TF01 94

Shi Yi froze for a moment after finding out what had made Ying Ming so furious.

He picked up the phone nearby and called Chen Cheng. The line had barely started ringing when it was answered. Shi Yi didn’t waste any time.

“Uncle, where are you?”

“In a meeting.”

The reply was immediate. If you listened closely, you could even hear faint voices speaking in the background, which didn’t match the information Ying Ming had just received. The contradiction confused Shi Yi. He instinctively glanced at Ying Ming and repeated what he’d been told.

“You’re in a meeting?”

Chen Cheng gave a soft scoff. “You’re with Ying Ming, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t bother hiding it. Shi Yi was already sure Chen Cheng had done something.

Across from him, Ying Ming was clearly agitated. He lit a cigarette and took sharp, silent pulls, the anger simmering in his eyes.
The look in his eyes said he was seconds from ripping the phone out of Shi Yi’s hand and tearing into the man on the other end. If Chen Cheng had actually shown up in person, Shi Yi wouldn’t have been surprised at all if Ying Ming had taken a swing at him.

Which was exactly the reaction Chen Cheng wanted.

His voice carried no obvious emotion, but the words were cold.

“Put Ying Ming on the phone.”

Shi Yi frowned but still handed the phone over. Ying Ming took the phone, his jaw tight as he held back the urge to explode. Chen Cheng’s voice came through flat

“Next time, I might just come visit myself.”

A second later, Ying Ming hurled the phone against the wall. It shattered instantly, pieces flying everywhere. Shi Yi said nothing, just watched as Ying Ming lost his temper.

It hadn’t been Chen Cheng himself who showed up at Ying Ming’s family home. The whole thing had just been a warning.

Obviously, whoever had gone hadn’t come right out and told the truth about Ying Ming and Shi Yi. Whatever was actually said, Ying Ming no longer cared to know. Chen Cheng’s tactic was clear. This was psychological warfare. He didn’t want to push things to the edge in one move, nor did he want to drive Shi Yi into open rebellion. He wanted to suffocate them into backing down on their own.

The sense of being trapped, forced into retreat without a way to push back, was deeply suffocating.

Ying Ming couldn’t even remember the last time he had been this angry. When he turned and saw Shi Yi sitting silently at the edge of the bed, there were several moments where he almost lunged forward and beat the hell out of him.

The air in the room was thick with agitation and pressure. Ying Ming kept smoking, one cigarette after another. The smoke curled and spread like the foul mood choking him, eating into everything around him.

He couldn’t deny that when the call from home first came through, he had panicked for a second.

He still hadn’t figured out how to help his parents process and accept it. His father and mother had always cared too much about appearances, especially among relatives. If they found out their son had fallen for a man, the uproar wouldn’t be any less dramatic than what Shi Yi was facing on his side. Ying Ming had never tried to run from his relationship with Shi Yi, but right now, he simply didn’t have the energy to deal with coming out.

And more than that, if he ever did reach a point where he had to come clean, he had hoped to explain it to them himself, slowly and in his own words. Not have someone else twist it into a scandal and throw it in their faces as some kind of insult. Just thinking about that made his anger surge even more.

He kicked the bedroom door hard, then stormed downstairs. Each step down the staircase made a jarring noise, as if the structure couldn’t hold up under the weight. Shi Yi frowned slightly but didn’t call after him. After hearing the sound of Ying Ming leaving, he reached for the cigarette pack on the nightstand and lit one slowly.

There was nothing he could say about what Chen Cheng had done, and nothing he could say in the face of Ying Ming’s fury either.

This was never going to be a one-sided problem. Just as he had to face his family, Ying Ming also needed to be ready to face his own. This was never going to be an easy path, and they should have known that from the start. But right now, it seemed like they had both overestimated how much they could handle.

And the worst part was—

He knew this was only the beginning.

This whole situation had become like a steel wire stretched taut between Shi Yi and Ying Ming. Neither of them wanted to touch it, but it hovered there, impossible to ignore.

Chen Cheng hadn’t loosened his grip on Shi Yi’s company, even after forcing them one step closer to the edge. But those external pressures were, in some ways, easier to deal with. What unsettled Shi Yi far more was the tension building in Ying Ming, the way he kept burying a storm that could erupt at any moment, pretending nothing had changed while something in his eyes grew darker and more dangerous with each passing day.

There was a limit to how much anyone could take.

It wasn’t the obvious pressure that broke people. What wore you down was the relentless tightening from all directions, the kind that chipped away at you little by little. And when everything around you pressed down at once, not even the strongest sense of control could keep you calm.

Especially when most of that pressure came from the people closest to you.

Shi Yi knew they needed to talk. But every time he tried to bring it up, he couldn’t find the right moment. He had even asked directly once or twice, but Ying Ming had just kept smoking in silence, clearly unwilling to open up.

The premiere date was drawing closer. Ying Ming was running around constantly, so busy that even work on the new film had to be put on hold. Wang Yiqi, too, seemed to be dealing with something. He looked exhausted, and at the second press event, barely said a word from beginning to end.

When it rains, it pours. Ying Ming was starting to wonder if he needed to go somewhere and have his fortune cleansed.

But life didn’t stop just because he was tired or angry. No matter how hard things got, he had to keep moving. The team had decided to hold the film’s premiere in a neighboring country. As one of the leads, Ying Ming had to attend the event with Wang Yiqi to help promote it. When he told Shi Yi about it, the other man didn’t even blink.

He just gave a quiet “mm,” barely even acknowledging it.

Then, just as they boarded the plane, Wang Yiqi got a phone call. Whatever was said on the line made him lose control. He insisted on getting off the plane immediately. The commotion almost drew the attention of airport security.

It was the first time Ying Ming had seen him so completely out of it.

He asked what happened, but Wang Yiqi wouldn’t say a word. All he told the director was that he had to return right after the premiere.

The whole trip abroad was clouded by tension.

The director was frustrated with Wang Yiqi’s lack of cooperation. Ying Ming, already in a foul mood from everything going wrong, now had to deal with unanswered messages from Shi Yi. None of them were urgent, but the silence still irritated him.

By the time the premiere finally arrived, the atmosphere hadn’t improved. Wang Yiqi seemed barely present, answering questions with vague replies. The director tried to hold his temper, but by the end of the program, he couldn’t take it anymore and exploded at him. Even the production crew’s own director was furious. They weren’t in China anymore, and this kind of behavior was openly disrespecting the entire team.

“Director, I’m sorry…”

Wang Yiqi just kept repeating the same line over and over. His face looked awful the entire time, and even after getting chewed out, he didn’t try to explain himself.

That same night, right after the premiere, he flew back to China. Ying Ming only found out after the fact. He had left without his manager or assistant, which led to his usually high-and-mighty manager being berated by the team for an entire day.

Because Wang Yiqi was gone, Ying Ming had to handle all the remaining events on his own. At one point, he called Kou Jing, wanting to pick up where they had left off the other day, but Kou Jing didn’t know much either. He figured it had something to do with Wang Yiqi’s family.

“He came to talk to me a while ago. Was in a really bad mood, but didn’t say much. I think it has to do with his younger brother. I tried asking, but he wouldn’t tell me. I even suggested we all hang out to take the edge off, but clearly, things fell apart before we could do anything.”

After hearing all that, Ying Ming just nodded. He didn’t say much. When it came to Wang Yiqi’s family situation, he really couldn’t offer much help.

Not many people knew that Wang Yiqi came from a traditional performing arts family. Ying Ming didn’t know much about that world. He couldn’t keep track of the schools or factions. But he’d heard that Wang Yiqi’s family held a very high status. In fact, it was supposed to be his role to inherit the family mantle. But instead, he had chosen to break away and enter the entertainment industry as a free agent with no clear allegiance. Because of that, his father passed the role on to his younger brother, Wang Mengqi.

Ying Ming remembered Wang Yiqi once saying that, in their world, reputation and honor were everything. People didn’t matter. What mattered was face, and that face could never be lost. It was exactly that kind of pretentious, performative existence that had made him want to leave in the first place.

But really, wasn’t every industry full of people pretending just to survive?

Later, when Ying Ming called to check on him, Wang Yiqi sounded completely wrecked. Even just speaking seemed like it took all the strength he had left.

“Ying Ming… why is it that some people would rather throw away their lives, just to protect a name… They give up everything just to hold on to something that stopped meaning anything long ago. Is it really worth it…”

By the end, it was hard to tell whether Wang Yiqi was asking him or asking himself.

Ying Ming had no answer. He sat quietly, listening to Wang Yiqi cry. The sorrow in his voice couldn’t be hidden, not even over the phone. Ying Ming frowned, and just kept listening.

Whether it was worth it or not was something only the person going through it could understand. It was like drinking water. Only the one drinking it could tell if it was warm or cold. No matter how much others said, it was just empty talk. But people who could truly see themselves clearly were rare. Most only realized what they couldn’t let go of after losing what they once thought didn’t matter.

Ying Ming had always been someone who followed his own instincts.

He didn’t like forcing himself to do things he didn’t want to do, let alone regretting them.

Wang Yiqi’s situation had put out the fire Ying Ming had been holding in. He tried calling Shi Yi, but the phone was off, so he sent a message instead. The premiere event had been pre-recorded, but there was still a live appearance scheduled, and he had to attend. There were five hours to go. If Shi Yi had time, he could come watch the premiere with him.

Shi Yi had once said he wanted to watch it together. But things had been so hectic lately, neither of them had remembered.

There was still no reply to the message. It wasn’t until half an hour before the premiere that Ying Ming finally got a call from Shi Yi. But all he could hear through the phone was the same boarding announcements blaring in his own ears. He frowned instinctively and asked, “Where are you?”

“I’m at the premiere venue,” Shi Yi said and glanced around. “Where are you? I’ll come find you.”

Ying Ming was momentarily stunned, then couldn’t help but smile.

Typical Shi Yi. Always the type to act first and explain later.