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nEditor: Mashiro

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nQi Jing tried his best to recall a film he had once seen.

nIn most films, what kind of ending would unfold when the double and the real person both appear at the same time?

nHowever… regardless of the ending, there was only one protagonist for him. Even if the double would always remain as a double, unable to replace the actual person, but as an audience, he still had the right to decide whom he appreciated more.

nNow, the double who had always been behind the scenes, was actually going to step out of the shelter of the shadows and stand in front of the stage for him. So, he had to reach out his hand to shield the other person from the harsh lights of the stage.

nQi Jing stared at Shen Yan for a long time before suddenly bursting into a chuckle. He shook his head despite the happy expression on his face, “No, I don’t need that. It already goes against the spirit of competition to participate with such a selfish intention. Even I find myself childish, let alone drag you down with me because of a reason like this.”

nThis was the first official competition in Shen Yan’s dubbing career. Qi Jing wanted him to freely choose the roles he wanted to voice without any interference from external factors, including himself—that’s what made dubbing fun.

n“I’m already very happy that you’re looking out for me like that. Thank you,” Qi Jing said with a smile.

nShen Yan once said that he could only be frank when they weren’t face-to-face. But now, he was slowly changing, little by little, such that voicing the words from his heart didn’t make him so embarrassed anymore.

n“I understand.” Shen Yan returned a smile. He had expected Qi Jing’s answer because that was exactly how he was: independent, free, and even more so, self-motivated. Hence, out of respect for Qi Jing, Shen Yan would have to take a little more roundabout route. “How about I have a look at the character information first before making a decision?”

nThey had set the computer to sleep when they left just now, so the official webpage should still be there. Thus, Qi Jing woke up the computer and clicked on the page for information on male characters of《Order to End the Heavens》before passing it over to Shen Yan for him to choose from. Although Qi Jing had already made his stance very clear, out of curiosity, Shen Yan’s eyes still automatically went to the role “Marquess Shunyang” first.

nMarquess Shunyang was a character that fell under important supporting characters. The age of the character was roughly classified as a more mature young man and the official requirement stated was a deep and rich voice. As long as he lowered his voice a little, he could raise the age of his voice and make it sound more full-bodied.

nNone of this was a problem for him; the problem laid in that one line in the character background: “On the surface, he is awarded the rank of a Marquess which can be passed on to his descendants for his military accomplishments, but he is, in actuality, the illegitimate son of the late Emperor.”

n—Illegitimate son.

nThe moment his eyes landed on those words, they were like steel needles hidden in a bed of cotton, stabbing him in the eyes without warning.

nHis hand which was on the mouse shook heavily as if it had been struck by lightning. It jerked into the air as though the woman’s ruler from his dreams travelled through the twenty years of time and space to hit his hand. He subconsciously felt a burning pain from his hand. The only difference was that what flowed out from his palm was not blood, but sweat—the kind of cold sweat that keeps coming out when the body goes through a sharp decrease in temperature.

n—Shen Yan, don’t talk; don’t make a sound.

n—No one will hear you; no one will come.

nThere seemed to be a ghastly voice casting a curse by his ears and he couldn’t make it go away no matter what.

n“Urgh…” He felt his throat tighten and couldn’t help but release a broken sound, like a bow landed on the wrong string causing a horrible screech, but what came next was an even more terrifying silence.

nCrap.

nCrap, that feeling of my illness relapsing is coming back.

nIt was probably because he had a nightmare last night that the memory was especially fresh in his mind, hence leading to a physiological reaction that was more intense than expected. Shen Yan hurriedly shut his eyes and pressed a hand on his vocal cords just in time. With a thumb against his Adam’s apple, he repeatedly massaged along the contour of his throat. After going through with the motions a few times, the numbing feeling finally receded a bit.

nThen, he forced himself to start coughing, to prevent the symptoms from recurring.

n“C-Cough&#k2026; cough, cough&#k2026;”

n“Shen Yan?” Seeing him suddenly become like this gave Qi Jing a big shock. He thought Shen Yan might have choked on something and rushed forward to gently pat the man on his back.

n“I—alright… C-Cough…” Shen Yan’s brows were tightly knitted together but he finally managed to get a word out. There were some things he couldn’t tell Qi Jing, at least not now.

nFollowing Shen Yan’s line of sight, Qi Jing’s eyes landed on the screen with Marquess Shunyang’s character information right in the centre—clearly, that was what the former was viewing.

nHe realised that Shen Yan was studying this character and sighed while helping him smooth his breath, “You’re still looking at ‘Marquess Shunyang’? Didn’t I already say that you can freely choose whatever role you want to play without any considerations for me?”

nShen Yan’s head was lowered all the while when he was trying to even out his breathing, but at this moment he suddenly froze, and after a long time, he replied in a deep voice, “No, I… I want to choose this for myself.”

nQi Jing was taken aback. “Why?”

nA rather pained smile appeared on Shen Yan’s face. “Because I want to overcome something—I’m not deliberately choosing this role to help you, but to help myself.”

nFor selective mutism desensitisation therapy, the initial stage was to get the patient to communicate with others, having them get used to freely expressing themselves to strangers through spoken and written forms of communication. Then, in the advanced stage, it would be targeted at the root cause of their symptoms, like sensitive words for example, gradually weakening its influence on the patient until it completely disappears altogether.

nIn the past, when he was dubbing, the roles he received were basically small roles like either an old grandpa or an uncle, so he had never encountered a character with a background similar to his own. When a character is so similar to the CV themself, they would either perform brilliantly or be overwhelmed by the psychological backlash in one fell swoop.

nShen Yan had never tried it before, the him of the past couldn’t muster the courage to try.

nHowever, Qi Jing promised that he would always be here to listen to him, didn’t he?

nShen Yan lifted his head in a trance and looked at the person beside him who did not know anything, yet still looked at him with a worried expression on his face. Both his brows and the pained smile on his face slowly relaxed, like a man asking for an amulet from the temple, he lightly rested his forehead against Qi Jing’s arm and closed his eyes, reverently praying for a sense of peace for himself from the other man.

n“Qi Jing.”

n“Hmm?” Being leaned on by Shen Yan like this, Qi Jing didn’t dare move a muscle. Somehow, he had a feeling that any movement he made would ruin the peace and tranquility of the moment.

n“As long as you’re here, I’ll be able to calm down.” that man murmured.

nCalm down.

nWhat Shen Yan meant by “calm down”, he didn’t know. And it was precisely because he did not that he felt confused and a little worried.

nQi Jing’s intuition told him that something was off about Shen Yan today; however, what exactly, he couldn’t put a finger on it. Shen Yan’s words made him even more certain of that point, but he couldn’t delve any deeper. He was starting to wonder if it was due to stress from the competition, especially when Shen Yan said he wanted to go to the study alone and use the computer there to properly study the fifth part of the novel for《Order to End the Heavens》to figure out the characters behind closed doors.

nThe reason Shen Yan gave: I will be able to better decide who to choose for the two remaining roles after reading the novel.

nHowever, Qi Jing felt that he was serious to a disturbing degree.

nThe fifth part in the novel series of《Order to End the Heavens》was over half a million characters long, so it’ll probably take Shen Yan a while to finish it. Meanwhile, in the living room, Little Return Date was happily dozing away in la-la land as Qi Jing paced back and forth in front of the door to the study. Only on the thirtieth round did he stop this pointless action.

nHe sat alone on the sofa in the living room for a while, flipping through some of the magazines under the coffee table, which were basically all formal weekly news magazines, lifestyle, health and wellness magazines, and even academic journals on veterinary medicine. Afterwards, Qi Jing got up again and walked over to the black walnut cabinet with all kinds of items placed on it, admiring the collection inside, through the glass doors. Apart from some pottery and tea sets, there was a very ordinary photo frame placed in the middle of the cabinet. It was a photo of an elderly man with a head of white hair and a kind and amiable face, similar to Qi Jing’s impression of Shen Yan’s Grandpa voice—worthy of being described as “heavenly immortal”.

nThis must be the one Shen Yan mentioned before, right? Grandpa’s grandpa.

nQi Jing had never heard Shen Yan talk about his family… He probably had some reasons which made it difficult for him to bring up.

n“Family” huh—when that word appeared in his mind, it sounded so unfamiliar. Qi Jing couldn’t help but scoff at himself. How could he expect others to bring up a topic that even he didn’t want to mention himself?

nHe shook the thought off and was about to take another look at Grandpa’s grandpa when he suddenly noticed that the frame was sitting atop an album.

n“Quick! Look,” was what curious Qi Jing said to him.

n“Don’t look,” was what cautious Qi Jing said to him.

nQi Jing hesitated whether to look or not. However, he was someone who was very good at striking a balance between curiosity and caution, so he decided that he would just take a quick look and put it back afterwards. Mhm, that’s what he’ll do. He just couldn’t resist the urge to see what Shen Yan looked like as a child—there’s no way he could bring himself to voice out such an embarrassing wish.

nAfter making sure that there was no movement coming from the study, he withdrew his gaze and carefully opened the cabinet. He reached out to move the photo frame aside on top of the album before taking it out. Then, he went back to the sofa on his tippy toes. He quietly whispered in his head, “Just one look,” before taking a deep breath and opening to a random page.

nThe entire page was filled with pictures of the same two people—Shen Yan, and that elder.

nShen Yan was the Shen Yan from many years ago, he looked like he had just started junior high school, thinner and smaller than he was now. But that face was still the same, his appearance did not change much, just that his expression was more reticent and indifferent than now. He never smiled even when facing the camera, only standing quietly with his eyes downcast.

nThe old grandpa did not look much different from the close-up in the photo frame, he had a friendly and intimate smile on his face.

nThere were several photos of the two of them together with the old grandpa standing behind Shen Yan, his hands either gently placed on his grandson’s shoulders or directly holding his grandson’s hand. It was a sight that gave a very heartwarming feeling, if only Shen Yan smiled a little more.

nQi Jing couldn’t help himself from continuing to flip through the pages.

nAlthough he promised to take “just one look”, taking a glance at every page was also “just one look”, right?

n“I’m sorry, Grandpa.” His apology was addressed to both Grandpa and Grandpa’s grandpa.

nHowever, the strange thing was that no matter how many pages he turned, he could not find an image of Shen Yan that was any younger. It was as if there was a huge gap in Shen Yan growth as a child. All the pictures he had seen so far were at least from secondary school and higher, there weren’t any photos from earlier.

nMaybe… this wasn’t the only photo album and there were several others?

nBut it didn’t matter anymore.

nPhotos represented a person’s past and what mattered most was the living, breathing person before him right now.

nQi Jing silently traced a smile on Shen Yan’s face in a photo with his fingertips and a smile unconsciously crept up on his face when he was done. Thankfully, the Shen Yan he met was the one he drew, the one who would smile tenderly at him.

nHe closed the photo album and put it back in its place.

nSeeing that the door to the study was still firmly closed, Qi Jing did not want to disturb the other party, so he decided to take this time alone to scroll through Weibo, reply to a few comments, and also check out the posts on the forum to update his little gossip bank.

nHe didn’t think the number of alerts on the top right corner of the screen would give him such a big shock upon opening Weibo.

nHe had over 1000 mentions.

nA phenomenon where there was such an astonishing amount of mentions was either because he reposted some popular Weibo and that Weibo post just kept getting reposts, or he was mentioned by the production crew after the release of a much-anticipated popular drama. In the case of the latter, this large volume of alerts would be due to the audience coming in droves to repost it. Still stunned, he swept his gaze across his recent posts; none of them were trending. Then he thought about the recent audio dramas he had been involved in, other than《Trap》which miraculously had over 6000 reposts, the rest were basically bottlenecked at 500.

nSo, to have more than 1000… a disaster… a disaster must have happened.

nQi Jing took a deep breath.

nAfter mentally preparing himself, he made a move to check out the details in the mentions.

nFrankly speaking, before opening his mentions, Qi Jing still held a sliver of hope that his words would not turn out to be true. However, reality was a cruel one, when he saw the author of the post that mentioned him which was then reposted over 1000 times, the word “disaster” was already dangling in front of his eyes, unable to make it go away.

nAnd when he fully read the post, he felt like the word “disaster” must have been imprinted in bold on his forehead.

nCV – Bronze Sparrow Terrace: I found a pretty nightclub near my place. It has a great atmosphere, the cocktails are nice and the lights in the bar were rather dim, perfect for two people to meet in private. It really resembles the scene in《Trap》doesn’t it? I’ll take you there the next time you come over. I’m sure you’ll like it. @CV – Don’t ask for my return date

nAnd the post was accompanied by a picture of the interior of the very nightclub he was talking about.

nThe interior design of the club was very tasteful. The way the designer matched the lighting and the furniture was spot-on and the use of high-grade and luxurious materials could be seen everywhere—the entire bar exuded with the class of white-collar workers. It was no doubt extravagant, but with one look, anyone could tell that this place was not cheap; a small TV station reporter like Qi Jing might not be able to afford it.

nHowever, it was true that the place was suitable for a couple.

nIn addition, the photo also featured a man’s hand holding a cocktail glass—the posture was very elegant, and the hand appeared quite masculine.

n“Send… help…” It took Qi Jing five whole seconds to utter those two words, trailing off at the end while it continued to echo in his head.

nIt’s a disaster, a major disaster.

nAn ambiguous photo with a hand reveal, a suggestive relationship between two men, and openly mentioning the subject in question in the aforementioned suggestive relationship—the three main elements that are sufficient to incite fans were all there. With the number of followers at over 30,000, getting over a 1000 reposts was not impossible… And not only has that situation already occurred, the number of reposts was still increasing.

nDon’t ask for my return date was well-known for being a god at playing dead.

nHowever, there’s no way he could play dead under such circumstances. The consequences of pretending dead at a time like this were very severe.

nQi Jing kept his composure. Sitting in front of the computer screen, he tapped his finger on the table, as if the tapping would eventually summon a plan from underneath the desk.

nA plan did not fall out from the table, and it was instead one that Qi Jing painstakingly came up with. Borrowing the wisdom of the ancestors, within the thirty-six stratagems of Sun Tzu, “swapping the role of the host and the guest”. Right now, he would have to take a step forward to disguise his intention to take two steps back—he would actively push the public opinion in a direction that had nothing to do with him.

nAnd so, he clicked on the “repost” under Bronze Sparrow Terrace’s original post and painstakingly typed out the following words with a single outstretched finger before confirming and publishing.

nCV – Don’t ask for my return date: What do you think about this? @CV – Crossing the bridge noodles

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nLilies: I almost just conked out without posting ahahaha _(:⑧」∠)__

nMashiro: Ah, sly QJ

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