Scumbag Actor Screwup System

Chapter 41 - No drama yet

When he was leaving with Zheng Fa, Xu Tengfei didn't even notice him, too busy chatting with his new daddy and another kid that looked about his age. He looked away and grabbed his shidi's arm to lead him towards another exit.

"Come on, let's go this way, it's closer to the bar," he said walking in the opposite direction.

"Cu- I mean, bro, where the fuck are you going without me?" Qinghua went running after them, with his giant boyfriend following silently.

"I'm going drinking with my good Shidi," he replied, glaring, "I thought our bar nights were off now you're getting fucked on an hourly basis."

Zheng Fa seemed to choke all of the sudden. Weird, not like he was eating anything.

"I can spend a few hours with you without having sex, I promise! But since you've got a date already, how about we make it a double date and I bring my King with us?"

Shen Yuan's eye roll was perilously close to beating the ocular jump record, but he refrained from dissing his bro.

"Sure, bring your weird boyfriend and let's go," he said.

After that Qinghua had to get his coat, then Zhakarov got stopped to sign an autograph on a rubber dick, then one of the production assistants stopped them to tell them about some changes in the schedules that would be sent to them anyway.

By the time they sat down at the bar Shen Yuan was both starving and answering a zillion messages about scheduling conflicts.

"Sorry for this Liu-shidi, I know you probably wanted a quiet evening."

"I like the atmosphere here," he said, even though it was Shen Yuan's usual "ugly decor meets cheap booze" bar. He had to be lying.

"Such spotless manners always, your mom must be proud. Qinghua I see you moving your hand under the table, stop that. You're paying for the first round of beers and snacks for that."

The guy grinned, "very well, but only because I missed you. And because the special you suggested filming made me a shitton of money."

Zheng Fa frowned a bit.

"He invested a bit in that special and got some return," said Shen Yuan quickly.

"Ah, I see."

Qinghua started nervously making up some bullcrap about varied investment and high risk.

Shen Yuan was half listening, half eyeing his phone. A name popped up, a message had come in. He immediately picked it up, it was Xu Tengfei. Maybe he needed support or something.

"Someone said you went on a double date, did Xiaosi force you to do something again?"

Shen Yuan clicked his tongue and Zheng Fa looked at him. How was he ignoring Qinghua's fascinating made up stocks theory? Shen Yuan lifted his phone a bit to answer so he wouldn't read.

"No, I just went out with Qinghua, his moving mountain pet and Liu-shidi," he replied. When he looked up, said shidi immediately looked away, pretending he wasn't spying. Luckily for Shen Yuan just then arrived the tray of cheap frozen and barely reheated snacks that was to be their dinner. Shen Yuan was too ravenous to go worrying about being spied on or about food poisoning for that matter.

"So, Zheng Fa, I read rumors that you have a girlfriend," started Qinghua and Shen Yuan kicked him under the table even while munching.

"Don't be rude," he said, mouth half full.

Zheng Fa put a napkin to his mouth and swallowed before speaking.

"The rumors come from some pictures of me and my sister. We have different fathers so not everyone knows we are related."

"So you're single?" asked the man eyeing his friend.

Zakharov frowned.

"It does not matter if he is single."

"O-of course not my King I just- I mean not to me-"

Shen Yuan grinned.

"Don't be greedy now, I doubt your little body could take two big dicks."

Zheng Fa started choking again, poor dude. Breathing didn't seem to be his strong point.

"I don't want another, I was just curious, you know!"

"I am single," said the man, recovering from his little episode, quite red from the lack of oxygen. He mumbled something about no threesomes, but only Zakharov seemed to hear properly since there was an approving nod.

"I'm sure you must have tons of people wanting to date you anyway, you're pretty popular! Third in the ranking as far as I've heard," Qinghua continued pressing in spite of his faux pas.

"I would never date a fan," replied Zheng Fa with a bit of a cold gaze.

"I'm not accusing you of fancest- just pointing out the chances."

Shen Yuan shook his head, "let the man be, being single is hard enough without people being annoying about it."

Qinghua hit his forehead on the table very eloquently.

"Dude are you fine, or did you not sleep again?" Shen Yuan poked him with a chopstick.

"I am just trying to survive this dinner with you idiot-"

"Let's get you more beer," he said as he watched his phone light up again with another message. Xu Tengfei had written.

"I hope Shizun has fun."

No emojis, nothing. What the fuck, was he angry? He picked up the phone and was starting to type when the waitress arrived to take their second order, having seen his half assed attempt to call her. She understood a man's needs of booze and food. He asked for more beers- and a cup of tea for Zheng Fa who had had enough alcohol.

The text lay half written when he remembered something that needed to be mentioned.

"Dude, I'm hating the father-son reunion idea. This idiot author Airplane is killing all the tension making those two interact, I think they should keep away until the end- or close to the end or whatever."

"I hadn't considered that but you might be right," Liu-shidi was showing sense as usual.

Qinghua looked thoughtful.

"You might be onto something..."

"Of course I am," replied Shen Yuan with a satisfied smile, "in fact, I'd go as far as having him attack something dear to Binghe, like taking his home and having there be a sort of war. You could make some epic battle scenes."

Qinghua only replied with a humming sound, he whipped out his phone and started writing on it. Good, it was best when he listened. Now to distract the only one who didn't know of his double identity.

"So, Liu-Shidi, tell me what you've been up to lately."

Zheng fa gave a nice, mild answer and Shen Yuan continued to bring up topics, from the few articles he'd read on the news to their new sets, anything he could think of to keep the chat going somewhere safe.

By the end of the night he was somewhat tipsy, cheerful about the prospect of changes in the story and very tired. He didn't even notice he'd forgotten to answer Xu Tengfei's message, the short "is everything fine?" remained unsent. 

----Next Chapter - Chapter 42 - A losing game