Chapter 160: Ch 160: Late and Talent Show

"I’m here!"

The voice carried across the whole field—loud, ragged with panic, and threaded through with guilt that did not bother to hide.

Every head turned.

PD Xu Cui came into view at a run, Shen Guoxing still asleep in the cradle of his left arm and Mo Yan’s stroller pushed ahead with his right hand. Shen Guoxing’s head rested against his shoulder without stirring; Mo Yan’s stroller rolled with the stubborn stability of something that had already survived worse than a sprint across village ground.

He stopped in front of his secretary hard enough that the stroller rocked once and settled.

Seeing them, Su Wanyan and Mo Xingxue were already moving—steps quick, hands half-raised, the clear intention to reclaim both children and free him from the last of the favor. PD Xu Cui lifted his free hand before they reached him. The gesture was small. The smile that went with it was also small, but it was firm enough that they both halted.

He glanced past them at the guests scattered in their own loose occupations, and the tightness in his chest eased a fraction.

"Whew. Luckily I’m not late," he muttered.

The secretary’s temple pulsed once, his veins visible.

"Yeah," he said, voice low and cold. "You’re not late."

PD Xu Cui turned toward him with a hopeful smile already forming. "Righ—"

The secretary exploded.

"You’re super late!"

The words left him in a controlled detonation. Weeks of deliberately mysterious session planning—secrets kept even from the crew, schedules that refused to solidify until the last possible second—had left staff scrambling and guests standing in empty stretches of time that should have been filled. The mess was not theoretical. It had names, missed cues, and a morning spent staring at an empty path while farming talk did the work a producer was supposed to do.

He drew breath to continue the reprimand—

—and then the weight in PD Xu Cui’s arm and the quiet shape in the stroller reasserted themselves. The children were still asleep. The lateness had a reason that was not laziness and not indifference. It was two small bodies that had needed someone present, and the man in front of him had chosen them over the clock.

The secretary forced the anger down in deliberate layers.

It was for these princesses. Not because he was feeling lazy. It was for these princesses...

He repeated it until the pulse in his temple settled. When he straightened again, politeness had been reconstructed over the wreckage.

He bowed.

"A pleasant morning to you, PD."

The greeting was clean. Shameless, almost, in how thoroughly it covered the shout that had preceded it.

PD Xu Cui was still blinking through the aftershock. A beat passed before he found his voice.

"U-uh. Yeah. Good morning to you too."

Surprise faded by degrees. That’s the second time he’s snapped at me, he thought—and found, to his own mild astonishment, that the realization did not sting. If anything, it landed warm. A crew that still whispered around him would never have dared the volume. Comfort looked, sometimes, like a secretary willing to yell about lateness and then bow as if the yell had never happened.

Good. Good.

He nodded to himself, private and satisfied, then turned toward the two staff members lingering at the edge of the cluster.

"Hey. You two."

They answered in unison, glancing at each other first in shared bewilderment.

"Come hold these two angels for me."

The smile he offered them left little room for refusal. They came forward. He transferred Shen Guoxing with careful hands into the arms of the staff on his left; the man took the weight with a flicker of surprise and a silent breath of relief when the child did not wake. Mo Yan’s stroller followed to the second staff member—baby still deeply under, a small contented curve at the corner of her mouth, as if the sprint across the field had been nothing more than a change in scenery.

A few quiet instructions passed between them. Then PD Xu Cui turned fully to the guests, bright professional energy sliding back into place over the residual guilt.

"Good morning, everyone!" PD Xu Cui first greeted them enthusiastically. "I apologize I’m late." The chuckle that followed was awkward and honest.

The answering good mornings came easily. The apology was waved off before it could even settle.

"Hey—you were taking care of the children. It’s okay." Zhao Yichen’s smile was steady and without edge.

Qin Yuran nodded hard beside him. "Exactly~! It’s not like you were fooling around." She hooked an arm around Zhao Yichen’s neck as she said it; he returned the hold without missing a beat, the two of them a brief, matched parenthesis of solidarity.

PD Xu Cui chuckled at the pair and nodded his thanks. His gaze swept the gathering once more—and snagged on the absence.

"Where’s Gu Chengze and Lin Xuanyu?"

Han Jiho drew the answer out with deliberate laziness.

"Oh, that."

He pointed back toward the open field.

The missing pair was visible at a distance: walking the edge of the worked ground, shoulders nearly brushing—close enough that the line of their bodies suggested a private circuit.

Then, as if the same current had touched both of them at once, they flinched apart. The gap that opened between them was sudden, almost theatrical, two people caught mid-proximity and scrambling to pretend the proximity had never existed.

Su Wanyan, watching the flinch-and-separate from across the field, felt her stomach turn.

She held the reaction down with effort. Vomiting on camera was not on the morning’s agenda, and she had survived worse than two people performing proximity and then recoiling as if the air between them had bitten. Still—the sight sat wrong.

To not show any inappropriate reactions, Su Wanyan looked down at her feet—as if she had just found the most interesting thing in the world.

Meanwhile, the others did not bother with restraint.

Qin Yuran and Zhao Yichen, arms still on each other’s neck, looked at each other first. Agreement passed in a glance. Then they broke into open laughter—loud, unkind in the most affectionate way, the sound of people who had watched a performance and found it hilarious.

The omegas’ response was cooler.

Han Jiho scoffed once, short and dry, and left it at that. Song Meiyu managed a few polite claps and a smile that never fully reached her eyes—awkward enough that the effort itself was visible.

Mo Xingxue did not look at all. She kept her attention on the nearer ground, on Su Wanyan’s shoulder, on anything that was not the pair by the rows. Two people she had already filed under "psychopath" did not get to claim the rest of her morning. She refused to let them.

PD Xu Cui whistled under his breath.

"Looks like their love is blossoming, huh?"

The line was deliberately teasing. The tone underneath it was not. Something cold rode along the edges of the words—thin, unmistakable, gone almost as soon as it appeared if you were not listening for it. A few of the closer staff glanced at him and then carefully away.

He beckoned one of them over and gave a quiet instruction: fetch the pair. He had something to announce. The staff member nodded and set off across the field at a purposeful walk.

While the retrieval was underway, the barrage did what the barrage always did.

[LMAO, THEIR REACTION IS SO FUNNY!]

[I’m sorry but Gu Chengze and Lin Xuanyu are like those cringe main characters in a Mary Sue novel.]

[LOL, ACCURATE!]

[...Why did Gu Chengze flinch like that when their shoulders touched? I thought he was experienced in the "physical" activity? Why’s he acting like a 14-year-old virgin alpha who touched an omega’s hand for the first time?]

[Dang. What a long rant right there, downstairs.]

[I’m passionate.. just like when we’re in be—]

[STOP RIGHT THERE!]

[Help, why is their reaction so cold TvT?]

[Cold like Gu Chengze’s ass.]

[...What? ...What?]

[...ANYWAY! I’m in heaven seeing them exclude the two.]

[...Why are you IN heaven?]

[I DIDN’T MEAN THAT!]

[The guests when a ship sails: OOOOOH! GET A ROOM!

When ChengYu sails: ....ohh.. yay...]

[HASHAJAHA this made mr laugh so fucking hard!]

[...Who’s Mr. Laugh and why was he hard?]

[OH, COME ON!]

[There’s so many things going on in this comment section...]

The chat spun further from the original subject with every line. On the field, the subject itself was walking back under escort.

Finally, Gu Chengze and Lin Xuanyu arrived in front of PD Xu Cui with the air of people who would rather have stayed among the rows. PD Xu Cui waved at them with theatrical brightness.

"Good morning~" he greeted them, mischief sat openly in his eyes.

Lin Xuanyu returned the greeting without breaking character—sweet, measured, the practiced innocence still fitted in place. Gu Chengze did not bother. He glared at the producer as if eye contact alone might accomplish what fists had failed to do in a different clearing on a different day.

PD Xu Cui’s smile only deepened.

"Got anything to say to me, Gu Chengze?"

The question stayed light. The pressure under it did not. For a man the CEO of Zen Corporation had privately ranked as weak and insignificant, Xu Cui could still lean on a silence until it felt heavier than volume. Gu Chengze held the glare a second longer, then hmphed and turned his face away.

PD Xu Cui chuckled.

The moment other people’s attention drifted—cameras, guests, the small logistics of a field between segments—the cold returned to his eyes in a clean flash, sharp and assessing. Then it vanished again just as quickly, smooth enough that anyone who blinked might have decided they imagined it.

"Okay, okay. Settle down."

The guests turned toward him, the familiar half-ready posture of people waiting to be assigned the next ordeal.

He smiled at them. Then he dropped the morning’s next weight without warning.

"What you’re going to do next is show your talent."

The guests went still.

"Talent?" Han Jiho asked under his breath. The word was so quiet that distant birdsong should have buried it. In the sudden hush, however, every person present heard it clearly.

PD Xu Cui’s smile did not waver.

"Yes, Han Jiho. Talent."

He confirmed it as if he had not just thrown every guest under the same bus, and the bus was already in motion.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

OMG! HI, GUYS! DID Y’ALL MISS ME?? LOL. Anyway, I’m so sorry for not uploading for a long time! I was so busy with my personal life that I didn’t have time to write. And after that settled, I had to prepare for our midterms examination. Then after that, I didn’t have any energy to write (burnout at its finest).

Also, I’m so sorry if the quality right now is bad and it feels kinda rushed. I’m trying to get back to how I used to write. As like, all the things I had written these past few days were all academic shit, causing me to lose all my flair and flowery words. I ask y’all for forgiveness this time! I’ll make it up to y’all! I promise!