The night was deep and Li Zhao was lying on the hotel bed, waiting for the takeaway to come.
"From then on, the monarch didn't come early..." Li Zhao looked at Yan Ting. "The ancient emperors had it really hard." He had Yan Ting and fell into depravity. The emperor had so many beauties. How could he remember his business?
"After dinner, brush your teeth and go to bed." The one to persuade the emperor to go to work was the empress. Yan Ting handed the water to Li Zhao. "I will take you to school in the morning."
"Okay." Li Zhao didn't receive the water glass. Instead, he took Yan Ting's hand and drank a few mouthfuls of water. He turned to look out the window. "It is almost New Year's again."
Last winter, he had moved to Ting Ting's house. Before he knew it, a year had passed.
He held Yan Ting's hand and laughed loudly. "Ting Ting, I think you are receiving a bit of a loss by staying with me."
"Who said?" Yan Ting put the cup aside. "Before I met you, I had nothing. With you, I have the whole world."
"The whole world?" Li Zhao laughed. "You are nauseating."
"You are my world." Yan Ting lowered his head and kissed Li Zhao's forehead. "You will have to accompany me for the rest of your life. The one who lost is you."
"You can't calculate it that way." He reached out and put an arm around Yan Ting's neck. It is called deserving it. You made me your treasure and I made you my treasure."
Hehehe, together was double happiness. They were two treasures.
***
In the warm room, Lin Hong sat on the sofa and spoke to his brother and sister-in-law who had stabilized their emotions. "In these years, most of your income has been invested in the gene bank. You might've accepted that your child is gone but... there is still a glimmer of hope in your heart, right?"
Even though everyone knew that in the turbulent river, an adult trafficker couldn't survive let alone a baby that was only a few months old. However, people were always unwilling to accept death unless they saw the child's body.
"Brother." Lin Shen smiled bitterly. "I'll go with you tomorrow."
It might be hopeless waiting but he still embraced a glimmer of hope.
At that time, Shao Shao had fallen into the river with the child trafficker. He had asked the underwater rescue team to search for several days and posted notices everywhere. Everyone thought they were crazy.
In recent years, he and his wife had funded the gene bank in their own names. They just hoped that parents who lost their children would be able to retrieve their own treasures and give Shao Shao the credit.
If Shao Shao was alive, Lin Shen hoped he had no more worries in life, that he would be accompanied when sad and taken care of when sick.
If Shao Shao was gone, Lin Shen hoped he would be reborn in a good family in his next life, that he wouldn't have to worry about clothing and food and wouldn't suffer from separation with his parents.
***
During the days when Li Zhao participated in the final exams, the two intern reporters put up their interview with him online. Netizens felt a bit emotional when they saw that Li Zhao was like ordinary university students, greeting and joking with others students.
Some people thought about their student days while others thought about the abuse that Li Zhao had suffered.
"Previously, Li Zhao was just a passerby in my eyes but once I saw him talking to his classmates in a simple and happy manner, I suddenly want to cry. Maybe it is my age."
"The two reporters are so sincere that they even released Li Zhao's criticism of them."
"Li Zhao is right. Beijing University is a place to study. It will definitely affect the normal lives of students if reporters keep entering and exiting."
"Adults have to make choices. We all need to make them, such as the local demolition tyrant or the boss of Canghuan."
"Upstairs person, you really have guts. You're even making fun of the boss of Canghuan. Still, I like it."
"No one cares about whether Li Zhao will fail or not?"
The interview video released by the reporters did get some popularity but Li Zhao's team didn't cooperate with the publicity so the popularity was just average. In recent days, the most popular news was that Zhao Junnan and his co-star actress didn't get along.
It was unknown how big the contradiction was on both sides but the actress scolded Zhao Junnan on Weibo, stating that he was a hypocrite and liked to bully newcomers.
After Zhao Junnan acted in Heroic Ruler last year, his external image had always been very good. He might've lost a big name endorsement in the second half of last year but the Internet had only three days of memory. In addition, his team acted so Zhao Junnan's image of a mature and stable senior was still steady. Many young girls liked him.
The actress who scolded him wasn't very popular. This female star was beautiful but her acting was average. She was often scolded for being a vase. Once things burst out, almost all the netizens were mocking the female star. Many people sympathized with Zhao Junnan for having to work with such a person.
Zhao Junnan's attitude was very magnanimous. He only said there was a misunderstanding and people shouldn't slander the actress. The more he said so, the more the netizens disliked the actress. The comments scolding her were popular and the number of likes had exceeded 100,000.
Perhaps the scolding was too harsh, causing the actress to become angry and anxious. She said that Zhao Junnan acted against other female artists in the crew but no one believed her. They even scolded her more fiercely.
Li Zhao had finished his exams and was ready to go out for dinner with his teammates. He was walking to the school gates when he was blocked by gossip reporters who appeared from a hidden place.
"Li Zhao, do you know the truth about the dispute between Teacher Zhao Junnan and Zhou Mei?"
"Zhao Junnan said that Teacher Zhao Junnan likes to bully newcomers in the crew. As a newcomer, you worked with Teacher Zhao Junnan in the Sky Song crew. Can you comment on Teacher Zhao Junnan?"
Li Zhao remembered that Zhao Junnan once appeared in a guest role in Sky Song. He and Zhao Junnan also had two rival scenes.
These days, his mind had been full of studying for the exams and he didn't know who Zhao Junnan had a contradiction with. He heard the reporters' questions and stopped. "Sorry reporter friends, I have been studying for my exams recently and don't know what happened. However, you might not be clear about one thing. The first time I worked with Teacher Zhao Junnan wasn't in the Sky Song crew, it was in the Heroic Ruler crew."
The entertainment gossip reporters were stunned when they heard this. Why didn't they know that Li Zhao had also participated in Heroic Ruler?
The reporters wanted to ask again but before they had recovered, Li Zhao and his roommates ran away. They ran into a side street and their figures couldn't be seen anymore. Young people were in good shape. The gossip reporters prided themselves on their running ability but they weren't able to catch up. In any case, it didn't matter. Once they put this content on the Internet, they could allude to what Li Zhao meant. They had to be able to create topics to be a gossip reporter.
During the dinner, Li Zhao told his team about the gossip reporter blocking him. Once the team heard about it, they rubbed their hands together. It was finally time to clean up Zhao Junnan. Zhao Junnan had vowed in front of the media that he never used substitutes in the Heroic Ruler crew. They had collected countless interviews about it. After holding back for half a year, they finally had a chance to vent their anger.
The incident between Zhao Junnan and Zhou Mei was too big. Some artists who had a good relationship with Zhao Junnan even forwarded Zhao Junnan's Weibo post to support him.
On Zhou Mei's side, there were only one or two supporting actors who had no reputation and no works. In the eyes of netizens, many artists were standing on Zhao Junnan's side and this was enough to prove that Zhao Junnan was innocent.
The gossip reporters didn't want to let go of this heat. They interviewed other entertainers about this matter. Some male artists were accused by netizens because of their careless words, saying the artists must be jealous of Zhao Junnan or have an unclear relationship with Zhou Mei. This led many artists to avoid this matter.
Once the reporters placed their interview with Li Zhao on the Internet, some netizens were puzzled. What did Li Zhao mean by specifically emphasizing the Heroic Ruler crew?
Netizens ran to the list of cast members of Heroic Ruler and searched all of them, but didn't find Li Zhao's name. What did Li Zhao mean? Did he deliberately come to rube this heat because he hadn't been hot recently?
Zhao Junnan's fans had long been dissatisfied with Li Zhao. During the endorsement incident last year, Li Zhao was ridiculed by netizens. Who would've expected Li Zhao to take the Cangshi Watch endorsement and left Zhao Junnan alone to face the netizens' sarcasm? This made Zhao Junnan's fans dislike Li Zhao.
Now both fans and passersby were supporting Zhao Junnan. All of Zhao Junnan's fans had the illusion that justice was on their side. Some of them ran to Li Zhao's Weibo and scolded him for rubbing Zhao Junnan's heat.
Zhao Junnan and his work team saw this interview video and were scared. They hurriedly contacted Li Zhao's studio. They would give any conditions as long as LI Zhao didn't say that he acted as a double for Zhao Junnan in Heroic Ruler.
During the time when Li Zhao wasn't popular enough, Zhao Junnan wanted to suppress Li Zhao. Now he had no choice but to make peace. On the side of Li Zhao's studio, they only replied that they would consider it.
However, Zhao Junnan and his team never thought that the netizens were sometimes omnipotent. Li Zhao's team hadn't even started their operations yet when some netizens pulled out suspicious pictures."
[Melon Eating Netizen: I had nothing to do and pulled the scenes of Heroic Ruler frame by frame. I found some interesting things that I'll share with everyone.]
This Weibo had a few photos. It was the same clothing but the body... seemed to be different.
[Melon Eating Netizen: According to Emperor Zhao, he never used a double in the drama Heroic Ruler. I won't say anything else. I just envy Emperor Zhao's figure and his flexibility.]
Zhao Junnan used a double in Heroic Ruler?
Netizens didn't believe it. They yelled at this netizen and asked how much money they had received from Zhou Mei.
"Do make money in such a dirty manner, okay?"
"The Heroic Ruler crew all praised Zhao Junnan's special work during the shooting and that he didn't need a double for the dangerous scenes. Don't make up rumours."
"Don't say anything else. I envy the blogger's shameless face for money."
"emmmm, why do I think this classic scene in Heroic Ruler is more like someone else? Look at the Spring Festival. There was a popular martial arts movie with a young character that many girls liked."
"This isn't about my baby. This is between Zhao Junnan and Zhou Mei, don't involve others."
Just as the netizens were upset, Lu Hao, who hadn't posted on Weibo for half a month, suddenly posted something meaningful.
Lu Hao V: Knowing people, you know their face but not their hearts.
The netizens: ???
Was this the crew's publicity or was it implying something?
Zhao Junnan's fans didn't care and scolded him first. Some fans ridiculed Lu Hao, saying he lost the award to Zhao Junnan so he was deliberately making trouble on Weibo.
Lu Hao's reply: Yes, I can't compare to Mr Zhao. I find it too difficult to shoot and I need the help of a double.
____________
The author has something to say:
Baby Ting Ting and Baby Zhao Zhao: Please call us Treasures.