The No. 1 Vase in the Entertainment Industry - Chapter 5

It was difficult to park the Land Rover worth nearly three million downstairs, so Ke Yu got out of the car outside the urban village and walked back by himself.

At nearly ten o’clock, all the stalls except for midnight snacks were closed, and the streets were very deserted. The clothes he had changed into were thrown away in the car. Now, he only wore a dress shirt, and his collarbone could be vaguely seen through two open buttons. As the sea breeze blew by, the fishy smell of the port dissipated a lot, and Ke Yu stood and quietly finished a cigarette.

He stood in a very relaxed posture, with one hand on the railing and a cigarette hanging loosely in the other. The suit pants covered his long legs and were casually folded at the calf, while the orange streetlight was only enough to illuminate half of his face.

This was what Shang Lu saw when he walked along the port from a distance.

The light reflected the other person dimly, and amid the dimness, he couldn’t tell that the person was Ke Yu.

The instinct to shoot was strong and direct. Shang Lu raised his mobile phone and completed a simple camera sweep without the help of a stabilizer.

A beam of light pierced the picture, coming from far and getting closer. It was an empty taxi, late at night. The car slowed down but didn’t stop. The window was lowered, and all he heard was, “You going somewhere?”

The hand took the cigarette away from the mouth, and a voice sounded indifferently. “No.”

The dark green car stepped on the accelerator and quickly drove past the camera.

Shang Lu stopped the recording and walked closer. Only then could he tell who the person was from his excellent bone structure.

…What the hell. After a week of collecting ideas, he had only felt the desire to shoot twice. One was because of Ke Yu, and the other time was still because of Ke Yu.

His footsteps stopped when he was five or six steps away. “Teacher Ke.”

Ke Yu seemed to be awakened from his own world. He was stunned for a moment, and didn’t look back immediately. Instead, he dropped the cigarette butt and squashed it. Then, he calmly took off the mask from his forearm, put it on, and flattened it in an orderly manner.

Shang Lu looked at him with interest and waited until he put on the mask before continuing to approach. “What a coincidence, right?”

He was too tall, so Ke Yu had to raise his head a little to see his face clearly.

For some reason, Shang Lu felt that the gaze stayed on his face longer than the previous nights.

The car was a Porsche 911. Ke Yu once again confirmed that indeed, Shang Lu had what it took to be a gigolo.

When he got closer, Shang Lu could faintly tell the smell of alcohol on the other party apart from the salty sea breeze.

“Have you been drinking?” Shang Lu asked.

“Yeah.”

“Shall we go back?”

“Okay.”

Shang Lu looked down at his condition and made sure that his steps were steady before walking side by side with him. In the silence, only the wind blew a few petals between them.

“Teacher Ke, did you have an evening engagement?”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

The two people spoke at the same time. Ke Yu paused, raised his eyes, and saw Shang Lu smile. “Not yet.”

Ke Yu’s mind was a little blurred by the alcohol. “I see.”

It turned out that it wasn’t a formal relationship.

He thought for a while and asked tactfully, “If a very beautiful and rich girl proposed to date you, but it wasn’t a formal relationship, what would you do?”

Shang Lu: “…?”

He felt a bit complicated.

…He understood. Most likely, that rich sister had proposed a “buyout” last time, and Ke Yu couldn’t make a decision.

Although he didn’t understand the market very well, nor could he understand why Ke Yu would ask such a question to a roommate he had just met, Shang Lu still pragmatically helped him analyze it. “Depends on the investment. If you agree, it’s the equivalent of constricting the cost of your time from a variable to a fixed rate. You need to compare the volume of business, and……” F*ck. Unable to continue, Shang Lu wrinkled his brow in embarrassment and said, “You… You get it, right?”

Ke Yu: “…”

So realistic!

The pair of eyes slowly woke up from their drunken confusion. “I, I understand…” He nodded, suppressed the shock in his heart, and concluded, “So… As long as the money is enough, you can accept it.”

What the f*ck did he mean, “you can accept it”? Shang Lu wasn’t the one…

“I can’t accept it.” Shang Lu said seriously, “I’m just suggesting from a purely practical standpoint.”

Ke Yu agreed, saving him face. “Right, it’s not acceptable. We’re just having a casual chat…”

He thought to himself that Shang Lu had quite a strong self-esteem.

When Shang Lu looked down at him and saw his energy, the annoyance of watching him board the Land Rover in the daytime surged out uncontrollably.

When they got to their living room and were bound to part ways, Ke Yu finally said, “How long can a man serving sex last?”

…Can this little brat understand these things?

Shang Lu stopped and looked back. Seeing Ke Yu holding the door handle and looking up at him with serious eyes, he emphasized again, “Right?”

Shang Lu thought he was speaking out of his own experience, and gave a subtle “hmm”.

After the door closed, he sat down on the mattress and breathed a sigh of relief. Then, he pulled his office chair and turned on the lamp.

The storyboards that he hadn’t touched in a long time were neatly stacked on the desk. The pen pressed onto the latest piece of paper, and many messy lines were drawn on its surface. More and more, it was stained with black ink.

Shang Lu opened the videos he took while sweeping the streets during the day. Some of them were recorded as inspiration materials, and some could be directly edited into a film. Specifically, the two recordings of Ke Yu.

Ke Yu, wearing a T-shirt while carrying water and taking notes at the store, and Ke Yu, wearing a white social shirt and smoking while slightly drunk by the river at night. These two images formed two extremes, but they seemed to have a kind of unity that could be explored.

A male prostitute intoxicated by wealth, and a young man killing time in the afternoon with nothing to do. Including the look and expression in his eyes when he asked how long a man serving sex could last, an image gradually emerged in front of Shang Lu’s eyes.

Shang Lu took a deep breath, and the paper he had written on was crumpled into a ball. He unscrewed the cap of the pen and started writing again.

The sound insulation of the cement wall, which was thinner than paper, was negligible. The sound of the shower coming from the bathroom blended with the sound of the pen writing in the silence.

After Ke Yu took a shower, he had time to open Weibo and take a look. His business frequency wasn’t high. If Mai Anyan hadn’t insisted on him going online today, he wouldn’t have even thought to post something.

Mai Anyan’s face turned green after reading his reply, but unexpectedly, it turned out to be a good turn of events. Fans seemed to have fallen for this trick, screaming like crazy in the comment section and praising him for being cute. Passers-by also felt that he was forced to open up for business but wanted nothing more than to not be bothered. It seemed a bit friendly and genuine, so it became a hot search within half an hour of posting.

Can the popularity they stumbled onto be wasted? Mai Anyan arranged for dozens of marketing accounts to keep it going, and the hot search continued until the evening.

Ke Yu scanned the latest hot searches and made sure that his name had been successfully removed before putting down his phone and going to sleep.

He was a light sleeper, and woke up when he heard banging and upending of boxes and cupboards. The moment he opened his eyes, his ears heard the aluminum door clunk violently against the wall again, like someone had grabbed the door and fled.

Amidst the earth-shattering movement, Shang Lu yelled in panic. “What the f*ck?!”

His body, awakened passively from deep sleep, got out of bed as quickly as possible. Ke Yu opened the bedroom door and rushed over. “What’s wrong?”

Shang Lu clung to the aluminum alloy door, and his face collapsed. “”Cicada! How can there be a cicada so late at night?!”

“I see.” Ke Yu followed his gaze and looked over… God d*mn it.

He picked up the stack of A4 papers nearby and quickly swiped it with a backhand. Shang Lu could only see a phantom flash before an unknown creature with a shiny black shell instantly fell over onto his beloved and expensive desk.

……Holy f*ck, what an ugly piece of sh*t!

Was this the thing that crawled across his face while he was sleeping? And it could even f*cking fly!

Shang Lu watched it turn belly up and struggle with its limbs, feeling mixed emotions. “How could there be such an ugly cicada?!”

Ke Yu glanced at him calmly. “It’s a cockroach.”

Shang Lu: “…”

F*ck. This. Sh*t.

No. That’s impossible. How could there be such a big, fat, shiny and flying cockroach?!

“You’re lying to me.” Shang Lu said calmly, “It just crawled over my face.”

Ke Yu said pitifully, “It’s okay. In fact, cockroaches are actually very clean.” At the same time, he calmly took a step back and rejected him. “……Don’t come near me.”

Shang Lu looked at him, aggrieved and humiliated. Then, his eyes paused as he realized something.

“Teacher Ke.” He pointed at Ke Yu’s face.

Ke Yu didn’t know what was going on, so he raised his hand to touch it and asked suspiciously, “What’s wrong?” He was startled and suspicious of Shang Lu, and even wondered if there was a small cockroach on his face.

“This is what you call disfigured?”