Chapter 29: Tossed and Turned, Unable to Sleep

Looking at the three women with menacing expressions in front of him, Zhang Yuan thought of a song.

*I want to run so badly, but I can't escape...*

He turned around, intending to open the door and leave.

*I'll leave the room to you three; I'll just make do at Li Dawei's place...*

"Zhang Yuan, this is your room. Why are you leaving?" Dong Jie, the oldest at only 22, spoke up.

Zhang Yuan braced himself and walked back.

At this moment, he felt like a "genius" playing a GALGAME who had accidentally stumbled into a hidden Bad End route.

Dong Jie, Shu Chang, and Liu Xi Xi sat on the same sofa one after another, while Zhang Yuan finally reclaimed his single seat.

The worst thing is when the air suddenly turns silent...

Right now, all of Zhang Yuan's strength was concentrated in his big toes; if not for the floorboards separating them, he would have already built a three-bedroom apartment out of the wreckage.

The three women on the sofa wore varying expressions.

Dong Jie, being well-traveled and experienced, felt displeased in her heart, but she didn't let much show on her face.

Shu Chang kept her head down, her eyes brimming with a sense of disappointment and sadness that permeated her surroundings.

Liu Xi Xi, however, was like a haughty swan, lifting her slender neck and glancing at Zhang Yuan from time to time before letting out a cold snort.

"Brother Yuan, I'm sorry. Maybe I didn't come at the right time," the timid Shu Chang was finally the one to break the silence.

*No, you came at exactly the right...* Zhang Yuan shook his head, swallowing his words.

"Changchang, actually, Dong Jie and I were just rehearsing a scene. I was afraid you'd misunderstand, so..." At this moment, Zhang Yuan pushed his "lying through his teeth" skill to its absolute limit.

"Sister Dong Jie, Changchang came to see me to express her thanks for what happened earlier today," he said, looking toward Dong Jie.

Then, he turned to look at Liu Xi Xi.

"As for Xi Xi... you just came here to take a crap, didn't you?"

*Hmph!*

Xi Xi stood up and rushed toward the bathroom. Zhang Yuan was right; if she didn't unload some weight, the damn scale wouldn't budge.

"Zhang Yuan, I'm heading back now. See you on set tomorrow." Dong Jie glanced left and right, stood up with a smile, and as she passed by Zhang Yuan, she let her index finger lightly slide across his chest.

But Zhang Yuan was incredibly agile, stepping back half a pace just in time to prevent her from touching him.

Dong Jie's expression froze for a split second.

*Was that half-step retreat for real? Such a tiny movement, yet the emotional damage is so massive...*

The adult world is all about unspoken understandings. Dong Jie's gaze shifted, and she left the room without looking back.

Shu Chang had seen both of their little maneuvers. Upon realizing that Zhang Yuan had stepped back, her sadness eased significantly.

"Brother Yuan, I'm going back too."

"Okay." Zhang Yuan walked her to the door. "Changchang, don't overthink what happened today, and don't put too much pressure on yourself. As fellow actors, we should help each other."

"But no one helped me..." Shu Chang muttered softly, then glanced toward the bathroom. "You and Xi Xi..."

"My relationship with her is the same as mine with you."

Shu Chang gave an "oh" and walked out of the room, lost in thought.

*Brother Yuan sees me as a sister. Since he's the same with Xi Xi, he must see her as a sister too.*

*But I don't want him to just see me as a sister. Does that mean Xi Xi doesn't want him to see her as a sister either?*

*Then does Brother Yuan know that I don't want him to see me as a sister, so he's intentionally saying he sees me as...*

The straight-A student Shu Chang thought her way through the entire walk, nearly causing her own "CPU" to overheat.

"Girls this age are so hard to read..." Just as Zhang Yuan breathed a sigh of relief, the bathroom door pushed open, and Liu Xi Xi walked out.

The girl turned her head away, refusing to give Zhang Yuan a direct look, and started walking toward the door.

"Xi Xi..." Zhang Yuan called out softly.

Liu Xi Xi snorted, then turned around gracefully. "Why are you calling me?"

"Xi Xi, you..."

"You what? Aren't you very busy? You have to entertain Sister Dong Jie and take care of Changchang. How do you have time to talk to me?"

Liu Xi Xi pouted, feeling an inexplicable surge of irritation.

"Actually, I just wanted to ask if you washed your hands after using the toilet." Zhang Yuan pointed at her fair, delicate hands. "They look dry, and I didn't hear the toilet flush. You didn't..."

"AHHH!!!" Liu Xi Xi went berserk instantly. She rubbed her hands forcefully against Zhang Yuan's chest a few times before bolting out the door.

*Whew... finally managed to bluff my way through.*

Zhang Yuan walked into the bathroom and found it perfectly clean. Xi Xi hadn't used it at all.

He went to the sink, turned on the tap, and splashed several handfuls of water on his face to wake himself up. He looked up at the mirror and froze.

Liu Xi Xi hadn't used the toilet, but she had used toothpaste to draw a pig's head on the mirror, which happened to align perfectly with Zhang Yuan's head in the reflection.

After wiping the mirror clean, Zhang Yuan lay back on the bed, eyes wide open.

Three came, no, four, and he didn't get a single one...

He couldn't sleep no matter how he tossed and turned. After thinking deeply for half the night, he managed to see words in the seam of his pants.

*Hard as a rock...*

Dong Jie couldn't sleep either. Was her charm really inferior to two underage girls?

Shu Chang couldn't sleep either. *Does Brother Yuan know that I know he knows I know he sees me as a sister, but I...*

Liu Xi Xi couldn't sleep either.

Liu Xiaoli grabbed her and made her stand on the scale.

"Liu Xi Mei!!!"

Liu Xi Xi shrunk her head. *Damn it, Mom used my full name.*

"You're five pounds heavier than before joining the crew. What on earth have you been doing!"

Liu Xi Xi's little brain worked at high speed. "Zhang Yuan treated me to dinner tonight. I ate too much."

"Did you eat five pounds' worth?"

"The rest is just a side effect of the medication," Liu Xi Xi squeezed out after a long pause. It wasn't entirely a lie.

Liu Xiaoli paced back and forth in anger, but she remembered how her daughter's spirit, mentality, emotions, and acting had all improved significantly after fainting and receiving medical treatment—she just happened to smack her lips in her sleep at night.

"Xi Xi, stay away from that Zhang Yuan in the future."

"Ah, why?"

"Hmph, he looks like a real flirt. I don't know what kind of people end up in his room after filming ends every day."

Xi Xi: *I'm one of them.*

"When I went to look for you just now, I found someone hiding in his wardrobe."

Xi Xi: *I'm still one of them.*

"It must be an actress from the crew. Two improper people messing around together, I almost caught them... Hey, Xi Xi, why are you so nervous?"

Liu Xi Xi was sweating profusely. *If Mom actually finds out, how am I supposed to explain it?*

*Your precious daughter is the 'messing around' part...*

***

The next day, on the filming set.

"What's going on? Why do you all have dark circles under your eyes?" Director Li Dawei looked at his lead actors, utterly confused.

"Ha..." Chen Kun let out a yawn and wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes. "Stayed up late watching TV last night."

"It was that show Zhang Yuan acted in, *Conquest*. It was so exciting, I couldn't stop watching."

"You guys watched it on TV too?"

Zhang Yuan, Dong Jie, Shu Chang, Liu Xi Xi: "Ah, yes, yes, yes..."

"Is it really that good?" Since Li Dawei was on good terms with Gao Qunshu, he became curious as well.

"Of course! It's the first time I've seen such a realistic crime drama. Hong Lei's portrayal of a thug is just too spot-on." Chen Kun had worked with Sun Honglei in *Like Mist, Like Rain, Like Wind* and considered him a friend.

"But..." Chen Kun paused and turned to look at Zhang Yuan.

He had also seen Zhang Yuan's performance in the film yesterday.

You couldn't say he was acting like a thug; he *was* a thug!

Others act in a way that doesn't feel real; he acts in a way that feels too real!

Combined with the incident yesterday where Zhang Yuan beat up that bitch, Chen Kun strongly suspected that his usual kind image was just a facade, and that violent, ferocious personality was his true self.

Chen Kun wasn't the only one who had watched the show.

"Zhang Yuan, I was wrong about what happened before. I won't go near Shu Chang again."

Huang Yuanwen had proactively approached him. Not only did she apologize, but she also returned the ten thousand yuan in medical expenses.

She had also watched *Conquest*.

After watching it, she was scared.

She strongly suspected that Zhang Yuan was just a part-time actor, and his real profession was a triad boss.

How could someone act like that without actual life experience?

*Can't mess with him, can't mess with him...*

Zhang Yuan didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this result. If he had known, he wouldn't have even needed to lift a finger; he could have just used the show to scare her.

Back in the day, when Chen Peisi's father, Chen Qiang, played the villainous Huang Shiren in *The White-Haired Girl*, he was nearly shot by an excited young soldier in the audience because of the role.

Later, when a film version of *The White-Haired Girl* was made and he played Huang Shiren again, people would point guns at the screen whenever it was broadcast by local armed forces departments, breaking countless pieces of the screen.

Zhang Yuan hadn't expected that so soon after his debut, he would receive the same treatment as Old Man Chen Qiang—people were treating his character as the real person.

Now, wherever he went, the crew members treated him with extreme politeness, as if they were afraid that if they offended him, he would show up with a knife to chop them up...

A day or two later, while Zhang Yuan was memorizing lines, he received another call from Zhao Decai.

"Zhang Yuan, you were actually right..."

(End of Chapter)