Due to Gu Xuanzhe’s hospitalization, the filming of The Days Walking Through Jianghu Together had to be delayed. After all, Gu Xuanzhe is the major investor, and although the actors may have opinions, they don’t dare to express them. Besides, the compensation from Gu Shi has always been satisfactory, so they don’t have major complaints.

But fans are different from celebrities; they don’t consider these things. They just want to hear news about their idol every day. To calm the fans and maintain the drama’s popularity, Gu Shi didn’t slack off. On the second day of Gu Xuanzhe’s hospitalization, the original novel of The Days Walking Through Jianghu Together began serialization on Gu Shi’s affiliated novel website… The rich, colorful characters, the dramatic plot twists, and the intense love triangle between the lead male and second male made fans and readers eagerly anticipate the drama.

The official Weibo account of the drama posted daily photos of the cast, along with some behind-the-scenes clips from the script readings and interesting moments.

Gu Shi’s PR team was highly successful, and now the discussion about this drama on major forums was through the roof. With the novel’s plot developing, various “couples” emerged, and fans were even more excited to see the actors’ performances. The drama’s attention and buzz were, without a doubt, the highest in recent years.

Although Gu Xuanzhe was often praised as a genius and a business elite, and Gu Shi’s business always turned a profit, he hadn’t originally planned for the drama to be this big. He just wanted to help Gu Xuanzhe make a comeback.

For Gu Xuanzhe, this drama was initially created just to serve Lu Youze. Of course, he believed in Lu Youze’s ability and was confident that the drama would become a hit after it aired. He hired the best actors and directors and did the best promotion, so he knew there would be heat. However, he never expected the buzz to be this overwhelming even before filming began—it was completely unexpected.

This is probably what people mean by “unintentionally planting willows that turn into shade.”

If Yuan Baiyue knew that Gu Xuanzhe had such thoughts, he might be furious. Who do you think is responsible for the huge popularity? Their PR team worked overtime for days and nights to make these two the most popular couple online!

Gu Shi has money, but money doesn’t fall from the sky. Since the drama’s popularity is so high, it has to be leveraged to its full potential. They must keep the heat up until the drama begins filming to attract more advertisers and sponsors.

Weibo is the best place to attract and maintain fans!

The person managing the Weibo account was originally just a temporary transfer from the marketing department, and wasn’t skilled in operating social media.

While Gu Xuanzhe was in the hospital, he took the opportunity to interview a new staff member when Gu Xuanzhe and Lu Youze weren’t in the room. After the interview passed, the official Weibo account of The Days Walking Through Jianghu Together was officially handed over to her.

The new staff member, who Gu Xuanzhe picked, didn’t disappoint. She posted daily photos of the cast, and occasionally shared interaction videos between the actors, accompanied by witty and humorous text that kept people hooked.

These interaction videos mainly featured the male lead, Lu Youze. He interacted with many other actors, but the most were with Gu Xuanzhe, since they had the highest support at the moment.

Every time the two appeared on screen, the comments were full of “6666,” “Perfect match,” “This is too sweet,” “Single people crying while eating this dog food,” “The Civil Affairs Bureau, I’m already moving in, please get married quickly,” and similar comments.

Especially when they posted the video announcing that they were officially dating, Weibo was buzzing for two days. The two of them almost monopolized the trending search list. Whether for the hype or to build a good relationship with Gu Shi, stars and business moguls alike posted their blessings under the video.

Weibo’s servers crashed again, and it took until the afternoon for them to recover.

In less than a month, Weibo had crashed twice because of Lu Youze. Who would still say Lu Youze isn’t popular?

Fans didn’t slack off either, editing videos, creating congratulatory pictures, and writing celebratory articles. The tags related to them were the hottest on all major websites.

Who would have thought that the former “bad boy” actor, who was criticized online, would now be part of the nation’s favorite couple?

Although he still had a child whose father was unknown, this didn’t affect their ship, and the existence of the child only fueled fanfic imaginations.

A couple of days later, Gu Xuanzhe finally remembered that he was still the CEO of Gu Shi and that some important documents had to be handled personally by him. To spend more time with Lu Youze, he chose to work from home. Lu Youze hadn’t received any offers recently, had finished reading the scripts, and most importantly, they were still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, so they couldn’t bear to be apart for even a minute.

Gu Xuanzhe was reading some urgent documents in his study while Lu Youze casually sat on the sofa opposite him. He was bored and started searching videos tagged with their names on a video site.

He clicked on the most popular video, which was told from Gu Xuanzhe’s perspective, showing his journey from unrequited love to mutual understanding.

The short video, less than five minutes long, was watched repeatedly by Lu Youze. The look in Gu Xuanzhe’s eyes when he first gazed at Lu Youze across the crowd made his heart ache.

Although he knew that at that moment Gu Xuanzhe wasn’t looking at him, he really didn’t want to see that look again.

The last scene of the video showed the day outside the studio, when Gu Xuanzhe came to pick him up. This was filmed by Ye You and shared on their magazine’s public account after getting their consent.

The video’s popularity goes without saying. Gu Xuanzhe’s fleeting smile in that moment had captivated countless men and women.

Some fans were even willing to spend a fortune just to see Gu Xuanzhe smile. Unfortunately, CEO Gu wasn’t lacking in money, so this plan was destined to fail.

Some fans pinned their hopes on Gu Xuanzhe’s new drama, The Days Walking Through Jianghu Together, thinking that the serious, expressionless Gu Xuanzhe at work couldn’t possibly act in the same stoic way. But these fans were disappointed, as Gu Xuanzhe fully embraced his CEO status and followed the basic principle of “I’m the investor, I make the rules,” forcing the scriptwriter to revise the script. Originally, the second male character was supposed to be a charming villain, someone who smiles sweetly while stabbing others in the back.

In the revised script, the second male character was now someone emotionally distant, forever lacking expression on his face. Because of his inability to understand emotions, the dynamic with the male lead would be even more intense. Though it was still dramatic, fans were disappointed. After all, Gu Xuanzhe’s smile was more precious than gold.

“Maybe CEO Gu just doesn’t smile in front of us.”

The top comment on the video caught Lu Youze’s attention. Since he was bored, he opened the top comments and started reading through them.

“Maybe CEO Gu smiles at Lu, the great actor, in private.”

Seeing this comment, Lu Youze glanced up at Gu Xuanzhe, who was focused on his work. Gu Xuanzhe seemed to sense his gaze and looked up at him.

“Youze, what’s wrong?” Gu Xuanzhe asked. He was actually worried that his partner was bored, since his work was indeed quite boring.

“It’s nothing.” Lu Youze shook his head and smiled. “You go ahead.”

Sadly for the fan who was expecting a smile, it wasn’t so easy for them to see CEO Gu smile at him.

Lu Youze continued reading through the comments. He had to admit, the fans these days were talented. Some of the jokes were so genuine that even he started wondering if they were based on real experiences.

“As a ten-year fan of CEO Gu, I want to spar with him. I’m going to compete with Lu, the movie emperor, for the man.”

Lu Youze thought to himself, “You’ve known him for less than ten years, so how come you already have so many ten-year-old fans? And you want to steal him from me? Two words: no way.”

Looking at the long string of “+1” comments, Lu Youze felt a bit unbalanced. Why was no one fighting for CEO Gu? Why did just a subtle smile from CEO Gu attract so many fans?

In the past, Lu Youze actually disliked such behavior of using power for personal gain and changing scripts on a whim. However, now he found himself a little relieved that Gu Xuance had changed the script. Perhaps this was what they called a double standard.

He truly didn’t want Gu Xuance to smile at anyone else, even if it was for acting. This was probably possessiveness.

After thinking for a while, Lu Youze decided to share the video on Weibo and express his thoughts.

“Ten-year-old fans, give up, this person is mine. I won’t give him to you, and I won’t let him smile at you.”

It satisfied his possessiveness, gave a little sweetness to his followers, and kept the buzz going. Lu Youze thought he was a genius.

His post naturally trended, and the content creator who was tagged in the post happily ran several laps around the playground.

Netizens and fans probably found it amusing, or perhaps they were deliberately teasing Lu Youze. Some were just playing with memes, and soon, his post had a new batch of comments from people wanting to “fight” for Gu Xuance.

“Question: How can I steal a man from Lu Yingdi?”

It was unclear who started the topic, but something strange had once again trended.

These trending topics were becoming so frequent that passersby couldn’t help but wonder if Gu’s company had a yearly contract for trending topics.

Of course, Lu Youze didn’t know any of this yet, as after posting on Weibo, he put the tablet aside.

“Ah Ze, are you done?” he asked Gu Xuance.

After signing the last document, Gu Xuance stood up and walked over to Lu Youze. He bent down and kissed him on the forehead. When they first confirmed their relationship, even kissing made them shy. But now, just two days later, kissing had become as natural as eating and drinking.

“I’ve finished everything,” Gu Xuance said to Lu Youze. “Youze, sorry for making you stay here with me all this time. You must be bored. I’m free until tomorrow morning. Is there anything you want me to do with you?”

In fact, there was no need to do anything special. Just being in the same room with each other was enough. The feeling of “liking” was truly strange, even just staring at each other the whole day wouldn’t be boring.

Of course, even if his face was thick enough, he couldn’t possibly say this to Gu Xuance.

“Ah Ze,” Lu Youze signaled for him to sit next to him. “I’m curious, do you have more work to do tomorrow?”

“You know our new drama is very popular recently, and there are a lot of new advertising sponsors. Tomorrow I have to discuss cooperation with them,” Gu Xuance replied. “After that, we should start filming the drama.”

Hearing about the new drama, Lu Youze became interested.

“Let’s start filming quickly. I’m getting so bored lately, I’m almost growing mold.”

Gu Xuance felt even more guilty. If it weren’t for his work these past few days, Youze wouldn’t be so bored.

“Youze, I’m sorry, I—”

Lu Youze placed his index finger over Gu Xuance’s lips and said angrily, “Ah Ze, stop apologizing so much. I’m not bored at all when I’m with you.”

Lu Youze then leaned in closer, their lips almost touching through his finger. He smiled playfully and made a small request, “Ah Ze, if you’re still feeling guilty, why don’t you just smile at me?”

Gu Xuance felt that Lu Youze was getting too close. He could even hear his breathing, and the kiss through his finger felt more like teasing. The worst part was, Youze was smiling at him—didn’t he know how charming his smile was?

Gu Xuance fought back the urge to kiss him and calmly said, “I don’t look good when I smile.”

“Gu Xuance, how deep is your misunderstanding of yourself?” Lu Youze stepped back a couple of paces, maintaining the same pose, but he was almost ready to surrender. He looked at Gu Xuance incredulously, “Don’t you know? The video from when you came to pick me up at the studio went viral online. Do you know how many ten-year-old fans suddenly appeared? Do you know that if you search Weibo now, there’s a gif of you smiling that’s everywhere? Do you know how many people want to duel me over saying they want to fence with you?”

“Did I smile back then?” Gu Xuance thought maybe it was the excitement that made him smile without realizing it. However, Lu Youze sounded so excited, which made Gu Xuance genuinely interested. He grabbed the tablet that Lu Youze had set aside and opened Weibo to see the post Lu Youze had just shared. The number of comments and shares was truly shocking, but Gu Xuance’s attention was entirely focused on the content of Lu Youze’s post.

He skimmed through the top comments and quickly understood what was going on.

Lu Youze remembered the Weibo post he had just made and was about to grab the tablet back, but it was too late. Gu Xuance placed the tablet aside and smiled at Lu Youze. He might still not be used to smiling like that, so it looked a little stiff, but it was indeed as charming as the comments claimed.

“I’m just not used to it,” Gu Xuance seriously explained. “It’s not that I can’t smile.”

In fact, maybe they hadn’t noticed yet, but since they started dating, Gu Xuance’s expressions in front of Lu Youze had become far more lively than before.

Lu Youze was amused by his serious expression. How had he not noticed how cute the CEO was? He really couldn’t resist wanting to hug him and cherish him. And that’s exactly what he did.

“Youze.” Held in Lu Youze’s arms, Gu Xuance’s voice carried a hint of mischievous laughter, “If you don’t mind, I’ll smile every day from now on, and only for you.”