"Y-you are the new male lead?" asked Li Yun as he stuttered a bit – shock clearly written on his face. His forehead was covered in cold sweat as he tried his best to stay calm. He clenched his jaw as he looked back and forth at Xu Jia Li and Si Weimin.
Xu Jia Li shrugged her shoulder, a laugh bubbling up on her throat. She wondered why Li Yun was acting so strange in front of Si Weimin. His peculiar behaviour made her laugh. 'What's wrong with Li Yun? Does he have a bad blood with CEO Si?'
She stared at Li Yun and then at Qi Xenjin. She saw how unsettled she was sitting there as she threw sharp gazes at her. She felt that she might be brewing another scheme on her.
'Go ahead, Xenjin. Spend your time scheming on me. I'll let you.' She sneered.
She was surprised when he felt Si Weimin's hand on top of her hand. She felt her heart skip a beat and involuntarily, she shuddered as she tried to remove her hand that was held by him.
She looked at him – mortified by his unexpected action. She could see from the periphery of her vision that Director Han and the rest were looking at their overlapped hands. She pulled her hand again but Si Weimin didn't let her to.
She heard Si Weimin chuckled as he smirked. He laid his back on his chair – still holding her hand, as he answered, "Any problem with that?"
Li Yun moved her lips about to answer when Manager Ho held him back by answering instead, "Of course none, CEO Si. Li Yun is just trying his luck for the male lead."
"That'd better be." answered Si Weimin with an arrogant tone.
A deafening silence followed after Si Weimin's answer. Everyone inside the conference room, who were seated around the long smoked-glass table, didn't dare make a sound.
Only Director Han had the courage to cut the animosity building inside the room. He asked the writer to give each actor a copy of the script. He told them to practice a scene before they were done with the meeting.
Xu Jia Li and Si Weimin had long exchanges of lines but Director Han skipped from their scene and proceeded to Li Yun and Qi Xenjin's scene.
After the reading of script, Director Han reminded everyone as he said, "The signing of the contract will be 3 days from now. The news about CEO Si acting as the male lead will be announced then. Refrain from talking about it for now."
He stood and shook Si Weimin's hand before he said goodbye to the rest of the cast.
One by one, everyone stood up and left. Li Yun reluctantly bid his goodbye to Xu Jia Li as Qi Xenjin followed him behind.
Xu Jia Li only nodded as she smiled meekly at Li Yun.
She then turned her gaze to Lan Meixu and talked about the contract. Suddenly, Producer Zhang also stood from his seat and approached Xu Jia LI. He held her elbow and smiled as he said,
"Miss Xu, I would like to discuss a new project with you. Would you like to meet me later?"
He started caressing Xu Jia Li's elbow which made her grimaced in disgust. A fuming Si Weimin was looking at the scene and saw how the immodest Producer Zhang took advantage of Xu Jia Li.
Before she could even answer, Si Weimin walked towards her and put his arms on her shoulder. With a fierce and cold gaze, he looked at Producer Zhang's hand that was holding Xu Jia Li.