Chapter 55

  "In short, you quickly dispel this idea for me. Don't mention that someone is lying there unable to move, even if he gets up immediately, you keep a safe distance from him - previously at the press conference, it was barely passed without incident, and you should have been grateful for that. And yet you..."

  "But," Jiang Chuan put down his chopsticks, "didn't he say he wanted to make an exception for me first?"

  "Oh," Fang Yu said expressionlessly, "he's just a hero with his mouth, otherwise how could he still be a virgin at such an old age——haha, in this era where even high school students are generally promiscuous, that guy who is already over thirty years old if you round up or down."

  Jiang Chuan: “......”

  As soon as Fang Yu finished speaking, he lowered his head and saw that the hamster had crushed the walnut fragments in its mouth, which were covered with saliva, and was evenly applying them to its own rice. He let out a "wow" and quickly raised his lunchbox, but it was too late. The agent, who had suddenly shifted his attention, had to stand up with a dark face and turn around to ask the logistics staff if there were any extra lunchboxes left. As soon as Fang Yu left, the surrounding area instantly fell silent, and Jiang Chuan showed a thoughtful expression before lowering his head to continue eating his own rice.

  Instead, he lost his appetite.

  He noticed that Jiang Chuan had been a bit strange since yesterday, but he never thought that Jiang Chuan would be like this because of such a reason... Ah, thinking back to the hospital, didn't this guy have a weird expression when looking at him? The hamster's paws were tapping out a rhythm on the dinner table, so it was actually attracted by my good looks after all?

  He thought he needed to calm down, so he patted the rice grains off his paws and turned his back on Jiang Chuan. He took about three seconds to collect his thoughts, then calmly made up his mind: if he had a chance to wake up again in this lifetime, the first thing he would do was confirm that he was still as awesome as ever; the second thing he would do was ask Jiang Chuan out on a date, as a celebratory opening move...

  As for why.

  Two hearts are pleased with each other, then they make an appointment with each other. Everyone is a grown-up now, no need to be so reserved, right?

  And besides, a handsome man like Yuan Jingyan has kept his chastity for so many years, not because he is a "hero of words" and is afraid, but because he thinks that it's better to be lacking than to have too much, and rather than finding some unknown cat or dog with unknown skills to have a fling, it's better to stay in the house and keep company with his own right hand.

  Yes, it's because of this reason.

  All talk and no action, phooey!

  ……

  In the afternoon, Jiang Chuan's state had miraculously adjusted - to put it accurately, he had thoroughly given up on the fact that "he just needed to satisfy his desires and it would be solved". The person who could "extinguish" his "flames" was temporarily unable to help him put out the fire, so no matter how anxious he was, it was of no use. As a result, the man was forced to calm down... That afternoon's recording work went very smoothly, unlike the morning when they were filming the kissing scene and were so entangled. Jiang Chuan's several shots were all quickly passed, and even the NG problems didn't occur on his side.

  That he could undergo such a magical transformation just by eating one lunch was something that the entire crew found utterly unbelievable.

  "Is it just because he's hungry that he's in a bad mood in the morning? Fang Ge, you didn't feed Cheng Ge, did you?"

  "Damn it!"

  The broker said he felt very wronged.

  As for Jiang Chuan's rapid self-adjustment after that, both Jiang Luocheng and the director expressed their satisfaction. The teacher even encouraged him, saying: "This morning I saw that you had something on your mind, but you quickly adjusted in just one afternoon, which is also very good. Sometimes it's difficult, but as an actor, it's necessary to force yourself to do this."

  "I had a talk with Fang Ge at noon," Jiang Chuan nodded and replied seriously, "After speaking out, I feel that people are much more relaxed."

  The agent Fang Yu listened to this serious conversation, his face turned red and green and finally black, and he roared in his heart "You'd better hide your so-called broken heart and spare me, thank you", but under the gaze of everyone, he had to squeeze out a smile and nod like a saint, emphasizing "Don't worry, teacher" "Our Jiang Chuan is very hardworking".

  The pleasant shooting time lasted until dusk.

  In the evening, Jiang Chuan still didn't have a part in the night show, so he had more free time at night. After dinner, Fang Yu mentioned that since it involved Yuan Chenyan's sexual orientation, which was a shocking secret, he was still a bit concerned about who sent the email to Jiang Chuan earlier. After getting approval, he took Jiang Chuan's room card and went to his room to investigate; Jiang Chuan wasn't very interested in who the other person was, so he didn't follow him. As a filming base, there were many stars around, and everyone tried to keep a low profile to avoid scandals, so there weren't many entertainment activities available at night. Since Jiang Chuan had gone to a bar once before and found nothing, he didn't try again. After thinking about it, he finally put on his running shoes and sportswear and went for a run around the hotel.

  As he ran, he suddenly saw a pile of red, yellow, blue and green fitness equipment in the residential area behind him. A group of old people were exercising after dinner to digest their food. Jiang Chuan hesitated for a moment, his running pace paused, and then he joined them.

  Then Fang Yu walked out from the front door, with his hands in his pockets, looking around, and saw Jiang Chuan Dashi squatting beside an old lady, slightly tilting his head, listening seriously to her explanation of how to play the arm exercise turntable.

  “……”

  He glanced silently at the aunties behind them who were about to start dancing in the square, feeling fortunate that he had arrived on time - Jiang Chuan's inexplicable internet celebrity status was already annoying enough, and he wasn't sure what irrational things he would do as his agent if he saw the keywords "Jiang Chuan" and "square dance" together on the headlines of Weibo or any other portal website tomorrow.

  He ran to Jiang Chuan's back, and before he could open his mouth to call him, the man seemed to have eyes in the back of his head and turned around to look at him, asking calmly: "Looking for me?"

  "Look, you just hold onto this and turn it around, then your arm can swing freely..."

  "Otherwise?" Fang Yu glanced at the tall and muscular man covered in fine sweat, suddenly understanding where his muscles came from. "I have something to show you, follow me."

  Jiang Chuan nodded and stood up, solemnly thanking the old lady in his eighth-grade Chinese - the latter's mouth, with only a few teeth left, praised him repeatedly as "handsome young man" and "young man with good manners". She also asked if Jiang Chuan was a star filming nearby, and under Fang Yu's default, Jiang Chuan admitted it. So the old lady said that when she saw Jiang Chuan on TV, she would definitely promote him to her neighbors and tell everyone that the young man who played this role was very good. Jiang Chuan smiled and nodded solemnly, saying "thank you".

  Up until now, Fang Yu felt that Jiang Chuan's route had completely gone off track.

  "Didn't you say that the one who speaks louder gets the world?"

  "That's what they say—"

  "They also say they are the best controllers of the remote control at home."

  "That's what they say—"

  "Don't put on a deadpan face then, what you did just now was very impolite."

  “……”

  Fang Yu was left speechless for a long time, finally squeezing out an apology of "sorry" that even he himself didn't understand. By the time he realized why he was apologizing, Jiang Chuan had already stepped into the elevator ahead of him. Fang Yu hastily followed, standing in the elevator and staring blankly at the floor display as it jumped upwards - until he heard Jiang Chuan ask from behind him: "What did you want to tell me just now?"

  Fang Yu heard this and suddenly felt like he was waking up from a dream. He moved his lips, then furrowed his brow again and said slowly: "Two things. The first thing is that the advertising agency has sent over the initial draft of the 'Shu Shu' advertisement, it's in your email inbox, take a look at it later and see if there's anything lacking so they can make some changes; the second thing is that the person who sent you an email seems a bit strange, I had someone track down the source of the email..."

  "And then?"

  He fell silent for a moment before saying, "It's your own computer."

  Jiang Chuan: “......”

  At this time, the elevator arrived at Jiang Chuan's floor. The two walked out of the elevator one after the other. Before opening the door with his key card, Fang Yu stretched out his hand to knock on the door. Jiang Chuan, who was following behind him, raised an eyebrow in confusion, not understanding why he was knocking on the door when there was clearly no one inside... Fang Yu seemed to ignore his strange gaze and pushed open the door, inserting the key card. Seeing his actions, Jiang Chuan finally couldn't help but ask: "What's with the knocking?"

  " Ward off evil."

  Jiang Chuan: “......”

  He didn't turn his head to see the expression on the man's face behind him, he just muttered to himself: "You don't know, when the technical department told me about this, I was sitting in your room and felt a chill on the back of my neck, all the hairs on my body stood up - that email was sent from your computer to your mailbox, the technical side gave me the IP address, I compared it, damn, not even one digit is different, I'm really scared...it's like there's always a pair of eyes staring at me..."

  At first, Jiang Chuan didn't react much when Fang Yu said the first half of it. It wasn't until he heard "there's a pair of eyes staring at me" that the man slightly furrowed his brow and looked around the room - but nothing was found. The eyes of living things have bioelectricity, which is why sometimes when someone stares at you, you can feel it. What's strange is that this feeling can't be eliminated even through a surveillance camera.

  So when Fang Yu said this, Jiang Chuan's first reaction was that someone had messed with something in his room that they shouldn't have.

  But he didn't find anything out of the ordinary - the only things in the entire room that could possibly emit bioelectricity were the two hamsters in their cage - but they were just hamsters, after all.

  Is Fang Yu too suspicious now?

  "Jiang Chuan, is this room clean? Should we tell the hotel to change rooms?"

  “……“

  What does it mean? As expected, this guy is suspicious and paranoid.

  At this point, Jiang Chuan didn't know if Fang Yu had heard him or not. The man entered the house and went straight to the hamster cage, opening it to check - because of his drunken violent behavior yesterday, the hamster cage seemed to have been damaged by him, and the door could be easily pushed open. So today, even during filming, he had to keep asking people to run back and check if the hamsters had escaped on their own.

  At this moment, Xiao Hei was squatting on the swing, coldly staring at Jiang Chuan.

  And that chubby one was in his own little wooden house, with a cotton flower hat on his head, sleeping soundly.

  Jiang Chuan closed the cage door with a clunk, turned around and said to Fang Yu in a careless tone: "What's not clean? Isn't someone coming to clean every day?"

  "...it's really hard to communicate with international friends."

  Jiang Chuan walked to the front of the computer, squeezed out Fang Yu, and directly typed three words "Who are you" on that unresponded email and sent it. He thought for a moment and then checked his computer's login records again - except for his own login traces, he didn't find any other person's login traces. Either that person did a good job of covering their tracks or...

  "You don't know that IP addresses can be faked? Since the other party knows this secret, it shows that they are somewhat capable. Moreover, they were able to get my private email address. For someone like that, hiding their own IP address shouldn't be difficult, right?"

  Fang Yu heard this and the chill on her face didn't weaken: "Regardless of whether he's human or ghost, having someone by your side who knows everything, don't you think it's terrifying? There's no privacy at all, what if one day a new version of the sex photo scandal happens?"

  "For now, the only person who can take pictures with me like this is still lying in a hospital bed." Jiang Chuan reminded him expressionlessly, "I don't have necrophilia either."

  Fang Yu's face immediately closed his mouth with an expression of being punched in the face, and the most painful thing was that he found this punch seemed to be self-inflicted.

  Jiang Chuan didn't respond to Fang Yu, and after logging out of his personal email account, he logged into his work email. He took a look and found that the latest one was an advertisement sample sent by Shang Jiajia. Jiang Chuan opened it to take a look and found that although it was just a sample, the production quality of the entire advertisement was already very high. All the editing had been completed, and the entire advertisement was about 45 seconds long. After cutting off the beginning and end, Jiang Chuan's appearance time was around 35 seconds.

  The background is cheerful music.

  Then there's the colorful computer-generated background like a child's scribble, with the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter changing in rotation, matching Jiang Chuan's four different outfits to create different styles - from head to toe, it's just a silly man seriously competing with a hamster for potato chips in cheerful children's music and a cheerful children's background.

  At the end of the commercial, that silly-looking man puts potato chips into his mouth, crunches them, and slightly raises the corners of his lips. His bright blue eyes narrow towards the camera as he smiles: "Shu Shu, Mouse Mouse, my pet, my heart's desire."

  The man's face gradually disappears, a huge potato logo flies out from the bottom right corner, ending.

  Jiang Chuan: “......”

  "How's that? I think your profile looks pretty good, it doesn't need too much editing. It's just that because of your dark skin tone, the makeup is a bit heavy in some places, so we'll need to adjust it a bit in post-production..."

  "This advertisement shouldn't spread abroad, right?"

  "What?"

  "It's better that I don't," Jiang Chuan turned off the advertisement video, his actions indicating that he didn't want to look at it anymore. His face was expressionless as he said, "Otherwise, I'll consider sending them a bomb."

  "Don't be like that, this is your first ad, it's best to make it spread throughout the universe! " Fang Yu didn't care about Jiang Chuan's expression turning a bit ugly when he heard "the universe", he was excited and seemed to have temporarily forgotten about the mysterious email person. "The advertising fee from Shang Jiajia has also been credited, the company will process the finances and it can be transferred to your account by tomorrow at the latest——by the way, you need to give me Zhang's phone number, I'll be using it frequently in the future..."

  "I understand."

  Jiang Chuan nodded, just thinking of saying something else, but at this time, he found that the computer jumped out a notification that his private account received a new email - somewhat strangely logged in to his own mailbox and took a look, only to find that it was actually the mysterious person replying to him... Jiang Chuan exchanged a glance with Fang Yu, then under Fang Yu's urging gaze, Jiang Chuan opened that email.

  First, a Flash animation popped up, showing only a gift box with a ribbon being pulled open. Then, something inside the gift box seemed to be pushing against it, and on the third push, the gift box finally opened, revealing a line of "surprise" in English flying around the screen. Just as Jiang Chuan was about to click the red X in the top right corner, a fat animated hamster slowly crawled out of the gift box.

  Jiang Chuan was taken aback.

  The hamster crawled out of the gift box, bowed to the stunned male god and agent outside the screen, silently performed a set of middle school radio exercises, and then, under the continued stunned gaze of the people outside the screen, it twisted its fat round buttocks and crawled back into the gift box, stretching out its small paws to cover the lid.

  Animation playback ended.

  Pull down the Jiang Chuan sliding wheel and see a line of words below: I am your home mouse, muah muah.

  Jiang Chuan: “......”

  Fang Yu: "......"

  The people sitting in front of the computer almost simultaneously turned their heads to the side where the hamster cage was placed - and at this moment, in the hamster cage, a certain sleepy milk tea had just woken up and slowly crawled out of its small wooden house, took off the "sleeping hat" on its head, stretched out its paws and rubbed its eyes, half-closing those green bean-like eyes, and drifted silently towards the stone basin filled with hamster food.

  The hamster's front paws rushed into the food bowl, but its hind legs were too big and were left suspended in mid-air, kicking empty space a few times. The hamster struggled to rush forward for a while - until the black-bellied one on the swing couldn't bear it anymore, jumped down from the swing, walked silently to under the hamster whose two hind legs were waving in mid-air, raised its body and pushed the hamster's twisting buttocks with a push. At this time, the former empty paws suddenly had support, and only then did it "pa" into the food bowl with difficulty.

  Jiang Chuan: “......”

  "Can't help but say, it's quite like him."

  Jiang Chuan looked at the hamster in the stone basin, shaking its legs and eating melon seeds, and after a moment of silence, calmly replied with a "滚" (get out), sending an email. After thinking for a moment, he felt that this was not enough to alleviate his anger, which had been struck by lightning and left him with a thousand wounds. He returned to the email and replied again with a "滚远点" (get out of here), clicking send once more. Feeling satisfied, he exited the interface. The man looked at it and told Fang Yu behind him: "The previous email was an automatic reply, nothing can be seen from it."

  "Oh," Fang Yu said, "that hamster really looks like your Ah Fei, it seems that this email sender is quite meticulous in his observation."

  Jiang Chuan: “......”

  "Estimated to be your brain-dead fan."

  Jiang Chuan waved his hand, indicating that he was too headachy to be happy at all.

  ……

  From then on, no matter how long Jiang Chuan waited, the mysterious "whistleblower" never replied to him again. The company also tried to continue tracking down the truth behind the IP address that was judged as "fake", but no matter how they investigated, the final source of information would always lead back to Jiang Chuan's own computer. And because that person had been quiet for half a day and there were no negative news about Yuan Jinran on the internet, this incident was temporarily considered closed.

  Time has passed unknowingly for several months, and the lawsuit between IM Company and Construction Company is still ongoing. However, the attention it receives has decreased compared to before. The official Weibo of IM Company only updates occasionally, with hundreds of comments, most of which are messages praying for Yuan Zhenyan to wake up soon.

  In early July, when all the students were eagerly waiting for the summer vacation to arrive, Jiang Chuan, as a star, officially endorsed Jiajia's main product "Shu Shu" in a commercial that aired on major channels during prime time. As soon as the commercial was broadcast, it first became a laughing stock online with its brainwashing background music and magical advertising slogans, and then someone quickly discovered that the protagonist of this extremely embarrassing commercial was none other than Jiang Chuan, who had previously become an internet sensation as "Hamster Daoist".

  Along with this topic being ignited, the company hired some water army to subtly promote the idea that "Jiang Chuan can hold any style" - soon there were natural passersby echoing in agreement. Before long after the advertisement started filming, Jiang Chuan smoothly received several advertising and drama invitations, and the roles offered by those dramas were also quite different from each other. Except for one which was similar to Huai Jin's character in "Republic of China Mystery Record", the rest ranged from ancient costume to modern city, with vastly different acting routes.

  Fang Yu was overjoyed, and for those few days, his catchphrase was: I told you it would be like this. This ad will help you a lot, stop looking down on me.

  Jiang Chuan brought over several scripts to look at, and after browsing through them, he temporarily chose a costume drama. The role given to him was the third male lead - but compared to the modern romance drama that could give him the second male lead, the production team of this costume drama, as well as the male and female leads, all seemed much more high-end.

  At this time, Jiang Chuan had already become a popular figure, where when he was buying fruit in the supermarket, aunties would come up to him and ask if he was "Mr. Potato Chips".

  Then, after successfully delivering his first signature on the aunt's grocery account book, the agent Mr. wrapped himself in a big pile of "potatoes" and prepared to check out, patted this on his own artist and said: "Cheers, this is your most important step away from internet celebrity - go back and send you a Weibo to celebrate?"

  Jiang Chuan: “......”

  "Winning over the auntie is winning over the world——look, that auntie just now was completely won over by you. When your TV series airs, her sons and daughters dare not change the channel or say a bad word about you, it's like their heads will be blown off."

  Jiang Chuan: “......”

  ……

  At the same time, when Jiang Chuan was brainwashing his hamsters with hypnotic background music and catchy advertising slogans that were all over the major satellite TV channels during prime time, the entire crew of "Republic of China Strange Record" had also entered the final stage - at this point, it was already approaching mid-July, and H city was like a big steamer basket, from the beginning of filming when everyone was still wearing cotton-padded jackets and shivering with cold to now wearing short sleeves and being hot to the point of being unbearable. Thinking that the filming period of almost half a year would soon be over, the crew members were both excited and reluctant to part ways.

  After nearly half a year of daily interactions, even someone like Jiang Chuan who is normally taciturn has become more talkative than at the beginning, and slightly warmer towards the staff.

  Jiang Chuan is very serious and focused when acting - this is the evaluation of Jiang Chuan by everyone after more than half a year... Jiang Chuan is still quite calm about this, because he was originally a stunt actor, performing dangerous stunts, and during filming, not allowing any carelessness, otherwise it would be easy to get injured or even die.

  So he was very serious about acting.

  Even when the entire drama was nearing its end and the crew's atmosphere began to become more relaxed, he still maintained his dignified attitude from the start of filming. In the scorching heat where actors were constantly getting heatstroke, he was diligent and tireless, wearing a long-sleeved robe with an unchanged expression as he recited his lines. When he came down, his costume was drenched in sweat, and when he took it off, water could be wrung out of it, the cruelty of which was comparable to military training.

  Everyone was amazed that Jiang Chuan Zhen was the "Lord of Flame" - until they found out that when he rested, he would quietly sit aside and hug an air conditioner fan blowing wildly. It wasn't until then that everyone realized he was also afraid of heat.

  Fang Yu hastily handed over the handheld electric fan to Jiang Chuan, who showed curiosity when he saw this proof of human wisdom for the first time - until Fang Yu guaranteed again and again that this thing could relieve the heat, he opened it with expectation, then the small fan rotated and blew out a hot wind that was not much stronger than a gentle breeze.

  Jiang Chuan: “......”

  Fang Yu: "......"

  "Look, I've been patient and haven't lost my temper even when it's hot enough to drive me crazy. Can you please just leave me alone?"

  Fang Yu silently put away the small electric fan and retreated with a covered face.

  It's not just Jiang Chuan who is afraid of heat.

  The recent sweltering weather is also hard for hamsters to bear.

  The air conditioner was removed from the room during the day, and it was so hot that I almost thought I wouldn't see tomorrow's sun several times. Finally, one day, under the anger of finishing a pot of water in two days, Jiang Chuan, as the host, finally noticed the needs of the crowd, and from then on, whether day or night, people in the "Republic of China Strange Record" crew could see Jiang Chuan carrying a cage around.

  Every day, when it's hot outside, Jiang Chuan would cover the hamster cage with a sunshade and place it in front of the air conditioner - so during the day, whenever the crew members walked by the cage, they could always see a plump hamster standing at the ventilation opening, posing as if deep in thought, its fur blown messy by the air conditioner's wind, but the hamster remained still, as if determined to let itself be blown to death in this cool breeze.

  At night when it's cooler, while filming nighttime scenes, Jiang Chuan would place the hamster cage under a tree.

  It's been like this for several days and everything has been fine.

  A certain hamster with a surplus of body fat was slightly less hyperactive.

  Just when it innocently thought this summer would pass so peacefully, something happened.

  The cause of the matter dates back to that sinful night when Jiang Chuan got drunk and stuffed a whole apple into the hamster cage door, damaging it slightly. From then on, the cage door didn't close properly... But since Xiao Hei wasn't fond of running around wildly, and Jiang Chuan was busy with his own affairs, he didn't bother to repair the cage in time.

  This led to a certain night when the foolish humans in the distance were performing their last few fighting scenes, with actors hanging from wires flying back and forth in the sky. In the cool night breeze, Jian Ran, who was drowsy, was suddenly awakened.

  It's extremely infuriating when you finally fall asleep in summer and are woken up again.

  As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw the black-bellied one-line fur leaning against him and asked impatiently: "What's wrong?"

  As soon as the words fell, his mouth was pinched shut - milk tea pouted, a pair of green bean eyes angrily and uneasily rolled around, at this time, he suddenly heard Xiao Hei's voice rising from within earshot: "Later go to my room on the second floor of the wooden house, stay there, use hay to block the entrance, no matter what movement you hear, don't come out."

  Jian Ran: "......?"

  Xiao Hei let him go and calmly said: "The cage door is open."

  Jian Ran: "Huh?"

  Xiao Hei: "There is a wild old mouse down there."

  "What the...?!"