Chapter 106: Shen Jixing, Must You Leave?

The brightly lit Star Entertainment Media building.
Shen Jixing walked calmly through the glass corridor, arriving at the meeting room at the end of the top floor.

“Come in.”

It was Chu Wen’s voice.

Just as Shen Jixing was about to push the door open, Chu Wen’s assistant emerged from inside. “Film Emperor Shen, you’re finally here. The Vice President has been waiting for you all day!”

The assistant asked nervously, “Where have you been?”

Cool moonlight streamed through the window; Shen Jixing merely glanced at him with calm indifference.

“Do I need to report to you?”

The assistant was speechless.

He had hoped to discover the reason and curry favor with the Vice President.

He hadn’t expected Shen Jixing to be so aloof and impolite.

The assistant forced a couple of awkward laughs. “It’s nothing, please go in.”

He stepped aside, holding the meeting room door. Shen Jixing didn’t spare him another look and walked inside.

The assistant watched Shen Jixing’s tall, elegant figure, quietly clicking his tongue.

He’d heard Shen Jixing was here to terminate his contract.

Now that Shen Jixing’s reputation had plummeted and his commercial value declined, he still intended to leave the company. He really didn’t know the benefits of sheltering under a powerful tree.

The assistant went to the break room, brewed himself a coffee, and returned.

He wanted to witness, firsthand, this historic moment of Shen Jixing’s downfall.

“Shen Jixing, do you really have to leave?”

The starlit night was thick and somber. The cold, silent man looked up at him from behind the desk.

Perhaps it was the loneliness of high position, or the exhaustion from waiting all day, but Chu Wen no longer looked as radiant as he had days before. There was a weariness difficult to describe.

Shen Jixing glanced at him as if puzzled. “Otherwise? Did you think I came to renew my contract?”

Through the broad glass, his cool, mocking smile startled even himself.

It was as if he’d returned to his former state, never having left.

Lonely, indifferent, bristling with thorns.

The assistant had just entered with the coffee when Chu Wen, his voice slightly hoarse, asked:

“Are you still angry with me?”

The assistant was dumbfounded.

The Vice President, always stern and cold, how could he show such a humbled expression?

Just let him leave.

Let’s see if Shen Jixing falls from grace after leaving Star Entertainment.

“You must be joking,” Shen Jixing said, sitting opposite him and calmly picking up the termination contract from the desk. “I don’t get angry with people I barely know.”

Shen Jixing read the contract quickly.

The assistant suspected he hadn’t really read it, but Shen Jixing had already flipped to the last page, picked up the pen, and signed his name.

Shen Jixing.

He pushed the contract toward Chu Wen. “Hurry up, I’m pressed for time.”

Chu Wen was stung by his cold attitude.

In a rush of thoughts, he wondered if Shen Jixing had felt as suffocated as he himself did now. “Star, you know I had no choice back then…”

Shen Jixing suddenly looked up at him.

Chu Wen remembered the first time he met him.

Back then, Shen Jixing was silent and curt, but held no malice toward him. He would even greet him calmly and politely as “Brother Chu.”

Chu Wen had never met such a unique person in his career.

Unique—because no one was like him; one day, he would reach heights no one else could touch.

Back then, that person looked at him with a half-smile.

Chu Wen was young then, not understanding what it meant, until much later.

Bo Yu was mocking him.

Delusions.

Bo Yu was skilled at manipulating hearts, controlling everyone’s fate. Chu Wen lost his way amid the fame and fortune Bo Yu laid out, becoming a traitor.

So now, when Shen Jixing heard this uncomfortable address, he said—

“Good acting. After I leave, you can debut.”

Chu Wen was speechless.

The assistant was equally stunned.

So brazen… He actually dared to speak so boldly to the Vice President.

“Vice President, the pen.” Without Shen Jixing’s prompting, the assistant offered the fountain pen with both hands.

Chu Wen gave him a cold glance; the assistant tensed up.

The pen hovered in the air, refusing to fall. Shen Jixing, unhurried, did not press him.

“Agent Chu.”

The unfamiliar title caught Chu Wen off guard.

“There’s never a road without an exit. Every choice is mutual.”

Shen Jixing, bathed in cool moonlight, looked at him. “Since you chose fame and fortune, don’t act as if it pains you.”

He smiled faintly.

“It’s truly disgusting.”

Chu Wen’s expression suddenly turned very ugly.

Until now, Shen Jixing had never torn off the mask between them, even though he knew Chu Wen was the one who leaked information about his boyfriend during the first scene.

“Even if I didn’t say it, he would have found out…”

“When he flies into a rage, he’ll lock you up again…”

“What does that have to do with you?” Shen Jixing interrupted him.

Shen Jixing was always cold-faced but warm-hearted, never fully breaking with anyone. Chu Wen could feel his impatience and indifference toward him.

“Well, you tell me,” Chu Wen buried all his emotions deep within, never revealing a single hint. “Because I care about you. Because I lo—”

A crash.

The assistant’s coffee spilled all over the floor.

He met Chu Wen’s cold gaze and instinctively looked at Shen Jixing. “No, it was Film Emperor Shen who pushed me.”

Shen Jixing looked at him calmly, raising his brows. “What did you say?”

The assistant was utterly speechless.

Chu Wen, furious, shouted, “Get out!”

The assistant, trembling, scrambled out of the office.

With the intrusive gaze gone, Shen Jixing leaned back calmly.

His aching waist finally got a rest. “Go on.”

Chu Wen was speechless.

What else was there to say?

Chu Wen looked at the signature on the termination contract. He knew what would happen once he signed it.

That person had elevated him from an unknown agent to the heights of success because of Shen Jixing.

But could just as easily cast him down from the clouds.

Yet, Chu Wen signed it anyway. “Even with my signature, it won’t help. He won’t let you go so easily.”

That person’s possessiveness toward Shen Jixing bordered on madness.

At the first sign of trouble, Bo Yu had wiped it out with the gentlest cruelty.

“Well done. Who will you choose—your future or him?”

One was a silent, protective agent; the other, a lofty vice president.

Chu Wen thought, even as Vice President, I could still protect him.

Bo Yu was very satisfied then. “Excellent.”

Back then, Chu Wen didn’t understand the meaning behind Bo Yu’s smile.

He had struck Shen Jixing when he was most helpless, climbing up on his blood. From then on, nothing else mattered.

Shen Jixing would hate him for a lifetime.

“That’s my business.”

Shen Jixing picked up the contract, paused in silence, and finally said, “Thank you.”

Chu Wen suddenly felt his heart constrict painfully.

He sprang up. “I had nothing back then.”

“He ordered me to watch you, to map out the best path for you, and I could only obey…”

Chu Wen looked at Shen Jixing’s proud figure, turned away from him, his tone tinged with inexplicable bitterness.

“Someone like me, who had nothing, never even qualified to participate in this war, did I?”

He was just an ordinary man, relying on himself.

He couldn’t compete with that wealthy young heir, nor could he oppose the powerful Bo Yu.

Shen Jixing stood in the dim moonlight.

He turned slightly, “I am a person.”

“Not a prize for any of you to fight over.”

Shen Jixing belonged to no one; he belonged only to himself.

Chu Wen was jolted back to the present. “That’s not what I meant… I just like—” you.

Shen Jixing had already left the office without a backward glance.

Chu Wen’s words stuck in his throat. He slowly closed his eyes, exhaling a breath full of regret and bitterness.

Unspoken affection would always remain known only to himself.

If time could turn back, would he stand unwaveringly by Shen Jixing’s side?

Chu Wen looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the dazzling city lights and towering buildings.

He liked Shen Jixing.

But he didn’t know the answer.

…

Shen Jixing’s footsteps halted in the middle of the glass corridor.

He looked toward the figure at the end of the long light, seemingly not surprised to see him.

That person smiled at him. “Come here and tear it up.”