Don’t Be a Kept Man

Chapter 71: An Honest Man

Since Chen Yi said it like this, to reject him would mean that he was hiding something more.
And so Fu Xiu Nian could only stutter out in agreement, 

“O…..Ok.”

His normal calm and logical processing was all scrambled up right now, and the pictures on the television were slowly becoming incomprehensible.
He could only see the people move their mouths, but he could not register a single word that entered his ears.

When it was almost 11, the two of them couldn’t stand it anymore and prepared to head to bed.
Fu Xiu Nian found a loose set of casual loungewear in his closet and gave it to Chen Yi, 

“This is new.
I haven’t worn this before, so you can wear this after your shower.”

“Thanks.”

Chen Yi threw the clothes over his shoulder and headed towards the bathroom.
When he passed by the kitchen however, his eyes caught a very familiar sight.
He couldn’t help but double back as he hadn’t been paying attention a second ago, 

“Did you make the takeout today?”

Fu Xiu Nian smiled with his eyes curved up, and he tried his hardest to push down the corners of his mouth that were trying to tilt up.
He nodded his head with force, 

“I followed some recipes online.”

Chen Yi raised his eyebrows, 

“No way.
Your food tasted so bad before.”

Fu Xiu Nian explained with a serious tone, 

“That’s because there weren’t a lot of options, and I didn’t know how to start a fire with the primitive stove before.
The rice could only either be raw or overcooked into a pile of mush, so it can’t be helped.”

Chen Yi didn’t say anything else and instead just gave him a look.
Then he turned towards the bathroom and headed to shower.

Wah la la. 

The sound of water could be heard through the door very clearly, even with that barrier, and Fu Xiu Nian silently sat on the couch with this sound in the background.
His eyes were locked onto the screen of Chen Yi’s phone, and after a long while, he was about to move his gaze away, when suddenly someone sent a message and the phone on the coffee table chirped once.

The black screen lit up, and Fu Xiu Nian casually panned his gaze over to it.
His eyes couldn’t help but lock on to the words —

Xiao Meng: Take care of yourself outside.

Chen Yi had never exposed any information about his family and with Chen Xiao Meng practically living in the hospital before, very few even knew that he had a sister.

Fu Xiu Nian was surprised at this message, and his mind blanked out for a while.
In that time, Chen Yi, freshly changed into a black t-shirt and grey lounge pants, had already walked out of the bathroom.
His hair was still dripping with water and from a glance, one could see that his body was very thin.
Compared to the regular him in the day, there was another sexiness, a coolness emitting out of him.

Fu Xiu Nian retracted his gaze and was slow in standing up, 

“Someone seemed to have sent you a message just now.”

Chen Yi used a towel to dry his hair, and upon hearing this, he picked up his phone to take a look.
His fingers quickly composed a simple and short message and didn’t say anything else.

Fu Xiu Nian lowered his eyes, deep in thought and then he smiled, 

“Is it your girlfriend?”

Upon hearing him, Chen Yi raised his eyebrow, fakely smiling at him with his hawk eyes.
With the white towel around his neck, his aura suddenly changed into something very thug-like.
Stepping right into Fu Xiu Nian’s personal space, he said, 

“What does it matter if it is; what does it matter if it isn’t?”

His words were as if he had said nothing at all.

At this moment, the two of them were so close to each other that they could be breathing in each other’s air.
Fu Xiu Nian took a step back to avoid Chen Yi and turned to clean up the garbage on the table.
He gently said, 

“Nothing.
Go blow dry your hair.
It’s very cold at night, and it’s easy to get a headache that way.”

Chen Yi walked into the bedroom and fell back on the bed, making anyone who could see him like this feel the urge to beat him up, 

“My hair’s not long, and I’m too lazy to blow dry it.”

Fu Xiu Nian put down whatever he had in his hands and grabbed a hair dryer out of the drawer.
He forcefully dragged Chen Yi out of bed and said, 

“No.
Your hair will make the pillow wet.”

Chen Yi was very unwilling, 

“It’ll be dry by tomorrow.”

Even though he said that, he was still forcefully dragged away to a short stool by the bed.
Fu Xiu Nian was not very gently brushing Chen Yi’s hair, and there was a very big contrast between his movements and the warm gentle air blowing through.

Chen Yi lifted his head up to look at him and said honestly, 

“I feel like you are being a bit rough with me today.”

Fu Xiu Nian paused in his movements for a second before continuing.
This time, however, he was much more gentle, and with a very calm expression, he said

 

“False impression.”

Chen Yi: “Are you climbing a wall?1 Which celebrity? Do I know them?”

Fu Xiu Nian: “……No.”

Chen Yi’s hair wasn’t long, so it only took about seven to eight minutes before it was completely dry.
He then proceeded to laze around on the bed, playing the snake game on his phone.
While he relaxed, Fu Xiu Nian put the hair dryer away and then went to clean up the mess in the living room.

There were a few bags of snacks left on the coffee table and the kitchen was not cleaned up yet either.
Fu Xiu Nian first cleaned up the island in the kitchen and then went to wash up the dishes.
He was putting the cleaned and dried dishes into the cabinets when his eyes caught the box of pumpkin flavoured snacks on the side.

He opened the box and a few twenty or so failed samples greeted him.
Some were burnt, some were not cooked all the way through, and some were missing some sugar.
All of them were piled up messily and unable to be consumed.

Fu Xiu Nian threw that box right into the garbage.
Chen Yi had heard him cleaning, and with that sudden noise, he finally shifted his attention away from the game.
He yelled out, 

“Go shower and sleep already.
Cleaning up outside while I’m here playing games.
Making me look like an animal, not even a decent human being.”

Fu Xiu Nian really wanted to reply, so you know.

But he still followed Chen Yi’s orders and put down what he was doing.

Not long after, the sound of water running could be heard.
Chen Yi was quite bored with his game by then, and he lifted his eyes to look at the door of the bathroom.
He couldn’t help but think back to when they were watching the program and of an inconspicuous comment that had flown by.

>> Does Fu Xiu Nian like Chen Yi? Why does he do everything that Chen Yi orders him to do?

Chen Yi was doubtful in his heart, was that true?

When Fu Xiu Nian finally came out of his long shower, he looked like one of those princes from the ancient dynasties, with his long lean body and the air of elegance that he projected.
Normally Chen Yi wouldn’t even have noticed, but once he took a closer look, Chen Yi found that Fu Xiu Nian’s waist was too skinny to be of this world.

The other could feel his stare and his heart that had finally calmed down was suddenly ramping up its rhythm again.
He hurriedly turned off the lights and climbed up the bed, calmly saying, 

“It’s late.
Let’s go to sleep.”

The room was drenched in darkness, but neither of them had an inkling of sleep.

Fu Xiu Nian normally lived by himself and he had always internally lacked a sense of safety, so he had not ordered a very big bed.
The two of them just perfectly fit within the tight space, and the cons of such a small bed were beginning to show up when Chen Yi could casually flip his body around and still brush against Fu Xiu Nian’s arm.

Fu Xiu Nian discreetly shuffled towards the edge of the bed, thinking, why didn’t he just go sleep on the couch.

Fu Xiu Nian didn’t know if Chen Yi was purposefully trying to provoke him as he kept flipping around and then shuffling closer to him.
He would then naturally shuffle farther and farther away, trying to avoid him.

Closer, farther, closer, farther.

Just when Fu Xiu Nian was about to fall off the bed, a strong arm suddenly wrapped around his waist and used a little strength to pull him back in.

Chen Yi said, 

“Can’t let you drop off.”

Fu Xiu Nian didn’t expect that and his entire body was pulled into Chen Yi’s embrace.
His back was against Chen Yi’s chest, filling up his entire body with the dominant aura of Chen Yi, and he couldn’t help but freeze up.

He was starting to have feelings of regret, and he wondered why he wanted the other to stay today.

Chen Yi said in the dark, hesitatingly judging, 

“Your waist…… seems to be quite thin.”

Fu Xiu Nian paused, 

“What about your girlfriend then? You haven’t held your girlfriend before?”

Chen Yi: “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Fu Xiu Nian: “Oh.”

Someone with no sense of safety at all will naturally be used to hugging something before going to sleep every night.
Chen Yi has never had that habit, but when he woke up the next morning, he found that he had wrapped Fu Xiu Nian in his embrace.

The deathly tight kind of embrace.

The other was leaning on the skinny side, but it was not to the extent of anorexia.
When you held him, it felt quite comfortable and with how men usually have a certain reaction in the morning, and his back was against Chen Yi……

Well, so to say, the two of them were in quite an awkward position.

Chen Yi flipped open the blanket to take a look and then soundlessly retracted his hand back.
He quietly stepped out of bed to head into the washroom and following the slight sound of the door closing, the person lying on the bed moved.
He quietly pulled the blanket back up, leaving only a blushing ear outside.

Since yesterday, there was already a single use toothbrush and spare towel in the bathroom.
When Chen Yi finished washing up, Fu Xiu Nian had just woken up.
It was as if nothing had happened and he gave a very natural morning greeting to Chen Yi.

Fu Xiu Nian: “Did you eat breakfast? If not, I’ll go make it?”

Chen Yi held up his face with both of his hands and looked unexpectedly quite cute, 

“Doesn’t matter.
Either way works.”

Fu Xiu Nian headed towards the kitchen, 

“Then it’ll be juice, with egg and bacon sandwiches.”

He didn’t know whether it was because he was nervous or not, but his hands were starting to break out in a cold sweat again. 

The oil in the pan was slowly starting to heat up and Fu Xiu Nian broke an egg over it.
A slight sizzling sound sounded and when it came out of the pan, he did not seem to be very satisfied and went to refry another one.

Chen Yi’s ears were listening closely and he counted in his heart, just on a very quick base count, Fu Xiu Nian should have broken at least nine eggs into that pan.
But the plate that was served up only had three; each of them perfectly round, with a runny yolk, not too burnt and not overcooked.
All three were perfectly cooked with the perfect timing.

Faced against his curious eyes, Fu Xiu Nian calmly said, 

“You have two, I have one.
If that’s not enough, I’ll fry up some more.”

Chen Yi was silent for a bit before asking out of a curiosity that he couldn’t hold back, 

 

“Do you have OCD?”

OCD was a better word, but for something a bit worse, this was called paranoid personality disorder.2

Fu Xiu Nian took a sip of his juice and said with his eyes lowered, 

“Perhaps I have gotten used to it, but since I was young, I have always wanted to do things until they are perfect.”

Chen Yi laughed, 

“Not bad.
Like me.”

When he was focused on his cultivation in his past life, his perfectionist attitude was stronger than Fu Xiu Nian by many more times.

When they were about halfway through their breakfast, Chen Yi’s phone rang.
He didn’t think much of it when he saw it was Ling Dang, but once he answered it, the voice that came out of the speakers was Zhou Ming’s thunderous angry yells, 

“Chen Yi! Are you crazy!!! Get to the company now for a meeting!”

Chen Yi calmly drank his cup of water, 

“What’s the point of going immediately? To help dig you your own grave?”

Zhou Ming was wondering if his ears were going senile, as he could not understand how this Chen Yi that used to be so obedient to him had turned out like this.
At this moment, he was so angry that he felt faint and his words were coming out stuttered, 

“You you you……”

Chen Yi was too lazy to even care about him, 

“sb.”

And then hung up the phone.

Fu Xiu Nian had been watching him the entire time and wanted to laugh, but he held it in.
He coughed a few times before saying to Chen Yi, 

“You didn’t look at your weibo, did you? Li Su Li and Global Entertainment are going after each other’s throat.”

Chen Yi: “Hmm?”

Fu Xiu Nian explained, 

“Li Su Li’s popularity is already almost over.
Her manager lied to her to get her to accompany a fifty year old or so CF sponsor and she did.
But then that CF deal was given to Yang Nian Bing, a new artist that had been pushed and supported quite a bit by Global Entertainment.
Apparently Li Su Li got so mad that she decided to let loose all the shady aspects and details she knew of Global Ent, which included << I Came From Far Away >> and the scripted personas.”

He paused here and then looked Chen Yi in the eye, 

“Just today, she even spilled…… the company forced you to put on the anti-fan persona, so your company may be trying to have a private meeting with you.”

Chen Yi did not usually go online, and so he absolutely had no idea that weibo was flipping over itself at all the tea being spilled out.
After all, Li Su Li was one of Global Entertainment’s longest signed artists, and for all the things she had done on behalf or in association with the company, she had naturally kept a record of them all.
She held quite a bit of evidence in her hands, and things must have gotten so bad that she couldn’t take it anymore and just spilled it all out.

There had been too much news recently and all the netizens who lived for this drama were able to die fulfilled, bloating from all the piles and piles of spilled tea.
The internet was split almost perfectly in half between belief and disbelief, which was only aided by the bot armies hired by Global Ent, sending the battlefield, so to say, into even more chaos.
Nearly the entire entertainment industry was buzzing from this event.

>> What the fuck, Global Ent.
has no conscience do they? And I thought scripted personas would only be like those mukbangers (food-lovers), honest/class president types.
I can’t believe they would force an artist to set himself on fire.
Wow, I have been enlightened, very enlightened.

>> I’ve said before that there was no way Li Su Li could be such a bitch so obviously on the program.
I don’t like her, but this kind of thing where she’s being forced to do it, I believe it.
Has Global Ent done anything less to Chen Yi?

>> …… Is it only me that is hyper focused on Chen Yi? Li Su Li said Chen Yi was being forced to flame himself.
Is that true or fake???

>> Same

Chen Yi took a quick glance at weibo and found that the situation was snowballing into something bigger.
No wonder why Zhou Ming had gone straight to Ling Dang to get to him.
He should head to the company at least once though, as they might otherwise try to cause trouble for Chen Xiao Meng if backed into a corner.
And so after he finished breakfast, he said he was going to go.

Fu Xiu Nian couldn’t help but ask, 

“Are you going to Global Ent?”

Chen Yi raised his eyebrows and nodded, 

“To watch the show unfold.”

Whatever Fu Xiu Nian thought of then, it made him smile, 

“You sure are carefree.
But Global Ent.
has a strong controlling attitude towards their artists and they will act oppressively in order to limit their damages.
If you encounter any problems, come find me.”

Chen Yi asked back, 

“What would I go to you for?”

Fu Xiu Nian heard this and was surprised.
His fingers started twitching in anxiousness, 

“I…… I know a few friends, perhaps they can help you.”

Chen Yi smiled but didn’t reply.
He pushed back his chair and stood up, and on the way he patted Fu Xiu Nian’s head, 

“I’m leaving.
Don’t send me off.
I’ll come again to leech off another meal.”

His hands always felt so burning hot.
Although the pressure on his head was light, it was as if a dragonfly touched water, so fleeting.
Yet so gently that it didn’t seem like this could have been from Chen Yi.
Fu Xiu Nian blanked out and when he came back to his senses, the room was already devoid of the other’s presence.

Chen Yi wore a mask and took a taxi out to the headquarters of Global Entertainment.
But he was a bit late, as when he got there, the meeting was almost at its end.
In the meeting room on the second floor, the higher executives of Global Ent.
and Zhou Ming sat on one side while Li Su Li and her lawyers and assistants were right across from them, creating an invisible line between the two sides.

Both sides did not seem to have reached an agreement as Li Su Li just threw down a stack of papers and then coldly laughed before leaving.

Chen Yi was leaning against the office door, watching the drama.
When Li Su Li opened the door and saw him, she was at first so shocked that she almost jumped five feet up in the air.
But then she turned to emotionlessly look at him, saying with a dark undertone, 

“Chen Yi, you sure can hold it in.
But be careful you don’t end up like me.
Being blocked off in all corners, up to my last breath once they have finished using me up.”

Li Su Li looked very thin, or more accurately, she looked harrowed and gaunt.
Her cheeks looked like they had been sucked out of all life, and even with her face full of makeup, it did not hide how haggard and wane she looked.
Dark circles under her eyes, blood veins in her eyes, she looked like she had not slept for a very very long time, making those who were close to her fear for her life.

There was no one who wanted to be a human that would be hated by everyone.
None of them were gods; no one could endure almost seven, eight years of targeted hate and what is really cyber bullying.
What Global Entertainment was doing was just trying to suck out the last drops of blood until there wasn’t anything left anymore.
And perhaps Li Su Li had gotten enough of enduring such things, for a very long time now.

This road was a shortcut, but when you walked on this road, you lost more and more, far more than what you could receive.

And when you want to turn back, you will find that you have already walked too far in.

Chen Yi looked at her, and he had a rare moment where he didn’t say anything back, which made Li Su Li feel very out of place.
But then she quickly stepped past him with her high heels, leaving him there in the dust.

More people started to leave the meeting room, and when Zhou Ming came out and saw Chen Yi, his eyes wanted nothing more in that moment than to have the ability to fry him to death on the spot.
He was just going to say something when Chen Yi turned around, heading straight down the stairs with both hands in his pockets as he didn’t have the patience to hear anything coming from Zhou Ming’s mouth.

Zhou Ming quickly followed behind him to yell at him, 

 

“Chen Yi, I’m not going to even talk about what you have done these past few days, but you better keep your mouth shut on this! Don’t think you can learn to be like Li Su Li, that crazy woman, willing to destroy herself and her future.
There will be no good ending for you if you even think about trying to hit an egg on a rock3!”

He followed Chen Yi all the way to the entrance of the company, when he realized that there was a group of reporters about to swarm them outside.
Zhou Ming was so shocked by the sight that he immediately turned around to run back in, but the reporters were like flies to garbage, catching him before he could run.

Seeing this, Zhou Ming’s eyes darkened and he whispered quickly to Chen Yi, 

“You should know what words you can say, what words you cannot say.”

Chen Yi nodded his head, 

“Absolutely clear.”

The group of reporters rushed over, and the one who was the fastest to approach quickly stuffed, with some difficulty, a microphone into Chen Yi’s face, 

“Mr.
Chen Yi, you and Li Su Li are artists signed by Global Entertainment.
Is it true that they have forced you to have an anti-fan persona?”

Chen Yi: “It’s true.”

Zhou Ming: “?!!!”

 

 

Notes:

 

*1 climbing a wall: So climbing walls either means to cheat/have an affair or, if you are a fan of someone, moving on from them to another idol/celebrity.
Came from some part of history (by literary means) where a lady climbed up a wall to stare at another man who she thought was handsome/having an affair by “climbing out” of the estate.

 

*2 So just to clarify, the author specifies paranoid personality disorder and on the basis of what this was defined as in Chinese when searching, it was true but if you search up english research articles, there is a bit of a difference in the classification.

*3 An egg against a rock: A saying that is metaphorical for how the person doesn’t know what they are up against/what they are doing (thinking they are the top when in reality they are like a newbie facing up against a veteran).
Usually, if it’s said to someone, it means why are you finding yourself your own suffering kind of meaning.