First Kiss Diary - Chapter 24
Ji Ning accelerated her pace with a bit of confusion. Faced with the displeased look of the man, her mind seemed to freeze, popping up invalid pop-ups one after another.
She twisted open the water handed to her by Nuo Nuo, leaned against the door to catch her breath, took a moment to calm down, and then it hit her.
Was it because she had just posted a selfie with Zhuo Gong? Although it was the crew who asked her to post that Star CP business photo.
Ji Shiyan’s position was so prominent, shooting magazines together with her for so long, waiting for her here for so long, and in her anxious rush, she checked Weibo, only to find herself leisurely posting selfies?
Anyone would be angry.
She hurriedly explained, “That Weibo was… the crew asked me to post it yesterday and today, and since I knew I’d be busy today, I randomly set a time, so I just sent it. I wasn’t playing on Weibo at that time, I was on my way here.”
“Sorry for making everyone wait so long.”
“I see you were smiling happily in the photos.” Someone was clearly still displeased.
Ji Ning swallowed, “Just trying to make a living.”
Ji Shiyan hadn’t smiled yet, Jiang Sheng laughed first, “Haha, well said, money is damn hard to earn!”
So this was the reason why she played bounce ball with another man on a show a few days ago and today posted a selfie with another man, creating rumors of a boyfriend for herself?
Ji Shiyan hooked the corner of his lips expressionlessly, “Then you’ll have to work hard to make a living again soon.”
The girl choked for a moment, her face flushed, and it took her a while to say, “This doesn’t count as making a living…”
Jiang Sheng immediately interjected for Ji Ning, “Being with the handsome Ji is enjoying life, even if you don’t earn a penny, it’s still something people long for.”
Ji Ning nodded repeatedly, feeling for the first time that Jiang Sheng’s words were just right: “Yes, that’s right!”
It seems that being talkative can sometimes really save the day.
Even though she knew Ji Ning was just going along with Jiang Sheng’s lead, at least he was a bit different—although this difference might just be a deception.
But who wanted to delve into it?
The man’s complexion finally eased up slowly, Jiang Sheng sighed in relief, and exchanged a relieved glance with Ji Ning who had finally been appeased.
“Really sorry, there was a traffic jam on the way,” Ji Ning said as she handed out the coffee bought by Nuo Nuo. She distributed them to the staff one by one, “Sorry for the long wait, everyone.”
“It’s okay, the photographer is stuck in traffic too,” someone holding coffee chuckled, “take a break until the photographer arrives and calls for you.”
This time, Ji Ning and Ji Shiyan received an invitation from the fashion magazine “Flame Hunting” to shoot the cover for a special issue for Double Eleven.
While others focused on singles for Double Eleven, “Flame Hunting” focused on heartbroken lovers, no wonder the magazine had made a unique mark in the fashion magazine industry over the years.
Today, they were being photographed by the well-known photographer Shen Tong, a woman, and the wife of Nie Jianglan.
Ji Ning figured she might be able to help Song Yu get a signed photo from Nie Jianglan.
When Shen Tong arrived, they could also do some styling. Following Shen Tong’s suggestion, the stylist gave Ji Ning a lazy curly hairstyle and changed her into a velvet camisole dress, like pajamas, with a hint of deliberate ambiguity.
When the scene was set up, Shen Tong arrived. Ji Ning stepped barefoot on the pure white velvet carpet, her ample experience allowing her to sense the style of today: a subtle ambiguity, a cold tease, and a seduction of advancing and retreating.
It was difficult to shoot, but once done, it would be very eye-catching.
Compared to her, Ji Shiyan was dressed much more formally, with a meticulously buttoned shirt, a suit without wrinkles, a neat tie. At first glance, it was completely the epitome of abstinence, but with slightly disheveled hair and barefoot, it added a hint of profound meaning to the character.
This photographer indeed had ideas, no wonder it was said that taking a set of photos from her was especially expensive.
Shen Tong didn’t rush to let them interact at the beginning. The two of them played freely for a while, and then Shen Tong slowly got to the point: “Ning Ning, take a cherry from the table and then go pull Ji Shiyan’s tie.”
Really? Then I must be really bold. Ji Ning looked at the lighting board in front of her, feeling a bit absent-minded.
But the basic attitude for work had to be brought out. Ji Ning seemingly calmly picked up a cherry and bit into it, then turned around, approached, and slowly slid her fingers down Ji Shiyan’s tie, hooking the knot, and gently pulled it out.
The light outlined her delicate neck line, her skin as smooth as porcelain. The girl raised her head slowly under the man’s gaze, as if offering the food in her mouth, her eyes teasing.
In fact, Ji Ning’s ankles were trembling, and she was a bit unsteady on her feet. Her mind was completely mush, relying on her actor’s instincts to forcefully carry out the action.
Ji Shiyan lowered his head, his lips slightly red, bringing a hint of girlishness.
His Adam’s apple rolled.
“Okay, this set is good.” Shen Tong smiled, “You two are really good at this. I only said one sentence and you understood my meaning. No wonder…”
Shen Tong hadn’t finished speaking when Ji Shiyi pulled Ji Ning away and hurriedly walked towards the sidelines.
Shen Tong paused and asked Ji Ning, “What’s wrong with him?”
Ji Ning sat down and pressed his trembling legs: “I don’t know, maybe he got a phone call.”
It couldn’t be because of her flirting with him.
Ji Shiyi, the renowned movie star, had acted in numerous romantic scenes and promotional photoshoots, collaborated with countless sexy actresses, and today’s photos weren’t even provocative; they merely left room for imagination.
But Ji Shiyi wasn’t someone who entertained such thoughts.
So, he must have had something else to attend to.
Ji Shiyi returned before the next set of photoshoots, changed clothes, and they took another set of photos in the style of the Republic of China.
Ji Ning put on a familiar cheongsam and teased her hair in front of him.
When they reviewed the photos, even the staff couldn’t help but exclaim, “The three of you are unbeatable, and these photos are so full of feeling.”
While Ji Ning was looking at the photos, she suddenly heard a voice asking softly, “Do you take photos like this with other actresses?”
The voice was neither light nor heavy, amidst the noise, it sounded like an illusion.
Ji Ning turned to Ji Shiyi in confusion, “Did you say something?”
Ji Shiyi opened his eyes, “No.”
――
Today, the two only had a magazine photoshoot scheduled, and after that, they rushed to their respective other commitments.
Ji Shiyi had to continue shooting the endorsement ad he hadn’t finished before, so the RV sped towards the shooting location.
He rested on the sofa for a while before taking out his phone.
He opened Weibo but didn’t know what to look at.
He scrolled through his recent searches, wanting to see if “Hidden Marriage Wife” had posted any insights about the shoot.
After refreshing three times, “Hidden Marriage Wife” hadn’t posted anything new.
Ji Shiyi stared at the homepage for a while, and Jiang Sheng leaned over, “Do you know you look like a pervert like this?”
Ji Shiyi: ?
Jiang Sheng obviously noticed what he was looking at, “Does this top star have some strange fetish? Are you stalking fans when you have nothing to do? You’ve been refreshing several times in a row. Are you planning to seduce fans?”
“Can you stop insulting my integrity?”
“Then tell me, why are you looking at a fan’s profile thousands of times and visiting it frequently?”
Jiang Sheng looked like he’d seen everything, “Tell me, what are you doing?”
Ji Shiyi: “It’s none of your business.”
“So you do want to seduce fans.”
“…”
“Seduce fans, seduce fans, seduce fans.”
Under Jiang Sheng’s almost mentally polluting pestering, Ji Shiyi couldn’t take it anymore and told the truth, “It’s Ji Ning’s alternate account.”
“Nonsense, does Ji Ning have an alternate account? Ji Ning doesn’t have an alternate account!”
Jiang Sheng found it even more bizarre, “Last time in the dressing room, Xiao He and I heard her say it herself.”
Jiang Sheng called the driver for confirmation, “Xiao He, is that right?”
Xiao He took a while before saying, “It seems like it, Chen Jie and the others asked if she had an alternate account, and she said no.”
“And then?”
“And then what? I don’t remember.”
Like remembering something, Jiang Sheng laughed heartily, “I f… Ji Shiyi, do you really think Ji Ning is your fan?!”
Ji Shiyi said, “She looked very nervous when she dropped her phone in front of me, so it seems like it’s her alternate account.”
“Why couldn’t she be looking at what her fans are posting secretly and feel embarrassed when you found out? Even if her phone fell in front of you, she should still be nervous. It’s not like scripts, which are public.”
Ji Shiyi fell silent and didn’t speak for a long time.
Jiang Sheng’s words weren’t very trustworthy, but Xiao He didn’t lie.
Since Xiao He heard it, it meant Ji Ning had said she didn’t have an alternate account herself.
Ji Shiyi continued somewhat reluctantly, “Couldn’t she be lying because she’s afraid her alternate account will be exposed?”
Jiang Sheng laughed even more heartily, “So you really think she likes you? Seriously, Ji Shiyi, even Happy Twist comedies don’t make me laugh this much. You’re truly the person who amuses Jiang Sheng the most.”
Ji Shiyi glanced over with a hostile gaze, “Either I throw you out of the car or you jump out yourself, pick one.”
Jiang Sheng immediately stopped talking.
The car continued on its way, and Ji Shiyi held his phone, furrowing his brows tightly as he stared out the window.
――
“Are we almost done? Once we’re ready, we’ll leave!” Nuo Nuo knocked on Ji Ning’s door. “The person in charge over there is almost here.”
Ji Ning picked up the ear studs from the table and twisted them into her ears. “Okay, I’m ready.” Today she was going to negotiate an endorsement contract for a national accessory brand. Normally, this kind of thing would be handled by the company, but considering that Huang Miao had basically disappeared and Sun He might interfere, Ji Ning decided to handle it herself, even if it meant the company would still take a large cut after her negotiation.
The person in charge of the negotiation had already been waiting in the private room downstairs. As soon as Ji Ning sat down, the woman on the other side handed her a contract. “Take a look.” Ji Ning casually flipped through it and found many discrepancies. Perhaps because they saw she didn’t have the company backing her, many clauses seemed to be designed to take advantage of newcomers. In some sense, it was a bit disrespectful.
After looking for about ten minutes, Ji Ning glanced at the woman’s empty coffee cup. “Have you finished your coffee?” The woman nodded, smiling. “Shall we…” “Let’s head back,” Ji Ning politely curved her lips. “Let’s go, Nuo Nuo.” Needless to say, Nuo Nuo was stunned, and the woman opposite her was even more shocked.
Ji Ning didn’t consider herself to have a bad temper, but this contract was really infuriating, blatantly bullying her as a newcomer. “After reviewing the contract you provided, I feel that your company is not very sincere, so…” The woman quickly interrupted Ji Ning. “We are very sincere about wanting to collaborate with you. Is there something unsatisfactory? How could that be? We are offering the best terms available in the market!”
Ji Ning tilted her head and pushed the contract over. “Perhaps I misunderstood.” The woman opened the contract and glanced through it, then suddenly slapped her forehead as if she had just remembered something, putting on an exaggerated performance: “I handed you the wrong one!” “This contract was written by a new employee I instructed. She doesn’t understand the market, so I asked her to write down some terms casually, and I’ll come to revise them when it’s confirmed.”
The woman took out another stack of papers from her bag, looked through them briefly, then sincerely fake smiled, “This is the final version.” To be honest, the effort put into acting was noticeable, but in front of Ji Ning, those small mistakes became more apparent. It was simply carrying two contracts, giving her a worse one if she seemed easy to bully, and a better one if she didn’t.
However, the woman didn’t expect Ji Ning to be prepared, not being legally ignorant, and already knowing the market situation well—after all, many things nowadays could only rely on oneself. Considering the company’s reputation and the subsequent advertising campaigns, Ji Ning renegotiated the terms, tentatively preparing to accept, but she still needed to have the lawyer look over it again, think it over, and then decide whether to sign it.
With the endorsement matter settled, the next day there was the filming of “First Kiss Diary”, and Ji Ning was like a busy machine, bustling from one thing to another. Fortunately, tonight wasn’t too busy. She logged into her alternate account and planned to browse through Ji Shiyi’s posts. She hadn’t been online for several days and felt like she was losing touch with the fan circle.
Song Yu couldn’t change her talkative nature and used her alternate account to repost pictures of various male stars, actively creating intimate relationships with all the handsome guys. But since it was an alternate account, nobody paid attention, so Ji Ning didn’t care. After scrolling through the dozens of Weibo posts Song Yu had made in the past few days, she suddenly noticed Song Yu’s likes.
Song Yu had liked a set of silver-haired pictures of Gu Yulin. In the pictures, Gu Yulin was wearing a uniform with silver hair, looking like a young man. If she remembered correctly, the hashtag #IdolBeautifulHairColor# had trended before, with fans showing off their idol’s manga-like hair colors in pink, blue, or white, like a celebration of fangirls.
For ordinary people, changing hair color might be a disaster, but for handsome idols, it was part of their business. Every new hair color or hairstyle would make fans shed hot tears of excitement. But Ji Shiyi hadn’t dyed any particularly special hair colors since her debut, just switching between black, brown, and ash. Who wouldn’t want to see an idol’s beautiful silver hair pictures?
Ji Ning pressed the repost button on Gu Yulin’s pictures, but what she sent out was: “The most regrettable thing is that our Ayu Ayu hasn’t dyed silver hair. I’m going crazy asking for silver-haired Ayu Ayu T.T” Ten minutes later, after Ji Shiyi finished shooting the advertisement, he got into the car, still thinking, and eventually opened Weibo.
He wanted to take another look at the hidden marriage wife’s account to see if it was really Ji Ning’s account, and whether Ji Ning was really… his fan.
Open the Weibo of the secretly married wife, and found that she just reposted a fresh post about another man. The man narrowed his eyes unhappily, but upon closer inspection, his expression eased slightly.
Finally, there’s a Weibo post related to him. Does this mean she finally remembered him? But… what is “Ah Yan Yan”? Jiang Sheng fanned herself on the side, “It’s starting again, isn’t it?” The man raised his lips, “It’s starting, do you have any objections?” “I dare not, I dare not…”
——
Early the next morning, after finishing his makeup, Ji Ning energetically went to the filming location of “First Kiss Diary.” When she arrived, Ji Shiyan was already getting his hair done. Ji Ning glanced at her watch; she was early enough, so how come Ji Shiyan was so much earlier than her? She tilted her head and asked, “Why are you doing your hair so early?”
“It’s not early,” the stylist said, “he’s changing his hair color, dyeing takes time.” Her girlish heart skipped a beat, and she forgot to blink, “What… color?” The man turned around and looked at her, casually lifting his eyelids, “Silver.”
…Silver?! She could still recall the scene she prayed for on Weibo last night, and today this person confidently announced in front of her that he’s going to change his hair color to silver? Ji Ning felt like she was having a myocardial infarction.
She maintained her usual calm on the surface, but her heart was burning to the point where nothing could grow where it passed—Oh! My! God! When Ji Ning finished her makeup and hair, the man’s hair color had also been changed. It looked as good as she had expected.
That face was exquisite and high-class, coupled with this kind of cold and arrogant hair color, he was simply divine, a deity reincarnated. Only suitable for distant admiration, breathing too hard felt like tarnishing him. Ji Ning slowed her breathing, feeling a bit dizzy in her ears, she tugged at her earlobes, inexplicably blushing a bit, probably due to lack of oxygen.
Well, it couldn’t possibly be because she felt that Ji Shiyan was fulfilling her wish, right?
After the morning shoot, with ten minutes of break time, Ji Ning went to the rest area to touch up her makeup. Ji Shiyan in the RV seemed to sense something, he opened his phone and found that “Ji Shiyan’s Secretly Married Wife” had posted again, with no punctuation throughout, pouring out in one breath—
“I died on the spot, cried a river, spiraled fervently, froze in an ice coffin for five hundred years, only to wake up and witness Ji Shiyan’s stunning silver hair, too handsome, really too handsome.” Ji Shiyan couldn’t explain why he read it several times, perhaps because it was slowly being punctuated, but Jiang Sheng suddenly leaned over and asked, “Did you win the lottery? You’re smiling like you’ve won eight hundred million from heaven.”
He lowered his eyes without saying a word, his slender fingers sliding across the screen, refreshing the page. Three seconds ago, the girl sent another rainbow fart, succinctly expressing her true feelings with four words: “I’m almost dead.”