Chapter 90: CH 83

Chapter 83: Show Disturbance

Yue Zhishi’s face was very pale, and he was sweating too much. Song Yu walked just slightly faster, but Yue Zhishi still needed to softly call out to him from behind, saying, “Slower, I’m dizzy.” 

“Who told you to drink coffee on an empty stomach.” Song Yu’s voice was reproachful, not gentle.

Even though Yue Zhishi had been criticised, he still obediently nodded. “I know, I definitely won’t next time.” And then, he grabbed Song Yu’s hand and put it on his chest, his voice even a bit playful. “Is my heart beating really quickly?”

He was very close to Song Yu — he could kiss him as soon as he raised his head.

Song Yu pulled back his hand somewhat stiffly. He couldn’t quite hold onto his attitude anymore; he was originally going to continue lecturing, but he ended up saying nothing else. He wanted to hug Yue Zhishi whenever he looked at him, but there were too many people.

In the end, he slipped an arm around Yue Zhishi’s shoulders, something normal friends or brothers would do, and took him to the cafeteria closest to the auditorium. He bought a bowl of preserved egg and minced pork porridge, as well as some red bean glutinous rice cake.

Worried he’d stay outside for too long, Yue Zhishi ate very quickly. But the porridge was too hot; he couldn’t swallow his first spoonful, and he opened his mouth and fanned at it with his hand like he used to.

“Do you eat every meal like it’s your last?”

Even though he spoke very harshly, Song Yu still pulled Yue Zhishi’s bowl of porridge over to himself and blew at it while he stirred it with a spoon, trying to lower the temperature as quickly as possible.

Yue Zhishi swallowed and then stuffed in a triangular piece of red bean glutinous rice cake, his cheeks puffing up. “You’re not eating?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’ll get hungry in a bit.” Using chopsticks, Yue Zhishi picked up a piece of the cake and held it to Song Yu’s mouth. “You’re staying with me for a long time.”

Song Yu lifted his head to look at him, asking, “Did I say that?” 

Yue Zhishi smiled, a bit pleased with himself. “You coming here means just that. Hurry and eat.” He pushed the cake into Song Yu’s mouth, but Song Yu only ended up taking a bite; Yue Zhishi naturally finished the remaining half. 

He was very skilled at eating his food at a rapid pace. Since he was hungry to begin with, it took no effort at all for him to fulfil the food intake quota Song Yu had set, and because he also ate some carbs, his body gradually recovered and didn’t feel as weak as it was at the start. 

“I’m so sleepy. I want to sleep for an entire day after this, good thing tomorrow’s the weekend.”

There were more people in the auditorium than when they’d left after they got back. The models from the journalism school were rehearsing on stage, and Xu Lin, the strange and weird boy, was now coaching them very properly. Yue Zhishi pulled Song Yu to the backstage. It was very messy and very noisy, with sets upon sets of black dust bag covered outfits hanging on rows of portable clothing racks, and each school was separated into individual areas.

Having arrived at the law school’s section, Yue Zhishi saw Nan Jia and the rest of the team talking to the hair and makeup stylists. He called out to them, and Nan Jia saw him from far away and said, “You’re back. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Yue Zhishi pulled out the yoghurt and biscuits he’d bought from the little supermarket near the cafeteria and shared them with everyone. He turned around, glancing at Song Yu, before turning back to his team. “I brought in someone from another school, hope you guys don’t mind.”

“Of course we don’t mind!” Chen Pi was grinning as though he saw his idol. “Senior Song Yu! Hello hello.” 

Song Yu nodded in greeting, but he wasn’t very good at handling people he wasn’t too familiar with — he hardly spoke, only silently standing behind Yue Zhishi.

“Is it our turn after the journalism school?” Yue Zhishi asked.

“We had our rehearsal already,” Nan Jia said. “There were a few models in the journalism school team who were delayed because of some school matters, so they switched times with us. Don’t worry, the actual competition is still in the order of the initial drawing. We’ll go up after the journalism school as the fourth team.” 

Under the stylists’ instructions, Nan Jia sat in front of the vanity mirror. One did her hair, while the other started on her makeup.

Zhou Yi double checked once again all of their accessories and then opened the biscuit Yue Zhishi had given them. “Chen Yu was almost late. Luckily he’s closing the show, so he just managed to get in on time.”

Yue Zhishi frowned. A large group of models entered, and the backstage became even more cramped, people pushing against others.

After hearing the words ‘closing the show’, Song Yu’s unflappable face had a bit more expression on it. “Chen Yu…” He turned his face sideways and looked at Yue Zhishi, mouthing out the word ‘substitute’ when their eyes met.

Yue Zhishi’s two hands moved into the shape of a large X, and then he pushed Song Yu out of the styling area. “Go have some lunch first, Uncle and Aunt Rong are coming soon.” He grabbed out three tickets from his pocket and stuffed them into Song Yu’s hand. “These are your tickets, don’t lose them.”

“I feel like you guys really need a hand,” Song Yu said, actively offering to help.

“No need.” Thinking of how he’d been in a meeting all morning and had still yet to eat, Yue Zhishi didn’t want Song Yu to busy himself here — it’d be too hard on him. “We have enough people. And since you’re not familiar with this stuff, you’ll need some time to learn anyway.”

Yue Zhishi stroked his arm when he saw the reluctant look on Song Yu’s face. He said, his voice tinged with a bit of cute whining, “Truly. Gege, you should go.”

“Contact me if something happens.” Song Yu held onto Yue Zhishi’s arm. “Your phone needs to stay contactable.” 

“Nothing’ll happen. Hurry and go rest, my body’s really fine now!” 

“Yue Zhishi.” Song Yu was staring at him, a small team of hair and makeup people rushing past them. He pretended to be like a normal older brother and stretched out his arms. “Give me a hug. Jiayou.” And then, he embraced Yue Zhishi.

When their bodies were at their closest together, Song Yu said next to his ear, “Boyfriends need to be used, understand?”

After he was let go, Yue Zhishi felt like Song Yu had taken away half of his heart.

“U-understood.” 

During the actual show, both the front of the stage and the backstage needed to coordinate together in real time to prevent any accidents from happening. According to their previous tasks allocations, Yue Zhishi and Qu Zhi were responsible for the front of the stage — but since he hadn’t been able to participate in the rehearsal earlier, Yue Zhishi immediately went to look for Qu Zhi after sending Song Yu away. He discussed with her the problems that had appeared in the earlier rehearsal as well as the overall process. 

“There was a model who walked too quickly earlier, so there was a section in our second round that was completely empty. The background music was still going, but everyone had already finished.” Qu Zhi turned on the rehearsal video for Yue Zhishi to watch. “We’ll have to be really careful with our timing and be ready to communicate with Chen Pi and everyone else at any time. If we have too much time left, we need to tell them to release the models a bit slower.” 

“Okay, I understand.” Yue Zhishi then asked, “We’ll be to the side of the front stage audience, right?”

“Yes. I’ve had a look at where we’ll be standing, and the view’s not bad. It’s also pretty concealed.” 

Zhou Yi brought over their communication headsets, and after adjusting them, the voices of their team transferred over. Chen Pi was having some fun, joking around like a stand up comedian. 

All three rounds of their show had female models in the first half and male models in the second half. There were almost thirty seconds of rest time in between each round. If the models walked normally, there usually wouldn’t much of an issue — at most, they’d fall onstage. Nan Jia had already told each model an uncountable amount of times about what to do in case that happened.

Time flew by extraordinarily quickly as they nervously prepared for war. The backstage was filled with the chaos of models getting dressed and made up, plans and designs being loudly yelled out and assistants from each school hurrying and running around.

When he went to get their competitor ID cards, Yue Zhishi saw another set of clothing delivered to the journalism school. A skirt peeked out from the dust bag, and it looked excellently made.

“Le Le! Hurry, we’re going to the front for a group photo of all the competitors.”

“Okay.” Yue Zhishi didn’t look at the journalism school anymore, preparing to go onstage through the models’ waiting area. There were a bunch of boxes left here for some reason, almost three metres high, and someone had written ‘equipment’ on them with a marker. 

He looked at them and faintly felt like they shouldn’t be here. He grabbed a worker who was passing by, an ID card on his chest, and said, “Hi, can I ask if these boxes can be moved away? A lot of models are going to gathering here in a bit, and I think it might not be a good idea to have the boxes here.” 

The worker inspected the boxes as well and said they were some of the props the stage had used before. “I don’t know if they can be moved away, I’ll have to ask our manager first.”

Inside Yue Zhishi’s earpiece, Chen Pi was still rushing him to head over for the photo. Yue Zhishi could only ask again and leave it to the worker, and then he ran towards the front stage. All of the competitors from each school were gathered together, quite a large amount of people. Yue Zhishi only realised there truly wasn’t much time left once he came out — the audience was already starting to trickle in.

“Le Le!”

“Here.” Yue Zhishi ran to stand behind Nan Jia, caught his breath and gave the camera an old-school peace sign that looked very cute with him doing it. 

He was getting ready to leave the front after the photos were taken, but then he suddenly heard someone yelling out his name from underneath the stage. It sounded like Jiang Yufan; Yue Zhishi followed the sound of the voice and saw a large group of people. Uncle Song and Lin Rong stood at the very front, and Jiang Yufan, Shen Mi, Qin Yan and Song Yu were behind them. 

“I’m going to say hi to my family.”

Yue Zhishi ran down the long T stage to the very end, and Lin Rong and Song Jin also headed towards the front. 

“You guys came so early.” Yue Zhishi crouched down, Lin Rong reaching out to stroke his head. Song Jin walked closer as well, and he kept repeating ‘don’t be nervous, you definitely can’t be nervous’ — Yue Zhishi couldn’t stop smiling. 

Lin Rong was wearing a pale pink Chanel-style tweed suit. Her makeup was soft and gentle, her hair coiled up low on her neck, and her entire outfit made her look particularly outstanding.

“Aunt Rong’s so pretty today.” Yue Zhishi held onto her hand, swinging it back and forth. “Like a super rich lady.”

Ling Rong highly enjoyed his praise. “But of course. I have to make my darling look good.” She even displayed the limited edition handbag she was carrying as she spoke. “I even brought my most expensive bag. Ah right, Le Le — are you hungry? I baked some yoghurt bites for you before we came. Have some.”

“Don’t babies eat those?” Jiang Yufan couldn’t hold back his laughter.

She opened her bag and took out a large heap. Song Yu ridiculed in an indifferent voice, “Using the most expensive bag to carry snacks for the youngest kind of people.”

“If you provoke me again, I’m going kick you out of the family, Song Yu!”

Yue Zhishi still wanted to stay with them, but the backstage was already urging the people on the stage to clear out. He could only take the small bag of bites Lin Rong handed to him and hurriedly said goodbye to them.

The moment he stood up, his eyes crossed over all of those adorable people and briefly connected with Song Yu’s. He was standing at the furthest back. Song Yu’s eyes were bright, and the corners of his mouth were gently curved up — in the midst of all the confusion and stress of war, he gave Yue Zhishi the most tender, most peaceful strength.

Half an hour later, the opening ceremony began.

The tickets Yue Zhishi had given were all in the first row. His parents were on Song Yu’s left, and Qin Yan was on his right.

Other than his previous debate competitions, this was actually Song Yu’s first time participating in the arts festival. The auditorium was surging with people, many of them taking photos; many of the cameras weren’t actually focused on the stage, but rather, on Song Yu.

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“S.Yu, you’re too eye-catching.” Qin Yan shook his head. 

Song Yu kept his face cold, no different from a sculpture sitting in his spot. Qin Yan knew Song Yu very well — he knew this guy didn’t like places with lots of noise, especially the kind of noise that could deafen ears. But he unexpectedly realised: today, Song Yu actually hadn’t shown any dislike for where he was even though he wasn’t seriously watching the show. 

“I feel like the designs from the first two teams aren’t very interesting,” Qin Yan said to Song Yu, leaning closely into his ear. “Their themes were pretty cool, cyberpunk or whatever, but the clothing they made seemed to have just been copied from some movies.”

Song Yu wasn’t really interested in the other schools, so he only nodded as though in agreement. He then asked Qin Yan which team was currently on stage.

“This team’s almost finished.” Qin Yan looked at the list in his phone. “Next up is the journalism school — oh, they’re the ones favoured to win. There’s a kid in their team this time whose mom is a famous designer, he’s super talented. He’s already provoked your brother a good few times already.”

“Oh.” Song Yu quickly thought of something and gave out a summarised description. “That kid with a not quite normal brain.” 

“You’ve seen him?”

Song Yu hummed in agreement. “Saw him at midday. He was pushing and pulling at Yue Zhishi, he didn’t look very respectable.” 

“Really…” Qin Yan felt like it was incredibly insulting for someone to be called ‘not respectable’ from a respectable person such as Song Yu. But after thinking about it, he thought Xu Lin wasn’t quite that bad.

The host’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “Next up, our journalism and communication school will be revealing their designs!”

The stage lights immediately dimmed; the large screen was also instantly covered in black.

Suddenly, the darkened screen turned into a blue screen, indicating an error.

“Isn’t that the WindowsXP blue screen of death?”

“No way, our university’s computers aren’t that old, are they?” 

In the next moment, the blue screen disintegrated into spots of light, diffusing out in a set rhythm; it felt like lo-fi sci-fi. The background music started, the electronic distortion of a sweet female, barbie-like voice — it was an extremely retro millennial bubblegum dance song, one that had been popular for a time at the beginning of the century.

The model opening the show had beautiful features. Her straight pink hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, and her outfit was made of tight, shiny silver patent leather. She wore a pair of baby blue sunglasses, a toy gun propped on her shoulder.

Her stage walk was extremely professional, every step steadily landing on each pulse of the music. Multicoloured lights fell onto her and followed along with the curve of her walk, fully displaying the polarised light of her outfit’s reflective material. 

The model’s ending pose was to shoot at the sky — but what came out of the gun were sparkling silver fragments.

“Not bad.” Qin Yan sat up straight all at once. “Everything suddenly feels high-quality.”

Song Yu also raised his head to watch. It was true; the journalism school’s opening display was gimmicky enough to capture everyone’s attention, and they’d also found a very expressive model to open their show. Several models followed behind her, all of the outfits highly consistent with the previous one and closely related to the main theme of ‘millennium’. They were way more professional looking compared to the previous two schools.

“The choice of background music’s also fantastic.”

Jiang Yufan sat in the second row. He was initially following along with everyone’s enthusiasm and enjoyment of the show, but as he continued to have fun, he saw Yue Zhishi in the corner under the front stage. “Eh? Le Le’s over there.”

Song Yu gazed over as well and saw Yue Zhishi standing under the part of the stage where the models would enter.

“They should be getting ready.” 

Song Yu looked over from far away and saw Yue Zhishi wearing a white sweater. He’d pushed one side of his hair behind his ear, and he looked particularly pure underneath the candy-coloured stage lights, standing out and out of place. He was absorbed in watching his opponent’s productions, and he was like a child who’d just entered a science museum — his eyes were glowing, and they would occasionally fill with wonder. He would even nudge Qu Zhi, who was standing next to him, and point at an outfit for her to see.

Ever since he noticed Yue Zhishi standing beneath the stage, Song Yu had utterly no idea what designs or models came after. Everyone’s eyes were on the stage, with the exception of Song Yu — from the beginning to the end, his eyes were focused entirely on the dark, small corner to the side of the stage.

“The closing design for the show’s too cool.” Qin Yan was spellbound, and he patted Song Yu’s arm. “Look.”

His gaze returned back to the stage. The final design was truly very different from the ones that came before; the model was in a massive translucent plastic globe, and it would slightly roll on the floor with each step the model took. The entire orb glittered as it reflected light, very much like the dazzling disco balls of the early 2000s.

Once the model arrived at the end of the stage, she broke through the globe from the inside and came out, displaying her transparent latex one piece that looked highly technological. 

“This one’s absolutely amazing. It’s a large production, worthy of someone with professional resources.” Qin Yan started applauding with a large part of the audience, and when the final model completed her run, all of the models returned back on stage. The students in the journalism team also came on stage, and they expressed their thanks to the audience together.

Standing underneath the stage, Yue Zhishi studied their designs, almost forgetting they were the productions of his competitor. Many girls got onto the stage to gift Xu Lin flowers, and even Yue Zhishi thought they’d deserved it. They had truly unfolded the future retro aesthetics of the millennium to its greatest. 

“Drawing a good theme is really worth it,” Zhou Yi sighed over the headset.

Wearing all black, Qu Zhi held onto her earpiece and looked like a capable and experienced female secret agent. “The stage’s clear. We’re up next, prepare to start. Nan Jia.”

“Mn, I’m ready.”

The stage dimmed. Yue Zhishi coordinated with Nan Jia over the headset. “Okay, the music and the screen next. Countdown.”

“Three, two, one.”

A scroll painting of an ancient beauty wearing a flower hairpin unfolded apart on the screen, and they’d specifically made it look like it was splashed wet by a bit of rain. The background music began with a peal of pipa strings, and a shower of golden top lights fell onto Nan Jia as she opened the show.

Rainwater started to descend onto the long, long T stage. Nan Jia strolled down it leisurely, her black hair combed up into a high bun with buyao hair ornaments and flower hairpins. The golden veil on her bamboo hat shielded parts of her face, and she wore a red, straight-collared chest-high ruqun embroidered with peonies. A gold silk oilskin lay on top.

“Good. There are still five more seconds, you can strike your pose.” Yue Zhishi’s eyes kept flickering between Nan Jia and the stopwatch in his hands.

Nan Jia arrived at the very front and tilted her face sideways; a long and thin neck peeked out from the split in the veil. It was incredibly gorgeous. 

When she turned around, she picked up her dress and swept it high — the luxurious skirt flew up in a beautiful curve. 

“That would definitely be very pretty under slow-motion,” Qu Zhi quietly said, watching Nan Jia.

“Okay.” Yue Zhishi started to call out for the next model. “Get ready to go up.” 

Suddenly, he heard a loud crash from backstage; he immediately questioned Chen Pi, who was on duty in the models’ waiting area. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Something fell down.”

He glanced at his stopwatch. The second model had yet to arrive at the entrance to the stage, so Yue Zhishi quickly said to Nan Jia, “Do another pose once you get to the end!” 

Nan Jia strode down calmly, steadily and securely walking to the very end before turning around once again. They hadn’t planned on taking off her golden veiled bamboo hat, but she pulled it off and revealed her entire face — she lifted up her chin lightly and gave the audience a faint smile.

Chen Pi’s voice continuously came through, and Yue Zhishi once again asked if something had happened.

“Wait, someone’s injured — I’m checking now.”

“Fucking hell, who placed these steel framed boxes so high!” 

“Our model got hit because of you guys!” 

“Stop yelling.” Yue Zhishi was a bit flustered, and he walked back and forth in that dark corner a few times. He composed himself and asked, “Who’s injured? How many people? Is the injury serious?”

“Your male model for the end of the show got injured! The boxes squashed his leg.”

Yue Zhishi’s heart seemed to heavily, fiercely fall. He didn’t even realise he’d actually crouched down; he breathed in deeply twice and then stood back up, flying to the backstage. When he saw that Chen Yu’s leg couldn’t even move at all, Yue Zhishi could still be considered as fairly composed.

“First change out of the clothes and then go to the hospital.” 

“Then what’ll we do about the closing?”

Yue Zhishi’s voice turned loud. “That’s not as important as the model’s safety!”

He was tense from stress, and in order to prevent his hands from shaking, he tightly fisted them up and took two steps back and forth, his breathing coming short and fast from the clamour of the environment. 

Abruptly, a voice came through — Yue Zhishi turned his head around and saw a tall silhouette appear in the backstage, the light shining against it. That body took large steps towards him and pulled off its coat as it walked, throwing it to the side like a soldier preparing to head to the front line at any moment.

“Song Yu?”

Yue Zhishi thought he was seeing things. He was just about to speak when Song Yu directly pulled him into his arms. 

He stroked Yue Zhishi’s head like a dependable older brother and said some superficial words everyone could hear. “Don’t panic.”

Song Yu was as unperturbed as a model long since familiar with the entire process. “I’ll go up for him. Style me up simply, it needs to be fast.”

Yue Zhishi had still yet to understand. “Why are you…”

Song Yu looked at him, giving him an extremely stable strength. 

“Weren’t the clothes designed for me anyway?” 

“Yue Zhishi, other people aren’t dependable.” He smiled and then eased closer to say to him —

“No one is as dependable as your boyfriend.”

The author has something to say:
Little Jade’s talk of substitute was just him drinking vinegar and purposefully joking with his little brother. Since Le Le didn’t invite him (Le Le thought he wouldn’t want to do it, and Nan Jia wasn’t able to successfully invite him) and directly went to find someone so similar to him that even Qin Yan thought that guy was him, he felt a bit sour. He also didn’t say it in front of the guy and other people, he was just teasing Le Le, don’t misunderstand Little Jade~

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