Inside the bedroom—
After Ye An finished reading the last two phrases, she drank a sip of water. She couldn’t help but complain under her breath, “What kind of melodramatic dialogue is this?”
She adjusted her headphones and clicked the replay button. Just as she was trying to listen for any mistakes, the secondary door was suddenly opened.
The movement was quite loud. When Ye An heard the sound, she turned to see Xie Shuo standing in the doorway with an ugly expression, like he had caught an adulterous act.
In the earphones, the phrases she had just dubbed replayed–
“The child in my stomach isn’t yours and has no relation to you; don’t come to find me anymore!”
Ye An: “………………..”
…That’s awkward.
The atmosphere froze.
Ye An stared blankly at the dark expression on the man. It felt as if her head had been struck by thunder, leaving her insides scorched.
She opened her mouth with difficulty.
“You both… have finished discussing things?”
……
The sound of a needle dropping could be heard in the silent room.
Xie Shuo stood without saying a word, his expression gloomy. His body emitted a cold air as if he was truly being cheated on.
It took a long time to recover from the embarrassment. She forced herself to explain, “I’m dubbing, that phrase was from the script…”
Xie Shuo was expressionless. He stood silently for a while before turning to leave the room.
The pressure in the room instantly dropped, and Ye An let out a long breath. She sent the freshly recorded audio to the public relations team then sent a screenshot of the script to Shi Shuangshuang.
Ye An: [screenshot]
Ye An: [What kind of dirty dialogue did you write?!!!]
Ye An: [Could you make it any more melodramatic?!!]
One could feel the anger emanating from the texts even through the screen.
Shi Shuangshuang: [???]
Shi Shuangshuang: [This is from the dialogue of the novel. What does it have to do with me?]
Shi Shuangshuang: [This is called respecting the author’s work!!!]
Ye An:…Why did I agree to Xiang Quan’s request to accept this project?
Shi Shuangshuang: [Hmph, it was just because the “Rich and Powerful Lovable Wife” got popular because of the running away plotline. What’s the big deal?]
Shi Shuangshuang: [How about you go and research some more and have a baby with your rich, powerful husband. Run away afterwards and make him coax you back.]
Ye An: […]
Having a baby with Xie Shuo and running away?
Ye An imagined the situation and couldn’t help but shiver. Was she insane?
—–
When Xie Shuo left the bedroom, he hid away in the study and even locked the door.
Just a few days ago, he never locked the door, no matter how moody he was. Ye An was a little worried. After finishing work matters, she brought a bowl of soup and knocked on the door.
There was no response whatsoever, not even the usual phrase of “no thanks.”
“I’m not trying to disturb you. I’m just trying to give you some soup; I’ll leave after,” Ye An spoke sincerely.
She waited for a while, but there was no response.
The room was shut tightly, separating their two worlds.
Outside the windows, dark clouds concealed the sun. The trees shook violently, signaling the change in weather.
“Xie Shuo?” She knocked on the door.
There was no response.
Ye An, frustrated, waited for a while before finally leaving the soup outside the door.
At night, it rained heavily.
Grandfather came back and saw Ye An sitting alone downstairs. He asked, “Where’s A’Shuo?”
Dinner was already served on the dining table. Ye An felt somewhat remorseful as she smiled, saying, “In the study, I’ll go get him.”
She went upstairs and faced the office door. Just as she was worried about what to do, the door suddenly opened.
Xie Shuo finally came out. However, his face was pale, and he seemed more hostile than usual.
“Are you okay? Grandpa just returned and asked me to come and get you, so we could eat dinner downstairs.”
Seeing that the Young Master was in a bad mood, Ye An didn’t dare tease him like usual and spoke softly instead.
Xie Shuo pursed his lips and walked woodenly forward, ignoring her words. Ye An followed quietly behind him, even making sure her breathing was as light as possible.
The meal was extremely stifling.
Ye An kept her gaze down and counted the rice grains in her bowl.
Grandfather noticed something was wrong and coughed lightly. He asked Xie Shuo, “Did Xiao Ran come by earlier in the afternoon?”
Xie Shuo placed his chopsticks down and lightly replied with an “En.”
Grandfather wanted to say something but hesitated. He paused for a moment before speaking, “He’s too inexperienced; watch out for him. ”
Xie Shuo looked down and said, “He’s going to do well; you don’t need to worry.”
Even though his response was short, Ye An was scared witless.
Was Grandfather implying that he wanted Xie Yuran to replace Xie Shuo?
What about Xie Baiyan? Did he agree to this?
As she was speculating, Grandfather suddenly said, “In the past few days, I contacted a renowned medical professor and made an appointment for you to have an examination.”
For the past five months, they had contacted both domestic and international experts, but they were only disappointed time and time again. Xie Shuo had lost any feelings on the matter long ago, so he replied calmly and left the dining table.
Grandfather looked at him leaving and sighed. He once again sought Ye An’s help, “An An, if you’re ever free, go comfort him and take him out on a walk.”
Ye An smiled gently but was inwardly exhausted: I’ve already tried my best.
To be honest, she could understand Xie Shuo’s current mentality. After experiencing the highest of highs, how could one stand the lowest of lows?
Moreover, Xie Shuo was a prideful person.
——
The rainfall continued into the night.
The sound of water could be heard from the bathroom.
Ye An closed the curtains halfway and then leaned against the window to check her phone for any messages.
Xiang Quan had sent a message in the work group chat to her and the other actors. Tomorrow, they would go to the studio and immediately start scouting new radio dramas.
Shi Shuangshuang sent a private DM asking her: [Didn’t you say that you were going to seduce your husband last night and get the “Pharmacist” project? What happened?]
Since she had already uttered the lie, there was no point of return.
Ye An calmly replied with a straight face: [Mission’s in progress, almost there.]
Shi Shuangshuang had faith in her visuals and didn’t suspect anything. She replied with a waiting emoji and an excited voice message soon after, “There’ll be an online karaoke party with many of the industry’s gods. Do you want to come?”
Ye An sent a voice message to reply, “No thanks, I have to seduce my husband.”
As soon as the message was sent, footsteps sounded. Ye An looked up to see Xie Shuo exiting the bathroom.
He wore a black robe with a belt tied loosely around his waist. The open collar revealed a portion of his clavicles. His expression was grave, and the ends of his hair dripped with water.
He faced her, his expression seemingly saying: Oh? How are you going to seduce me?
Ye An, “…”
She was never going to send voice messages again.
There were too many surprising twists today, so Ye An had already learned to face them calmly. She turned her phone off. Pretending that nothing had happened, she walked past Xie Shuo and entered the bathroom.
After taking a shower, Ye An sat on the bed and looked at the man who had laid down beside her. Thinking of the day’s events, she dug under the covers and crawled over to his side. She poked him. “Hey, why were you unhappy today? Want to talk about it?”
Xie Shuo didn’t react and didn’t even bother to open his eyes.
Ye An propped her chin up and whispered into his ear, “Let’s talk~”
A warm breath brushed past his neck and made it itch. Xie Shuo, disturbed, frowned and finally opened his eyes.
“Are you sleeping or not?” His tone was cold and reflected his impatience.
…He really was an emotionless machine. Teasing him like this wouldn’t work.
Ye An sat silent for a moment before answering, “I’m thinking of something, so I can’t sleep.”
Expecting Xie Shuo to take the initiative to ask “What’s wrong?” was too improbable, so she simply abandoned her plan and opened up directly.
“Remember when I mentioned Brilliant Dreams Culture in the afternoon? Their company recently came up with a really popular anime and came to our studio for the dub. The contract was discussed and everything, but there was a really evil person in charge, and he wanted sexual favors from me. I ignored him, and he changed his mind at the last moment. He refused to sign with us.”
Ye An paused and neared Xie Shuo’s ear to speak again.
“Can you help me?”
She looked up to observe his reaction. Seeing that he didn’t respond, she gritted her teeth and clung to his arm.
“Hubby…”
Xie Shuo’s eyelashes trembled.
“Brilliant Dreams belongs to the Xie family. You can definitely help, right? It’s not that I really want the anime for myself; I just don’t want to see his disgusting face!”
Xie Shuo still didn’t respond.
“It’s just a small request. It’ll be very easy for you to do.”
Ye An hugged him and ignored the chills in her heart. Her voice was as sweet as honey as she moved his arm back and forth.
“I’m begging you…”
Two seconds later, her slender arm was removed, and the man’s curt voice sounded.
“Sleep.”
“……”
Could this dude even get better?
Ye An was angered to the point of almost becoming a pufferfish. She nearly kicked him off the bed.
Sensing that she was still clinging to his body, Xie Shuo distanced himself a little more and pushed her.
His outstretched hand happened to touch a soft, rounded area.
“You–”
The voice stopped abruptly, and Ye An’s body froze.
With darkness enveloping his sight, Xie Shuo subconsciously moved his fingers, feeling the soft sensation under his hand.
“…”
Author’s Note: Xiao Ye: Hello, is this 911? There’s someone assaulting me!
Xiao Xie: …
Xiao Xie my lovely son(*￣︶￣)
