Qi Cong’s first reaction after returning to his senses was to turn around, take out the hat that was originally prepared for Shen Jia from his backpack and directly put it on Gu Xun’s head. Then he frowned. “There are so many people in the open parking lot, how can you even– huh–“

Gu Xun fed ice cream into Qi Cong’s mouth before glancing at the brim of his hat and smiling. He slightly bent down to look at Qi Cong. “Thank you.” 

With that, he raised his eyes to look at Zhao Zhenxun and gestured to a black car not too far away. ”May I borrow your staff member for a while? Just five minutes.”

The morning sunshine shone down on Gu Xun who was wearing a clean white T-shirt with light-colored jeans. His smiling eyes seemed to be glowing, his snow white skin and three-dimensional facial features, perfect cheek outline and tall sturdy figure belonged to tantalizing adult men who released provocative hormones.

“…hiss. ” He didn’t know who secretly held their breath.

At last, everyone regained their senses.

Shen Jia looked back and forth where Gu Xun and Qi Cong were standing close together, which obviously exceeded the boundaries of ordinary friends. His face looked stunned after the impact, making him unable to speak. The other assistants were also stunned, looking back and forth between Gu Xun and Qi Cong, as gossip crazily filled their eyes.

Only Zhao Zhenxun remained rational. After confirming that there should be no paparazzi squatting around, he looked sideways at Gu Xun car parked nearby, before looking at Qi Cong and asking with afrown, “Do you want to be borrowed by Gu Xun?”

Everyone’s eyes fell on Qi Cong again.

Gu Xun also looked at Qi Cong, who had already recovered from his daze and spit out the spoon of ice-cream. He shook the ice-cream box with a smile. “Come with me to have ice-cream.”

Qi Cong stiffened. He didn’t understand why Gu Xun appeared here and behaved like this. He took a deep breath to suppress the emotions stirred by Gu Xun’s unusual behavior. He tried to calm down before looking back at Zhao Zhenxun. “Agent Zhao, may I be excused for five minutes?”

Gu Xun chuckled happily.

Qi Cong clenched his fist and didn’t dare to look at the other person’s expression. He just added, “Mr. Gu likes to joke.”

Everyone: “…” 

What a fart! Gu Xun’s nickname, “The young master who lives on the iceberg” was not from nothing.

Zhao Zhenxun couldn’t watch this anymore, so he said to Gu Xun, “Return my staff member on time.” With that he looked at Qi Cong, opened his mouth, but he didn’t say anything. He just waved his hand signaling Qi Cong to return quickly.

Qi Cong said a ‘thank you’, returned the makeup box to Jiang Meng, handed the accessory box to Xiao Han, another assistant, and finally turned to Shen Jia.

Shen Jia’s face was trying to conceal disbelief and confusion at being abandoned. He was slightly aggrieved, as he looked with a sullen expression at Gu Xun and Qi Cong. “You…you….”

“I’ll explain it to you when I get back.” Qi Cong patted Shen Jia soothingly and then turned to Gu Xun and said, “Let’s go.” With that he walked toward Gu Xun’s car.

Gu Xun looked sideways at Shen Jia, stopping his gaze in place where Shen Jia was photographed, and followed after Qi Cong.

As he approached Gu Xun’s car, Qi Cong saw there was an assistant standing beside it. When he saw them coming, the assistant immediately went to the back door, bent down to help him open it and made a gesture of invitation at him.

Qi Cong: “….Thank you.” 

He glanced back at Gu Xun and slipped into the car

Gu Xun also got in the car. When the door closed, Qi Cong did not wait for Gu Xun to speak. “My family is bankrupt.”

Gu Xun stopped his motion of turning to face Qi Cong.

“I really need this job, being Shen Jia’s assistant.” Qi Cong felt a little embarrassed, but some things needed to be said clearly. He looked sideways at Gu Xun and said seriously, “Gu Xun, I don’t understand why you showed up here, nor do I understand what you just…. However, Jia Jia kindly offered me a job even though I have no experience. I can’t rely on the fact that he and I are friends to deal with my personal affairs and interfere with his work during his working hours. This wouldn’t be right.”

Gu Xun slowly put the ice cream spoon into the box, before smiling. He asked, “Your family went bankrupt? When did it happen?”

Qi Cong turned around and replied, “At the beginning of the year.”

At the beginning of the year ‘Heaven Asked’ was in the key period of promotion at international film festivals abroad.

Gu Xun didn’t speak. The brim of his hat cast a shadow over his eyebrows, making his eyes appear somewhat darker.

Gu Xun, who was silent and expressionless, immediately revealed the strong sense of oppression emanating from his bones. This pressure spread out like ice, quickly covering the narrow space in the car.

The sense of strangeness was everywhere.

Qi Cong continued, “Gu Xun, you and Jia Jia are both public figures. I am Jia Jia’s assistant and coming to me like this, without hesitation might bring Jia Jia– “

“You mean, you want to keep your distance from me because of Shen Jia?”

Qi Cong shut up and looked down at his hands for two seconds, before he once again turned his face away from Gu Xun’s line of sight. “I’m not doing this for Shen Jia, I’m asking for myself. I’m afraid that Zhao Zhenxun will fire me because of my bad influence on Jia Jia. My memories are stuck in my junior year, with no professional knowledge or social experience. It’d be hard to find a secure job quickly, and…I’m short on money. Gu Xun, I really, really need this job. “

Qi Cong was turned away, and didn’t see Gu Xun’s teeth clenched. Gu Xun turned sideways and lowered his hand holding the ice cream before leaning back into the car seat. “I’m affecting your life.”

Qi Cong withdrew his eyes. “Not yet.”

The car fell silent.

After a while, Gu Xun moved. He reached out to put the ice cream on the armrest of the front seat, before facing Qi Cong. His shoulders slightly hunched, elbows propped on his knees, arms crossed, with a low “hmm” drawled to catch Qi Cong’s attention, he then smiled apologetically at Qi Cong. “Sorry, it was my thoughtlessness. When this ice cream melts, I won’t give it to you. I’ll treat you to something better next time.”

The invisible pressure in the car quickly dispersed once Gu Xun relaxed his expression and slowed down his tone. Qi Cong shook his head. “Don’t apologize. I know you didn’t mean to…. Thank you for the ice cream.”

Gu Xun looked at Qi Cong and paused for two seconds, before leaning back, this time a little more slowly and said with his tone more relaxed, “Qi Cong, I’m going to the airport soon. I will be very busy for a while due to the publicity of “Heaven Asked” and the start of shooting “Above the Dynasty”. I came to you so rashly today because I needed to talk with you before I got too busy. “

Being able to communicate was a good thing. Qi Cong asked, “Talk about what?”

“I told you yesterday that I regretted lying to you in the past, but I didn’t have time to thank you. I’m grateful that you didn’t completely ignore or hate me for my past deception. “

“… No need. ” Qi Cong withdrew his eyes and said again, “No need.” As for what is not needed, he didn’t know.

In fact, he didn’t know if he hated Gu Xun because of his past deception.

If he truly thought about whether he hated Gu Xun, it didn’t seem so. He could feel that Gu Xun’s deception wasn’t out of malice, and he is very grateful to Gu Xun for helping him out during the event with Wu Heng. When he lost his memory he probably hurt Gu Xun and owed him a debt now.

He said he didn’t hate him, but he couldn’t act familiar with Gu Xun, who was now a complete stranger to him. In front of Gu Xun, his mood was chaotic. What he felt wasn’t hate, but it would be hard to say it was still love.

“I also want to ask, we…. Can we be friends again?”

Qi Cong was too stunned to move. When he wanted to answer, Gu Xun continued, “I want to get to know you again the right way, all right? Give us a chance to start from the beginning. “

Start from the beginning. These words were too tempting.

Can those hazy emotions that began with a deception really start over from the beginning?

Maybe it was Gu Xun’s expression when he spoke, it was too much like the old days. Maybe he wanted to get rid of this chaos, maybe…. Maybe he just didn’t want to know what Gu Xun was really like, to know the real person under the deception. After a few seconds of silence, Qi Cong nodded.

Before the five minutes were up, Qi Cong got out of the car.

Before leaving, Qi Cong bent down near Gu Xun in the car and said, “I saw the Weibo you shared. Can you…not mention me in public again in the future?”

Gu Xun faintly paused, before smiling and nodding. “Of course, I will wait until we become true…friends again before introducing our relationship.”

Qi Cong sighed with relief, said a ‘thank you,’ and turned to leave.

Immediately after Qi Cong left, the mixed-race assistant returned to the car. He fastened his seat belt and started the car. His voice was anxious, “Brother Gu, we are going to miss the plane.”

“Too skinny.”

His assistant looked at Gu Xun through the rear view mirror in confusion, “What’s too skinny?”

“Him.” Gu Xun raised his hand and touched the car window, tracing the silhouette of Qi Cong’s distant outline on the glass. “Why didn’t I notice it before? He was so thin. What’s the average salary for an artist’s assistant now?”

The assistant couldn’t keep up with Gu Xun’s thought process, so he turned the steering wheel while saying, “3000 to more than 10000 per assistant. It depends on what kind of assistant they are. Some big bosses will give a big bonus at the end of the year. Brother Gu, not all bosses are as generous as you are.”

Three thousand to ten thousand. Qi Cong’s pocket money for a month when he went to school was more than that.

Gu Xun nails scraped against the car window with an unpleasant sound.

Qi Cong’s figure turned the corner beyond a flower bed and disappeared. Only then did he withdraw his gaze. After no longer deliberately concealing it, the slightly overbearing sense of oppression on his body leaked out again. His tone was slightly anxious: “Even if his family went bankrupt, as a Senior Executive of a medium-sized company, he shouldn’t be short of money now. Something must have happened that I don’t know about. Someone must have bullied him…right? “

He pulled out his phone and opened Weibo to look at the post that has been re-posted and abused in the comments. His voice was low and cold: “There is indeed trash bullying him, right under my nose.”

 

…

 

After entering the studio, Qi Cong found Zhao Zhenxun and took the initiative to promise that there will be no such thing as leaving his job during working hours because of personal affairs again.

Zhao Zhenxun looked at Qi Cong for two seconds and nodded. ”It’s good that you understand.”

After chatting with Zhao Zhenxun, Qi Cong found Shen Jia and told him that he would talk about Gu Xun in detail later that evening. Shen Jia was held down by Jiang Meng trimming his eyebrows, so hearing this, he couldn’t express his objection, only his agreement.

The publicity photo shoot was very fast. That day, the photos taken were shots of Shen Jia in several different sets of clothes. Everyone was very busy. Qi Cong, who was not familiar with assistant work, could only watch for the moment. Seeing that other assistants were also busy, he took the initiative to help them.

It was just after 7pm when the photo shoot was finally finished. Everyone was so tired, that after they got in the car they all collapsed and no one spoke.

Qi Cong glanced at Shen Jia, who had immediately leaned back against his seat and fallen asleep. He took out a spare jacket to cover him and then took out his mobile phone to click on his WeChat, which accumulated several unread messages.

Most of the messages were from Qi Yin, and a few were from…. 

Qi Cong looked at Gu Xun’s cat avatar, moved his finger, and still tapped on Qi Yin’s WeChat messages first.

Mom: Found the hard drive and your notes. It looks like the hard drive is fine and there is nothing missing from your notes. They have already been sent to you, and should arrive tomorrow.

Mom: Cong Cong, do you want to pick up your studies again?

Mom: That wouldn’t be so bad. Didn’t you want to go to grad school? I think that even if you lost a few years, if you review well, you will definitely be able to enter the school you want to go to.

Mom: Anyway, no matter what you want to do, mom will support you.

Mom: Are you busy?

Mom: Baby, send me a message when you’re finished.

Qi Cong touched the word baby on the screen and his lips lifted in a small smile, before he replied to Qi Yin’s several messages. Then he closed the chat box and clicked on Gu Xun’s chat icon.

Gu Xun: I got on the plane

Gu Xun: I got off the plane.

Gu Xun: Take care of me

The distance of a chat message and Gu Xun’s familiar avatar and tone blurred the sense of unfamiliarity. Qi Cong had fallen into a trance for a moment when his mind flashed the honest and shy Gu Xun from three years ago.

However, he soon regained his mind and recalled the strange “start from the beginning” conversation between Gu Xun and himself today. He clicked on the text input bar, found the ice cream sticker in the system expressions and sent it.　

 

Edited by: Antiope1

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