After this commotion, Xiao Can couldn’t fall asleep anymore.
He got up with a heavy heart, washed up, and then turned on his computer to work.
After working hard until the afternoon, he finally finished editing the video and uploaded it, immediately receiving a lot of feedback.
The comment with the most likes in a short period said: “Grandma, your favorite YouTuber has updated!”
Actually, it had only been nine days since Xiao Can last posted a video, which was less than ten days ago, but compared to his previous update frequency, it had indeed decreased quite a bit.
During this period, various work invitations kept coming in, and in a few days, he would even have to go out of town to shoot commercials. His future update frequency would only get lower.
To maintain his online popularity, it was definitely not feasible to do it alone.
During this period, he had been refreshing job postings, and after screening and online communication with some people, he still hadn’t found anyone particularly satisfactory.
As early as two years ago, he had registered a studio for himself, with a peak staff of two people. Unfortunately, the Omega girl he favored had resigned and returned to her hometown to get married. Now the company was left with only him as the one-man show. Even the finances were outsourced, and the remaining value was only convenient for invoicing during commercial cooperation.
That evening, Xiao Can received another resume.
The applicant was a female Beta who claimed to have worked as an assistant to a well-known artist and had extensive experience.
Xiao Can preferred Omega candidates, but Beta was also acceptable.
He tried communicating with the applicant and felt good about it, so he asked about her past experience serving which artist. The answer he got was unexpectedly He Xingzhou.
Xiao Can was extremely surprised, unable to judge whether what the person said was true or not for a moment. He asked why she left her previous job, and she said it was because of a family emergency, and she had to pause her work to take care of her family.
This sounded like a standard excuse.
Xiao Can looked at the specific work timeline in her resume and decided to test her.
“Do you know what pet He Xingzhou has?” he asked.
The other person answered quickly.
“Charlie, a parrot, male, likes sunflower seeds and raspberries.”
He Xingzhou had never publicly posted about Charlie, and information about his preferences would only be known to those who had taken care of him.
It seemed very likely to be true.
Although Xiao Can had no good feelings towards He Xingzhou himself, he felt a strong sense of trust towards this interviewer.
If she could serve He Xingzhou, she definitely couldn’t be an ordinary person, right?
Xiao Can didn’t mention his own name in the job posting, only the scope of work. After the answer, the applicant proactively asked him if he was a friend of He Xingzhou’s. If he was worried, he could verify with He Xingzhou himself.
Xiao Can immediately scheduled an interview with her for the following week.
After finishing the communication, he was hesitating whether to ask He Xingzhou about this person’s evaluation. Just as he opened the chat window, he received a photo.
It was a children’s claw machine.
He had just placed the order in the morning, but it had already been delivered in such a short time, indicating that expedited service was used.
Xiao Can thought for a moment and asked:
“What does Charlie like to eat?”
He Xingzhou replied:
“Raspberries.”
Then he added:
“The raspberries you sent last time, he ate them all.”
Xiao Can asked again:
“What about sunflower seeds?”
He Xingzhou replied:
“That’s his favorite. But eating too many will cause him to get too hot. Don’t send them.”
Xiao Can thought, who would send you anything, you’re presumptuous.
Shortly after, He Xingzhou sent a video.
In the video, Charlie stood on one foot, skillfully took the raspberries handed by He Xingzhou with one claw, took a bite, stretched his neck to swallow it down, and his mouth was dripping with raspberry juice. He Xingzhou had to wipe it with a tissue for him.
Charlie cooperatively raised his head for wiping, and after it was done, he happily called twice, then quickly moved forward to ask for more.
At the end of the video, Charlie’s entire chest was stuck to the camera, blocking the view completely, and the background sound was He Xingzhou’s laughter.
After watching it, Xiao Can, who was in a daze, thought, how come he hadn’t noticed that He Xingzhou’s laughter was quite pleasant before.
It seemed that the interviewer was indeed telling the truth.
Xiao Can simply asked directly:
“Do you know someone named Cai Yawen?”
Less than ten seconds after sending it, He Xingzhou called back.
“I know her, she used to be my assistant,” he asked Xiao Can, “What’s up?”
“She came to apply for a job with me,” Xiao Can said, “Let’s consider it a background check. What do you think of her?”
“She’s pretty good, the type who works smartly,” He Xingzhou said, then became puzzled, “Since she’s looking for a job, why didn’t she come to me?”
Xiao Can thought, you think she’s pretty good, but she’d rather go out to send resumes than come back to find you, so the problem is obvious.
Maybe the family illness was just an excuse for resigning.
“I got it, thank you,” he said.
He Xingzhou was very surprised, “You actually said thank you to me.”
Xiao Can was displeased, “What do you mean?”
“You’ve always been rude to me when no one else is around,” He Xingzhou said, “Like you have a grudge against me.”
Strictly speaking, they did have a grudge against each other, but unfortunately, Xiao Can could only swallow this insult.
He Xingzhou seemed to be thinking about something, and actually laughed, his voice was very low, similar to the one in the video just now, which was transmitted intact to Xiao Can’s ears.
“What are you laughing at?” Xiao Can asked.
“Did I laugh?” He Xingzhou paused and said, “Maybe because you’re quite funny.”
Xiao Can was instantly choked and couldn’t say a word.
“Do you want to chat with Charlie for a bit?” He Xingzhou asked casually.
Xiao Can wanted to show him some attitude but also sincerely wanted to talk to little Charlie. For a moment, he bit his lip and didn’t say anything.
He Xingzhou’s voice sounded a bit further away, but still very clear, “Charlie, Charlie! Come here, hey!… Charlie, it’s the pretty brother from last time. Don’t you miss him?”
Pretty brother? Xiao Can frowned.
“He’s a bit silly,” He Xingzhou’s voice came closer again, “Shall we start a video call? Maybe he’ll come over if he sees you.”
“Let’s forget about that,” Xiao Can said, “I have something else to do. I won’t disturb Charlie. Let’s talk next time.”
“Oh,” He Xingzhou said, “You can come see him when you’re free.”
“No time.” After Xiao Can finished speaking, he quickly hung up.
So strange, the more he thought about it, the weirder it got.
If the person were a slightly more normal Alpha, Xiao Can would have long assumed that the person was trying to show goodwill in a veiled way and wanted to pursue him.
These tactics were not new at all, but as an Omega with extremely superior looks, Xiao Can had long been used to it.
But that was He Xingzhou after all, and he couldn’t be judged by common sense.
Xiao Can’s original state was already not good, and the more he thought about it, the more upset he became. He simply threw everything out of his mind.
For the next few days, He Xingzhou did not contact him proactively.
Xiao Can shot his first advertisement, which was a very fresh experience but also very exhausting.
The product was a new sunscreen launched by a well-known skincare brand. To highlight the sunscreen effect, the scene was set at the beach.
Xiao Can wore tight swim trunks and naturally took off his white sunscreen shirt under the sun, revealing a large area of flawless white skin, and smiled with a refreshing and energetic expression towards the camera.
But the actual shooting location was in the studio.
The beach was artificial, the sea was a green screen, and the sea breeze was created by a fan.
Xiao Can happily played with sand in the crowd, took deep breaths in front of the green screen, and smiled and spun among the crowd with his eyes closed.
The final result received warm praise from the shooting team, praising him for quickly getting into character, being relaxed, showing strong performance, and full of beauty.
“Ordinary people usually feel embarrassed the first time they shoot, thinking it’s silly,” the director joked with him.
Actually, Xiao Can also felt quite silly, relying solely on his sense of faith to sustain him.
He rushed to the studio as soon as he got off the plane, shooting from one-thirty in the afternoon until two in the morning. Finally, the shooting ended, and a sense of accomplishment and exhaustion washed over him.
As he relaxed, the various discomforts that had been troubling him for a while became even more intense.
On the way to the hotel, Xiao Can, who had been hungry for most of the day, ate half a pack of biscuits, but when he arrived in his room, he vomited everything out.
After lying down on the bed in a daze, he thought that with his current physical condition, it would probably be difficult to adapt to higher intensity work demands, and he didn’t know when he would be able to adjust back.
It’s all because of He Xingzhou.
His stomach was empty, feeling hungry, grumbling, but at the same time, he had no appetite, didn’t want to eat anything, and felt weak all over. Xiao Can felt very annoyed, wanted to vent his anger, and also wanted to cry.
Even though he took his medicine on time, why wasn’t there any improvement at all?
To relax a bit, does he have to rely on He Xingzhou’s pheromones?
Xiao Can sniffed and turned over, picked up his phone, wanting to scold He Xingzhou a few words.
After forcibly restraining his impulse, he casually opened Weibo, trying to distract himself.
Refreshing the homepage, he suddenly saw a photo that He Xingzhou had just posted less than ten minutes ago.
The photo was of a meal, taken very poorly, and it looked unappetizing.
The caption read: “Eating terrible food that’s hard to swallow when you’re in a foreign land alone feels like a parrot you’ve raised for four years still can’t learn to play the claw machine. Sorrow surges like tidal waves.”
It looked very meaningless.
But Xiao Can was completely stunned.
He Xingzhou hadn’t turned off the location, and the geographic location displayed under the Weibo was exactly the hotel he was staying in at the moment.
Meeting an acquaintance in a foreign land, with the surname He.
