Yanjing, Huanxi Bay
Wei Xin, bundled up warmly, lay on a recliner with a blanket draped over her legs.
The indoor decor was 99.9% identical to a hotel room—virtually indistinguishable.
Anxiously staring at her private doctor, Wei Xin asked, "Old Bai, am I nearing the end of my days?"
Doctor Bai packed away her high-end diagnostic equipment and sighed. "Second Young Miss, you really are not sick..."
"How is that possible?! Please check me over carefully again."
She had pissed blood last night—how could she possibly not be sick?
There had to be something wrong with her body. It had to be caught early and treated early; one must not avoid the doctor out of fear of treatment!
"Everything that should be checked has been checked, and there's nothing seriously wrong. Could it be that during this period... cough, cough... you've been overdoing it?"
Doctor Bai looked at Wei Xin with hesitation, speaking with veiled tact, "Young people have good stamina, but you still need moderation. It's best to exercise some restraint; there'll be plenty of days ahead."
Wei Xin: "???"
"Are you making dirty jokes?" Terrified, Wei Xin sat straight up. "It has nothing to do with her! We didn't do anything."
"No need to be embarrassed. Young people, you're like wolves and tigers—it's understandable. Tell you what, I'll prescribe some anti-inflammatory ointment. Skip that activity for the next few days. Whichever one of you it is, make sure you trim your fingernails in time from now on."
"Why don't you just check me again? We—"
The words of clarification reached her lips, but Wei Xin forced them back down and changed her tune: "We haven't done anything recently. It has nothing to do with that."
She only needed to keep the fact that it was a contractual relationship to herself; she couldn't let outsiders find out.
If that scandal blew up, the backlash against an artist would be catastrophic—the kind of plummet in public goodwill that happened in a split second. She personally didn't care; worst comes to worst, she could just go home and sponge off her older sister, but Xu Wenyi...
Bah, bah, bah! Why did she think of that surnamed-Xu bastard again?!
Doctor Bai wore a thoughtful expression. "Then what have you eaten in the past couple of days?"
"I had hot pot yesterday at noon. The director is from Shan Cheng and treated us to authentic old-style hot pot. It was amazing!" Wei Xin recalled, "Except it was extremely spicy. I ate several dragon fruits afterwards. Why?"
Seeming to have found the culprit, Doctor Bai pressed further, "Do you often eat food that spicy?"
Wei Xin answered honestly, "Not really. My ass hurts."
"Then eat less of it from now on. Drink more water to flush out the dragon fruit."
"Dragon fruit?!" Wei Xin experienced a sudden flash of enlightenment. "You mean... I'm not going to die?!"
"Second Young Miss, you won't die from eating too much dragon fruit..."
"Then is my body healthy right now? Will I suddenly drop dead?"
"There's nothing seriously wrong with your body," Doctor Bai said rigorously. "However, it's hard to say if you keep up your previous high-intensity work schedule. My advice is to take some time off to recuperate."
"I'm not telling you to stop working altogether, but filming is stressful and not conducive to recovery. It's best not to rush into a new project anytime soon."
Considering the special nature of an actress's profession, dropping out of sight for too long would not only lead to a drop in popularity but could also let rumors run wild, damaging the artist's reputation.
Doctor Bai added a few more sentences, terrified that Wei Xin would refuse to take a break.
To her surprise, Wei Xin reacted completely out of character, strongly agreeing with her assessment.
"You're right. I need to take a good, long break."
She couldn't afford to drop dead!
Dying suddenly was just too painful.
In this lifetime, no matter how she died, she would not drop dead.
Of course, it would be best not to die at all.
The world was so beautiful, and she hadn't enjoyed a single day of retirement yet.
After seeing Doctor Bai out, Wei Xin decided to go outside for some aerobic exercise to build up her physical fitness.
"Sister Xin, are you going out?"
Her young assistant was watching TV and turned around to see her artist sneaking around near the front door in circles.
"What are you looking for? I'll get it for you."
"A bicycle helmet, please."
The assistant paused for a few seconds, then said with absolute certainty, "Sis, there is no bicycle helmet in this house."
"Then lend me your e-bike helmet."
"Are you out of your mind? We drove back here." The assistant reached out and felt the artist's forehead, muttering to herself, "Strange, no fever..."
Her cycling plan aborted, Wei Xin dropped to the floor on the spot and started doing planks.
"Help me buy some fitness equipment—the more the better. And wolfberry, red dates, motherwort..."
Gazing at the ever-growing shopping list, the assistant fell into deep thought.
"Y-you're planning to go into live-stream selling?!"
"Live-stream selling?!"
As soon as the manager walked through the door, she heard that her artist was secretly planning to go live and sell goods behind her back, and she almost lost her footing.
"Xiaoxin, are you that strapped for cash lately? If you're really hard up, you can borrow some from me—though I might not necessarily lend it to you—but you should really rethink this live-selling thing. It looks bad."
"I am not doing live-stream selling," Wei Xin said speechlessly. "I'm just getting my body back in shape."
"Oh, you scared me to death. You're getting your body—" The manager paused mid-action while setting down her bag, her tone suddenly spiking with a trace of shock. "Getting your body in shape?! Are you guys planning on having a kid too?!"
Startled by this earth-shattering statement, Wei Xin lost her strength; her body, which had been maintaining a plank, went "thud" as it crashed to the ground. Her nose slammed into the floor, and she shrieked in pain.
"Sister Xin!" cried the assistant, rushing over to help her up.
"Are you okay? Did you break your nose?" The manager anxiously inspected the artist's face.
Wei Xin shoved the exasperating manager aside. "What kind of garbage do you have floating around in your head all day? The surnamed-Xu bastard and I are in a contractual relationship, not a real romance. Why on earth would I have a kid with her?!"
After a moment's thought, she added, "No wait, what makes you assume I'd be the one giving birth?!"
"Sorry, sorry, I was flustered and not thinking straight," the manager offered a sheepish explanation. "You know Old Gao from Feihuo? One of her artists went behind her back and had a kid overseas, and it just broke."
Before coming in, she had been talking to someone about this exact matter, and out of sheer panic, she had projected it onto this poor sap.
Wei Xin asked curiously, "Why go overseas to do that?"
"Maybe... mixed-race babies are cuter? Besides, that artist walks the traffic-idol route; foreign faces aren't as familiar over there, making it harder to get caught."
Wei Xin tried hard to recall, and sure enough, such an incident had indeed happened.
Gao Za, the ace manager at Feihuo, had two female artists exposed for having secret marriages and children, leaving only a single surviving sapling unscathed.
It was worth mentioning that after losing track of a major gossip scoop, a certain paparazzi agency went and got hemorrhoid surgery out of sheer frustration, only to bump into Old Gao's son and a male artist walking hand in hand at the proctology department.
That male artist happened to be the sole sapling upon which Old Gao had pinned all her high hopes.
Regarding this, netizens remarked that some people were simply born to be paparazzi.
Except the timing didn't quite match up.
In her memory, this incident broke on August 15th of this year.
The reason Wei Xin remembered it so clearly, aside from the sheer absurdity of the event itself, was that that day also happened to be Xu Wenyi's birthday...
Wei Xin lowered her eyelashes, masking the irritation deep in her eyes, and said listlessly, "Sister Liu, I plan to take a break for a while."
"You want to take a break?!" Sister Liu's expression was like hearing Zhu Bajie tell Tang Monk that he didn't want to return to Gao Village. "You've got to be kidding me."
Wei Xin, the industry's famous grinding-machine workaholic, seamlessly jumped from project to project year-round, her total vacation time since debut adding up to less than six months—and yet she was making the unprecedented request of a voluntary break.
Truly a rare sight in this lifetime!
"I'm serious. Cancel all non-essential schedules. First help me clear out... um, two months?"
"No problem. You've got plenty of backlog; even taking half a year off wouldn't hurt." Sister Liu asked curiously, "Do you want me to contact Teacher Xu's side?"
Wei Xin wore an expression that clearly said *are you out of your mind?* "A contractual relationship is work too; cancel all these unnecessary trash schedules."
Sister Liu: "???"