Zhong Weishi had been looking forward to this day for what felt like forever. At long last, the day he officially joined the production had arrived.
Early in the morning, Gu Lizhou could hear the clattering and banging coming from the kitchen even from inside the bedroom.
His watch showed 5:30 a.m., and it was still dark outside.
They had curled up together on the sofa last night and watched a movie until the early hours of the morning. They had been so wrapped up in each other that neither wanted to part, and the lack of sleep had left him so drowsy that his eyelids were practically fighting to stay open.
Meanwhile, his thoughtful boyfriend was already wide awake and busy making breakfast.
What a little energy-sucking sprite.
Gu Lizhou lay sprawled on the bed and sighed.
“Huh? You’re up too?” Zhong Weishi turned around and spotted Gu Lizhou, looking rather surprised. Whenever the old man stayed up late, he usually wouldn’t get out of bed until noon.
Gu Lizhou pulled a shopping bag out of the drawer beneath the coffee table. It was filled with all sorts of handmade nougat candies and cookies.
Blueberry, strawberry, cranberry, and matcha-peanut flavors, all in small, delicate packages.
“Holy crap, when did you buy these, ah?! You actually hid them from me so I couldn’t eat them!” Zhong Weishi immediately tore open one and popped it into his mouth.
“I had your Uncle Cao’s girlfriend bring them over a while ago. If you’d found them, do you think they’d have lasted until today?”
Zhong Weishi froze with the candy between his teeth. “You actually have a use for them?” A sudden thought flashed through his mind, and he smiled shyly.
Could he be planning to hand these out to their friends and relatives and make their relationship public?!
That soon?! He hadn’t mentally prepared himself for that yet!
Wait, no. They had only confirmed their relationship yesterday…
“They’re all for you. Take them to the set and share them with everyone.”
Gu Lizhou had already figured out that this guy was hopelessly single-minded and would never think of that possibility.
Handmade snacks might not be worth much money, but they were a thoughtful gesture, and few people would turn them down.
The candy was slightly sweet, with just the right amount of chewiness without sticking to his teeth. Zhong Weishi unwrapped another one and popped it into Gu Lizhou’s mouth. “It’s good. Try it.”
“What don’t you like?” Gu Lizhou replied with the candy still in his mouth, then continued giving him instructions. “No one on the production knows you, so don’t take your jokes too far. Especially when you’re in front of the camera, no swearing. And don’t make inappropriate jokes about other people’s shortcomings or age. Not everyone is as easygoing as your boyfriend, got it?”
Zhong Weishi nodded and said with a smile, “You just took the opportunity to compliment yourself, didn’t you?”
“Am I not easygoing?”
“You are.”
“I prepared two bags of snacks for you. Don’t leave out the actors or the staff. There’s definitely more than enough to go around. You’ll be working with them for several months, so if you run into any conflicts, stay calm and communicate with them properly and peacefully. You’re a newcomer, so no matter what happens, keep that short temper of yours in check. Every step you take and every word you say from now on will shape the image people have of you in the future. Do you understand what I mean?”
When Gu Lizhou spoke like this, he was completely different from his usual laid-back self. Zhong Weishi suddenly found his serious side incredibly attractive.
And this man always quietly did things behind the scenes that Zhong Weishi would never have thought of.
Their ten-year age gap did indeed create a generation gap between them, but that did nothing to diminish his feelings for Gu Lizhou.
Because that ten-year difference had also allowed him to see the mature and steady side of a thirty-year-old man.
The old man was rational and dignified, with an openness and understanding of human relationships that his peers simply didn’t possess.
“What else? Let me think…” Gu Lizhou rubbed his chin.
Actually, his concerns weren’t specifically about this production. He knew there were plenty of excellent teams in the industry, but he couldn’t rule out the possibility that some people might be a mixed bag.
Wherever there were people, there would inevitably be competition and elimination, suspicion and jealousy, kindness and evil, and evil was often impossible to guard against.
“If someone tries to pry into your private life, you need to learn how to protect yourself. Be careful with what you say, and learn how to turn the question back on them.”
“Like what?”
Gu Lizhou pressed his fist and held it under his chin. “Have you ever been in a relationship? Is there someone you like?”
“Wow… That’s really sharp.”
“If you haven’t dated anyone, are you going to introduce someone to me?”
Zhong Weishi gave him a thumbs-up.
“Wherever there are lots of people, there’ll be plenty of gossip too. Just let it go in one ear and out the other. Don’t go around gossiping,” Gu Lizhou said, ruffling his hair.
“Hey.” Zhong Weishi opened his arms and hugged him. “If you keep protecting me like this, I’m going to become unable to leave you.”
“You’re thinking of leaving me?” Gu Lizhou widened his eyes.
Zhong Weishi burst out laughing. “No.”
Since it was a youth campus drama, the filming location was set at a university in S City. S City was adjacent to Yucheng, but the two places were still quite far apart. Even taking the high-speed train and then the subway, the fastest trip would take at least four hours.
Naturally, going home every day was impossible. Zhong Weishi stayed at a hotel booked by the production, sharing a room with two other people from the crew.
The production also prohibited people from casually visiting the set during filming, so the two of them once again had to endure the misery of a long-distance relationship.
But long-distance relationships had their advantages too. Gu Lizhou could turn his attention back to writing.
What made him happiest was that every few days, he would see the ID “Weishi” leaving a comment under his stories. Though it could hardly be called a comment. It was simply the default message displayed by the system whenever someone supported his work.
A cheapskate who was reluctant to even top up his phone balance would actually spend money to buy recommendation votes for him.
His boyfriend was secretly and devotedly in love with “another man,” and Gu Lizhou didn’t know whether he should laugh or feel jealous.
Through writing day after day, his typing speed gradually returned. Although it still couldn’t match what it had been at his peak, writing 6,000 words a day was no problem.
He also knew that he could never return to how he was back then, because his physical condition simply wouldn’t allow it.
When he was twenty, he could stay up for several nights in a row and recover after catching up on sleep. Now, if he stayed up all night, forget writing, even whether he could wake up the next day would be a question.
His mind would be full of gibberish, and he simply couldn’t get into the flow.
While his boyfriend was out and not at home, he planned to write and stockpile as much as he could. Once filming ended, he would take Zhong Weishi to the seaside for a proper break, perhaps even a honeymoon of sorts.
With nothing better to do, the old man started looking up travel guides online.
One day in early April, he logged onto Weibo to see if there were any new food recommendations. By chance, he noticed that Zhong Weishi had posted a photo of a box of chocolates on his Weibo.
Caption: Hahahahahahahahahahaha, so delicious!
The chocolates came in a tin box with no brand name. At a glance, it was obvious they were handmade. And the design…
Round, plump little hearts filled with love, each one stamped with the word “LOVE” in rounded lettering.
…
Something was fishy.
He hadn’t posted this photo on WeChat Moments, yet he had put it on Weibo.
The old man narrowed his eyes and told himself to stay calm. There had to be some kind of misunderstanding.
He remained perfectly calm as he kicked over the trash can beside his feet, downed a glass of cold water, and then, still perfectly calm, clicked into Zhong Weishi’s following list.
The people he had most recently followed were naturally the actors he was working with on his new project. There were men and women, directors and official accounts. Trusting his instincts, he clicked on the Weibo account of a girl whose profile picture was a photoshoot portrait.
She was Li Hanyu, the second female lead in <Secrets from the Old Days>. Her character wasn’t particularly bad; she played a rich second-generation heiress who had a secret crush on the male lead.
Gu Lizhou found photos she had taken while making the chocolates under one of her Weibo posts—a nine-grid collage, complete with selfies.
She was quite a pretty girl.
What was terrifying was that he spotted a comment from Zhong Weishi underneath the post.
[-Weishiws-]: Looks like they’re pretty tasty.
The girl replied: Hehe, they taste pretty good. I’ll bring some for you tomorrow!
What infuriatingly playful little words.
“Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat! Are you a pig?! All you know is how to eat!!!!” Gu Lizhou was practically beside himself with anger.
How was he supposed to have any mood left for writing now?!
He stood on the balcony and smoked two cigarettes in a row, shaking the ashes into the pot of cactus that Zhong Weishi had strictly forbidden him from touching.
The cactus felt rather aggrieved.
Fortunately, a heavy rainstorm came that night and washed all the cigarette ash away.
–
The next afternoon, Zhong Weishi received a call from SF Express.
When he opened the package, he found an entire box of chocolates.
The sender was anonymous.
There was also an extremely irate message written on the shipping label:
Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat! Get so fat you’ll burst!
“Could it be from one of your fans?”
“My fans?” Zhong Weishi was delighted. He only had 208 followers on Weibo in total, and he hadn’t expected that he actually had some real, active fans!
Then he thought about it again. He hadn’t posted his address on Weibo. The only people who knew where he was were the people in the debt collection group and the one at home.
He took a photo of the chocolates and sent it to Gu Lizhou.
—Did you buy these?
Gu Lizhou sent him a screenshot of his “Hahahahaha, so delicious” Weibo post.
—You said you didn’t use Weibo, didn’t you? Hahahahahaha.
—How did you even find my Weibo?
—Is that the point? Who sent you the chocolates?
—Are you jealous?
Gu Lizhou gave a cold snort and issued a triple denial.
—No. Impossible. Do you take me for a child?
—I saw how much you liked them, so I bought you some more. You can share them with your coworkers on the production. Your boyfriend has always been generous. Don’t judge a gentleman by the standards of a petty-minded person.
Zhong Weishi didn’t believe him at all.
—You’re definitely jealous.
—Actually, everyone on our production got chocolates. I saw everyone posting pictures of them on Weibo, so I posted mine too. Otherwise, I’d look like I wasn’t fitting in, hehe.
Gu Lizhou suddenly remembered how, last year, when they were chasing Er’Gou and got pursued by the police, Zhong Weishi had said almost the exact same thing after getting caught: “I saw everyone else run, so if I didn’t run, I’d look like I wasn’t fitting in.”
For some inexplicable reason, he burst out laughing.
Who could have imagined that in less than a year, this little lunatic who had once been completely beneath his notice would become his boyfriend?
That was the thing about fate. It came when it wanted to. Who could ever say for sure?
When Gu Lizhou didn’t reply, Zhong Weishi sent him a voice call directly.
“What’s your Weibo account? Let’s follow each other.”
“No. I want to lurk in the shadows and observe you. You’d better watch yourself.”
Zhong Weishi burst into laughter. It took him quite a while to finally calm down. “What have you been doing at home lately?”
“Missing you.”
That perfect answer made the corners of Zhong Weishi’s lips curl up.
“I miss you too.” He blew two kisses through the phone, and Gu Lizhou blew two back.
“How’s filming going? Is everything going smoothly? Have any of your colleagues been giving you a hard time?”
Zhong Weishi walked to an empty spot and lowered his voice. “Filming’s going pretty smoothly. The seniors have all been really nice to me, but I feel like there’s one person on our production who seems to have it out for me…”
“What happened?”
“He talks to everyone else, but he barely acknowledges me, and his attitude isn’t very nice either. When I was handing out the snacks, he didn’t even take any.”
“Man or woman?”
“Man.”
“Did you do anything to offend him before?”
“I don’t even know him.”
“Has he done anything else?”
“Not really. It’s just… I get the feeling he really doesn’t like me. The way he looks at me is kind of strange.”
“What’s his name?” Gu Lizhou asked.
“Sun Jiarong.”
Gu Lizhou searched for him online but couldn’t find much information. He did, however, find a Weibo account with more than 200,000 followers. The owner was a mixed-race-looking male model who had also played a few minor roles before. His latest update was from the set of <Secrets from the Old Days>.
He was clearly the type who edited his captions solely for the sake of posting selfies. From his photos and posts on Weibo, it was obvious that he had a strong desire to show himself off.
Following the trail, Gu Lizhou finally figured out why this person seemed to have taken a dislike to Zhong Weishi.
As early as the end of January, Sun Jiarong had posted on Weibo that he had gone to audition for <Secrets from the Old Days>. In the comments, he had replied to fans that he was waiting for the role to be finalized.
Presumably, as far as he was concerned, Zhong Weishi was the unexpected newcomer who had come out of nowhere and stolen his opportunity.
“If he doesn’t pay attention to you, then don’t bother with him either.”
“Huh?”
“It’s better if he ignores you. I’d be more worried if he were getting all buddy-buddy with you.” People like that were the ones who were truly difficult to guard against.
“What are you talking about…” Zhong Weishi thought he was jealous. “I’m not gay. Before I met you, I wasn’t interested in men at all, okay?”
Gu Lizhou smiled and didn’t continue the topic of the male model.
“I’ve recently been learning how to make fried rice. When you come back, I’ll make some for you.”
Zhong Weishi: “You actually have to learn how to make fried rice?”
Gu Lizhou sighed. “Can’t you give your beloved a little sweet praise as encouragement?”
Beloved.
The term rolled off his tongue so naturally that Zhong Weishi’s entire face turned red. He grinned foolishly. “You’re sooo amazing.”
Gu Lizhou: “You’re so perfunctory. Don’t think I can’t tell what you’re doing just because we’re on the phone. You’re smiling, aren’t you?”
Zhong Weishi pursed his lips. “I really, really want to eat the fried rice you make.”
The two of them continued being lovey-dovey for a while.
After hanging up, Gu Lizhou went online and searched for <Brave Eagle>.
The TV series premiered in March, and by now more than half of it had already aired. Zhong Weishi had mentioned that in the drama, Cheng Yue played two roles, a police officer and a killer.
The setup with the two brothers was pretty thrilling.
Whenever the camera was on Cheng Yue, the back of the other twin brother’s head was actually Zhong Weishi.
That was the job of a body double: reducing the workload during filming and in post-production.
Before meeting Zhong Weishi, Gu Lizhou had never even known this kind of filming technique existed, let alone that there was a whole group of people who did this kind of work.
The TV commercials were way too long, so Gu Lizhou bought a membership and set the playback speed to 1.5x.
Whenever the scenes between the two male leads came on, he immediately slowed it back down.
He figured he was probably the only person in the world who watched a character mainly for the back of his head.
After staring at it for long enough, he could still spot some subtle differences between Zhong Weishi and Cheng Yue, such as the way they held a pen and the shape of their fingernails.
Zhong Weishi’s fingers were more slender, while Cheng Yue played music and had a layer of calluses on the tips of his right-hand fingers.
There was a faint mole on the back of Zhong Weishi’s neck, while Cheng Yue didn’t have one.
Missing his boyfriend had turned him into a human microscope.
Gu Lizhou lay on the bed and watched all the way to Episode 7 in one sitting. The moment he skipped the opening credits, the first thing he saw was a bathroom filled with steam.
Through a layer of translucent glass, he could make out a tall, slender figure taking a shower.
!!!
His eyes suddenly widened.
When Cheng Yue filmed his first movie <Brave Eagle>, his back had suffered extensive burns, so they had needed a body double for the scenes that showed his bare back. There was no doubt that this figure was his own little boyfriend.
Last year, when Zhong Weishi had mentioned that he would be Cheng Yue’s body double for those scenes, Gu Lizhou hadn’t thought much of it. He had assumed it would only show him from the waist up, perhaps just his shoulder blades or something.
He hadn’t expected it to be his entire body.
Countless comments flew across the screen.
Some were fawning over the scene, some were shocked, some suspected it was a body double, some confirmed it was a body double, and others refused to believe it was a double at all.
In the end, the viewers even started a heated argument over the whole thing.
“…” The old man felt that kids these days were simply unbelievable.
Arguing was more important than looking at someone’s body?
His own feelings were complicated at the moment. On one hand, he was completely captivated by his little boyfriend and couldn’t look away. On the other, he was extremely unhappy that his boyfriend had been seen by people all over the world like this.
He turned off the comments and rewound the scene, intending to watch it properly.
The camera slowly moved inward from the bathroom doorway. Because the glass door was covered in droplets of water, all that could be seen was a hazy silhouette from the side.
The room was so quiet that only the sound of running water could be heard.
The shot then cut to inside the glass enclosure, beginning at the ankle before gradually moving upward.
Gu Lizhou had never been particularly interested in specific parts of a man’s appearance. Before meeting Zhong Weishi, he had hardly paid attention to men’s bodies at all. Now, however, his thoughts seemed to drift along with the sound of the water.
Zhong Weishi’s legs were spread casually as white foam snaked down his skin. His muscles were perfectly toned, while his knees had a lean, sharp definition to them.
The camera moved past his lower back and directly to his back.
One hand reached around his side and casually brushed across him twice, yet those two brief movements seemed to strike Gu Lizhou right in the heart.
He unconsciously bit down hard on his index finger.
The final shot moved from his abdomen up toward his chest. To emphasize the gunshot wound on the character’s shoulder, the camera lingered around his chest for several seconds.
Zhong Weishi tilted his head slightly and raised a hand to touch the foam, with the camera stopping around his jawline.
The water streamed rapidly downward past his Adam’s apple.
Both men instinctively swallowed.
Aside from that one time when they had confessed their feelings on the sofa, Gu Lizhou still hadn’t really seen Zhong Weishi without his clothes.
Even though it was only early spring, he already felt hot enough to want to turn on the air conditioner.
An image of Zhong Weishi standing beside his bed came to mind, and Gu Lizhou quickly looked away from the screen, trying to compose himself.
Because the view was so enticing, a certain someone’s excitement flared, making a slight physical reaction inevitable.
Gu Lizhou had completely lost his rationality. He burrowed under the covers and dragged the progress bar all the way back to the beginning.
A new WeChat message suddenly popped up, startling him so badly that his whole body jolted. He closed his eyes and sighed.
[Weishi]: We’re done for the day! What are you doing?
“…”
I was jrk\#n** off your video, only to be brutally interrupted.
There was no way he could say that out loud.
So, with the utmost air of an innocent gentleman, he replied:
—I miss you so much, I can’t sleep.
[Weishi]: You’re so cheesy ah, hahahahaha! That doesn’t sound like you at all.
Gu Lizhou was just about to reply, ‘Then what do you think I should say?’, when another message came through—a selfie.
Zhong Weishi had just taken a shower, and his hair was still half-wet. His cheeks were flushed from the heat. He lay flat on his stomach across the bed, shirtless, with a pillow blocking his chest. He beamed a brilliant smile, the glimpse of his wet tongue instantly catching the eye.
At that very moment, a line of poetry suddenly popped into Gu Lizhou’s mind:
How captivating is Weishi, that even stubborn scrap iron bends at his feet…
Is this guy even human?!
You beast!
He never seemed to have any habit of sleeping without a shirt when they were at home. Leave him unwatched for one moment and he was already taking his clothes off without a care.
—What are you doing?
—Tsk. No sense of romance.
Gu Lizhou tossed his phone aside and let out a heavy sigh.
The night was deep and still, thick with the intoxicating air of spring.
Who could understand the loneliness of a grown man living alone?
T/N: Hello, everyone. It’s been ages >.> My last update here was exactly July 30, 2025, oh my gosh. I have no excuses. I will slowly try to finish this novel here so expect a sporadic update. If you’re still here reading this, thank you very much. 🙇♀️ (Please accept my kowtow)
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