Chapter 133

unedited

Shen Yan’s hands were shaky.

At first, Qi Jing thought it was because he got angry and so, worried, he tried to think of something to say to calm him down, but it was only when he later saw how pale his face was that he realised that wasn’t the case.

The reporter’s sixth sense was telling him that rather than Five himself, it was this ‘someone else’ he mentioned that was the cause here.

At that time, Shen Yan stopped and took a long breath, leaning weakly against the wall on the side, like a man who had just fled a disaster finally catching a moment of respite.

Qi Jing moved his lips, but then changed his mind at the last moment and decided not to actively ask questions, only keeping him company by standing by his side in silence for as long as it took.

“Sorry,” Shen Yan was the first to speak, admitting in a small voice, “Just now… I lost control over myself for a bit.”

“That’s rare.” Qi Jing smiled faintly, no repreach to be heard in his tone.

Shen Yan turned his head slightly, looking at him.

Still good, at least his face isn’t as pale as before—Qi Jing noted it and thought to himself.

“Did you know before that Five would show up?” Shen Yan’s reaction at that time seemed to suggest so. As expected, Shen Yan nodded his head.

“I more or less guessed it when I saw those two flight tickets, then finally confirmed it when I checked the names of the company employees.” Shen Yan instinctively pressed his thumb against the joint of Qi Jing’s pinky, rubbing it gently. This was a little gesture of his for whenever he felt guilty. Every time he did it, his voice would also turn hoarse, “I kept it a secret from you all the way until now… I’m sorry. When everything’s over and we get to rest in our room, I will explain it all to you, okay?”

Qi Jing’s pinkie was itching, and so was his heart. He suddenly felt a need to finish what he didn’t get to do on the plane, right then and there.

Either way, there was no one around—

He lowered his eyes, about to move his face over, when suddenly, a crystal-clear voice came from below, “Do uncles want to kiss?”

…Eh…Qi Jing and Shen Yan both went still, quickly pulling apart from each other. And upon looking down—oh boy! There was no person left and right, but at some point, a little Lolita suddenly sprouted below out of nowhere.

Because it was really a very small specimen, and because he would only see someone about his height when looking around, he didn’t discover her at all before.

Little Lolita’s hair was jet-black, braided into a thin braid on the left side and moved to her back. She had a pure-white cotton gown with wine-red leggings below, and two white pom-poms swaying on the sides of her snow boots, looking plenty adorable. Her eyes blinked as she stared at two people before her, as if not quite understanding why they chose to move away from each other. She cocked her head and asked, “No kiss?”

Qi Jing coughed. “Little princess,” He knelt on one knee—when talking to a future lady, one needed to behave like a gentleman both in etiquette and words, “Why are you running around alone, don’t you know that it’s dangerous? Where are your parents?”

Little Lolita’s eyes lit up, apparently very pleased with this form of addressing and gesture.

But she still didn’t stop pursuing the question, “No kiss?”

He had planned to before, but… He would have to think how to explain to this little Lolita and her parents why two uncles would kiss. The difficulty of that would be too great, so…

“No kiss.” He smiled helplessly, rubbing the little Lolita’s head.

This fella actually showed no fear at all. She stared at him for a moment, then suddenly, she raised her finger to point at him, “I know you, you’re the Emperor Uncle~”

Empe-…Emperor Uncle?

Qi Jing was baffled—was it because he called her ‘little princess’ that she came up with “Emperor Uncle” as a nickname for him, or what?

Little Lolita continued, “Emperor Uncle, Emperor Uncle who talked from the computer to daddy~”

At that time, Shen Yan cut in, “I think she might be talking about ‘Emperor Chang’ you voice acted in ⟪Order to End the Heavens⟫.”

Qi Jing suddenly understood. If little Lolita was really talking about ‘Emperor Chang’, then that person who ‘talked with Emperor Chang from the computer’ could only mean one person, the very one who voice acted in audition with him—

“Eh?” He instinctively raised his voice higher, “Little Princess, what’s your surname?”

“My surname’s Zhang.”

…Zhang, the ‘bow’ and ‘long’ Zhang. Bow and long, longbow.

“Ah,” Qi Jing raised his brows, finally understanding who this little girl was, “Turns out you’re Teacher Longbow’s daughter—”

So Longbow was also there.

It’s just, as a father he had to be quite an air-head, not realising that at some point, his daughter ran away from the event venue. If his wife got to know about this, she would definitely hit high blood-pressure—if not from anger, then from worry.

So they quickly took the little Lolita to the event venue, looking for her dad.

Following the navigation plaques set by the organisers, they found the entrance to the venue. They didn’t even have to open the doors when a man rushed out from the inside, almost knocking them with the door.

“Ah, I’m sorry, I’m sorry&#k2026;” The man apologised quickly. As expected from a reporter, Qi Jing’s eyes were sharp&#k2014;he already scanned the nametag on his chest, and sure enough, this name started with the surname Zhang.

&#k3010;Guest, Zhang Cheng&#k3011;

“Good evening, Teacher Longbow.” He greeted the man with a wide smile.

“Eh?” When he heard his voice, Zhang Cheng shot his head up, astonished. He didn’t even have time to call the ID he always connected with this voice, when something small dashed over to hug half his leg, becoming a living image of one hugging a person’s thighs, sticking to him like glue.

“Daddy!” Little Lolita exclaimed sweetly.

“Xiaomiao!” After his daughter walked away, Zhang Cheng rushed out to look for her, but now, when he saw her, he finally breathed with relief. He quickly bent down to pick her up, both distressed and doting in his nagging, “I’ve met someone I knew at the venue and only spoke a few words before I looked back and saw that you were gone. Really, you scared me silly here.”

“Those two Uncles brought me back.” Little Lolita pointed at Qi Jing at Shen Yan with her finger.

Only now Zhang Cheng had a chance to talk with them.

He first looked toward Qi Jing. “This voice… Could it be, Don’t ask for my return date?” Qi Jing’s voice was unique-sounding, so sure enough, he got recognised right away. Speaking of which, that keen ear for the voices of that little Lolita had to be passed down from her father. But Zhang Cheng seemed to be very surprised that he showed up, “I didn’t think that you would come.”

Qi Jing put on a dispirited expression and turned his face away, “That’s right, I’m not supposed to come if I’m not a champion…”

Zhang Cheng got dumbfounded, then promptly tried to explain himself, “Don’t misunderstand me, I didn’t mean it that way! I really didn’t!”

“Pft…” So Teacher Longbow is actually a bit of a dork.

After laughing, Qi Jing spoke to him, his eyes smiling, “I came here with him.”

Saying this, he tugged at the cuff of the man beside him. At that point, Shen Yan slowly stepped forward and gave Zhang Cheng a well-mannered, courteous bow, “Teacher Zhang, good evening.”

When Zhang Cheng heard him, he gasped. Shen Yan’s voice wasn’t as easily recognisable, but once he linked him together with Don’t ask for my return date and thought about it, the answer wasn’t all that difficult to find. “The double-champion—”

There were plenty of people who became winners, but there was only one double-champion.

And clearly, Zhang Cheng guessed right.

“You said that you came with him…” He muttered to himself, then his gaze shook when he suddenly realised something, guessing the reason by himself, “So that’s how it was… I understand.”

“Mhm. I will have to ask Teacher to keep it a secret.” Qi Jing smiled cheerfully.

“Okay.” Zhang Cheng nodded, stupefied.

Little Lolita blinked her eyes, glancing back and forth between them, signalling naively: maybe daddy understands, but I still don’t.

She just knew that this uncle was about to kiss that uncle, and only knew that that uncle was also willing, because he closed his eyes. But in the end, they didn’t kiss.

Little Lolita was kind of disappointed.

The recording studio for this instalment of ⟪Order to End the Heavens⟫ belonged to the film company Zhang Cheng worked at, so aside of appearing as the representative of the official judges, he was also there as the employee of their company. After the introduction event concludes, he would take the contestants with the company cars to the recording studio, so that they could see and test the equipment. The next day would be the first official day of recording.

“Both of the Teachers said that they don’t fit the rowdy places, so they chose to wait for us at the recording studio.” Zhang Cheng told them the reason for Yuan Zhengming’s and Pu Yuzhi’s absence for the introduction event.

“Excuse me… Can I also come along? I can even take a taxi if that’s okay.” When he heard that those two were also currently in Beijing, Qi Jing’s eyes lit up as he asked.

“Haha, you can come along with us, it’s not a problem. The Teachers will surely love to see you as well.”

Maybe for them, Qi Jing’s arrival might be just as much of a pleasant surprise.

Zhang Cheng chatted away as he led the two of them to the venue. As it was still a while before the start of the event, the workers were still doing the final audio checks and a long line was already lining up for the check-in.

There were two desks at the reception—one for the contestants and another for the fans, who had to show their pass to get admitted inside. Qi Jing let Shen Yan go to the contestants’ line, taking out the ticket he bought beforehand and lining up for the other one. This way, they split for the admission, avoiding the possibility of someone making any associations between them.

There was a significantly greater amount of female comrades chattering on Qi Jing’s side, visibly excited. Most of them came to see the voice actors, while the male comrades like him were either the game’s fans, or the fans of the source novel. He gladly accepted being mistaken as one and calmly lined up among those numerous girls, hence he heard the following exchange.

“I don’t know if Kitty’s Papa came here, I’m looking forward to seeing him!”

—He already came, he’s right in the middle of filling the documents over there.

“I’m kind of nervous… What if he turns out to look ugly? I appreciate Kitty’s Papa voice acting a lot, but I’m actually a face-con through and through…”

—Mn… Personally, I think that Kitty’s Papa is very handsome, but this lady, I’m pretty sure you’ll like Noodles or Five’s type of by-the-book hottie more?

“It’s such a pity that Don’t ask for my return date didn’t get in.” There were even some of his supporters among people here, how awesome.

“That’s what I’m saying…”

—Aiyaya, this esteemed one is standing right behind you though.

Just at this moment, the doors of the entrance got pushed open, and Tan Zixian walked in.

Qi Jing didn’t see that with his own eyes—rather, he heard the girls behind him suddenly grow completely silent, then exclaiming with a gasp, their voices rippling slightly, and inferred from this that they probably saw someone pleasing to an eye coming in. And when he looked back—sure enough, it was him. But he didn’t see Qiu Tianyang—he probably hid away somewhere after his encounter with Shen Yan.

Qi Jing thought that if Qiu Tianyang was also to come in at the same time… the scene would certainly become quite ‘splendid’…

“Who is that guy who just came in? He’s so hot!”

“He must be the game company’s worker, he’s wearing a full suit… Eh, wait! He went to the register for the contestants! He’s actually a contestant!”

Even without Qiu Tianyang not showing up, the girls’ morale was surging high.

“I bet ten bucks on him being ‘Qin Tuo’!”

“I’m betting twenty on him being ‘Fang Yisheng’!”

—I’m taking your thirty bucks, this guy is in fact the wife-material little page boy “Lu Wei”. All that time, Qi Jing kept a deep smile of someone counting the newly-earned money on his face.

According to the arrangements, the contestants were supposed to be led by the company workers onto the stage, while the fans would take a seat below, the flow of people separated away from each other.

After filling out the paperwork, Shen Yan was continuously swarmed by the workers—some of them came to express their admiration, some to exchange polite nothings, and some just wanted to take a look at the double-champion, so he wouldn’t be able to leave for a while. Once he remembered that after the start of the event he would have to go up the stage and would have no time to look for Qi Jing, he could only turn his head to steal a glance at him from afar.

After he was done with taking care of things on his side, Qi Jing played with Zhang Cheng’s little Lolita in the corner while looking at the crowd of the people to search for the trace of that man from time to time, smiling quietly as he saw him being circled by so many people.

When he saw Shen Yan looking at him, he chuckled softly and waved a hand at him, giving him an impeccable display of ‘don’t worry about me’.

“Uncle won’t go there?” Little Lolita saw him getting distracted during playing, gazing toward the other uncle—and it wasn’t just gazing, Qi Jing wouldn’t be content with just stealing a glance before having another one, so she grew curious. Whenever she was missing her daddy and mommy, she wouldn’t have to be so stealthy about it and would just bolt over to them.

Qi Jing smiled faintly and shook his head.

“He’s talking with other people, uncle would only disturb him if he went there.”

“Don’t you want to talk with him, uncle?” Little Lolita’s hunger for knowledge was like a bottomless well—no matter how much you gave it, it would never get filled.

“I do,” Qi Jing poked little Lolita’s nose, smiling as he watched her rub her nose with a puzzled expression, “But you know, uncle will have a lot more opportunities to talk with him in the future… It doesn’t have to be now. And uncle hopes for him to speak more with other people, to talk more.”

“Why?” In little Lolita’s tiny worldview, the word ‘patience’ didn’t quite exist yet, just as there was no concept of wanting to let the other people grow.

“Wait for when you meet your own little prince, then you will understand—” Qi Jing chuckled.

“Little prince~” Sure enough, the little Lolita’s eyes lit up and she pointed toward Tan Zixian in the distance, “Xiaomiao wants one like him!”

…This little Lolita’s taste was definitely brilliant, she chose the best looking man present there. Qi Jing could only admire her eye for faces.

The introduction event was about to begin.

Qi Jing was about to say his goodbyes to the little Lolita and go look for a seat to wait for the event, but he noticed some peculiar behaviour in the workers around. Something must have happened, since the people with company employee IDs were rushing in and out of the entrance, as if looking for someone. And the worker responsible for leading the contestants onto the stage also didn’t begin for the longest time, stalling for almost ten minutes below it with a worried look on his face.

…Weird. Qi Jing thought to himself. On the occasion of sending little Lolita to her dad’s side, he quickly asked Zhang Cheng, “Teacher Longbow, what happened? Is something wrong with the equipment?”

“Ah, no,” Zhang Cheng sighed, a bit helpless, “It’s like this—right now, we still don’t have our most important contestant, and at this point, we’re already ten minutes late for the scheduled beginning of the event—yet he’s nowhere to be seen. If he doesn’t arrive, we won’t be able to conduct our contestant introduction segment, with the main role’s actor missing and all.”

Qi Jing was dumbfounded.

The main character ‘Qin Tuo’—wasn’t that Two?

“The champion for ‘Qin Tuo’ hasn’t shown up yet?” It was past the time already, yet an important contestant like him didn’t turn up? But he didn’t seem like someone who would forget about punctuality…

“He didn’t answer the call.”

Maybe because the workers really didn’t know what to do, Qiu Tianyang also had to show up.

Who knows if he was ‘taking a refuge’ in the backstage equipment room or what before, but Qi Jing saw him secretly sneaking out of a small room marked as “⟪Order to End the Heavens⟫ employees only”, still not daring to approach the contestants. When Zhang Cheng and Qi Jing came over, he was hiding in the corner, dialling a call after call with a frown.

But Two didn’t even answer it.

Fortunately, the fans wouldn’t mind as much if this sort of introduction event got a bit delayed, they just sat below the stage and chatted away. But if the delay got any longer, someone would surely begin to complain.

“Begin the event first, if it really won’t do then we’ll just skip over ‘Qin Tuo’ first and begin with the other contestants.” If even Qiu Tianyang himself couldn’t contact Two, then the organisers were even more helpless.

The workers could only begin to prepare for the start of the event.

“In the end, Two…” why did he go missing? Qi Jing’s reporter nature made itself known—if he didn’t understand the cause, then even if he went to sit down, he would still remain restless.

“Don’t know,” Qiu Tianyang tried calling him, messaging, WeChatting, emailing, but it all remained unanswered, making him so tense that he started pacing in place, anxious, “Return Date, you first go find a place to sit, it’s enough for me as the company’s representative to handle it.”

Qi Jing still wanted to say something, but at that time, Qiu Tianyang cleared his throat, speaking to him in the smallest of voices, “…And most importantly, if you stand here with me, I… will get glared at.”

…True.

Hearing him say so, Qi Jing raised his head to take a look at the contestant who had already gone on the scene, and as expected—Shen Yan was there, staring unmovingly at Qiu Tianyang with a frown, his gaze especially chilly.

Aside from him, Tan Zixian also threw a sideways glance their way.

…The pressure on Qiu Tianyang was probably reaching its limit…

Qi Jing wanted to laugh, but knew that it would be unbecoming of him in this situation, so he could only follow Qiu Tianyang’s words and go look for a seat for himself first.

Maybe influenced by following the camera crew to quite a few news conferences before, Qi Jing habitually went to the last, deserted row—he planned to ‘record’ the whole course of the event with his own eyes, like a camera would. Either way, most of the people sitting at the front were little fans doing their best to see the contestants’ faces, he would gain nothing from fighting over the closest seats with them.

For the beginning, the game company would surely send a high-ranking employer to deliver the opening speech.

Initially, Qi Jing presumed it would surely be Qiu Tianyang, so he didn’t expect to see a middle-aged and sly-looking man. But he seemed terribly proficient at juggling the official-sounding words, most likely well-versed to put on all kinds of pretences.

“This is the direct organiser of this voice acting competition, our department’s event manager.” As he was listening, Qiu Tianyang also snuck to the last row at some point. He initially wanted to sit in the seat right beside Qi Jing, but after a moment of consideration, he embarrassedly shifted a bit further, leaving one empty seat between them—it was, of course, all to avoid ‘getting glared at’.

Qi Jing had to press his lips together to avoid laughing, “With the department director here, how can someone lower-ranking than you try to claim this merit?”

Qiu Tianyang gave him a look. “…What do you think, with our voices being this recognizable, what would happen if we went up and spoke?”

“…It would get extreme.”

“I’m glad that you understand.”

Qi Jing saw him grip his phone tightly in his hand, but he wasn’t calling continuously anymore. When he saw that things didn’t seem to take a turn for the better, Qi Jing’s voice fell, “You still didn’t manage to contact Two?”

“Mhm,” Qiu Tianyang looked up, a bit tired, leaning against the seat back as he massaged his forehead, “I gave up. Now that I think of it, he didn’t want to do it in the first place. Tt was me who roped him into signing up—this boy previously got done dirty by a certain studio, so he holds a strong prejudice against professional voice acting now. It took me a lot of time to finally convince him to take part in the competition, I thought that Teacher Yuan could give him the push he needed—but well, he might have thought about it and regretted agreeing to it.”

Qi Jing listened quietly to that point, but then, he shook his head slightly, “Though I haven’t known him for as long as you, what I do know is that Two isn’t the type of person to do something like this. He’s the type that, if he agreed to do it, he would commit to the very end.”

Qiu Tianyang was speechless. After a long while, he finally smiled faintly. “You’re right. We can still wait for a bit longer…”

At that time, that event manager’s speech also concluded. After he went off the stage, Yang Chunqu, ⟪Order to End the Heavens⟫ competition’s host now doubling as the host for this introduction event went up the stage with a smile.

The impression she gave was about the same as her voice—she was a very tall north-east beauty, her face round and a slightly plump figure—but with her impressive height, her shapes looked proportional, a very standard of beauty.

“Next is the segment everyone was waiting for the most—the introduction from the champions of the third instalment of ⟪Order to End the Heavens⟫ voice acting competition.” The very moment she announced this, the fans below the stage bursted in exclamations, the atmosphere turning even livelier in a moment. But Yang Chunqu had an announcement to make to everyone beforehand, and since it was a bad news, she gave a troubled smile, “Today we were supposed to go through the introductions in the order starting from main characters, through the side characters to finally NPCs, but because of a various mishaps, the champion for the ‘Qin Tuo’ role is absent, so…”

The moment she said that, a commotion bursted from the originally jubilant crowd below, like a drop falling into a pot of boiling oil. Qi Jing even saw Shen Yan standing in the backs of the line of people making an astonished expression, then furrowing his brow.

“So that’s how it is…”

“What is it! I only came all the way here to see ‘Qin Tuo’!”

“If the winner is absent, then doesn’t that mean that he can’t sign the contract? Doesn’t that mean that the voice actor will have to be changed…? No, please! I beg you, don’t change this voice actor…”

When announcing this bad news, Yang Chunqu already foresaw people’s reaction, continuing to speak with an unwavering calm, “Ladies and gentlemen, please rest at ease. Before our workers the details about his absence, no decision will be made, you can be sure of that.”

Her words had a certain calming effect, so sure enough, the fans slowly settled down.

“Then, let’s begin our introductions with the champion for our first female main character, ‘Su Miaoyu’…”

She was getting ready to proceed according to the plan, when suddenly, a loud ‘bang—’ sound was heard from the main entrance, scaring her into a jolt as she stopped her words.

Everyone’s gazes swooshed uniformly to the door at that moment, and the entrance also opened in response, letting a man walk inside.

“Ahhh!” Someone cried from where the fans sat, then more and more started screeching.

It was because of the blood—the newcomer’s body was splattered with no small amount of it. His left arm had clearly been stabbed, the bloodstain there especially bad, with the sleeve of his coat slashed open into a large hole, now held tightly by that person’s hand.

Faced with the venue-full of horror-like cries, that person remained fairly cool, only asking indifferently, “Am I late?”

A/N:

Little Lolita is so sweet~ (I think that maybe 2Yan and Kitty’s Papa would be suitable to adopt a daughter, rubs chin)

But aside of that, Longbow and his wife actually asked Teacher Yuan to come up with her name. Teacher Yuan chose this name out of his boundless love for his seedlings… (oi) I’m actually also there with our Lolita, wanting to see the uncles kissing~ (oi oi oi—)

And Five had it coming, he deserves getting glared at ╮(╯∀╰)╭

As for Two… This sure is one hell of a shocking entrance… _(:3」∠)_