Ch59 - Mirror

They returned to the company after leaving the house.

Xie Zhuxing was still irritated and didn’t want to talk to Wang Chao.

But the ever-dense Wang Chao didn’t even make the connection that his comments had provoked him. He grinned and said, “You’ve already spent the money, what’s the point of scowling? How much did you spend on this house? I will split it with you 50/50.”

Xie Zhuxing retorted, “I don’t need it. Your name won’t be on the property certificate anyways.”

Wang Chao didn’t detect the bite in his words – after all, he didn’t care whether the house had his name on it. “You sure you don’t need it? Don’t regret it.”

Xie Zhuxing thought to himself: what he regrets the most is falling in love with you.

Wang Chao hummed their song before he asked with feigned nonchalance, “Then when are you planning to furnish it?”

Xie Zhuxing didn’t seem enthusiastic, “Later.”

Later? Wang Chao became anxious and said, “If it were up to me I’d furnish it as soon as possible. You’d have to let it air out for a couple of months after furnishing – if you start now, we can probably move in by the new year.”

Xie Zhuxing’s face brightened a bit. This was his thought process too. He said, “I have to find a reliable furnishing company. Our group’s been so busy recently that I haven’t had much time to reaserch.”

Wang Chao said, “Then you can leave it to my brother. He knows lots of people – let him find the most reliable one for you.”

This is indeed the best method. Xie Zhuxing replied, “Alright.”

Wang Chao immediately dialed Wang Qi’s number, giggling as the phone rang as if he was hoping that the construction would be completed in a day and they could move in tomorrow.

Xie Zhuxing glanced at him with mixed feelings.

He’s been great recently. He wakes up after only the second reminder, and even when there isn’t any group event, he doesn’t play mobile games as much but instead spends time practicing dance together with him. He even takes the initiative to learn from their songwriting instructor. He’s been surprisingly proactive and behaved appropriately.

Xie Zhuxing prefers this. Compared to before, this behavior is that of someone who could settle down.

The house is a recent purchase. He’s only gotten the keys yesterday and brought him here today.

He wants to be with him as in leading long, safe, and steady lives together.

Wang Qi heard that his younger brother wanted to furnish a house and asked, “Who’s furnishing a house?”

Wang Chao said, “Me, I’m furnishing it.”

Wang Qi thought that he was going to mess around with his place in Wangjin Xiyuan and refused, “Don’t go looking for trouble. My furnishing is fine – did you break something in the house?”

Wang Chao gloated, “No, I’m not messing around with yous, I’m furnishing my own place!”

My own place? Xie Zhuxing glanced at him while driving, unable to help but smirk.

Wang Qi found that strange, “You bought a house? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Wang Chao retorted shamelessly, “Why would I tell you? I’m a grown up now – should I still tell you everything?”

Wang Qi asked, “Where’s this house you bought? What’s the cost per square feet? Did you pay all cash?”

Wang Chao, “…” How would he know?

He covered the mic on his phone and whispered to Xie Zhuxing, “What’s the cost per square feet? Did you pay all cash?”

Xie Zhuxing said, “70k, 50% down payment.”

Wang Chao uncovered the mic and told his brother, “70k.” He didn’t mention the mortgage, afraid that his brother would be suspicious.

But Wang Qi discerned his lie immediately, “Whose house is this? I checked your account only last month, you don’t have this much money.”

Wang Chao, “…Could I not have borrowed money to purchase it!”

He doesn’t have any money sense nor a habit of budgeting. He has no idea how much savings he has.

The members evenly split the payment for group events. But Xie Zhuxing was in a movie and a tv series; that money wouldn’t be split amongst them.

…Therefore he is poorer compared to Xie Zhuxing. He can’t afford to purchase a house that Xie Zhuxing could.

Fuck, what a huge blow to his ego.

Within two days, Wang Qi had found them a suitable furnishing company. After the design was finished, they began construction. He even hired people to oversee the progress.

Xie and Wang are both busy and in a secretive career. They’ve only seen the in-process construction twice; they’ve never furnished a house before, but they thought it was great, and it didn’t cost much either.

Wang Chao called Wang Qi and expressed his satisfaction. Amazing results at a cheap cost, it’s wonderful.

Wang Qi thought to himself: certainly, the results are amazing – but the cost isn’t cheap at all. The extra fees beyond their original budget had all come from his pocket.

Stupid Thing was very successful. ID has become one of the most popular groups within the industry, and with that, more invitations for advertisements and endorsements arrived – with greater quality, too. Liu Congming is quite strict with evaluating invitations; he wouldn’t let them appear unless the programs and brands are household names. By mid-July, ID’s schedule for August to early September is already full.

Mainland’s biggest reality tv star, Liang Xi, didn’t appear in any new programs during the first half of this year. He also returned during July, joining an outdoor reality tv show.

ID appeared during the second episode of this show.

This episode was filmed in Hang Zhou. The participants played some games within the city during the morning.

One of the regular hosts of the program is a female celebrity. She’s quite beautiful, fair-skinned, and well endowed. The program marketed her as a sexy goddess, but her real personality is a bit boyish – a popular type amongst boys.

As soon as she met ID, she said that she was a huge fan of Xie Zhuxing, and even imitated a segment of his dance within Stupid Thing. She is pretty good at it, so it seems that this isn’t just scripted, she more or less is a fan of his. After exchanging a few sentences with him, she even blushed.

Every other regular host, besides Liang Xi, began to cheer.

Xie Zhuxing has never been confessed to, face-to-face, by a female celebrity before. He was quite embarrassed and with the surrounding cheer, his ears began to redden too.

Wang Chao was PISSED. The more he looked at her the more he disliked her.

Later, the participants began to play a cockfighting game. When it was her turn, no one even cued Wang Chao before he volunteered and fought against her viciously. He didn’t spare any strength and with one push, the girl was sent flying before falling on the soft cushion.

Yet by exerting his entire strength, he lost momentum and tumbled forward, almost falling onto the girl’s body. He hurriedly propped himself up with his hands, but incidentally, those landed right on her chest. He urgently retracted his hands and crawled up to apologize, saying that it wasn’t on purpose.

He doesn’t have a very good reputation. In fact, it’s quite the opposite – he’s known as the stud king, after all. No one believed that it wasn’t intentional.

Even Liang Xi didn’t believe him. He hurriedly kicked him on the shin before chiding him for being careless and helping him apologize to the girl.

The girl didn’t know whether he did it on purpose, but she couldn’t lose her temper while filming, so she had to resolve the situation with a smile and pretend that it was a misunderstanding, and forgive him as a result.

The afternoon event took place in Song City. Everyone dispersed in search of clues.

Wang Chao was not serious at all. He roamed around the (fake) ancient streets of Song City, not in search of clues, but in search of entertainment. He spotted a haunted house and asked the local cameraman, “Is it scary on the inside?” When the cameraman answered “No,” he then happily entered, only to be scared to death, screaming and howling at the top of his lungs.

When that female host passed by the exit of the haunted house, she saw Wang Chao sprinting out of it and as if he had seen his relative, embracing her the next second.

She was stunned for a moment before she realized and shouted: “Fuck! Can’t you keep your hands off of me!”

Xie Zhuxing, who has been working hard on their given task, noticed the commotion. As soon as he came over, he saw Wang Chao in a tight embrace with that female celebrity and the latter’s angry face.

He’s angry too.

After filming, they headed to dinner before returning to the hotel. The moment they entered the hotel room, the two men began to quarrel and eventually, fought each other.

Xie Zhuxing swung at him while cursing his roaming hands, clearly angry because of his interaction with the female host.

Wang Chao couldn’t win but he was stubborn. He swore and shouted that he was innocent, and didn’t do anything wrong, to begin with.

He has already been holding back his pee since this afternoon, but he could no longer hold it in anymore. He then yelled at him to stop, “Stop, stop, stop! We’ll resume after a minute, let me pee first.”

Xie Zhuxing stopped.

Wang Chao then went to pee in the bathroom. He didn’t close the door and once his bladder began to relax, he began to explain, “I really didn’t touch her breasts on purpose this morning. And the afternoon was because the haunted house was too scary – I finally saw a living human after coming out of it and didn’t even see who she was.”

Xie Zhuxing ignored him.

He flushed and then washed his hands. Xie Zhuxing walked to his previous spot and began to pee too.

Since he didn’t land any punches during the fight, he could feel a residue of anger in his throat. Once he finished washing his hands, he shook them at Xie Zhuxing as the water landed on the latter’s clothes.

Xie Zhuxing, “Tsk,” before turning to glare at him.

He glared right back at him, his eyes even wider and angrier.

Xie Zhuxing finished peeing but he didn’t zip up his pants. Instead, he came over and pinned the other man on the countertop, before utilizing his member for a more lustful purpose.

This is their first time doing it in front of a mirror. They’ve only seen each other’s faces while having sex, not their own.

It was quite interesting.

When they were done, Wang Chao commented with satisfaction, “I am such a slut.”

It’s almost midnight. They squeezed against each other in the bed: Wang Chao playing a mobile game, boasting while doing so, and Xie Zhuxing quietly listening by his side.

Liang Xi suddenly called and asked Wang Chao to go to his room, something about eating late-night snacks together.

Wang Chao hasn’t hung out with Liang Xi in a while and wanted to go. He asked Xie Zhuxing, “Are you coming?”

Xie Zhuxing didn’t have many common topics with Liang Xi. Even if he went, he’d just be sitting there without saying anything. He then said, “No, but you should. Come back early, don’t eat anything spicy.”

Wang Chao put on clothes and went by himself.

There were several boxes of spicy crawfish on the coffee table in Liang Xi’s room. The generous man offered graciously, “I know you like this, so I ordered these just for you.”

Wang Chao said, “But I can’t have these today.”

Liang Xi asked, “Why?”

Wang Chao half-boasted half-complained, “Just had sex.”

Liang Xi rolled his eyes at him and raised his left hand. There was a ring on his ring finger. He then boasted, “You see this? Bai Tu and I got married.”

Wang Chao was shocked. He knew Liang Xi had changed his nationality, but he didn’t expect them to get married so soon.

Liang Xi boasted, “I even submitted paperwork to adopt a kid. It’s a tough process in Europe, and we are in a special situation, so not sure when the adoption will happen.”

Wang Chao clearly lost in this round of boasting competition. He wholeheartedly admitted defeat, “Ge, congratulations.”

Liang Xi then boasted about how Bai Tu’s parents loved him.

Wang Chao was super envious. He thinks Xiao Xie’s parents won’t like him. What kinds of parents would like a good-for-nothing like him?

Liang Xi had enough of bragging and asked him, “Did you and Xiao Xie tell your families about you guys?”

Wang Chao lied, “No, there’s nothing to tell. It’s our own business.”

Liang Xi didn’t know what situation they are in. Since he’s in a good mood, he concurred, “True, you guys are young. It’s possible that you will break up in a couple of years. May not be worth the hassle of telling your families about it.”

Wang Chao found his words jarring, “Can’t you wish anything good for me? Who will break up in a couple of years? You will be divorced in a couple of years.”

An entire table of spicy crawfish, he wasn’t able to have any. He was only able to smell them before he got kicked out by Liang Xi.

Wang Chao sulked back to his room. Only the night light was on in the room, and Xie Zhuxing is asleep.

He didn’t go back to his own bed but slid into Xie Zhuxing’s bed.

Xie Zhuxing woke up and while he complained, “It’s summer right now, why do you have to be right next to me,” he also moved to the side to leave half the space for Wang Chao.

End of July, Huixing Entertainment announced that ID will host its first-anniversary concert on September 12th.

On August 1st, the concert tickets went on sale. Floor-level seats sold out in ten minutes.

On August 5th, Huixing Entertainment released a new singer-songwriter’s original single.

On August 7th, Duan Yikun established his own studio. The now disbanded Nex’s ex-captain was the first artist under the studio.

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Thank you, Raikie, for donating! This meets our extra chapter donation goal and I will release an extra chapter next week.