Summary 2

This page contains an original arc analysis written for readers of the English translation.

Arc Two: The Secretly Married Movie Star — When Being a Good Actor Isn’t Enough

Arc Two shifts the story into a world that looks shiny on the surface and rotten underneath: the entertainment industry. If Arc One was about blood and abandonment, this arc is about image, cowardice, and what happens when a man hides behind his career long enough to forget he has a family.

Ji Xiu enters this world as a national-level movie star. Not an idol pretending to act, but a real actor with awards, reputation, and the kind of face that has been on cinema screens for over a decade. To the public, he is cold, distant, and devoted only to his craft. What they don’t know is that he has been married for years and has a young son named Ji Xiaocong.

And worse than hiding the marriage is why he hid it.

Ji Xiu’s wife, Xu Yun, didn’t demand secrecy for fame or money. She asked for nothing. She stayed home, raised their child alone, and endured gossip, loneliness, and fear while her husband lived safely behind the shield of “professional image.” The original Ji Xiu believed he was protecting his family by hiding them. In reality, he was protecting himself.

The key conflict of this arc isn’t a villain trying to destroy Ji Xiu. It’s Ji Xiu finally being forced to face the cost of his silence.

That moment arrives through a variety show called Dad and Me. In the original timeline, Ji Xiu never joined it. In this corrected version, he does—and the choice detonates his carefully constructed public persona overnight. A live broadcast crew shows up at his apartment at dawn, and within minutes, the entire country watches Ji Xiu open the door in casual clothes, hair messy, and carrying a sleepy toddler in cartoon pajamas.

The internet explodes.

Hidden marriage. Hidden child. Four years of silence.

Fans scream betrayal. Gossip accounts feast. Headlines multiply faster than explanations. But here’s the twist: Ji Xiu doesn’t dodge it. He doesn’t apologize in vague PR language or hide behind his agency. He speaks plainly. He says he was wrong. He says he wants to be a good husband and father, not just a good actor.

This is where the arc becomes quietly radical. Instead of being punished by the public, Ji Xiu is… understood.

Most people don’t actually care that he got married. They care that he finally stopped pretending. The audience watching the live broadcast sees something they recognize: a tired dad trying to cook and failing miserably, a shy child clinging to his leg, and a man who looks awkward but sincere in his own home. The outrage fades. What replaces it is curiosity, warmth, and protection.

Ji Xiaocong becomes the emotional center of the arc. He’s not a cute prop; he’s a child shaped by absence. He loves his mother deeply and treats his father with suspicion, because for most of his life, Papa existed as a voice on the phone and a name on TV. Ji Xiu doesn’t force affection. He earns it through consistency—waking up early, losing races on purpose, letting his son sit on his shoulders, and learning when to step in and when to stay quiet.

At the same time, the variety show introduces a secondary conflict that mirrors Ji Xiu’s own flaws: Yang Qianye and his daughter. Yang Qianye is a washed-up actor stuck in his glory days, arrogant, dismissive, and completely unaware of how the world has changed. He hides behind seniority the way Ji Xiu once hid behind professionalism. His daughter copies his behavior perfectly—rude, entitled, and careless of others.

The contrast is deliberate. Ji Xiu doesn’t publicly fight Yang Qianye. He doesn’t argue or humiliate him. He simply behaves better. He protects his child. He respects other families. He refuses to use his status to dominate the show. And because this is a live broadcast, every small difference is magnified. The audience notices. Yang Qianye destroys himself without Ji Xiu lifting a finger.

This arc’s themes are layered but consistent. One is responsibility under observation. Another is how kindness becomes a form of strength when everyone is watching. But the most important theme is this: love that hides is not love—it is fear wearing a polite mask.

The second half of the arc moves away from the show and into Ji Xiu’s private life, where the real repair happens. Ji Xiu takes Xu Yun and their son to meet her estranged parents. This is not a glamorous reconciliation. Xu Yun’s parents are cold, proud intellectuals who once pushed their daughter away for getting pregnant out of wedlock. They don’t welcome Ji Xiu with open arms. They barely tolerate him.

But again, Ji Xiu doesn’t perform. He doesn’t posture. He apologizes. He shows up. He brings their grandson. And slowly, painfully, the family heals—not because of fame or money, but because someone finally took responsibility instead of running.

The arc culminates in a public wedding, live-streamed and unapologetic. This isn’t about spectacle. It’s about correction. Ji Xiu publicly acknowledges the woman he hid and the child he neglected. The audience doesn’t see scandal anymore. They see closure.

By the end of Arc Two, Ji Xiu has changed in a way that matters to the larger story. He no longer treats fatherhood as something that can wait until after success. He no longer believes silence is protection. He learns that being a good man in private matters more than being admired in public.

And this arc matters because it reframes villainy again. Ji Xiaocong, in another timeline, grows up chasing a father who never turns around. Here, that future is cut off early—not with punishment, but with presence.

Arc Two proves that neglect doesn’t always look like cruelty. Sometimes it looks like awards, distance, and a phone call that never quite lasts long enough.

And fixing that requires more than regret. It requires stepping into the light and staying there.