It was past midnight.
The bustling city has become quiet, and the roads that were congested during the day are now deserted.
In the driver's seat, Douzi turned on the lights and turned the car while watching the movements behind the car in the side-view mirror.
At this critical moment, there were countless entertainment reporters and paparazzi lurking near the company. In order not to become a moving target, Douzi didn't even dare to drive the company's regular car. He could only use his own Chevrolet, which had been parked in the corner of the garage for years and gathering dust. With the caution of dumping a corpse, he drove Cheng Ge, who was lying flat on the passenger seat as if he were a corpse, and sneaked out of the company through the back door of the basement.
It wasn't until they turned two corners that Song Yecheng straightened his chair and sat up. Douzi, who had finally confirmed that there was no one following the car, breathed a sigh of relief and tilted his head to ask, "What's going on, Brother Cheng? Where are you going?"
Earlier in the lounge, Song Yecheng only said that he was going out for a while, and did not specify where he was going, but from the way he said it, it was obvious that he was not going home.
Song Yecheng tapped on his phone a few times, then placed it on the car holder in front of him. He only heard the navigation prompt tone coming from it -
"Turn right at the intersection ahead and enter Galaxy Road."
Douzi glanced at the screen curiously. After seeing the driving distance, he was immediately surprised and said, "Oh my god, so far? We're almost out of the city, right?"
"Not really," Song Yecheng said, "If you drive faster, you can get there in half an hour."
"Where is this?" Douzi asked doubtfully, and then suddenly an idea flashed in his mind, "Holy crap! Could this be the author's house? Have you really asked someone to check him out?"
"No," Song Yecheng said, "He said it himself."
"Himself?!" Douzi couldn't believe it.
"Well," Song Yecheng said, "I asked him to meet, and he sent me an address."
Douzi had the expression of an old man on the subway checking his phone: "Is it so straightforward?"
After saying that, he frowned again: "No, even if it's like that, there's no need to rush there in the middle of the night, right? Can't we go tomorrow during the day?"
Song Yecheng glanced at him and said, "There are people everywhere during the day. If this gets on the trending search again, do you believe that your brother Ming will break the window and perform a free fall for me right then and there?"
Douzi chuckled for a long time, shaking his shoulders and nodding repeatedly. After a moment, he suddenly remembered something and stopped laughing. "By the way, Brother Cheng, what's the situation with those secretly taken photos? Could it be that Sister Qian did it?"
Sister Qian’s full name is Tong Qian. She is Tang Yao’s agent. Her position in the industry is not top-notch, but her business skills are quite impressive.
It was because Tang Yao came under her command that she was able to finally break free from the curse of being a supporting actress for thousands of years and successfully got her first female lead, and it was a high-quality resource like "The Snow Goddess".
It's not surprising that Douzi would think of her. After all, since it has been confirmed that this matter is not a hype of cooperation between the two parties, it is very likely that it is the operation of the beneficiary. As for who the beneficiary is - just look at the crazy increase in the number of Tang Yao's fans and reposts, comments and likes in just a few hours and it will be clear at a glance.
However, unexpectedly, when Song Yecheng heard the question, he just said lightly: "No."
Seeing him so sure, Douzi couldn't help but feel even more puzzled: "How do you know it's not true?"
Song Yecheng didn't answer again. He leaned back in his chair, pretending to be deaf and dumb, and turned to look out the window.
Of course he knew it wasn't.
Because this matter was within his expectations from the beginning to the end.
Before filming "The Snow Will Come", he and Tang Yao had no connection. He only vaguely knew that this girl came from a grassroots background and had acted in many films over the years, but she had never been very popular.
After confirming that he would be the male lead in this drama, Song Yecheng, out of a sense of responsibility for the role, looked out for all of his future partner's past works and watched them.
The result of this observation was quite unexpected.
——Tang Yao, who is not from a professional background, has surprisingly good acting skills. Not only that, she also has a rare aura and great plasticity. All the supporting roles she has played are brilliant, and in some clips she is even more eye-catching than the protagonist.
After studying those works, Song Yecheng couldn't help but develop a lot of interest in this unknown partner. After six months of cooperation, he finally understood where Tang Yao's outstanding acting skills came from.
In addition to the existence of something called talent, this girl's seriousness about acting is no less than Song Yecheng's. Her obsession and love seem to be deep in her bones, and from time to time they almost overflow from her eyes.
From the first day she joined the crew, she seized every opportunity to improve and hone her acting skills, observing, asking questions, pondering, and recording, repeatedly considering every scene and every line, and then using the usual experiential approach to understand the character's psychology as if she were possessed by the real person.
As the most famous actor in the group, Song Yecheng would receive overtures, flattery and even attempts to get close to him from all sides from time to time, but Tang Yao would only look for him for one thing every time - to think about the script, and their conversations would always be inseparable from keywords such as "role", "character" and "lines".
Frankly speaking, for Song Yecheng, who has more than ten years of acting experience, acting has long become a part of his life. It has also become a habit that he can handle with ease based on instinct and intuition, and he does not need to rely on too many techniques and external forces to achieve the shaping of the character.
But it has to be admitted that Tang Yao's fighting spirit and resilience rekindled the passion he had for acting when he first entered the industry, allowing him to regain the long-lost competitive spirit he had in his youth, which had long been subsided with the years.
The process of acting opposite Tang Yao was a pleasure. The feeling of being immersed in the role at the same time and exchanging moves without being noticed is extremely refreshing for every actor who truly loves acting. This made the two of them extremely appreciative of each other's professionalism and even developed a sense of mutual appreciation.
This feeling has nothing to do with love between men and women. It is more like an understanding and recognition of each other after meeting like-minded people in a turbulent circle.
Half a year is not too long, but half a year of living together day and night is enough for a person to judge another person's character, personality and even behavior from all kinds of details. What Song Yecheng saw in these six months was a Tang Yao with excellent acting skills, independent and opinionated personality, and disdain for unconventional ways.
Because of this, when Tang Yao declined the studio's suggestion to hype up a scandal during the filming of the movie, Song Yecheng was not surprised at all. What really surprised him was that just two months later, less than half a month after the filming was completed, Tang Yao actually contacted him again.
That was a week ago.
Song Yecheng, who had just finished half a year's work, was taking a long vacation. After receiving a call from Tang Yao claiming that she had something to discuss with him, he made an appointment with her to meet at a private club he opened.
After six months of cooperation, the two of them were already quite familiar with each other. Song Yecheng knew that she was not the kind of person who would chat with him for no reason, and Tang Yao also knew that Song Yecheng did not like to be hypocritical, so she did not make polite greetings, but stated her purpose straight away - she wanted to arrange a scandal with Song Yecheng as proposed by the film company.
"Why did you change your mind?" Song Yecheng asked at that time, "Tong Qian asked you to find me?"
To his surprise, Tang Yao denied it: "No, I didn't tell them, and I don't plan to tell them."
Song Yecheng was somewhat bewildered. Since this kind of hype required releasing information, it must be the business of both teams. There was no reason for Tang Yao to make a private decision without even notifying the team, unless—
"Do you have a conflict with your team?" Song Yecheng asked.
Tang Yao seemed a little helpless, and shook her head with a wry smile: "That's not the case, it's just that it's not convenient for them to know about this."
Song Yecheng naturally couldn't understand this answer, and Tang Yao didn't hide it and told him the reason directly:
From the outside, Tang Yao's ability to switch from her original agent to Tong Qian's and get such good resources at one stroke was definitely a result of hard work and perseverance.
Tang Yao originally thought so too.
However, it was not until the film was completed that she realized that there was no such thing as a free lunch. The reason why she was transferred to Tong Qian was entirely at the behest of her company's second-in-command, the prince He Jingsheng.
He Jingsheng wanted to pursue her. This could be seen from the fact that he visited the crew several times in the name of caring about the artists. However, he did not act too excessively at that time, so Tang Yao pretended not to know and ignored it.
However, after the film was completed, He Jingsheng's offensive suddenly became fierce. He called her to the company every day and asked her to go to the office to talk about various trivial matters, or he drove to wait for her downstairs in the community, and even dragged her to eat with him, under the pretext of discussing business.
In Tang Yao's opinion, this had almost reached the point of being persistent, and she had never been the type to be submissive, so she simply told He Jingsheng that she had a boyfriend and hoped that he would stop pestering her.
However, He Jingsheng wasn't so easily dismissed. He wasn't even slightly offended by her words. Instead, he beamed with elation. "Stop making it up. Xiaomi has been following you everywhere for the past six months. How could she not know if you have a boyfriend? Even if you did, he'd probably be gone after not seeing you for half a year, right?"
Xiaomi is Tang Yao's assistant, and like Tong Qian, she is He Jingsheng's person. In other words, as long as Tang Yao does not terminate her contract and change jobs, all the staff around her are actually He Jingsheng's spies.
Being harassed by someone is certainly not a pleasant thing, but after all, He Jingsheng did not use any coercive or despicable means. Tang Yao has no reason and no need to break up with him or even the company. The best result is to make him give up.
So, Tang Yao found Song Yecheng.
She knew that this was someone He Jingsheng could not afford to offend, and she also knew that this person had no intention of that kind towards her at all. She knew that simply arranging a harmless and ambiguous scandal would not cause any worries.
Most importantly, she knew that Song Yecheng had no objection to the film company's suggestion that they create a topic - he has always been familiar with these hidden publicity methods in the circle, and would never refuse to cooperate because of his special status.
There is actually not much difference whether the hype is now or before. It will be a shock to the outside world. After the public relations team directs public opinion to the movie, "discerning people" inside and outside the circle will soon realize that this is just a hype to cooperate with the promotion of the movie. As long as there is no new evidence, not many people will remember it once the hype passes.
By that time, the only ones who would still take it seriously would probably be Tang Yao's team, because they knew very well that this was not a hype in which they took the initiative to participate, so whether the "romance" was true or not would become an unsolved case with no clear details.
What Tang Yao wanted was that they "couldn't figure it out". As long as they couldn't figure it out, He Jingsheng would also be confused. And as long as he couldn't prove that this was false, he would not continue to pester Song Ye at the risk of digging into his territory.
After listening to Tang Yao's explanation, Song Yecheng agreed without much hesitation: "Okay, then I'll arrange it."
He has always been such a person. Not to mention that what he has to do now is just to put a matter that he doesn't care about back on the agenda. Even if there is no such thing as a premise, he has always been willing to help friends he has already recognized.
However, what surprised him was that at the end of the meeting that day, Tang Yao actually handed him something.
It was a voice recorder, and the small green light on it proved that it was working.
"What do you mean?" Song Yecheng didn't understand.
Tang Yao said seriously, "Here, this is the recording of today's conversation. Even though it's just a show, it's still risky. If something goes wrong and you can't explain it, you can use this recording to prove that you were just trying to help me."
Song Yecheng didn't expect that she had made such a preparation. This was equivalent to handing over her trump card, as if telling him - if you are worthy of the word friend, then I will also be worthy of this trust.
"Come on," Song Yecheng pushed the thing back, half jokingly and half teasingly, "If I could let it go wrong with something like this, I would have been eaten alive by now."
Three days later.
That was the day before Song Yecheng went to meet his father on the cruise ship. In the evening, knowing that there were paparazzi and entertainment reporters following them, he made an appointment with Tang Yao to meet at Nanhu Park, giving them plenty of opportunities to take those "secret photos".
At the same time, he also contacted his personal resources and asked them to prepare in advance and release movie publicity immediately after the photos were exposed, so as to turn the wind direction to the right track as soon as possible.
As for the actual public relations, he was not worried at all, because he knew that although Liang Heming was a roaring emperor, his ability was absolutely top-notch, and it was no problem for him to deal with such rumors that were just hearsay and had no solid evidence.
Up to this stage, every step of the whole thing was actually within Song Yecheng's expectations.
However, he never expected that such a strange online article would appear out of nowhere.
He and Tang Yao had a conversation in a private club a week ago, and the photos were taken after that, so where did the "preview" written by the other party ten days ago come from?
Outside the car window, street lights passed by one by one, and the interweaving of light and dark made his perfect facial features more three-dimensional, and also made the confusion and curiosity hidden in his eyes more clear.
The wheels sped forward as time passed, heading towards the suspenseful destination and also towards the unknown answer in his heart.
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