CH 5

Not only the director but the entire room was astonished.

What the hell was a Pagoda of Bowls? Was it the kind of acrobatics we saw when we were young?

When the web was still underdeveloped, everyone would choose to go to theatres to watch operas and acrobatics during their leisure time. But it was already 2020 now, and there was still someone who knows how to do this1?

Furthermore, the young lad standing in front looked like he was only 20 years old, where did he even learn acrobatics from? He wasn’t speaking nonsense just to attract attention, was he?

Seeing the director not utter a word, Qi Xingchen asked: “May I begin performing?”

“Go ahead.” Without waiting for the director to speak, Bo Ye answered for him.

Acrobatics is not just about skill and technique, it also focuses on keeping the balance between strength and aesthetics.

Qi Xingchen took off his shoes, took a step back with his left leg and placed a stack of bowls on the crown of his head. Starting a traditional Chinese song, he bowed slightly and gave a salute to the crowd in the conference room.

The moment he finished his salutations, he suddenly whipped his hand upwards. A bowl left his fingers and landed firmly into the stack of bowls on the crown of his head!

Throughout the entire movement, he did not even adjust his position to catch it, as if he was just throwing something casually.

No matter whether one was an expert or a layman, everyone could see from this action that was done with ease that he was not just attracting attention and learning on the go.

There was definitely a very strong foundation!

As the rhythm of the music slowly speeded up, he did traditional Chinese dance while tossing a few more bowls towards his head. Next, after a heavy drum beat, he leaned his upper body forward and stretched his left leg up behind, forming an “Exploring the Sea” pose2.

At the moment of the next heavy drum beat, he tossed a bowl backwards. A miraculous thing happened — this bowl landed exactly on the heart of the sole of his foot3, not even missing by an inch!

A second one, a third one, a fourth one…… He would throw out a bowl at every drum beat and every bowl would land exactly onto the stack without any error. The crowd watched till they were dizzied and even forgot to cheer.

Once the song ended, Qi Xingchen, whose head and left4 foot had stacks of bowls, remained nailed in place. His face was not red nor was he panting; the tail of his eyes and the tips of his brow raised in a smile as he gave a slight nod ahead of him.

“……Fuck,” the producer could not help but burst out in foul language, “This is way too amazing. Little Liu, go help him to bring down the bowls.”

“Clap clap clap —“

Only then did the crowd recover, and with the director leading it, a round of applause rang inside the conference room.

Qi Xingchen bowed deeply and expressed his thanks. There were still others waiting behind him, and he did not wish to hold others up, quickly packing up his bowls to run out.

Not even a few steps away, someone called out behind him: ” Qi Xingchen, come back here.”

It was Bo Ye. Qi Xingchen turned his head back to gaze at him.

“…… You didn’t wear your shoes.” Bo Ye indicated towards his feet.

“Oh, thank you.”

.

Qi Xingchen was not that satisfied with this performance.

Acrobatics demands a high degree of balancing ability and flexibility of the body. There was still a disparity between this body and the real-life him, resulting in him only bringing half of his skills into full play today.

Han Qing was waiting outside all this while. Seeing his exit, he walked towards the elevator shaft with him, “Xingxing, did you perform okay?”

“Just average.”

“Heh, so what if you perform well?” At this instant, Zhou Yu walked towards him head-on, “With your capabilities, can you even be chosen by the programme group?”

Zhou Yu performed before Han Qing and Qi Xingchen, so logically, he should have already gone home or back to the practice room for training by now.

His appearance here was very likely5 because he bore a grudge towards Qi Xingchen for disrupting him from apple-polishing Qi Yuji, and he specially waited to pick on him.

Qi Xingchen laughed sardonically: “Even if I can’t, don’t tell me a boy toy6 like you who relies on women to pull a few strings can do it?”

Zhou Yu was originally a model, but he managed to transfer from a small company to Noah through Qi Yuji. He never filmed more than two dramas and his performance was ordinary.

By ruining Zhou Yu’s plan of seeking Qi Yuji for help, Qi Xingchen was basically certain that he would not be chosen. 

Too lazy to deal with him, Qi Xingchen bumped into his shoulder while brushing past and walked directly into the elevator.

Zhou Yu reeled backwards from the bump. He could not figure out how this person who called out “Yu-ge” this or “Yu-ge” that not long ago, could change faces in such a short amount of time. He rushed up: “Qi Xingchen, if you have the f*cking guts, repeat that again!”

“Your request is certainly unique,” Qi Xingchen raised his eyebrows, “Sure, I’ll repeat it again. Regardless of whether or not I have the capability to be chosen, at least I competed fair and square, unlike you who used sweet talk to coax your girlfriend to find a backdoor7 for you.”

“……” Zhou Yu was so angry that he started getting mouthy, “Only poor motherf*ckers who cannot find backers would make such snarky remarks. Who in the circle isn’t like this? It is also my ability if I can find someone to help me!”

Hearing the noise, the people along the corridor looked over curiously, displaying an entertaining range of facial expressions.

Some of them were just watching it unfold, some were gloating, and some have been unhappy with Zhou Yu or Qi Xingchen for a long while and were dying for the both of them to disappear in an earth-shattering event8.

The only reaction no one expressed was disdain at Zhou Yu’s words.

Society was like this, full of superficial people9. Being able to live well was a capability, no one cared about how you went about “living well”.

Qi Xingchen did not wish to have onlookers and pressed the down call button for the elevator: “I can’t choose how I was born, but I can choose how I wish to live from then on. Pardon me for being unable to share your views.”

“You- you……” Zhou Yu’s face turned livid and “you”ed for half a day without “you”ing out the rest of the sentence.

Unexpectedly, he could not refute him.

Looking at the growing number of onlookers, he suddenly felt that he had lost all face. Not caring about anything else, he raised his fist to hit Qi Xingchen!

Qi Xingchen did not dodge or give way. Just when the fist was about to smash into his face, a tall figure suddenly flashed in front of him.

— Bo Ye grabbed Zhou Yu’s wrist with ease and said coldly: “Did you eat up1 all of the company’s rules and regulations?”

Once he was done speaking, he flung Zhou Yu’s wrist aside and stepped into the elevator that opened right at that moment with his assistant.

Qi Xingchen did not expect the male protagonist to help him out at all and remained stupefied in place.

“……What are you gawking at?”

Bo Ye frowned2 and asked in a low voice: “Are you coming in or not?”

.

That very same frown. Qi Xingchen had seen it on his idol Bo Ye’s face countless times.

Bo Ye was an impatient person — for a very long period of time, the media and anti-fans who thrived on chaos3 refused to let go of this point. They spread rumours of him throwing his weight around, scowling at fans, forgetting himself once he became famous.

Only his fans or “Night Skies”4 know that if there were only two parts to his tenderness, then one part would be given to the music and dance that he loved. 

The other part would be wholly given to “Night Skies”.

He did not even treat himself as well as he treated his fans.

Face flushed with embarrassment and anger5, Zhou Yu fled from the scene via the fire escape after being caught by Bo Ye.

Qi Xingchen walked into the elevator in a daze. It wasn’t until they reached the 6th floor that he reacted, saying sheepishly: “Thank you.”

“No problem, just remember to wear your shoes after performing next time.” Bo Ye said.

“……Okay.”

“Also—” Bo Ye paused, “If another person attempts to hit you again, don’t just stand there. I might not be around next time.”

“……En,” Qi Xingchen rubbed the tips of his ears that were growing hot, “I got it.”

In reality, he purposely did not dodge just now. If Zhou Yu really dared to hit him, he could then take the video recording to Qi Yuji, and let Qi Yuji see the slag man’s true colours.

Losing this chance was alright, he could still wait for the next. Qi Xingchen went back to the practice room to continue training, while the image of Bo Ye frowning kept flashing in front of his eyes.

As the saying goes, when drawing a tiger, it is easy to draw its skin but difficult to draw its bone structure6; when one is asked to depict him based upon certain defining features, it would be easy to outline his physical appearance, but very difficult to fully describe his aura.

He read the original text; it was describing how much Tao Tao was spoiled by the male protagonist and supporting characters throughout. All of the men were just plot devices7, thus the author hardly described the details of the male protagonist.

So…… Why were the male protagonist and the real Bo Ye so similar to each other?

.

When he reached home at night, Qi Yunxiao was reading documents in the living room as expected. Other than him, there was also Qi Yuji who had applied a face mask and was constantly dozing off.

“You’re back, Xingxing,” Qi Yunxiao said, “You just got discharged from the hospital, don’t tire yourself out lately. Quickly go and sleep ba.”

“Wait!” Hearing her younger brother’s name, as if Qi Yuji’s soul returned, she scrambled up from the chaise longue8, “Xingxing, you participated in that variety show’s selection too?’

“En.”

“You ah,” Qi Yuji stood on tiptoes to poke his forehead, “If you wanted to get onto the show, why didn’t you tell Da ge9? Da ge knows MaimangTV’s boss, and I know the producer’s daughter. Why would you work so hard by yourself for a selection?”

Although her words sounded reproachful, her tone was warm and gentle, full of concern. Qi Xingchen felt a little uncomfortable and took a step back, “I want to try it out on my own.”

The original owner made a death order, not allowing his family members to help him out or reveal his identity without permission. This was also why Qi Yuji only hung up the phone on Zhou Yu and did not tell Zhou Yu that he was cursing out his own younger brother-in-law.

“Okay then. You must tell us if you need anything.”

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Scared that her younger brother would do something rebellious again, Qi Yuji did not dare to say much. She could only pat away the dust on Qi Xingchen’s body for him, “Which car did you drive back? How come your cuffs are dirty?”

“I took the bus back home.”

“?” Qi Yuji and Qi Yunxiao were both shocked. They shot a glance at each other, then took out their phones at the same time to send messages to the car dealers they knew.

Qi Xingchen did not know what they were doing and took advantage of this interval to escape back into his room. After washing up, he collapsed on his bed and opened the Weibo app that he did not look at for the entire day. He logged into his side account first.

The purchased live followers were all intact. Other than that, 7 accounts that were identified as “Night Skies” from their ID followed him, and 3 of them had forwarded his exposé Weibo post.

En, still okay. At least it was better than no splash at all.

He switched over to his main account in relief. Surprisingly, there were actually 40+ replies under the picture he posted on his main account!

Some were asking where he went for most of the last 6 months; some suspected that he was kidnapped and asked him to blink if he was; some guessed if he was finally out to do activities.

The most liked reply was just a simple sentence:

【It’s good that you’re back, we have always been here.】

He chose to upload a selfie yesterday to accumulate popularity. As long as his popularity rises, he could then get closer to the male and female protagonist.

From transmigrating into the book till now, his brain was full of thoughts on how to survive or what are the next steps to take to save his life. But when he saw this sentence, he abruptly realised that he was more than just himself now.

He was also a little-known artiste.

He was also the idol of dozens of girls.

Like how he liked Bo Ye, those girls liked him, too.

Qi Xingchen’s nose was stinging a bit while replying to each and every one of the 40+ comments. When he typed till his fingers were stiff, his phone started vibrating.

It was a call from Du Lanxin, her voice was both dumbfounded and surprised, “Yoh10, kid, did you step in dog sh*t11 or something? You were actually chosen!”

The author has something to say:

Bo Ye: My fan’s performance ability is stronger than mine, how do I beat him?