The live-stream room also caught onto the anomaly.
“Mr. Qin said half an hour has already passed. What does that mean?”
“No way, no way. I am just going to be sarcastic here. They are already putting on a show right in the middle of a live stream, puke.”
“What kind of new persona are they trying to spin now? An airheaded beauty?”
“How long ago did he even memorize this? I tried memorizing along with him just now. Although I didn’t finish all five prescriptions in twenty minutes and only managed one, I can still remember it clearly right now.”
“Something is off. Little brother Qiu Ci’s state is completely off.”
“What on earth is going on? How could a normal person completely forget something they memorized a little over half an hour ago so fast?”
“And it’s not like he was memorizing some grand essay. I checked, and that Minor Blue Dragon Decoction doesn’t have many medicinal ingredients either. It doesn’t look that complicated.”
“Do you guys remember the incident where Qiu Ci didn’t memorize his lines?”
Jiuer pulled the writing brush out of Qiu Ci’s hand and, where the camera couldn’t see, gently rubbed Qiu Ci’s fingertips to soothe his emotions.
The movement was so practiced and familiar as if he had done it millions of times before.
That subtle little motion across his fingertips felt as though it were conducting electricity. Qiu Ci instantly felt numb all over, and his ears began turning stubbornly red again.
“Stop writing.” Jiuer handed him the prescription sheet with the missing part instead. “Try restoring it instead, hmm?”
Qiu Ci lowered his head and murmured an assent, not daring to meet Jiuer’s eyes.
Naturally, the production team had also prepared tools for restoration, sparing Qiu Ci and Jiuer the trouble of scrambling for them.
Qiu Ci had heard Jiuer explain how to restore faded characters on ancient texts before, but this was his first time attempting it himself. He worried he wouldn’t do a good job, though thankfully this wasn’t some ancient scroll, just a plain, ordinary hand-copied prescription.
It didn’t look too difficult. He would just give it his best shot.
This task had to be performed by the divine doctor himself, leaving Jiuer to watch from the side and occasionally lend a hand by passing tools.
Watching the two of them coordinate so seamlessly without a care for anyone else around them, Wu Feng couldn’t help teasing: “The two of you, your dynamic and your level of tacit understanding, people could easily say you’ve been close for decades and it would still make total sense.”
Qiu Ci was completely absorbed in the restoration work and had no time to respond, but Jiuer spared a few moments of leisure.
“This restoration technique is something I taught him in the past,” Jiuer said as a matter of course. “So we’re just more familiar with it.”
Wu Feng nodded with a mixture of awe and confusion: “By the sound of it, are you in this line of work?”
Ordinary folks wouldn’t typically show much interest in restoring faded text.
“Not really,” Jiuer casually spun a yarn. “I don’t have a fixed job right now. I’m a free spirit who dislikes being tied down.”
Wu Feng’s eyes lit up once more: “I’m telling you, you should seriously consider entering the entertainment industry. The entertainment industry is actually quite free. When you don’t have schedules, you can go wherever you want and play however you like.”
Well, the prerequisite for all that was probably that the person wasn’t famous.
Leaving himself aside, just look at Qiu Ci: a top-tier trending young idol who would consider himself lucky if he had sixty-five free days out of three hundred and sixty-five in a year.
With Mr. Qin’s looks, if he entered the entertainment industry, it would defy the laws of heaven if he didn’t blow up.
Wu Feng ran out of steam by the end of his own pitch.
Jiuer replied indifferently: “Not interested.”
Wu Feng was probably made entirely of contrarian spirit; the less interested someone was, the more he wanted to push the issue.
So he tried persuading him again: “Think about it seriously. Putting everything else aside, being an artist still pays a lot better than being an ordinary person. You don’t want to enter the entertainment industry right now simply because you don’t understand it well enough. If you were willing to spend some time learning about it, you would find that…”
“He would find that he just wasted a bit of time.” Wu Feng’s words were cut straight off by Qiu Ci.
He had been doing his restoration work perfectly fine, but his ears were filled with nothing but Wu Feng’s chattering voice, and what got to him most was that someone with Jiuer’s personality was actually humoring Wu Feng.
In the past, he might not have thought much of it, but today it all felt somewhat off.
The corners of Jiuer’s lips curved into a smile. “Don’t worry, I have no plans to enter the entertainment industry.”
Qiu Ci instantly felt awkward all over again. “Who cares about your plans.”
Jiuer didn’t speak, just offered that gentle smile.
That smile stood in stark contrast to the aloof, worldly-detached expression he had worn while talking to Wu Feng just moments before.
Wu Feng felt a fresh blockage in his chest. “Forget it, forget it. I won’t say anything more. I can’t outtalk you guys.”
The crowd in the live-stream room looked thoroughly confused.
“Just a second ago I was thinking Qiu Ci is quite witty, what the hell is ‘you would find that you just wasted a bit of time’ hahahaha, but…”
“But now, no matter how you look at it, it feels like a young couple flirting. The little brother looks like he’s jealous.”
“Ah, I’m shipping this so hard! Ever since this Mr. Qin appeared, I’ve felt the couple chemistry radiating off them. Oh my god, are there any sisters shipping this with me?”
“The person above is a true genius, you can ship anything. Isn’t it obvious that Wu Feng was talking too much and Qiu Ci kindly stepped in to bail his friend out?”
“I think so too. Mr. Qin and Qiu Ci are friends to begin with. A divine face like that not entering the entertainment industry must simply mean he lacks the intention, not the connections.”
“Even so, I still think it feels a bit weird.”
“Still, beauties paired together look amazing to ship. Aloof beauty bottom x mysterious beauty gong, slurp slurp.”
Qiu Ci quickly restored the prescription and copied it down. “Squire Wu, look, this prescription has been restored. Earlier you said you could help me with a favor, does that still count?”
This was supposed to be advancing the plot.
To his surprise, Wu Feng’s face flipped faster than turning the pages of a book: “When did I ever say I was going to help you?”
Qiu Ci:
Immediately, he guessed this was likely part of Wu Feng’s character script.
So, he resumed earnestly: “Right now, the plague is running rampant in the city. Though I lack talent, I have managed to concoct a medical prescription to treat the plague. It’s just that one of the medicinal ingredients is in short supply within the city, requiring us to organize the townspeople to go up the mountain and gather herbs. Could the squire help with this small favor?”
Wu Feng waved a hand dismissively: “I haven’t caught the plague, what do people dying have to do with me? Go away, go away. A doctor whose hair isn’t even fully grown yet dares to delusional dream about treating a plague.”
With a wonderfully pompous air, Wu Feng pointed at the two extra actors playing the pageboy and maid: “You, go brew medicine for my younger brother. You, go buy some pastries for my younger brother so he can sweeten his mouth after taking his bitter medicine.”
He truly portrayed a vulgar, copper-smelling, and blind gentry squire to absolute perfection.
Qiu Ci:
Watching Qiu Ci’s bewildered little expression, the live-stream audience almost laughed their heads off. They never expected Wu Feng’s squire persona to be so unreasonable.
Let’s see how Qiu Ci handles this.
Just as the pageboy reached out to take the prescription sheet, the actor playing the younger brother started throwing a tantrum: “I don’t want Xiao Wu and Xiao Liu to go out! I want them to stay and play with me! I want them to play with me, wuwu!”
The pageboy and maid happened to be named Xiao Wu and Xiao Liu, names chosen with utter casualness.
Wu Feng coaxed him with immense patience for a long while, but the younger brother actor refused to budge, fully committed to his immersive role play. If he kept throwing tantrums like this, Qiu Ci had to wonder if the young actor’s throat could take it.
In the end, Wu Feng compromised for the sake of the plot: “Fine, fine, fine. I’ll go out and grab the medicine myself, and Xiao Wu and Xiao Liu will stay to keep you company, okay?”
The younger brother actor instantly performed a one-second face change: “Okay, brother.”
Wu Feng: If he hadn’t known this was the little kid’s plot requirement, he would have genuinely wanted to teach the brat a lesson.
Though he also had no idea why a squire like him only had two servants and was reduced to fetching medicine himself.
As he headed out the door, he didn’t forget about Qiu Ci: “Hey, why hasn’t this little doctor left yet? If you don’t leave now, I’m going to report you for trespassing on private property.”
“Squire grandfather,” Qiu Ci said, keeping to his divine doctor persona as a gentle-tempered healer, “the people in the city cannot wait. I must ask squire grandfather to lend a hand.”
In Wu Feng’s storyline, he couldn’t be bothered with any of that: “Shoo, shoo, shoo, scram quickly! If you don’t scurry off right now, watch out or I’ll have my uncle the prefect give you a hundred heavy board beatings.”
Qiu Ci:
So there was a family relation between the guests after all?
Regardless, Qiu Ci and Jiuer were chased out by Wu Feng all the same.
Wu Feng had to go execute his medicine-fetching plotline, parting ways with them.
Jiuer pushed Qiu Ci along the street as they walked aimlessly, neither asking where they were headed next nor what they were supposed to do. After all, he was merely a medicine boy.
Resting his chin on his palm, Qiu Ci felt certain that some link or piece of information had slipped past him.
At that moment, the street seemed to have been cleared by the production team. Onlookers could only stretch their necks from the nearby alleyways to watch the commotion, leaving only historical extras populating the main avenue.
The extras at this point looked worlds apart from how they had appeared at the very beginning of the show.
Earlier, those extras had been huddled in groups of twos and threes chatting, with some even pushing small carts selling food; overall, their mental state and vitality had seemed quite high. Now, every single extra looked gaunt and ash-faced, leaning against the base of walls in groups of threes and fives, groaning in agony.
The plague. Right, the plague was wreaking havoc across the city.
An inspiration flashed in Qiu Ci’s mind: “Brother Jiu, what was Wu Feng’s initial character setting again?”
“He is a patient,” Jiuer provided the crucial piece of information accurately.
That was it.
Qiu Ci understood now.
Wu Feng had been teasing a child at home just moments earlier, and his overall vigor didn’t look like that of a sick person at all. According to the production team’s rule of immersive role play, it meant Wu Feng shouldn’t have contracted the plague yet at this stage in the timeline.
Lightning-fast thoughts connected the dots.
“Let’s go find Prefect Xuyang first,” Qiu Ci reasoned. Since Wu Feng had to address Xuyang as uncle, once Wu Feng contracted the plague, there would undoubtedly be a plot crossover.
Jiuer looked at Qiu Ci with a profound gaze, sending another wave of goosebumps straight across Qiu Ci’s scalp.
“What?” He always felt like Jiuer’s gaze was looking right through his eyes and fixing upon that sickly ancient divine doctor instead.
Qiu Ci inhaled a silent breath of cold air inwardly. Based on his speculations, Jiuer might actually know the original divine doctor from back then. Could it be that Jiuer was currently mistaking him for the divine doctor and feeling nostalgic?