Past eleven o’clock that night.
It wasn’t until Gu Pingyue and Xiang Yuyan had finished the red carpet, the gala celebration, the post-event interviews, and exchanged greetings with familiar industry friends, directors, and screenwriters that they finally sank into the seats of their van bound for home.
“I’m exhausted.”
The moment the vehicle door slid shut, Xiang Yuyan instantly dropped his polished celebrity smile, his expression turning anxious and impatient.
“Hurry, hurry! Let’s get home to see our son.” Xiang Yuyan fumbled to click his seatbelt in while frantically stripping off his accessories and jewelry. “Thinking about how deathly pale he looked earlier… I’m worried sick.”
Once he was done unspooling himself, he immediately grabbed his phone to check for unread messages on WeChat.
“Auntie Rong brought him home, but she hasn’t even sent a text to give us an update. It’s making me restless.”
Gu Pingyue couldn’t stand seeing his partner like this. He reached over, took Xiang Yuyan’s hand, and gave his palm a gentle press. “Don’t worry too much. If anything were truly wrong with our boy, Auntie Rong definitely would have reported it to us. Teenage boys go through growth spurts…they grow so fast, so it’s easy for them to feel under the weather or run into little issues.”
Xiang Yuyan sighed softly. “If it were really just growing pains, I wouldn’t be this anxious. What I’m actually worried about is… well, my cousin reached out to me again.”
Gu Pingyue paused, taken aback. “When did this happen? What did he want?”
“To borrow money, what else?” Xiang Yuyan rolled his eyes. “Oh right, you were filming over in Huaiyun District the day he came by, so you didn’t cross paths with him.”
Gu Pingyue frowned in confusion. “Did you lend it to him? And what does borrowing money have to do with Congjue?”
“Ugh, he didn’t give any warning before coming over, and the house staff felt too awkward to turn him away. By the time he walked into our house, I was taking a nap in the bedroom, and our son had gone to the library with Auntie Rong to borrow some books. Once the staff woke me up, I quickly changed and went downstairs to greet him. But guess what?”
Gu Pingyue’s eyebrows knitted together automatically. “What happened?”
“He was snooping around inside our son’s room!”
“Hiss—” Gu Pingyue found that thoroughly inappropriate and sucked in a cold breath. “Why would he do that? Does he think Congjue keeps money lying around in his room? Did you check carefully afterward? Make sure none of our son’s things were taken.”
“That part was a stroke of luck. Our little free-loader has always been cautious…all his important drawers were locked tight, and the unlocked ones were just filled with test papers.” Xiang Yuyan let out a relieved laugh.
Gu Pingyue asked, “Then what are you still stressing over?”
“Tsk, don’t you know what kind of person my cousin is?” Xiang Yuyan poked Gu Pingyue right between the brows. “The guy lives a shady lifestyle. The heavy drinking, clubbing, the affair that almost resulted in a love child…it’s all still fresh in my mind! Not to mention his obsession with the occult. He rambles on about mystical nonsense all day; just looking at him gives me the creeps. I’m worried he learned some sleazy ritual and wants to experiment using our son’s belongings!”
Gu Pingyue’s memory slowly clicked into place. “Oh, right… He’s the reason you hate metaphysics and fortune-telling so much. We haven’t had much to do with him over the years, so I almost forgot.”
Because Xiang Yuyan thoroughly disliked this cousin…and because, as the son of Xiang Yuyan’s aunt, he was never particularly close with the family…Gu Pingyue knew very little about him and interacted with him even less. The last time he had heard Xiang Yuyan vent about him was back when Gu Congjue was just a newborn.
Now, more than a decade later, why was he showing up at their door again?
“Why would he suddenly reach out to us now?”
Xiang Yuyan let out a sharp, annoyed scoff. “When I visited my family recently, I overheard a few relatives gossiping. They said he learned some dark, mystical arts and made a fortune by leeching off other people’s luck. But over the last couple of years, the spells have started losing their potency, and he’s facing the backlash. His business ventures have been a mess…everything he touches turns into a loss. Almost all the wealth he built up a few years ago was squandered in these last two years. He must have tried borrowing money from the people around him and failed, which made him turn his sights on us.”
“That far-fetched?” Gu Pingyue fell into deep thought. “Still, isn’t that just superstition? How could those bizarre rituals actually work?”
“Are you silly or what?” Xiang Yuyan threw his husband a side-eye. “Whether the rituals work isn’t the point! The point is that someone believes they work and is actually crazy enough to put them into practice! Intent to harm is bad enough on its own. Just because it might not work doesn’t make it okay to try it!”
The more Xiang Yuyan spoke, the more frightened he became after the fact.
“I’m not sure if our little freeloading pig acting strange really has anything to do with that occult nonsense. But Pingyue, do you know what? When my cousin came to borrow money, he went out of his way to pry into our son’s exact date and time of birth! Is he trying to calculate our son’s birth chart to do something sinister?”
“Surely not? Don’t spook yourself just yet,” Gu Pingyue soothed, gently patting his wife’s back to calm him down.
After reflecting for a moment, Gu Pingyue took the opportunity to bring up something else.
“I’ve been thinking all night… was it really the right choice to push our son toward the entertainment industry? Sure, most of our connections are tied to showbiz, but Congjue genuinely lacks artistic talent, and he really isn’t interested in that world. In fact, I’m worried our pressure is starting to spark a bit of teenage rebellion in him.”
Xiang Yuyan sighed softly, turning his hand over to squeeze his husband’s. “We were thinking the exact same thing. I was just pondering whether we should just drop it and stop forcing him into the industry. But my main reason for changing my mind is… I don’t want our son exposed to the public eye. The little freeloading pig is so quiet and reserved; he’s never been someone who likes dealing with crowds. Even if he works behind the scenes, he’d still have to network and face cameras. Sigh, the more I think about it, the more I feel like we’re just making life hard for him.”
“Forget it, then. Let’s drop it.”
Gu Pingyue unclasped his hand and wrapped an arm around Xiang Yuyan’s shoulders instead, pulling his partner into a warm embrace.
“Didn’t we promise each other when he was born? As long as he grows up happy and healthy, that’s all that matters…even if he accomplishes nothing and turns out to be a little dummy, a little freeloading pig.”
Whenever the topic turned to their son, Xiang Yuyan’s heart would soften into a warm, comfortable mush.
Leaning against his husband’s chest, he nodded in agreement, an affectionate smile involuntarily creeping onto his face. “You’re right. As long as our little freeloader is healthy and happy, that’s enough. It’s been so many years; we should have made peace with this a long time ago.”
This conversation…which had started in anxiety and ended in tender warmth…not only washed away the couple’s fatigue, but also left them both in high spirits.
When they arrived home, Xiang Yuyan linked arms with Gu Pingyue. The moment they stepped up from the underground garage into the main floor lobby, he couldn’t wait to call out for his son.
“Gu Congjue…little freeloading pig! Mom and Dad are home from work, why aren’t you downstairs to welcome us?”
Gu Pingyue glanced toward the second floor. “Could he be asleep already?”
Instead of summoning their son, the shout brought Auntie Rong over instead. She hurried downstairs with a flustered, complicated expression. “Young Master, Young Mistress… the Young Master, he…he!”
“What’s wrong?” A bad premonition seized Xiang Yuyan, his brow furrowing. “Is he sick? Did you take his temperature? Have you called a doctor?”
“N-No!” Auntie Rong wanted to blurt out that the Young Master was in love, but the news was so sudden that she had no idea how to phrase it. “The Young Master, he has a crush—”
“Dad, Mom!”
Speak of the devil! As if he had timed it down to the exact second, Gu Congjue walked through the house at that very moment!
Seeing their son enter through the main front door connected to the courtyard, the couple was stunned. Xiang Yuyan looked him up and down, taking in his outfit, and asked in surprise, “Which primeval wilderness did you go wild in? Why is there a stray leaf tucked inside your hoodie?”
The worried mother reached out and picked the leaf out for him.
Gu Congjue didn’t bother explaining where he had been. Instead, he stepped forward with intense determination, grabbed both of his unreliable parents by the hand, and announced with absolute sincerity:
“I’m in love. And I’m joining the entertainment industry!”
One, two, three.
The air in the room froze into dead silence for three full seconds.
Then came Xiang Yuyan’s voice, filled with sheer disbelief: “What did you just say? You did what, and you’re joining where??”
With a single sentence, their freeloading son had rendered the entire heartwarming conversation between his award-winning movie star dad and idol turned actor mom in the car completely useless!
Xiang Yuyan tossed the leaf aside and grabbed the brat by his collar, looking positively fierce. “Your dad and I spent the whole night discussing how we shouldn’t force you, and you turn around and tell me you want to enter showbiz?! Do you realize you’re only fifteen?! Dating at your age is considered a teenage fling! Don’t think that just because you get good grades, look handsome, and are a teacher’s favorite, I’m going to let you date at this age!”
Gu Congjue…who was usually docile, low-maintenance, and willing to cooperate with his parents…suddenly displayed a once-in-a-millennium level of stubborn defiance!
With a deadpan, dead-serious expression, he declared his resolve: “It doesn’t matter if you don’t allow it. I like him, and he likes me. He’s an exceptionally rare artistic talent. For his sake, I’m going to take the arts entrance exam and join the entertainment industry.”
“You—” Xiang Yuyan was so furious he felt dizzy. “You’re an artistic blank slate! You can’t sing, you can’t dance, and you can’t act! You have the academic scores to get into the top university in the country, and you’re telling me you want to take the arts exam?? Gu Congjue, have I gone insane, or have you?!”
Gu Congjue asked back, genuinely confused, “Didn’t you two always want me to join showbiz and inherit your connections and resources?”
“And we mentioned it to you a hundred times, but did you ever actually listen to us?!” Xiang Yuyan rolled up his sleeves, squaring up as if he were about to beat the boy. “You won’t listen to a word your mom and dad say, but you’re willing to go all out for the person you’re dating?! You little brat, you really are an ungrateful—”
Seeing that things were getting out of hand, Gu Pingyue quickly held Xiang Yuyan back, whispering words of peace. “Yuyan, calm down. Congjue is going through puberty. Impulsive teenage romance is completely normal. Don’t blow your top and hurt the child.”
That only made Xiang Yuyan angrier. He slapped his husband’s chest twice. “You have the nerve to speak up?! Your son takes after you, through and through! Back when you fell for me in the arts prep class, you were right around fifteen or sixteen yourself!”
“Oh, that’s true!”
The airheaded Gu Pingyue saw zero problem with that and took the chance to advocate for his son. “Isn’t that a good thing? If a moment of impulse can lead to a fruitful romance, wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing?”
Gu Congjue deliberately emphasized, “I am not being impulsive. My relationship with him has been carefully thought through. We are both completely clear about our feelings for each other, and we have the confidence to spend the rest of our lives together.”
“Shoo, shoo! Stop listening to your dad’s nonsense!” Xiang Yuyan shoved Gu Pingyue away, giving him a speechlessly exasperated side-eye.
However, with Gu Pingyue interceding like that, Xiang Yuyan’s temper had cooled down quite a bit.
They say like father, like son, don’t they? The kid was a carbon copy of his dad, so there was no point in blaming anyone else…he could only blame the dad who sowed the seed, and himself for raising it!
“Is your partner a boy or a girl?” Xiang Yuyan caught his breath and asked. “How old are they this year?”
“A boy,” Gu Congjue answered. “He’s one year older than me. Sixteen this year.”
“Heh, an older guy? Well, that’s one thing you didn’t copy from your dad.” Xiang Yuyan pursed his lips. “I have to warn you, though: you’re still young, and he’s still young too. If you two are just holding hands and talking about school, teachers, or classmates because of some puppy love feelings, that’s fine, but…nothing beyond your age, got it? Absolutely forbidden!”
By “nothing beyond your age,” Xiang Yuyan meant kissing, sleeping together, or teen pregnancy.
However, what Gu Congjue understood by “nothing beyond your age” was skipping class, going clubbing, drinking, or getting into fights.
He looked at Xiang Yuyan with a hint of confusion, then nodded in agreement. “Of course not.”
“You’d better mean it!” Xiang Yuyan grumbled.
Then, his heart softened again, and his tone shifted into something gentle.
“What kind of kid is he? In a few days… when your dad and I have some free time, bring him over to our house. Let us meet him.”