TF01 82

Because Si Ji had lost his wallet, the entire set remained under a cloud of low pressure for nearly two days.

News of the explosion also made the headlines the following day. Although there was an investigation into the cause, the incident eventually faded from attention since no one had been injured. The crew was instructed to avoid the storeroom where dangerous props were kept. It took nearly a full week for the aftermath to settle and for everything to return to normal.

As for what Shi Yi had said about coming clean with Kou Jing and the others, he didn’t wait long. Just a couple of days later, he called Ying Ming to say the meetup was already arranged.

“You really moved fast.”

“If we’ve decided to talk, it doesn’t matter whether it’s sooner or later.” Shi Yi had always been the type to act. Once he made a decision, it never took long for him to push things forward.

Still, when he heard Ying Ming’s surprised response, he paused for a moment. “You need time to prepare?”

“What’s there to prepare?”

Ying Ming leaned against the wall. “Fine. Just let me know when and where, and I’ll try to clear my schedule.”

The whole thing felt overly formal and kind of ridiculous. But he didn’t say that aloud. If Shi Yi wanted to make it a thing, then so be it. He would go along with it when the time came.

On the other end of the line, Shi Yi nodded in satisfaction. He was clearly a little pleased with himself. But then another thought crossed his mind, and his face darkened. “I saw an article about that movie you’re filming. So the director really is Si Ji?”

“Well, look at that. Young Master Shi actually remembers.”

He had figured Shi Yi would have forgotten entirely.

Shi Yi gave a short grunt. “Hard name to forget, but I honestly wouldn’t recognize the guy’s face.” He vaguely recalled seeing him during the last visit to set, but at the time, he hadn’t paid any attention.

If not for the article mentioning one of Si Ji’s past relationships, he probably wouldn’t have remembered at all. But once the connection clicked, the irritation started creeping in and it was growing steadily. “Why are you even working on his film?”

“My agent was the one who accepted the film. I didn’t really look into it at the time.” Even if there had been personal conflict between Si Ji and Shi Yi in the past, it had nothing to do with him. Work was work, personal matters were personal. He wasn’t about to turn down a job just because of some long-past love triangle.

Shi Yi understood that perfectly well. He just didn’t like how it felt.

Ying Ming could hear the irritation in his voice and chuckled. He hadn’t brought it up earlier because Shi Yi had acted like he didn’t remember anything about it. But now that Shi Yi had mentioned it himself, he was a little curious. “So, what exactly happened between you and Si Ji back then?”

There was nothing about it online. It seemed like someone had deliberately kept it quiet.

Shi Yi gave a small cough. “It wasn’t anything major. He was chasing a female singer back then, but she wasn’t interested.”

“And that singer became your girlfriend?”

“No.”

Shi Yi answered immediately. “Liu Li was actually my first real girlfriend in the industry. And she turned out to be the last.”

That last line clearly hinted at Ying Ming’s current role in his life. But the man on the other end of the line didn’t react. He simply waited for him to go on.

“The whole thing was actually pretty ridiculous. I only got to know Si Ji because of a casual acquaintance. Back then, being a director still felt kind of rare. We bumped into each other a few times, and I heard people say he was head over heels for some female singer, completely obsessed. It was like he was playing the tragic male lead in some melodrama. But she didn’t give him the time of day. Then someone started spreading rumors that I had a thing for the same woman. One time, at my birthday party, some busybody actually invited her. She showed up, and people started teasing and making jokes. You know how it is. There was really nothing going on, but the whole thing made everyone misunderstand.”

That incident had been the spark for all the later media gossip.

Shi Yi swore he couldn’t even remember what that woman looked like anymore.

Ying Ming frowned slightly after hearing the whole thing. “So basically, you got made into a love rival for no good reason.”

“Exactly. I was dragged into it for nothing.”

To this day, Shi Yi still had no idea how those rumors even started.

Thinking back, before everything fell apart between him and Si Ji, their relationship had actually been fairly decent. They were not exactly close friends, but they got along well enough, like the kind of drinking buddies who could sit at the same table. He had even seriously considered investing in one of Si Ji’s films at one point.

It just never came to anything in the end.

Hearing all this, Ying Ming recalled what Si Ji had said to him over drinks not long ago and found it even more ridiculous. It was clear that Si Ji still hadn’t let go of whatever grudge he held. That was probably why his tone had been so passive-aggressive when Shi Yi came up.

But really, none of that had anything to do with him.

He still couldn’t quite figure out why Si Ji’s attitude toward him was so off. Ying Ming pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and took two slow drags before abruptly changing the subject. “Are you still in contact with Liu Li?”

The shift in topic was sudden and a bit strange. On the other end, Shi Yi paused. “No.”

“Why did the two of you break up in the first place?”

Back then, when Shi Yi and Liu Li broke up, all Ying Ming got was a vague text from Shi Yi saying they had ended things. No one brought it up again afterward. Even now, Ying Ming didn’t know why he had asked. Maybe it was just something he had been holding in for a while without realizing it.

Shi Yi clearly found the question odd as well.

He stayed quiet for a moment before answering. “If I had to put it plainly, it was probably because we wanted very different things. I understood how she operated, but I couldn’t accept it.”

When both people could already see there was no good ending ahead, it was better to leave early than waste each other’s time.

That explanation wasn’t far from what Ying Ming had always guessed. Shi Yi and Liu Li had always seemed like people from different worlds. No matter how you looked at it, they never seemed built to last.

Then again, he and Shi Yi had never really been that compatible either.

Which only proved one thing. At the end of the day, it all came down to whether the person was the one you wanted. If they were, then no matter how poorly matched you seemed, you would still find ways to make it work. But if they were not, even if everything on the surface aligned perfectly, it would still never last.

Maybe that was what people meant by a doomed connection.

Ying Ming had not even finished mulling that over when Shi Yi suddenly laughed on the other end of the line. “Tell me, are you getting jealous right now?” He figured it was unlikely, but just being able to say the words already put him in a good mood.

Ying Ming didn’t answer directly. “What do you think?”

Shi Yi didn’t respond. Some things were better left unspoken. As long as he understood, that was enough.

When Wang Yiqi first got the call from Shi Yi, his first instinct was to turn it down.

He had a gut feeling that nothing good ever came out of Shi Yi initiating anything. The only reason they even kept up appearances was because of Ying Ming. Without that connection, they would not have had a single reason to get along.

But then Kou Jing called him too, telling him that if he didn’t go, he would definitely regret it later.

It was only out of that curiosity that he begrudgingly agreed to meet.

And yet, less than five minutes after Ying Ming walked into the private room, he was already regretting it.

Shi Yi had said something. Ying Ming had said something. But none of it made sense to him.

Sitting on the couch, frowning with a completely baffled look on his face, Wang Yiqi repeated what Ying Ming had just said like a broken record. “You’re saying… you and Shi Yi are together?” As soon as he repeated it, it sounded even more absurd. “What does that mean?”

Shi Yi let out a cold laugh from the side. “Has your comprehension really deteriorated this much?”

But Wang Yiqi had no time to deal with him.

He was still staring at Ying Ming. “Ying Ming, what is this supposed to mean?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like.” Ying Ming spoke around the cigarette in his mouth, smiling. “The process was about the same as you and those little flings of yours. The difference is we didn’t plan to rotate them out every three months.”

Kou Jing and Haozi had more or less already suspected something, so neither of them looked particularly shocked. But guessing it and hearing it directly were two different things. After a few seconds of silence, they finally managed to digest the news. Kou Jing was still confused. “How the hell did the two of you even end up together?”

As if things were not dramatic enough already, Shi Yi added, “We actually have Young Master Wang to thank for that. If you think about it, you’re the reason we ended up together in the first place.”

He grinned after he said it, and Wang Yiqi’s face immediately turned dark.

He looked like he was about to leap off the couch. He pointed at Shi Yi for several seconds before turning back to Ying Ming. “You’ve got to be kidding me! You want to go gay, fine. But this? This is your taste?”

With that mouthy, arrogant, infuriating personality, Shi Yi was the complete opposite of the kind of person Ying Ming usually went for. Nothing about him made sense as anything but a terrible idea.

This clearly wasn’t just a casual fling. Taking someone like Shi Yi seriously? That was practically asking for disaster.

And that was without even getting into the mountain of pressure they would be under behind the scenes.

Ying Ming wasn’t surprised by Wang Yiqi’s reaction. He took another two drags from his cigarette. “Even the best make mistakes.”

Shi Yi raised an eyebrow beside him. “That’s how you’re evaluating this?”

Haozi finally chimed in from the side. “Have the two of you really thought this through?”

Offering their blessings was about the only thing they could do as friends. Still, from a place of genuine friendship, Haozi felt the two of them needed to really think it through.

Two men who had both originally been into women suddenly turning toward each other was hard not to see as a moment of impulse.

But then again, the fact that these two people were Shi Yi and Ying Ming made the idea of it being impulsive seem almost impossible.

This time, it was Ying Ming who answered. “Something like this really just comes down to what you want. Thinking it through isn’t enough.” There was no real standard of measurement. You could never be sure whether the path you chose was better or worse than the one you left behind.

Kou Jing chuckled beside them. “If that’s your answer, then you’ve clearly already thought it through.”

He stood up first and raised a glass. “In that case, congratulations on bringing ruin and chaos to the world together. And… may all your wishes come true.”

Words of blessing were hard to say in a situation like this. Everyone knew exactly what kind of pressure they were going to face from here on. So Kou Jing had adjusted what he was going to say at the last minute. Haozi followed suit, standing with his glass in hand, offering only a nod instead of speaking.

He knew both Ying Ming and Shi Yi understood what that meant.

Only Wang Yiqi was still fuming. He grabbed a bottle of liquor and shoved it toward Shi Yi. “You and me, one-on-one. Whoever doesn’t pass out tonight is the grandson.”

Shi Yi glanced at him, said nothing, unscrewed the cap, filled a glass to the brim, and downed it in one go.

By the time they were both drunk and someone had slumped over the table, it no longer mattered who was supposed to win.

Shi Yi watched coldly as Wang Yiqi downed his own glass, then casually refilled both their cups. The people around them were more than happy to sit back and enjoy the show. Not one of them stepped in to stop it.

It was the classic case of dog bites dog, bloody and pointless. In this room, Wang Yiqi was probably the only one stubborn enough to keep butting heads with Shi Yi again and again. And on the flip side, Shi Yi was probably the only one who would go along with it, knowing full well it would end in nothing but mutual misery.

Kou Jing found a chance to sidle over to Ying Ming. He glanced over at the two of them, now drinking like their lives depended on it. “Tell me the truth. Is this your type?”

What was with the fact that both his closest friend and his lover shared the exact same temperament?

Ying Ming raised an eyebrow. For a while, he couldn’t come up with a response.

Somehow…

The truth stung his pride more than he cared to admit.