Let Me Be Spoiled - Chapter 66

Xie Yan had dreamt the whole night. Though only hazy fragments remained when he woke, it felt as if he had relived everything that happened when he was ten.

He got out of bed and splashed his face with cold water, dampening the hair around his cheeks. Propping his face in his hands, he looked up and saw in the mirror a version of himself who could barely open his eyes. He was pale, drained, and utterly worn out.

It was maddening.

In all his life, Xie Yan had rarely been this troubled by anything.

He didn’t want to get entangled with the Feng family, nor did he want reporters digging up his past with Ruan Anning. And now, because of him, Goodbye, Rose had been forced to halt filming.

Overnight, the matter had snowballed. Various media outlets had stepped in, focusing on his origins and the events recorded in his file. Compared to the incident when he was not yet fourteen, assaulting a staff member and sending an elderly man to the hospital, being returned from foster care seemed almost trivial.

The fact that Xie Yan came from an orphanage was already explosive news. Whether he had grown up in a rich family or a poor one, or even been orphaned and raised by relatives, those would merely be the kind of misfortunes ordinary people could relate to. If such a background were made public, it might have drawn sighs of sympathy and praise for his resilience and independence.

Xie Yan was different, he didn’t even have a family. He grew up in an orphanage on the margins of society, a place most people neither understood nor came into contact with, which gave rise to all kinds of malicious speculation and baseless fantasies. As if simply because his environment was different from theirs, because he had never known family care and had grown up in a supposedly harsh, hellish place, he must have turned out strange.

So in their eyes, even assaulting an elderly man or being returned from foster care by a “normal” family seemed perfectly natural.

A person raised in a “twisted” environment, they believed, would inevitably do things that ordinary people could never imagine themselves doing.

The matter hadn’t even reached its conclusion yet, the press conference hadn’t been held, but the media seemed to have skipped straight past all the preliminary steps and begun an in-depth investigation into the orphanage’s policies and oversight problems.

Reading those comments, Xie Yan found them laughable.

The orphanage’s conditions weren’t great, but they weren’t unbearable either. With state funding and social assistance, the children there couldn’t live like those in ordinary families, but at least they had enough to eat and warm clothes to wear. The staff, even if not particularly loving, were paid to do their jobs, and most had no reason to go out of their way to do extra harm.

Yes, Xie Yan had been fighting since he was young, but that was unavoidable—so many children were competing to live better, and you could pick out any one of them and they would be a troublemaker in the outside world. To say he was bad enough to kill or commit arson, as some maliciously imagined, was simply untrue.

Xu Yingzhi, his manager, had handled many PR crises over the years and weathered plenty of storms, but now her career was tied directly to Xie Yan, and this incident had her genuinely worried. A public figure from an orphanage background who, as a minor, had assaulted an elderly man, this hit on all the hottest topics of the moment. Xu Yingzhi wanted to resolve the issue at its root. To show that there was another side to the story behind Xie Yan’s actions. That was the only way to settle it once and for all. Otherwise, no matter how well they handled the current PR, every time his name came up in the future, people would drag this old incident back into the spotlight, something he might never escape for the rest of his life.

The public’s memory is short yet also long.

Xie Yan had replied to her twice, each time only saying, “No.”

Xu Yingzhi couldn’t do anything with that. Anxious and frustrated, she spent the entire day in meetings with the PR team.

Just as the situation was spiraling, another development completely drew the public’s attention away.

The Feng family came forward, openly declaring that they had been the ones who adopted Xie Yan back then.

It was so surreal it felt like fake news, but Feng Hong himself accepted an interview, saying on video. “The matter of adopting and then returning him was our fault, and had nothing to do with Xie Yan. What’s written in the file is pure nonsense—malicious tampering by someone with an agenda.”

He frowned, forced a smile at the camera, and then said seriously, “As for the specific details, I’ll fully reveal them at the press conference three days from now. I hope everyone won’t form a bad impression of Xie Yan.”

Xie Yan noticed the brief pause when Feng Hong got to this part, the strained smile, and the words. “He really, truly is a very good child.”

He thought to himself that Feng Hong was always like this, in the past and now. But he was no longer the ten-year-old Xie Yan.

At first, this had only been an insignificant detail in his file. Once it involved the Feng family, and seemed tied to the melodrama of a wealthy household, it suddenly became irresistible to the public.

Most people can only focus on one thing at a time. As attention to this new story grew, the incident about assaulting an elderly man began to fade into the background.

The moment Xu Yingzhi heard the news, she called Xie Yan, sounding more relaxed. “Didn’t expect the Feng family to come forward for you. They’ve set the press conference for three days from now. At least for these three days, we don’t have to worry about the other matter and you can focus on preparing. By the way, what exactly is going on between you and the Feng family? You should at least tell me that much.”

Xie Yan sat alone in his room, curtains drawn, no lights on. He lit a cigarette, smoked halfway through it. The ember flared and dimmed, too weak to light up the space, just like his expression. It was cold and shadowed, unreadable, unseen.

He didn’t feel the least bit happy. In fact, he felt worse. Without even thinking it over, he pressed his lips together and answered Xu Yingzhi directly. “My business has nothing to do with the Feng family.”

Rushing between tasks, Xu Yingzhi picked up on what he meant. “I’m your manager, and only your manager. This road, in the end, is one you have to walk yourself, no one else can walk it for you. Even if your career really does collapse in my hands, I can still go sign another artist in the future. But you, you don’t get to start over.”

She finished speaking and hung up before Xie Yan could respond.

Xie Yan crushed out his cigarette.

Even though Xu Yingzhi had said there would be a press conference, reporters still refused to leave, camping out in the hotel for an exclusive scoop and a chance to interview him.

Trapped in his room, Xie Yan video-called Fu Qing. His mood was lighter while they chatted, but the moment the call ended, he returned to his usual state.

Half a day was enough for him to figure out how he wanted to handle things. He wouldn’t reveal anything about Ruan Anning, and he didn’t want to be linked to the Feng family. Even at the press conference, he had no intention of following Xu Yingzhi’s advice to apologize to that old man. Someone so unworthy didn’t deserve it. If the fallout truly made it impossible for him to act in films again, then he simply wouldn’t appear in the public eye anymore. He could work in theatre, performing on stage instead.

Starting over from scratch wasn’t a big deal. He had done it many times before. The difference now was that he had someone he cherished, someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Still, Xie Yan wanted to finish Goodbye, Rose. He also felt guilty toward Xu Yingzhi and the fans who liked him.

If he had to leave, he should at least make it up to them.

His worries were never about how difficult or endless the road ahead might be, they came from not knowing which road to take. While the outside world’s influence on him now was greater than before, it wasn’t enough to change who he was.

He could break his bones chasing a dream, but he would never bow his head.

Once he had thought through all of this, his mood actually improved, and he was even able to start reading the script again.

Around seven or eight that evening, Jiang Tong sent a message saying he was bringing dinner over. Xie Yan got up to open the door but it wasn’t Jiang Tong standing outside.

It was Ruan Anning, wearing a hat and carrying the meal.

Xie Yan froze for a moment, then stepped aside to let her in, switching on the light as he did so.

Ruan Anning removed her hat and sunglasses. The light fell across her face—she wasn’t wearing makeup, her dark circles were heavy, and her eyes were red, as if she had been crying for a long time.

Xie Yan stood in front of her without speaking. Comforting others was never something he was good at.

After what seemed like a moment of gathering her courage, Ruan Anning finally spoke. “Xie Ge, let’s tell the truth about that matter.”