Male Sing and His Pet Owner: Chapter 5

The brand’s new collection Zhan Hang was wearing incorporated many Han Chinese elements. Standing in the middle of an antique and elegant set, he executed a dashing turn, opened his folding fan sideways to the camera, and on the monitor was his perfect profile. The director gestured, and the assistant hurriedly increased the wind machine’s power. Zhan Hang slowly turned to face the camera directly, was about to speak his line, when his hair ribbon suddenly floated past and smacked him hard in the face.

Another NG!

Everyone immediately fell into complete silence.

Zhao Kaile had wanted to laugh, but seeing the misery written on everyone’s faces around him, he didn’t dare.

The director was the first to react, harshly greeting the assistant’s parents, and said sternly: “Increase it slowly, do you understand? Adding so much at once doesn’t ruin the aesthetic?!”

Zhan Hang proactively came to that assistant’s rescue: “It’s fine, one more time.”

That young man bowed to him and went to move the props with a worried expression.

The several makeup girls from earlier hurriedly surrounded him to touch up Zhan Hang’s makeup. This take had already NG’d three times. Zhan Hang only felt his eyes had been blown extremely dry. He casually looked around the crowd and saw Zhao Kaile hiding in the corner, huffing and puffing, seemingly having just run over. He was looking at him eagerly across the crowd, as if waiting for his summons at any moment.

Zhan Hang was taken aback, and several images of small animals rapidly flashed through his mind, finally settling on a puppy.

Zhao Kaile inexplicably understood his meaning, squeezed over to his side hugging his bag, and asked with an expression full of anticipation: “Brother Hang, what do you need?”

Zhan Hang: “Eye drops.”

Fortunately, Zhao Kaile was fairly meticulous. Although he packed many things, they weren’t messy at all. He efficiently fished out the eye drops. He was about to have Zhan Hang sit down so he could serve him by applying them, when an assistant sister came over carrying a stool, casually took the eye drop bottle from Zhao Kaile’s hand, and said: “Let me do it, little handsome guy. Brother Hang has worked hard, sit sit sit, I’ll apply them for you.”

Zhan Hang made no comment, let her finish applying the eye drops, and closed his eyes to continue getting into the mood.

Zhao Kaile retreated to his original position and watched him shoot seriously for the entire morning. He couldn’t help but sigh that being an actor was actually quite hard work. The same line had to be repeated who knew how many times before it could pass, and each time he had to rekindle his emotions from scratch. Moreover, Zhan Hang was clearly different from those perfunctory traffic idol actors. After all, he was professionally trained, and his acting still had some depth. Thus, one advertisement wasn’t finished by noon, still missing the final scene.

Jiang Yun went around the company and came back to see Zhan Hang’s face looking a bit pale, and quickly called a halt: “Go eat first. Little Hang, look how pale your face is. You didn’t eat anything this morning?”

Zhan Hang was indeed a bit tired, but still smiled at her: “Ate a little. I don’t have much appetite in the morning, always been like this.”

The staff members all said he had worked hard, then surged toward the door. Jiang Yun asked one more thing: “Then come up and eat with me?”

“No need.” Zhan Hang said politely, then his gaze swept across Zhao Kaile’s face. Jiang Yun looked over too.

………

Cold sweat suddenly flowed down Zhao Kaile’s back.

Huh? So such a big company doesn’t provide work meals??

Actually, of course they did. It was just the same as for the staff, distributed as unified, economical boxed meals that didn’t taste very good. Jiang Yun’s invitation to eat with her was merely a polite verbal gesture. Artists like Zhan Hang with delicate stomachs generally only ate food carefully prepared by their own assistants or housekeepers.

Clearly, no one had told him this little tip in advance.

Zhan Hang looked at him meaningfully, once again revealing his signature yin-yang and sarcastic smile.

The awkward silence lasted several seconds. Lu Jiayin arrived fashionably late in high heels, carrying a large, exquisitely packaged food container in her hand, begging for mercy as she called out: “Brother Hang, sorry! I’m late!”

In Zhao Kaile’s eyes, she was like a Bodhisattva descending to earth or a heavenly deity descending to the mortal world, radiating dazzling brilliance.

“Sister Jiayin!” He welcomed her forward with tears in his eyes, moved.

Lu Jiayin stuffed the food container into his arms, groaning bitterly: “So heavy, quick, take it take it.”

A moment later, Zhan Hang sat in the makeup room eating alone. Zhao Kaile held the boxed meal Lu Jiayin had gotten for him and wept as he shoveled food into his mouth outside. Lu Jiayin examined his eyes and asked strangely: “Oh my, why are your eye circles so dark?”

Zhao Kaile had no choice but to repeat the same sentence for the third time, then said gratefully once more: “Sister Jiayin, it’s a good thing you came in time, otherwise I might have died on the spot……..”

The two sat on small stools, each holding their food, leaning shoulder to shoulder against the wall, relaxing and chatting for a rare moment.

“This job can’t be explained clearly in a few sentences, and it’s impossible to list every detail on paper for you. You can only watch quickly, follow quickly, and learn quickly.” Lu Jiayin said: “I see Brother Hang isn’t particularly angry, so it shouldn’t be a big problem.”

Zhao Kaile said in despair: “I think he might tell me to leave tonight……..”

“No way.” Lu Jiayin licked two mouthfuls of ice cream, squinting from the cold, and opened her mouth to comfort him: “Actually, Brother Hang isn’t that difficult to deal with. If you really can’t handle it, just shed a few tears.”

Zhao Kaile: “……That’s still a bit difficult.”

Lu Jiayin said: “Look at yesterday, he was already very angry and wanted to leave. As long as I’m thick-skinned enough and cast aside my dignity to hug his thigh, he won’t actually leave.”

Zhao Kaile chewed his food and recalled the scene when he first saw Zhan Hang yesterday, nodding in agreement.

Wait a minute.

Thick-skinned enough.

“……..” Zhao Kaile suddenly understood something, and nodded again: “I understand.”

Lu Jiayin found his expression quite amusing and couldn’t help laughing: “You understand again.”

Zhao Kaile said: “If a person has no shame, they are invincible under heaven.”

“……..” Lu Jiayin licked two more mouthfuls of ice cream, thinking for a moment: “That doesn’t seem wrong either.”

After Zhan Hang finished eating, there was still a lot of food left. Zhao Kaile had originally wanted to pack it up to take back, but then thought, how could a male celebrity eat leftover food? So he endured the heartache and took the trash out to throw it away.

Lu Jiayin carried her bag and observed Zhan Hang’s state, then asked with a grin: “How is it, Brother Hang, is this little brother okay?”

“Not very okay.” Zhan Hang supported his chin with one hand, saying nobly and coldly: “At first glance, he’s a bookworm who only knows how to read dead books. How exactly did you and Bai Li pick people?”

Lu Jiayin: “But he’s very obedient and well-behaved, right? Should we try for another two days?”

Zhan Hang closed his eyes and said: “Whatever, I want to sleep for a while. You go out.”

Whatever meant it was okay.

Lu Jiayin giggled, tiptoed out, and conveniently hung up the “Resting, Do Not Disturb” sign on the door.

At the company entrance, Zhao Kaile watched Lu Jiayin preparing to leave with her bag, still somewhat reluctant to part. The latter said seriously: “You can’t have a dependent mentality toward your teacher. When you encounter problems, you still need to find ways to solve them yourself. Sister is very busy.”

Zhao Kaile nodded with a tragic expression and waved goodbye.

When shooting resumed in the afternoon, things went much more smoothly. Zhan Hang woke up refreshed from his nap, and the final scene basically passed in one take. When it ended, several set worker sisters came over with shy expressions asking if they could get an autograph. Zhao Kaile knew this was the moment he should play his role. He hurriedly came over with a serious expression to shield Zhan Hang behind him, saying: “Sorry sorry, our Brother Hang is already very tired. Next time.”

Zhan Hang smiled politely at them, then put on his sunglasses and led his little assistant to the car for the return trip.

“What do you mean next time?” Zhan Hang couldn’t quite hold back, criticizing: “There is no next time. Ask Lu Jiayin more, seriously.”

Zhao Kaile nodded humbly: “Yes yes, you’re right.”

The driver uncle chuckled: “This young man is not bad, much better than the previous one.”

Zhan Hang generally didn’t show attitude toward people older than himself. He made a noncommittal sound of acknowledgment. Zhao Kaile smiled, thinking to himself that it was probably because the previous one hadn’t reached the point of having no way out, haha.

The excellent virtue of enduring adversity and accepting fate was also cultivated by Zhao Kaiming. After all, from childhood to adulthood, Zhao Kaiming had bullied him unilaterally. The moment he resisted, his biological brother would cut off his food money, tuition, and living expenses. Resistance was extremely inadvisable. It wasn’t until his second year of university, when he had his first additional manuscript fee income, that the situation improved slightly. But he hadn’t expected that shortly after things improved, Zhao Kaiming would leave him with a massive debt and run away.

Late at night, after tidying up the cat nest, Zhao Kaile finished applying various creams and lotions for Zhan Hang in advance. Holding his laptop, he began to write seriously. The previous debt collection call came in again.

“Mr. Zhao, then regarding your side……..”

“Starting from next month, I will slowly repay it on his behalf. Please don’t call for the time being, okay?” Zhao Kaile said softly: “I won’t run away. If I were going to run, I would have blocked this number.”

That girl laughed without emotion: “We understand your difficulties. Please do so as soon as possible.”

Zhao Kaile stared at his phone in silence and dialed Zhao Kaiming’s number again. Still no answer.

Two in the morning.

Zhao Kaile wrote until his brain was truly exhausted and couldn’t turn anymore before stopping his movements. He opened the novel page and casually browsed the comments. The number one reader “Sneik” with a gold-bordered comment box appeared prominently at the top.

Sneik: The female lead is too simple-minded, unworthy of the male lead. Not as good as the snake woman.

After the comment, he followed up with several cat can tip rewards.

Beneath it, countless comments echoed him: +1, +2, +10086, +ID number……. Some followed the trend suggesting to change the female lead, some defended the female lead, some trampled the female lead to praise the snake woman, some trampled the snake woman to praise female two, female three, female four, and even more worshipped the male lead one and male lead two as a perfect match cult. It was simply a riot of demons dancing.

Not satisfied but still giving money, what kind of weirdo is this?

Zhao Kaile couldn’t quite understand, but regardless, whoever gives money is the boss. His respect for Zhan Hang rose sharply once again.

He was simply too tired after this day. The dual exhaustion of mental and physical strain stacked on, causing the next day’s five alarms to fail to wake him. He got up at nearly ten o’clock.

He got up groggily and looked at the time, immediately feeling the sky was collapsing and the earth was caving in. Finished finished, I’m going to be fired. Why am I every day wandering on the dangerous line of being fired!!