Chapter 45: A Goodbye That Wasn’t Goodbye

“Ahhhhhhh, wifey is smiling at me, so sweet I could die!”

“What kind of dream are you having? Don’t you have your own wife? Just because of your words, Liu-liu had to coax me for half an hour.”

“The person above, stop drinking fake alcohol. Look, it’s rotted your brain.”

“What is Liu-liu saying? I really want to know!”

“I can lip-read! I know! He’s saying I love you!”

“Bullshit! Liu-liu clearly said I want to kiss you.”

By the time the fireworks show ended and they left the amusement park, it was already very late.

Because Pei Liu and Qin Wu had gotten separated from the other two, they took a different car for the return trip.

After a long day of playing, Pei Liu was exhausted. As soon as he got into the car, he sank softly into the seat, closed his eyes, and was about to fall asleep. His body tilted to the side, almost falling onto Qin Wu.

Half-asleep, they returned to the cabin. But he couldn’t just flop into bed right away; they still hadn’t sent their anonymous text messages.

This was Pei Liu’s last task on the show.

Before sending it, he glanced at Qin Wu, then got up, found a staff member, and whispered quietly: “I remember the text is supposed to be sent to the person who left the deepest impression on you that day, the person you most want to text. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a romantic interest, right?”

Before coming to film, he had watched videos of the previous seasons. The guests didn’t necessarily text the same person every day. Sometimes, if they went on a date with someone that day, they would text them out of politeness.

The staff member was momentarily stunned, then their eyes lit up, asking excitedly: “You want to text a male guest? Who?”

Pei Liu was slightly confused: “Won’t you all know who I send it to anyway?”

The staff member realized that was true. They nodded vigorously at Pei Liu: “No problem. You can send it to whoever you want, there are no restrictions.”

Having gotten the answer he wanted, Pei Liu smiled his thanks and returned to the room.

The word “last” always carries a special weight, making people instinctively treat it differently, and Pei Liu was no exception.

He didn’t want to send his last text carelessly. His role as a tool for the past three days was enough; he wanted to send one based on what he truly felt.

Send it to Qin Wu.

Of course, this wasn’t because he had developed romantic feelings for Qin Wu. Pei Liu considered himself a straight man.

He remembered how displeased Qin Wu had looked on the first night and guessed that he hadn’t received a text message. Also, over these three days, he and Qin Wu had become friends, and Qin Wu had helped him a lot. Naturally, he hoped everything would go smoothly for him. He thought Qin Wu was very charming; it was just a lack of interaction that had prevented him from sparking any chemistry with the female guests.

Pei Liu drafted the message and sent it.

When the staff member received it and read it, their expression became incredibly complex and subtle. Someone next to them leaned over and asked: “What’s wrong? Weren’t you just squealing with excitement because Pei Liu was going to text Qin Wu?”

The staff member didn’t speak, simply handing the phone over for the other person to read directly.

“You are very, very good.”

The message consisted of just that one sentence.

Upon seeing it, the other staff member blurted out: “A friend zone card?”

Then, they contradicted themselves: “This isn’t a polite rejection, absolutely not. Usually, a friend zone card says ‘you’re pretty good,’ which feels a bit forced and perfunctory. But he used two ‘verys’; he genuinely thinks Qin Wu is a good person, which is why he said that.”

The staff member responsible for the text messages forwarded it to Qin Wu according to protocol, sighing: “Even if it’s genuine, it still shows that Pei Liu hasn’t developed any romantic feelings for Qin Wu. The CP I ship hasn’t become real.”

“I actually don’t think so. It’s only been three days; feelings don’t develop overnight. The fact that Pei Liu thinks highly of Qin Wu now means there’s a favorable impression. That’s a crucial first step, laying the foundation for liking someone. Plus, they interact so naturally and sweetly; I think it can work.”

“That would be great, but Pei Liu has already finished filming and is leaving. Will they have opportunities to interact and develop things further in the future?”

“Pei Liu is so popular right now. Is the director really willing to let him go?”

“They did want to extend his time, but Pei Liu has other schedules to attend to and politely declined.”

Indeed, Pei Liu was already packing his luggage, preparing to leave. Variety shows can bring popularity, but ultimately, it’s one’s body of work that speaks the loudest. And since he hadn’t formally acted in a drama before, he naturally needed to prepare more than others.

After sending the text, Pei Liu stole a glance at Qin Wu, but Qin Wu’s enigmatic smile made it hard for him to grasp what the other man was truly thinking.

The suitcase was snapped shut.

Pei Liu was about to carry it downstairs, but Qin Wu naturally walked over, picked it up, and walked away. Pei Liu didn’t even have time to refuse.

Pei Liu said goodbye to the other guests, exchanging a few brief words.

The suitcase was placed in the trunk. Before getting into the car, Pei Liu opened his arms and gave Qin Wu a hug, patting him on the back like a bro, and said earnestly: “Take the initiative, you can definitely do it.”

Qin Wu looked down at him, his gaze somewhat strange, unclear if he understood or not.

However, Qin Wu nodded in agreement.

Pei Liu smiled, got into the car, rolled down the window, and waved at him: “I’m leaving then, see you later.”

Qin Wu nodded. See you later. It wouldn’t be long before that came true.

As the car started, black mist seeped inside, leaving with Pei Liu.

As soon as Pei Liu left the show, the live stream bullet comments erupted in wailing.

“My wife is gone wuwuwu.”
“Happiness is so fleeting. Three days is not enough; I could watch them date for ten thousand years!”
“Liu-liu left, and Qin Wu had no reaction at all. Too much! Scumbag! [doge]”
“Who says he had no reaction? His head is lowered; he’s definitely grieving secretly.”

The “scumbag”—the real Qin Wu—was actually quite miserable. Originally, a god was working for him while he just slept at home, enjoying the bliss of a vacation. But the moment Pei Liu left, he was thrown right back in.

He entered the entertainment industry because he loved acting; he was happy even if his schedule was exhausting. But he really couldn’t handle variety shows; everything he did felt awkward.

He desperately wanted to end the variety show and go back to acting.

Mask of Agony.jpg

Unaware of the truth, netizens felt their hearts ache. Another wave of passionate discussion swept through Weibo, hoping their favorite CP could meet again and interact motto motto (more and more).

Right at that moment, someone dropped a scoop.

In the upcoming suspense drama adapted from a major IP, Qin Wu was playing the male lead, and Pei Liu was playing a supporting male role. The two were collaborating and had scenes together.

Hearing this, the CP shippers were thrown into a frenzy. Being able to see the two male gods in the same frame, analyzing every sweet moment—they were looking forward to it immensely!

Acting like an organic water army, they spread the good news far and wide, proactively generating a wave of hype for the TV drama.

Director Chen never expected that Pei Liu and Qin Wu participating in a variety show would bring free publicity for his production. The effect was even better than if he had paid for marketing.

Initially, when he heard about this, Director Chen had worried that because netizens were shipping the male lead and male supporting role, it might provoke disgust from others, especially fans of the original work. Fights between drama fans and original fans were common, even before filming began.

Fortunately, the big fans among the CP shippers took the lead; they hyped it up joyfully without losing their reason or crossing boundaries. Moreover, the original work itself was a crime novel focusing on the plot, with a very weak romantic storyline between the male and female leads. The original fans were mostly there for the plot, so it didn’t spark a major war.

Compared to this, another matter was what truly frustrated and infuriated Director Chen.

The star originally cast to play the villain was suddenly embroiled in a prostitution scandal, called out and criticized by official media, and universally condemned online.

Director Chen was incredibly disgusted and deeply abhorred such immoral artists. Naturally, the person could no longer be used, and they had to arrange new auditions.

Because of this incident, Director Chen practically wanted to thoroughly investigate the background of every actor he collaborated with, terrified of falling into the same trap again.

Now, looking for a new actor for the villain, he leaned more toward finding a clean newcomer with acting skills.

The role of the villain was incredibly important. In a sense, the character design was even fuller and more brilliant than the protagonist’s, requiring even higher demands on the actor.

Director Chen had even considered having Qin Wu play the villain and finding someone else for the male lead, but after some thought, he decided it wasn’t suitable.

He wanted to produce a satisfactory work; if worse came to worst, he would rather delay the start of filming.

Originally, he had prepared himself for a long search for the villain’s actor. However, he didn’t expect things to go unexpectedly smoothly.

A newcomer who had never acted before displayed outstanding acting skills. It was as if he was born for this drama, stepping right out of the book—the living embodiment of the villain, Shen Wenrui.

Director Chen clapped his hands and laughed in delight, incredibly thankful that the previous actor had caused trouble and been replaced.

That person’s performance would definitely not have been as good as this young man in front of him.

“By the way, what’s your name?” Director Chen only bothered to remember names once he approved of someone. With so many people auditioning, he naturally couldn’t memorize them all.

“Shen Jin.”

“What a coincidence, your surname is also Shen. It’s truly fate. You were born to play this role.”

The man smiled faintly, not refuting it. Because there never was a Shen Jin; this identity was indeed fabricated on the spot just to act in this drama.

Meanwhile, Pei Liu stayed at home, burying his head in studying the script.

He had only recently learned about collaborating with Qin Wu on the same drama.

Because they actually didn’t have many scenes together, when Pei Liu got the script, he was more concerned about who the senior acting as the villain would be and whether they were easy to get along with.

He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep up, causing continuous NGs and dragging the other person down.

But he didn’t expect that later, such a scandal would break out, forcing Director Chen to recast. This kind of thing wasn’t something Pei Liu could control.

No matter who acted, he only needed to perform his own scenes well.

However, knowing he would see Qin Wu again soon put Pei Liu in a good mood.

Knock.

Pei Liu was completely focused on reading the script and didn’t hear it at first.

Knock knock, knock knock knock.

It was the sound of someone knocking on the door.

Pei Liu reacted, assuming it was his manager or assistant, and instinctively got up to open the door. But only after pressing down on the door handle did he suddenly realize something was wrong.

His manager and assistant both knew the password, so why would they knock?

But by then, the door was already open.

He wanted to close it, but a small hand from outside pushed it open forcefully, revealing a face as delicate as carved jade.

Her skin was as pale as paper, and she smiled with innocent brightness, calling out crisply: “Daddy!”

Following the little girl was a Shiba Inu, full of energy and entirely unafraid of strangers.

Acting extremely familiar, it slipped right into the house, circled Pei Liu, and barked a few times—as if greeting him, or perhaps echoing the little girl’s “Daddy.”

Pei Liu froze in place, having inexplicably gained a daughter and a dog son.