Chương 20: My Costar confirms my suspicions

Xin Hulei doesn't fight Yao Shen's grip on his sleeve, and allows himself to be led towards the secluded room.

Yao Shen closes the door behind them, but is unable to look Xin Hulei in the eye. Staring at his feet in mortification.

He has no idea how to breach the subject. Especially because as usual, Xin Hulei's face doesn't reveal anything.

He's content to look at Yao Shen in silence, his opaque eyes inscrutable.

"What happened last night?" Yao Shen finally asks, swallowing down the mortification clogging his throat.

"What do you think happened?" Xin Hulei asks.

Yao Shen lifts his chin to glare up at him. "Why are you answering a question with another one?"

"Why are you?" Xin Hulei retorts, leaning his shoulder against the wall behind him in an indolent slouch.

Taking a steadying breath, Yao Shen reminds himself to stay calm. He doesn't want to be the talk on weibo for going from kissing his costar to murdering him.

Despite his cool exterior, he has no doubt Xin Hulei knows what he's doing and is doing it on purpose to get a rise out of him.

Yao Shen won't give him the privilege.

"You know exactly what I mean," he says.

Xin Hulei shrugs a shoulder. "I don't."

This motherfucker..."Then why did I end up naked in my hotel room, with no memory of how I got there?" Yao Shen asks, his voice raising in anger.

There's nothing but silence for a moment, Yao Shen thinks he hears Xin Hulei's breathing hitch for an instant, but his indifferent expression remains unchanged.

"Oh that," he says, his lashes lowering in apparent apathy. "I think it's pretty self-evident."

Without elaborating, he turns on his heel and leaves Yao Shen behind in the closet.

'Self-evident'...does that mean, that they really....?

Yao Shen hides his face in his palms with a groan. There goes his last hope that it was all a big misunderstanding.

He doesn't even drink, usually, why did he have to indulge in Yao Shen's presence, of all times?

Probably to make himself feel more at ease.

It worked a little too well.

That photo of himself clinging to Xin Hulei's neck like a coquettish lover is going to be seared into his brain for all eternity.

He'd like to drink to forget it -- but clearly he can't! Who knows, he might end up accidentally falling into Xin Hulei's bed again.

---

The next scene they're filming together happens in the aftermath of the one Yao Shen has just shot with Frozen Peak's sect leader.

Xie Huan overheard as the sect leader berated Yan Shuyi for being remiss in disciplining his disciples after yet another mishap of Xie Huan's making which resulted in the destruction of priceless artifacts.

Yan Shuyi stood up for Xie Huan, pointing out that Xie Huan was provoked by fellow disciples and was only acting in defense of his shidi, Rong Zi, who was being bullied by them.

This early in the drama, Xie Huan's impression of Yan Shuyi is still that he's a stuck up immortal cultivator who he'll never be able to see eye-to-eye with. So to hear Yan Shuyi defend him is a little surprising.

Although, his only reason for approaching him is to test the limits of his benevolence.

The makeup team touches up Yao Shen's foundation and he takes the opportunity to empty out his mind and immerse himself in Yan Shuyi's state of mind.

He's annoyed at the sect leader's intransigence, but he won't take out his frustrations on Xie Huan -- no matter how much he's needled.

That's something Yao Shen reminds himself mentally. He can feel the urge to snap at Xin Hulei bubble up under his skin, but he needs to keep things separate.

Xie Huan is a different breed of asshole altogether.

He tries to make himself feel a little better by telling himself that Yan Shuyi, renowned master, not only slept with local demon lord Xie Huan, but entered into a full blown relationship with him.

By comparison, Yao Shen is only half an idiot.

The director calls action, and everyone falls silent as the cameras start rolling.

Yan Shuyi has his back turned to the door and doesn't hear, or pretends not to hear, Xie Huan's approach.

"Shizun doesn't need to defend this disciple, he can speak for himself," Xie Huan says, leaning against a column with his arms crossed in front of his chest. His haughty posture a sharp contrast to Xin Hulei's almost lazy indifference.

Yan Shuyi turns around to face Xie Huan slowly, his gaze lowered. Yao Shen is overly conscious of the cameras, and of how he must look seductive in front of them, how they'll pan from toe to top, and close up on his face, the smile at the corner of his lips.

"You should let Shizun protect his cute little disciple," Yan Shuyi says, gliding past Xie Huan with a smile. Deliberately teasing him.

It works, because Xie Huan's eyebrows swoop down his eyes in annoyance. "Who is cute?" he asks, scoffing.

Yan Shuyi laughs, and reaches forward to pinch Xie Huan's cheeks. "My disciple is definitely the cutest when he's angry."

Xie Huan glares at him and grips Yan Shuyi's thin wrist in his broad palm. He can't stand having the tables turned on him like this. He's the one who was supposed to come in and tease Yan Shuyi, not the other way around.

Being doted on, being called cute -- these are all foreign things to Xie Huan who only knows the harshness of trying to survive in the little scrap of demonic realm his people still have left.

Yao Shen is trying to focus on all these things, trying to keep both characters' backstories at the forefront of his mind -- and failing miserably.

The only thing he can think about is the feeling of Xin Hulei's fingers around his bare wrist.

Unbidden, a thought bubbles to the surface of his mind, 'did Xin Hulei pin me down like this, holding my wrists in his hands?'

He's so disconcerted and embarrassed by that thought that he forgets his lines.

The director yells cut, and tells them to take it from the top.

"I'm sorry, I need a minute," Yao Shen says, looking out towards the director's chair and rushing out of the building so that he can have a moment outside, in the not so fresh air, and clear his mind.

Xin Hulei watches him go in silence.

Invisible to the eyes of everyone around them, a fat, gold caterpillar crawls up from the neckline of Xin Hulei's robes and perches on his shoulder.

"Why did master lie to the little gege?" the caterpillar asks, the bright golden spikes on its body shimmering under the light.

The corner of Xin Hulei's lip twitches, and then curls up in a smirk that reveals the point of a sharp canine, glinting like a blade under the artificial lights of the set. "Because he amuses me."

SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO
ThirtyTyrants

At some point I had the tag 'blackbellied ML' for this novel...this is the reason why :D

Xin Hulei is probably the most layerd character I've ever written, he takes up a lot of room in my brain, and he's pushing things off counters like a pampered cat D: please help.

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