CH 8

May 18, 2023Merchie

Chi Mingyao glared at the two lines of text on the screen for a long while, almost crushing his phone in his hand.

The director noticed the change in his mood, and asked cautiously: “What is it? He doesn’t have any previous works?”

Chi Mingyao felt a bit embarrassed, and did not mention the matter of Li Yangxiao blocking him. He closed the screen, threw his phone onto the table, and said, “He didn’t reply. He probably hasn’t checked his phone yet. Let’s wait.”

The director nodded in agreement. He had wanted to ask if he should save this role for Li Yangxiao, but when he saw the discoloration of Chi Mingyao’s complexion, he sensibly kept his mouth shut. After all, he was still counting on Chi Mingyao to put in a few good words for him in front of Chi Mingkai.

For the first time in his life, Chi Mingyao had been blocked by someone–and this person was some nameless actor. Chi Mingyao was in a terrible mood. He finally understood why Chen Rui had blacklisted Li Yangxiao; it must have been an even more ruthless, drastic solution he had come up with after resisting the urge to find Li Yangxiao and beat him up.

Meanwhile, a few dozen kilometers away, Li Yangxiao had no idea of Chi Mingyao’s current mood. He would never have expected that because of the simple action of blocking him, a high degree of empathy would be established between two people who could hardly stand each other.

Li Yangxiao was busy mapping out his next steps. He planned on working as a bar singer for a period of time.

This was one of the ideas he had in high school. Back then, he had thought about it more than once. If he could not become an actor in the future, he would go to a bar and work as a singer. In his second year of high school, he had once tried this idea out, and his experience was not unpleasant.

Li Yangxiao’s musical talents could not be compared to those of a trained singer, and he had never received any specialized vocal lessons. But he had good looks and knew how to have a good time. His voice was not bad either, so the bosses at every bar were happy to hire him.

Li Yangxiao quickly picked out a bar — it was an obscure underground bar. Its name consisted of a single word: “Burn”. In his fourth year at university, he had shot a short film about pole dancers there, and had even signed up for a pole dancing class for that very reason.

The boss of the bar was a woman not much older than him. The two shared a kind of friendship. A few little-known independent actors would often gather at this bar –although these people had fallen even lower than he had, this way he could at least stay a little closer to the path of becoming an actor.

Even if he could not enter the entertainment industry, he could still become an actor. But Li Yangxiao had to take care of himself first. One could only continue to dream if they stayed alive.

That night, Li Yangxiao took the train to that bar. The boss of the bar, Huang Ying, lived there. The moment she saw Li Yangxiao, she recognized him. She mixed a cocktail and slid it in front of him: “It’s on me.”

“Is there a lot of alcohol in it?” Li Yangxiao took the drink and asked.

“No, I didn’t add any hard liquor. What, you want a different one?”

“No need for that, ” Li Yangxiao laughed, “When I drink too much, I burst into rashes. I have a slight allergy to alcohol.”

“This one’s fine. Feel free to drink up. Oh yeah, why haven’t I ever seen your movies at the cinema?”

“Don’t bring that up, ” Li Yangxiao took a gulp of his drink, “I offended someone, so I’ve been blacklisted for almost a year.”

“Fuck, it’s that bad? Who did you offend?”

“Do you know Chen Rui?” Li Yangxiao sat down on a bar stool.

“I’ve heard of him, but I’ve never met him in person. How did you offend him?” Huang Ying passed him a cigarette.

“Ai, I don’t want to talk about it, ” Li Yangxiao took the cigarette, lit it, and inhaled a mouthful of smoke. He asked directly, “Do you need a singer here?”

“You want to work here? Then even if we don’t need one, we’ll have to make space for one.” Huang Ying glanced over him, smiling.

“I’m not joking,” Li Yangxiao looked at her thoughtfully, “I know English and Cantonese songs. Why don’t I sing for an hour first so you can listen?”

“No way, you’ve fallen this low?” Huang Ying stared at him.

“It doesn’t hurt to do something else, but a few directors often come to your place, don’t they? I still want to do some acting occasionally. I’m also doing some modeling, but the income from that isn’t stable.” Li Yangxiao laughed a bit helplessly.

That night, Li Yangxiao sang for an hour at the bar. Huang Ying agreed to hire him, and had given him good shift times, from 9pm to 11pm. But she had one condition for Li Yangxiao:

“Didn’t you know how to pole dance in university? Why don’t you give us a little closing scene at eleven to liven up the mood? That’ll be the intermission, so the atmosphere will be a bit more energetic. You’ve got a bit of a cold personality. You won’t be able to support yourself by just singing.”

Li Yangxiao froze: “Ah?”

In his fourth year of university, in order to act in that short film, he had gone to pole dancing classes for two months. But he never expected Huang Ying to keep that in mind.

“If you can, I’ll pay you the salary of a first-class bar singer. You don’t have to do anything too difficult. As long as you’ve got a few moves and you can bullshit people, that’s fine. You’d dance for four or five minutes, at most.”

Li Yangxiao mulled it over and agreed. He would earn 3001 a night, so there was no reason for him to reject the offer.

That same night, Chi Mingyao answered a call from Xu Yan. He was very impatient as he picked up, and heard Xu Yan say on the phone: “Young Master Chi, do you know what’s going on with Li Yangxiao?”

“What?” Chi Mingyao frowned as he asked.

“We talked over the phone just this afternoon, and he blocked me at night. Young Master Chi, did you introduce someone to him?”

“What happened?” Chi Mingyao did not even want to acknowledge him, nor did he want to hear Li Yangxiao’s name.

“Ai, I won’t beat around the bush, Young Master Chi, I’ll just tell you the truth. Did he turn around and deny you once he got what he needed?”

Chi Mingyao immediately understood what Xu Yan meant. In an instant, his anger dissipated: although Li Yangxiao had not obtained any funds or industry contacts, he had unwittingly helped Chi Mingyao air his grievances. When he thought of Xu Yan in this exasperated state, he felt his whole body relax.

He did not plan on bothering with Li Yangxiao any longer. This matter was over and done with.

Three more days passed. Chi Mingyao was working overtime at the company when Cao Ye suddenly sent him a voice message: “Hey, do you remember that Li Yangxiao you brought with you last time? I saw him tonight. Guess where?”

Chi Mingyao did not want anything more to do with Li Yangxiao’s name. After he listened to the voice message, he set his phone aside and did not reply.

After a while, Cao Ye sent another message: “At that bar I invested in! The one called ‘Burn’!”

This was quickly followed by another voice message.

“He just did a round of pole dancing. It was pretty hot.”

“You know, although that bastard Chen Rui is a bit of a pervert, he’s got a good eye for people.”

“He’s suffered so much that he has to pole dance. That has to be pretty shitty.”

Pole dancing? He really did have some skill. Chi Mingyao smashed his phone onto the table and planned on ignoring Cao Ye. Judging by the voice messages, Cao Ye was a little tipsy.

The following night, at 9pm, Chi Mingyao walked out of the company building. While he was waiting for the elevator, he received a text from that director: “Young Master Chi, that Li Yangxiao you mentioned a few days ago, what’s his WeChat? I’ll add him and have him send me his works.”

The director’s words were tactful; in truth, he wanted to ask Chi Mingyao if he still wanted the role or not.

But this text immediately made Chi Mingyao think of Li Yangxiao blocking him. With a scowl, he replied: “Go look for someone else first.”

For the past few days, Chi Mingyao had been driving that Volkswagen Phaeton. He had finally escaped the “shadow” Li Yangxiao had left that day.

But because of that text just now, he remembered Li Yangxiao, shedding tears as he sat in the passenger seat.

He could cry like that, so how could he end up as a pole dancer?

After much thought, Chi Mingyao was still puzzled. He felt that the way Li Yangxiao’s brain was wired was really too weird. Was it because he had crossed his eyes too much?

However, Chi Mingyao could not deny the curiosity in his heart: how would Li Yangxiao look as he pole danced?

Wasn’t pole dancing associated with pornography and carnal desire? But Li Yangxiao seemed like one of those lonely types.

Someone who had sat on the bed of a financial backer before running away… had actually run off to become a pole dancer?

With a bellyful of doubt, Chi Mingyao made a turn at a three-way intersection. He was going to the bar called “Burn” to take a look.

Notes

Sorry it’s so late again! It looks like something fun is going to happen soon c;