marriage
At exactly six o'clock, Lin Jingming's coffee machine was brewing the second pot of American coffee when there was a hurried knock on the door.
Lin Jingming, who opened the door holding a razor, was stunned. Xia Zhitang, who was dressed neatly, squeezed in.
She slammed the door and said, "Apologize to Mr. Cheng. Now, in person."
Lin Jingming put down his razor and wiped the foam off his face with a tissue: "Why?"
"He carried sandbags in the rain! He took the blame for you!" Xia Zhitang put his hands on his hips, his round almond-shaped eyes fixed on him, "He was the one who signed the bill for the blasting overrun last week!"
Lin Jingming was so angry that he threw the mug on the table and said, "I don't need a nanny!"
Porcelain fragments splashed at Xia Zhitang's feet. She took out her phone and pressed the hands-free key without any hesitation: "Mr. Cheng, the ancestral hall opera..."
"I said!" Lin Jingming snatched the phone and hung up. "Are you satisfied?"
Xia Zhitang answered the phone and opened the door: "I want to hear you say 'Cheng Shubai, I'm sorry' in person."
Lin Jingming said in disbelief: "Why? I didn't accidentally drop the camera when you did that..."
"I'm the investor's representative now." Xia Zhitang returned. "The filming will start at nine o'clock. I want to see you shaking hands under the surveillance camera."
Cheng Shubai hummed a song in the corridor. Lin Jingming grabbed his coat and ran after him: "What kind of magic potion did he give you?"
"It works better than your hangover soup." Xia Zhitang slammed the door and walked out, and the crew notices behind the door fell to the ground with a clatter.
Cheng Shubai looked at Xia Zhitang who rushed out of Lin Jingming's room like the wind, and curiously knocked on Lin Jingming's door while holding a pancake.
"Good morning, Lao Lin! Today's weather..."
"I'm sorry." Lin Jingming gritted his teeth and said, "Three words are enough, right?"
The pancake fell to the ground with a "plop". Cheng Shubai was stunned for a moment, then bent down to pick it up. "Wow, this apology is even more fake than the blood plasma of the prop team."
The answer he got was the sound of Lin Jingming closing the door with a bang.
"You almost hit my nose!" Cheng Shubai shouted outside Lin Jingming's door.
At nine o'clock, the crew members pushed the track cars past one after another. Lin Jingming walked into the set with a wooden face and his arm around Cheng Shubai, who looked flattered.
Xia Zhitang gave them a thumbs up from behind the monitor, and Lin Jingming turned around and pushed Cheng Shubai away.
At lunchtime, Cheng Shubai asked Xia Zhitang, looking puzzled as he dug into his lunch box: "Did Lao Lin take the wrong medicine? He's been mumbling nonsense since this morning!"
Xia Zhitang sneered and unscrewed the bottle of Huoxiang Zhengqi Water: "It's time to cure his bad temper."
The bitter smell of medicine mixed with the smell of paint on the set made Xia Zhitang sneeze.
The head of the production team passed by, holding an electric fan: "Director Xia, your room is ready!"
"Thank you for your hard work." Xia Zhitang threw the lunch box into the trash can. "I'll go back and move the gifts first."
"Wait for me, I want to go back too!" Cheng Shubai quickly ate a few mouthfuls of rice, put down the lunch box and caught up with Xia Zhitang.
"Retreat now? Didn't we say we'd finish watching the ancestral hall opera?"
"My daughter's piano competition has been rescheduled." Cheng Shubai suddenly paused, leaning closer to Xia Zhitang. "Why is your face so red?"
Xia Zhitang wiped his forehead: "The air conditioner is broken."
Cheng Shubai placed the back of his hand on her flushed cheek: "It's so hot you can fry an egg!"
He waved to his assistant to get a fever-reducing patch, then turned to Xia Zhitang and said, "Go lie down."
"No need." Xia Zhitang pointed to the medicine box and said, "Just drink a packet of Isatis root."
The stagehand suddenly yelled, "Director Xia! Director Lin is arguing with the martial arts instructor!"
Cheng Shubai grabbed Xia Zhitang and said, "I'll go! Go back to the hotel and get some rest!"
In the end, Xia Zhitang was still tripped by the scene. He put two cold pieces of paste on his cheeks and continued to work.
She forced herself to finish adjusting the lighting for the last scene, and the monitor screen was flickering with double images in front of her eyes.
When Lin Jingming held up the loudspeaker and shouted "Call it Away", she swayed and lost her sense of direction.
When she woke up again, she was back in the hotel.
"Thirty-eight-seven degrees!" Cheng Shubai threw the thermometer onto the table. "Is your crew a virus incubator?"
"I'm fine. I'll just take some fever-reducing medicine." Xia Zhitang said weakly while lying in bed, "Aren't you going home?"
"The booking has been changed." Cheng Shubai suddenly complained, "Tongtong almost doesn't recognize me. She called me uncle in the video last week!"
Xia Zhitang touched the antipyretic medicine on the bedside table: "I'll just take some antipyretic medicine, and I'll be fine tomorrow..."
"What the hell!" Cheng Shubai stuffed a bottle of water into his mouth. "I've already asked Lao Lin to take over!"
Xia Zhitang drank the medicine with water and said, "Okay, I'll talk to you when I wake up. It's okay."
The next day, Xia Zhitang's condition had not improved, and this time even Lin Jingming was alarmed.
Xia Zhitang was reluctant to go to the hospital, but he lost the argument with Cheng Shubai and Lin Jingming, and was eventually forced to go to the hospital by the two.
They also mobilized martial artists to carry her on a stretcher and paraded her through the streets to the hospital.
Xia Zhitang felt so embarrassed that he hid under the quilt and refused to come out the whole way.
Although her condition was not serious, it had reached the hospitalization criteria. Cheng Shubai still insisted on letting her stay in the hospital to rest, and Lin Jingming supported her.
The two of them worked together to detain Xia Zhitang in the hospital for recuperation.
In the ward filled with the pungent smell of disinfectant, Xia Zhitang was processing documents on his laptop.
There were crisp footsteps outside the door, and Yin Tian came running in in high heels, her face still covered with heavy makeup from the set.
She placed the flowers on Xia Zhitang's bedside and excitedly shouted, "Shocking gossip! Su Wen is on set!"
Xie Lin followed in with a fruit basket and added with a smile, "Boss Cheng's daughter is here too. He's running around holding her, and he and Su Wen are having a blast!"
Xia Zhitang imagined that scene and burst out laughing.
Xie Lin broke the banana into a microphone shape and said, "I'll teach you how to do it—"
"Everyone be quiet!" The nurse came and knocked on the door. "The patient needs to rest!"
Yin Tian immediately covered her mouth.
After the nurse left, Yin Tian used her hand as a gun and whispered, "Su Wen just pointed at Director Lin's nose!" She mimicked Su Wen's emphasis, "Adding so many actresses to the ancestral hall scene, do you think I didn't read the notice?"
The tablet suddenly vibrated and Cheng Shubai sent a video request.
The screen showed a suit wrinkled like pickles. Tongtong flashed past the camera, holding a hamster cage. "Auntie Xia! Daddy used my snacks to feed the smoke machine!"
"Nonsense!" Cheng Shubai snatched back the phone. "It was Old Lin who caused Su Wen to overturn the incense table!"
"Then Director Lin used CEO Cheng's daughter as a shield!" Yin Tian chimed in with a chuckle. "Su Wen was about to smash the monitor, but the little girl suddenly cried out, 'Auntie, don't hit my dad!' It cracked me up!"
Xia Zhitang swallowed and said, "The crew is now..."
"It's stable!" Cheng Shubai wiped his sweat. "I asked the extras to pretend to be fans and surround Su Wen's car, saying she looks like a big star." He suddenly lowered his voice, "Old Lin asked me to tell you... Hey! Don't grab it!"
The scene spun around, and Lin Jingming's gold-rimmed glasses were facing the camera: "Come back as soon as you recover."
Xia Zhitang hung up the phone with a gloomy face.
Yin Tian and Xie Lin were laughing so hard that they were falling down.
The nurse stood at the door of the ward and knocked on the door: "Visit time is over, relatives, please hurry up!"
Xie Lin took Yin Tian to leave, and the ward suddenly became quiet and cold.
Xia Zhitang looked up at the stars outside the window. In this lonely night, she wanted to go back to the crew.
After staying in the hospital for two days and undergoing a series of examinations and treatments, the doctor informed Xia Zhitang that he could be discharged. The crew was still working, and Cheng Shubai took time out to come and pick him up.
In the ward, Cheng Shubai sat on the sofa and opened the fruit basket sent by the crew and ate the fruit inside.
Xia Zhitang looked at Cheng Shubai and asked the question that had been lingering in his mind for years: "How did Lin Jingming get to know Su Wen back then?"
"The old man of the Su family is in that hall..." Cheng Shubai suddenly shut up.
The nurse was pushing the door open and coming in to distribute the medicine for discharge.
After the nurse's footsteps faded away, Cheng Shubai continued to mutter, "At least it's better than the old Lin family selling building materials."
Xia Zhitang coughed and asked, "What does Su Wen want from him?"
Cheng Shubai patted Xia Zhitang's back, and waited until she recovered before continuing, "You're talented. The kind that could win the Best Director Award."
Xia Zhitang recalled the scene of Lin Jingming winning the award, holding the trophy and saying "Thank you, my wife, for your support."
"Su Wen wanted to smash this trophy." She couldn't help but teasing when she thought of the uneasiness that Su Wen couldn't hide every time she came to check on her.
"I did." Cheng Shubai threw the fruit peels into the trash can. "At the wedding banquet, she thought his speech was too short, so she smashed three high-heeled glasses with her trophy."
When Cheng Shubai walked out of the hospital carrying Xia Zhitang's suitcase, it suddenly started raining.
He opened his umbrella, watching the raindrops hit the transparent surface, and recalled, "When Su Wen chased him, the scene was more exciting than when we were filming the explosion scene."
"for example?"
"I rented out the Ferris wheel at the amusement park to confess my love, and hired extras to hold up signs saying, 'Marry him!'" Cheng Shubai tilted his umbrella towards her. "Lao Lin was so scared he hid in the men's restroom."
"How did it happen?"
"He struggled for half a year, and finally used Su Wen's investment to stay on the crew for a month. He edited an award-winning short film as a betrothal gift."
Cheng Shubai took out the vibrating cell phone from his pocket, and Lin Jingming's caller ID flashed on the screen.
Cheng Shubai turned it off and continued, looking at Xia Zhitang, "After the old man of the Su family watched the film, he approved the filming permit the next day."
Xia Zhitang suddenly laughed so hard that the wind choked him: "So this is a business deal?"
"Can an artist's marriage be called a business?" Cheng Shubai imitated Lin Jingming's tone, "That's called resource integration!"
Xia Zhitang took out the vibrating cell phone from his pocket. It was Lin Jingming calling.
Cheng Shubai snatched the phone and hung up: "Sick people are not allowed to work!"
A gust of wind blew, and raindrops came in from all directions. The two of them trotted into the convenience store.
Cheng Shubai ordered two hot drinks at the front desk, and the two sat on chairs waiting for the rain to subside.
"Su Wen is checking up on him now, even crazier than when she was pursuing him."
"How did they know each other?"
"Classmate, me, him, and Su Wen, the three of us are in the same club."
"It's really rare to go from campus to wedding dress."
Cheng Shubai looked at the raindrops falling on the glass window and said with some melancholy: "Marriage is the grave of love."
"Do you think there's love between them?"
"Of course there was." Cheng Shubai recalled the scene of that year, feeling a surge of emotion: "Su Wen looked like a wealthy, beautiful woman at the time. Who wouldn't be moved by a girl like that pursuing him wholeheartedly?"
"Su Wen is still devoted to him now," Xia Zhitang complained, "but her methods are a bit harsh."
"The red rose turned into mosquito blood."
Xia Zhitang inexplicably recalled the scene three years ago when Lin Jingming blocked her in the editing room wearing his wedding ring, and couldn't help but sneer: "Oh, man."
"I'm a man too." Cheng Shubai muttered.
Xia Zhitang thought that the man in front of him had been having conflicts with his wife for the past two years, and the boss's wife had been threatening to separate for a while, which had caused a lot of uproar, so he immediately shut up.
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