Chapter 22: It’s Better to Take the First Move
Translator: Sissy That Walk
The alley was long and on the opposite side of the exit on the other side was a complex shopping mall.
He Bai walked behind Di Qiuhe with no expression on his face and asked, “Where are you taking me?”
Di Qiuhe pressed the brim of his cricket hat, raised his slender fingers and pointed to the mall across the street. “Go to the supermarket, buy steak, go home and cook.”
He Bai was surprised. “You can cook?”
“You invited me to eat steak.” Di Qiuhe turned his head to look at him, the corner of his mouth curled, his voice was low and gentle, but He Bai only found it very abominable, “Therefore, it is absolutely you who should cook, and I will choose the steak, you pay for it.”
“…I can’t cook.”
“Then learn.” Di Qiuhe patted him on the head like patting his wayward puppy. And he comforted He Bai in a I-don’t-care way, “Don’t be afraid, I’ll find you a cooking tutorial, if you blow up my kitchen, it’s okay, just compensate me, I will give you a 50% discount.”
“Thank you for your generosity….” He Bai shook his head and shook off his hand.
Di Qiuhe raised his eyebrow, took back his hand and gently tugged at his hair. He smiled contentedly, “Don’t always show me your admiration, I will feel embarrassed.”
“…” It was impossible to communicate with someone who had no sense of shame.
Finishing buying the ingredients with the fastest speed, Di Qiuhe paid the bill, crossed the alley and returned to his car with He Bai.
As soon as He Bai got in the car, he immediately took his camera bag into his arms and took out his cell phone. He looked at Di Qiuhe, saying, “Tell me your account number and I will transfer the money to you.” Since he said he would treat, then he would pay the bill. It was an accident that Di Qiuhe paid for those ingredients just now. His wallet, cell phone and camera bag were all left in the car and that was why he could not pay.
“I only accept cash.” Di Qiuhe leaned over to help him fasten his seat belt, then he sat up, fastened his own seat belt, and started the car. “And brand-new notes only.”
The handsome face of that man approached and left. He could smell a faint smell of male perfume. He Bai stayed still with his wallet in hand for a moment, and then gritted his teeth, “Di Qiuhe, you are doing this on purpose!”
“You finally found out.” Di Qiuhe turned the car around and drove towards his residence. He looked sideways at him with a smile. “So, you want to continue beating me now? Little puppy, my shoulder hurts a little, which may affect the filming progress later. Do you want to pay me for my loss of working time?
He Bai put away his cell phone with a sullen face and decided to change a pile of coins to bash this bastard.
The car drove into the underground garage of a high-grade residential area. He Bai carried his camera bag and computer case, Di Qiuhe carried the food ingredients, and they stood side by side at the elevator entrance.
Click.
He Bai turned his head sensitively and looked at a dark corner of the garage.
“What’s wrong?” Di Qiuhe turned to look at him. He took off the hat and pulled his fingers through his hair. His posture was quite relaxed. “Is the computer too heavy? Give it to me and I will carry it for you.
There was another faint sound of the shutter. He Bai frowned. He decisively put the computer into Di Qiuhe’s arms, took out his camera, adjusted the exposure number, turned on the flash lamp and pressed the shutter madly toward the dark place.
Ding! The elevator arrived.
Di Qiuhe realized that something was wrong. He turned his head toward that dim spot, squinted, and asked, “Somebody is snapping photos?”
“Yes, if it is not that I play with the camera myself and am very sensitive to the shutter sound, I probably would not have found it.” He Bai nodded, put down his camera and turned to look at him. “Should we call a security guard?”
“Of course.” Di Qiuhe took out his cell phone and made a phone call to the property management office. Then, it seemed as if something came to his mind. He smiled, grabbed He Bai on the shoulder in an intimate gesture, took him to the elevator and said, “Little puppy, do you want to make a scene?”
With the weight imposed on his shoulder, He Bai could feel the body temperature of Di Qiuhe transmitted through his two layers of clothes. He felt uncomfortable when two people who were not really familiar with each other did such intimate actions. But he was afraid that Di Qiuhe had done it deliberately for the photographer to see, so he waited patiently for the elevator door to close before he stepped aside, pulled Di Qiuhe’s hand off and asked with a frown, “What are you going to do?”
Di Qiuhe took back his hand, pressed the button of the top floor, looked up at the direction of the camera in the elevator, and curled up his lips. “It is better to take the first move.”
He Bai also looked at the direction of the camera in the elevator. Something blurry appeared in his head and disappeared quickly. He rubbed his forehead doubtfully and grasped the belt of his camera bag unconsciously. Snapped photographs, elevator, Di Qiuhe… It seemed as if he had ever heard some sentence or phrase with these three connected together somewhere?
Di Qiuhe lived in a large duplex apartment. Most space of the first floor was broken through and a large living room was formed. There was a small room in the corner adjacent to the living room. That was Di Qiuhe’s bedroom. The second floor was empty and the decoration was of the deserted style. It did not look like a home, but rather like a temporary hotel.
He Bai stood in front of the landing window and looked out at the broad city view.
He felt the hatred of the rich in his heart was roaring for a moment. Then he turned his head to look at Di Qiuhe who was walking towards this side with a plate of fruit on his hand and He Bai quietly felt the jealousy.
Broad shoulder, narrow waist, long legs, fair skin, rich and handsome face, it made him very upset when comparing himself with Di Qiuhe.
“Eat some fruit to first to line your stomach, I will search for cooking recipe for you.” Di Qiuhe put down the fruit and walked toward him. Suddenly he put his arm on He Bai’s shoulder and took a picture of them with his cell phone.
“What are you doing?” He Bai moved sideways to avoid his arm.
“As I said, it’s better to take the first move.” Di Qiuhe took back his arm before He Bai completely got out of the way. Then he went to the sofa, took out a laptop, hit the keyboard for a few times, turned the screen to He Bai and clicked to play the video, “Okay, the cooking tutorial of fried steak has been found, watch it and cook.”
He Bai, who was waiting to see him make a scene, could not help but stare at him, “The first move you mean is this?” ‘To arouse one’s curiosity yet fail to meet the satisfaction is what animals do!
“In a second.” Di Qiuhe picked up his cell phone and took a quick picture of He Bai staring at him. Then he pointed at He Bai’s camera bag on the sofa and said, “You don’t mind me borrowing the pictures you just took, right?”
An impatient person would probably get furious at his casual and care-for-nothing style.
He Bai raised the corner of his mouth, stepped forward to pull the memory card out of the camera, took out a card reader, inserted the memory card in the card reader, and put it in front of him. “Use it as you wish, as long as you do not delete my photos.”
“Good boy.” Di Qiuhe reached out to touch his head.
He Bai resolutely picked up a pillow and slammed it into his face.
Di Qiuhe pulled down the pillow and smiled gently, lowering his head.
The laughter was clear and melodious, echoing in the living room and matching his handsome side face when he lowered his head. It was so perfect that it looked like a painting.
He Bai was so attempted. He could not help but picked up the camera and pressed the shutter at Di Qiuhe, and then found that the camera was not working without the memory card. He rolled his eyes and sat across Di Qiuhe, pulling the computer to him to watch the cooking lessons attentively.
“You can take the photographs as soon as my work is done. Don’t get angry.” Di Qiuhe pushed the fruit tray to He Bai, then pulled out a computer from the interlayer of the tea table, opened the computer, plugged in the card reader, and quickly operated.
The tone of that sentence just now seemed to have a gentle and friendly touch…No, it was all illusions. Such a terrible fellow had nothing to do with the word gentleness! He Bai rubbed his forehead and tried to fix his eyes on the video.
Eight minutes later, the cooking video was over and the sound of Di Qiuhe typing letters stopped.
“All right.” Di Qiuhe snapped his finger.
He Bai looked up at him.
“Look at this.” Di Qiuhe turned the computer to him, got up and went to the kitchen.
He Bai pulled his computer closer with curiosity and touched the touchpad with his finger.
On the computer screen was the website of Weibo, Di Qiuhe’s account was logged in, and there was a new post on it.
Di Qiuhe: When I came home from recording scene, I met one of my junior alumni and invited him to come to my home. But what was unexpected was that we met a reporter who followed us to take pictures. My junior alumni studies at the school of journalism played with the reporter and took some pictures of the reporter. How many points do you think he could get with these photos? [Picture] X 9
He Bai clicked open the pictures one by one and found that the first eight pictures were all the pictures of that “pup”arazi shot by him, all of those pictures were pixelated. The remaining one was the selfie of him with Di Qiuhe and only his face was pixelated.
A few minutes later, hundreds of comments were left below that post. He took a glance at those comments below and found that they could mainly be divided into four types: first, directly scored the photos; second, criticized the “pup”arazi for being shameless and complimented Di Qiuhe’s junior alumni for doing a good job; third, analyzed the location of where the photos were taken and finally drew the conclusion that the location was the garage, hence it could be concluded that the “pup”arazi followed Di Qiuhe to his home; fourth, cursed Di Qiuhe for being selfish, abusing the influence of a public figure to expose the appearance of the “pup”arazi, inciting the fans to scold the “pup”arazi, making a fuss, being petty and abusing cyber violence.
This was indeed a scene, but that was all? Posted a Weibo message to let others curse him?
He Bai did not understand what Di Qiuhe was thinking. Just when he was ready to ask Di some questions, he found several webpages beside the Weibo page. He clicked those webpages open in confusion.
It was another Weibo page which stayed on the homepage of a marketing account. On the top of that webpage was a tip-off newly posted.
I love gossip, I am proud: Explosive news, explosive news! A handsome young star surnamed D was forced out by his previous employer and he terminated his contract in anger. Tip: This handsome young star surnamed D has been rumored to have an affair with a new TV host and it is rumored that he is actually the younger master of his previous company. However, you get a stepfather when you get a stepmother. so…You know.
He Bai opened his mouth slightly and clicked on the remaining webpages in a hurry.
There were seven or eight webpages in total. Except for the first one which was the homepage of Di Qiuhe’s Weibo account, the rest were all the homepages of various marketing accounts. Various tip-offs were posted at similar times, all related to Di Qiuhe. Most of them were negative news. He could foresee how lively Weibo would be during this period of time.
“Finished watching them all?” Di Qiuhe came out with two glasses of juice. He put a glass in front of him, sat across him with his hand supporting his chin, laughing. “This is the first batch, the second batch will catch up immediately, and I will end up being scolded very miserably, and then cancel my Weibo account desperately, disappear in public view from now on until my new work comes on the market.”
The vague things in his mind suddenly became clear. He recalled the personal interview with Di Qiuhe before he was reborn. It was mentioned that Di Qiuhe had to be forced out by his employer due to some negative news and he cancelled his Weibo account in depressed mood. It was not until the Immortal Way came out that he reappeared in front of the public, and then he clarified the negative news posted before with substantial evidence.
The negative news posted at that time seemed to be something like “the handsome young star is suspected of losing control due to his use of drugs, he pulled the sneaky paparazzi into the elevator and caused serious injuries to that paparazzi, leading him on the verge of death”. When this happened, he was reviewing his studying courses around the clock and just took a careless look at that news. Even though he just followed that news in such a casual way, he probably knew how miserable that handsome young star was bullied by the mass media in that year.
In this way, if he did not come back with Di Qiuhe today, Di Qiuhe would probably be blocked in the elevator by that paparazzi, causing the extremely sensational “seriously injured reporter” incident in his previous life? The first move referred by Di Qiuhe turned out to be sabotaging his own reputation before those reporters did?
“Are you nuts?” He Bai could not help asking.