SM Chapter 54

Chapter 54: Currently Pursuing, But My Wife Hasn’t Been Wooed Back Yet

After rummaging through the second storage box, Ye Lai finally found the divorce agreement. It was wrinkled from being pressed under other books. He pulled it out, smoothing it as he muttered that the divorce agreement didn’t count.

After finally smoothing it out, he flipped to page three, clause twenty-eight, sub-point two—

“2: After the divorce, Ye Lai cannot film intimate scenes, including but not limited to bed scenes, kissing scenes, and other passionate scenes. If using camera tricks, Sheng Mingqian’s side needs to be notified in advance.”

Ye Lai: “…”

What is this?

The divorce agreement was nine pages long. How hadn’t he noticed how much there was that night? This time, Ye Lai read every word, not even missing the punctuation.

But only the first page was a standard divorce agreement template, with nothing but their basic information. From the second page onwards, things took a turn.

The agreement was incredibly detailed, with every clause a restriction on him. He couldn’t remarry, couldn’t have a partner, couldn’t go on blind dates, couldn’t film kissing scenes or bed scenes, and even had to report what roles he was taking to Sheng Mingqian. If Sheng Mingqian was filming, Ye Lai should prioritize joining Sheng Mingqian’s cast.

It was utterly outrageous.

Ye Lai laughed in anger as he read, pinching the divorce agreement and swinging his arm, “Sheng Mingqian, this isn’t a divorce agreement at all, it’s a contract of sale…”

He had only said one sentence when he noticed Sheng Mingqian was holding several sheets of paper filled with writing, looking at them. His voice, which had been so high-pitched just now, immediately deflated, falling heavily, completely losing its momentum.

Those were the handwritten manuscript of “The World on the Bough.” The contents of the manuscript were different from the published version. Hidden inside were all his wishful thinking and overestimation of himself. Ye Lai’s attention had been focused on the divorce agreement, and he hadn’t touched the manuscript in a long time. The book used the names he later revised, so even if Sheng Mingqian found out, Ye Lai could comfort himself that it was just a novel. But the manuscript contained real names, his, Sheng Mingqian’s, all of which were real records. Now it was being displayed so nakedly in front of Sheng Mingqian, not even the last fig leaf was left.

Forgetting about the divorce agreement, Ye Lai bent over and rushed forward, snatching the manuscript from Sheng Mingqian’s hand. But Sheng Mingqian was holding it too tightly. When Ye Lai pulled, the manuscript tore in the middle and broke apart.

In the end, Ye Lai held half in his hand, and Sheng Mingqian held the other half. The irregular jagged edges where the manuscript tore apart resembled a ferocious beast that had been lurking in the darkness for a long time, finally seeing its desired prey, its large mouth with sharp fangs exposed, unable to close.

Ye Lai stared at the words on the manuscript that had also torn apart, unable to piece together a complete sentence, his vision becoming increasingly blurry.

Sheng Mingqian carefully pulled the manuscript from Ye Lai’s hand, placed it on his lap, and slowly pieced it together, then opened his palm to press down on the creases.

Ye Lai barely managed to focus his vision on Sheng Mingqian’s lap. When he realized what was happening, he snatched the manuscript that had been pieced together and flattened on his lap, squeezing it into a ball, and threw it far away onto the TV cabinet, “Sheng Mingqian, who told you to look at my things? What right do you have to look at my things?”

The ball of manuscript paper that Ye Lai threw away was picked up by Sheng Mingqian again, carefully smoothing out the scattered wrinkles, and placed together with the other manuscripts, repressing them in the storage box, then putting everything else back in order, and finally closing the lid.

“Ye Lai, if you don’t want me to see it, I won’t look. It hurts me to see what you wrote, I also feel pain.”

Sheng Mingqian lowered his head. Even though the room wasn’t hot, a few drops of sweat still fell from the hair on his forehead, the sound of the sweat hitting the floor was clearly audible.

Ye Lai opened his mouth to breathe, his lips were trembling slightly, and his eyes instantly became wet.

Sheng Mingqian arranged the storage box, being stabbed fiercely by the deep, dark, and lingering embarrassment and sorrow in Ye Lai’s eyes. His straight back suddenly collapsed, and he raised his arm, put it around Ye Lai’s shoulder, and hugged him, “Ye Lai, I’ve only just realized that I know too little about you. I know saying anything now is useless. I don’t want you to feel pain. If you hurt, I hurt too.”

Ye Lai wasn’t originally in pain, but Sheng Mingqian’s words evoked those nights of pain. The strength in his body was instantly emptied, and his arms, which wanted to push Sheng Mingqian away, drooped limply at his sides, unable to move at all.

Sheng Mingqian carefully patted Ye Lai’s back, softly comforting, “Ye Lai, I know that kind of divorce agreement is invalid, even laughable, because at the time I thought you wouldn’t really sign the divorce agreement. I was still fantasizing that you would look up and smile at me like you did that year, saying you wanted me. Preparing that kind of divorce agreement wasn’t really to restrict you, it was just a way for me to leave myself an out…”

The air seemed to solidify around them. Ye Lai heard a cracking sound by his ear, the sound of the thin thread hanging above his head snapping, finally falling to the ground. It was indeed a mess, but not as unacceptable as he had imagined.

–

–

Sheng Mingqian, along with the divorce agreement, was still pushed out of the house by Ye Lai. No matter how Sheng Mingqian knocked on the door, Ye Lai lay on the bed with the quilt over his head, not responding at all.

Sheng Mingqian stood at the door for a while, thinking about coming back tomorrow morning, and still wondering what breakfast he should make and bring over.

Just as he walked to the elevator entrance, a man with his head lowered was coming out of the elevator.

Sheng Mingqian glanced sideways. The man was wearing a mask and looked young. He had dyed his hair a vibrant yellow, was holding a cigarette in his right hand, and was carrying a plastic bucket in his left hand. The bucket was covered with a black, greasy car cleaning cloth, swaying as he walked. The liquid in the bucket spilled along the edge, leaving a few drops of bright red marks on the floor. It was red paint, with a pungent smell.

Sheng Mingqian wrinkled his nose and moved aside, quickly entering the elevator and pressing the button for the first floor. But the moment the elevator doors closed, Sheng Mingqian realized the yellow-haired man’s target was Ye Lai’s door. The yellow-haired man lifted the plastic bucket and splashed the red paint all over Ye Lai’s door.

Sheng Mingqian frantically pressed the door open button, but he was too late to stop it. The elevator was already descending. By the time he went upstairs again, the yellow-haired paint splasher was already gone, probably having run away from another elevator.

Ye Lai’s door was white, and most of the white door was covered in red paint. The red liquid on it was still dripping down, the color piercingly red, and the foul smell filled the narrow, dim corridor.

Sheng Mingqian took out his cell phone, taking videos and collecting evidence from all angles. He knocked on the door, but Ye Lai didn’t open it, so he called the police first.

The police from the police station knocked on Ye Lai’s door before they could open it. As soon as the door opened, before Ye Lai could even step out, Sheng Mingqian strode over, grabbed Ye Lai’s arm, preventing him from stepping on the red paint outside. But the paint on the doorframe still dripped through the gaps onto the carpet in the room, and a few drops also stained the slippers on Ye Lai’s feet.

Smelling the pungent odor, Ye Lai, who wanted to push Sheng Mingqian’s hand away, stopped, noticing the paint splashed on the door and the uniformed police standing outside. He stood there without moving, letting Sheng Mingqian hold his hand.

The police collected evidence at the scene, asked Sheng Mingqian for the video he recorded on his cell phone, and went to the property management to check the surveillance cameras. But the surveillance cameras in Ye Lai’s building were broken, and the property management had been lazy and hadn’t found anyone to repair them. In the end, they extracted a few blurry images of the yellow-haired man leaving from the surveillance cameras at the entrance of the community. The yellow-haired man was riding a motorcycle, his face covered by a mask, so his face couldn’t be seen. The police carefully looked at the images and found that the motorcycle license plate was also fake.

The police had long recognized Sheng Mingqian and Ye Lai, took their statements, asked if they had offended anyone recently, left a contact number, and said that they would contact them again if they caught the person.

But Ye Lai knew that the probability of finding the paint splasher was not high. He already had a guess in his mind that his new address had probably been exposed. The paint splasher was likely some radical fans, a situation Ye Lai had long anticipated.

Two households on the same floor were awakened by the noise. When they came out and saw Sheng Mingqian and Ye Lai, some people took out their cell phones to take pictures of them. Sheng Mingqian pulled Ye Lai, his palm pressed against the back of his neck, pressing his face against his chest to prevent him from being photographed, and pushed Ye Lai into the door, not letting him come out again.

Ye Lai found someone to come and clean up the paint. By the time it was clean, it was almost dawn. Sheng Mingqian didn’t leave the whole time, made breakfast for Ye Lai, and then took him to the film set.

–

–

That afternoon, Ye Lai was trending again. Photos of his front door being splattered with red paint, and the topic “Ye Lai Get Out of the Entertainment Circle” topped the charts once again.

Sheng Mingqian was very sure that no one had gone upstairs in between, and from the state of the paint on the photos, he could judge that the photos were taken as soon as the paint was splashed. So, apart from him, the only one who could have taken the photos was the yellow-haired man who splashed the paint.

Ye Lai was filming and didn’t look at his cell phone, so he didn’t know about the trending topics. Sheng Mingqian took screenshots, collected evidence, and submitted it to the police again.

After receiving the news from Director Sun, Ye Lai’s scenes were about to finish filming. Sheng Mingqian needed to make a phone call to deal with some matters, and asked the Assistant to drive the car. As soon as the two of them left the studio door, they were surrounded by reporters who had been waiting for a long time. The reporters’ mouths were like cannons, firing out all sorts of questions.

“Director Sheng, can you respond to the online rumors about Ye Lai’s front door being splattered with red paint?”

“Are you paying attention to the comments from fans? Your fans are all dissatisfied that Ye Lai has been rubing your popularity since the divorce, and are shouting for Ye Lai to get out of the entertainment circle.”

“Director Sheng, someone photographed you and Ye Lai together on the set. Are you and Ye Lai having a new collaboration after the divorce? Can you reveal anything?”

“Director Sheng, can you respond to the scandals with Zhou Ran and Qin Ziming?”

…

Sheng Mingqian walked towards the car with a dark face, the assistant lifting his arm next to him, blocking the reporters: “Don’t follow, don’t ask any more questions.”

Walking to the car door, the reporters were still photographing Sheng Mingqian. Sheng Mingqian looked at the time on his cell phone. Director Sun just said in the message that Ye Lai had one hour left. It would take about thirty minutes to drive there from here.

There was still time.

Since there was still time, Sheng Mingqian’s hand that was about to open the car door stopped, and suddenly turned around, straightened his suit collar, and swept his eyes over the three reporters standing by the car.

“You, you want to ask me questions, right?”

Sheng Mingqian’s eyes were cold, and he was full of oppressive force when he looked at people. Several reporters holding recording pens and taking pictures didn’t arch forward anymore, but hearing Sheng Mingqian’s words, knowing there was a show to watch, their eyes lit up: “Director Sheng, can you respond?”

Sheng Mingqian signaled to the assistant not to stop them. The assistant took a step back, giving up a little space. Sheng Mingqian stood up straighter: “I didn’t want to respond before, because I didn’t care about those scandals, but now I realize that not responding will hurt the people I care about, and will bring him a lot of unnecessary trouble, then I will respond.”

As soon as he opened his mouth, the reporters who were just making a lot of noise instantly quieted down, not saying a word, and watched Sheng Mingqian, waiting for his next words.

“First, Zhou Ran and I only have a cooperative relationship.”

“Second, Qin Ziming and I, there is no relationship at all now.”

“Third, the person who splashed the paint, I have collected evidence and also called the police, we will pursue it to the end, this is my attitude, and it is also Ye Lai’s attitude.”

A reporter couldn’t help but interject: “Director Sheng, you and Ye Lai are already divorced, can your attitude represent Ye Lai’s attitude?”

The reporter’s words hit Sheng Mingqian’s sore spot. He indeed can’t represent him now, and can only rush to block the reporter: “Fourth, Ye Lai and I did get married for five years, we didn’t announce it to the public, and now we are divorced, there is another reason why I haven’t responded.”

Sheng Mingqian paused here. When facing the camera, the coldness and the anger of being questioned all along turned into softness: “Strictly speaking, the divorce was because I was dumped by my wife. I didn’t respond all along because I thought it was too embarrassing to lose my wife. I’m currently pursuing, but my wife hasn’t been wooed back yet. If there is good news in the future, I will share it with everyone…”