“So, your majesty, what do I owe you the pleasure?” Luli joked, making Xia laughed slightly.

Xu Luli is one of Xia’s very few close friends. They lived in the same dorm for the first year and then willingly moved in together for the rest of their time in the university. They were inseparable in university but upon graduation, they got less time to be close to each other since Luli is an investigative journalist, who travels ever so often while Xia is a lawyer, who used to not leave her office for most of the time, until she took over her father’s vineyard.

“Your Royal Highness,” Xia decided to joke back in the way that they used to all the time in the past, calling each other with royal terms, “your servant is in dire need of your favour.”

Luli shrieked in laughter, as a free-spirited soul that she is, “Shut up. I hate you,” her chuckled lightly, “you only come look for me when you are in deep trouble.

Xia gasped, “What trouble?”

“Don’t play the innocent lamb card with me. Some reporter at my building snapped a photo of you and that actor boy, what’s his name again,” Luli spoke and Xia heard a rustle of pages through the phone, “Kris Wu at some night snack bar.”

“What the f-”

“Language!” Luli scolded from the other side. She had always been sensitive with swear words; free-spirited but sensitive to verbal vulgarities, a strange mixture.

“Am I being exposed?” Xia whined and started walking around in her bedroom with worry.

“Relax. I got it under control. I told the editor-in-chief that they should only publish the story when they are not selling it well by using the whole pregnant girlfriend saga.”

Luli sounded so casual and nonchalant that it worried Xia a little. “Luli, listen. I need to talk to you.”

“Just talk?”

“I’ll treat you to dinner.”

“Keep talking,” Luli laughed.

~~~

“So yes, that what I need you to do.” Xia sighed after explaining everything that had happened to herself, how things were between her and Kris, and of what she wanted Luli to do.

Luli held up her wine glass and swirled it carefully before taking a sip, “So, you want me to dig up his story and publish it with details. Are you sure that is what you want to do?”

Xia nodded at her friend from across the table.

“You know, if things go wrong, it’s not only me that goes down, you will too.”

Xia inhaled deeply before letting out the breath in a deep sigh, “I know but I think I want to take the risk.”

~~~

A few weeks has passed by for Kris without contacting Xia. He marvels at her determination of trying to not mix her personal life and her work. In the past, he had a few incidents where he had mixed his work and life. They did not turn out great but he didn’t learn. Whenever he called her during the day, she would either decline to the call or pick up and tell him to call later, mostly preferring to do the former. She would never reply his messages either. Even when he got to speak her at night, she would exchange a few words of whether he’s doing well before excusing herself. Due to that, Huang Zitao became the person he was most jealous of since he gets to spend so much time with Xia in the office.

“Kris, have you read the news?” his manager called him one morning, sounding so urgent and hesitant that it pissed him off since he was up the entire night at a shooting.

“Manager,” he replied groggily, “I’m not in the right mind to read news. Can w-”

“Someone is exposing you and your ex-girlfriend.” As soon as Kris heard the words, he immediately reached for his tablet on the bedside table and searched his name on a search engine. Sure enough he found it. He read through the articles, which utilised the pictures, which were clearly from the lens of a paparazzi, of him and his ex-girlfriend, now pregnant. The article started with how they had met and how they had been going out, including their favourite date spots.

The entire infuriated Kris that he personally called up the news outlet office.

“Excuse me, what is the reason behind this?” he barked into the phone in anger.

A soft voice, which sounded distracted, came through, “We are a news publishing house, Mr.Wu. We publish news to inform the readers.”

“But why dig up these?”

“It was what we wanted to do, Mr.Wu. If you have anything that you are not satisfied with us, you can file a complaint at a government office. Please have a good day.”

Kris gaped at his phone in disbelief as the other party hung up. He now officially hates life.

~~~

Some weeks later, Kris met with Xia, in the presence of his ex-girlfriend’s lawyers to negotiate. He felt awkward, and out of place but Xia looked like she was not affected to the slightest at all. She calmly composed herself and laid out the terms that she wanted to argue with the opponent lawyers.

The opponent lawyers were stubborn, while insisting that they were not in to reconcile with him but get the child support money since his ex-girlfriend was carrying his child.

“How can you prove that it’s his child?” Xia quipped.

The lawyers looked at her dead in the eyes, as if she had gone crazy, “Well, she had been going out with him a lot at that time. Would it that be obvious?”

“Can she take a DNA test?”

“The patient refuse to. You cannot enforce someone to take paternity test. That is against the law,” the other lawyer defended.

“Then, we cannot pay the compensation money.”

The other lawyer smiled, “Miss Tang, why do you want to keep fighting a long-lost battle?”

Xia stared at him calmly, “A battle is not lost until the verdict is out.”

“So, you’re not going to step down.”

“Not until she takes the paternity test,” Xia firmly spoke and snapped her file shut. “We still have another mediation date so please think this through and we’ll meet again. Thank you.” Then, she stood up and walked away from the table. Zitao and Kris followed behind.

“Xia, can I have a word with you?” he asked, wanting to have a private conversation with her.

She stopped in her track and looked at him, “You can have a word with me now. Zitao is on our team,” glancing at Zitao and handing him the file she was holding.

“If you keep on pressuring him like that, wouldn’t that be bad? For all we know, the public is siding with them, not me. I’m the bad guy here.”

“I know,” she nodded.

“Is it not easier to give them the money? I have it, you know.”

“Kris Wu, are you saying you are not confident that the kid is not yours?” her eyes narrowed and looked at him suspiciously.

“No,” Kris exhaled in frustration, “It’s just. Ugh,” he groaned in frustration, “for all I know, they will call a press conference tomorrow and they will spill about us tomorrow, playing the victim card.”

Xia’s eyes didn’t change much. They remained intense but her facial expressions softened slightly, “Kris Wu, do you believe me?” Her facial expression remained tense, her jaws locked and her lips pursed. It was kind of surprising to see her in such a tensed up state.

“...”

Zitao was looking at her and him in turn, his head turning left and right between the two. He looked uncomfortable and that he wanted to escape this tense situation of Kris staring at Xia and herself staring at his shirt buttons in the hallway of a government prosecution office. “I need you to believe in me.” She spoke quietly before exhaling, “Zitao, we have another case to crack. Let’s go.” She turned quickly and walked away, with Zitao by her side, speaking to each other in terms that Kris couldn't comprehend.

Kris was left in the hallway, feeling like he’d rather solve a 16 sided rubik’s cube than this mess of his life.

~~~