Chapter 9

Warning: Animal abuse

Based on his experience, the vast majority of the words that one “didn’t know whether they should say it out or not” shouldn’t be voiced out.

While it shouldn’t be said, holding it in made one feel really uncomfortable.

Though Qi Jing had basically guessed what she was going to say—

Go ahead. He typed that short reply on the keyboard.

In the past, it was always someone else who was the listener, but this time, he didn’t mind being someone else’s listener for a change.

After getting his consent, Knives cutting in from four corners still agonised over it for a few seconds before she continued the topic very carefully, like she was treading on thin ice. Every time she was going to have a serious discussion with him, she would directly call him, “Return date”, and do away with the “-sama”.

Director – Knives cutting in from four corners: Return date, the words that I am about to say below can absolutely become part of my dark past. If I were to upset you one day and we fall out, you can take a screenshot of my words and put it on the forum to get back at me. It is guaranteed to force me to commit ID suicide and leave the circle for good.

CV – Don’t ask for my return date: I would do no such thing, please be rest assured. ^_^

Director – Knives cutting in from four corners: Then I’m really gonna start…

Director – Knives cutting in from four corners: With a hand on my heart, after listening to the run-through just now… I feel that the casting for the ML Gong might have been inappropriate.

Director – Knives cutting in from four corners: Great God’s voice is really very powerful but it might be a little too overpowering and doesn’t quite match the description of the character in the book. And even if we ignore his voice and just listen to his sense of play, I think there also are problems in his interpretation of the character’s emotions.

Director – Knives cutting in from four corners: When I was listening to that run-through the other night, I really became absorbed into the world of the story. It may sound abstract, but what I’m trying to say is that I was just really into it. You performed very well that day and we were all moved by the performance by the two of you. Although it wasn’t an official recording session, the process was still extremely enjoyable. Sometimes, just listening to the final product doesn’t give one as much feels.

Director – Knives cutting in from four corners: And honestly, tonight… I didn’t get that kind of feeling at all. It just feels so-so.

Then, she stopped here.

Qi Jing did not reply but instead waited patiently for her to send her final conclusion. After a short pause, the words that she had been holding back for a long time finally popped up on the screen.

Director – Knives cutting in from four corners: Alright, what I actually want to say is—I think Geese Fly North did a better job than Bronze Sparrow Terrace.

Qi Jing still didn’t make his response, but the corners of his lips curled up slightly, revealing his first genuine smile of the night. Knives cutting in from four corners added that her comments were “only for this particular role” and that “the other audio dramas by Bronze Sparrow Terrace are not bad”, etc, but Qi Jing already understood what she meant.

So it turned out that he wasn’t the only one who thought that way—

Getting affirmation from the director of the production crew suddenly relieved all the pent-up feelings he had in his heart and he felt a lot lighter.

That was more than enough for him.

CV – Don’t ask for my return date: Thank you.

Director – Knives cutting in from four corners: What are you thanking me for, Return date?? I’m the one who should be thanking you for listening to my crazy talk ┭┮﹏┭┮

CV – Don’t ask for my return date: Then in return, and also for the sake of fairness, I’d like to also say a few words that can be regarded as my personal dark history.

CV – Don’t ask for my return date: If I were to upset you one day and we fall out, you can take a screenshot of my words and put it on the forum to get back at me. It is guaranteed to force me to commit ID suicide and leave the circle for good. (Laughs)

Director – Knives cutting in from four corners: Return date-sama, you just copied and pasted those words!

Director – Knives cutting in from four corners: Ahem, please go ahead as well.

CV – Don’t ask for my return date: First of all, I agree with the conclusion that you came to just now.

CV – Don’t ask for my return date: However, although I’m just a CV, who’s only involved in voice acting and technically shouldn’t be involved in the internal affairs of the crew, I personally think that—the cast can’t be changed.

Director – Knives cutting in from four corners: …

Director – Knives cutting in from four corners: …

Director – Knives cutting in from four corners: …You agreed with me but you still say this. Ah, this is such a struggle… ┭┮﹏┭┮

CV – Don’t ask for my return date: I understand that from a director’s standpoint, you definitely want to choose the most suitable CV. But please think about Ms. Producer and the rest of the crew. It’s gotten to the point where the consequences of replacing him are unimaginable.

CV – Don’t ask for my return date: Bronze Sparrow Terrace may not be the most suitable, but he was the one that the crew decided on right from the beginning. And his fans already know that he is going to be on this drama, trying to replace him will only result in the crew being cursed at and attacked by them. Speaking objectively, when the drama comes out, the Great God’s star effect will surely attract a lot of audiences to listen to it and greatly increase the exposure of the production crew. The crew will also receive many reviews which is the hard-earned reward for the hard work of those working on the audio drama.

CV – Don’t ask for my return date: I don’t know what is the main motivation for Rouge Flower to do this audio drama, but there are both attention and an audience for it. And frankly speaking, which crew wouldn’t want that? Geese Fly North-sama may be an excellent CV, but he doesn’t have that kind of popularity and appeal, nor do I. Even if the crew doesn’t get attacked for changing CVs, it’s likely that the drama will be left out in the cold when it is released and there’ll be no one who’ll listen to it.

CV – Don’t ask for my return date: In addition… I’d be very sorry if this incident were to cause a negative impact on Geese Fly North.

CV – Don’t ask for my return date: As a resident Mr. Transparent, that’s all I can say. I hope the crew will carefully mull over this. ^_^

After sending those long paragraphs of texts, Qi Jing felt like he had finally released all the words he kept buried in his heart for the past feel days and felt much more relieved.

In fact, it was the same in any circle. The most suitable may not be the best.

At this time, he received a friend request from Knives cutting in from four corners on QQ. They usually contacted through the crew group, but this time, the director wanted to officially add him as a friend.

After accepting her request, Knives cutting in from four corners said nothing more about the topic, and instead expressed her sentiments with an extremely serious tone.

Knives cutting in from four corners: Return date, you are a CV that’s truly worth making friends with in this circle.

Qi Jing froze for a moment when he saw those words, then he felt something warm well up in his heart. He was so touched by her words. He reckoned that might have been the highest evaluation anyone has given him in his CV career thus far.

“Thank you.” He was someone who was very easily contented.

To be able to receive such a comment, he would do his very best to complete this drama regardless of the outcome or the person he was playing against.

All’s well that ends well.

Although the rehearsal with Bronze Sparrow Terrace that night couldn’t be said to be smooth sailing, they did conclude it peacefully.

The publicity that they got from the name, Bronze Sparrow Terrace, was even better than expected. On the forum, the expectations that everyone had for the audio drama《Trap》skyrocketed, becoming a trending hot topic in recent days.

The crew struck while the iron was hot and got the two main leads to finish and hand their dry recordings to the sound designer for post-production as soon as possible.

Of course, Rouge Flower did not mention a word about making a substitution.

Knives cutting in from four corners also chose to compromise.

As for Qi Jing, in order to accommodate with Bronze Sparrow Terrace’s performance, he re-recorded a version of his dry recordings with 0.5 voice and completed his task. According to the progress as disclosed by the sound designer, once she has received all the dry recordings, she can finish it in a month. If nothing crops up, she estimates that the drama can be released in September.

Naturally, the fans of Bronze Sparrow Terrace were overjoyed by this news.

—It’s truly highly anticipated.

Meanwhile, it was as if the person known as Geese Fly North had disappeared into thin air.

His disappearance was really sudden. Apparently, he wrote in his QQ signature that he was going to stop receiving any new work, causing all the producers that lack a Grandpa voice to be in a distress.

Puppet Show once tried to drag him into the crew group chat but the other party did not accept the invitation. That’s because the role of the grandfather was at best, an extra that only appears in the first episode.

Puppet Show also sent him an invitation, hoping that he would consider playing the role of a main lead in another show.

Surprisingly, they didn’t receive his dry recordings this time, but rather, was turned down politely with five words: I don’t play main leads.

“He refused to accept no matter what I said,” Puppet Show once said that to Qi Jing dejectedly when they were having some small talk.

“I see…” Even though he’s that outstanding.

Those were the words Qi Jing murmured to himself. He couldn’t keep track of the number of times he inadvertently opened the subfolder named, “Reference recording” to look at the recording file and realise that that might have been their only exchange as leads of an audio drama. And he couldn’t help but find himself feeling at a loss.

He did have the urge to ask Puppet Show for Geese Fly North’s QQ, but once he calmed down, he felt that he didn’t seem to have a reason to do so.

Sometimes, when the quality of his sleep isn’t good and he still can’t fall asleep even though it’s already in the wee hours of the morning, he would listen to that recording on his headphones while lying in bed. The end of the recording always ends with him saying goodnight alone.

As if it had barely begun and ended silently.

Qi Jing thought to himself, since he was done repaying his debts, it was time for him to put his focus back on the 3D world.

The online voice acting circle was ultimately just an online voice acting circle. The word “online” had sealed its fate as something that wasn’t real. That sense of loss in his heart just needed some time and the busyness of real life to wash it out.

With that, he can forget about that person.

“Xiao Qi, the information you compiled the other time was pretty good, and the program received a lot of positive feedback after it aired.” Director Tang of the Science and Education Channel said to Qi Jing when he visited the News Channel after lunch break. He was very pleased with the script Qi Jing helped to draft the previous time.

“Haha, that’s because the show itself was interesting and it piqued my interest. You don’t have to be so polite about it, Director Tang,” Qi Jing replied courteously with a smile while paying attention to his surroundings to see if there were any suspicious people hiding in the corners to eavesdrop.

Should Mr. S.O.B hear Director Tang complimenting him, he’ll have to bear with the sarcastic comments again.

Director Tang raised an eyebrow at Qi Jing’s reply, seemingly surprised. “Oh, you’re interested in birds?”

Qi Jing said with a smile, “I’m not that into it. It just so happened that I’ve been seeing some names related to birds recently so I paid special attention to it.”

Director Tang nodded and said, “I see. Speaking of which, I especially enjoyed the section about wild geese. I only knew that wild geese were birds that signaled a change in the seasons. In ancient times, they would often be used to describe the coming of autumn, as well as to imply people, who were displaced, bidding their hometowns farewell. I thought these were some pretty sad symbolism, but you added some beautiful meanings as well.”

Geese migrate on time, flies in an orderly manner and only has one mate in their entire lifetime.

Therefore, geese are a symbol of both keeping promises and being faithful and loyal.

In ancient times, when a couple got married, the man was required to give the woman a pair of geese as a betrothal gift, to express his desire to grow old with the other.

“It’s the summer holidays now, with many students in the audience, adding something related to love can attract more of the younger female audience,” Qi Jing said half-jokingly.

Director Tang appeared like he was suddenly enlightened and his cheeks shook while he chuckled, “As expected of young people like you, you truly understand the mentality of the younger generation!”

“Qi Jing! Hurry over now, Qi Jing!” a colleague called out to him from behind the partition. It looked like there was breaking news again.

“Go ahead, doing news is your original job after all.” Director Tang let him off and did not hold him any longer.

Qi Jing went to the desk of the colleague that was calling out to him and the latter handed him a microphone while saying that someone had contacted the TV station hoping that the News Channel could send someone down immediately.

The voice of the young girl on the phone was shaking, and one could feel her anger through the receiver. “Hello, Reporter Comrade, I am a member of the city’s Animal Rescue Volunteer Association. Can you please hurry to XX neighbourhood in the north of the city? There has been another case of cruel cat abuse here. I hope the provincial TV station can pay attention to it.”

Qi Jing got the shock of his life.

This was the third cat abuse incident in the city in a row in the last month. The uproar from the previous case had yet to pass, to think there’d be another psycho following suit. Since the first case of animal cruelty came to light, the TV station had done some follow-up reports on the matter. Some of the scenes were so unbearably gory, the news broadcast would pick the animals with relatively more minor injuries to show and those that were too shocking were put on the online news forum.

Qi Jing was in charge of drafting up the posts for the information on the matter to be uploaded onto the forum hence, his colleague’s first reaction was to hand this case to him.

“I understand. I will seek my superior’s permission and head down right away. Please leave your contact information.” Qi Jing picked up a pen and a paper and noted down the other party’s phone number. He hung up the phone and immediately went to the director of the News Channel to seek his permission and hurried out.

When he got to the scene, there were onlookers circling the area condemning the cruelty of the animal abuser. Several members of the Animal Rescue Association were also there. They had driven a minivan to the neighbourhood and were carefully moving the injured cats into square basins prepped with blankets to be sent for emergency treatment. From the junction, Qi Jing could see lines of dried blood that had splattered on the road and he felt a pang in his heart.

“Hi, I’m Qi Jing, a reporter from the provincial TV station. May I know which one of you is Ms. Zhu who contacted us just now?” Qi Jing squeezed through the crowd and flashed his reporter ID.

“I am! Thank you for coming down!” the young Ms. Zhu quickly went to greet him.

According to Ms. Zhu, most of the cats are stray cats from around the area. A resident in the community secretly caught them and abused them in the backyard of an abandoned shop. Because the place was dilapidated, no one usually paid much attention to it. Until recently, when the string of cat abuse incidents attracted people’s attention, and the atrocities that occurred there were finally uncovered.

The volunteers on site brought Qi Jing to have a look at the current conditions of the cats. One of the more serious cases had its eyes stabbed with sharp metal objects. As it was too deep, they dared not take any action and could only wait for a professional to remove it.

There was also a cat with three broken paws. The broken bones were probably stabbing into its flesh as every movement caused the cat the meow in pain. There were also those that were burned, those with their tail cut off, they were all lying weakly on the blanket, trembling and staring at all those that neared them with extreme fear in their eyes.

“This is too cruel…” Qi Jing could feel his own voice starting to shake, he completely understood how Ms. Zhu was feeling when she called him. He communicated with the film crew and left to gather more information by himself while they took footages of the predicament of the cats.

“Right now, we need to send these cats to the hospital for emergency treatment. Reporter Comrade, if you don’t mind you can come with us,” Ms. Zhu offered when was being interviewed.

Qi Jing was also very concerned about the follow-up to the rescue, so he asked his colleagues to return to the TV station first and hitched a ride the rescue association.

On the way to the hospital, he gently stroked the fur of one of the cats that had fallen unconscious from blood loss while asking, “I’ve done reports on similar incidents before, however, everyone’s attention is generally focussed on the criminals. Few actually pay attention to what happens to the cats after the incident. Where do you usually go for help?”

“Here’s the thing,” Ms. Zhu explained, “while all veterinary hospitals can provide medical help, the cost of medical care varies widely. After the cats are cured, in the case of some hospitals, if they are not adopted, the cats will be sterilised and released back onto the streets which is completely unsafe. However, our association was recently introduced to a hospital that was willing to charge a very low fee to save these little guys and help make proper adoption arrangements for the cats after the fact, so we’ve been sending all the cats that we have rescued there.”

“Oh? Such a good hospital exists?” Qi Jing exclaimed in astonishment.

After all, some veterinary drugs are incredibly expensive and if these small animals are seriously injured, it takes even more time and energy to take care of them. In today’s money-worshipping society, he found it quite hard to believe that there was a profit-making organization willing to do such a thing.

“Yeah, I heard it was one of the vets there who first started doing this.”

“Vet?”

“Yeah, a vet from that veterinary hospital. Wasn’t there another case of cat abuse in this city some time ago? There was a cat that almost had its internal organs smashed right? The one that was mentioned on TV and in the papers—it was that vet who rescued it.”

Qi Jing straightened his back a little. Unable to contain the curiosity due to his innate nature as a reporter, he asked, “Can I… meet that vet?”

A/N: I was in so much pain when I was writing about the cats… TAT

I’ve always thought of animal abusers as absolute scum…

Lilies: I almost cried while translating the part about the cats TT_TT