Upon hearing “there was no difference,” the forced smile on Chu Xingyun’s face vanished instantly.
By the time the second sentence followed, he looked as if he had been struck by a heavy blow, stumbling back half a step. A violent wave of dizziness hit him. Chu Xingyun closed his eyes in distress, his knees softening. He swayed unsteadily, his eyelashes trembling with unease.
“…Are you unwell?” Cen Jing’s expression flickered. Assuming Chu was using physical discomfort to end the topic, he took the offered exit. “I’ll help you back to rest.”
Chu Xingyun slowly opened his eyes, his pupils still somewhat unfocused. “No need. No need.”
With that, he walked out with swaying, unsteady steps. Cen Jing didn’t rush to catch up; he simply trailed behind him at a distance.
【Walking unstable, eyes turning red—this isn’t just a snack, I’m eating a whole meal of angst!】
【The “Jia Chan” pair is too shameless, honestly. [Covers face while peeking]】
【They came out walking so far apart; clearly they had a fight, right? What were you guys watching?】
【Sorry, I can’t imagine Cen Jing actually fighting with someone.】
“Brother, you’re here.” Jiang Xun stepped forward, looking miserable as he slung an arm around Chu Xingyun’s shoulder. “I just went to find Big Brother Ye. His manager told me he loves to chat—he can talk for a whole night without sleeping… For the sake of my physical and mental health, I’ve decided to give up the second-floor single room.”
Chu Xingyun jerked his shoulder, shaking off the hand, and spoke with zero interest: “Oh.”
“So live with me, then.” Jiang Xun flashed a fawning smile at Chu Xingyun.
Chu Xingyun simply thrust a middle finger in front of Jiang Xun’s eyes and said with a fake smile: “Get lost.”
When he wasn’t in a beautiful mood, he had no desire to play with a fool.
“Dammit.” Jiang Xun unceremoniously returned the middle finger. “That’s the end of our brotherhood. I’m finding Cen Jing.” He immediately turned toward Cen Jing, though his arrogance dropped by several degrees. “Cen Jing, shall we share a room?”
Although he wasn’t close with Cen Jing, he could tell that this man was likely the most easy-going guest of the bunch.
Cen Jing didn’t speak; his gaze swept across Chu Xingyun and Chen Shu in turn.
“Sure,” Chu Xingyun scoffed, speaking sloppily. “Then Chen Shu belongs to me.”
Chen Shu’s hands, which were busy with a rhythm game, stopped instantly. “?”
“What do you mean?” Jiang Xun leaned his face close to Chu Xingyun, trying to see where he got the nerve. “What do you mean ‘belongs to you’?”
“It means…” Chu Xingyun leaned into Jiang Xun’s right ear and said in a breathy voice only the two of them could hear: “The mouth you’re too afraid to kiss, I’ll kiss it for you.”
“You f**king…” Jiang Xun’s face turned red in an instant. “Have you no shame?”
After teasing Jiang Xun, Chu Xingyun’s mood was visibly much better. He took two steps forward, sat down grandly next to Chen Shu, crossed his legs high, and said innocently: “You’re the one who chose it.”
“You… I…” Jiang Xun was choked with rage, unable to find words for a moment. He only just realized that he didn’t want to sleep with Chen Shu himself, but he also didn’t want anyone else to sleep with Chen Shu either…
He should have fought for a single room for Chen Shu from the very beginning…
“You.” Chen Shu exited his game, turned his head to look at Chu Xingyun, and said concisely: “Get lost.”
Chu Xingyun: “…”
And here I thought Chen Shu was only blunt with Jiang Xun…
“…Hahahahaha!” Jiang Xun pointed one finger at Chu Xingyun while clutching his stomach with the other hand, laughing loudly. “Tried to—tried to act cool and failed! Hahaha!”
“Shut up.” Chen Shu shot a sharp look at Jiang Xun’s head. “I told him to get lost, but did I say you didn’t have to?”
Jiang Xun shut up immediately, pretending to look at the ceiling with total nonchalance.
Chu Xingyun added softly from the side: “I already told him to get lost just now.”
“You were telling him to get lost away from here,” Chen Shu’s tone became much more polite. “I’m telling him to ‘get lost’ over here.”
“Why should I listen to you?” Jiang Xun, realizing he had just lost face, stuck his neck out stubbornly. “I’m not ‘getting lost’ over there.”
Chen Shu couldn’t be bothered to give him a second look and instead held out his right hand to Cen Jing. “Give me the key to Room 3.”
Cen Jing scanned the faces of the other two. Seeing they weren’t going to bicker further, he fished the key from his pocket and placed it in Chen Shu’s palm.
Chen Shu took the dejected Jiang Xun away, leaving only Cen Jing and Chu Xingyun in the living room. Chu Xingyun leaned over, took an orange from the coffee table, and began peeling it methodically.
He didn’t want to talk to Cen Jing right now!
“Brother Ye is resting on the second-floor outdoor balcony. Go take the room key to him.” Cen Jing placed the key to Room 2 on the coffee table in front of Chu Xingyun. “I’m going to go get our luggage.”
Our? Who are you trying to coax…?
Chu Xingyun glanced up and quickly retracted his gaze. He pursed his lips, determined not to speak.
“I’m going now.” Cen Jing didn’t insist on an answer. “If you’re not feeling well, go lie down and rest on the bed after delivering the key.”
With that, without waiting for a reaction from Chu Xingyun, he took large strides and headed outside. Chu Xingyun stared at Cen Jing’s back and stuffed the entire orange into his mouth.
【Currently showing: “The Resentful Wife”】
【He looks like a wife grumbling about an insensitive husband.】
【Finally, this guy gets to experience what it’s like for no one to spoil him~】
Chu Xingyun wiped the orange juice from his mouth, took the key to Room 2, and went up to the second-floor balcony. Ye Hancheng was sitting on a small sofa, legs crossed, humming a song from some bygone era. His face was still flushed; clearly, he hadn’t sobered up yet.
“Senior,” Chu Xingyun walked over slowly. “I’ve brought you the key to Room 2.”
“Ah…” Ye Hancheng squinted at him. “It’s Xiao Chu. Come, come, sit and chat with me for a bit.”
Chu Xingyun sat down as requested and asked respectfully: “What does Senior want to talk about?”
Better to chat with Ye Hancheng than to rest in the room.
“Anything,” Ye Hancheng wasn’t picky. “For instance, you can tell me the story of your life since your debut.”
When the six first gathered this morning, the PD had given a brief introduction of everyone. He only knew that Chu Xingyun was a singer from a survival show who occasionally moonlighted as an actor. But whether it was a hit song or a signature acting role, everything sounded extremely unfamiliar to Ye Hancheng’s ears.
“My story is very boring.” Chu Xingyun grabbed a handful of melon seeds and began peeling them slowly. “When I was 16, I was working a summer job at a mall near my home. I was spotted by a scout and brought to the company to sign a contract… then it was just training, participating in a survival show, and debuting.”
A very boring, very common experience. 80% of young idols nowadays followed this process.
“Then you’re quite impressive.” Ye Hancheng’s gaze rested on Chu Xingyun’s face for a moment before he sighed: “…As expected of a face that can be spotted by a scout. It’s exquisite.”
“And if I told you that in that one month alone, that scout spotted over 40 people?” Chu Xingyun piled up the peeled seeds. “At the beginning, I also thought I was special. I had dreams of skyrocketing to fame, thinking the future would be as the other party boasted, smoothly becoming a superstar that everyone watched.”
Without even thinking about his later experiences, Ye Hancheng knew: “Relying on looks alone isn’t enough.”
“Exactly, looks aren’t enough.” Chu Xingyun let out a light laugh. “Luckily, I didn’t wait to enter the industry to realize this; I understood it during the trainee stage. This circle is never short of beautiful people. Even our company wasn’t short of them.”
In the era of the survival show explosion, various small companies cropped up everywhere. Scouts scoured the land for beautiful children, hoping to take a bite out of that giant pie. They didn’t have the systematic training of big companies, so they could only cast a wide net, hoping to catch a “chosen one.”
Ye Hancheng listened intently. “A face is just the brick that lets you knock on the door; strength is what paves the road for you.”
“Right, that’s what I thought too.” Chu Xingyun tilted his head slightly, seemingly reminiscing. “After realizing this face could probably only be the ‘flower on the brocade’ (a finishing touch), I started working hard. I was always the first to arrive at training and the last to leave.”
“And then?” Ye Hancheng was fully immersed in the narration.
Chu Xingyun continued: “After about half a year of training, a new survival show started auditions. I thought that with my better training results, I would definitely be chosen. But the truth was… the company didn’t even sign me up.”
“Half of the audition slots were given to people with good relations with the higher-ups, and the other half were sold to children from wealthy families. And me? No one cared about me. At that time, I was exceptionally angry. I rushed into the manager’s office and made a scene. I said I wanted to terminate my contract, that I wanted to sign up for the show myself as an individual trainee but the other party just told me to go home and take a good look at the contract.”
“Speaking of contracts, Senior probably understands… that’s right, I couldn’t afford the penalty fee.” Chu Xingyun’s tone was flat; the long passage of time had thoroughly washed away his original anger. “So, like a coward, I stayed.”
“Is it the same management company you have now?” Ye Hancheng frowned, looking displeased. He was from the traditional academic school; his company was endorsed by his teachers, and he had never acted in a role he didn’t like. In his view, a company and an artist were a community of interests, partners in a win-win situation. He didn’t know there were companies that could do such things.
“No.” Chu Xingyun shook his head gently. “My current company is the one I signed with after my debut. They treat me very well and even paid my penalty fee. As for the previous one, it went completely bankrupt two years ago.”
“Haha, karma is real.” Hearing this news, Ye Hancheng felt much better and brought the conversation back to the main point. “So, what happened later? How did you get the chance to join a survival show?”
Chu Xingyun: “The show the following year was an all-female one, so I waited another year before I got the opportunity.”
【Ugh, hearing this makes me want to cry… no connections, no family support, how did such a young kid endure it TAT】
【I’m so glad he stuck with it TAT】
【Actually, when he participated, the survival show trend was almost dead. After watching for 7 or 8 years, the audience was already bored.】
【You could say ‘Gaoshan Jingxing’ saved that season of the show.】
“How did you get it?” Ye Hancheng asked with great concern. “You didn’t have to give up anything extra, did you?”
“I indeed wasn’t on the original list,” Chu Xingyun said with a smile. “And, they intentionally didn’t sign me up.”
Ye Hancheng looked speechless: “What was it for this time?”
“Sss…” Chu Xingyun suddenly looked troubled. “I don’t know if I can say…” He looked at the small camera placed not far away. “How about I turn that off before I speak?”
With that, he moved to stand up.
“Turn it off for what?” Ye Hancheng immediately stopped him, speaking with righteous indignation. “Just say it! The audience and I will back you up.”
“Hmm… then I’ll say it.” Chu Xingyun lowered his lashes, intentionally slowing his blink by half a beat. “In the audition I failed to attend previously, the company had a contestant who didn’t debut but made it to the final round and gained some popularity.”
“The company concentrated all their resources on him. Occasionally, they’d let him do a livestream to ‘bring along’ the newcomers, letting us non-debuted trainees show our faces. I also used his traffic like that.”
“Let me guess.” Ye Hancheng sat up straight and stroked his chin. “Did you outshine him in the livestream, so he was jealous of you and afraid you’d be even more outstanding than him in the future, and that’s why he wouldn’t let you join the show?”
“Although saying it like that sounds narcissistic, it’s exactly what happened.” The pile of seeds next to Chu Xingyun’s hand had grown into a small mountain. He pinched one, put it in his mouth, and chewed slowly. “He was the company’s only cash cow; basically all his requests were met.”
Ye Hancheng: “I thought people like that only existed in TV dramas; I didn’t expect them to actually exist in reality…”
“Right? I thought it was pretty unbelievable too.” Chu Xingyun acted helpless. “But what I found even more unbelievable was that the company was actually so short-sighted. They seemed to have no clear plan for the future. They just wanted to make money off the trainees’ penalty fees.”
“Hmph…” Ye Hancheng expressed his disdain. “Then how did they let you go in the end?”