CH 75

Chapter 75 – Moonlight Metaphor

Substitution method

Pei Tingsong was stunned, but he had to get it all together, otherwise he might be discovered to be the blank slate who was just chatting at cross-purposes.  

What Japanese, European, and American products, it couldn’t really be about watching porn ba?

Couldn’t be ba? Could this even be broadcast then?

“Vote again.”

He Ziyan, Lu Yuan, and Pei Tingsong still voted for the group leader. Even the fence-sitter Ling Yi changed his vote, and Jiang Miao was voted out of the game with four votes.

“Then Miaomiao will be eliminated. Miaomiao, come here.” The host pulled on Jiang Miao’s arm and warned, “Don’t expose everything oh.”

As soon as Jiang Miao saw everyone’s cards, he laughed. “Alright ba, good luck everyone.”

“Okay, the game goes on. It’s still He Ziyan who will start.”

However, He Ziyan said with a smile, “This time, the last person should talk first ba.”

Fang Juexia also took a look at Pei Tingsong. Pei Tingsong knew that if he refused at this time, he would attract more suspicion.

“Alright. I’ll talk first.”

No matter whether they were watching porn or not, since all of their descriptions were so close to that topic, there should be some similarities. Pei Tingsong gambled and said, “This is an activity that needs to be completed with the eyes.”

His other four bandmates nodded meaningfully and then turned to Fang Juexia.

He passed?

Fang Juexia described, “En…. This activity can be done by one person or with multiple people, and if there are more people, the kind of popular atmosphere generated will be different.”

After hearing Fang Juexia’s words, Pei Tingsong’s heart ended up with even more question marks.

It couldn’t really be about doing something smutty?

Pei Tingsong was perplexed. How could he not do it, and to top it all, it was even Fang Juexia saying that he couldn’t do it!

From their prior descriptions, Ling Yi faintly felt that the people beside him didn’t quite have the same thing as him. What European, American, Japanese, what was the difference between haunted houses from different countries? However, thankfully he at least had a card with something on it; in this kind of game, the undercover card should be similar to the normal cards. 

“En…” Ling Yi thought for a moment before speaking, “I feel like ah, this kind of activity may-may make people kind of nervous.”

When it came to Lu Yuan, he was concise and clear with his words, “It makes people cry out.”

“Hahahahahaha!”

“This group is poisonous!”

By now, Pei Tingsong’s head was already filled with some strange images he couldn’t get rid of. 

He Ziyan cleared his throat and added, “It has a better feel when it is done in the dead of the night.”

Host Chen Mo couldn’t hold back, “I used to watch this game and sweat for the people with the undercover and blank slate cards, but now I’m sweating for our program.”

Another host also tried hard to suppress their smile. “It’s really curious what route this game has taken oh.”

“Hahahahaha!”

The hostess said, “Then you guys vote now ba.”

He Ziyan voted for Ling Yi. “Ling Yi seems to just be keeping his head above the water ah. He said that doing this activity would make you nervous, but I said in the first round that it would require a good psychological quality. It feels like Ling Yi is guessing.”

However, Fang Juexia voted for Lu Yuan. “I feel like for the last two rounds, Yuanyuan has been a bit, how to put it, his descriptions tend to be a little…”

“What did I say?” Lu Yuan asked.

He Ziyan said with a smile, “It’s not suitable for children, and then you said that people will cry out.” After that, he also felt it was a little strange. “No, the more I think about it, the wronger it seems…”

Fang Juexia, who had succeeded in finding someone sympathetic to his view, agreed, “Right ba, it’s really strange.”

He Ziyan nodded. “I won’t cry out.”

Fang Juexia followed suit and added, “I won’t either.”

“Hahahahahahaha!”

“No,” Lu Yuan suddenly grew excited and defended himself, “You guys don’t really think I have…” He paused, and his next first two words were uttered very heavily, “That kind of card ba.”

His words immediately caused Pei Tingsong to sober up; the kind of card Lu Yuan was talking about was the one he was thinking of incorrectly, and it was very obvious that the cards He Ziyan and Fang Juexia held weren’t of that kind.

Then what was it? Something you watch with your eyes, the Japanese, European, and American ones are very famous, they can’t be made in China, one person can do it, with multiple people you have a different atmosphere, and it can be done in the dead of the night.  

The main point was, he, Pei Tingsong, couldn’t do it. 

That was too comical, he hadn’t met anything he couldn’t do before. Alright ba, besides the haunted house from last time.

Haunted?

Pei Tingsong saw the light; so it was horror movies!

This group of people really went too far, nearly causing him, this blank slate, to change colors. 

Pei Tingsong, who was now confident that he had probably guessed the right answer, began to stir up the flames, just like a king who had gone through untold hardships to find the password to his main account for the game, and started making a clear, resonated, and genuine analysis out loud, “This kind of game is generally difficult in front of the players who have the blank slate card, because that person wouldn’t know how to describe it. I think Yuan Ge may have the undercover card, and he’s just stirring things up.”

Ling Yi felt that he was in grave danger. He had just escaped from He Ziyan’s tiger mouth, so he quickly conformed to Pei Tingsong’s idea. “I also feel like that, ever since Yuanyuan started speaking, we’ve gone a bit off-track.”

Their captain standing at the side internally thought—didn’t it start going off-track with me?

As a result, the remaining five members of K happily and laughingly all voted for Lu Yuan.

The host coughed. “The game continues.”

Ling Yi made an exaggerated “ahhh” sound, complaining, “Still have to continue ah.”

“He Ziyan, start describing ba.”

He Ziyan stood up straight while holding the microphone and spoke, “Arriving to this point, it’s hard to describe ah, without saying it directly.” He thought about it, then said a keyword, “Please put XX on the public screen.”

“Hahahaha, automatic silencing.”

Hearing this, Ling Yi felt that He Ziyan’s card was similar to his own. He couldn’t help thinking, it couldn’t be that he wasn’t the undercover person? It couldn’t be that Two Fire had just followed the description on other people’s cards before?

He described carefully, “En…. Because of this, Xiao Pei went on the Hot Search list.”

Once this sentence was said, everyone understood what the undercover card was. Fang Juexia’s face was calm. “It hasn’t appeared in our ensemble show, but there are similar sections.”

Pei Tingsong now knew that Ling Yi’s card said ‘haunted house.’ Then when he heard Fang Juexia’s statement, he became even more sure that the rest of these people had ‘horror movie’ on their cards, so he said very naturally and grandly, “You can’t really enter this activity to experience it, although sometimes it is more immersive.”

“Okay, let’s start voting!”

Obviously, everyone voted for Ling Yi, who had exposed himself but didn’t know it. Ling Yi felt very wronged, but he didn’t know how to say it, so he cried, “You’re all bullying me!”

Pei Tingsong let out a hehe inside. I fear that the one being bullied is me, not you. 

There were only three people left on the field, but the game still wasn’t over yet. He Ziyan took the microphone and said, “It’s very obvious ah, it must be Xiao Pei. He also just happens to be the last one to go.”

Pei Tingsong had already said that the person with the blank slate card wasn’t amongst the people who went first, so now, if he voted for He Ziyan, he would be going against his previous logic. “I’m confused, I don’t know who to vote for now. If you guys think it’s me, that’s fine, but I’ve made it very clear that this activity can’t really be experienced.”

He Ziyan stared him in the eye, a little suspicious. He tried  to recall what Fang Juexia had said in the first two rounds; those words had seemed a bit vague. In the first round, he had just gone along with what others were saying. In the second round, he had said one person could do it, but so could multiple people. 

Fang Juexia actually began to argue for Pei Tingsong at this time, “I don’t think it’s Xiao Pei, because when I said he couldn’t do it, he didn’t protest.”

“Hahahahahaha, no way to protest!”

“Pei Tingsong can’t do it! Hahahaha!”

Pei Tingsong could only climb along this ladder. “I just can’t do it ah, no problem, and I especially can’t do it.” He looked at Fang Juexia and said, “Believe me.”

Fang Juexia carefully smoothed out his thoughts about the two people’s words in his mind again. No matter how he thought about it, He Ziyan couldn’t be the blank slate. As he was the first person to speak, even the probability that he was the undercover person was low. Although Pei Tingsong’s words were also logical, he still chose to believe in the basic rules of the game. “I’ll still vote for Xiao Pei ba.”

Pei Tingsong was stunned. “Hey, no, you just said it wasn’t me, how did it still boomerang back?”

Fang Juexia’s changing of votes made He Ziyan suspicious again. He thought that since he had just helped argue for Xiao Pei in order to get his vote, now he couldn’t vote for the first person to speak, so he simply changed his vote.

So He Ziyan also boomeranged around. “I’m voting for Fang Juexia.”

Pei Tingsong’s head was filled with question marks. These double boomerangs made his head spin, but he was the blank slate ah, and if he wanted to win this time, of course he would have to follow suit while voting. 

What did love count as? Pei Tingsong pointed at Fang Juexia. “I vote Juexia out.”

The audience below the stage had been amused into laughing until their sides were splitting by these members, and especially more so when they were exposed to this last scene of TingJue loving each other and killing each other.

“Okay.” The host tried his best to maintain his composure. “We’re announcing now—”

The background music started up.

“The blank slate wins!”

He Ziyan immediately realized that he had changed his vote to the wrong person. 

“I just knew it,” Fang Juexia slapped his hand on the table twice. Originally, he didn’t have much desire to win or lose, but clearly, by the end of the game, he had figured out who the blank slate was, and success had only been one step away from him.

Thinking about this, Fang Juexia felt a little annoyed, and so he turned to Pei Tingsong and kicked him a few times. Although his tone didn’t fluctuate greatly, his words were very cute. “Liar, you even voted for me.”

Pei Tingsong ducked from Fang Juexia and was overjoyed. “I was stunned by you two in the end, okay? You were in-fighting within yourselves.”

He Ziyan raised his hand and admitted, “Blame me, blame me, my fault, I overthought things in the end.”

The other members came back onstage and said, “Are you guys going to be just like that and let the blank slate win? You’re even someone who has been on a famous high IQ escape room game.”

Fang Juexia insisted on his own view, “If he had gone with my vote, we would have won.” Saying that, he felt very angry again and wanted to hammer Pei Tingsong. However, then he thought of his injured left hand and held back, clenching his fist in mid-air.

“Can’t do anything about it, who let me be too smart?” Pei Tingsong cheekily grabbed Fang Juexia’s wrist, dragged it down, and held his hand under the table.

The host couldn’t help but add, “This was the first time we’ve had so many ups and downs in the history of our program while playing ‘Who is Undercover’.”

“Yes, it repeatedly kept jumping too close to the censorship line.”

Lu Yuan asked Pei Tingsong, “Child Xiao Pei, did you have many question marks around your head at the beginning?”

The captain’s habitual worry rose up. “I’m so worried that after this episode gets broadcast, Xiao Pei will get onto the Hot Search List because he can’t do it.”

“Hahahahaha!”

They happily ended the ‘Who is Undercover’ game, after which K sang a non-main song from the new album, and then played the games of lyrical solitaire and pictionary the program group had prepared. The filming of the show lasted for five hours, from noon to evening, and the fans were very reluctant to leave when it ended.

When they got off work, it was just in time for dinner. Chen Mo was a very good person, and he had, early on, asked his assistant to make a reservation at a very famous private cuisine restaurant. Along with the host team, he invited the whole Kaleido group to have dinner and taste the local specialties. People in this city had a more spicy palate, and so Fang Juexia’s light Cantonese palate made him sweat when eating it.

It was hard to avoid drinking alcohol when eating at such a gathering. Before Fang Juexia could explain himself, Pei Tingsong took the lead. “Juexia Ge can’t drink alcohol.”

“Oh, like that, then what about Xiao Pei?”

“I also don’t like drinking too much, I’ll just drink plain water.”

He had managed to avoid the problem of alcohol, but now he still had to avoid the problem of all the spicy food. Fang Juexia chose what he could eat from all the dishes on the table. He thought that the chilis in the stir-fried meat wouldn’t be that spicy, but he didn’t expect it to be mid-grade level spiciness. 

His tongue was burning like it was on fire, and in that moment, he hurriedly took hold of the wrong cup, and drank some of Ling Yi’s baijiu. 

“Wu.”

Chen Mo looked at him. “Juexia, what’s wrong? Is it really spicy?”

Pei Tingsong quickly handed water to him. “Slow down.” Then he replied in Fang Juexia’s stead, “He’s from Guangzhou, he can’t eat spicy food.”

“Ah, it’s like that. Then you eat some dim sum ba. This one is made of glutinous rice, and it’s very delicious.”

Pei Tingsong took advantage of the situation and put a piece of dim sum in Fang Juexia’s bowl. He also served him a bowl of milk-white fish soup, which he aired out before putting aside.

He didn’t really know how to do such sorts of considerate things, almost burning himself when he was serving him soup, just like a child.

But Fang Juexia liked these little things very much.

After the meal, Chen Mo spoke a lot with them. Being able to get the advice of an elder from within the circle, one who could be all things to all men, was a very rare opportunity. 

“You guys are rookies, and there’s still a long way to go ahead, but you guys have the strength, and you will definitely have a good future.” Chen Mo said, “It’s just that this circle is also very complicated, and you should be careful with every step you take. I’ve heard a bit about your leaked song issue from before, and it may happen again in the future. You should be ready at all times.”

Jiang Miao nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Chen.”

The weather had changed a bit when they came out after dinner. Fang Juexia was just wearing a thin black short sleeved shirt. As soon as he came outside, he let out a small sneeze. Just as he wrapped his arms around himself, a jacket was placed over his body. 

It was the green cardigan that Pei Tingsong had originally been wearing.

“It’s okay, I’m not cold.” Fang Juexia wanted to take it off and give it back to him, but Pei Tingsong deliberately pretended to be fierce and stared at him as he insisted, “Put it on.”

While the others were saying goodbye, he whispered into Fang Juexia’s ear, “Be good.”

Fang Juexia completely lost the ability to refuse him with that, even though he had never seemed to possess such an ability in the first place. 

It was already ten o’clock in the evening by the time they returned to the hotel. Cheng Qiang promised them that they could stay in the city for an extra day and use it as a free day. After spending a whole day bustling around and filming, they were all tired, so they retired to their rooms early.

Cheng Qiang had been busy running up and down all day, and he had overseen their whole filming process for the program, so he was already half dead with fatigue. After returning to the room, he helped Xiao Pei take a bath and change his clothes. He looked at his watch when it was almost eleven o’clock, so he took a shower casually, climbed into bed, and turned off the light. “Go to bed early.”

Pei Tingsong, who was lying under the quilt, soon heard their agent snoring away. However, he was in high spirits and couldn’t fall asleep. Like a slideshow, the things that had happened during the day started to scroll across his mind, but in the end, he got stuck on the scene where Fang Juexia was dancing. He had twisted his waist so attractively, looking like water flowing in the night.

He liked everything that flowed.

Fang Juexia opened the door of his room alone. He was a slight germaphobe, so the first thing he did upon entering the room was take a bath. The hot steam in the bathroom made him dizzy, and the more he washed, the dizzier he became. So, he soon turned off the water, put on clean pajamas and came out from the bathroom with the steam following him, and after walking a few steps, he just fell on the soft white bed.

As soon as he turned his head, Fang Juexia remembered the scene where Pei Tingsong had been pressed on top of him during the day. He didn’t know why, but he just couldn’t stop thinking about it.

A room with only one person was very quiet. The sound of the clock ticked and skipped, and integrated with the little clock in his heart. As it kept ticking, it made him a little flustered. 

Fang Juexia tilted his head and looked out the window. Only a full moon was hanging in the dark sky, bright white and glowing.

He didn’t know if that one mouthful of alcohol played a role, but as he looked at it, Fang Juexia felt that the black sky was like his black clothes from today, and the slanting moon was like a round hole, exactly the size of a heart.

In this way, Fang Juexia regarded himself as a mathematical problem and applied the substitution method once. The equivalent substitution was that his heart had been dug away, and his dark chest was only left with a glowing hole.

Sure enough.

His outstretched arm touched the green outerwear lying beside the bed. Fang Juexia lifted it up, curled his fingers around it, and covered his face with it. Even though he was clearly addicted to cleanliness, he started fantasizing about this dirty used piece of clothing.

This was Pei Tingsong’s clothing, and it smelled of Pei Tingsong.

Fang Juexia closed his eyes and sniffed.

It seemed to contain the smell of his own heart.

This statement was really ridiculous, very illogical, and a totally unrealistic fantasy.

He seemed to be becoming more and more like Pei Tingsong.

The sound of vibration pulled him back from the edge of his fantasy. Fang Juexia opened his eyes, his heart beating wildly. With a hint of secretive guilt lingering, he set aside the clothing, reached for his cellphone by his pillow, and checked his messages.

[A Constant Truth: Are you asleep?]

It really was like that—whatever he was thinking of would actually arrive. Fang Juexia adjusted his breathing before replying that he hadn’t slept yet. 

Holding his cellphone, he suddenly started looking forward to things a bit. Very soon, his phone vibrated again.

[A Constant Truth: The moonlight above my bed isn’t good-looking. I want to see the moonlight from your bed.]