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Became a National Couple with My Ex Chapter 21: What Do You Take Me For
In the double room on the second floor, Liang Yixuan was sitting at the desk reading a book.
Because she had been coming and going early and late these past few days, Cheng Nuo hadn't had much drama to watch. So she brought half a box of books from home and put them on the bookshelf in the living room downstairs, planning to flip through them when bored.
After filming wrapped up that evening, Cheng Nuo was still busy revising her script. Liang Yixuan, bored alone in the room, borrowed a book from her as some bedtime reading.
Late at night, the house was quiet. Cheng Nuo was wearing glasses and typing rapidly on her laptop. The clacking of the keys served as background noise as Liang Yixuan became absorbed in her book—until she suddenly heard the faint sound of piano music.
She glanced at Cheng Nuo, who was focused on her laptop and seemed unaware. Thinking she must’ve misheard, Liang Yixuan looked back down and kept reading.
But after flipping a couple of pages, just as she was getting into the story, the music suddenly grew louder and more intense—
DUN DUN DUN DUN!!!
Liang Yixuan’s head shot up.
Cheng Nuo also snapped out of her focus, pushing her glasses up in surprise.
"…Who’s trying to grab fate by the throat in the middle of nowhere this late at night?"
Liang Yixuan thought for a moment, got up, and opened the window to listen carefully.
It was indeed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, but the sound wasn’t coming from outside—it was drifting up from downstairs.
There hadn’t originally been a piano in the villa. But the day after Bian Xu joined the cast, the production team brought in a Steinway grand piano, thinking maybe he'd feel inspired to play. If he did, the show might go viral and they’d cash in.
But Bian Xu wasn’t the kind to perform casually on camera. Except for that one time at the French restaurant when Liang Yixuan "forced his hand," he hadn’t touched the piano all week.
Liang Yixuan and Cheng Nuo looked at each other, realizing the same thing.
Other than Bian Xu, no one in the villa could play at that level.
"No way, no way!" Cheng Nuo blinked. "Your personal jinx is back?!"
Liang Yixuan frowned, closed her book with a snap, and rubbed her forehead.
Cheng Nuo fully empathized with her mood. Even weeds that get scorched by wildfire need spring wind to grow again—no one had gone to coax Bian Xu back, so how did he just come prancing in on his own?
The music didn’t seem like it would stop anytime soon. Cheng Nuo wanted to go downstairs to investigate, but with only thirty minutes left before her script deadline, she forced herself to keep typing. She tossed Liang Yixuan a pair of noise-cancelling headphones.
"If it’s driving you crazy, wear these."
Liang Yixuan took them but just held them in her palm, trying to calm down. Then, deciding to fix the issue at its root, she opened the door and walked to the staircase.
Taking a deep breath, she shouted downstairs: "Do you mind? Some of us are trying to sleep!"
The piano stopped abruptly, like it had been choked off.
She took another breath and added, "It sounds terrible…"
She choked halfway through.
As annoying as Bian Xu was, there was no denying his skill. He was an expert.
But she couldn’t help it—she was furious. She’d just gotten a peaceful 24 hours. She’d just decided to go back to filming normally. She even made a decent dinner. And then this guy comes back.
And not quietly, either. No, he had to play the piano to announce to the world: "I’m back!"
As if he were afraid she’d sleep too well tonight.
After a slight pause, she tacked on: "...It was awful!"
Then she slammed the door shut behind her with a loud bang.
In the surveillance room, the directors were happily eating instant noodles and enjoying the music when it was suddenly cut off. Liu Peng, noodles hanging from his mouth, stared blankly at the feed showing the living room.
On the piano bench, Bian Xu sat frozen. After a long pause, he silently got up and went upstairs.
The directors followed his movements closely across the monitors. They watched as he went into his room briefly, then came back out again.
"Wait, is he leaving again after just coming back?" the assistant director said nervously. "Lao Liu, do you think that hot-search bait tactic worked? What if we end up offending him and still lose him?"
Liu Peng stroked his chin. "Well, no risk, no reward. Sometimes you have to gamble. Besides, Bian Xu’s got a temper, sure—but he’s an artist. Artists are proud. Once they start looking down on people like us—who only care about money—they stop bothering to argue. So a little push shouldn’t hurt."
"You really are a strategist," the assistant director nodded. Then he pointed at the screen. "Hmm? Where’s he going now?"
Everyone looked over. Bian Xu didn’t go downstairs. Instead, he knocked on Duan Ye’s room on the third floor.
Duan Ye opened the door, hair messy like a bird’s nest, and asked what was up.
Bian Xu leaned against the doorframe and flashed a sleek black credit card.
"…?"
The next morning, after exercising and walking Peach, Liang Yixuan showered, did her makeup, and headed out.
This time, the date was planned by the female guests. The production team gave each male guest three hint cards to help them guess which date was theirs.
Liang Yixuan didn’t know yet who had picked hers.
But Cheng Nuo, who was rooting for her to end up with Shen Ji, had whispered to her the night before: "You’re super popular. Shen Ji’s such a gentleman, he might not be able to compete with the puppy dog or the chaos king. Want me to throw them off a little? I can fake them out and drop Shen Ji a hint—it might make the other two chase the wrong target."
After the disaster of her last date, Liang Yixuan wasn’t expecting much this time. As long as it wasn’t Bian Xu, any guy would do.
Still, she felt a bit guilty about how last week’s dinner with Shen Ji got ruined by Bian Xu. If there was a chance to make it up to him, she was happy to take it. So she accepted Cheng Nuo’s offer.
She left the northern suburbs by taxi and arrived near a dance center in the city around noon. Standing outside a Thai restaurant, she waited for her date.
Two minutes later, a black Cayenne SUV pulled up.
Liang Yixuan sighed in relief and smiled. "Good afternoon."
Shen Ji handed his keys to the valet and smiled back. "Good afternoon."
At the same time, in front of a sushi restaurant across town, Cheng Nuo watched as a silver Bugatti Veyron rolled to a stop.
The window lowered, and she found herself face-to-face with Bian Xu. Both frowned and said at the same time—
"What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?"
Liang Yixuan finally got to enjoy a peaceful lunch with Shen Ji.
With no third wheel, Shen Ji was the perfect gentleman. He easily found topics to talk about, most of them centered on ballet—which Liang Yixuan excelled at. Clearly, he had done some homework.
The conversation flowed easily, and the meal was calm and pleasant.
After lunch, she suggested they visit the dance center she had mentioned in a message earlier.
Shen Ji happily agreed.
Since it was nearby, they walked over. Once there, Liang Yixuan showed her ID at the gate and led Shen Ji and the camera crew through the internal hallways.
Because those areas weren’t supposed to be publicly shown, the cameraman respectfully turned off his camera.
Since there were no cameras around for once, the atmosphere felt a lot more relaxed. Shen Ji smiled and said, "I never thought I’d get a chance to walk down an artist’s path like this."
Liang Yixuan chuckled. "It’s just a concrete floor like any other—not that special."
"You clock in and out here every day?" Shen Ji pointed at the time clock on the wall.
"Usually, yeah. But if there’s a scheduled performance that day, we don’t have to."
Shen Ji nodded thoughtfully. "Now that you mention it, you haven’t had any performances lately, have you?"
"Nope."
"Because the variety show is taking up your time?"
Liang Yixuan shook her head. "That’s not the reason."
"Then what is it?"
She hesitated for a moment.
Back on the second day of filming, she’d texted Shen Ji and promised to invite him to another performance of《By the Stove》.
But due to Achilles tendonitis, she’d stopped performing since September. Her return date was still uncertain, and the South Ballet had asked her not to appear on camera dancing until she was fully recovered.
So that promise she made to Shen Ji had been hanging in the air all this time.
Thinking about it made her feel a little guilty.
She hadn’t planned to mention her injury on the show—mainly because she didn’t want her grandma or mom to find out when it aired.
Sensing her hesitation, Shen Ji smiled and waved it off. "It’s okay. I was just asking casually. If it’s not something you want to talk about, you don’t have to."
"It’s not that," she said softly, glancing back to see that the cameraman had kept his distance and wasn’t filming. She lowered her voice and said, "I’ve been getting treatment for Achilles tendonitis since August. I haven’t been in great shape…"
Shen Ji was taken aback. "How’s it going now?"
"The treatment went well—it finished at the end of September. But professionally, I still need time to fully recover. So that ballet I promised you… might be a little delayed."
Shen Ji smiled and shook his head. "I wasn’t trying to rush you. Your health comes first—no need to hurry."
Liang Yixuan nodded, and as they reached the end of the hallway, she said, "Let me show you our South Ballet’s main studio…"
Before she could finish, they turned a corner and ran into two men walking toward them.
The man directly across from her was wearing a black suit, tall and composed. But no matter how sharp he looked, it couldn’t hide the reason he was clearly here.
Liang Yixuan stopped in her tracks and took a quiet breath when she saw Bian Xu, doing her best not to let any expression slip.
Because the man beside Bian Xu was none other than Mr. Zhang, a board director of South Ballet.
"Well, what a coincidence, Xiao Liang. Working overtime on the weekend?" Mr. Zhang greeted her first.
She gave a polite smile. "Hello, Mr. Zhang. I’m here for the show filming—I spoke with Teacher Qin about it yesterday."
"Oh right, she mentioned you were filming a variety show," Mr. Zhang said, then looked past her at Shen Ji. "If I’m not mistaken, you’re Director Shen from Linsen Capital?"
Mr. Zhang was a board member and businessman, not an artist himself, so it wasn’t surprising he knew Shen Ji.
Shen Ji smiled warmly. "That’s me, Mr. Zhang. We met briefly at last month’s summit."
"Looks like your show’s full of elites." Mr. Zhang smiled at Liang Yixuan. "Just don’t forget your real job. I haven’t seen your name on a performance schedule in a while. A young girl like you should focus on her art—ballet isn’t something you can afford to slack off on."
Given his age, it wasn’t surprising Mr. Zhang had his biases about things like variety shows. He also wasn’t involved in day-to-day affairs, so it made sense he didn’t know about her injury. Even though Liang Yixuan felt wronged, she knew she couldn’t argue with a superior in public. She was about to nod and accept it when Bian Xu suddenly spoke up, his voice cold:
"You call that slacking off?"
"Huh?" Mr. Zhang turned to him.
Bian Xu raised an eyebrow. "Twelve hours a day in the practice room, plus an extra hour in the yoga room after that. If that’s what you call slacking, then who at South Ballet even counts as training hard?"
Mr. Zhang looked momentarily stunned. He glanced at Bian Xu, then at Liang Yixuan, and broke into a chuckle. "Ah, I see now. I’ve clearly been out of the loop. Xiao Liang, my apologies—I misunderstood you."
Liang Yixuan quickly shook her head, trying to smooth things over.
"But still, it’s strange. I’ve seen several new dancers getting more stage time lately. Why haven’t they scheduled anything for you?" Mr. Zhang said, pulling out his phone and dialing a number.
Startled, she realized he might have picked up on Bian Xu’s feelings and was using this moment to "stand up" for her in front of him.
She stepped forward awkwardly. "Mr. Zhang, I—"
"Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it," he cut her off, already talking to someone on the other end of the line.
She couldn’t get a word in. She shot Bian Xu a look, but he didn’t know about her injury either and assumed this was about internal politics, so he didn’t stop Mr. Zhang either.
Shen Ji stepped forward to smooth things over. "Mr. Zhang, Yixuan’s actually been sidelined due to a health issue…"
At that moment, the teacher on the phone said the same thing. Mr. Zhang finally hung up and said, "So it was Achilles tendonitis?"
Bian Xu’s expression froze. His eyes flickered as he looked at Liang Yixuan.
She nodded. "Yes, Mr. Zhang. Thank you for your concern. The teachers have all been very supportive—it’s just that my body wasn’t cooperating. But I’m almost fully recovered now…"
Before Mr. Zhang could say anything, Bian Xu cut in, his tone turning cold. "When did it start?"
She frowned, not answering right away.
Sensing the tension, Mr. Zhang casually pulled Shen Ji aside. "Director Shen, about that summit we were discussing…"
As they walked off, only Liang Yixuan and Bian Xu remained at the hallway corner.
He asked again, "I said, when did the Achilles tendonitis start?"
She turned her head away. "August."
He looked away too, like he was trying to keep calm. He nodded slowly. "August… and I didn’t know."
She didn’t reply.
He looked back at her, a bitter smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Even a man who’s only known you for two weeks knew… but I didn’t."
"Liang Yixuan, what do you take me for?"