Within a private room in the hotel, Xu Jun sat smiling in front of Gu Yan, but the tension underneath his eyes revealed his emotions. After calling the police yesterday, the cops came soon after, and following that came a task force from the capital. The one with the surname Jiang asked him a lot of questions, and then he took the severed arm from the scene away.
Even though the police did not go through too many in depth investigations at the mountain villa, the people there were still worried, and many staff members have already brought up about resigning……
He recalled what Gu Yan had told him, and with the mind-set of trying to beat a dead horse, he asked Du Chen for Gu Yan’s contact information.
But unfortunately, the one with the priority in setting the conditions was not him. If he knew earlier that this would happen, he should have just sold the place right then and there.
“Mr. Gu said yesterday that your proposal is still valid, I’m wondering if you were being serious?”Xu Jun smiled.
Gu Yan nodded,”Price.”
Xu Jun was stunned for a moment, he never expected Gu Yan to be so directed. He responded:”Thirty million, and everything in the mountain villa will belong to you.”
Gu Yan shook his head slightly:”Twenty thousand.”
The colour of Xu Jun’s face changed. Even though he was ready to bargain, twenty million was already the very limit he was willing to go. To sell the place at this price, it was equivalent to all his time at the place being for nought. He was silent for a moment, but then he spoke:”You should know of the situation at the villa right now as well, Mr. Gu, the offer of thirty million is already very cheap.”
“I may have been willing to accept your quote of thirty million when I first brought up buying the place, but as for right now——”Gu Yan raised his brows,”Twenty million.”
Xu Jun choked when he heard this. How could he have known this would have happened at that time?
Gu Yan tapped his finger lightly on the table and smiled,”The price I will be offering today is twenty million. But next time, ten million is my maximum offer.”
The smile on Xu Jun’s face disappeared without trace.
A fierce struggle began in his heart. Twenty million really was too low a price, but if he doesn’t go for it now, he would continue to lose money. The place was barely improving in business, and if he walked out of here now, the possibility of him finding another buyer willing to sh.e.l.l out twenty million for the place was probably zero……It was because Gu Yan had figured out this point that he could be so firm in his decision.
He was anxious to sell the place, and there were no other choices. On the other hand, the other party was also clear about the peculiarities of the area……What else can he do?
This was the best result he could get.
Xu Jun took a deep breath:”Deal.”
“Pleasure working with you.”Gu Yan smiled.
…………………………
Gu Yan left the hotel with the contract, and suddenly remembered that he was lacking of an errand boy.
Even though Xu Ming was his a.s.sistant, he was someone sent over to him by the agency, and not someone who worked completely under him. But besides that, he did not trust humans……There were some things he may not be able to leave to them without feeling any sense of unrest.
Just as he arrived home, Director Zhang rang his phone. He asked whether he was doing better now, the crew had already chosen the replacement set and hoped that he could return soon.
Gu Yan did not drag things out, and quickly returned to the crew. Since they changed the venue, no other accidents happened, everything went smoothly.
He was just a simple third supporting male character and did not have many parts in this scene. After a week or so, his parts were already complete. Gu Yan was very satisfied with this progress. After finishing his work during this period, he once again returned to his leisurely life.
And then he began his life of seclusion.
During the day, he spent most of his effort in obtaining more human knowledge, and in the night, he released the suppression to resume his battle with that golden thread of spiritual energy within his body.
A month of time pa.s.sed by very quickly, and the shooting for the series was finally complete, and so began the post-production work. Meanwhile, the golden spiritual energy in Gu Yan’s body had also dispersed by a lot. Following these progressions, it would take about another month of time for him to get rid of this threat completely.
On this day, Xu Ming returned very early with the latest newspapers and magazines in hand. He spoke cheerfully to Gu Yan:”The company’s publicity during this period is not doing too bad, take a look.”
Gu Yan’s eyes moved over, and he took the newspaper from him.
Turns out that during the time of the shooting, the company’s crisis PR team was still at work, doing their very best to wash his slate clean. All his previous scandals have been made out to be just mere accusations, and the person in the person just looked like him, but was in fact someone else. He had been partic.i.p.ating in other activities with other people on that night, and never went to the bar at all. The company has also added that they will pursue legal action with any persons who continue to spread such baseless rumours as they will not be tolerated. At the same time, there were many public figures and celebrities that Gu Yan didn’t even know who were standing out to testify for him, proving that those were just malicious rumours. Even though Gu Yan was only a newcomer, he had always taken care of himself and would never do such things, and they all acted as if they were very good friends with Gu Yan.
As for how he acted like a big shot in the studio, that case was even more so just part of the imaginations of sn.o.bbish staff who were bullying the juniors, Gu Yan was just standing up for himself in a very reasonable manner. Even though he had been dyed black by those with bad intentions, as a person, he was in fact a very humble person who strove to improve himself……
Even though the company’s spokesperson did not say it directly, they still implied that the incident had been planned against Gu Yan by a rival company, forging large amount of fake news and hiring people to post fake comments, it was all done just to ruin Gu Yan’s reputation. Even though Gu Yan was just a newcomer who was barely known by the world, he was still a person who would be obtaining the cultivation help of a powerful company, and so this was a shameless attack at his commercial value.
Under such overwhelming PR efforts, the large groups who have been accusing Gu Yan suddenly had a ‘realization’, and turned around to speak for Gu Yan instead. They lamented about how chaotic the circle was, and at the same time tried to pull more fans to their side. This turned around to become a great blessing to Gu Yan as his popularity was greatly improved, even the attention he got from people had improved considerably. There were already hundreds of thousands of fans now following him on Weibo, he had suddenly climbed out of the mud to the road of fame.
On that topic, Weibo was also something Xu Ming had been teaching him about. It wasn’t until then did Gu Yan suddenly realized he had a weibo account, but it had always been taken care of for him by the company. Gu Yan pulled up the comments for him to see, and most of them were supportive comments towards him.
“You can do it, Yan Yan! I believe in you!”
“Don’t cry, brother. Stand up tall and hold your head high.”
“An innocent man will always prevail, the truth will always come to the surface. Now aren’t you yapping lot the ones who are getting their faces slapped!”
“So, so handsome! This lady has decided to become a fan.”
“Move aside, I need to lick the screen.”
Gu Yan raised a brow. Wasn’t he quite familiar with how the original host was like? He had been framed in none of those incidents.
These foolish humans, are they not able to think for themselves?
Xu Ming was standing by the side, his head craned up at the ceiling from the awkward atmosphere. He was Gu Yan’s a.s.sistant, and he had seen be it before and now any sort of virtues as humility and diligence in Gu Yan. Instead, he had seen all sorts of messes……But of course, Gu Yan was getting better and better by the day, and for him, this was something worth getting happy for. But when he looked at the publications, it really made his face hot. It seems the skin of his face was still not thick enough.
Xu Ming thought about it before saying:”Take a look at the latest issue of the entertainment magazine, the promotion of the new drama has already begun. With the launch of the new drama, you would probably get a lot of fans at this time, and with all the talk happening around you now, we’ll be able to strike the iron while it’s hot.”
Gu Yan flipped over the magazine to look, and he could see that the publicity special did have a lot of weight. Even though there were only a few pictures on the article, they still made him look extremely handsome. Be it his profile or his front view, he was the most eye-catching one amongst the photos of all the other stars, and stood out a lot. This would probably help him gain a lot of traction as well.
“Not bad.”Gu Yan commented. The more high-profile this ident.i.ty was, the safer things would be for him.
Xu Ming nodded, and felt overcome with emotion,”The company’s really trying hard to boost you up.”Before that, he was worried that Gu Yan would be buried under the snow, not able to get himself back on track. But who knew that he would’ve turned popular again so quickly? He was going even further onto the entertainment path of fame, this was something he would never have expected.
He had been following Gu Yan for a while now, and Gu Yan had some really bad habits in the past. But now, he was getting better and more steady. Even though his character was now slightly cold and apathetic, and not exactly the easiest to get along with, but he still felt happy for Gu Yan.
Right when he was preparing to cook for Gu Yan, his phone suddenly rang. Seeing the name of the caller, Xu Ming smiled to Gu Yan:”Excuse me, I have to take this call.”Then after that, he went to the side.
Gu Yan raised his head to look at Xu Ming. Even though Xu Ming’s voice was very quiet, a bit of it had still ended up in Gu Yan’s ears.
“Why are you calling me at this house, Xiao Fei?”Xu Ming said with some concern.
“Brother……I’m in trouble.”The nervous voice of a young man came from the receiver.
The look on Xu Ming’s face changed,”What happened?”
“I, I gambled……and I owe them a lot of money. They said that if I don’t pay up, they’ll cut my hand off……”The young man’s voice was almost choking as he spoke.
“What?!”Xu Ming raised his voice,”You gambled for money?”
“Ye, yeah……Brother, you have to save me……”
“How much do you owe them?”Xu Ming sucked in a deep breath before asking.
“Fifty thousand……”His voice trembled as he spoke.
Xu Ming was stunned, and then he started to shake in anger. His younger brother Xu Fei was just in high school, much younger than him, but he had always been the one to wipe his brother’s b.u.t.t after anything. He knew that his brother was quite a hooligan……But this is too much, he owed fifty thousand!
Just when he was about to start scolding him, there was a sudden sound of movement coming at the other side, and the boy screamed. Following that, the voice of a stranger appeared,”He has already been owing us money for a while, bring the money over tonight, ten o’ clock, at No.17 Qinghui Road, if nor, then you better start preparing your brother’s funeral.”
Then he hung up the phone after he was done speaking.
Xu Ming’s face was pale as he heard the beeping of his phone.
Even though they were locals here, their father had died early, and their mother was just a supermarket cashier with a meager salary. She raised them up with much effort, and they had barely any savings to speak of in their family. How was he going to find fifty thousand out of nowhere? Unless, did he have to sell his old house off as well? Then wouldn’t their family be living out on the streets? No……A life is more important right now, being out on the streets was nothing, all they needed was to buy another house. But how could they make it before ten? If Xiao Fei gets into any accidents……How could their mother bear it? And he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself either.
But how was he going to help Xiao Fei? What should he do? Xu Ming was in despair as he continued to stand there.
Gu Yan’s expression was indifferent. It was just a boring little trifle between a few ants, and he did not intend to do anything. But when he looked back and saw the desperate and fearful look in Xu Ming’s eyes, his heart suddenly moved.
He stood up and asked Xu Ming with a smile:”Is there anything I can help you with?”