night.
A full moon hangs in the dark blue sky, and the moonlight pours down on the sea, covering the vast ocean with sparkling waves.
In the distance, a cruise ship was parked in the waves, with hundreds of portholes shining with neat mosaic-like lights. The huge hull made the inconspicuous speedboat below look like an ant.
A moment later, the cruise ship set off again and sailed forward, but the speedboat seemed to be eager to part ways with it, and sped towards the vertical direction with full power, the boat body flying like an arrow, cutting a line of water with splashing waves on the sea.
The roar of the engine came from far away, and the moonlight gradually illuminated the figures of the two people on the boat.
Behind the windshield, Song Yecheng skillfully controlled the steering wheel with one hand, and casually supported the side of the boat with the other hand, stroking his earlobe and the unique tattoo-like mark on it out of boredom.
——Those are three small moles he was born with, two on top and one on the bottom, arranged like the mathematical symbol "because". Fans call it "the private mark of the Creator on the perfect work of art", and it has become his unique personal logo over the years.
"Brother Cheng, Brother Cheng! Turn your head this way and show your side profile. Quick, quick, quick!"
The assistant's voice came from behind. The height indicated that they were standing. Song Yecheng turned around and said unhappily, "Just sit still! Don't expect me to rescue you if you fall."
The assistant took advantage of him turning his head to snap the shutter, finally giving up the dangerous standing position that could have plunged him into the sea at any moment. Contentedly, he sank down onto the front seat, slumping forward with his phone while proudly saying, "Brother Cheng, take a look at this? My photography skills are not bad compared to those frontline fans, right? This angle, this composition, this overwhelming wildness! This hormone overflowing from the screen!"
The assistant's surname is Dou, nicknamed Douzi. He has been working as an assistant to Song Yecheng since he entered the industry.
Ever since he took over Song Yecheng's Weibo account, which had not been used for eight hundred years, he had turned into a photography maniac without any instruction, and had grown in popularity amidst the countless fans' clamoring for praise in the comment section. He firmly believed that his photography skills were improving day by day, and the first thing he thought of in any situation was to take a picture of his brother Cheng.
Song Yecheng didn't even glance aside, and hummed perfunctorily in his nose. He raised his hand and pushed the phone back: "Put it away, don't drop it in the water."
"Hey, the lighting's just a little off, huh? Let me adjust the brightness!" Douzi happily worked on his masterpiece, saying, "Hey, Brother Cheng, what kind of copy should I go for? Night Walkers at Sea? Riding the Wind and Waves? Speed?"
Song Yecheng knew that he was impatient to post on Weibo, so he snorted and said sarcastically, "Do you have a signal?"
"Damn, I forgot!" Douzi slapped his forehead and realized that his phone was still out of service.
They had been on that cruise ship for three days, and aside from the satellite phone in their room and the computer in the internet room, there was no signal at all. Now that they were off the ship, they were still dozens of miles offshore, and the huge "No Service" sign in the upper left corner of the screen was nearly blinding him.
“Ugh—”
Douzi sighed bitterly and immediately lost interest in continuing to edit the photos. He put the locked screen of his phone back into his pocket and sat in the front row.
Looking back at the cruise ship that was moving further and further away in the night, he nudged Song Yecheng with his elbow and said, "By the way, Brother Cheng, what exactly does Uncle Song mean this time?"
Song Yecheng looked straight ahead without saying a word.
This time he did not completely understand his father's actions, but after understanding them, he felt somewhat amused and confused.
His family for three generations has all been well-known figures, proficient in both business and politics. Their background is so strong that they can not only walk sideways, but also do somersaults while dancing the yangge.
Song Yecheng entered the entertainment industry at the age of twelve with a film that won an international award. He has been smooth sailing all the way. Over the past decade, he has been said to have borrowed the support of his family. Some even insist that he is just a rich man who entered the entertainment industry for fun, and sooner or later he will be brought back to inherit the family business when he gets tired of it.
But Song Yecheng actually knew very well that his parents were very open-minded. The couple agreed that all the wealth, connections, and resources accumulated by their parents and grandparents were not to pave a predetermined life trajectory for the next generation, but to give them the confidence and power to freely choose any life trajectory.
In this regard, Song Yecheng is luckier than most second- and third-generation actors. Ever since he showed interest in acting at a young age, his parents have never expressed any objection, let alone the so-called obsession with him "inheriting the family business." In a word, as long as you like it, then do it.
Therefore, when Song Yecheng received a call from his father a few days ago asking him to attend this week-long cruise series cocktail party that was said to be attended by many bigwigs, he was somewhat surprised. After all, his father knew very well that he had no interest in gatherings of this nature and had never deliberately let him get involved in this circle over the years.
However, this time, his biological father invited his son to come and "talk about father-son love" on the grounds that "I missed him so much after not seeing him for a long time", and claimed that "he specially prepared a speedboat for him" so that he "could abandon the boat at any time and return to the arms of his mother on the mainland if he got bored", and thus coaxed and deceived him into joining the pirate ship.
Song Yecheng originally thought that it would only take a week to satisfy his father's earnest expectation of a fake father-son relationship, but who would have thought that there were not only many tycoons on this pirate ship, but also a group of tycoon children who were as fierce as wolves and tigers.
After three days of secret flirting, knocking on doors with gifts, and even stuffing various phone numbers and WeChat accounts in gift boxes from dozens of young masters including Zhao, Qian, Sun, Li, Zhou, Wu, Zheng, and Wang, he finally had an epiphany and decided to abandon his father and escape from the blind date ship disguised as cooperation and exchange with his assistant overnight.
I understand.
His father can let him develop freely in his career without interfering, but that doesn't mean he can ignore his feelings. He is usually reserved and doesn't nag, but his actual actions are very honest.
Song Yecheng sneered and shook his head, expressing deep sympathy for his father's painstaking but ultimately failed routine. He turned his head and was about to speak when he heard a series of ding-dong message alert sounds exploding from Douzi's pocket.
"Huh? There's internet!" Douzi excitedly took out his cell phone.
Song Yecheng glanced at the ship's GPS and saw that the screen showed that it was nearly twenty nautical miles away from the shore. He thought that the network coverage area in this place was quite wide.
Just as he was thinking, he suddenly felt his arm being grabbed. He turned around inexplicably and saw Douzi swiping his phone with a serious expression, his eyes fixed on the screen, as if he had discovered something unbelievable: "Brother Cheng..."
"What's wrong?" Song Yecheng asked.
Douzi seemed to be in a state of confusion: "W-Can you stop the boat first?"
Song Yecheng instinctively realized that he probably saw something on his mobile phone, but Douzi had been in the industry for quite some time and had seen a lot of ups and downs over the years. He was no longer the young man who would make a fuss when he saw a few candid photos. What could make him so uneasy?
Because of this suspicion, Song Yecheng turned off the engine of the speedboat as he was told. The roar of the engine stopped abruptly, and the only sound around him was the sound of waves hitting the hull.
"Look."
Douzi handed the phone to him. Song Yecheng took it and saw that the screen was actually the group chat dialog box of his official fan club.
Douzi is the administrator of this group. One of his daily pleasures is to join the group and watch the fans' fancy flattery, chart-topping calls and anti-black mobilization. Sometimes when Song Yecheng is out of contact due to joining the crew, he will also pop up and share some daily photos of the crew to satisfy everyone's curiosity.
At this moment, the latest news kept popping up at the bottom of the screen, but Douzi reached over and flipped the screen upwards, stopping at a message from two hours ago, at around 6pm:
【Joino Star River: [Article Link]】
[Jono Xinghe: Aren't these 180-tier authors really shameless these days? Copying their older brother's trending posts to capitalize on their popularity is fine, but they even dare to label it original without changing the author's name?]
Song Yecheng clicked on the link and took a quick look, and found that it was an online article published on Yundian Reading. The title of the book was "Chengye Chronicles". The protagonist had the same name as him, and the content was almost a retelling of the events that had recently made headlines in the form of text.
"That's it?"
Song Yecheng raised his eyebrows and looked at Douzi in disbelief. He couldn't believe that he asked him to stop the boat just because of such a trivial matter.
Since he entered the circle, countless novels, jokes, and fan fiction have been written based on him. Not to mention this kind of realistic writing that is written like a news report, it is not uncommon to see him have his gender, nationality, or even species changed. Whether it is an infringement or not is up to the company's legal department to judge and handle. Logically, Douzi should have been accustomed to it. Why such a big reaction?
"Tsk, no!" Douzi hurriedly leaned over and poked the screen back to the group chat interface, "Keep reading!"
Song Yecheng patiently scrolled down again, and suddenly saw a person who, amidst the large number of complaints and ridicules, particularly stood out and posted a long string of "wait wait wait wait" on the screen, and then asked amid the "???"
[City Tower Ambition: Am I the only one concerned about the release date?]
Seeing this question, Song Yecheng subconsciously wanted to go back to the book link to take another look, but before he could flip it up, Douzi had already stopped him with his quick eyes and hands: "No, no, there are screenshots below."
As Douzi swiped the screen down a few points, a neat row of screenshots appeared in the dialog box.
This fan's puzzle-solving skills were clearly impeccable. In just a few minutes, he merged the screenshots and posted several horizontally stitched comparison pictures. On the left were the chapter titles, and on the right were screenshots of trending news about the events corresponding to the titles, with the times clearly circled in red.
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