Chapter 09: Formally meeting

Crossing the corridor and walking to the end, Song Yu closed the corner of his mouth with a cold smile and twisted the door handle.

Inside the door, Zhou Yanqing, who was sitting for a while, wanted to go to the pantry to pour a glass of water. Who knew that when he touched the door handle, the door was open by itself. He almost hit Song Yu's chin with his head.

When he suddenly met Song Yu's deep lake-like eyes, Zhou Yanqing fell into them, unaware that there was another person behind Song Yu.

Meng Shiping coughed dryly, and Zhou Yanqing came back to his senses. He hurriedly took a step back. He lowered his head and stammered as he greeted, "Teach...Teacher Song, hello." 

Zhou Yanqing's ears unconsciously began to flush red. Like a reckless fan, he couldn't say a complete sentence in front of his idol. He had seen Song Yu laughing, crying, angry, desperate and so on, but that was all on the screen. Even with sufficient mental preparation, Zhou Yanqing was still dazzled by the real Song Yu in front of him. 

"This is Zhou Yanqing, you've read the resume. He will be your work assistant from now on." Meng Shiping opened his mouth to introduce and added, "Xiao Zhou, go make a cup of coffee for Teacher Song." 

"Okay." The two looked like they had something to talk about, so Zhou Yanqing had the common sense to prepare to go out.

“Zhou Yanqing…”

When passing by Song Yu, Zhou Yanqing seemed to hear him murmur his name. His voice was so light that the sound could be blown away with a single breath.

He suspected that he had not slept well for the past few days and had auditory hallucinations. He buried his head and walked out of the door when there was a clear ‘wait’ from Song Yu inside.

"No need for coffee, I haven't been sleeping well lately. Can you come in and help me organize the bookshelf?" Song Yu asked with a slight smile.

Zhou Yanqing turned around and met Song Yu's flying eyes. He replied in a panic, "Oka...Okay."

Song Yu took the lead and entered the office first. Zhou Yanqing glanced at Meng Shiping secretly and followed.

Meng Shiping frowned slightly and squeezed the proposal in his hand. Two days ago, Song Yu, who had been very firm in his stance, suddenly expressed and said that he would consider letting the studio sign two artists to develop as an agency. He excitedly stayed up for two nights to make a proposal. He mentioned a couple of things in the car just now, but Song Yu looked drowsy, so he closed the conversation and planned to talk about it another day.

But the words "out of space" just now clearly signaled that he was going to have a formal conversation. He took the proposal and was ready to discuss it in detail and even sent the assistant away, but Song Yu called him into the office again.

Meng Shiping secretly exhaled, his brows were relieved, the anger in his eyes dissipated and was replaced with a calm expression before he followed him in.

Outside his office, through a closed solid wood door, Zhou Yanqing couldn't see Song Yu's office. So, when he entered the door, he was amazed at the uniqueness inside. Rather than an office, a hotel suite would be more appropriate.

On the right hand side of the door was a rectangular bar with a half-drunk bottle of wine. Directly opposite the bar was a huge French window. The sunlight spilled through the French windows on the thick light gray carpet, creating a warm feeling all around.

Zhou Yanqing took a look at the built-in bookcase on the left hand side that took up an entire wall. The bookcase was full of books. It wasn't very messy, but all the books have traces of being turned over. It could be seen that Song Yu liked to read a lot.

"Mr. Song, how do you want me to organize it? Do you have any requirements?"

Song Yu looked up at the bookcase, took out a book at random, and replied, "Do it as you like."

Zhou Yanqing nodded and lightly began to organize the bookshelves. He kept his hands on the books and his ears on the movements of the two behind him.

Song Yu sat down on the sofa with his back to the French windows and started reading a book, while Meng Shiping sat next to him.

"You've been resting almost since you finished filming 'Lone Shadow' at the beginning of the year. ‘Lone Shadow’ caught up with the National Day. It is still in the hot stage. Do you want to take advantage of the heat to choose the next movie? I received a few good scripts some time ago, take a look?" Meng Shiping also sat down. Since he didn't want to talk about studio matters, he talked about work matters.

Song Yu's eyes didn't leave the book as he made a meaningless 'uh' sound, not knowing whether if he heard it or not.

Zhou Yanqing heard that ‘Lone Shadow’ was a low-cost crime action film starring Song Yu after ‘The Doppelganger’. It was a dark horse at the box office during the national day of that year, that would be, this year's national day, but it didn't win any awards.

Song Yu had a lot of fight scenes in this movie and showed off his perfect abs, establishing his tough guy image and attracting many female fans. Zhou Yanqing still remembered the uncontrollable screams in the cinema when Song Yu's character ripped open his T-shirt to reveal his well-defined abs.

Seeing Song Yu's eyes wandering over the square-printed paper without any reaction, Meng Shiping's eyes finally showed a hint of impatience. The moment he was about to get up, Song Yu raised his eyes and replied, "Let's take a look, it's really been too long."

The impatience on Meng Shiping's face disappeared in an instant, and he was about to ask Zhou Yanqing to go to his office to help him get the script.

Song Yu opened his mouth first: "Xiao Zhou, can you pour me a glass of water?"

Zhou Yanqing turned around and met Song Yu's amber-like eyes. His ears burned a little, he answered “okay" and went to the pantry.

Meng Shiping’s whole body was overwhelmed with joy. He didn't look into these details, and instead got up and went to get the script himself.

After both of them had left, the corners of Song Yu's mouth lifted up into a hellish demonic smile; so a little revenge on Meng Shiping would make him so happy.

In the past, Meng Shiping seldom showed strong emotions in front of Song Yu, even if they had an argument, he always frowned a little. But in fact, Meng Shiping could also smile very heartily. When he was on vacation with Han Jin on the island, his smile was brighter than the sunset on the island; Meng Shiping could also be very angry. As long as he ignored him a little, the corners of his mouth would fall down.

When Zhou Yanqing placed a glass of water on the coffee table, Song Yu's expression had already returned to normal. He smiled and said ‘thank you’. Zhou Yanqing quickly waved his hand to say it was what he should do, and then continued to bury his head in his book.

Song Yu found Zhou Yanqing's reaction interesting.

Although Meng Shiping gave him two resumes to choose from, he was basically sure that Zhou Yanqing and Gao Lei were not Meng Shiping's people, but Song Yu was still worried. Yesterday, he asked someone to investigate the resume of Zhou Yanqing and Gao Lei; Gao Lei was previously engaged in the work of celebrity assistant and before that there was no direct contact with Meng Shiping. But he couldn’t rule out the possibility that Meng Shiping got Gao Lei to his studio as ‘his own’ through his friends in the circle.

On the other hand, Zhou Yanqing's resume was as clean as a blank sheet of paper. He just entered his senior year this year, and his grades were excellent. Last year, a microfilm he co-produced with several classmates won the Gold Award at the College Student Film Festival.

Before interviewing for this job, Zhou Yanqing had interviewed with several media companies, all of which had positions as scriptwriter assistants or screenwriters. Perhaps he was not accepted by the first few companies, or he was not satisfied with them, but later, he submitted his resume to his studio and was hired by Meng Shiping.

Before that, there was no possibility of any contact between Zhou Yanqing and Meng Shiping, but it could not be ruled out that Meng Shiping kept Zhou Yanqing as a blank paper in order to better buy people's hearts and develop Zhou Yanqing into his own person. He had always been good at enlisting people.

Song Yu frowned as he considered all kinds of possibilities. In this life, he had to live cautiously to ensure that his neck would not be bitten by the crocodile by his side.

"What are you thinking about?" 

Meng Shiping had approached at some point.

Song Yu returned to his senses and smiled lightly: "I was thinking that Xiao Zhou seems to be very familiar with these books."

Meng Shiping looked at the bookcase, and the bottom two layers had been pretty much sorted out. Zhou Yanqing just looked at the cover and the book title before inserting it into the bookcase.

"Xiao Zhou has read a lot of professional books, he should have read most of these books." Meng Shiping replied.

Zhou Yanqing heard their conversation very clearly. After graduation, he had a few setbacks in his work and had regretted once or twice that he had majored in drama, film and literature. But at this moment, he was glad that he had studied this major because he had sorted out a whole row of books.

Song Yu nodded un knowingly and asked, "Did you bring the script?"

Meng Shiping immediately handed over the script.

"In recent months, I have received a lot of scripts, and I have picked three good ones. This ‘No Man's Land’ is about police and criminals. It just so happens that your last movie is of the same type, so it's okay to play another one to consolidate the image of a tough guy. This ‘Pitch Dark’ is a suspense theme. Although the script is very good, our domestic directors are not good at this theme, and the suspense films produced are basically on the street[1]. And this is ‘The Road Goes On’, a literary and artistic film with same-sex theme, directed by Yan De, it is estimated to be shot for various awards, I suggest you choose this play. You should first read the script these two days. If you are not satisfied, you can wait and see the others."
[1]: meaning flop

Song Yu had no slightest doubts about Meng Shiping's ability to select scripts. In his previous life, none of the film and television dramas he starred in were a fail, and Meng Shiping had a lot of credit for that.

Song Yu flipped through the scripts a few times with interest. He had read these scripts countless times in his previous life, especially ’The Road Goes On’. Because at that time he finally chose it among the three scripts, and later ‘The Road Goes On’ not only achieved a small peak of his career, but also became a red thread that tied him and Han Jin together.