Don't Be a Kept Man
Most people would be willing to privately start a battle of words with Chen Yi online, but they would never do so right to his face. Because Chen Yi had never cared about things like seniors, juniors, experience, newbies, status, age, or any normal considerations as a celebrity, the moment someone gave him no face, he would drag them straight into the cameras’ view to have no face with him.
So considering that everyone who worked in front of the cameras was all about the “image”, no one was willing to start a fire with this kind of thug.
Zhang Duo was from the dancing community however, and with Chen Yi filming on the down-low for so long, he had never heard of such a person. And so, after Chen Yi said those words, his smile immediately dropped from his face, and he was going to say something when Tong Lao-shi knocked on the judge’s table. She said with a solemn voice,
“There is not a lot of time left. We have to hurry and get through the rest of the contestants within the remaining time. After lunch, the filming must start.”
She was a much older senior and so once she opened her mouth, Zhang Duo naturally would not say anything else. But he was evidently not happy and during the remaining time left for rehearsals, his face looked quite foul, putting all the contestants practicing on stage on the edge of their seats.
When the official filming for the show started in the afternoon, the audience were slowly let in to fill up the seats behind the judges panel. Because many youngsters like trendy things, Zhang Duo’s fans were in high numbers, but besides those fans, most of the other audience members were Chen Yi’s fans. In their hands, they held silver LED or handmade cloth signs, but they were still dressed in all black, making them easily recognizable.
There was one thing Chen Yi did not expect today which was that Chen Xiao Meng would also sneak over to the studio to watch him. She was sitting in the first row, hands holding a silver light stick, and when no one was paying attention, she discreetly poked the back of Chen Yi, smiling like a cat that got the canary.
There were some snacks on the judges’ panel, and so Chen Yi grabbed a handful of popcorn and without even looking, threw it right behind him. He heard her quietly going “ah” as she held her forehead in pain before pouting and retracting her hand.
Right beside Chen Xiao Meng was a person in a well fitted black shirt. From their sleeves to their wrists, pale white muscular forearms were on display, and following their shape upwards, there was a clear Adam’s apple; evidently this was a man.
The man was holding a silver support cloth sign, and he wore a mask and a black baseball cap, covering himself up tightly with only his pair of eyes showing. Seeing Chen Xiao Meng look over at him, he unconsciously avoided her gaze.
When Fu Xiu Nian normally bought tickets for a show, he was used to buying the seats closest to Chen Yi’s position. He had just finished sorting out his uncle’s situation at the hospital and rushed over here, but no way in the world did he expect that he would be sitting right next to Chen Yi’s sister.
Although the knowledge that the two of them were in a relationship wouldn’t be hidden forever, whenever Fu Xiu Nian saw Chen Xiao Meng, his gut reaction was to hide out of anxiety. And so, most of the time, his head was lowered, trying to avoid eye contact with her.
Chen Yi’s fans were 99% female and so with this incredibly rare occurrence of a male fan, Chen Xiao Meng felt very bewildered, and she couldn’t help but ask,
“You…… are you also Chen Yi’s fan?”
Fu Xiu Nian pulled up the mask on his face and nodded his head, but he didn’t say anything.
Chen Xiao Meng thought he was a bit weird and hesitated before asking curiously,
“…… Why are you wearing a mask? Don’t you feel stuffy?”
With his head lowered, Fu Xiu Nian coughed, feeling as if he was sitting on pins and needles,
Chen Xiao Meng only nodded her head in understanding and then didn’t continue to probe.
The program was officially starting and the MC first went up on the stage to hype up the atmosphere and then introduced this season’s panel of judges along with the special judge. Fans were also giving it their all, cheering and almost blowing off the studio’s roof with their yells. After waiting a while for the studio to calm down, the main program officially began.
The contestants would have already gone through the first round of elimination on a more countrywide scale, but that did not mean that all of them were of the skillful category. There were a few that would have made it through by their connections, and there were some contestants strung along, added to the roster only to be eliminated, making the contestant pool quite messy and convoluted.
Zhang Duo: Eyes high, hands low. Can you not stabilize yourself and start slowly? Are there even shortcuts in dancing? If you can’t even walk, why are you learning to run? However high you climb, the worse your fall!
Chen Yi: Humans must always look up to walk; water will always be flowing downwards.1 When I was young, I first learned to run before learning to walk. Do your best and keep at it. Perhaps you will be the second me.
Zhang Duo: Ribbon Dance? You sure you want to dance the ribbon dance? This is the first time I saw someone dance the ribbon dance and trip themselves!
Chen Yi: From your dancing, I can see that you have the determination to defy fate. The ribbon is just like a dead weight holding you down, like a web that can trap you, and you are a butterfly, ready to break through the cocoon at any time.
Besides laughing, the audience could only laugh more. The entire studio was filled with explosive laughter, and by the end of the filming session, Zhang Duo was about to have a stroke. The mustache on his face was shaking and his face was pale and just plain terrible. At last, the first round ended, leaving only twenty-four contestants. According to the program rules, it would be up to them to choose their mentor now.
There was a contestant within the twenty-four that all the judges were eying up: No. 6, Deng Zhan Ting. She was not from a powerful background nor did she have any connections, but she had learned through many professionals at a young age. She had been exposed to all kinds of dances and, before the show, she had even been the center of a dance group, which she unfortunately had to leave when she sustained an injury. Her skill level was way higher than anyone else there and all three judges had the mind to take her into their group, even Zhang Duo.
Zhang Duo said to Deng Zhan Ting,
“Your movements are so alive. You are a person who was born to dance. Your feelings and emotions are so strong, and you have the skills to back them. If you can choose a teacher that can give you more guidance, you would be even better. Tong Lao-shi’s expertise is in classical dance, Ying Zi Lao-shi is in ethnic dance and I am pretty alright in street dancing, and Chen Yi…….”
He paused at this point, which Chen Yi immediately followed up with,
Notes:
*1 This is a proverb/idiom saying that basically means humans must look upwards/head upwards as that is their will and passion to go beyond what they can do, to always keep bettering themselves, to keep improving and becoming better, “heading up” for a better place to be in versus water flowing downwards is a “natural” rule because that’s how nature is, with gravity and all scientific rules of how things are, water will always naturally be flowing downwards. And so this becomes where if you don’t do anything, you will just be like water, following what it’s “supposed” to be/following the flow whereas as humans, we should really be motivating ourselves/to push ourselves to become better, to improve and succeed with greater rewards.
*2 I forgot to add this when it was mentioned a bit earlier in the volume, but as reference in volume 1, square dancing here is not the western style of square dancing. This is people, usually older females (middle-aged), gathering in plaza squares and dancing (hence the “square dancing”. If you have not seen the footnote in volume 1 , you can check out this link on youtube for a bit more information and visuals)
TL Tidbits:
Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year everyone! Hope your new year goes better and safer than the one before and may we all bask and swim in comfort and riches!
Chapter 79: CH 79
So considering that everyone who worked in front of the cameras was all about the “image”, no one was willing to start a fire with this kind of thug.
Zhang Duo was from the dancing community however, and with Chen Yi filming on the down-low for so long, he had never heard of such a person. And so, after Chen Yi said those words, his smile immediately dropped from his face, and he was going to say something when Tong Lao-shi knocked on the judge’s table. She said with a solemn voice,
“There is not a lot of time left. We have to hurry and get through the rest of the contestants within the remaining time. After lunch, the filming must start.”
She was a much older senior and so once she opened her mouth, Zhang Duo naturally would not say anything else. But he was evidently not happy and during the remaining time left for rehearsals, his face looked quite foul, putting all the contestants practicing on stage on the edge of their seats.
When the official filming for the show started in the afternoon, the audience were slowly let in to fill up the seats behind the judges panel. Because many youngsters like trendy things, Zhang Duo’s fans were in high numbers, but besides those fans, most of the other audience members were Chen Yi’s fans. In their hands, they held silver LED or handmade cloth signs, but they were still dressed in all black, making them easily recognizable.
There was one thing Chen Yi did not expect today which was that Chen Xiao Meng would also sneak over to the studio to watch him. She was sitting in the first row, hands holding a silver light stick, and when no one was paying attention, she discreetly poked the back of Chen Yi, smiling like a cat that got the canary.
There were some snacks on the judges’ panel, and so Chen Yi grabbed a handful of popcorn and without even looking, threw it right behind him. He heard her quietly going “ah” as she held her forehead in pain before pouting and retracting her hand.
Right beside Chen Xiao Meng was a person in a well fitted black shirt. From their sleeves to their wrists, pale white muscular forearms were on display, and following their shape upwards, there was a clear Adam’s apple; evidently this was a man.
The man was holding a silver support cloth sign, and he wore a mask and a black baseball cap, covering himself up tightly with only his pair of eyes showing. Seeing Chen Xiao Meng look over at him, he unconsciously avoided her gaze.
When Fu Xiu Nian normally bought tickets for a show, he was used to buying the seats closest to Chen Yi’s position. He had just finished sorting out his uncle’s situation at the hospital and rushed over here, but no way in the world did he expect that he would be sitting right next to Chen Yi’s sister.
Although the knowledge that the two of them were in a relationship wouldn’t be hidden forever, whenever Fu Xiu Nian saw Chen Xiao Meng, his gut reaction was to hide out of anxiety. And so, most of the time, his head was lowered, trying to avoid eye contact with her.
Chen Yi’s fans were 99% female and so with this incredibly rare occurrence of a male fan, Chen Xiao Meng felt very bewildered, and she couldn’t help but ask,
“You…… are you also Chen Yi’s fan?”
Fu Xiu Nian pulled up the mask on his face and nodded his head, but he didn’t say anything.
Chen Xiao Meng thought he was a bit weird and hesitated before asking curiously,
“…… Why are you wearing a mask? Don’t you feel stuffy?”
With his head lowered, Fu Xiu Nian coughed, feeling as if he was sitting on pins and needles,
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“I had caught a bit of a cold recently.”Chen Xiao Meng only nodded her head in understanding and then didn’t continue to probe.
The contestants would have already gone through the first round of elimination on a more countrywide scale, but that did not mean that all of them were of the skillful category. There were a few that would have made it through by their connections, and there were some contestants strung along, added to the roster only to be eliminated, making the contestant pool quite messy and convoluted.
Zhang Duo: Eyes high, hands low. Can you not stabilize yourself and start slowly? Are there even shortcuts in dancing? If you can’t even walk, why are you learning to run? However high you climb, the worse your fall!
Chen Yi: Humans must always look up to walk; water will always be flowing downwards.1 When I was young, I first learned to run before learning to walk. Do your best and keep at it. Perhaps you will be the second me.
Zhang Duo: Ribbon Dance? You sure you want to dance the ribbon dance? This is the first time I saw someone dance the ribbon dance and trip themselves!
Chen Yi: From your dancing, I can see that you have the determination to defy fate. The ribbon is just like a dead weight holding you down, like a web that can trap you, and you are a butterfly, ready to break through the cocoon at any time.
Besides laughing, the audience could only laugh more. The entire studio was filled with explosive laughter, and by the end of the filming session, Zhang Duo was about to have a stroke. The mustache on his face was shaking and his face was pale and just plain terrible. At last, the first round ended, leaving only twenty-four contestants. According to the program rules, it would be up to them to choose their mentor now.
There was a contestant within the twenty-four that all the judges were eying up: No. 6, Deng Zhan Ting. She was not from a powerful background nor did she have any connections, but she had learned through many professionals at a young age. She had been exposed to all kinds of dances and, before the show, she had even been the center of a dance group, which she unfortunately had to leave when she sustained an injury. Her skill level was way higher than anyone else there and all three judges had the mind to take her into their group, even Zhang Duo.
Zhang Duo said to Deng Zhan Ting,
“Your movements are so alive. You are a person who was born to dance. Your feelings and emotions are so strong, and you have the skills to back them. If you can choose a teacher that can give you more guidance, you would be even better. Tong Lao-shi’s expertise is in classical dance, Ying Zi Lao-shi is in ethnic dance and I am pretty alright in street dancing, and Chen Yi…….”
He paused at this point, which Chen Yi immediately followed up with,
Notes:
*1 This is a proverb/idiom saying that basically means humans must look upwards/head upwards as that is their will and passion to go beyond what they can do, to always keep bettering themselves, to keep improving and becoming better, “heading up” for a better place to be in versus water flowing downwards is a “natural” rule because that’s how nature is, with gravity and all scientific rules of how things are, water will always naturally be flowing downwards. And so this becomes where if you don’t do anything, you will just be like water, following what it’s “supposed” to be/following the flow whereas as humans, we should really be motivating ourselves/to push ourselves to become better, to improve and succeed with greater rewards.
*2 I forgot to add this when it was mentioned a bit earlier in the volume, but as reference in volume 1, square dancing here is not the western style of square dancing. This is people, usually older females (middle-aged), gathering in plaza squares and dancing (hence the “square dancing”. If you have not seen the footnote in volume 1 , you can check out this link on youtube for a bit more information and visuals)
TL Tidbits:
Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year everyone! Hope your new year goes better and safer than the one before and may we all bask and swim in comfort and riches!
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