LWDC Chapter 13

Chapter 13 – Ominous Premonition

Chapter 13 – Ominous Premonition

Chapter 13 – Ominous Premonition

While Ning Fei was enjoying his wonderful evening, Gu Hechen was apparently so angered by Ning Fei that he broke down and had Chen Xi Studio issue an announcement overnight, saying that Ning Fei had left.

Ning Fei’s first reaction upon seeing the announcement: “Who at the studio was dragged out by Gu Hechen for late-night overtime to issue this announcement? How tragic.”

Although this announcement was hastily prepared and the wording was a bit rough, certain key parts were made clear. For example, the part describing Ning Fei’s departure wasn’t phrased as “Ning Fei voluntarily resigned,” as Gu Hechen had previously stated, but rather as “Both parties had differing philosophies, will no longer cooperate, and have terminated their employment relationship.” At first glance, this statement seemed neutral, but upon closer inspection, one could still sense the studio’s tough stance.

What was even more interesting was that shortly after this announcement was released, so-called “internal leaks” appeared online. Some marketing accounts said that Ning Fei was fired for being absent from his duties for an extended period, and for a major dereliction of duty that caused Su Cenxi to lose work. The implied meaning was that everything was Ning Fei’s fault; if Su Cenxi’s appearances at future shows decreased, it would be entirely Ning Fei’s responsibility.

Shortly after these leaks appeared, Ning Fei’s phone began ringing incessantly, and his messaging apps started buzzing like crazy. Ning Fei knew without looking that it was definitely the media trying to dig up some new information from him. Ning Fei’s way of dealing with this was to first find the recording of the phone call he just had with Gu Hechen, send it to Su Cenxi, and then decisively turn off his phone again.

However, this time he didn’t cut himself off from everyone. He used his backup phone to send a message to Duan Yunhong: [This is Ning Fei. My main phone is off, contact me on this number if you need anything.]

Duan Yunhong was also still awake, and replied after a dozen minutes: [Saw you got fired. Where to next?]

Ning Fei preemptively guarded against the other party’s recruitment attempts: [Taking a gap year for a while.]

Duan Yunhong: [Real gap or fake gap?]

Ning Fei: [Guaranteed authentic. I would never say gap today and join another company tomorrow, okay?]

Duan Yunhong: [You don’t have a better option than ST right now.]

A very assertive tone, but if Ning Fei were really just a corporate agent, he would agree with Duan Yunhong’s self-praise.

Unfortunately, the “job” that Ning Fei was doing wasn’t the “job” that Duan Yunhong understood.

So Ning Fei replied very perfunctorily: [Yes, yes, yes. I promise to seriously consider your ST during my gap year, okay?]

Duan Yunhong didn’t send any more messages.

Ning Fei didn’t care. Duan Yunhong wasn’t his boyfriend, there was no need to say good morning and good night, if there was nothing to talk about, then so be it. Moreover, after repeatedly trying to poach him, and Ning Fei acting like he was hopeless, the other party was probably also feeling doubtful.

Ning Fei, who didn’t have the pressure of getting up early the next day, surfed the web to his heart’s content on his backup phone, and then went to sleep easily and happily.

*

Ning Fei had a dreamless night, but Su Cenxi tossed and turned all night.

He listened to Ning Fei’s recording as soon as he received it. At that time, Gu Hechen had gone to the study to work again, and Su Cenxi didn’t even need to deliberately avoid him to listen to the entire recording alone. When he learned that Gu Hechen’s so-called “teaching Ning Fei a lesson” was actually finding a master to perform an exorcism on Ning Fei, his heart was greatly shaken.

He wanted to ask Gu Hechen if the master was truly capable, if he could see “something that originally didn’t belong to this body.” He also wanted to ask Ning Fei if his situation could be considered “possession,” and whether he would be driven away by those metaphysical methods. But he dared not ask one, and couldn’t ask the other. He did send a message to Ning Fei to ask, but after sending it, he quickly deleted his side of the message history, fearing that Gu Hechen would accidentally see it in the future.

Ning Fei had turned off his phone at that time, so how could he reply to him.

Su Cenxi sat on the sofa holding his phone for half the night, feeling anxious and confused, but daring not say anything. In contrast to this was the lively atmosphere online and in the work group. Under Gu Hechen’s instruction, the studio bought a lot of negative news about Ning Fei. Such as Ning Fei treating Su Cenxi harshly, constantly gaslighting Su Cenxi, scolding him mercilessly for being even 0.1 kg overweight, and forcing Su Cenxi to do work he didn’t want to do. In short, the rumors simply portrayed Ning Fei as a “big devil” and Su Cenxi as a pitiful little white flower. This made Su Cenxi’s fans feel indignant, and they were frantically discussing and cursing Ning Fei late into the night.

Some people also mentioned Gu Hechen. On the one hand, they said that with Gu Hechen around, Ning Fei dared to mistreat Su Cenxi like this, that Ning Fei was outrageously bold; on the other hand, some people were shouting “President Gu, please take Xixi home, don’t let him suffer outside,” which made Su Cenxi feel frightened.

His work had already been greatly reduced, and now that Ning Fei had been driven away at this critical juncture, he felt that a major disaster was imminent. If Gu Hechen took the opportunity to tell him not to go out to work, he didn’t know what fatal consequences would result.

Speaking of Gu Hechen, Su Cenxi also vaguely felt that his boyfriend hadn’t been having such a smooth time lately.

The most obvious sign was that Gu Hechen was coming home later. Sometimes, Su Cenxi would return home after a late-night rehearsal, but Gu Hechen still hadn’t returned. Or even if the two of them were home at night, the time Gu Hechen spent with Su Cenxi had decreased, and he was often working overtime in his study. Su Cenxi wanted to ask, but didn’t know how to start, because he didn’t understand Gu Hechen’s work at all.

Just then, Gu Hechen finally entered the bedroom.

“…You’re still not asleep?” He saw Su Cenxi sitting blankly on the sofa, and was a little surprised. “It’s almost three o’clock, go to sleep quickly. Don’t wait for me next time.”

“Achen…” Su Cenxi looked at him, opened his mouth, and finally could only ask, “You seem very busy lately, are you okay?”

“I’m very well, just a little busy.” Gu Hechen always looked like he was in control in front of Su Cenxi. “I’m even a little happy that I finally fired that Ning Fei.”

“I don’t want you to hurt people, Achen.” Su Cenxi stood up and mustered his courage to—indirectly ask, “He said you found someone to exorcise him, the person you… found is reliable, right?”

“He even told you that? Of course the person I found is reliable, I didn’t just find a con artist on the street.” Gu Hechen sneered when he heard this. “He’s the one who’s crazy, first he harmed himself, and then he kicked Master Xu’s disciple into the hospital! Others didn’t ask him for compensation, and he still has the nerve to seek sympathy?”

Su Cenxi saw that he had misunderstood, and racked his brains for the wording: “I’m not saying you were deceived, I want to ask, did that Master Xu see anything wrong? By the way, where is the master from?”

“Master Xu has been practicing with a master since he was a child, and many important people ask their master and apprentice to do things, so you can rest assured about their background and ability. He said that Ning Fei’s birth data is very incompatible with him personally, and it’s obvious that there’s a problem. Unfortunately, he was careless on the day of the ritual and let Ning Fei go crazy and harm himself, disrupting the ritual, so it hasn’t been completely resolved yet.” Gu Hechen replied, “However, Master Xu also said that Ning Fei has already offended their ancestral master, and he shouldn’t be able to make waves in the future. As long as he is transferred away from you, his influence on you will gradually diminish.”

Su Cenxi intuitively felt that this master was wrong.

He knew very well that what would really affect him should be the “debt repayment” progress. Even if Ning Fei wasn’t around, as long as his work was normal and his MDC ranking could rise, he wouldn’t have any major problems. But now that Ning Fei was gone, many jobs were squeezed out and canceled for no reason. Some jobs even had nothing to do with Ning Fei, but they were still dropped. The impact of Ning Fei’s departure was much greater than Su Cenxi had originally expected!

–Could it be that Ning Fei did something after he left? Is he retaliating against me?

–But I didn’t orchestrate any of this, I even left him a message explaining the situation, can’t he turn on his phone and take a look, listen to me explain?

Su Cenxi felt very wronged and conflicted. He hated Ning Fei, but he was even more afraid that Gu Hechen would go too far, and Ning Fei would completely turn against him, and then reveal his secrets. Looking at Gu Hechen’s face with a fierce expression, Su Cenxi tried to persuade him: “You’ve already driven him away, so don’t continue to teach him a lesson, okay? We were colleagues after all, it’s too ugly to make such a scene now, it’s not good for the studio either…”

Gu Hechen frowned: “You’re still helping him? He treats you so harshly and mentally tortures you, weren’t you also in pain?”

“That, that’s just that our philosophies are a little different.” Su Cenxi replied, “But our goals are the same, I want to get into the TOP 10…”

“You can still get in without him, it has nothing to do with him!” Gu Hechen interrupted. “No, you’re still too influenced by him. Why don’t we ask Master Xu to take a look at you one day, to completely remove Ning Fei’s influence on you…”

“I won’t look!” Su Cenxi immediately forgot about the persuasion and blurted out his objection. When he belatedly realized that he had overreacted, he immediately added: “I don’t like getting involved in this kind of mystical stuff, it’s weird, so I won’t look, okay?”

“Okay, if you don’t want to look, then don’t.” Gu Hechen walked closer and hugged him. “Then let’s not talk about it, let’s go to sleep? Don’t wait for me to sleep after this, I can’t control my time lately. When I’m done with these few days, I’ll endorse a high-end car series for you? The global ambassador for B brand cars is expiring, and Gu’s is their major shareholder, so we should be able to say something.”

As soon as Su Cenxi heard this, his mood instantly turned from cloudy to sunny.

Endorsement of high-end car series, that can calculate the commercial value score of MDC ranking, finally have a ranking bonus item!

“Can I really do it?” Su Cenxi’s eyes lit up a bit. “I’m just a model…”

“But you’re a supermodel. It’s normal for high-end brands to use supermodel endorsements.” Gu Hechen finally made Su Cenxi laugh, and his heart also felt relieved. Does it matter if the manager is Ning Fei or not? Anyway, he can praise Su Cenxi.

“Don’t worry, Xixi, you’re always the best, don’t be influenced by irrelevant people.”

*

Gu Hechen said that he could finish his work in a few days, but in the following days, he was obviously getting busier and busier.

Even when Fashion Week had arrived, Gu Hechen didn’t have time to watch Su Cenxi’s show. Gu Hechen didn’t show up at Su Cenxi’s hard-won top luxury brand shows, let alone other brands’ shows and events. Backstage at the show, someone came to Su Cenxi and asked seemingly unintentionally: “Why don’t I see your boyfriend coming to support you?”

Su Cenxi could only reply a little awkwardly: “He’s busy lately.”

The other party smiled: “So President Gu is busy, I thought it was because something happened to his company, and someone was even arrested, so the brands didn’t dare to send him invitations.”

Su Cenxi was at a loss: “Who was arrested?”

The person who was talking to him: “An executive of Gu’s, I guess? What, President Gu didn’t tell you? Or is it just a rumor?”

Su Cenxi didn’t know anything, so he said: “I’m not sure.”

The other party gave him a meaningful look, exchanged a few more pleasantries, and walked away. Just then, Garcelin returned to Su Cenxi’s side and asked: “President Gu doesn’t even have time tonight? Then are you going to the after-party for this show?”

Su Cenxi had never really wanted to go to such occasions, and since Gu Hechen wouldn’t be there to accompany him, he was even more unwilling to deal with the social interactions. But before he could think of a reason to refuse, he heard Garcelin continue: “I heard that all the ST models are going to this show tonight, so there must be big shots there, so you should at least show your face, right?”

Su Cenxi hesitated again and again, and finally the fear of losing work took over, and he nodded.

“Okay, I’ll go for a quick look.”