AHFAFTGTTT Chapter 28
by Volare“Why are your eyes so red?”
Li An wasn’t at the live broadcast; she had gone to the company for a meeting. After the meeting, she called them to rush to the conference room, saying she had important matters to discuss.
Xu Chengyue arrived first, sitting on the right side by the window. As Fu Yang entered, he noticed the redness in the corner of Xu Chengyue’s eyes. He paused, the foot he had raised to step into the right aisle faltered. He abruptly changed his trajectory, heading to the left side instead, deliberately choosing a seat away from facing Xu Chengyue directly.
What was he doing? This wasn’t a live broadcast, why would he engage in fan service? He almost formed a muscle memory.
“The lunch was too spicy,” Xu Chengyue replied, casually flipping through the Galaxy Entertainment company introduction in the conference room.
Isn’t this guy someone who doesn’t even flinch when eating spicy food? Perhaps driven by an overabundance of curiosity, Fu Yang couldn’t help but glance at him, concerned. Never mind…
He definitely wouldn’t say anything even if asked. Even if he pried to the very end, he’d just smile and say, “I’m fine.”
Too lazy to bother, Fu Yang played with his phone while waiting for the others.
Ever since adding Zhao Anqing as a contact, a flood of messages from the workaholic with a serene lotus flower profile picture kept popping up. In the time it took to browse Weibo, more than a dozen new messages appeared.
Fu Yang: …
He didn’t notice any chattiness when he met Zhao Anqing in person. Was he unleashing his true self online? Why was he asking him about trivial things like which fruit to buy? Which one was sweeter? He wasn’t a biology student. Fu Yang’s lips twitched, and he casually turned off message notifications.
While he was being bothered incessantly by Zhao Anqing online, Xu Chengyue across from him was exceptionally quiet. The only sound in the large conference room was the occasional rustling of pages.
Fu Yang cleared his throat, breaking the silence, “Ahem, I heard this show is being filmed on an island.”
“Mm,” Xu Chengyue responded simply.
“Ye Xiao told you?” Fu Yang probed.
“Zhao Anqing told you?” Xu Chengyue asked at the same time.
They spoke simultaneously, then averted their gazes, creating a subtle atmosphere.
Fu Yang scratched his head, trying to ease the tension, “How was my performance on the live broadcast? Did I hold you back?”
From a young age, Fu Yang had a bit of “Top” syndrome. Since he had agreed to the Xing Yue deal, he wanted to take first place. After lurking in various popular CP supertopics in the domestic entertainment scene for a few days, he had finally grasped some insights and felt his performance shouldn’t be too terrible.
Of course, Xu Chengyue’s one-hit KO with overlapping small cards had defeated him.
A master, a true master.
“It was very good,” Xu Chengyue nodded slightly, his eyes full of praise, before lowering his head to continue reading.
Even though this master of masters praised him, Fu Yang still felt uneasy, an itch in his heart that he couldn’t quite scratch, as if everything was uncomfortable.
“One sentence,” Fu Yang put down his phone, knowing that Xu Chengyue was in a bad mood, but itching to tease him, “Still owes one hundred and seven sentences.”
He clearly wanted to redeem those 108 compliments now.
Xu Chengyue pursed his lips slightly, thought seriously for a moment, and then patiently said, “You’re smart, you’re reliable, you’re handsome, you’re helpful…”
Was he really going to say it if asked? Did his temper have to be this good? Fu Yang mused to himself, feeling like he was the one bullying him.
“Alright!” Fu Yang interrupted abruptly, “Not sincere at all, none of that counts.”
“Okay, fine,” Xu Chengyue, having his train of thought interrupted for no reason, didn’t show any displeasure. He simply withdrew his gaze indifferently, only feeling that Fu Yang’s current appearance resembled the little dog his family used to have, wagging its tail with a ball in its mouth, wanting its owner to play with it. The need was obvious, but Xu Chengyue wasn’t a good owner right now, he didn’t have the energy to deal with this enthusiasm. He was a little tired.
Fu Yang: …Even more annoyed.
The members and staff gradually arrived, filling the spacious conference room.
Li An stood in the center, decisively saying, “I just came back from a meeting with the directors. There’s no time, I’ll quickly brief you.”
“This show is in the confidentiality stage, and I don’t know much about the situation, not even the name of the show. Everything is arranged by Director Zhao Qian, so just follow his lead. It’s an S+ level production, a very good opportunity for Spark. If it weren’t for our recent popularity, this opportunity wouldn’t have been ours. So, you must perform well and listen to Director Zhao Qian’s arrangements throughout the entire process.” Li An’s expression was serious, because this was indeed a rare opportunity. Just for a variety show, the program investment was as high as nine figures. As a gold-medal agent, she had a feeling that this variety show would stir up a storm. The company was extremely serious about it, and she had been in back-to-back meetings all day, but she wasn’t tired at all, but rather excited.
Her gaze swept over everyone one by one, finally stopping in front of Xu Chengyue.
“Chengyue, I know you had some conflicts with Director Zhao Qian before, but you have to prioritize the bigger picture, understand?”
Xu Chengyue nodded slightly. His hatred for Zhao Qian was because of Ye Xiao, and now that Ye Xiao had defected, his emotional turmoil had become a joke.
What Zhao Qian wanted to do was nothing more than to revive Ye Xiao’s popularity due to the recent scandals. They were just incidental. As for whether he would target him… Thinking of what Ye Xiao had said that night, even if he was being targeted, he had no way out. If this was a trap, he could only face it.
“Okay, the second thing, why were you two fighting?” Li An leaned her arms on the table, scrutinizing Fu Yang and Ye Xiao.
She only found out about it from the hot search video. That night at the celebration banquet, she only left for a while to reserve a restaurant, and the two of them had caused such a big mess!
“Sister An, we were just fooling around.”
Ye Xiao glared at Fu Yang as a warning. Fu Yang leaned back in his chair as if he had no bones, not saying anything, taking it as tacit consent.
He wanted to refute, but he couldn’t possibly say that this disgusting Ye Xiao tried to rape him, right? If the truth were told, the already precarious Spark would really collapse.
What’s more… Fu Yang raised his eyes and glanced at the upright Xu Chengyue.
The person involved doesn’t want to make the truth public. He doesn’t understand, but he respects it.
Fu Yang now understood Xu Chengyue’s feelings a year ago. The phrase “he doesn’t want to” had actually framed him into the role of Xu Chengyue back then.
He shifted his gaze, fixing it on Ye Xiao.
He just didn’t expect that the victim from a year ago had now become the perpetrator.
“You better be!” The cold expression on Li An’s face suddenly cleared, “But this fight was well done. It directly brought Spark to the public eye, and the popularity is more than Spark’s three years combined. A really good fight.”
Li An had never liked getting to the bottom of things. As long as the final result achieved everyone could make money, the process didn’t matter to her. So, she quickly brushed aside this matter, only saying with a slight warning: “You can’t have any more conflicts on the show. The entire Spark group has to show me a spirit of unity and friendship, understand?”
Developing a group can maximize benefits and earn more money than individuals. Humans are social animals, and stories happen when there are social relationships. There are loyal fans, group fans, mother fans, girlfriend fans, development fans, and CP fans. There are countless entertainment companies rushing to develop boy groups and girl groups, because ensemble stories are always more popular with the audience than individual autobiographies.
Everyone nodded in understanding.
“And most importantly, there is one thing. This show is not just a group variety show. In addition to you, three more people will join. One of them is very important. Lu Baoyu, the only son of the Lu family, the richest family in A City, will participate. The Lu family is also the main investor in this show. Overall, the show is formed to promote Lu Baoyu.”
Fu Yang was slightly surprised. He thought this show was created by Zhao Qian to promote Ye Xiao. He didn’t expect there was a crown prince above the crown prince. The entertainment circle was really deep.
But… why did the name Lu Baoyu sound familiar?
The young master of the Lu family in A City… He had seen him once when he was a child, and his name seemed to be Lu something-cheng. Where did this Lu Baoyu come from?
Hao Yun suddenly said, “Lu Baoyu? Is that the Lu Baoyu who asked Yaoguang to be his ghostwriter? The ‘original’ singer who stole Yaoguang’s song.”
Fu Yang suddenly perked up his ears. No wonder it sounded so familiar. In the live broadcast when he first transmigrated into Shangguan Yaoguang’s body, the person who stole the song that Xu Chengyue revealed was Lu Baoyu. Later, sure enough, after being exposed by fans, he was forced to leave the circle and even made it to a few low-ranking hot searches, but it seemed to end without a trace. Overnight, all of Lu Baoyu’s black entries were bombed.
“Hey, don’t say it so harshly, this is just a resource swap.” Li An frowned, troubled by the ignorance of these young men, “This young master Lu Baoyu signed with our company incognito at first. Everyone just thought he was a rich second generation with a little money. He took a fancy to Shangguan Yaoguang’s song and wanted to buy it out, but the company was indeed greedy and wanted to get the best of both worlds, which backfired and led to Lu Baoyu being blacklisted. It was also because of this blacklisting that we found out about his family background.”
“Later, his family found out that the young master was being bullied in the entertainment circle, so they set up an entertainment company for him alone and warned our company. The senior management was trembling with fear for the past few days.”
“So, this time it’s to help him clear his name, understand?” Li An’s gaze shifted to Fu Yang, paused, and suddenly her head ached even more. Why was it him again? It seemed that from the time Shangguan Yaoguang’s temperament changed drastically, there had been no peace in this group.
To put it bluntly, one of the biggest reasons for inviting Spark to this show was Lu Baoyu’s instruction. His target was Fu Yang. He wanted to use Fu Yang to clear the black history of plagiarism and theft from his name.
It was indeed very easy to clear his name, as long as Fu Yang acted like he and Lu Baoyu were good friends on the show, and it would be best to promote a CP. The previous incident of Lu Baoyu stealing the song could easily be whitewashed as “a gift between friends”, “engagement tokens”, etc. According to what she knew, those entries were already prepared – #Shangguan Yaoguang wrote the song for Lu Baoyu!# They were just waiting to post them after the show started.
Fu Yang thought for a moment and roughly understood the hidden meaning of these words. He crossed his arms, raised his chin slightly, and his eyes revealed a hint of disdain, “He used my song. It’s a done deal. Why should I help him clear his name? Dream on.”