CH 16

After getting the tetanus shot, it was already dusk when they arrived at Odense.

It was the time when everyone was getting off work. Amongst the busy flow of people on the street of a foreign land, a group of well-dressed Asian faces was surrounded by all kinds of recording equipment, all of them looking at each other.

“What do we do?” Liu Ziyu asked, “there’s still 4 or 5 hours before the sun sets completely, where are we going to stay?”

Not sure if she was still in shock from yesterday, Liu Ziyu did not talk much for the entire of today and this was the first proper sentence she had said.

Zhang Yunfei examined at the 20+ kroner in Tao Tao’s hands, “We should think of ways to earn some money, if not we would have to sleep at the station1, or be couch surfers.”

Everyone already understood the reasoning, “How will we earn money?”

“Sell our personal items ba……” Qi Xingchen waved towards Director Zhao, “Would that be allowed?”

Director Zhao: “It is allowed.”

All the guests heaved a huge sigh of relief, if they had known earlier that they could sell they would have already, there was no need to suffer so much. As figures from the upper layers of the pyramids in the entertainment circle, who wouldn’t have some valuable items on hand?

“However—” The director paused to keep them in suspense for a moment, then supplemented, “You can only sell to fans of yours.”

“…… I just knew it!”

The crowd wailed mournfully, “I just knew that this dog2 programme team was not that simple!”

Denmark was different from the US and UK, the number of local Chinese people were very few. They were popular within their own country, but their popularity had not reached all the way to Scandinavia, where were they going to find fans?

Everyone collectively sighed in despair, at this moment Zhang Yunfei seemed to have recalled something, flinging his head with a swish towards Bo Ye.

The rest of the people also reacted, turning to look at Bo Ye in unison, “You’ve had a world concert tour before, right?”

Bo Ye: “……Right.”

“Then it also means that you possibly would have fans here,” Zhang Yunfei pretended to be deeply grieved, “Not that gege is not helping you, I really want to do it, but I don’t have the resources3. I can only trouble you for a bit.”

“……” Bo Ye fell into deep thought.

He did not know how to express that he was up for selling things, but he didn’t wish to sell things to his fans.

Normally, for insignificant items, if his fans wanted it he would give it directly, never accepting a single cent from his fans.

The crowd all looked expectantly at Bo Ye; one, was because they really wanted to get some money to find a hotel to sleep in; two, was because of the effect dictated by the programme, if Bo Ye sold items or anything, it would certainly be a special selling point4.

“Or we can think of other ways,” Qi XIngchen glanced at Bo Ye out of the corner of his eyes and analysed, “Finding fans amongst the sea of strangers is like finding a needle in a haystack5, isn’t it?”

“You’re right, it is indeed not smart to try to find fans. The problem is, what other way is there?” Luo Qiuman had quite a headache.

With so many Asians standing here chattering continuously, there was already a small wave of curious Danes halting in their steps across the street, stretching out their necks to look over here.

Seeing that they were being watched by people from all directions, Qi Xingchen registered that it was useless to stand around and do nothing6, pondering for a bit, “Yunfei-ge, could you give me the remaining money?”

That bit of money was not even enough for a single meal, thus there was no use in keeping it. Zhang Yunfei waved his hand, indicating to Tao Tao to give it to him.

“Wait for me for a few minutes, I’ll be out right away.”

Qi Xingchen took the money proffered by Tao Tao, turning his head back to identify something for a moment, and ran inside the supermarket behind him.

Everyone complied and waited at the original spot. Less than ten minutes later, he returned as arranged, holding a poor quality umbrella and six porcelain plates that one could tell with one look were discounted defects in his hands.

Zhang Yunfei couldn’t help but burst into laughter, “Xingxing, what did you buy these playthings for?”

“Each of us will take one plate and beg for money to scrape by.”

An expression of wishing to beat him to death7 emerged on Zhang Yunfei’s face at once.

“Just joking,” Qi Xingchen stopped smiling and said firmly, “I have a way of earning money, geges and jiejies8, please help to clear up a space for me.”

The crowd was sceptical, Tao Tao asked inquisitively, “Xingxing, are you planning to perform9 to earn money?”

“More or less.” Qi Xingchen took off his jacket and started to warm up his muscles.

“By singing and dancing? Aren’t you from acting?”

This was the first time Liu Ziyu didn’t use a sarcastic tone to speak to him, Qi Xingchen raised an eyebrow. For the sake of a selling point, he kept them anticipating10: “All of you just wait and see ba.”

Everyone still had some doubts, but they used their bodies to block the pedestrians, helping him to clear out a circle that did not interfere with the traffic.

Bo Ye looked at his practised stretching movements, the corner of his mouth ticking upwards.

“Ladies and Gentlemen……11”

Qi Xingchen finished warming up and cleared his throat. Taking a bow towards the onlooking Danes, he then spoke in English: “Hello everyone, we come from China, and we accidentally lost our wallet during our trip. I would now perform for everyone two of China’s traditional shows, if you all like it, could you sponsor a bit of our travel expenses?”

The fiery red afterglow fell on Qi Xingchen’s body, outlining his lithe but powerful figure, as well as his defined facial features.

As if it had also plunged into his irises, the centre of his pitch-black pupils appeared to hide a tiny flaming sun, fiercely blazing and radiant.

The number of Asian faces the people of Odense have seen was not many, and this sort of dazzling youth was even more so rarely seen; they paused there and then, cheering as they stood in front of him: “OK, Come on cutie!12”

“Thank you, then here is my fumbling attempt13.”

Qi Xingchen slipped out of his shoes and laid down, his right leg lifted to be at a right angle from the rest of his body. Opening up the umbrella, he placed the tip of the umbrella handle onto the pad of his big toe on his right foot.

What on earth was he doing? All of the people were baffled, the tip of the umbrella handle was so small, his toe was also very small, wouldn’t the umbrella fall once he lets go of it?

However, a miracle occurred soon after.

Qi Xingchen released his grip, and the umbrella unexpectedly did not fall.

…… Not only did it not fall, but using his leg’s force, he kicked the umbrella upwards lightly, causing it to fly up while revolving.

After that, it had spun one round in the air, the top end of the umbrella dived downwards and landed back onto the pad of Qi Xingchen’s big toe……

Still without falling!

What kind of miraculous skill was this?

All of the passers-by were dazed, one after another they took out their phones, some to take pictures, some to record videos.

From the video, one could see the umbrella flipping as it flew on the youth’s toe, no matter if it was the tip of the handle or the top of the umbrella, it always landed very stably.

Not long after, the youth raised his other leg, alternating the trick between his two feet. As the umbrella was tossed up and caught as it landed, the pink petals design on it seemed as if it had scattered from the surface of the umbrella, fluttering about, painting a very romantic image.

Despite the guests being from the same country, and the programme team’s staff members having seen acrobatics before, they still couldn’t believe that they had this sort of talent beside them, following the Danes to look on dumbstruck.

Only the cameraman remembered that he needed to do his job, staring fixated on Qi Xingchen’s performance while aiming the video camera at Qi Xingchen, shooting the audience’s reactions from time to time.

Ending the performance, Qi Xingchen dusted off his clothes while standing up, then went to get the plates.

The plates were placed on the floor, and as he bent over, his clothes slid upwards, unintentionally revealing a length of his slim white waist.

Instantly, Qi Xingchen felt that someone was pulling his T-shirt backwards, continuing to do so until he had picked up the plates and stood straight.

“Thank you, Bo Ye-ge……” He whispered, “But it’s alright, I’m not a girl anyways, I’m not bothered by people looking.”

Bo Ye’s gaze was settled elsewhere, shaking his head without saying anything.

Thus Qi Xingchen did not continue paying attention to him, displaying the front and back of the plates towards the audience, showing that they were porcelain plates.

“Darling, just take your plates and come with me, I’ll give you all of the delicious food from my house!”

A Danish boy thought that he was asking for food with those plates and had squeezed past the people in front to shout loudly.

“Thank you,” The boy caused Qi Xingchen to smile in amusement, “Please wait for a moment.”

He became even more good-looking with that smile, and at this time many people had recovered from the shock from the umbrella tossing performance1, fishing out their wallets one after another to pull out bills to hand to Tao Tao.

Tao Tao bit her tongue as she accepted them, with one round, they already obtained 700-800 kroner.

The umbrella bumping was a more aesthetic performance, following this, Qi Xingchen was prepared to play with something more interesting. He took the plates before the crowd of people and handed them towards a girl in the first row.

“Wow!” The girl’s mouth fell open in pleasant surprise, thinking that the pretty Chinese boy was gifting them to her. Just as she reached out to accept it—

Qi Xingchen tossed a plate up into the sky with a wave of his hand.

The girl and the spectating crowd subconsciously raised their heads, after tossing the first, Qi Xingchen proceeded to toss the second, when he had tossed the third, he caught the first one just in time.

The heads of the audience kept moving up and down, up and down, up and down……

The skill of juggling was the most basic in acrobatics, the difficulty of the act rose higher and higher along with the number of items being juggled; it was also related to the weight of the items, the heavier they were, the more difficult it was to grasp a rhythm.

But Qi Xingchen did not mind at all, easily increasing the number of plates to four, then easily increasing it again to five, then…

It was a pity that there was only enough money to buy six plates, if not he could have juggled till the necks of the audience snapped.

After juggling the plates, Tao Tao received another wave of money.

Over the course of two performances, the audience’s pockets were nearly emptied out by Qi Xingchen. He gave a gentle smile: “Thank you, everyone, for your support, the next item would be my gift to you, no need for payment.”

With that, he laid down as before.

…… Afterwards, while tossing the umbrella upwards with his feet, his hands started to juggle the plates!!!

“Whoa!” Director Zhao couldn’t bear it anymore, “This young fellow not only knows how to toss umbrellas and juggle plates, but he also f*cking knows how to toss umbrellas while juggling plates?!”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA~” The assistant director was so amused that he split his sides laughing, “Old Zhou, this young fellow is a real gem ah! Do you believe that this video of his would go on fire again tomorrow?”

.

Although Qi Xingchen had said there was no need for payment for the last segment, the passer-bys still contributed generously, taking out more bills.

A black-haired girl stepped forward, and after stuffing a roll of money to them, insisted on taking a photo together with Qi Xingchen. Qi Xingchen good-naturedly took a photo with her, but the girl suddenly burst into tears.

“What’s wrong?” Qi Xingchen set the phone aside, “Are you not feeling well?”

“N-no,” The girl’s Chinese was not very fluent, “My mom is from China, but I was born and brought up in Denmark. When I was young, my mom told me that my motherland was really great and really strong, with lots and lots of miraculous things. I’ve been wanting to go back and visit my country for many years, but I never found the opportunity. Thank you, thank you so much for bringing China’s culture over here, allowing Chinese people far from home to experience our motherland at a close range; also thank you for being willing to display this to Denmark, letting them know that in the East, there exists such an ancient and mysterious nation2.”

The girl’s accent was very strong, her words were in disarray; furthermore, her phrasing was excessively in written language. It took a long time before everyone could discern what she was saying.

Qi Xingchen saw that she had described his street performance as “culture diffusion”, and became somewhat embarrassed. Immediately afterwards, a sour feeling rushed into his nose.

Leaving one’s homeland for tens of years, one would be like duckweed, unable to find one’s roots all long, and one can well imagine how much longing and how much sorrow one would have.

He took out some pen and paper from his bag, then wrote his address and phone number down, “If you happen to have some time to visit, you can contact me, I’ll take you to have a good look at our magnificent rivers and mountains.”

“Really?” The girl started crying even more, “You’re too kind! You are welcome to come and find me often as well!”

Qi Xingchen grinned: “Okay.”

In order for Qi Xingchen to be able to find her, the girl left behind her Facebook. Liu Ziyu edged closer to look, then gasped in shock — This girl was in fact a blogger with 3 million fans!

After they had sent the girl off, the guests were almost unable to hold back their joy, pretending to squeeze out of the crowd of people calmly and collectedly, and after they had completely left the passer-by’s field of view, the six heads rapidly gathered together.

“Taotao, quick, count it,” Zhang Yunfei said excitedly, “How much money is there?”

“Let me see, 100, 200, 300……” The more Tao Tao counted, the higher her voice rose, “3200, we have 3200!”

Luo Qiuman heard the sum of money they had and her eyes rounded: “Gosh, is it actually that much?! It’s almost half of our travel funds!”

“That’s right,” Liu Ziyu echoed, “Xingxing, you really are of great merit to us!”

QI Xingchen placed his hand on his back and pinched himself twice, feeling that it was very strange.

With Liu Ziyu’s character, this line should have been said cynically. However, her tone now was normal, as if she actually considered him to be of great merit.

Qi Xingchen was not that used to listening to the praises of his companions, and quickly put it to an end: “Let’s first find a place to stay, the sky is going to be completely dark soon.”

“Right, right, right.” Everyone reacted, taking out their phones to look for a hotel.

Qi Xingchen also followed them in searching, and very faintly, he felt that there was a line of sight hovering over and searching3 his back.

The author has something to say:

T-tomorrow, a warning for a lot of sweetness……