“… With his handsome appearance, he has won the love of thousands of fans… He has played ordinary people in the marketplace, emperors and generals, as well as romantic scholars. Having floated in the entertainment industry for more than a dozen years, he went from playing extras to main roles, and his acting skills have grown increasingly refined…”
“Yan Zijin! Best [Actor]!”
“The Best Actor for the Golden Phoenix Award, to be presented shortly, is—”
“Yan Zijin! Best!”
……
“That guy surnamed Ning is too arrogant. Just a has-been actor, what’s he so proud of?”
“Exactly, we’ve got to teach him a lesson today! In our territory, how dare he still bully our people!”
Yan Zijin felt his head buzzing and groggy, as if all his senses were covered by a thick cloth.
The scene before him was chaotic and distorted; one moment it was the Golden Phoenix Award ceremony, and the next second it transformed into a mingling banquet scene.
One moment he heard the host’s lines at the awards ceremony, the passionate background music, and fans shouting his name aloud.
The next moment, there was the gentle sound of the violin, the noisy chatter, and the instigating encouragement of the people around him…
“Just a little laxative, it won’t kill him, just scare him a bit.”
“Hu Lei is Brother Shen’s best buddy. That guy surnamed Ning hitting Hu Lei is hitting Brother Shen! Don’t you agree, Brother Shen?”
“Shen Qing, you aren’t actually chickening out, are you?”
Shen Qing? Are they talking about me?
Yan Zijin was somewhat dazed, his mind feeling as though it had lost the ability to think.
“M-me, chickened out? W-wait!” Yan Zijin heard himself say.
Then his body seemed to receive an instruction, swaying as it stood up, steadying itself against something nearby, picking up the red wine glass from the table, and walking toward the slender figure not far away.
“… I’m not an unreasonable person either. Drink this cup of wine, and today’s matter will be considered over…”
As each sentence was spoken, Yan Zijin’s consciousness gradually cleared, and the appearance of the person opposite him came into view.
Sword-like eyebrows and phoenix-like eyes, an aquiline nose with thin lips, smooth and fair skin, with a clear and distinct jawline…
His face was refined and handsome, and his temperament was cool and otherworldly.
The person in front of him looked like a work of art carefully carved by God, perfectly breathtaking.
Yan Zijin froze; he admitted that he was truly dazzled.
If this person entered the entertainment industry, even if he stood there and did nothing, he could still attract a bunch of appearance-obsessed fans.
Yan Zijin thought to himself.
“Ning Siyin, our Brother Shen said, as long as you drink this wine, the matter of you hitting Brother Hu today is settled. If you don’t drink…”
Ning Siyin? This name sounded a bit familiar.
Was it the name of the protagonist in a novel he had read before?
These lines also seemed a bit familiar…
A month ago, Yan Zijin was shooting a movie in the southwestern mountainous area. On the very second day after joining the crew, his game console fell off a cliff. The signal in the mountains was poor, he couldn’t access the internet, and there was no other form of entertainment. After finishing his scenes for the day, Yan Zijin was extremely bored. Thus, his assistant offered a novel she had prepared for joining the crew.
The assistant was a young girl who loved romance novels. Yan Zijin picked and chose, reluctantly selecting one to pass the time.
Yan Zijin forgot the title of the novel, but he remembered the name Ning Siyin very firmly.
Mainly because of a remark made by his little assistant—Zijin and Siyin, these two names are truly pleasant-sounding and match each other well.
Green, green is your collar, long, long is my anxious thought. Even though I do not go to you, why do you not send messages? [TN: A reference to the Classic of Poetry / Shijing]
They really did match well.
He gave all three months of his leisure time to this novel, so Yan Zijin knew its plot like the back of his hand.
The story was about the protagonist Ning Siyin, who possessed a Mary Sue / heartthrob constitution [TN: wanrenmi], disdained romance, and devoted himself entirely to building his career. In the end, the protagonist reached the peak of his career and reaped a blissful romance. The ending was that Ning Siyin retired from the entertainment industry, becoming everyone’s white moonlight [TN: unforgettable ideal/first love].
Throughout his life, Yan Zijin disliked romantic plots the most, always feeling that they were too sticky and sappy, and preferred to keep his distance from them.
The reason he picked this one was because it had the least description of emotions, and the protagonist Ning Siyin worked hard on his career from beginning to end.
The scene they were currently in was when Ning Siyin was at a low point in his career, and while attending a certain banquet, he was drugged by the villainous supporting character, Shen Qing.
What did the person next to him call him just now?
Shen Qing?
“Ning Siyin, don’t toast to refuse a forfeit [TN: push your luck], today this wine…”
Yan Zijin gave a start; his chaotic mind completely sobered up, and he saw the person opposite him in full clarity.
As described in the novel, Ning Siyin was indeed aloof, refined, and eye-catching.
Standing next to him was a tall man, who, judging by his attire and appearance, was precisely Ning Siyin’s manager in the novel.
Surrounding him on his own side were a group of slumping people, and in the middle, they were supporting someone who was dead drunk—the one who had been “bullied” by Ning Siyin, Shen Qing’s good buddy, Hu Lei.
Ning Siyin slightly turned his body to look this way. He had probably been chatting with his manager just now and happened to be interrupted by Yan Zijin.
His expression was cold, and his delicate face didn’t have too many emotions, making it impossible to discern his true thoughts.
“That’s right! Ning Siyin, you better not be ungrateful [TN: refuse to drink a toast only to be forced to drink a forfeit], do you know who our Brother Shen is? Do you still want to mix in the entertainment industry!?”
The voice that had been constantly beside Shen Qing, saying the wine only contained a little laxative and continuously instigating him, spoke out once more.
Ning Siyin also held a glass of wine. He carried an unhurried posture, showing no signs of being threatened whatsoever.
Knuckle-defined fingers, a slender stem of the glass, bright red liquid—elegant and poised, extremely pleasing to the eyes.
“Oh. Is that so.”
Ning Siyin’s tone was flat, without much fluctuation in his voice, yet it sounded like a thunderclap exploding in Yan Zijin’s mind.
He quickly averted his gaze from the fingers pinching the wine glass; Yan Zijin felt as though that hand was pinching his neck, and with just a tiny bit of force, it could snap his neck.
In the original text, Shen Qing was a villainous cannon fodder.
To obtain the protagonist Ning Siyin, he used coercion, temptation, kidnapping, drugging… every dirty trick in the book. Yet not only did he fail to achieve his wish, but he also offended a crowd of Ning Siyin’s infatuated admirers. In the end, his family collapsed, and he met a violent death on the streets.
For some unknown reason, he, Yan Zijin, had now turned into Shen Qing, and he was holding a wine glass, trying to force the protagonist Ning Siyin—who was adored by thousands—to drink a glass of laced red wine.
Recalling Shen Qing’s ending in the novel, Yan Zijin couldn’t care about much else and hurriedly spoke up, interrupting the person who was attempting to continue stoking the flames.
“Whether you drink this wine today or not… then I’ll drink it myself!”
Having said that, Yan Zijin raised the wine glass, tilted his head back, and poured that cup of red wine into his mouth.
After drinking it, he didn’t forget—in accordance with the description of Shen Qing’s personality in the original text—to fiercely toss out a parting line: “You just wait and remember this!”
Yan Zijin’s action caught everyone by surprise. It wasn’t until he propped up the neighboring Hu Lei and turned around to walk out of the banquet hall that everyone reacted.
Ning Siyin raised his eyebrow in a visible manner, but he didn’t voice any stop.
The group around Yan Zijin hurriedly chased after them.
“Brother Shen, Brother Shen, how can we just let this brat off like this?”
It wasn’t until they got outside the door that Yan Zijin stopped, turned his head back, and coldly said to that person: “Your performance all night was enough, do you take me for a fool?”
The others looked at each other in dismay, as if they had no idea what had happened at all.
That person still wanted to play dumb: “What are you talking about, Brother Shen? Didn’t we agree tonight—?”
“Is that so? Did you forget what kind of person I am? Do you still want to mix in A City?”
Yan Zijin threw back the exact words that person had just uttered.
Shen Qing was the second young master of the Shen family, and the Shen family was one of the top families in A City. The hotel they were currently in was one of the Shen family’s properties.
Hearing this from Yan Zijin, that person stammered and remained speechless.
Someone nearby wanted to step forward to persuade him, but under Yan Zijin’s cold gaze, they were too scared to speak.
The ones who had instigated Shen Qing just now—everyone in this group had a share in it.
“Scram!”
At this shout from Yan Zijin, the crowd scattered like birds and beasts.
Until there was no one left in the hallway, Yan Zijin slumped down all at once. The aura he had just projected was actually all a strong front.
As someone who had read the original text, Yan Zijin knew better than anyone that what was in the cup of wine he had just drunk was not any laxative at all, but a potent aphrodisiac.
What would happen after eating that drug wasn’t described in detail in the original text; it only wrote that the next day Ning Siyin and a certain gentleman appeared at the same time, and that gentleman was the other male lead who ultimately won the beauty’s heart.
Not even five minutes had passed, and Yan Zijin could already feel the heat rising within his body, showing the fierceness of the drug’s potency.
Yan Zijin couldn’t care about much else, hurriedly summoning a waiter and handing the slumped Hu Lei over to him.
He had the waiter open a room for Hu Lei to sober up, while he himself went to the reserved suite on the top floor.
In this kind of situation, he certainly didn’t dare share a room with another person.
As soon as he entered the room, Yan Zijin ripped off his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, turned the air conditioner to its lowest temperature, and turned on the shower head.
Icy water poured down from the top of his head, causing Yan Zijin to shiver from the cold, but this was far from enough.
That wave of heat surged like the ocean tide, dragging his reason—which had been shocked back into clarity a few minutes ago—once again into chaos.
Having mixed in the entertainment industry for more than a dozen years, Yan Zijin had also encountered this kind of situation before.
The best choice, of course, was to find someone and vent it out, and that would be the end of it.
But under the current special circumstances, Yan Zijin didn’t know who he could find to make it through this ordeal while ensuring safety and privacy.
Inside the banquet hall.
Ning Siyin watched Yan Zijin’s retreating back thoughtfully.
“Ah-Si?”
Seeing that Ning Siyin remained silent for a long time, that manager glanced at the swinging glass door and couldn’t help speaking up, “Should we change our plan?”
Ning Siyin snapped out of it, looked at the other person, and said with a half-smile.
“Why change it?”
Ning Siyin twirled his wrist; the transparent wine glass swayed with his movement, red liquid coating the transparent walls and slowly sliding down.
“Having set up a stage with so much effort, if I don’t let it proceed according to plan, wouldn’t it fail to live up to my good uncle?”
“But you…”
The manager stopped mid-sentence, looking as if he wanted to say more—but you didn’t drink that laced cup of wine at all…
Immediately after, he saw Ning Siyin raise the cup of red wine in his hand and drain it in one gulp.
“Just proceed according to the original plan.”
Seeing the corners of Ning Siyin’s lips curving into a smile, the manager couldn’t help shuddering slightly, hurriedly nodding in agreement before the other could look over.
“Alright, I’ll go take care of it right away.”
Handing the empty cup to a waiter, as a wave of dry heat gradually rose within his body, Ning Siyin straightened his cuffs and stepped out toward the banquet hall.