Don’t Be a Kept Man

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.