HOYSE CHAPTER 64

Chapter 64 — Wait, Why Am I Not In It?

In the spare moments between shoots, Rong Jing hunted down and watched everything Gu Xi had ever filmed.

One round in and a pattern was obvious: most of Gu Xi’s roles leaned heavily dramatic, otherwise the characters had sharp, even jarring turns. Even when there was romance, the camera angles betrayed body doubles or clever blocking.

From the stories alone you could see it was not that Gu Xi was unprofessional. He had simply been preyed upon too many times since he was young, which left him wary and easily triggered.

Rong Jing kept wondering if Gu Xi had something like PTSD. If it was severe, then those stress reactions were perfectly normal.

He paused. “I do not mind,” he told Director Liu Yu at last.

“But, Director… give me a second to be honest with you.”

He had just realized the key problem. A kiss. As in, kissing.

The director nodded, pleased. In the past some Alphas had dug in their heels at this point and he had to lecture them. Those guys would wail when told the role had no bed scenes, then throw a fit when told there were kiss scenes.

“There is more than one,” Liu Yu said. “You have been getting along with Gu Xi recently. If there is friction, lay it out. I can help you two meet halfway so you can shake hands and move on.”

“How could there be,” Rong Jing said mildly. “Gu-ge takes very good care of me.”

“…If you talk like that, I cannot keep this conversation going.” The director pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gu Xi’s refusal to do kisses or bed scenes is not about you. Do not take it personally. His previous projects were the same. I tried to talk to him before, but his symptoms are getting worse. There is something almost no one knows. When we were flying to the film festival not long ago, he suddenly broke out in a massive allergic reaction, like hives. It scared everyone.”

Rong Jing truly had no idea. They had kept in touch like usual and Gu Xi had never mentioned it.

“And after that?”

“Medication probably pushed it down.”

“In fact,” Liu Yu went on, “when Gu Xi signs a drama now, there is a clause set in stone. He has the right to refuse any intimate scenes. When it comes to that… you know what I am saying.”

“I get it…”

Which made Rong Jing suddenly realize he had a very real problem of his own. The script did have kisses and even a bed scene. He had known that from the start, but he had only focused on plot and performance, an old habit from his previous life.

The truth was, he could not kiss a man. Not men in general, not anyone.

He tried it anyway. “Director, could we cut the kiss or cheat the angles?”

Liu Yu rejected that at once. “It is not just one kiss. What about the later bed scene? If we cut them, the emotional crest that the whole arc builds toward disappears. Relax. I picked a few kiss doubles who are all very good-looking. When the time comes you can choose the one you like. How is that?”

Gu Xi had a condition. Rong Jing had no excuse.

And if we are being blunt, when two Alphas kiss it is the A who gets the better end of the deal anyway.

Rong Jing often felt that while Alphas seemed to get the perks, living in this world taught you quickly that every gender had its headaches. Alphas got told they were playing coy even when they were the ones being taken advantage of.

He knew refusing would be wrong. This society was frank about sex, tied directly to the six genders and their pheromones. Blocking it out did not work; guiding it did. Plot and emotion had to rise together to win most audiences.

His feelings knotted. Hard to put words to it. He respected everyone’s orientation, but he himself had never kissed a man. Six genders or six hundred, to him a man was still a man.

He glanced around. The associate director was shooting a supporting scene somewhere else. No sign of Gu Xi.

Suddenly he remembered a promo they had to do for the new drama. Some out-of-town stops would be impossible, but Gu Xi would absolutely show up for the local events. He always shouldered his part.

Rong Jing opened their chat, typed a line, hesitated, then deleted it letter by letter. No one knew Gu Xi’s situation better than he did. Over something like this, Gu Xi might force himself to show up in person out of soft-heartedness.

Just then, Manager Gao from Xietian Entertainment messaged him. Recruitment for the talent show Absolute Idol was complete. 65 film and TV companies had signed on, nearly two hundred trainees had applied. Half would make the first round of filming. Did Rong Jing want to sit in on the initial auditions?

Shows like that could keep a company afloat, and yes, the door had opened because of the Xie name and the network Rong Jing was slowly building.

He agreed. A change of pace would do him good.

Besides, in the original story Absolute Idol had been Wu Fuyu’s golden ticket. One of the two male leads, he eventually tried to atone for his cruel, unhinged behavior toward Gu Xi while undergoing treatment for his own issues. He was relatively normal by the end, but in the lead-up the threats, arson scares, and resource blackmail had all been his handiwork. Gu Xi had been terrified for years and never forgave him, no matter the “chasing-wife-through-the-ashes” arc.

To Rong Jing, the book’s final CP would probably have been either the so-called “6X” god Wu Hanqi or the not-entirely-scummy Wu Fuyu.

If he was going to get to that golden ticket first, he had to cultivate it. He left set for Xietian’s building.

The audition hall was packed with trainees craning necks for a look. He even spotted a few classmates from his year.

“Rong Jing, what are you doing here?” Lu Jin yelped, drawing eyes.

Rong Jing studied him. He was sure he had seen him somewhere.

Seeing the pause, the flicker of confusion, Lu Jin panicked. Had he been completely forgotten?

“I am Lu Jin! Do you not remember? Back when we—”

A few crucial words clicked. He was one of the ringleaders who had isolated the original Rong Jing, an Alpha who had quieted down after being taught a lesson.

The original’s memories did not hate these classmates. He knew he had wronged others first, but Rong Jing was not him. He would not hand out forgiveness in the original’s name. So he kept a polite, adult distance.

He gave the smallest nod. Manager Gao peeked out, saw him, and beckoned with a grin.

“I remember,” Rong Jing said. “I have business. Excuse me.” He wore his brother Xie Ling’s don’t-come-near-me expression without a crack.

People watched him go in. Other trainees watched too, unhappy. Someone shouted, “He wasn’t called. How can he go in first?”

“I’ve been waiting forever. Who does he think he is?”

Plenty grumbled, but most swallowed it. They were only trainees. The show carried unusual weight across companies, the kind you did not see in today’s market. Better to keep your head down.

The few who stayed angry came out of the audition room quickly, and they were very quiet. One of them said the handsome Alpha about their age, the one good-looking enough to vie for center, did not seem like a trainee at all. He looked like… the boss. The main investor. He was not competing. He was on the first-round judging panel.

Lu Jin heard the rumor too. When it was his turn, sure enough, Rong Jing sat with several executives.

He was the center among the suits, deferred to, asked if he wanted something to drink or eat. He kept his face neutral.

Rong Jing skimmed profiles, flipping pages. He let the professionals ask the first round of questions.

When they were done, he spoke for the first time. “You are all from one company. What is the company’s plan for your future?”

They answered in turns. Sing, dance, act, do everything. Become all-round entertainers.

“‘All-round’?” His tone was not even mocking, but Lu Jin and the others flushed.

It was exactly that even tone that made it feel like the truth was cutting.

Even Gu Xi, a Golden Lion winner, would never call himself an all-rounder. Where did this confidence come from?

Rong Jing tapped the table. “I looked at your dance experience. Three months, one month, and here is… none. Are you here for comedy?”

You could have heard a pin drop. The quote did not exist in this world until he said it, and the room went quiet as a tomb.

His presence rolled out and filled the space. Even the execs went still. When the young master spoke, it could be a clean kill. No wonder he was Xie Ling’s brother. Same family, same door.

“I will work hard,” Lu Jin blurted. “Judge, are you targeting me on purpose?” Was this revenge for what he had done back in school?

“You are already here to record a show, and now you will ‘work hard’?” Rong Jing smiled. “Your file tells your situation clearly. I am only asking about that. Put aside what it takes to be an artist. For idols alone, do you think a face is enough? A qualified idol does not list singing and dancing as bonuses. They are basics. You handed me a blank exam and then asked if I was targeting you. Targeting what, exactly?”

That shut him up. His teammates tugged his sleeve, begging him not to dig deeper.

The group was marked as pending.

During the break, while Rong Jing read ahead, several execs clustered to whisper.

“Should we tell the young master that this pre-show selection will be used in the show’s teaser episode?”

“God no,” Manager Gao hissed. “If he knows there are hidden cameras he will refuse.”

“True, and the lens-phobia makes it more real.”

“Just the teaser looks promising. If we pull this off, Xietian might finally turn the corner.”

“Stop setting flags. Have you forgotten the last investment, the one before that, and the one before that?”

“President Xie has already issued a final warning. If we fail again, next year’s budget gets halved again.”

Everyone fell silent, then sighed as one.

After Lu Jin’s group came out, they slumped. “I never wanted to come. The company pushed me. How am I supposed to find time to learn to dance? He did it on purpose, asking me.”

“He wasn’t wrong. We agreed to compete. We should have prepared. On what basis did we expect to pass?”

They consoled each other. They all knew their chances were done.

“At least one rumor is confirmed. There really are rich men who method-act a beggar with their whole soul,” someone muttered. “He believed it. We believed it.”

Their class group chat pinged for audition results. Lu Jin typed, then deleted. He remembered Rong Jing was in the group and did not dare get snarky.

The once-withdrawn Alpha who had let Qi Ying smack him around had changed skins. When he got strict, you wanted to be reborn.

Then a few trainees started whispering and pointing. “Wow, look. That guy is really handsome.”

“Just a little chubby, but his features are exquisite.”

Rong Jing was reading the next file. Film Academy, freshman.

In walked a slightly chubby but startlingly handsome Alpha. The moment he saw Rong Jing his eyes lit up. For a second he could not make himself move.

Rong Jing’s tone softened. “Come on in. I do not bite.”

The newcomer nodded too hard, introduced himself, and the execs looked satisfied. For a talent show, an outstanding face was not everything, but it could lower the bars in other areas.

Rong Jing scanned the file. The personal basics were solid. He had even done a weight-loss program on a variety show as a kid.

That experience tugged at something in Rong Jing. He felt oddly fond.

Seeing everyone else was pleased, he did the black-face part himself. “Your file says you weigh two hundred jin, but now you are—”

“Less,” the young man said, eyes shining. “I have lost a lot already.”

“Impressive willpower.” From nearly two hundred down to this number in a short time was not easy. “But for an idol your current shape is still a stretch. Filming starts in half a month. Can you slim down by then?”

“I can!”

Rong Jing ticked his name, then told staff to call the next one.

But the clean-featured, slightly chubby beauty did not leave. He looked at Rong Jing as if to say, Rong-sir, do you not remember me?

During the lull, Rong Jing glanced at the Mulberry tracker and saw Gu Xi’s blue dot moving within a small radius. His mouth lifted at the corner.

He looked up. “Hm?”

The young man bowed quickly and hurried out.

They had only met once. Of course Rong Jing would not remember the fat kid he had helped by chance.

Maybe only by standing on a much bigger stage could he be seen.

Across the city, in a dressing room, Gu Xi kept opening the chat with a habit he could not break, staring for a while before closing it. He saw “typing…” and waited, and waited, and nothing came.

A staffer called him from outside. Gu Xi pocketed his phone and went on stage to banter with the cast of his new show.

The drama had wrapped half a year ago, only just cleared review, and he had not seen many of them in a while. The female lead had a couple of rumors with him. They acted close on stage. Her studio had coordinated with his beforehand to float a few ambiguous clips and heat up the buzz.

During a party game she lost her footing and fell into his arms, and the crowd whooped. They did look good together. Even though both were Omegas, Gu Xi played Alpha on screen most of the time. He was one of the few Omega stars who could project that kind of dominance.

He smiled politely, set her upright, and glanced at the lenses trained on him from the floor. He could guess what tonight’s trending tag would be.

Offstage, he unlocked his screen. Still nothing.

What had Rong Jing wanted to send him? Why stop mid-sentenc? Did he not know it was like watching a show get cut off with “To be continued”?

He refused the female star’s dinner invite and headed with Mo Dian to the underground lot. Their driver was on leave, so Gu Xi had been driving himself.

In the garage he had the sense of being watched. He scanned the area and saw no one suspicious.

Rong Jing’s judging marathon ran from afternoon into night. After a fierce back-and-forth he and the execs fixed on one hundred trainees. It felt worse interviewing others than being interviewed yourself. He swore to take fewer of these jobs. It wrung you out.

A handful of trainees waited for him off the clock, supposedly to ask for pointers, but the look in their eyes said something else. Manager Gao leaned close with a knowing cough. “If you like any, pick a few. Call it a hobby.”

Pick a few? Not one. Are Alpha’s morals worth nothing? With this logic, who is keeping whom?

I am never keeping anyone.

He had just collapsed on the bed when his phone lit up. The undergrad class group. He hardly ever spoke, even though he had been added ages ago. He only peeked sometimes.

Today it was lively because of those people from earlier. The three who had expected to be cut were screaming in rented rooms and dorms when they got notice of filming dates. Their friend requests to Rong Jing had not gone through. All they could do was thank him over and over in the group.

The rest of the class was baffled. Had they not all agreed that even if Rong Jing was a gold mine, they would not be bootlickers?

We said we would stand on principle. You folded like wet paper.

The chat filled with rows of [disdain] emojis.

Rong Jing had passed them because there were worse candidates. He simply had not been biased. As for the group, amusing as they were, he ignored them.

He checked Mulberry. Gu Xi’s blue dot had returned to the hotel.

A video call came in. He tapped accept.

And instantly nearly fell off the bed. Gu Xi, in a bathrobe, sat at the vanity blow-drying his hair. He had not realized he had hit video. At the collar, the hollow of his clavicle shadowed and gleamed, droplets sliding from his jaw into the robe’s darkness.

Rong Jing’s eyelid twitched. He hung up fast.

Afterward his heartbeat was jagged. Gu Xi’s beauty was beyond gender. With a visual hit like that you did not register he was a man. You only thought, open… that robe.

He pressed a palm to where his body was reacting and waited for the Alpha hormone surge to subside, then typed: Are you back?

He was almost asleep when the reply came. He sat up at once.

Oops, Gu Xi wrote. Wrong button. I just got back and showered. You were out this afternoon. No scenes tomorrow? Why not rest? Staff said you were outside.

So normal. Must have been a genuine mis-tap.

The problem was not Gu Xi. It was his own restless soul.

He sent back a short mm, turned off the light, and let the dark settle. The image he had just seen replayed on its own. He pressed down on the part that refused to calm, then realized something was not… happening.

He yanked the blanket over his head and muttered at the culprit, “That is enough.”

The next day was Rong Jing and Nan Manni’s scene. Gu Xi had been tied up with yesterday’s promo and had not yet watched the two of them face off.

The story had the young eunuch Fu Qianming survive one close call after another before being saved by the Seventh Prince Shao Hua and taken under his wing. Shao Hua set him to work, ordering him to win the favor of Consort De as fast as possible.

In this scene, a scapegoat maid in De-fei’s palace would be cleared thanks to Fu Qianming, and several scheming consorts would be exposed. After escaping that disaster, De-fei’s feelings for Fu Qianming would rise sharply. She would have him transferred to her palace and summon him.

Clapper down. Action.

De-fei reclined on a chaise, a maid painting her nails with bright alkanet. She wore a sheer summer gown and looked airy and soft. Outside, a pale, beautiful eunuch bowed. “My lady, you summoned your servant?”

“Mm.” She looked at him lazily.

Fu Qianming came in, sent the other maids away, and took up the pestle to grind the layered phoenix-tail paste. The room filled with the hush of stone against clay.

“Please raise your hand, my lady.” His head was lowered, his posture very humble.

She set her delicate hand on the tray. He dabbed red onto each nail.

De-fei lifted her eyes, half-mirth, half-seduction. “I did not get to ask last time. Why did you judge that the voodoo doll was the queen’s doing?”

“The thread on the doll.”

“Thread?” She was intrigued.

“That thread is tribute from Siam. His Majesty gifted it to three people only: the Empress Dowager, the Queen, and the Noble Consort. The Dowager can be ruled out. The Noble Consort is jealous by nature and the primary suspect, but she loves red. The doll’s stitching was red. Tell me, if you make a curse for one you loathe, would you use your favorite color?”

De-fei stared at the little eunuch. To notice sewing thread was terrifying. This one was meticulous enough to chill the bone, and yet he was a eunuch.

“But the Queen is always praised as benevolent and dignified…”

“Which is why it was the Queen.”

His words had two meanings.

She was the Queen, which allowed her to erase other traces.

She was the Queen, which made her least suspicious.

De-fei’s eyes shifted. She hooked a finger under Fu Qianming’s chin. “You have done me a great service. What do you want?”

“As long as my lady is safe, this servant is satisfied.”

“No one in the world is without a goal. Speak.”

Their gazes tangled, warm and tight.

In this most exalted of places, she had always been alone. Since the day she had been chosen and sent into the palace, she had been kept company by the Emperor’s favor. From highest favor to occasional visits, with wave after wave of beauties arriving at the gates. She was so very tired of it.

She fought because she had to. If she did not fight, she would die. In this prison she was doomed to live out joys and sorrows, wins and losses.

And this person said he had no aim. Only that she be safe.

De-fei smiled slowly, like a summer blossom. “Fu Qianming, remember what you just said.”

In his eyes there seemed to be only her.

“Cut!” Liu Yu called. Rong Jing cleared the role in a breath. Nan Manni needed a beat to come back. The look in his eyes just now had been devastating. She could finally understand why, in the script, a woman as shrewd as De-fei would fall for a powerless little eunuch.

The director checked playback and nodded several times.

The associate director, strict from day one and hard to please, spoke first. “Good!”

Rong Jing was still a bit unsatisfied. “Director, what if Fu Qianming kneels while painting De-fei’s nails? The vertical contrast would be stronger and the image more striking.”

Liu Yu listened when an idea made sense. “Let us try. Manni, all right?”

She was riding the wave. “Of course. Ten times if you want!” Her eyes sparkled.

The crew laughed. The mood was easy.

They reshot and compared, then kept the second version.

After a few days of filming, Rong Jing had won most of the crew with skill and attitude. He had just finished discussing adjustments with Nan Manni when he spotted Gu Xi in the sunlight. Gu Xi flashed him a quick thumbs-up, as if to say, you were great.

Out of Rong Jing’s line of sight, Gu Xi’s smile faded to blank. His heart fizzed like the lemon soda in his hand.

Great my a**.

Why was she standing that close to him?

Liu Yu shot a few more set-ups, then as the sun lowered, he called for a set change. Next was Scene 37: the kiss between Fu Qianming and Shao Hua.

Gu Xi took a step, then halted. Scene 37…

He remembered it clearly. That was the kiss scene.

He looked over and saw Rong Jing already in position while crew hurried past. As for the actor supposed to be playing opposite him… no one had called Gu Xi. It was as if the entire set had forgotten he existed.

He watched the director summon a pair of doubles, then pull Rong Jing aside to talk beats.

Gu Xi stood where he was, dazed.

Wait. Why am I not in it?

It is a kiss scene.

Where am I?

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