Chapter 129: Gradually Beginning to Attract Attention

The furniture-buying trip originally planned for the next day was cancelled outright.

It wasn't that Nazha's sister had interfered; mainly, Nazha had caught a cold, and her sister had to take leave to stay home and look after her.

The cold winter punishes equally every person who fails to show it proper respect.

But even while sick, Nazha still had one question.

Namely, why had Bai Liang suddenly shown up downstairs at her place last night?

Mm. It must be because he liked her—their hearts were in sync!

Of course, the real answer was: Bai Liang had wanted to grab two pairs of his own underwear.

He'd originally planned to have Nazha sneak them out for him, but she got too impulsive.

Once bitten, twice shy; from now on he wouldn't dare keep all his clothes in one place.

In the end, he didn't get his underwear back, and on top of that got his lips "stolen" by the "bad woman."

A total loss!

Luckily, Nazha immediately gifted him an expensive haute couture suit—well, now it doesn't seem like a loss after all.

A few kisses, and a suit worth at least two hundred-plus thousand yuan landed in his hands.

Even Little Liu, the host club guy making bigger and bigger waves in Japan, isn't as efficient as him.

Of course, the suit was actually a birthday gift.

Every New Year is peak gift-receiving season for Bai Liang.

It's practically like collecting New Year goods.

He got plenty of gifts, but Nazha's was the priciest—and she had clearly noted down Bai Liang's clothing measurements.

He had no idea when she'd gathered that intel; he certainly never told her.

He was genuinely touched, so he casually asked if she wanted to go get a marriage certificate to celebrate.

She refused without a moment's hesitation, of course.

That heartless woman was utterly decisive—even more so than Meng Jie, she didn't even bother giving a reason.

After the New Year, Bai Liang returned to Shanghai carrying "the family's expectations" and kicked off this year's work.

His family really couldn't stomach being forced to binge-watch his dramas anymore—even his doting grandma said: I'm about to memorize all the lines, dear grandson, go film something new.

Pocketful of New Year's money from the elders, Bai Liang arrived at the location of his studio.

Starting this year, Bai Liang's studio finally stopped being a no-name little workshop.

Previously, the studio's registered address had been an empty shop in Shanghai belonging to Sister Yanzi's family—there had never been an actual office.

Now there was one, but the place was awfully familiar, because the landlord was Old Zhou.

It had originally been the office for his model-talent agency business, directly converted into Bai Liang's studio.

Looking at it this way, among the studio's three bigwigs, only Bai Liang had no property in Shanghai.

Sister Yanzi immediately teased him about it: "Brother Dou Xiao Bai, you don't actually have to pay social security for a full five years; if you want to buy, there are other ways."

Old Zhou also said that, as a true Shanghai native, he could help out too.

Bai Liang shook his head, saying that although he had no house in Shanghai, he had a home.

Not just one home—he even had three burrows like a wily rabbit.

Mencius had already been egging Sister Qian Jie on to buy property in Shanghai; compared to Nazha's hard-working hustle, our Meng Jie shamelessly chose to leech off her parents.

Add to that Bai Liang's mobile home—a motorhome—and under these circumstances, those paparazzi trying to stake him out really have their work cut out for them.

That's right, the paparazzi had already started tailing him.

It wasn't because of the CP with Mencius—those paparazzi genuinely had no clue who Meng Jie even was—it was because of Dilireba.

Reba had even specifically reminded him to be a bit careful, not to go to weird places and end up getting photographed.

That sounded ambiguous, as if Bai Liang might run off to some shady "health" parlor.

But the paparazzi really had been tailing her for a while, seemingly eager to snap photos of her secretly meeting up with Bai Liang.

The reason they chose to tail her was mainly because her schedule was transparent.

By comparison, Bai Liang's movements were far too mysterious.

Staking out one to get the other—of course they'd choose to stake out Dilireba.

Hilarious—they couldn't get a single shot.

Instead, her brutal schedule nearly made those paparazzi puke from exhaustion.

The only thing they captured was this girl dashing out of the hotel late at night to buy snacks.

"That's so weird, I've had a few CP pairings too, why am I only getting tailed by paparazzi because of Reba? Is it because she's the most popular?"

"That's part of it, but mostly it's because you two are being way too secretive." Sister Yanzi analyzed calmly.

"Secretive?"

"Right. With your previous CP pairings, Brother Dou Xiao Bai, you were always open and businesslike about it—that actually makes people think it's just drama promotion. But with Sister Reba, you two were secretly photographed, and after that there was basically no interaction. People think that when you avoid each other like that, the odds of something actually going on are higher."

Got it! And honestly, that does sound pretty reasonable.

Over the next two days, Bai Liang actually spotted the paparazzi's traces.

Luckily, he had already moved his stuff out of Nazha's place, because she had given up that rental.

Although they didn't get to go pick out furniture together in person, they sorted it all out online over the New Year.

Now various pieces of furniture and the like were being moved into the new place one after another, but to officially move in, they'd have to wait at least a while longer.

Nazha was worried the formaldehyde hadn't fully dissipated.

No idea when the next "cohabitation" would be—no hope in the short term. As for the paparazzi tailing Bai Liang, they did get a little something.

Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with the female star.

During his days in Shanghai, besides wrapping up magazine shoots and other work, Bai Liang made time every day to head to the track and play with cars.

In Sister Yanzi's words: It's over, Brother Dou Xiao Bai has money now, he's about to start squandering again!

The first payment from *Princess Agents*, which he was about to join the cast of, had already been transferred over, plus the endorsement money, plus the not-too-large deposit from *Eternal Love*—Bai Liang suddenly had several million on hand.

Oh right, he also collected over a hundred thousand in New Year's lucky money, that has to be added too.

Now that he has money, given Bai Liang's spending habits, there's no way he can save it for long.

Fortunately, he still knew to leave a sum on the studio's account to cover various expenses.

As for the rest.

Conveniently enough, playing with cars is a perfect option.

This hobby burns money like crazy—it's far from cheap, truly a very expensive pastime.

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Meanwhile, within Shanghai's professional car-enthusiast circle, his reputation—Bai's—was also gradually rising.

"Holy crap, there's a lunatic on the track with a death wish"

Red Bull: You're starting to catch my attention, young man!

Thanks to the paparazzi—if they hadn't helped "promote" it, this thing wouldn't have "broken out of its circle" so easily.

But through this, Bai Liang also learned what "stan girls" meant.

Such a small hobby could still trend on the hot search, and then under his Weibo post, Misses started going wild with praise

They probably can't even tell the difference between F1 and rally racing, nor know that Schumacher and Han Han drive completely different cars.

But they dare to praise anyway!

Don't ask—ask and the answer is "our brother is the best!" in every field.

Luckily there's no one to step on for now, otherwise his fans would definitely get into flame wars with some other celebrity's fans.

But it did draw some "mockery" from passersby: "You really treat your brother as a god?"

On the academic side, most people really couldn't come at Bai Liang, because he actually has exam scores—that stuff can't be faked.

But now wanting to play the tough guy is a bit much.

Experienced netizens felt Bai Liang was just creating topics for himself, crafting a new persona.

The previous "Xiao Nai who walked out of a book" was already outrageous enough—besides the fanatics going wild over the book, many people were actually still skeptical.

A top student, a pro esports player, and a whole list of special skills?

Yeah, right!

But back then there wasn't much of a reason to refute it—after all, the top student thing seemed real, the pro player did seem pretty good at gaming, and for the other unverified stuff, Bai Liang never jumped out to claim he could do it.

But now it's different.

A new angle appeared—playing with cars? Do you even understand it!

One year after debut, Bai Liang's Weibo comments finally started filling up with trolls in batches.

"Brother Dou Xiao Bai, look on the bright side—recently a lot of sports brands and energy drinks have been reaching out to me, maybe there'll be car brands later too."

Sister Yanzi had a different take—she didn't have the stereotypical experience of an agent, so when looking at things she could actually let her imagination run.

The money's already been spent anyway, maybe there'll be some return and gain.

Besides, having a few trolls is actually a good thing.

This was a conclusion Sister Yanzi summed up with great surprise, after studying it for a long time she really felt the trolls seemed to have helped.

Before, Bai Liang's Weibo comments were too "zen"—besides the stan girls' daily worship and screen-licking, it was just a bunch of students making wishes.

Harmony is nice, but the buzz just couldn't pick up.

Relying entirely on the drama's broadcast and the CP-clippers' traffic.

Not enough!

In the era of traffic, only those with traffic can have it all.

See, once the trolls came, Bai Liang's traffic visibly improved, and his online buzz got higher too.

Sister Yanzi almost wished for more trolls.

Bai Liang himself didn't pay much attention to this—he was researching what kind of motorcycle he could mount on his RV.

He likes playing with four wheels, but two wheels are actually even more thrilling!

Against this backdrop, he officially joined the cast of *Princess Agents*.

His entrance was quite flashy—mainly because of his RV.

A custom-made job, done in an off-road style, with a rugged industrial aesthetic to its looks—fierce and domineering.

Once this thing rolled into the set, it was way too showy.

Even the male and female leads' RVs weren't as eye-catching as his.

Maybe because of this, during the first script discussion with the cast, Bai Liang noticed the lead actress Zhao Liying seemed a bit cold toward him.

Her attitude wasn't bad, exactly, but just not very warm.

Her words were somewhat lukewarm, and the smile on her face was very formulaic.

Although Bai Liang had recently been obsessed with cars, once he got to the set he immediately got into acting mode—he had originally planned to chat more with the lead actress, since the two of them had scenes together.

He also wanted to see just how impressive this strongest rising star among the post-85 flowers really was, but ended up pressing his warm face against a cold butt.

Huh~ strange.

Capybara puzzled.

——

Basic three updates of ten thousand characters, more updates tonight.

(End of chapter)