Chapter Seventy-Five

  Jiang Chuan ignored him, and Xi De sat down beside him. Jian Ran couldn't avoid interacting with him - the red-haired boy in front of him was already inexplicably clinging to him. As a good person, Jian Ran wouldn't really ignore him. Under the table, he kicked Jiang Chuan, who grabbed Ding Bao's arm during his pause and turned around to give Jian Ran a warning glance... Jian Ran took this glance as a sign of approval, sat comfortably at the table, picked up some food, and chatted with Xi De: "Actually, when I first saw you, I thought you looked really familiar. Not like someone I'd seen on TV or in the newspaper, but more like we'd known each other for a long time..."

  "We've met at a nightclub before."

  "Hmm," he smiled and said, "You said the same thing on the plane when you first saw me. It's really amazing, just like you knew what I was thinking. And then you could give me an answer right away... Speaking of which, we really do have a lot in common, having such similar experiences and all. Then you came to our country and even met me at that kind of weird place, the nightclub. I rarely go to places like that."

  Xide stopped talking, turned his head and took a deep look at the black-haired young man beside him, then added "yes", picked up the wine glass and poured himself a cup of wine. The wine was put to his lips, but before he could touch the cup, he heard the person beside him ask faintly: "Do you drink?"

  "Drink."

  "Isn't it forbidden for minors to drink abroad?"

  "Not here again."

  Does that mean you can be more uninhibited since you're not in your home country now? Is there such a saying? The young black-haired man responded with an "oh" and thought for a moment before asking, "Do you like drinking?"

  "I don't like it," Shi De said concisely. "I only drink when I'm in a bad mood."

  "Are you feeling down now?"

  "You can't tell me jokes at night."

  Jin Yan's chopsticks paused for a moment, and he couldn't help but feel a bit embarrassed. He turned the direction of his chopsticks, which were holding a chicken leg, and it fell into the red-haired boy's bowl. Seeing him stare at the white-cut chicken leg for a while, seemingly hesitant, but after looking up at Jin Yan, he slightly paused before awkwardly picking it up with his chopsticks and taking a bite, chewing, and swallowing. Although his way of using chopsticks was a bit clumsy, it didn't make people feel embarrassed. Jin Yan supported his chin with one hand, watching the red-haired boy slowly eat the chicken leg he had fed him, and asked: "So, what about you? Did you drink back then because of bad emotions too?"

  The German, after responding with a brief "Ja", put down the food he was eating, wiped his mouth and glanced at the young black-haired man with his amber-colored eyes. Then, a long passage of German words quickly flowed out of his mouth. He had no idea what he was saying, but at this moment, he saw Jiang Chuan turn around and glance up and down at Hede, asking: "Are you suffering from Chuuni-byo?"

  "...what did he say?"

  "Adults are hypocritical, greedy and violent, causing trouble for people. They always use the pretentious reason of 'for your own good' before their interests are satisfied, as if no one else knows the truth except them. Nothing good will happen when you're with them." Jiang Chuan translated while saying, "You can't speak German?"

  "I won't thank you for such a high-difficulty sentence."

  While speaking, he lowered his head to take out his phone and sent a text message to Fang Yu at the next table: "Go and investigate for me what happened when I fainted in Jiang Chuan's old home, and get some detailed news."

  He sent the text message, staring at Fang Yu at the next table, confirming that he saw him take out his phone and glance at it before looking over in his direction. He made a gesture to Fang Yu, and soon received a response from him: What are you doing looking for that thing? Are you lacking a sense of existence? And what's with Jiang Chuan's hometown being a country, which mountain did you come from?

  He carefully put away his phone, made a "I don't care, you find me" gesture to Fang Yu, who raised both hands in understanding from afar. Jian Ran sat back down at the table and chatted with Xi De for a bit, but no matter what he asked, Xi De answered honestly, though they were all superficial questions that didn't get to the point. Just as the banquet was about to disperse, Jian Ran stood up to head back to his room to rest before going to find Jiang Chuan. As he stood up, he suddenly heard Xi De ask: "Have you asked everything?"

  He slightly froze, lowered his head and met the gaze of those calm amber eyes staring at him - this gaze seemed to have seen through everything, making his heart skip a beat for no reason. He subconsciously took a step back: "What did you say?"

  "No," Shide's eyes flashed and quickly returned to normal, "Uncle seems to have a lot of questions."

  "Oh," Jianran blinked and chuckled dryly, "this isn't a chat, just ask whatever comes to mind, no other meaning."

  The red-haired youth nodded, one hand propping up his chin as he watched the black-haired young man flee in disarray. After a long while, he chuckled softly and withdrew his gaze. Shido's agent turned around to ask him what was wrong again, but the youth's smile remained unchanged at the corner of his lips: "Nothing, I just discovered something interesting."

  ……

  After returning to the room, I quickly saw a new email in my inbox. The email was sent from Fang Yu's subordinate, Ma Zai. The title of the email was "I heard that Brother Ran has been feeling unwell lately". Brother Ran remained silent for three seconds before responding with "Whoever sent this email doesn't need to come to work tomorrow, otherwise I'll beat them up every time I see them". Only then did he slowly open the email and take a look. Inside, there were indeed several extremely brief foreign news articles, and the employee who was about to be laid off (it was settled) was worried that Brother Ran wouldn't understand German, so they had kindly translated it into Chinese for him.

  Here is the translation:

  The first piece of news was like this:【Xide and foreign stars have similar experiences, shocking domestic and international audiences with similar cases——In mid-May this year, it was suddenly exposed domestically that "Heavenly Voice" Xide had been in a coma for several months due to drunk driving. Now, as Xide has not woken up for a long time and the situation is out of control, his brokerage company finally announced the news to the outside world. At one point, tens of millions of fans and media gathered at Xide's brokerage company to send flowers and pray for his recovery, hoping he would wake up soon. The Xide incident has once again raised new concerns in society about underage drunk driving, while a similar case of a superstar encountering danger and falling into a coma also happened in distant Korea.

  Jian Ran: "......"

  So the first news report didn't mention his name from start to finish, and all that was left of his presence were the four words "foreign superstar". At the end of the news report, they even changed their wording to "superstar", but here the word "super" probably only referred to Xi De, while this "foreign superstar" who wasn't even mentioned by name was just along for the ride.

  Thousands of fans pray for Heze, hoping the idol will wake up soon. Today, thousands of fans gathered near the hospital where Heze is being treated to pray for his recovery. The scene played a loop of Heze's hit song "Night of Fate", with many fans leaving flowers and tears, vowing to wait for him to wake up, even if it takes until the end of the world. A similar incident occurred in South Korea last December when famous actor Yoo Ah-in was hospitalized after an accident, causing a stir in the country and prompting fans to organize a prayer event.

  Jian Ran: "......"

  This time, at least, his true name appeared.

  There is a piece of news circulating domestically that some netizens have opened betting houses to bet on whether Heide or Yuan Xinyu, another star who has also fallen into a vegetative state, will wake up first. This behavior has been condemned by society.

  Jian Ran: "......"

  I calmly scrolled down, only to find that the mouse wheel had reached its end. So, what Sheide said about "there are also news articles about you abroad" was just this much... It's really a lot! I sat in front of the computer for a long time, deep in thought, it's really so many that it's heartbreaking.

  A young man with black hair exits his email, distractedly clicking through several web pages, and after a while, he finds himself unable to focus on anything, his mind a jumbled mess... Just then, his phone rings, and when he answers it, he sees that it's Jiang Chuan, who hangs up the call after saying only "come over". The young man is taken aback, and after putting down the phone, he looks up to see that the search bar on Baidu still has the words "the possibility of transmigrating into an animal" typed in... He stares at the blinking cursor for a while, and when he presses enter, the results that pop up are all things like "the possibility of successfully picking up girls after transmigrating into an animal", "if only I could transmigrate into an animal, I want to fly"... or some other nonsense about horses...

  At this point, I have completely lost hope for this online world.

  He closed the computer and floated to Jiang Chuan's room door like a ghost, knocked on the door and waited for a while before the person inside opened it. The tall figure blocked the doorway tightly, accompanied by a burst of steam and the scent of soap that drilled into his nose. Jin Yan subconsciously raised his head and happened to see Jiang Chuan wiping his hair with a towel - he had taken a bath in such a short time... The two locked eyes for a while before Jiang Chuan looked away first, casually tossing the towel on the nearby cabinet: "Why so late?"

  "Oh, just now when you called me I was reading a document."

  "What file?"

  "Mom, do you have to ask so many questions! Taking a deep breath and pretending to be calm: "They want me to star in 'The Mysterious Seed', but I'm scheduled to film 'Star Fire' on this end and the timing doesn't match. I'm thinking of how to decline their offer."

  Jiang Chuan grunted, slightly moving aside to let Jin Ran enter the house. As they brushed past each other, he suddenly asked in a chilly tone, "Wasn't this document already sent to Fang Yu yesterday?"

  The young man with black hair indeed paused for a moment: "……how did you know?"

  "Besides, Fang Yu has asked me," Jiang Chuan glanced at the young man with black hair, whose face momentarily showed a look of astonishment before quickly regaining composure, and sneered slightly as he raised the corner of his lips. "With a foreigner's way of thinking, how would you put it more politely."

  He was already resigned to having Fang Yu as a teammate, and at this moment he didn't notice the terrifying gaze of the man behind him. He chuckled and said "Can't help but take a few more glances and consider it" while pretending to be calm and walking straight in. He thought he would see some teammates in the room, but when he walked in, he found that except for Jiang Chuan, there was no one else. After looking around for a while, until Jiang Chuan stood behind him and asked coldly: "What are you looking for?"

  "No," he said, withdrawing his gaze and turning back to Jiang Chuan, "The script? Let me take a look."

  Jiang Chuan looked at him suspiciously and walked towards Jin Ran - the man's upper body was bare, water droplets slid down his solid chest as he moved, making him look exceptionally sexy. Jin Ran's eyes rolled over it once, but couldn't help being stuck on the two small bumps on the man's chest that were slightly erect due to the air conditioning, he really didn't want his gaze to be so uncollected, but... completely uncontrollable.

  Completely unable to control his gaze, he stared at the two things on top of the impulse.

  Can't help but have an overwhelming urge to pinch it.

  Even if he knew that if he really did it, the outcome would likely be to have his neck twisted by Jiang Chuan... Ah, from that night on, he showed how fierce he was, and if Jian Ran hadn't stopped him in time, he might have lost his chastity - that is, from that night on, Jian Ran realized that as for who was on top when he and Jiang Chuan rolled together, it seemed to be a long-term strategic problem.

  He can't beat Jiang Chuan.

  There is no strong river without tributaries.

  There is no young ginger.

  There is no Takashi Gōda either.

  But this does not prevent him from having a heart that wants to be on top.

  Anyway, got sidetracked.

  He stared at the man as he walked up to him, the familiar scent surrounding him completely. He took a deep breath and almost choked on his own saliva, his face flushing red. Suddenly, the man's body leaned in without warning, pressing against him - At this moment, his mind was filled with "What if the male god wants to do something with me?!" and countless exclamation marks. The young man with black hair followed suit, tilting his head back, unsure if the other person could hear his racing heartbeat at such a close distance. Just then, Jiang Chuan stretched out his long arm, grabbed a thin book from behind him, and slapped it into his chest: "Can't you see it's right in front of you?"

  Jian Ran: “………………………”

  The man's breath suddenly withdrew, holding the script in front of his chest, and was blown into disarray by the wind for a while.

  Sat on the bed and quickly flipped through the script, unexpectedly found that Jiang Chuan's next ancient costume drama was quite interesting, although overall it looked a bit illogical and had some subtle flaws.

  This play tells the story of a wolf tribe princess who was raised as a hostage in an enemy country since childhood. Because her tribe was destroyed, she had no sense of existence. One day, she unexpectedly overheard the newly appointed young emperor and his ministers discussing that someone saw a boy living with a pack of wolves outside the border. The boy not only could communicate with the wolves but also had a beautiful singing voice that people heard from afar... The wolf tribe princess still has memories of her childhood and knows that this boy with a moving singing voice must be her brother. She thought all her relatives were dead, so she was overjoyed to learn that her brother was still alive in the world.

  The young emperor, on the other hand, was simply curious about the so-called "moving song" and decided to sneak out in disguise to find this so-called "heavenly music". Next is a subtle and illogical plot, where the wolf tribe princess uses various tricks to pretend to be a palace maid and accompany the young emperor on his incognito outing. Along the way, she has many conflicts with the young emperor and eventually develops feelings for him. The climax of the story is when the wolf tribe princess finds her brother and is about to kill him to keep him from revealing her true identity, but instead stands up for her family and saves them, a behavior that is truly worthy of praise as a woman.

  In the end, the young emperor gave up his continued slaughter for the sake of the person he loved, let go of the heroine's brother, and even gave him a barren border seal, allowing the wolf tribe to barely survive. Then the heroine was satisfied and went with the male lead.

  "This script is actually quite normal, but once it involves the three views, I estimate that you will be shocked to the core in the end." After closing the script with a sincere expression, "Ding Pao will climb the wall again."

  "That's also got to be a big hit." Old Jiang Chuan, who had just entered the profession, understood it very well, "If it doesn't sell well, who will invest?"

  "With this lineup of actors, it's impossible for the show not to be a hit. Just imagine Bai Mei Mei as the female lead and Xu Le as the male lead - the character settings are also quite explosive...". Jian Ran said, "And what about you and Xi De? By the way, where are your roles in this script?"

  Jiang Chuan snatched the script from the black-haired young man, looked at it, and was speechless when he couldn't find any mention of himself in the plot outline. He wordlessly handed the script back and directly told the black-haired young man that his character was a ruthless general who had single-handedly exterminated the wolf tribe despite the emperor's objections, and that this general had been incredibly brutal even as a teenager... The result of this brutality was that after killing the heroine's entire family, this unfortunate general was eventually won over by her lively, cheerful, spirited, kind, honest, and pure nature, and was completely captivated by her dance in the desert... In the end, he was cannon fodder.

  The role setting of Jiang Chuan's character is indeed quite vulgar, but because there is a plot arrangement in the later stage where the general puts down his butcher knife and becomes a Buddhist monk for the female lead, which makes the entire character gain a lot of points. The bad guy ultimately gets what he deserves, but from the perspective of the script, this bad guy isn't particularly thorough either... Nowadays, audiences like to watch characters who are entangled in both good and evil and end up taking a shortcut, especially young boys and girls. Compared to the male and female leads who will definitely live happily ever after, their attention is more easily drawn to these tragic characters.

  So although it was arranged as a male match, this role still has some shaping and is very topical.

  It has to be said that Jiang Chuan's choice was still quite correct. He remembered that when "Republic of China Strange Record" was about to finish filming, there were several scripts handed over to him, and this ancient costume drama was one of them. The remaining ones included some modern romance dramas, which did not lack male lead roles prepared for him, but under such temptation, he chose this ancient costume drama with determination.

  This decision shows that Fang Yu wants Jiang Chuan to take the high-quality route - unlike when he first debuted, taking on any bad movie, resulting in him being popular now but also having a lot of black history.

  Jiang Chuan.

  "What?"

  "Are you advancing on the path that I, your senior brother, have paved with blood and tears?"

  Jiang Chuan: "What's going on?"

  "There's nothing," Jian Yan wiped his face, "Xi De is that wolf tribe prince, right? The plot looks pretty thick, doesn't seem like a walk-on role."

  Jiang Chuan listened, and unexpectedly had the nerve to bring up Xi De in front of him. He couldn't help but look at him with a bit more attention, seeing that he was standing tall with an air of confidence, making it hard for him to say anything else. After a moment, he told Zhen Ran in a rather cold tone that as the core of the entire script, the wolf tribe boy who played Xi De only appeared briefly at the end and sang a few songs, while the rest of the time was filled with minor actors playing the female lead's memories and a repeatedly mentioned legend. This was something that anyone could guess, probably due to budget issues - foreign big stars are quite expensive, you know.

  Actually, Jian Ran just casually asked, didn't mean anything else, but now that he got such a patient answer, he was somewhat surprised and flattered. He didn't dare to continue entangling himself in this question, so he quickly flipped through the script to look at the scenes Jiang Chuan had to act out tomorrow. Apart from some normal everyday dialogue scenes, one of the more difficult scenes would be - the young general disregarding the emperor's open opposition on court and insisting on "eradicating the roots" by annihilating all members of the wolf tribe. There was also a whitewashing point arranged for the young emperor here; at that time, he was still very young, and the first person to jump out and oppose the young general's "eradicating the roots" was him. In the end, it was also him who managed to save the female lead.

  Tomorrow, Jiang Chuan's shots are just a series of entanglements, and the final confrontation with the little girl who plays the young princess - Ding Pao Pao means that it would be best if Jiang Chuan could scare the little girl to cry.

  If there's one thing that Jiang Chuan finds particularly difficult, it's probably this point.

  "I'm such a gentle person."

  "What did you say?"

  "It's hard to scare little girls to tears."

  Jian Ran: "You can even scare a little girl like me to tears, what's so great about you?"

  Jiang Chuan turned his head to glance at the young man with black hair, who calmly said: "Alright, this gaze is enough, keep it up, I'll go find a mirror for you?"

  Jiang Chuan snatched the script back from the young man with black hair, flipped through it and handed it back to him: "You play the emperor."

  The young man with black hair went "oh" and lowered his head to start reading the script. After the last audition for "Star Fire", Jiang Chuan also knew that the young man was very quick at reading scripts, whether it was Chinese lines or strange foreign language lines, he could memorize them quickly and get into character to perform well, so this time, Jian Ran didn't complain much about him being a temporary replacement.

  Ten minutes later, he closed the script carefully and thought for a moment before saying, "It should be fine."

  Jiang Chuan used his eyes to signal him to start.

  He stood up solemnly, put down the script, cleared his throat, thought for a moment, and his expression turned serious. Then, with a deep gaze, he stared at the man in front of him and said in a low voice: "Xuan Huang, now that the Wolf Clan has been defeated and its leader has sent a letter of surrender..."

  "To cut grass, one must pull out the roots."

  He shook his sleeves, as if he had put on a long-sleeved dragon robe and made a sleeve-shaking gesture. After making this gesture, he froze: "I have spent my life in armor, bathing in blood, the blood of foreign tribes flowing into the mountains and rivers of our great dynasty, but now I am old..."

  Jiang Chuan: “......”

  "But now I am old——"

  Jiang Chuan: “......”

  "Sorry, forgot the word, wait a minute..."

  Jiang Chuan: "Your Majesty, could you please stop staring at my chest?"

  ".................... I wasn't staring at your breasts."

  Jiang Chuan turned his head with a dark face, hastily put on his bathrobe, and said: "Come again, don't be distracted."

  He nodded slightly, looking at the script while telling Jiang Chuan "to eradicate grass one must remove its roots" in a tone that was too calm and didn't quite grasp the right rhythm. He thought for a moment, then lifted his head and repeated the words "to eradicate grass one must remove its roots", this time with a slightly harsher tone and a sense of decisiveness compared to Jiang Chuan's previous rendition which had sounded extremely cold.

  Jiang Chuan nodded, and at this time, he carefully put down the script, indicating that they would come again - Jiang Chuan was still quite talented in terms of lines, although it was obvious that his foreign friends were at a disadvantage in this aspect. However, after Jian Ran said something once, he could remember it, and even did better than Jian Ran's example. When he said "to eradicate the weeds, one must remove the roots", those azure eyes really flashed with a hint of ferocity, and his appearance was more like a wolf than the wolf department in the script, even though they were not wearing costumes at this time, and the hotel background around them was completely out of tune. Jian Ran's heart still skipped a beat or two when he said it.

  There's a bit of an immersive feel to it.

  When Jiang Chuan finished his lines, he paused for a second, then reacted and continued with the script - at this time, seeing that his reaction was slightly slow, Jiang Chuan frowned slightly, but didn't say anything, and continued with the script. This time, Jian Ran's lines were very good, and the whole scene went smoothly until Jian Ran said "Come on, bring the Wolf Department Princess", turned around, only to find that Jiang Chuan had spoken again.

  "What's wrong?"

  "That's my line."

  Jian Ran: "......"

  Jiang Chuan continued to ask expressionlessly: "What's going on with you tonight?"

  He carefully took the script, looked down and saw that it was indeed what he had glanced at earlier. He patted his head to indicate that he had misread it, then seriously read through the script again. After finishing, he raised his head and told Jiang Chuan that there was no problem this time, but the man didn't give him another chance to "come again". Instead, he simply pulled over a chair and sat down beside him, repeating his question: "What's going on with you tonight?"

  "I don't have."

  "From the moment you walked in, you've been lying. Are you going to keep pretending? How many times have you successfully lied to me? Why are you so persistent and relentless?"

  So many idioms in one sentence, who are you trying to scare?

  He was indeed frightened and at a loss for words——he was indeed in a somewhat abnormal state tonight——but he had no idea how to bring it up with the man in front of him, his absent-mindedness was simply because he couldn't stop wondering if the man's most hated person was the hamster he used to raise——from yesterday, since the first glance at Shido, he had been probing around, but this guy was like a leak-proof barrel, saying everything so naturally, Jin Yan was almost driven mad, just short of grabbing him and asking: Are you that damn translator-dialect-wielding little black hamster?!

  But he can't.

  Others will take him for a madman.

  At this moment, after a long silence, he suddenly realized that the pressure didn't have to be borne by him alone. The master was right in front of him, couldn't he seek some opinions? After thinking for a bit, he lifted his head and swept a glance at the man sitting in front of him, who was staring at him with a very fierce gaze. He opened his mouth to ask: "Jiang Chuan, what do you think is the probability that the two hamsters you raised would come back as humans after they died?"

  Jiang Chuan: “......”

  The sudden drop in air pressure around him made the young man with black hair realize that he had probably asked the wrong question - and next, he formally confirmed his ominous premonition.

  Because in a minute later, he found himself successfully with a strange question to get themselves to the door of Jiang Chuan house corridor, staring at the ceiling, blowing wind, dazed.

  What's this?

  This is called die.

  Don't tell a straightforward man that hamsters can transform into humans and find their masters to repay kindness, he won't appreciate it.