The dejected look on Rong Shu’s face vanished instantly. She accepted the ointment from him.
“It’s really nothing. My skin is sensitive, it bruises easily. It’ll fade in a bit.” As if the memory of the dim, charged scene from moments ago had crept back in, a faint flush rose behind her ear.
Whether it was her words about easily bruising or the pink creeping up behind her ear, something in his gaze darkened.
He gave a quiet cough. “We can take a photo.”
Rong Shu’s eyes lit up. She raised her phone high, and in doing so, her arm brushed lightly against his neck.
Shen Baizhu felt that spot go numb. A spreading, tingling warmth that crawled across the skin behind his ear.
Yet looking at her, so bright and unguardedly youthful, he could not bring himself to interpret it as anything calculated.
“Three, two, one, cheese!”
After the shot, Rong Shu’s eyes flickered with amusement. She held out the ointment box and a pen she had picked up nearby. “Just sign right on the box, is that good?”
Shen Baizhu was almost laughed hearing it. “Fine.” He shook his head, uncapped the pen, and signed without hesitation. The three characters of his name pressed deep and clean into the surface of the box.
It was only afterward that it occurred to him that her request had been a little audacious. But it didn’t particularly bother him.
Rong Shu immediately photographed the signature, then uploaded both it and their selfie to Weibo with the caption: Successfully got a photo with the film emperor. Successfully got the film emperor’s autograph. Yayy!
Shen Baizhu scrolled past it with a passing glance. The caption was exactly as bright and unbothered as the person herself. He noticed her Weibo handle: Officer Bunny.
Just one look. And somehow it stuck.
Just then, Su Wanying came hurrying over. She arrived to find Rong Shu standing near Shen Baizhu’s feet.
Long, pale legs in red heels. White stockings that somehow managed to look innocent. And Shen Baizhu still smiling faintly at her phone screen.
At her phone.
You only lean in to look at someone’s phone when you’re curious about them.
Su Wanying caught it immediately, that small flicker of interest, and something sharp passed through her eyes.
Rong Shu noticed her first. She smiled sweetly. “Sister, you’re here. Teacher Shen just took a photo with me.”
The tension in Su Wanying’s chest loosened.
So that was it. He was checking the photo before it went up. Rong Shu was a small internet personality, she would obviously post it to her socials. It was perfectly reasonable for Shen Baizhu to make sure nothing unflattering was going to circulate. Nothing more to it.
Though she couldn’t help noticing that being called Sister by Rong Shu made her feel oddly aged. She did the math quickly. Rong Shu had just graduated, twenty-two. Su Wanying was five years older. It was technically fine. Just slightly irritating in a way she couldn’t quite name.
She let it go. Su Wanying was that type of beautiful which commanded attention, and she knew it. She curved her red lips into a smile.
“Baizhu, that scene where you gripped Rong Shu’s jaw was brilliant. Especially at the end when you pressed harder and left that mark. There was something so charged about it. Sensual without being crude. The contrast in build and skin tone was gorgeous too.”
“Was it?”
Only Shen Baizhu knew the truth. That grip had not been a performance choice. It had been instinct.
Something surfaced briefly in his eyes.
Su Wanying saw it. Raw and unguarded, the same look she had seen on male leads in scenes she would rather not name, faced with something she could not look away from. Three words cut through her mind with nothing to soften them.
I’ll kill her.
She was mistaken. She had to be mistaken. Su Wanying repeated it to herself, frantic and quiet, as the command crackled over the set.
“All actors, take your positions.”
Rong Shu and the man Su Wanying had been quietly in love with for ten years stepped onto the bed together.
It was just filming. Three days and Rong Shu would be gone.
It was just filming.
It was just filming…
clumsy kat has once again survived the chapter 🐱💀
t/n: “Officer Bunny” is a reference to Judy Hopps from Zootopia, a common cute username type in Chinese fandom spaces. also “情色又不色情” is genuinely one of those lines that makes translators want to lie down. the closest i can get is “sensual without being crude” but the original is so much more precise about that specific line between art and vulgarity. anyway……