After Sharing Senses with the Paranoid CEO, the Infamous Starlet was Forced into Pampering Chapter 8
Chapter 8: Infamy is Still Fame
There was a hint of eeriness in Xia Mu’s smile. He raised his fair, slender hand, deliberately using the silver bracelet on his wrist to quickly block the blow. Then, he grabbed back with a reverse grip, his fingernails sinking into the skin without hesitation.
Xia Mu felt a brief flash of regret; if he had known, he wouldn’t have trimmed his nails so short. If they were longer, they would have definitely hurt Zhu Yunhong even more.
Sure enough, Xia Mu saw Zhu Yunhong’s face turn ashen. He gritted his teeth, shaking with rage as he tried to contain his outburst.
After all these years of pent-up anger, this counted as a small bit of revenge. If it weren’t for his limited capabilities, Xia Mu would have loved to take him to court long ago, if only to stop him from ruining other artists in the company.
Zhu Yunhong hadn’t expected Xia Mu to actually fight back. He violently flung Xia Mu’s hand away, hissing through gritted teeth:
“Xia Mu, you—you dare hit back?”
“Hong-ge, you must have seen it wrong,” Xia Mu said, looking at Zhu Yunhong with a beaming smile. “I just blocked it subconsciously. After all, I still have to rely on my face for a living. If the paparazzi caught a photo of it, it wouldn’t be easy to explain, would it?”
“If there’s nothing else, I’ll go treat my wound first.” Xia Mu pointed to his forehead. “It wouldn’t be good if it left a scar.”
The moment he turned to leave, the smile on Xia Mu’s lips vanished.
He didn’t dare touch the still-bleeding forehead. Familiar with the layout, he walked toward the company’s internal infirmary.
Originally, Shengyi Entertainment didn’t have a doctor. How could a stingy boss ever spend money to hire one? But for some reason, several doctors had suddenly been transferred here a few years ago.
Xia Mu had initially thought they were just the boss’s relatives looking to idle their days away, but their medical skills were actually quite good.
Every time he had a minor scratch, or strained his waist during a stunt, or even when he fell from a horse a year ago, it was these company doctors who treated him.
Sometimes, when the company lacked the necessary medical equipment, they would personally take him to the best hospital in the province for check-ups.
What made Xia Mu curious was that other doctors in the hospital seemed to listen to them. But weren’t they just minor doctors in a company infirmary? How could they have such authority?
Xia Mu had asked before, but they were always vague. Xia Mu simply assumed they were experts who had come down to “experience life.”
When Xia Mu pushed open the infirmary door, only one doctor was on duty. Seeing Xia Mu enter with blood streaming down his head, Ren Zhilin was instantly startled. He hurried Xia Mu onto a bed to clean the wound.
Seeing the doctor’s tense expression, Xia Mu chuckled to comfort him:
“Lin-ge, it’s just a flesh wound. I’m fine.”
Ren Zhilin carefully wiped the blood from Xia Mu’s cheek. Catching a glimpse of Xia Mu’s indifferent attitude, he said irritably:
“A flesh wound? Fine? The blood has reached your chin and you call it fine?” Seeing Xia Mu obediently shut his mouth, Ren Zhilin sighed and continued, “How did you get this?”
“It’s nothing really. I just got hit with an ashtray.” Xia Mu lowered his eyelids, his long, curled lashes blinking occasionally.
Ren Zhilin didn’t stop his movements, but he secretly made a note of what Xia Mu said.
In the middle of a meeting, Li Yanzhou suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head. This familiar sensation—Li Yanzhou didn’t even need to guess to know that Xia Mu had hit his head.
Li Yanzhou frowned, pressing his temple in pain. The project staff member currently giving a report instinctively began to reflect on what had gone wrong. Li Yanzhou signaled for him to continue and then called for his assistant:
“What’s the situation with Xia Mu?”
The assistant was visibly taken aback, then answered in a low voice: “President Li, I’ll go find out.”
Li Yanzhou nodded, leaning back against the chair with his legs crossed. The pain on the right side of his forehead was intensifying. What exactly had happened to Xia Mu? He had only been gone for a moment. And he was at the company, not a film set—what kind of accident could he have possibly had?
The assistant, having received news of Xia Mu, quickly relayed the message to Li Yanzhou:
“Dr. Ren says Mr. Xia was injured near the hairline on the right side of his forehead. The weapon was… an ashtray.”
“Who did it? Investigate thoroughly.”
Hearing that Xia Mu had been hit by an ashtray, Li Yanzhou’s pupils constricted, and his voice turned cold. He couldn’t even bear to see a single hair on Xia Mu’s head harmed; who was so bold?
Li Yanzhou stood up and looked at the manager who had finished reporting the project’s progress:
“The progress is acceptable. Proceed with the original plan for the follow-up. Meeting adjourned.”
Li Yanzhou walked into his office, hooking his tie and loosening it casually. The wound on Xia Mu’s forehead had likely been treated, as the pain had subsided slightly.
In truth, Li Yanzhou could guess part of it. It was undoubtedly the negative publicity on the trending searches that had caused dissatisfaction at his company. After all, a “scandal” involving an actor before the drama had finished airing was a serious matter.
However, the trending searches weren’t entirely negative for Xia Mu. Li Yanzhou had seen his fansites praising him for being loyal and kind-hearted, not forgetting to take his cat even during an earthquake.
There were even several prominent lawyers who had weighed in, stating that Xia Mu’s actions were entirely correct. But these were mere drops in the bucket, long ago drowned out by marketing accounts that were paid to harass him.
Li Yanzhou pondered for a long time before opening a file on his desk and handing a document to his assistant:
“I remember the model for this project hasn’t been decided yet, right?”
“That’s correct, President Li.”
The assistant looked down and saw “EK Men’s Underwear Commercial Shoot” written on the cover. This brand’s underwear, with its minimalist design and comfortable experience, had practically become a benchmark in the male lingerie world.
When the EK business representatives had come looking, the assistant was still wondering which artist in the company would land the endorsement. Now that President Li had mentioned it, did he have someone in mind?
“Send it to Shengyi Entertainment and have the EK representatives coordinate with them. Specify Xia Mu as the spokesperson.”
“Give it to Mr. Xia??” The assistant was clearly stunned. “With his status… how can he? And with the controversy surrounding him, EK probably won’t use him, right?”
“Infamy is still fame. Why wouldn’t they use him?”
Li Yanzhou put down his phone. It was now close to noon, over ten hours since the earthquake. There were still twenty-three entries related to Xia Mu on the trending searches.
“Tell them I’ll write the slogan. Actually… I’ll call them personally.”
“Wh-what?”
The assistant was shocked. Li Yanzhou had transitioned to directing nearly five years ago. Previously, the slogans he’d casually written for several brands had all become massive hits, still famous to this day.
But after becoming a director and opening a media company, Li Yanzhou had stopped taking brand requests for slogans. Now, he was proactively offering to write one, and it was actually because of Xia Mu.
“Also… do you have the photo of Xia Mu selling jackfruit? Not the ambiguous one on the trending searches, but one that clearly shows the sign he wrote.”
“The dashcam should have it.” The assistant didn’t understand Li Yanzhou’s intention.
“Retrieve a few stills and send them to our usual media partners. Clarify that ‘selling himself’ trending search first.” Li Yanzhou tapped his finger on the desk. With so many negative searches, Shengyi was still doing nothing—what was the point of signing with such an agency?
“Understood. I’ll handle it immediately.”
The assistant turned to leave, unable to stop himself from twitching his lips.
Where was this concern earlier? Now he knows how to feel bad? And strictly speaking, the culprit behind this ‘selling himself’ mess was Li Yanzhou. If he hadn’t insisted on sending all those jackfruits in the middle of the night, Xia Mu wouldn’t have ended up with those extra black marks on the trending searches.
Having reported on Xia Mu’s situation for over a decade—rising from a private investigator to Li Yanzhou’s assistant—the truth was that the assistant quite liked this Xia Mu, who was lukewarm in fame but resilient and optimistic.
But suddenly giving him a commercial shoot that didn’t match his status… wouldn’t people just curse him for having a “Gold Master” behind his back?