Chapter 20

Translator: Lucilla

Editor: whiteflare

Qi Jing didn’t know how he took out his earphones.

The moment the chat window disappeared, he felt as if he had been driven out of this small, cosy world and back into his grim and deathly-still room.

It was already the middle of the night. The difference in temperature between day and night was quite big in the autumn, so he was shivering a little. Only now did he realise that he needed to wear a coat, but he clearly didn’t feel any trace of coldness when they were talking just a moment ago…

His ears were still hot from wearing the headphones for such a long time. They were burning when he touched them.

His conversation with Geese Fly North ended ten minutes ago. After that, he spaced out while looking at the grayed out profile picture. Only after ten minutes had passed did he realise that he had forgotten to take off his headphones. He didn’t know why, but he somehow felt like the earphones could serve as the means to preserve that warmth.

The last sentence Geese Fly North told him was: “Tomorrow, I will come online at the same time.”

He slapped his face—it hurt.

He slapped his thighs—it hurt.

Qi Jing thought to himself absentmindedly, so it wasn’t a dream.

Could it be that because he had experienced quite a number of unpleasant things during this period of time, so… the heavens decided to treat him kinder, occasionally allowing him to come across some happy occasions?

“Pfft.” Qi Jing sat in a daze for a while and suddenly laughed softly. He mumbled, “Crap… I’m starting to look forward to it a little.”

Whenever one started having expectations for something, it always made it harder to bear when it ended.

Such as those very important mails containing the records of kittens’ recovery.

Such as this promise he made online just a moment ago.

He got up, left the computer desk, opened the door, and stood on the empty balcony. It sure was cold outside; the wind blew the hanging clips on a clothes rack with a rustle, making a characteristic dull clacking sound, unique to plastic. Cold air immediately invaded his lungs and he couldn’t help but cough.

“Cough, cough…” They talked for so long this evening and the time flew by in the blink of an eye. Right now, his throat was even starting to feel a little sore.

As dark, heavy clouds hung overhead, not a single star could be seen.

Previously, he heard old people say that persons with rheumatism could predict the weather. When it was going to rain, their bones would definitely start to ache. He didn’t expect that a bone fracture would also have the same effect. He could feel a sore and pricking sensation rising.

I suppose there will be autumn rain tomorrow and the temperature will probably drop several degrees again, won’t it?

Qi Jing stood alone on the balcony for a couple of minutes to clear his mind and only when he couldn’t bear the coldness anymore did he go back to the room.

Chatting on QQ required much quicker typing than what he could manage at the moment, so he decided on going to the forum first to look at the thread about the first episode of《Trap》.

As a CV voicing one of the main characters, he wanted to post some comments in hopes that he could calm down antis’ rage, so that at least the staff could catch a breath.

The production crew released the first chapter on National Day of China and so far, the post thread had already accumulated four pages of comments, quickly nearing the fifth page.

The number of pages on the thread… were really increasing at a dumbfounding speed.

Qi Jing had never experienced having a thread that was longer than one page, so he could not help but express his admiration. The threads that would go over one page would be either very popular ones or the utterly hated ones; he hoped《Trap》wasn’t a case of the latter.

The first thing that greeted him upon opening a thread was an exquisite poster.

It was a picture of the first meeting between the main characters in a secret room. Several buttons had been torn off from the policeman Gong’s shirt, revealing half of his chest, and he was lying on the black leather sofa. The gangster Shou was sitting on top of him, pulling his necktie with a faint smile, forcing him to lift his face.

The suggestiveness was basically oozing out of the screen.

The background of the poster was in a dark red colour palette; it was very eye-catching when put together with the title’s metallic feel. The publicist used a bright-coloured font highlighted in black and it even had flashing effects that resembled bloodstains.

The results of thek300J;Trapk300K;production crew’s work were pretty good. Qi Jing sighed as he scrolled. He felt worried, from the bottom of his heart, that a little nobody like himself would be a burden to the crew.

But it didn’t matter, they had backup from the Great God, Bronze Sparrow Terrace.

Other than the production crew, who had front row seats on the ‘sofa’, and those who came to snag a spot on the ‘benches’, ‘floor’ and ‘basement’, the first two hundred or so comments belonged to the Bronze Sparrow Terrace’s little fans.

“Commenting to boost Bronze Sparrow Terrace-sama’s”, “Boosting Sama’s new drama”, “Congratulations on a safe birth of our Bronze Sparrow MC’s drama”. The first two hundred comments could be roughly summed up like that. In the meantime, some of the staff also expressed their thanks, but they were basically drowned out by the tremendous flood of cheers from the fans. The sound designer, A Lifetime’s Lock, had a relatively bigger presence thanks to her close relationship with Bronze Sparrow Terrace.

And at last, people started to write their reviews.

In the beginning, it was all praises—the intention to eulogize showed clearly in every sentence. The one to get the most compliments was, of course, God Bronze Sparrow Terrace. His fans just itched to analyse every sentence of his. For them, every word contained some hidden emotions to convey and soon lengthy reviews were posted.

Of course, they also gave the staff some praise along the way, like the scriptwriter’s choice of scenes was on spot, or the sound director did a good job creating the atmosphere with the choice of music and sound effects, or the director’s good guiding, etc. Even the poster, trailer, and the ending song received numerous praises.

Qi Jing was no exception.

After looking through the first page of comments, Qi Jing could already more or less understand what Ning Xiaoxiao meant by: “on the road to getting famous”. Thanks to the Great God, it was the first time he received so many positive comments. Quite a significant number of girls claimed to be completely enthralled by his voice, saying that from today on, they would listen to all of his dramas. After that, were producers’ pleas for the means of contact.

He felt extremely flattered.

Qi Jing himself was unsatisfied with the way he voiced the role, but seeing people spare no effort in complimenting him, he simply didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He could only thank that ‘love me, love my dog’ philosophy of Bronze Sparrow Terrace’s fans.

He skimmed through the comments, stopping dead in his tracks when he came across a review beginning with the word ‘disappointed’.

It was a review from the person signed in as Heartbroken fan of the novel. It wasn’t long, but the feeling of disappointment was evident in the words.

[Comment 235]:

Disappointed. After listening to it twice, I can only say I’m disappointed.

Honestly, I can wholeheartedly agree that this drama is very well-made. The poster, the trailer, the scriptwriting, everything behind the scenes was done pretty well, but I want to ask both the producer and director—what the hell were you thinking? How did you choose voice actors? Even if you didn’t manage to cast well, why didn’t you take care of the problem properly during PIA-ing? In the end, even I, a faithful fan of the source material that read through it ten or more times, can’t recognise the main characters.

Okay, when I first heard that the God Bronze Sparrow Terrace will be voicing in it, I already had a bad premonition, and it was now confirmed… Not suited means not suited; it sounded weird in all kinds of ways. But I never would have thought that Don’t ask for my return date’s performance would also be like this. What a waste of me being a silent fan of his, thinking that he should be able to manage this role… And in the end… Why did he voice a temptress Shou! I am disappointed, really, so greatly disappointed.

“S-Sorry…” Qi Jing sucked in a mouthful of cold air and he couldn’t help but cover his chest with his hand.

He felt a sense of distress as if he had his face smeared before being resolutely cast aside by an old friend. It looked like this fan of the novel was once one of his low-key fans, but she probably wasn’t one anymore.

Not only that, both Rouge Flower and Knives cutting in from four corners were also criticised even though it wasn’t their fault.

After the statement from Heartbroken fan of the novel, her comment got a lot of fierce verbal abuse from the Bronze Sparrow Terrace’s fans.

But as the number of comments grew—to the point it needed another page—even more comments from fans of the novel started to emerge, taking the risk to leave similar comments.

[Comment 311]:

After seeing how many people cursed at Comment 235, I still want to quietly give her some support…

I really love the novel,《Trap》. When I saw that the rights were given, I was full of unreal expectations, and at last, the drama came out. But the result… Lady from the 235th comment has already taken the words right out of my mouth. The editing is good and all, but it’s just that the main characters were way too OOC… （┬＿┬）

[Comment 326]

Σ( °△°|||)︴Why did Don’t ask for my return date’s voice change so much?? What happened?? In my mind, he always was a black-bellied, flirty Gong, all right?!! What is this frail Shou voice?! What’s more, it’s to be from《Trap》, a novel with a strong x strong couple tag!! Don’t ask for my return date-sama, just what exactly happened to you!! TELL ME WHY!!

[Comment 328]:

A reader of the novel quietly passing by.

To be honest, if one were to ignore the novel, then this audio drama could be easily regarded as an 85 and above out of 100. It’s very well done from all aspects, the plot is smooth, the soundtrack is powerful, and both of the main characters have beautiful and strong voices. People that didn’t read the novel could listen to it without any pressure.

But because I have read the novel, I can’t get rid of my first impression. I have a deep impression of the people described in this novel. I love the policeman’s honesty and forbearance and also the nightclub owner’s imposing momentum of a queen and spoony nature that made people captivated… I didn’t see a couple of such characteristics in the drama.

ANYWAY, I am silently joining the disappointed camp…

[Comment 350]:

╮(╯_╰)╭ I won’t say much about other aspects, as many have already commended it enough. I came with the purpose of roasting the main characters’ CVs. Before declaring my opinion I will just say: I am not a fan of the novel, I haven’t even read it, I just downloaded the script and read it as the drama played; don’t blame me if I get the details wrong.

First of all, I have been looking forward to seeing Great God’s Bronze Sparrow Terrace performance for a long time, his voice truly is flawless. That subwoofer of a voice sounds just as if my ears could get pregnant at any moment (pfft). Still… I can see that he didn’t look closely at the prompts about tone while he was dubbing. For example, before their first bedding scene, the requirements were for him to sound indignant and constrained, but he ended up sounding as if he had it all planned out, as if he was relaxed for the whole time. The above is only an example, there’s still a lot of parts like this. I hope that the Great God Bronze Sparrow Terrace will study the script a little before the next episode.

Next, I will talk a little about Don’t ask for my return date-sama. If you see this comment, please don’t slap me, I really am your fan (look at these earnest eyes! ⊙▽⊙) … But this drama is your worst dub I have listened to so far. It’s not that your sense of acting was wrong, it’s just that I didn’t know what you were thinking, going as far as to voice a character so completely different from the one described in a script! You can clearly use 0.7 voice, why feign a 0.5! You can clearly voice a Queen, why do a softie! What a waste of a nice Gong voice! (Eh, somehow seems not right…) Still, there were some scenes that you managed to voice really well, especially when the club manager drank alone and then the policeman appears, that contradictory state of mind was extremely good!

To make a long story short, by simply looking at the script and prompts, I can judge that both of the main characters didn’t perform too well. Instead, the character that stayed the truest to the original was Gong-kun’s grandpa… Is Geese Fly North a newcomer? His performance feels so on spot and natural. Mhm, Grandpa is beyond praise.

…

That was the first comment so far to mention Geese Fly North.

Suddenly Qi Jing had an impulse to grab the hand of the lady from the 350th comment and shout “Grandpa is amazing” together. Of course, the only thing that he could actually do was to sigh inwardly while sitting before the screen.

“He’s even more amazing when he’s voicing the policeman…”

Qi Jing mumbled to himself. It’s truly a pity that the people who heard that only amounted to four people, including him.

It was expected that amongst the audience there would be quite a few listeners with a keen ear. Sure enough, the criticism he expected before publishing the drama arose in its full force, yet he could accept it all.

One major thing he had gained from voicing in this drama was that it made him realise that there were a lot of people behind him that paid close attention to him. He felt incredibly grateful.

The other major thing that he gained was that he got to know Geese Fly North.

All the time that person had invested in this work shouldn’t only be mentioned in only one or two sentences. He deserved more respect.

Qi Jing struck the keys of his keyboard a few times with a serious expression.

Maybe it was only a momentary impulse, but he first copied the last few sentences from the comment on the 350th comment, then slowly typed in the response window: “I agree, Grandpa is really amazing.”

Nickname: Grandpa’s Fan, send.

Because the thread was already four pages long, this comment of his was thrown far to the back—the 1122nd comment. To quote someone else: “the reflex arc was so big, it could go one round around the entire Earth.”

But he didn’t care about it, his heart was now full and extremely comfortable.

After using this peculiar way of his to fight for the Geese Fly North’s publicity, Qi Jing returned to the second page to continue reading comments.

After reading the five hundred comments, they could be roughly divided into “Fans of Novel” and “Fans of Drama”, these two large factions. They launched a lengthy verbal battle and the focal point of the debate was whether the characters deviated from the source material.

Perhaps because of how intense some of the fans got with their words, Bronze Sparrow Terrace showed up in person near the end of the second page.

His response was extremely formal. Besides placating his enraged fans and thanking the staff for the fine editing and many other pleasantries, he also expressed in a mild and roundabout way that an audio drama is a derivative work and there’s no need to stick rigidly to the source material. He felt regretful towards the disappointment of the fans of the novel and hoped that everyone could appreciate this work from a different point of view. That’s all.

“Crap…” When Qi Jing read that part, he couldn’t help but furrow his brows.

Originally, he wanted to go along with the opinion of the source material party and say that he’ll improve his performance according to their corrections, so he could regain some of the character’s image.

With Bronze Sparrow Terrace making a statement like this, he was no doubt sticking to the route they took. If he sang a different tune, then it would badly affect the staff, Bronze Sparrow Terrace, and even himself.

Sure enough, immediately after Bronze Sparrow Terrace gave the final word his fans started fighting to squeeze their way under his comment to make a screenshot with him. With just that, it brought the number of comments at that time to a point where the thread needed a third page to house them. The numerous fans that made the positive comments before came back to thank their Great God for approving their opinion. Fans of the novel sank into silence.

The thread quickly returned to being joyous and harmonious, spreading a united and peaceful atmosphere.

Barring a few comments that suddenly appeared on the third page—

[Comment 742]:

Bronze Sparrow Terrace-sama took great pains to come out and protect the atmosphere of the thread. He even thanked the production crew and his fans. By the way, when will the other one voicing a leading role come out? ╮(╯▽╰)╭

[Comment 743]:

The comment above, but Don’t ask for my return date-sama is a famous god of playing dead, you know~ It is said that when the Great God wanted to practice acting with him for the first time, he still needed to make to with his schedule, and was made to wait for half a day. He wouldn’t possibly show up on the third page, I bet ten chrysanthemums on that~ ╮(╯▽╰)╭

[Comment 744]

The god of playing dead +1

I remember that previously the post on a forum exposed a case of his backstabbing.

After that, Bronze Sparrow Terrace-sama stood up for him and the post was deleted. I don’t know if there’s someone who has a copy of that post (picking my nose). I originally thought that anyway, it’s a mistake, so let’s let it be a mistake, but to be blunt, now that I hear about it… I think that he’s the one that hinders the whole work. It would be better to exchange him for Crossing the bridge noodles-sama. In any case, his sense of acting is better, and I also dig his voice.

[Comment 745]

Our “Moss” ship is sailing, forever unsinkable! If the voice actor was exchanged for our little Noodles, those squeamish girls from the source material party would shut up for sure! Because of course, little Noodles wouldn’t disappoint them, and of course, he would voice this drama well!

…

From that point on, supporters of the “Moss” CP started to approve that thought. Of course, there were also fans of Bronze Sparrow Terrace that refuted this trend and encouraged Qi Jing.

However, he really didn’t appear as he reached the end of the third page so they were spot on with that.

At the beginning of the fourth page, Qi Jing saw his junior’s comment on her regular account, March Bamboo Shoots, talking about the matter of him suffering in a traffic accident, which led to a tremendous uproar. Saying things like suffering from a traffic accident at the time like this, it simply sounded like a cheap excuse and didn’t hold any credibility. Thus, the antis began to act even more violently – cursing loudly and kicking strongly.

The gist of the thought was simple: Don’t ask for my return date was undeserving of acting with the Great God Bronze Sparrow Terrace. Great God deserved a better CV to partner with.

These were probably the ‘stupid comments’ mentioned by Ning Xiaoxiao.

Qi Jing couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Not bad, not bad, it was still within the range of his expectations; in fact, there was nothing really worth getting angry about.

After looking through the post thread, a sudden pitter-patter was heard on the bedroom’s window. It was raining.

Qi Jing subconsciously lifted his head to look outside the window.

Because of the light cast by the desk lamp, he could only see his own image reflected on the surface of the glass and not the rain beyond the window.

Where the light was the strongest, distinct trails left behind by the falling raindrops could be seen. Gradually, the sound of rain falling and the leaves rustling started to become more and more intense.

This town was about to experience its first prolonged rainfall of autumn. Suddenly, Qi Jing recalled that kittens were easily scared of water. Perhaps with such weather, they would seek shelter, warming themself comfortably in that person’s embrace.

It was just a mere causal association, but he felt his heart sting a little.

He hadn’t looked at that picture since the traffic incident. He felt that at this moment when his heart’s line of defence was at its weakest, when he’s the most vulnerable, he couldn’t look at it.

If he looked, he would start having thoughts of rushing right back and he wouldn’t be able to leave again.

That’s why… He had to stop thinking about it—that notion of wanting to reply to that last email.