136: Award ceremony

On the day of the Golden Scale Award red carpet, Shen Lian went to the studio early in the morning.

Styling and changing clothes didn't take long, but Hu Kailan was extremely worried.

"Right, the wristwatch..." Hu Kailan clapped his hands.

"No need." Shen Lian extended his right arm, revealing a low-key yet dazzling silver watch that exuded the distinct scent of money under the lights.

Hu Kailan recognized the brand and widened his eyes. "You found a sponsor yourself?"

"No, I borrowed it."

Hu Kailan said with deep remorse, "It's my lack of capability! Just wait, in the future, your entire outfit will definitely be provided by sponsors; I can't let you go around borrowing things."

It's fine, Shen Lian thought, I just took it from my boyfriend's cabinet, hee hee.

Chu Yilan didn't lack such things; he only used a few fixed brands, and Sun Binghe would pre-order and deliver them whenever a new product was released. Anyway, two drawers were neatly packed with them. When Shen Lian said he wanted to borrow one to keep up appearances, Chu Yilan wished he could cover him in them from head to toe.

Dai Tong originally wanted to take Shen Lian over, but Director Zhao disagreed, saying Shen Lian would attend as a lead actor from the "blazing fire" crew. The male lead, Lin Fu, joked with Shen Lian, "You're quite the hot commodity."

Shen Lian waved his hand.

The red carpet walk was in the afternoon. Bored in the meantime, Shen Lian held his phone and chatted about everything under the sun.

He kept in touch with Chu Yilan and then exchanged a few insults with Feng Yueshan in the group chat. Right, Chen Mu's contract with Star Opening had already gone through. See, once you stay away from those rotten people and messy affairs, life is smooth sailing!

Shen Lian was also quite familiar with "walking the red carpet."

When the host announced the "blazing fire" crew, he and Lin Fu were on either side, following behind Director Zhao. Two assistant directors and three other actors followed them. There weren't many people in the crew, but they were pleasing to the eye.

[Oh my god, Lin Fu and Shen Lian in the same frame, my heart skipped a beat.]

[Feng Zheng! Your Lu Xiaokai is back!]

[The person above is making me cry, boohoo.]

Actually, after "blazing fire" became the dark horse of the year and exploded in popularity, the other side had subtly asked Shen Lian if he wanted to briefly push a "CP" ship with Lin Fu. Because the hype was truly high, even just doing an interview together, a live stream, or some eye contact could create a lot of buzz.

Lin Fu valued Shen Lian's character and knew he wouldn't mess around, so he agreed, but Shen Lian refused outright.

"No! Absolutely not! You can ask me to do promotions at ten locations a day, but pushing a CP is definitely out of the question!"

Lin Fu didn't feel like he'd lost face; if he didn't want to, then so be it.

In fact, when he hung up the phone back then, Chu Yilan was right beside him. The man flipped through documents nonchalantly. "It's all work; it doesn't matter."

Shen Lian didn't coddle him either, raising his phone. "Then should I call back now? Say we'll push it? Push a passionate love-hate story?"

Chu Yilan expressionlessly threw his phone aside, came over, and pinned Shen Lian down.

Lin Fu posed for the camera, then turned his head to say to Shen Lian, "I remember this is your first time on the red carpet, right? You're so relaxed?"

Shen Lian gave a light chuckle. "Your buddy is just that good."

They walked the long path for three to five minutes. After signing their names and taking photos under the flashing lights, everyone headed to the lounge area to sit for a while. Once things were nearly finished there, they would go to the main hall for the award ceremony.

As soon as Director Zhao and Lin Fu reached the lounge, they were called away. Led by a hostess, Shen Lian went to their table and poured some tea to drink after sitting down.

"Shen Lian!" A petite figure in white hopped over to his side. Shen Lian turned to look; it was Shu Mingyue.

Back when they participated in the variety show "sea god descends," Yu Ming had tried all sorts of ways to get close to Shu Mingyue and act cool, and Shen Lian had repeatedly helped her out. Shu Mingyue was quite grateful to Shen Lian. Although they didn't have much private contact, they would like each other's posts whenever they saw them on their Moments.

"Have a seat." Shen Lian smiled as he stood up to pull out a chair for her. Just looking at Shu Mingyue's ten-plus centimeter sky-high heels made his ankles ache.

Shu Mingyue's cheeks flushed slightly, and she didn't stand on ceremony. She looked Shen Lian up and down. "You've really become more and more handsome."

"You too, beautiful." Shen Lian didn't hold back on the praise. "What have you been busy with lately?"

"I took on a role, the female lead." Shu Mingyue chuckled. Then, seeing something, her expression became a bit subtle. She leaned in and whispered to Shen Lian, "The 'Flowers in Full Bloom' crew is here too, but they didn't invite one of the leads, Zheng Ge. I remember you two don't get along. Zheng Ge can't come to the Golden Scale Award scene. Given his fans' temperament, they'll probably have a total meltdown on the Social Media Platform today."

Shen Lian raised an eyebrow. "Why didn't they invite him?"

"You don't know?" Shu Mingyue's gossiping spirit surged instantly. "I was doing a cameo in another crew at the time, and 'Flowers in Full Bloom' was right next door. I saw it with my own eyes twice—Zheng Ge was like a lunatic, his emotions were very unstable, and he was often shouting into his phone."

Probably shouting at Zhou Tangsi on the other end of the line, Shen Lian thought.

"He's acting like a diva. Anyway, he's no longer that pure and harmless image from before. He got into a conflict with the second male lead and even got into a fight on set. I really felt bad for that second lead at the time, thinking he'd just gotten stuck with him. Who knew the director suppressed the matter and didn't pay any attention to Zheng Ge at all." Shu Mingyue took a sip of water and continued, "After that, I heard several of Zheng Ge's roles were snatched away. Anyway, the investors probably don't want to give him any face anymore. It's quite bleak."

Indeed, Zheng Ge's recent activity was practically non-existent. Previously, even just a blurry photo of him hugging Zhou Tangsi would have garnered some attention.

From the looks of it, Zhou Tangsi's situation was worse than Zheng Ge's; otherwise, how could he fail to protect his little sweetheart?

Shen Lian suddenly became curious. He opened his phone and tagged Young Master Feng in the group: [Young Master Feng, by the way, how has Zhou Tangsi been lately?]

Chu Yilan: [?]

Shen Lian: "..."

Feng Yueshan: [If you want to die, don't drag me down with you, okay?]

Shen Lian laughed in exasperation: [I met a friend and we talked about Zheng Ge. I heard he's having a hard time lately, so I was just curious about the other party involved.]

After all, they were the main CP. The overbearing dominance and dazzling stardom from the book were really fading away.

Feng Yueshan indicated he hadn't been paying attention and didn't know.

Instead, Zhou Yuanlin popped up: [Isn't Zhou Tangsi fighting a life-and-death battle with that illegitimate son of the Zhou Family? He probably can't look after Zheng Ge for the time being.]

Shen Lian: [Ah, satisfying.]

Chu Yilan looked at his phone and couldn't help but smile.

Even his schadenfreude was quite cute.

Sun Binghe came in to deliver documents. One look at Chu Yilan's expression and he could guess the gist of it. If it wasn't Teacher Shen on the other end of the phone, he'd twist his own head off.

"Boss, according to your requirements, the businesses Ming Lin recently took an interest in have all been intercepted by us in secret."

Chu Yilan asked casually, "Is there anything unusual?"

Sun Binghe's voice deepened. "Yes."

Chu Yilan looked up.

"Ming Lin is desperately and frantically laundering money. That little girlfriend of his has been introducing him to several scumbag directors who are notorious within the circle. I had someone check—his remittance recipient is an overseas account. Of course, it could be interpreted as him wanting to emigrate, but the problem is that Jin Lei also used to remit a lot of money to this account." Sun Binghe paused. "Boss, Teacher Shen's intuition is very accurate. I always feel that whether it's Jin Lei or Ming Lin, the ultimate goal of their actions revolves around Hengtai."

"Revolves around you." Sun Binghe didn't say this explicitly, but Chu Yilan already understood.