Huayu: Starting with Xiang Yu, the Hegemon of Western Chu

Three days after the Huabiao Awards, Chen Mo received an unexpected phone call.

Sister Lin.

We haven't been in touch for over a year.

Chen Mo looked at the three words on the screen, hesitated for two seconds, and then pressed the answer button.

"Feed?"

"Xiao Mo! It's me, Sister Lin!"

The voice on the other end of the phone was much warmer than Chen Mo remembered.

A year ago, when Sister Lin spoke to him, her tone was professional, restrained, and carried a hint of weariness, as if she were saying, "I should go through the formalities now."

Everything has changed now.

It's like a pot of lukewarm water that's suddenly set on fire.

"Hello, Sister Lin." Chen Mo's tone remained unchanged.

"Congratulations! Best Newcomer at the Huabiao Awards! I watched the live broadcast on TV last night, and I burst into tears the moment I saw you go on stage. Seriously, I knew you had potential when I was mentoring you back then, and I was right!"

Chen Mo was holding a bowl of rice porridge, the broth still slowly seeping down onto the rice.

He didn't respond to that sentence.

When Sister Lin was mentoring him back then, the last thing she said to him was, "What are you planning to do after you get out?" The tone of that sentence was completely different from the "I knew you were talented" that she said now.

But he did not refute it.

There's no point in refuting it.

Sister Lin paused for a moment on the other end of the phone, probably waiting for his response. When she didn't receive one, she had no choice but to continue.

"Here's the thing, Xiao Mo, the company has been holding meetings these past few days to discuss your situation. Everyone feels that what happened back then was handled a bit too hastily. The company's senior management wants to sit down with you again and have a proper talk to see if it's possible... um, to cooperate again."

Chen Mo poured another spoonful of soup into the rice porridge.

The rice grains turned over in the broth.

"Fight again?" he asked.

"Yes! Your situation is completely different now than it was a year ago. You won the Huabiao Award for Best Newcomer, starred in Zhou Mu's movie, and your popularity has increased. The company thinks you are a very important artist, and this time we want to show our utmost sincerity and will definitely not treat you unfairly."

"What is the greatest sincerity you can offer?"

Sister Lin paused noticeably for a moment.

She hadn't expected Chen Mo to be so direct.

In her experience, when artists hear that their former company is seeking reconciliation, their first reaction is usually politeness, evasion, and observation before they slowly begin substantive negotiations.

It's rare to see someone directly ask "How much?"

"You'll have to come to the company to discuss the specific figures. But I can give you a heads-up: this number will satisfy you greatly, extremely well." Sister Lin's tone brightened again. "We're serious this time."

Chen Mo glanced down at the rice porridge in his bowl.

The soup had soaked into the rice, making the grains soft and plump.

This is the state he should be in when he wants to eat.

"Okay," he said. "You decide the time and place."

Are you free the day after tomorrow? 3 PM, in the company's 12th-floor conference room.

Chen Mo's lips twitched slightly.

Conference room on the 12th floor.

He signed the termination agreement in that conference room a year ago.

That long table, those three people opposite, and that young assistant girl typing notes on her computer.

Sister Lin probably chose this place to create a feeling of "returning home".

She felt this was a sentimental appeal.

Chen Mo thought it was a coincidence.

A rather interesting coincidence.

"Can."

"It's settled then! I'll wait for you downstairs!"

"No need. I'll go myself."

After hanging up the phone, Chen Mo put his phone on the table and finished the bowl of rice porridge.

After swallowing the last bite, he wiped his mouth, picked up his phone, and scrolled to Shen Yu's chat window.

Their chat history stopped on the night of the awards ceremony.

Shen Yufa's message: "Congratulations. Want to chat sometime?"

Chen Mo replied, "I'm free."

Then neither of them continued.

It's not that one person is holding the other back; it's that both of them seem to be waiting for the right opportunity.

The time has come.

Chen Mo typed a line of text.

"The day after tomorrow at 3 PM, in the conference room on the 12th floor of Xingchen Entertainment, I'll be discussing something inside for about half an hour. After that, we can talk about the contract downstairs."

He paused before sending it, deleted the last sentence, and replaced it with another sentence.

"The day after tomorrow at 3 PM, in the conference room on the 12th floor of Xingchen Entertainment. If it's convenient for you, please arrive around 3:30 PM. You don't need to wait downstairs, just come up directly."

After sending it out, Chen Mo himself chuckled.

This change is quite interesting.

The previous version was "After we finish our business, let's go downstairs to talk," while the next version is "Come right upstairs."

A single word can make all the difference in meaning.

He was inviting Shen Yu into that conference room.

Go to the place where he was fired back then.

Shen Yu replied to the message faster than he expected.

Less than two minutes.

"it is good."

Just one word.

She didn't ask why she chose Star Entertainment, what would happen in the meeting room, or what Chen Mo wanted her to do.

It can be summed up in one word: "good".

Looking at the word, Chen Mo suddenly felt a sense of peace.

Whether some people are compatible or not can be summed up in a single word.

He put down his phone and walked to the window.

The locust tree outside the window has finished blooming, and its tender green leaves are hanging all over the tree.

The wind blows, and the leaves rustle.

Chen Mo took a deep breath.

The day after tomorrow, he's going to a place he doesn't really want to go, to meet some people he doesn't really want to meet, and to talk about some things he doesn't really want to talk about.

But he knew he had to handle this himself.

Some of the warmth and coldness of human relationships can only be truly understood through personal experience.

He needs to go there in person.

It wasn't to get revenge on anyone, nor was it to humiliate anyone.

It was to give an explanation to the young man who sat on the other side of the long table a year ago, head down, listening to the company declare that he had "no commercial value".

Two days later, at 2:45 PM.

Chen Mo stood at the entrance of the office building where Xingchen Entertainment was located.

The early summer breeze already carried a hint of heat. He wore a very ordinary white T-shirt, with a thin gray jacket over it, along with jeans and a pair of canvas shoes.

There wasn't a single item on him that cost more than 500 yuan.

He was not wearing sunglasses or a mask.

There was just one person standing at the entrance of the office building, waiting for a few minutes.

Several passersby recognized him. Some slowed down to take a second look, while others took out their phones to take pictures, but no one came forward to disturb him.

Chen Mo has this kind of aura.

He stood there quietly, but you just felt a little awkward going over to bother him.

At 2:53, he stepped into the office building.

I went straight to the elevator.

There were several young girls in the elevator, probably employees of a company in this building.

The moment one of the girls saw Chen Mo, her pupils dilated.

She tugged at her colleague's sleeve and whispered, "It's Chen Mo!"

Another girl looked up and froze in place.

The elevator ascended from the first floor to the twelfth floor in ten seconds.

For those ten seconds, the girls were so careful with their breathing that none of them dared to speak.

With a ding, the elevator arrived.

Chen Mo walked out.

I walked into the long corridor on the twelfth floor.

He had walked through this corridor a year ago.

He was there to sign the termination agreement.

He still remembered the decor on both sides of the corridor: light gray walls, blue carpet, and an abstract decorative painting every few meters. A year had passed, and the decor hadn't changed much.

What changed was the way people looked at him in the corridor.

A year ago, nobody paid attention to him.

He walked from the end of the corridor to the meeting room door, passing six people in total. All six people were looking down at their phones, talking, or looking at documents, and none of them looked up at him.

In their eyes, Chen Mo was a loser who had been kicked out of the company. Completely invisible.

Today is different.

As soon as Chen Mo reached the middle of the corridor, three people stopped in their tracks.

One of the male employees, who was holding a coffee, trembled when he saw Chen Mo, and almost spilled the coffee.

One of them was a female employee who was on the phone. When she saw Chen Mo, she forgot to talk and stood there with her mouth agape.

Another one was a junior assistant who had just come out of the next office. After seeing Chen Mo, she immediately shrank back into her office, peeked out again two seconds later to confirm, and then hurriedly closed the door.

Chen Mo ignored these reactions.

He simply followed the original path, step by step, until he reached the door of the conference room at the end of the twelfth floor.

The meeting room door was closed.

The sign on the door reads "Conference Room 1".

Chen Mo raised his hand and knocked on the door twice.

"Please come in!"

Lin Jie's voice came from inside.

Chen Mo pushed open the door and went inside.