Chapter 130

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In reality, when Ren Jingyuan pushed the door open, Xia Xingcheng had only been sitting on Yang Youming’s lap, his head ducked as they kissed lightly. The moment he heard Ren Jingyuan opening the door, he had wanted to get up, yet he hadn’t anticipated that Yang Youming would suddenly seize his waist, taking their kiss one step further and kissing him heatedly.

Once Xia Xingcheng had broken free and sat back down next to him, with flushed cheeks, he said, “You did that on purpose.”

At this time, Yang Youming appeared to be in a good mood. He reached for a slice of ham and placed it on Xia Xingcheng’s bowl with his chopsticks. “Didn’t you want me to?”

Xia Xingcheng was bewildered. “When did I say that?”

Yang Youming said, “You wanted me to tell her clearly so that she wouldn’t look at you like that anymore. Are you happy now that I’ve made it very clear to her and she even saw it with her own eyes?”

Xia Xingcheng lowered his head to pick up a slice of ham with his chopsticks, then brought it to his mouth. “I suppose so.” He sounded a little pleased with himself, his eyes curling into a smile.

–

The next morning, Ling Jiayue’s mother, Ren Keting, flew in.

She directly found Yang Youming and Xia Xingcheng and expressed her deepest apologies.

When Xia Xingcheng saw this elegant and beautiful woman in her forties bowing down to him in apology, all Xia Xingcheng felt was embarrassment, so he quickly extended a hand to stop her.

Ren Keting said, “We weren’t strict enough with her upbringing, and we overly indulged her. I asked Jingyuan to help us take care of this matter, and minimize the damage on the internet. If Mr. Xia’s reputation and work is affected in any way, we’re willing to compensate you.”

“Ting jie,” Yang Youming said to her, “It’s all right, there’s no need.”

Ren Keting looked towards Yang Youming and sighed. “I have no idea why Jiayue would become this stubborn.”

Yang Youming told Xia Xingcheng to make Ren Keting a cup of tea, upon which he immediately got up and heated up some water with the electric kettle.

“I said a lot of things to Jiayue yesterday,” Yang Youming said gently. “They weren’t very pleasant to hear, and my tone might’ve been a bit severe.”

Ren Keting nodded. She said, “Thank you, Youming, for taking the time to talk to her about this. I talked to her just now—she’s still heartbroken. I think what you said to her affected her a lot.”

Xia Xingcheng returned with a cup of tea and set it down in front of Ren Keting. Seeing her deeply furrowed brows, he wanted to console her, yet he didn’t know what to say.

Ren Keting addressed Xia Xingcheng again. “Xingcheng, I’m sorry.”

She had a gentle temperament, and she was very beautiful. Xia Xingheng was a bit overwhelmed, and he immediately said, “It’s fine, I promise.”

Yang Youming reached out and patted Xia Xingcheng’s arm, then said to Ren Keting, “Ting jie, there’s still plenty of conversations you need to have with her, I’ve already done all I can.”

Ren Keting nodded. “I talked it over with her dad last night. When she finishes shooting this movie, we plan on halting her acting career for the time being and take her back to educate her more.”

Yang Youming listened quietly. He didn’t say another word.

Ren Keting didn’t stay in Yang Youming’s room for long; she still needed to see He Zheng.

Yang Youming and Xia Xingcheng saw her off at the door. Xia Xingcheng didn’t step out, and through the open door, he spotted Ren Jingyuan waiting outside their room.

Ren Jingyuan had been leaning against the wall at first. At that moment, he straightened up and slightly bowed in greeting. “Hello, Ming ge.” He then nodded at Xia Xingcheng. “Xingcheng.”

Xia Xingcheng nodded back.

Ren Keting exited the room, turned to say goodbye to Yang Youming and Xia Xingcheng, then left, walking down the corridor with Ren Jingyuan.

Upon hearing the door quietly closing behind her, Ren Keting let out a sigh and said to Ren Jingyuan, “Yang Youming gave us a lot of face this time.”

Ren Jingyuan softly said, “Ming ge’s words yesterday were really hard to take. I’ve never heard him use that tone when speaking before.” Deep down, Ren Jingyuan was also a little upset. He believed that Yang Youming’s attitude had only been a little milder for the sake of Ren Yuchang’s face.

Ren Keting stopped in her tracks, lowering her voice and saying, “If he hadn’t considered Ling Jiayue’s age and his friendship with dad, he may not necessarily want to talk to you at all. You and Jiayue need to grasp what’s right and wrong. Don’t run rampant by relying on your grandpa’s connections in the industry, and don’t take it for granted either and think that you can afford to provoke anyone. I raised Jiayue poorly, and this was a lesson. I hope this lesson left a deep enough impression on her. You can’t act brazenly anymore, too. Or else the one receiving a lesson next time might be you!”

Ren Jingyuan walked a few steps ahead in silence before he suddenly stilled and turned back to Ren Keting, letting out an “Ah”, as if he’d just recalled something.

Ren Keting looked at him. “What’s wrong?”

Ren Jingyuan shook his head. “It’s nothing.” But he had suddenly remembered a rumour about how Zhu Tianjie’s career hadn’t been going too well lately, and how he was having problems with his agency. Somebody claimed that it was because he had offended Xia Xingcheng at a prior movie shoot. He hadn’t believed it at the time, and he hadn’t taken it seriously when he’d first heard it, but now that he thought about it, that rumour was probably true. By comparison, Yang Youming had given their Ren family a lot of face. Ren Jingyuan couldn’t help but feel a pang of fear.

They reached the elevator, pressed the button, and waited.

Ren Keting softly said, “Yang Youming has shares in Juxin. Lu Nianxin is technically the boss, but it might be more appropriate to say that they’re partners. Their personal relationship might be better than you think.”

Ren Jingyuan looked at his indistinct reflection on the elevator door. He nodded, and said, “I understand.”

Ren Keting headed towards He Zheng’s room to ask for a few days off for Ling Jiayue, and that she wanted to take her away for the time being.

He Zheng lost his temper the moment Ren Keting walked into his room, almost upturning the tea table with a kick. He bit at his cigarette and cursed, “And what the hell would we shoot? The crew might as well disband on the spot!”

The assistant director couldn’t calm him down at all. In the end, he invited Yang Youming over.

Xia Xingcheng came along with Yang Youming. The two men entered the room one after the other. Xia Xingcheng craned his neck from behind Yang Youming, and the first thing he registered was the mess.

Yang Youming bent down and shifted the tea table back to its original position with one hand. “What are you so mad about?” he said to He Zheng.

He Zheng was sitting on the sofa, his temper seemingly subsided. Once he calmed down, he began to smoke, and he glanced at Yang Youming. “What do we do now? Ling Jiayue’s mother insisted on taking her away.”

Yang Youming said, “Didn’t she only ask for a few days off? She’ll still come back and finish shooting.”

He Zheng blew out a smoke ring along with a heavy sigh. “It’ll mess up our pacing.”

“Shoot the scenes we can shoot first,” Yang Youming said. “It’s only a few days, it’ll work after a few adjustments.”

He Zheng didn’t speak. He was leaning back, head resting on the back of the sofa as he looked at Xia Xingcheng.

Weirded out, Xia Xingcheng said, “What are you looking at?”

He Zheng shook his wrist at the ashtray, and asked Xia Xingcheng, “Feeling better?”

Xia Xingcheng said, “I’m all good.”

He Zheng sounded faintly frustrated. “I have no words. That little girl clearly seemed well-behaved, it’s hard to imagine that she could actually do all this. I don’t know if you can still continue acting with her like nothing’s happened.”

Xia Xingcheng sounded quite calm. “I can separate work and personal feelings.”

He Zheng nodded, and said, “It’s been hard on you.”

Xia Xingcheng laughed at his words, and said, “I’m fine. Will you all stop treating me like a child? When I came out to work, I didn’t expect to be treated as someone’s relative, and I never thought that everything would go my way in the first place. I’m already very lucky that I got to meet you all.”

There were other things that Xia Xingcheng left out—if you want others to respect you, blindly currying favour with people is useless. Only when your abilities are good enough for you to be able to stand tall will that respect come to you naturally.

He wasn’t mad at Ling Jiayue for saying that he wasn’t worthy of Yang Youming. In the entire world, apart from Yang Youming, he wouldn’t get offended by anyone else saying such a thing. He would always stand tall, and then he’d let those people know that he’s the one most qualified to stand by Yang Youming’s side in the world.

Filming resumed.

Han Bohan was sorting through the laptop in his office when he found a video file on his desktop. At the time, the CD that stored the videos relating to Sun Yao’s case had encountered a small error, so the case officer gave him a USB drive with the CCTV footage to copy from. The footage in question had been stored on his laptop desktop this whole time.

He could’ve deleted the video at first, yet when he right-clicked to delete it, unbeknownst to him, the video mysteriously played instead.

Cao Yuxiang appeared at 22:29—at the fifteenth second—and left the frame after three seconds, heading towards the direction of the neighbourhood Sun Yao and Sun Xunyan lived in.

Han Bohan dragged the video’s progress bar back to 22:20. He didn’t speed it up, and he continued watching the footage.

Under the surveillance camera, numerous people came and went, yet he couldn’t spot any suspicious individuals—right up until 22:26:35, about four minutes before Cao Yuxiang’s appearance—a long-haired girl in a dress popped up in the video, passing through from the top of the frame. Her appearance was equally brief, and her face only showed up in the shot at the very last second—a blurry side profile.

From the investigation to the indictment review stage of the case, nobody had taken notice of this passing girl, because there hadn’t seemed to be anything unusual about her. Moreover, it was difficult to determine who she was based on a flitting, blurry side profile.

But this time, Han Bohan recognised her; he could practically recognise her from her walk alone. This passing girl was Shu Mian.

Shu Mian was similarly headed towards Sun Yao’s neighbourhood. It was above 10 p.m., and setting aside why she’d gone to Sun Yao’s place for now—Cao Yuxiang had appeared in the frame around four minutes later. Even if he hadn’t been following her, by the time he arrived, it was likely that she hadn’t left yet.

Han Bohan felt a chill run down his back.

After that, he continued watching the CCTV footage until after Sun Yao called the police and a police car drove through in the wee hours of the morning, yet there were no further sightings of Shu Mian’s figure.

Of course, this wasn’t the only road that Shu Mian could’ve taken once she’d left the neighbourhood, and even if she’d crossed this intersection, if she had stuck to the corners of the street, the surveillance wouldn’t have caught her leaving.

After almost two hours of replaying the video from start to finish, it was already time for Han Bohan to get off work. He was the only one in the office, and the sky outside was already beginning to darken. The lights hadn’t been turned on, and his surroundings were dim; the only light source being his display screen, and it illuminated Han Bohan’s face.

The scene concluded with a close-up shot:

Han Bohan was looking at the display, the light casting flickering shadows across his face. His eyes contained a vague trace of visible dread, his lips were slightly pale; and in the end, he slowly closed his eyes, tilting his head up in exhaustion.

☆ ☆ ☆

t/n – chapter 130! just a little more to go~

⟵ Chapter 129 | TOC | Chapter 131 ⟶

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