Chapter 13

“I can’t help but feel extremely shy when he looks at me that way.”

“I didn’t expect him to spread his arms to encase me in an embrace. I tried to struggle out of his embrace but I couldn’t, like a rabbit, I trembled in his arms.”

“What do I do? My body is so hot all over I can’t cool myself down at all. Oh god, this must be the first symptom of falling in love.”

…

…

…

…WTF…

When Qi Jing read to this point, his brows were already all scrunched up. He looked at Ning Xiaoxiao weakly like he didn’t even know where to begin dissing and said, “I’m not doing this.”

Ning Xiaoxiao screamed, “Why?”

Qi Jing massaged the bridge of his nose with difficulty. He waved his hand to get her to move the laptop from his desk to save his eyes from being subjected to continued abuse by the words on the screen.

“Because this script is too ridiculous, it will surely bomb.”

“This is a script I found for you!” Ning Xiaoxiao’s scream increased by several decibels, making Qi Jing feel like his ears were badly poisoned following the abuse of his eyes.

“It’s precisely because you’re the one showing this script to me that I’m dissing it to your face. If it were another scriptwriter, I would only politely say, ‘Sorry, I don’t think I can manage this script.’ Putting everything else aside, using the inner workings in the character’s mind and description of actions as actual dialogue—it’s basically like a God’s perspective. The sky is rolling with thunder… Are you sure this Shou isn’t just a flat-chested girl in disguise?”

Qi Jing hugged himself like he was still badly shaken, soothing himself by rubbing his hands against his arms that were covered in goosebumps.

“Hmph, Senior it’s because you don’t have a boyfriend so you don’t understand the mindset of people in love,” Ning Xiaoxiao scoffed, observing his reaction while giving him the side-eye.

“If that’s how people in love are, then I’d rather remain single,” Qi Jing replied with ease.

“Hmph! One day, you’ll feel envy and jealousy for this!” She thought that she could embarrass him a little, tease him into finding a boyfriend, but she didn’t expect him to be this invulnerable.

“Speaking of which, how did your writing style become like this, Junior? What was the trigger?”

“Hehehe,” Ning Xiaoxiao suddenly giggled into her hand, winking at him as she said, “Well, I didn’t actually write this script.”

Qi Jing heaved a big sigh of relief when he heard those words, patting on his chest to show how deeply comforted he was by that information.

Otherwise, he had planned on spending some good ten minutes to convince his junior not to give up on receiving treatment.

“The thing is, actually, the scriptwriter is the producer and she enlisted my help to get you to do this show.” Which meant to say that the scriptwriter couldn’t be changed.

“Absolutely. Not. Doing. This. Drama.”

“Come on, just do it, it’s just one episode. I’d be too embarrassed to get back to her if you don’t. Besides, those ridiculous lines are for the Shou and she’s looking to cast you as the Gong. So isn’t it fine as long as the Gong’s lines aren’t absurd?” Ning Xiaoxiao pouted.

She exercised her skill of pestering him, pestering and clinging onto him like an annoying piece of sticky candy one could not get rid of.

Alright, although the lines for the Gong also made his face ‘囧’ like never before, with the Shou’s lines as a comparison, it appears a lot more normal.

However, that was not the main point.

“They’re looking for me to play the Gong? What a surprise, there aren’t many looking to cast me as a Gong these days.”

Qi Jing raised his eyebrows; an opening had appeared in his psychological line of defence.

Due to this strange unspoken rule that has been circulating aroundk2014;“there’s no way for them to coexist”k2014;so not only were the producers looking to cast him few and far between, he’s also been replaced by several of the other production crews. Hence, he’s been pretty idle and lately, he’s mostly just been paying off his debts. Although he used to mostly play Gong, those audio dramas were relatively unpopular and didn’t draw much attention.

And with the recording of him playing against Bronze Sparrow Terrace going viral, many people have been brainwashed by his 0.5 Shou voice after listening, Qi Jing started to miss the days where he voiced Gongs. All those little Shou’s that he’s chased—how nostalgic.

“How about it, Senior? Do you want to consider going back to your old expertise?”

Ning Xiaoxiao was probably a loach in her previous life seeing how quickly she dived into the first hole she saw in his defence.

“Let me think about it.” Once he eased up, the chances of him giving in was very high.

“Come on, just accept this show. Aren’t you tired of playing voice Gongs? This time, the Gong is the gentle, healing type. It’s worth a challenge.” Naturally, Ning Xiaoxiao knew how to take advantage and go in straight for the win.

“Okay,” Qi Jing looked to the sky and sighed, “I’ve recently experienced what it means to be healed anyway.”

Ning Xiaoxiao swiftly leaned in, her eyes lit up as she said, “Are you referring to that news about the kitties? That was truly healing! Your commentary was an absolute foul, alright! What’s more, you said it in such a loving tone… Ah, I can’t, my heart has been shot… Oh, right, someone from our magazine company went through the adoption process to adopt a cat because of it!”

“Really? That’s great.” A faint smile appeared on his lips.

The night the news was broadcasted, his colleagues from the hotline office came to feedback that they had received quite a number of calls from the viewers. The response had been good, but it was even more pleasant to hear it from someone outside of the station.

“I was also considering adopting one, but I can’t provide for it at my place,” Ning Xiaoxiao added dejectedly.

“Me too. I have to leave home for work every few days. If I really brought one home it might actually starve to death.” Qi Jing expressed that the occupation of a reporter was the nemesis of having pets. “If you can’t adopt, you can always donate money and other items. After all, their hospital charges such a low fee for treatment so their staff do need a little subsidy.”

Qi Jing once offered in an email to that person that he would give him some remuneration in return for the information provided. He knew that the care in those words could not be measured in monetary terms, but a few words of “thank you” made him feel that it was not enough to compensate the other person for the precious rest time he had sacrificed.

However, the other party did not accept it.

The first email was presented to the public through a TV broadcast and a post was made in the news forum in the same style.

Followed by the second, the third, the fourth…

Qi Jing continued to update the status of the kittens in several well-known forums. He would polish up the contents of the email to enhance the publicity effect. He had received the support of many cat lovers and there were even charities that took the initiative to raise money to buy cat food, cat litter, warming supplies, etc, to send to the hospital.

As a reteller, Qi Jing would always make sure to note that “the following was quoted from a doctor’s diary” when crafting the posts.

When he writes his own content, it is usually just published as-is. However, whenever he quotes the emails, he would specially mark it with a warm background color and corresponding font color and style to make it stand out.

It has been more than a month since these “important emails” have been accumulating one by one.

At the end of each reply, Qi Jing would attach a personal greeting, separated from the main text by a dotted line. And he would always remember to end off with his signature “^_^”.

At the start, he was the only one who was doing that, but then the other party began to gradually reciprocate it, replying to his greeting and greeting him at the end of the email.

There was a kind of affectionate feeling of making pen pals in the student days during this exchange.

Half of September had passed and the cats whose condition had improved had been picked up one after another. Seeing that there were fewer and fewer of the little guys mentioned in the emails, as glad as Qi Jing was to see that, he could not help but feel a little sad and lonely at the same time.

He thought to himself that the cat’s dad must have felt the same way—

“Speaking of which, Senior, your feature report will be complete when all the cats have been adopted, right?” Ning Xiaoxiao asked curiously while nibbling on her straw after taking a sip of her ice tea.

Qi Jing froze a little at her question.

Any follow-up report would end one day, he should know this better than anyone.

“I supposed,” he replied and adjusted his sitting position, picking up his coffee to sip on it quietly.

Seeing that National Day was approaching, there would probably be another wave of news. He had better shift his focus as soon as possible.

“It’s the Mid-Autumn Festival next week and National Day next next next week. These are all holidays, do you want to make plans to hang out with some friends?”

“You should know that when everyone is enjoying their holiday is when we’re the busiest.”

If he had a mirror in front of him right now, he would see a perfect demonstration of the “dead eyes” look.

“Urk, then forget it. I think you’d better just pay off your audio drama debts. I’ve already sent you the script I showed you just now.” Ning Xiaoxiao smacked her lips.

Qi Jing glanced at the script on her screen and his eyes died a second time.

“Alright, seeing that I’m playing the Gong, I’ll try my best to ignore the lines for the Shou.” He believed that by the end of this audio drama, his resistance to such ridiculousness would definitely improve significantly.

“Hehe, then I’ll also share your QQ to the producer-scriptwriter and get her to add you. Then you guys can discuss the rest of it yourselves.”

His junior typed on her keyboard for a while before suddenly looking up at him like she remembered something and asked, “Hmm? What about the drama where you’re a CP with the Great God? When is it coming out?”

“I heard that it’ll be out on National Day.”

The DEMO was coming soon and once all the retakes are done, they’ll be able to release the audio drama. However, Qi Jing really couldn’t bear to listen to himself as a 0.5 erotic Shou.

“Senior, come, give me a signature,” his junior said while smiling like an old scheming fox.

“What for?” Qi Jing questioned, sizing her up with a weird look, wondering just what on earth did this girl have up her sleeves.

“Just sign it. Then, I’ll save your signature and when your drama comes out and you become famous, I’ll sell it on Taobao!”

“You… that’s enough of you…”

After leaving the cafe, Qi Jing bade his junior goodbye and they went their separate ways.

It was in the middle of September where the temperature wasn’t too low yet, and was all nice and cooling. The song of the cicadas in summer has been blown away by the autumn wind, replaced with the rustling sound of fallen leaves.

As the saying goes, “When the first leaf falls from the Wutong tree, the entire world knows that autumn has come.” However, the Wutong tree found on either side of the road was different from the Wutong trees ancient Chinese were referring to. The leaves were an even muted shade of yellow, more delicate, making a crisp sound when crushed underfoot.

In September, when the fruiting season is in full swing, the brown-coloured fruits hang down from the treetops, swaying weakly in the wind. The conclusion to blossoming and bearing fruit was nothing more than this, let alone the story of the flowers that had yet to bloom—

Qi Jing suddenly understood why ancient scholars grieve over the passing of spring or feel sad with the advent of autumn. Such depressing imagery would elicit negative emotions from whoever was looking at them.

After fall, the days started to get shorter and although he got off from work at the usual time, by the time he got home, the interior of his apartment was already dark.

He’s lived by himself for so long; his furniture and everything were simple. With a minimalistic style of furnishing, his living space would be considered rather wide, making it hard to block the thick shadow stretching out from behind the wall, extending onto the solid wood floor.

Since he was still feeling pretty filled from the coffee at the cafe before, he was too lazy to even get himself a meal now. He just threw his jacket onto the sofa and lied down to rest.

There have been news reports about the elderly living alone only being discovered dead in their homes one month after their death. And Qi Jing felt that it was not unlikely for something like that to happen to him. Even if it didn’t take a month, it would at least take eight or ten days.

His friends and office would probably think that he was out on a business trip.

While the people online would most likely think that the god of playing dead was pretending to be dead again to avoid people rushing him for his recordings.

Since he came out of the closet, he could count the number of times he had returned to his family home with one hand. His parents still had his older sister and younger brother who could take care of them so their attitude towards him was simply—out of sight, out of mind.

“It… hurts…”

Applying pressure to his stomach that was starting to hurt again, Qi Jing squeezed those two words through clenched teeth.

He turned around, wrapping himself in his jacket, closed his eyes and pressed his head into the sofa to sleep, hoping to get through the dull pain through sleep.

It was about 8 PM when he woke up and the cramps he was feeling had gone away.

After taking a stretch, he got up to turn on his computer and got to work. He had long been accustomed to such a dumbfounding routine.

For some reason, recently, whenever he gets to work, he would log into his company email first to see if there were any new emails. It’s been five days since he received the last email regarding the kitties. The interval this time was a bit longer than the previous frequency of two to three days.

It was very easy to recognise that guy’s emails as the subject was the same every time.

“The kittens’ recovery”—it was always like that; it’s not even numbered.

However, the subject of the email he received today had changed and became “About the kittens”. Qi Jing suddenly felt uncertain about the screen showing before him and stared fixedly at the mailbox for five seconds.

It was from the same person.

Qi Jing subconsciously felt like it was better not to open it.

That feeling was like a person going to the restaurant he patronised frequently, ordering the same dish every time, feeling at ease when he ate there. However, one day, the menu had completely changed. Although the chef was still the same, the strange dishes would make him afraid to order.

Qi Jing was afraid he would open the email to see a photo of a kitten with closed eyes attached to it, announcing that the treatment was ineffective and the kitten was gone, or something along those lines.

He found that it was the hardest to take the news of the sudden departure of a little life he had been paying close attention to.

“Huu… Calm down, calm down, it might be some good news,” Qi Jing muttered in a bid to convince himself. Perhaps he was just being affected by the melancholic atmosphere of autumn outside and things weren’t as bad as he thought.

He moved his cursor and clicked on the email.

And as it turned out, the email did contain a piece of good news and it was good news worth celebrating.

“All of the kittens injured in the incident have recovered. The adoption paperwork for the last one was completed this morning and all were released from the hospital.”

These words were an affirmation for his long-standing efforts during this period.

I see.

So that was what it was…

No wonder the subject no longer contained the word “recovery”, it was because there weren’t any more cats that were in a state of recovery.

“That’s great, the little ones have found their forever home. Haha.”

Qi Jing’s eyes remained glued to those words, reading through it several dozen times, over and over again. And at the final time, he chuckled lightly, but the smile on his face didn’t last very long.

That was the first time he had received an email that didn’t have the contents of a diary or any pictures and he wasn’t really used to it.

Maybe it was because he wasn’t used to it that he couldn’t find himself feeling overjoyed by the situation.

“That’s great, the little ones have found their forever home.”

He repeated this sentence in his reply. It felt as if there was a lot more he wanted to say, but he couldn’t think of the right wording for it at the moment. He sat in a daze in his seat for a long while, the usual inspiration he had for writing seemed to be completely exhausted as he couldn’t even find a single trace of it left.

Fingers went back and forth between the letter keys and the delete key. He would type a few words, deliberate over it before deleting it while silently shaking his head.

“I’ll post this message on the forum so everyone can celebrate.” This sentence was about business.

“You’ve worked hard, Dr. Shen.” This one was his usual greeting.

Was there more to add?

Probably not, he supposed. Personal thoughts, business, greetings—it was about the same order as his usual replies, and with that, they could put the perfect full stop on this chapter. Tomorrow, he could go report this to the channel director, do up a summary, and start making preparations for the next topic.

“Thank you and goodbye.” The standard way to end off an email.

Although he didn’t manage to get the other party’s name right up to the very end, this time, there really wasn’t a need for that anymore.

A/N: Actually I feel like I can just put a “completed” or something here…