Chapter 157: I'm Afraid of Pain (Extra Chapter — Vote for Monthly Tickets and Tips)

The two started arguing again. Liu Xiaoli couldn't stand it any longer and waved her hand: "Alright, alright, both of you say less, neither of you should blame the other."

Then she turned to Fang Hong, her tone stern: "Xiao Fang, I have to say something about this. How could you hit someone like that?"

"Auntie, my fault. I lost my head in the moment, couldn't control my emotions. I'm sorry." Fang Hong lowered his head and admitted his mistake.

Liu Tianxian looked at Fang Hong like that, and most of her anger faded too. Indeed, the man had been quite worked up.

Seeing the boy's sincere attitude in admitting his fault, Liu Xiaoli couldn't say much more. She instructed: "Both of you calm down. I'll go make something to eat. Don't fight anymore."

With that, she got up and left.

But the moment Liu Xiaoli left, the two exchanged a glance. Fang Hong asked with concern: "Does your butt still hurt?"

"What do you think? If I hit you, would it hurt or not?"

Liu Tianxian felt very wronged and gave him a look: "Are you settling personal scores? You hit way too hard."

"No, I really wasn't thinking straight at the time, I got worked up. Don't blame me. I didn't want it either. The pain on your body aches in my heart." Fang Hong had calmed down.

His words were quite sincere and heartfelt.

Hearing him say that, Liu Tianxian fell silent, then beckoned: "Come here."

"What for!"

Fang Hong got up and sat cross-legged on the blanket beside her.

Liu Tianxian studied him carefully with her phoenix eyes: "Why do you look so haggard? Has this period been really grueling?"

"Yeah." Fang Hong lowered his head.

Liu Tianxian felt a pang of heartache. She placed one hand on his face and said softly: "Tell me, what have you been doing this whole time?"

"Cursed out that Xie Bazi and his whole family till there wasn't an inch of skin left intact." Fang Hong confessed.

"I don't mean that. I mean for my sake — have you been staying up many nights, looking up a lot of information, pulling a lot of connections?" Liu Tianxian said.

To organize all that information so thoroughly and deduce the mastermind behind it required not only careful analysis but also insight — it wasn't easy.

How many people would have thought it was an internal power struggle at Tianyu behind all this?

"Yeah, that video clip of you and Zeng on the show — I watched it no less than ten times, and I noticed they did it on purpose. You can go back and look: every time Zeng looked at you, his eyes lingered, and they deliberately cut to close-ups of the two of you, framing just the two of you in the shot and cutting everyone else out.

After that, I dug into Zeng's background step by step and found out she was a Tianyu artist herself, debuted from Toilet Channel. I checked the personnel changes at Toilet Channel online and finally found a few clues."

Fang Hong said a lot, laying out everything that had happened these past days clearly and thoroughly.

Liu Tianxian listened carefully: "Then how did you get in touch with Director Ouyang?"

"I went through Beijing Film Academy to find Dean Xie Xiaojin. He introduced me to Ma Dong, who's the General Director of this year's Spring Festival Gala. He used to work at Toilet Channel and was a colleague of Ouyang's, so he made the introduction." Fang Hong explained in great detail.

Going around this whole circle, he owed quite a few favors.

So when he said he'd thrown up over ten times from drinking, even though it was an exaggeration, it wasn't entirely untrue.

When someone helps you out, can you not treat them to a meal? When they want to drink, can you not drink with them? When they want to play with women, can you not pay up? Liu Tianxian now fully understood the ins and outs, and felt for this man.

If he hadn't figured it out, she might have remained in the dark for a long time.

Actually, this wasn't really Liu Tianxian's fault. Many of the people involved were beyond her reach, which created an information imbalance.

The reason Fang Hong could reach them was essentially because he had a large pool of Beijing Film Academy students behind him. These people were forming an interest-based alliance, pulling in every senior and junior they could.

Including some of the instructors, who were moonlighting as Consultants at Jade Rabbit.

No other reason — Jade Rabbit's development of production, Best Special Effects, post-production, games, voice acting, and art really did need a lot of people.

In other words, Jade Rabbit wasn't just supporting Beijing Film Academy students, but also Beijing Film Academy teachers — and none of these were small sums.

All because Fang Hong had thrown down a budget of over a billion. Apart from acquiring copyrights and hiring some programmers, much of that money had to flow to Beijing Film Academy people.

That was a huge amount of interest.

Simply because they were creating content, creating value.

"What about Zeng Yike? Does she know she was brought in to get close to me, to deliberately lead me astray?" Liu Tianxian still believed in her friend.

But the fact that she could ask this meant her guard was up.

"I can't really say about that. You'd have to ask her. I can only tell you that the situation you're in right now is very dangerous." Fang Hong didn't pass judgment on Zeng Yike as a person.

He hadn't met her, so he didn't know what kind of person she was.

Even in his past life, he'd only treated it as gossip and didn't know the inside story. It was only after getting involved in this life that he learned some things.

Liu Tianxian thought for a moment and understood he couldn't very well evaluate her own friend. She placed her hand on his leg: "I understand. Thank you for this."

"Why are we being so formal? It's not like you at all." Fang Hong reached over and pinched her nose.

Liu Tianxian swatted his hand away and scolded him: "Stop fooling around. My butt still hurts."

"Then let me take a look, see if it's red." Fang Hong said as he reached to pull her up, really looking like he was about to pull down her pants to check.

As if there was nothing off-limits between them, perfectly normal! "Are you sick? My mom is still here." Liu Tianxian glared at him.

Fang Hong turned his head toward the kitchen: "Your mom didn't come. I'm just looking, to see if you're hurt." He said it with a perfectly straight face.

"Get lost!"

Liu Tianxian kicked him: "Whether I'm hurt or not, isn't it all because you hit me?"

"I know I was wrong. I apologize to you." Fang Hong stood up and bowed solemnly.

He'd already hit her anyway, so an apology didn't matter.

"You think an apology is enough? If apologies worked, what do we need the police for?" Liu Tianxian didn't want to let it go that easily. She'd even cried from the beating.

"Then what do you want to do? I've already hit you. You're not going to hit me back, are you!" Fang Hong said.

"Heh, that's exactly what I'm going to do." Liu Tianxian said with a tsundere look.

Fang Hong looked at her with a strange expression.

"What are you looking at? Stick your butt out, let me hit it a couple times." Liu Tianxian propped herself up to stand.

"I think you're a bit of a pervert." Fang Hong said.

"I learned it all from you — not even a fraction of you. Hurry up, or I won't talk to you anymore. I'll talk to you again once I've cooled off." Liu Tianxian urged.

Cold violence wouldn't be fun, so Fang Hong bent over and stuck his butt out: "Go easy, I'm afraid of pain."

"You're a big man, I'm just a little woman, how much strength could I possibly have?"

Liu Tianxian rolled her wrist, blew on her palm, and then brought her hand down in a fierce slap.

"Oww-woh!"

Fang Hong cried out in pain, his body leaping up as he hopped around clutching his backside: "That was way too fierce! You said you were a woman!"

Liu Tianxian looked at him and a smile crept across her face: "So what if I'm a woman? Women can't be strong? Stick it back out, there's one more coming."

"No more, I can't take your strength." Fang Hong refused — it hurt too much.

"You hit me so many times and you did it, but I hit you twice and you won't take it? Can't you act like a man?" Liu Tianxian mocked.

"When I hit you, I didn't use any force." Fang Hong argued back.

"Bullshit. You made me cry and you call that no force?"

Liu Tianxian threatened: "Hurry up, don't make me do it. When I do it, it won't be just two slaps."

Earlier, when this man had hit her, she hadn't fought back.

In truth, even if she had fought back, this man might not have been able to hold her down — her physical constitution was excellent to begin with.

"Fine, fine, one last time."

Fang Hong stuck his butt out again: "Go easy, move slowly, don't come down hard all at once."

"You really do talk too much."

Liu Tianxian realized he was being suggestive, so she played along: "Mine's bigger, you'll have to bear with it."

"What's bigger of yours?" Fang Hong instinctively turned his head to ask.

"My palm!"

Liu Tianxian finished speaking and brought her big palm down hard.

"Wah-woh."

Fang Hong let out a loud cry, clutching his backside as the slap sent him leaping three feet into the air.

Liu Tianxian stood beside him laughing in a string of "giggle giggle giggle"s.

"What are you two doing? Xiao Fang, what's wrong with you?"

Liu Xiaoli walked over from a distance, baffled — these two had just been at each other's throats a moment ago, looking ready to fight, so how had they made up in the blink of an eye?

Is "love" really this miraculous?

"N-nothing, Auntie, I'm fine!"

Fang Hong pressed his lips together and held it in, his face flushed red.

It really did hurt a bit — Liu Tianxian had probably put every ounce of strength she had into it.

Liu Tianxian was also covering her mouth, squinting her eyes as she laughed.

"You really never learn — this matter isn't settled yet and you're already acting as if nothing happened." Liu Xiaoli set the fruit platter down, speaking to Liu Tianxian with a hint of sternness.

She wouldn't lecture Fang Hong — in her eyes he was still an outsider. What she had said earlier was only because Fang Hong had genuinely gone too far.

"Oh my, I know. Worst case I'll just stop seeing Zeng Yike, I'll cut her off." Liu Tianxian sounded a little sad as she said it.

After all, such a good friend! "You say cut it off just like that? You cut it off — does she want to cut it off with you?" Liu Xiaoli spoke the truth.

(End of chapter)