Chapter 115

Chapter 115

unedited

Before opening the door, Shen Yan’s hand stopped on it as he asked once again. “Do you really don’t need me to send you to the airport?”

“Really.”

Qi Jing was in the middle of tidying up his tie, and when he heard this question, he lifted his head to smile gently at him. It was still the working day and Shen Yan used up all of his holiday to take care of his mother, so Qi Jing couldn’t possibly make him skip his workday.

Shen Yan didn’t say anything, his gaze resting silently on Qi Jing, seemingly feeling guilty for being unable to see him out.

To lighten the atmosphere, Qi Jing asked intentionally with a mysterious smile, “What, do I not look good in a suit?”

A black suit, a pale grey tie, and a white shirt, each part of the wear distinct...

When going to an interview, even if it’s a pure formality, formal wear is still a must. Usually when appearing in the news report, he would mostly wear a shirt, and in the more official occasions he would also add a tie to it. Only when interviewing an incredibly high-position official or a famous figure would he wear a suit, so he always kept a set in his wardrobe. But it was still the first time to appear in it before Shen Yan.

It was originally a joke, but Shen Yan really stared at him for quite a while, his gaze not budging a bit, then said in a low voice, “No... You look very handsome.”

Qi Jing was stupefied. He intended to tease Shen Yan, yet ended up getting teased instead, which left him weirdly embarrassed and at a loss of how to reply for a moment, only able to lower his head for a chuckle. At that time, Shen Yan suddenly brought him into a hug, a much stronger one than usual, not letting him go. Qi Jing didn’t even think of struggling, resting his head on his shoulder as if it was a matter of course. He didn’t think of whether his suit would wrinkle at all as he returned the hug.

He had to go out for a while—the outside was cold for sure, so he had to warm himself now for as long as he could.

“I didn’t expect that I would have to leave you for the finals...” He muttered. Although he should be able to be on time, he would probably only be able to participate from the hotel room. He hoped that the internet there wouldn’t cause problems.

“The serious matters are more important.”

“Mhm.”

“It’s cold in Beijing, so don’t stay out in the cold.”

“Mhm.”

“After you get there, remember to message me if you’re safe.”

“Mhm.”

He had already made all the minor details clear the day before, so right now, there were only those few things he could repeat before parting. And so, Shen Yan no longer said anything, falling silent as he quietly hugged Qi Jing.

“Stay safe on your way.” When after a while, Shen Yan spoke once again, his voice was husky and low. He pressed his hand against the back of Qi Jing’s head, his fingers playing with his hair so that at least before he let go of him, he could still make Qi Jing feel his unwillingness to let go of him, “I will cheer you on from here—whether it’s for the interview or the finals.”

“Mhm,” Qi Jing smiled faintly, replying in a soft voice, “See you online tonight.”

“See you tonight”—but before tonight, he still had most of the day filled with bustling about to pass. When he was on the plane, he was looking at his wristwatch every now and then, counting down the time.

It was still nine hours before the start of the finals.

And it was also still an hour before the landing in the capital, provided that there wouldn’t be any delays.

His seat was right by the window, so he turned his head sideways. But the sea of clouds below looked like a workshop of a cotton craftsman, the light white rolling over the dark white, making it impossible to see the ground below.

He shifted his gaze away, leaning back on his seat as he closed his eyes to rest.

Since he boarded the plane, he spent quite a lot of time revising his materials for the interview—making an outline, writing a speech, practising self-introduction—so right now, he was a bit tired. So he wore his earphones, listening to the recording of the ⟪Order to End the Heavens⟫ audition from the day before as he rested, wanting to catch up with the part he missed.

That day, the audition for “Fang Yisheng” went on after he and Crossing the Bridge Noodles went offline. He hasn’t listened yet to the over twenty contestants that performed later, including Pu Yuzhi’s feedback.

This was the audition for the main role and it was also for the most commonly heard “youthful voice” type, so it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that there were plenty of experts to be seen in that one. After their turn, there were some incredible performances from the other contestants too, and there was little difference in score between those who managed to enter the top ten, with two of them getting even better scores than him and Crossing the Bridge Noodles. By the time the last score got announced, Qi Jing already fell to the fourth place, with Crossing the Bridge Noodles in third place, so it was clear to see that the competition was fierce.

Nevertheless, the first and the second place were an active professional voice actor and an actually skilled Great God VA of the romance audio drama circle, so Qi Jing didn’t feel particularly dispirited about it.

After all, only with a worthy opponent a competition would have any meaning.

And rather than comparing himself to his opponents, he cared more about Pu Yuzhi’s evaluation of him&#k2014;

“It’s not the first time for No.7 Don’t ask for my return date to appear, but it’s the first time for me to be responsible for his feedback. “ Pu Yuzhi’s tone didn’t sound estranged at all, with a hint of an amiable smile.

And from what she said, it seemed as if she had some impression of his two previous performances. And sure enough: “No.7 showed us an impressive performance for both ‘Emperor Chang’ and ‘Qin Tuo’ roles, and each of his opening remarks were quite unique. Of course, his opening for the ‘Fang Yisheng’ audition was groundbreaking as well.”

She was talking about his cooperation with Crossing the Bridge Noodles for that opening...

Qi Jing laughed twice. Thanks to the great god, Jade Butterfly, and all of his antis’ blessings, he would soon become a specialist in face-slapping with his opening speeches.

“No.7’s performance in ‘Qin Tuo’ audition has just been reviewed by that old macaque, so I believe that the issue with different approaches of the various voice actors is already clear enough, and there’s no need for me to elaborate on that.”

Qi Jing lifted his brow. Huh, so despite calling Teacher Yan a monkey, it seems like Teacher Pu still has a great deal of trust in his assessment... Turns out getting called an old macaque is worth it.At that time, Yuan Zhengming probably sneezed somewhere loudly.

Pu Yuzhi continued speaking, “Since No.7 and No.8 delivered their opening speech together, I will also speak of their performances together as well. Just as I said before, everyone has their own version of a ‘Fang Yisheng’ in their mind. It’s the same for me, but at the same time, I’m also quite expectant to hear different interpretations of him. Since the source novel itself used show-don’t-tell narration to describe this character, with his overall image being quite blurry, there was a lot of freedom in portraying him, so a look at each contestant’s enactment of him is almost equal to reading their thought process when interpreting him... Very interesting indeed.”

At that time, she chuckled faintly. “But the most interesting thing is, No.7 and No.8 took this role to the extremes according to their own personalities, yet somehow managed to avoid making it feel out of place—No.7 focused at portraying his arrogance and haughtiness, while No.8 paid more attention to displaying his coldness and composure, both of them bringing out the most out of their voice characteristics and minimising the impact of their shortcomings.”

“Aiya, we got seen through.” There was no way their little scheme would go undiscovered by the professional ear.

“For example, with the warmth of No.7’s voice, he put more emphasis on the imposing intimidation, and No.8 with his youthful voice paid close attention to his breathing to sound steady and increase the sense of age...” Even her examples were completely spot-on—Qi Jing couldn’t help but admire that. And she was also approving of this playing to their strengths, “To be fair, this way of going to the extremes with acting can be very dangerous, but those two contestants handled it splendidly.”

Then, Pu Yuzhi’s point took an unexpected turn for Qi Jing, “Yet after listening to both of them, I started to worry about their finals.”

Qi Jing was taken aback. Worry?

He believed that both him and Noodles did pretty well acting as “Fang Yisheng”, and the audience’s reaction was pretty good too, but was their grasp of this role not that good in the end?

But Pu Yuzhi denied his guess. “It’s not because they didn’t grasp the nature of the character well, but because each of them have their own way of thinking, with a strong personal style, so if they won’t encounter someone who can blend well with their style, they will get stuck.”

Hearing this, Qi Jing couldn’t help but straighten his back, correcting his sitting posture right away.

Right...How could he forget that? His very weakest point was how much he could get restricted by the VA he would act alongside with, so if he got stuck with his acting, he would be no longer able to deliver the rest of the lines. And on the other end of it, with his style being too individual and self-willed, the other person would be left with no way to understand and cooperate with him, so that would be a double out for both of them.

“Semi-finals are after all only semi-finals, it was meant to examine an individual aptitude of a contestant, and there wouldn’t be much problem with the contestant performing whatever way they like, but the finals... it’s the ‘cooperative’ mindset that will become the main judging criteria.”

Pu Yuzhi gradually stopped smiling, ending on a powerful note. “It’s only No.7 and No.8, but every participating contestant should listen well—the primary value judged in the finals is ‘synergy’. Those who don’t cooperate are bound to end up failing.”

Pu Yuzhi’s words kept lingering in his mind. Even when the plane was landing at the capital’s airport, Qi Jing was still thinking of its meaning in a daze.

After leaving the plane, Qi Jing quickly fished out the phone to first send Shen Yan a message. 【I landed safely in Beijing. No need to reply, work well during your shift and think about me often. ^＿^】

After sending this message, he thought for a moment and added a short “mwa”, the corner of his eyes curling up slightly in a knowing smile.

As for whether that person would get it... Well, it was up to his comprehension.

Two days ago, he had already booked a business hotel by the TV station. He only had to take a subway from the airport and ride it to the Sanyuan Bridge, and after changing it for the tenth line, he would get off right before the entrance to the CCTV, very convenient. During the few minutes wait before his ride arrived, he used the airport Wi-Fi to go online only to discover that the grouping arrangement for the finals of male ⟪Order to End the Heavens⟫ characters audition already got published.

Qi Jing quickly studied it all the way down. The finals were split for three days, the first day of the female characters audition was already finished, the second day—which was today—was the male characters, and the third day would be the last concluding finals.

The groups for the male finals were limited to the male characters, and depending on the role’s importance, the main characters, side characters and NPCs all had different amounts of auditions paired.

【Main characters】: three auditions

Qin Tuo—Liu Suyu, Bai Ke, Old Man Xiao Shan

Fang Yisheng—Bai Ke, Lu Wei, Yan Buliu

【Side characters】: two auditions

Emperor Chang—Marquess Shunyang, Yan Buliu

Marquess Shunyang—Emperor Chang, Shopkeeper of an Inn

Yan Buliu—Emperor Chang, Fang Yisheng

Bai Ke—Fang Yisheng, Qin Tuo

【NPC】: One audition (Due to the small amount of the lines for the NPCs, the champion for the below mentioned characters will be chosen directly from the male finals, with no participation in the concluding finals needed)

Liu Suyu—Qin Tuo

Shopkeeper of an Inn—Marquess Shunyang

Old Man Xiao Shan—Qin Tuo

Lu Wei—Fang Yisheng

“Hiss...” Qi Jing counted on his fingers how many auditions he would have in total, and sucked in a mouthful of cold air, “That would be five auditions for me alone.”

Fortunately, with so many people participating, each audition would only consist of one scene, and each scene would have a minute of the allocated time, so the actual time he would spend on voice acting wouldn’t be more than five minutes.

But it wasn’t the amount of time that was scary, but the unknown of who he would get paired with.

At the present, even with the groups for the roles published, which contestant he would cooperate with was still a mystery. It was because the contestants for the pairing would only get drawed by the organisators on the spot with a computer programme, so that no one would know the details before the time of the audition. It was precisely those nerves and suspensions of the unknown that were the most exciting part of the finals to look forward to—

Just as he was musing with his eyes on the phone screen, the train arrived at the station, so Qi Jing temporarily gathered his thoughts and followed the crowd to squeeze into the carriage.

In the middle of December, the temperature in Beijing had already fallen below zero, but the inside of the carriage had heating turned on, so it didn’t feel as cold. It was just, there were really too many people getting in after changing trains in the city centre, so there was basically no free space left, so Qi Jing found some place where he could lean against something in a corner to stand. Just as he reloaded the page, the conversation of two young ladies sitting nearby startled him out of nowhere.

“Don’t ask for my return date, right?”

“Yes, yes!”

They gave Qi Jing quite a scare—when he heard his ID, he automatically shot his head up.

But those ladies didn’t seem to have noticed him at all. It was at that time that Qi Jing realised that it wasn’t that they recognised him, but were sitting side by side, browsing the forum together on a phone. And it was precisely the one he used so often... The online voice acting forum.

Thank goodness—he almost broke into a cold sweat. He sig

hed covertly with relief. After being scandalously closed away in a basement for such a long time, his gossipy nature was itching terribly, breaking out of its fetters, so he pricked his ears up to listen.

“Is he really not Little Noodle’s boyfriend? That’s kinda a pity...”

“I also think so, even though he clearly talked so cutely with him~”

—Wait, why did no one tell me that Beijing is the head camp of Time Limit shippers?

“But there’s probably barely any online CPs that are real, Little Noodle’s boyfriend is probably from his IRL.”

—Hm, this one makes sense. Seems like those two ladies are still pretty rational...

“Doesn’t matter, IRL is IRL, he can still continue with the online shipping. If he doesn’t enjoy it online, then he can move it offline and get taken by Little Noodles into his harem.”

—Oi oi oi...

“Eh, harem? Turns out you are a multishipper?”

“I ship Little Noodles with everyone! If it’s about gongs, then of course the more the better, this way Little Noodles can have a different gong for every night, every night a different flavour, hehe!”

—Does your family’s Little Noodles know of your delusions?! Does he know?!

Qi Jing almost spat blood from the emotional damage, barely managing to swallow it back, then proceeded with three seconds of silence in the memory of Crossing the Bridge Noodles. With the fans like this, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Just as he was caught between those two choices, the next words of those ladies left him shaken, bringing him back to the present.

“Speaking of Don’t ask for my return date, ever since he left the production crew for ⟪Trap⟫, the crew seems to be looking for someone as a replacement, I heard that from other VAs in the circle.” One of the girls, one with a soft voice, said, “If it wasn’t for the fact that Little Noodles sided with Don’t ask for my return date, they would most probably look for him to give him this role...”

“There’s no way around it, Little Noodles chose his side. If it was other VAs that came into contact with a situation like this, most of them would feign ignorance, afraid of offending Great God and his fanbase. So if Little Noodles chose to publicly support Don’t ask for my return date, then it basically means he won’t work with Great God anymore.”

“It’s not only Great God, there are some opportunistic VAs and staff members who would refuse to collaborate with him to curry favour with Great God.”

Sure enough...Qi Jing furrowed slightly. He had previously advised Crossing the Bridge Noodles to not claim his side in public, but that guy took no heed of it. And it turned out that as expected, this “cold shoulder” treatment really did take place.

Because he left on his own accord, he didn’t contact the staff from ⟪Trap⟫ production crew anymore, but those girls were probably feeling bad too.

Thinking of this, Qi Jing himself felt bad as well, losing interest in listening to those ladies’ chatter.

After leaving the metro, he first went to the business hotel to check in and leave the excess luggage in the room, and after a bit of rest, he tidied himself up and went to the CCTV building.

By the time he got there, it was noon sharp.

The person in charge of receiving him was very cordial, dragging him to eat outside and get to know people, getting acquainted with his future senior colleagues from the office. Qi Jing himself was very well versed in the media industry, and he excelled in finding topics to talk about with people, so he left quite a good impression with that lunch—truly a promising start.

The interview in the afternoon was basically just meeting with the higher-ups, the formality talks with the people in charge of various departments, introducing his education history, work résumé and so on. There was nothing difficult about it, so he got the position with no problem.

The internship was for the “video editor” position. It didn’t sound in any way related to a reporter’s job, but in reality, the content of both of those had a lot in common. Still, the scope of his work would be mostly within Beijing, so he wouldn’t have to bear with the numerous business trips and after getting accepted, it would become a great leverage to later become a TV anchor.

Since it was the end of the year, everyone was busy with preparations for the Chinese New Year programme, so any changes in cadre would have to wait until the end of the first lunar month. That’s why even though he got accepted now, his internship would only start in March of the next year at best, so he could take his time preparing for it.

“How about we go eat dinner together as well?” After the interview ended, the in-charge of his department invited him with much hospitality.

“Ah,” Seeing that it was soon the time, Qi Jing hurried up to give his superior a polite smile, turning down the invitation with a half-lie, “There’s an old friend of mine in Beijing that I haven’t seen for years. When he heard that I’m coming over, he already prepared dinner and called me to come, so I’m really sorry, but tonight might be a bit...”

“Oh, old friends are more important, old friends are more important.” Fortunately, the other party accepted this excuse.

“Maybe after tomorrow morning’s probation is finished, we could go for lunch together. This way it wouldn’t hinder people from going back home after their shifts.” Qi Jing proposed, and very quickly, he got the other party’s approval.

By the time he came out of the CCTV building, it was almost 6 PM and the thin layer of snow on the ground had already been dyed pale grey by the sunset. Qi Jing ordered some takeaway on his way back, checking the time while he quickly walked on the snow back to the hotel.

After entering his room, he didn’t even have time to take off his overcoat before he opened his laptop and logged into QQ.

His “old friend” should be already there—

Usually at this time, that black walnut table back home would already be full of dishes, the rice plump and fragrant, the home cooking tasty and nutritious... Such a pity that he couldn’t taste it today.

With this regret, Qi Jing smiled silently and opened his friends list.

As expected, the long-no-seen profile picture with flying birds in it was there, lit up all that time.

And at some point, the signature above got changed into six words that despite being very simple, made his heart go warm: 【Waiting for you to come back】

A/N:

I realised that many people misunderstood my words from the previous chapter notes... In fact, I only wanted to break them up in localisation, that’s all (gets a glare from Kitty’s Papa). Because lately, they really are... too sweet, too sweet is no good, en.

No matter if it’s for the time or the rules, the finals will be different from my initial plans, so if there’s anyone who still remembers the rules described around chapter 30, then... ignore that (oi).

T/N:

Lucilla: Nothing like a change of taste, innit... (Already misses their sugary sweetness... and the pets :<)