brother? If you are not changing anything, why did you call him? Watching Gong Nanxing squeeze those two words out from between lips pressed into a razor-thin line while wearing a murderous expression, Qiao Xi felt even more perplexed. Evidently, Aidan on the other end of the line shared the exact same thought.
“No particular reason, I just felt like cursing you out.”
With that, Gong Nanxing hung up the phone with a darkened face. Whether it was from watching the video or from the stress of yelling at someone, he suddenly felt a wave of restless heat and thirst. Sighing helplessly, he instructed Qiao Xi to hand him a bottle of iced sparkling water while simultaneously giving instructions for the team below to distribute the demo to the other two partner organizations.
Qiao Xi hurried to fetch the water. Just as she was editing the work arrangements, she saw Gong Nanxing grab his water bottle and stride on long legs toward the elevator lobby. She quickly stepped forward to follow, wondering why Mr. Gong suddenly had impromptu field business, only for Gong Nanxing to wave his hand and stop her.
“You do not need to come along. I am just heading out to the open leisure area to smoke a cigarette.”
Ah, so he was just stepping out to smoke. He should have said so earlier; for a second, she thought there was another field assignment… Wait? She had worked with him all this time and had never once seen Gong Nanxing smoke? Qiao Xi’s confusion spiked once more. Why was Mr. Gong running off to smoke with a look of absolute agitation when the project progress was running smoothly and the deliverables were fully satisfactory?
As Qiao Xi pondered the question, her typing slowed to a halt. Her gaze drifted away from her phone screen back to the computer monitor, resting on the final frame of the demo currently looping. In the sunset’s glow, the calf propped himself up with both hands behind his back, the loose shell jacket sliding down to his upper arms as he closed his eyes to absorb the breeze and the scent of sun-warmed lakeside rocks, looking as if someone’s camera had framed every bit of beauty right beside him.
Ooh, Aidan really had a knack for shooting things. Why did this suddenly feel a bit like falling in love? Qiao Xi belatedly noticed her cheekbones steadily rising in warmth. She had to get the project colleagues to see this immediately! They would definitely understand her!