The President’s Man - Chapter 327

A few days later,

Xiao Lei had just wrapped up a scene and was walking back to her room when President Wei suddenly approached her.

“Oh, hi, President Wei… What are you doing here today?” Xiao Lei asked as she looked at him with a curious expression. President Wei was a busy man, so he only dropped by occasionally, mostly to check on the progress of the filming or to talk to the director about something.

And most of the time, he would only nod at Xiao Lei from afar as acknowledgment before going back to doing whatever he was here for.

“Hi, Xiao Lei…” President Wei said with a bright smile. He signaled her to keep walking before saying, “I’ve seen some of the footage, and I’ve got to say, I’m so proud of myself for casting you as the female lead.”

Xiao Lei smiled awkwardly.

“Oh, I heard that you had some problems with my male lead?” he asked as he looked at her curiously.

“I was just taken aback…” Xiao Lei said with an uncomfortable smile. “I didn’t expect to see him, that’s all.”

And she was fl.u.s.tered by his presence at the set, and whenever they had scenes together, she would always make mistakes; mistakes which she had never made before, such as forgetting her lines, mixing up the scenes, and using the wrong expressions.

She could still see Vivian Siew’s expression whenever she made a mistake. That woman took photos and posted them online. Of course, her captions were always in a cute, funny tone, but only people who truly knew her knew what she was up to.

Xiao Lei sighed when she thought about the last few scenes.

In fact, she had made so many mistakes she felt so bad that she bought some good quality chocolates with her own money and gave them to everyone as a way to apologize. To punish herself, she did not eat any of the chocolates.

And thankfully, her self punishment worked better than anything else, and she got better after that.

“Great, I thought there would be a huge problem,” President Wei said and sighed in relief. On the day that his male lead made his first appearance at the set, he received a call from Han Ye. He had thought that Han Ye would be happy, since he knew that Fan Shaohang was a relative of his late friend, so he did not expect to get a polite yet scathing remark about how he placed a once-famous old man who could “barely even do any action scenes anymore” in the movie.

And from the man’s tone, President Wei could tell that he was absolutely annoyed by the fact that he hired Fan Shaohang without so much as saying a word to him before.

At that time, Han Ye told him to make sure that Fan Shaohang was never left alone in a room with Xiao Lei, which President Wei thought to be weird. However, Han Ye explained that Xiao Lei was scared by a man who looked like Fan Shaohang when she was a child, and that was why she was so shocked when she saw Fan Shaohang at the set.

And he also explained why Xiao Lei wasn’t comfortable at the Fan Family party, when Fan Shaohang was present.

Not that he would fire Fan Shaohang, but President Wei still wanted to make sure that everything was fine with Xiao Lei. So when he heard her answer, he was relieved. He heard from the director that Xiao Lei wasn’t doing too well lately, but in view of Xiao Lei’s condition, President Wei told the director to be more understanding and to be more patient whenever Xiao Lei made any mistakes.

He glanced at the woman who was walking by his side, and after a moment of hesitation, he said, “Oh yeah, and to answer your question, I’m here today to ask you something.”

“Yeah? Go ahead.” Xiao Lei nodded.

“If you’re free, would you like to go for dinner with me tonight? There’s a restaurant near here, which I heard was pretty good in Korean food. Would you like to go?” President Wei asked with a smile.

“Erm…”

“It’s just dinner. My wife is a little busy tonight, and I’ve been thinking about that restaurant for a while now, and it’s my only free night for a while,” President Wei said with a sad expression. “Oh, and the wagyu beef… and samgyeopsal… I heard that their BBQ was off the chart.”

He then sighed forlornly, looking as if the world were about to collapse on him.

Xiao Lei looked at him, and she gulped. She didn’t want to go with him at first, but when she heard the “wagyu beef”, she could no longer muster the strength to say no.

After a few seconds, she nodded albeit with a slightly conflicted expression. “I haven’t made any dinner plans anyway.”

For some reason, Han Ye called her earlier in the afternoon, telling her that he would be picking up Xiao Zhihao from school today and that he would take him to dinner. She was a little worried about it, given how Xiao Zhihao had not reached the stage where he could even stay in a room with Han Ye, but he told her that he could do it and he sounded really confident as well.

And since she wanted to create more opportunities for those two to be friends, she agreed to it.

“Great! Then I’ll wait for you outside,” President Wei said happily before turning around and walked away.

“Is it alright?” Assistant Yoon asked as they watched President Wei leave.

“Yeah… It’s just dinner,” Xiao Lei said with a sigh as she thought about the meat that she was about to have.

“What if someone took a picture of you guys and posted it online?”

“Well…” Xiao Lei placed a hand on the doorknob and turned it as she said with a chuckle, “There are already so many rumors about me online, and I’m not even popular! Who cares about one more…”

“One more what?”

Xiao Lei’s expression froze when she heard the familiar voice. She then looked at the old man sitting in her room while enjoying the coffee and cookies that were prepared for her. Beside him on the couch was a huge black bag that looked extremely fancy, with a golden ribbon tying the top of the bag together.

“What are you doing here? You don’t have any scenes today,” Xiao Lei asked in an annoyed tone. She walked past him and went to sit in front of the mirror. “And it’s rather impolite for someone of your upbringing to enter a woman’s room without permission, don’t you think so, Mr. Fan?”

Fan Shaohang chuckled as he placed the cup of coffee down. He then shrugged and said, “The door was opened. I was merely looking after the room for you.”

“I thank you then. Now, if you may, I have to change. Would you please leave the room?” Xiao Lei asked as she removed her makeup with the help of her assistant.

“I saw you talking to President Wei earlier. Are you going out with him?”

“It’s none of your business.”

Fan Shaohang lifted his phone and pointed at his screen. “But it says right here that you’re President Wei’s secret woman. Oh!”

He looked at his phone and showed her again. “Your latest photo is up.”

Xiao Lei glanced at it briefly before saying nonchalantly, “As an actor, surely you’ve been through this… Oh wait… Internet wasn’t that big back then.”

Fan Shaohang laughed. “Still, don’t let these rumors get to you.”

Xiao Lei raised a brow at him. “I’m… not? What do you want, Mr. Fan? Surely a man as busy as you, who likes to play a disappearance act because of your busy schedule, has something else to do other than telling me to ignore those rumors.”