CH 4

Jiang Li called a taxi to return to the original host’s house after he left the hotel.

After graduating from university, the original host rented a single room near where Zhang Ziyang was living so it would be convenient for him to help with his house chores. Jiang Li could only admire the original host’s infatuation towards Zhang Ziyang, he also felt even more disgusted towards a scum like him.

Jiang Li only realized that his mobile phone had ran out of battery after he returned to his room. After plugging and restarting his phone, tons of messages flowed in, half of them were Zhang Ziyang’s incoming calls and another half were messages of Zhang Ziyang asking him why he did not go to the hotel.

Jiang Li did not make any effort to care about him and deleted the messages. He silenced his phone and threw it beside for recharging. After bathing, he then lied down to to catch up on the sleep he lost.

After a short while, Jiang Li was awakened by rapid, vicious knocks on the door.

As the original host was just a fresh graduate and to save money, the rented room he found did not have good sound proof system. He could not only hear the loud banging sound on the door, but also someone calling Jiang Li’s name.

The memory Zhang Ziyang left in the original host was too deep, even though Jiang Li had replaced him, Jiang Li could immediately know the person outside banging the door was Zhang Ziyang by listening.

Judging from the messages in the phone that he saw this morning, he probably came to interrogate him.

Jiang Li had a good temperament, but he would go into a bad mood as he was awakened under the condition of lack of sleep.

When he was joining a reality show with his teammates in his previous life , one of the events involved waking up each other by sudden. Jiang Li did not want to ruin the show and cause trouble for his teammates so he did not sleep for the whole night to cooperate with the filming.

He was messed up by Jiang Zhan last night and was awakened by such a rude way without sleeping much, fire was ignited in Jiang Li’s heart. He did not hesitate and threw the diary that was placed on the table beside heavily towards the door. The book had a metal frame and a loud ‘bang’ was heard as it crashed onto the door.

The person outside was as if he was shocked by it and stopped knocking. Jiang Li covered a blanket over him and wanted to continue sleeping. However, the knocking sound echoed again after half a minute, turning even more aggressively as if it would not stop if Jiang Li did not open the door.

“Fuck.”

Jiang Li cursed irritably, uncovered the blanket and got off the bed.

“Host, please don’t curse, mind your manners.” System reminded him.

“Shut up.”

“……”

System: Host is a little different today, he’s a bit mad.

Jiang Li went to open the door without wearing his shoes. There was a tall guy wearing a baseball cap and a mask standing at the door. He was raising his hand to knock on the door before the door was opened suddenly, so his hand almost slapped onto Jiang Li’s body. Jiang Li quickly shoved his hands away. Before Zhang Ziyang realized what was happening, he heard words said in a gloomy tone, “Stop knocking the fuck out.”

Zhang Ziyang “……”

System “……”

Zhang Ziyang was shocked by Jiang Li’s simple and vulgar words. He had known Jiang Li for a lot of years and the Jiang Li in his memory was a timid introvert, he had never heard any curse words said by him. Even if he asked Jiang Li to exchange his body for the role, he was only disappointed in him and was unwilling to scold him.

Although the person in front of him looked the same with Jiang Li, the small red mole on the tip of his nose was the same, the aura he produced was completely strange to him. Regardless of the dark anger from the bottom of his eyes or his cold and annoyed expression, they were unfamiliar as if there was someone he did not know under Jiang Li’s skin. The cold aura produced even caused Zhang Ziyang to take a step back.

Jiang Li scoffed when he saw Zhang Ziyang’s action. Jiang Li thought that the original host really had his heart blocked by lard and that was why he fell for such a failure. He would not even look at him even it was Zhang Ziyang who liked him.

Zhang Ziyang came back to reality as he heard his laugh, he realized his own actions and he had lost his cool. He made a step forward, “Vice-director Jiang called me today, he said you didn’t even go to the hotel, what happened?”

Jiang Li knew what he was here for, he did not even want to care about the questions asked and leant against the door, “What does it have to do with you?”

“……” As Zhang Ziyang was attacked verbally by him, causing his anger to rise up suddenly and wanted to scold him back, but he remembered he still needed his help. He then suppressed the anger in his heart and asked, “Do you know how important this role is to me?!”

“And what does that have to do with me?” Jiang Li asked lightly, the words almost made Zhang Ziyang choked on himself.

Zhang Ziyang scolded Jiang Li in his heart but he said gently, “Xiao Li, I know you’re blaming me, but you know how important this role is to me. I need it for our future. Didn’t I promise? We’ll get together if I get the role, you can move to my place and we’ll live together.”

[T/N: ‘Xiao’ is a way to call someone who’s close to one, and it means Little/Small.]

He would not talk to Jiang Li so humbly normally, but it was not the case this time. He still had the lingering fear left in his heart after he talked to vice-director Jiang who was really angry on the phone this morning. He also promised he would bring Jiang Li over personally, so he could not get angry with Jiang Li at such a crucial time.

Jiang Li knew from the original host’s memories that the original host had requested to live with Zhang Ziyang to take care of him before. However, it was rejected by Zhang Ziyang. Now, he wanted Jiang Li to sacrifice his body so he requested it himself.

Jiang Li looked at Zhang Ziyang from his hair to his feet.

He was a few centimeters shorter than Zhang Ziyang, logically speaking, he would have the lower hand if they were to fight with their height. But the eyes when he looked at Zhang Ziyang were as if they were looking at a cheap product.

The one who wanted to live with him was the original host, not the current Jiang Li. It would be an eyesore for Jiang Li if they were to live together.

Zhang Ziyang felt angry when he saw how disdain Jiang Li looked at him, he could not understand how he seemed to have suddenly changed after one night, but he could not afford to look into it, he just wanted to quickly coax Jiang Li and bring him over. He then said, “Xiao Li, don’t throw a tantrum now, let’s go in and talk.”

There were people walking around or keeping their clothes in the corridor so a trade like this was not something that could be discussed openly. Although he was not very famous, he still had a small amount of fans, it would be bad if he got recognized.

Jiang Li knew immediately what he was worrying about, he did not plan to let him in and did not even want to waste more time to talk to him. A disgusting scum who used other people in exchange for his own benefit was repugnant for him, “It’s impossible to let you in, Zhang Ziyang, don’t come and find me anymore, we don’t have any relationship from now own, you can leave now.”

Jiang Li wanted to shut the door as he finished speaking, Zhang Ziyang quickly blocked the door using his hand and said hurriedly, “Wait, what do you mean? I’ve already promised someone that I’ll bring you over tonight, you can’t break your promise!”

Jiang Li did not expect that he was not going to give up, he then felt bad for the original host who had died, the anger in his heart then shot up suddenly. He raised his leg and kicked on his stomach without hesitation. The force was so great that it directly kicked him down and slammed against the wall of the corridor.

Zhang Ziyang did not expect that he would choose violence. He was slammed onto the wall and he cried out in pain. The cap that was on his head even fell onto the floor.

System: “……” The Host today is really different, he’s so mad.

“Don’t come and find me anymore, or else I’ll beat you to death for a death.” Jiang Li pointed coldly at Zhang Ziyang who was on the floor, he then shut the door with that hand, locking him outside.

As Zhang Ziyang took a loss and wanted to bang the door again, he saw the neighbors beside who heard the noise opened their door and came out to look what was happening. He was afraid that he got recognized so he quickly picked up the cap that was on the floor and left hurriedly.

After that commotion, Jiang Li did not have the mood to sleep anymore. He tidied up anything that had to do with Zhang Ziyang and threw them into the rubbish bin. He then felt his room was more pleasing to his eyes.

After finished tidying up, he went out to cut his hair, had a meal, and went back to his room to study about the characters, Liu Chuandeng and Liu Baizhu.

Jiang Li was always a professional actor in his previous life. He would spend a lot of time and effort to figure out the roles that he acted in, putting himself in their shoes to think psychologically. If he had the chance, he would even try to experience what the roles had experienced.

A day passed just like this.

Jiang Li was acting two roles alone in his room, he kept figuring out these two roles to a point that System thought that he was going schizophrenic. It then reminded, “Host, it’s been 8 hours since you ate.”

“Hmm?”

Jiang Li came back to reality by System’s voice and only realized that he was hungry. He did not feel hungry when he was in the roles, only to find out that his stomach was growling after he came out of the roles.

“I’ll go have a meal then.” Jiang Li switched off his computer, got up and walked to the door. He asked System as he was changing his shoes, “Don’t I look handsome when I hit that person today?”

“……” Jiang Li remembered the vulgar words and his non-hesitant kick, it kept silenced for a few seconds and said, “Yeah….I think…”

“Hmm?” Jiang Li had finished wearing his shoes, “You looked as if you do not quite agree with it?”

“You were handsome.” System answered with a firm tone.

Jiang Li laughed in satisfaction, his eyebrows relaxed, “You’re really cute, thoughtful little angel.”

System, “…..” Although he knew Host was talking about it reminding him to have his meal, why did he tease a virtual data?

There were a lot of shops nearby, most of them closed at 1 or 2 in the midnight. It was only 10 in the night so there were still a lot of people around.

Jiang Li simply found a noodles shop and sat down. He talked to System as he was waiting for his order to pass the time.

“Little cutie, would you like to eat something?” Jiang Li flipped the menu and asked System in his heart.

“Thank you, Host. I don’t need it.” System thanked politely, it hesitated and said, “And… you can just call me System.”

“Is Little cutie not pleasing to hear to?”

“It’s not really suitable.”

Calling a virtual data Little cutie… hmm, it’s really not that pleasant.

Jiang Li placed the menu beside with one hand under his chin, “How is it not suitable? Do you still have a humanoid form? Or are you not cute enough?”

“……” System was speechless, “I don’t have a humanoid form.”

“OK, I’ll stop teasing you.” Jiang Li giggled, he thought that System was honestly cute.

There were two girls sitting beside who noticed Jiang Li when he first came in, they were discussing about his looks.

“He looks so good! Is he a star?”

“I don’t think so, he’s so handsome, I should have an impression of him.”

“His skin is so white! I’m jealous!”

“He’s really good looking, it’s perfect looking from all 360 degrees.”

The two were controlling their voices, Jiang Li was talking to System so he did not notice anything. However, System could listen clearly, after listening for a while, he agreed completely to their comments.

Host was really good-looking, so he was favored by male lead last night. But Host seemed like he was not putting much effort into the main mission of capturing the male lead. As System thought about this, it asked Jiang Li.

“Hmm?” Jiang Li was planning to eat the noodles, he then answered when it asked, “This cannot be rushed.”

“What do you mean?”

“For a person with high status like Jiang Zhan, there will be a lot of people who want to ride on his coattail. I will not benefit from anything if I follow them.” Jiang Li slurped his noodles and drank a spoon of soup, the rich flavor of the beef spread between his mouth and teeth, making his stomach which was empty for the whole day to feel satisfied. He then explained the details to System.

As he said, Jiang Zhan’s status was honorable enough, other than the fact that he was the President of the Jiang Group, he also invested in restaurants and hotels. A status like this would attract many females or males who want to climb up the social ladder.

If he were to plunge towards him like others, then he would be a plaything who went around crawling beds and he would not be mentionable for Jiang Zhan.

Instead, he should leave a different impression in his heart. Since he would enter the entertainment industry and sign contract with companies, he was not afraid that they would not meet again. That would be the time for him to take action.

“I know your reasons, but……” System hesitated after he finished listening, it then kindly reminded, “The favorability of the male lead now is -15, once it reaches -20 you will receive a punishment, you may need to understand this.”

“……” Jiang Li choked by his words and nearly vomited them out, “You’re really not cute at all.”

System “……”

Host just called me Little cutie earlier and now he’s not, he’s really a fickle man.