Really really sorry for disappearing again. Here's a chapter, finally – not fully checked over and edited unfortunately. I've realised it's best to try finis.h.i.+ng this novel rather than get stuck on the details (and edit it when it's fully translated). Anyway, I've uploaded chapters 9-11 (these were actually translated over 3 months ago but I was too lazy to edit, so I stalled for so long, and it's still unedited). Hopefully the next chapters won't take too long. Note that there might be some translation mistakes because I haven't checked over and compared it with the original Chinese yet.

It was his boss' summoning, how could Xiao Jiashu refuse? While stroking his faintly aching cheeks, he walked to the front of their table, and nodded. “Ji'ge, Kun'ge, having lunch?”

“Sit.” Ji Mian pointed at the seat opposite him and then called for a waiter, “Add another plate of black pepper beef steak to my order, Medium cooked.”

“Sure, Mr Ji, would you like anything else?” The waiter asked politely.

Ji Mian looked at Xiao Jiashu. Xiao Jiashu immediately waved his hand. “Nothing else, thank you.” Beef steak again, and he even added black pepper, it really can't get any better! He really had seen through this Film Emperor Ji now, what gentle character, what kind and charitable, what generous and easy-mannered… All lies. He was just a dictator, accustomed to using his own methods to treat the people around him, rarely giving them the right to choose. Just using the two meals with him as an example, he always orders first, and never asks others what they would like to eat.

Xiao Jiashu really wanted to completely refuse, but his good upbringing wouldn't allow him to do so.

“Yo, who's angered our Young Master Xiao? Why such a black face?” Fang Kun purposely asked, thinking that Xiao Jiashu was still thinking about the matter with Li Jiaer.

Ji Mian, on the other hand, didn't bother to use any superfluous words; he went straight to the point. “How did Li Jiaer offend you, to make you block her?”

“How did you guys know?” Xiao Jiashu asked with a face of surprise. Currently, he still didn't understand that in the entertainment world there was absolutely no such thing as “secrets”, it all just depended on whether the people around him wanted to expose it or not.

This brat is seriously no good, dares to do it, but doesn't dare to admit! Fang Kun thought with disdain in his heart, but his face carried an amiable smile; he asked in a laid-back manner, “You two met for the first time yesterday, right? Did you get some misunderstanding about her during that time? Come, come, come, tell us, if there's a misunderstanding, we should undo it as early as possible, don't be so extreme. A person must compromise, so later on things won't be awkward when you meet again. The entertainment circle is small, there are heaps of chances you'll encounter each other again, you shouldn't force someone into a dead end like this.”

If his friend could still speak, his friend definitely would not want to talk about Li Jiaer. Therefore, he had even less of a necessity to explain to outsiders. Let him, from now on, completely bury those unbearable, dirty memories. After all, Li Jiaer had already left, and he had been finally able to do one last thing for his friend. With that thought, Xiao Jiashu waved a hand and said, “There's no misunderstanding. The person I'm targeting is her. I investigated before I started sabotaging her. There's no way I've gotten the wrong person.”

Fang Kun, “…” Those words are so straight forward there's nothing I can say to rebut!

Ji Mian put down his fork and looked straight at the young man. In a gentle tone, but unyielding att.i.tude, he said, “Still, tell us. There must be a reason why you hate her so much.”

Seriously tyrannical! Xiao Jiashu mouth twitched internally, and his face revealed a look of impatience. At this exact timing, the waiter carried over a plate of black pepper beef steak. The savoury fragrance directly rushed into his nose, but he couldn't even eat it, causing him to be even more indignant. Are all these people blind? Duped by a woman like w.a.n.g s.h.i.+qi, and even rus.h.i.+ng to defend her; he was so p.i.s.sed off! And what was even more enraging was–the steak at this restaurant was super-duper delicious but he couldn't even eat it; he could only stare at it!

Xiao Jiashu picked up his knife and fork and started cutting the steak up into even pieces. He said slowly, “How about this? I'll tell you guys a story.”

It's here. It's here. So there really is a story. Fang Kun p.r.i.c.ked his ears and got ready to collect some gossip.

Ji Mian gave a small nod, and gently and politely said, “We are all ears.”

“Once upon a time, there was a peasant. The peasant had a big brother and a little sister. He was the middle kid, so he wasn't really valued by his parents. When his parents died, they left his big brother a lot of land, and left his little sister a lot of dowry. When it was his turn, there was hardly any inheritance left over, and he only ended up with barren land located halfway up a mountain. He didn't feel that his parents had been unfair to him, and merely said that this was fate, and silently accepted it. But, he was a very smart guy and he used his free time to study carpentry. He then started building furniture for the people living around him and slowly saved up some money. His brother and sister saw that he was getting more and more well off, and were really jealous. They found a beautiful girl…”

Xiao Jiashu's story was really long. When Fang Kun and Ji Mian started listening, at first they inwardly thought that his and Li Jiaer longstanding grudge that began from the fight for the family inheritance, and that maybe Li Jiaer was the girl his brothers or sisters had found to seduce him, but didn't expect Xiao Jiashu to see through their plan. Hm, this reason was acceptable (made sense), and the plot was very interesting, so the two became immersed in the story (were sucked into the story).

However, Xiao Jiashu went into a completely different direction than expected. “That girl was guided back to the right path because the peasant's actions, and wholeheartedly fell in love with him. She dumped her previous fiancé…”

Oh, perhaps this wasn't a rich family drama fighting for inheritance; it was possible that this was a grudge from a previous lifetime. When Ji Mian and Fang Kun heard the story up to this point, their brows wrinkled slightly. Inwardly thinking that the truth would be revealed in the latter half of the story, they couldn't help but listen even more attentively.

Xiao Jiashu used over ten minutes to narrate how the peasant operated his family business, how he doted on his wife and kids, how he was friendly and kind to his neighbours, before saying, “One day, when that peasant, who had already become a well-known big official, was pa.s.sing through a block of farmland, he saw a frozen viper on the side of the paddy-field path. He felt great pity for the viper, so he picked up the viper and warmed it up with his chest. When the snake woke up, not only was it not grateful, it also even ruthlessly bit the peasant to death. See guys, this is the fate of people who carelessly try to be a good person.”

“Clang!” This was the sound of knife and fork in Fang Kun's hands falling to the ground.

Ji Mian, who was about to drink water, almost spurted water out of his mouth. Fortunately, he managed to restrain himself in time.

The story in the beginning was so splendid: The peasant slapping the faces of his big brother and little sister, seizing back the inheritance that was rightfully his; the battle of wits and courage between the peasant and beautiful female spy, their mutual love and fighting; from people of the poor ma.s.ses, the couple strove and became small n.o.bles; one climax leading onto the next, tremendously riveting. But at the ending of the story, you're actually telling me that this story is really just a freaking extended version of “The Peasant and the Snake”?

Having finally realised that he had been played, Fang Kun felt that his hand was a bit itchy, like it wanted to hit someone. He picked up his knife and fork, and glared viciously at the young man.

Ji Mian wiped away the remnants of water from the corner of his mouth and calmly said, “a.s.sistant Xiao, letting you become an a.s.sistant is truly a waste of your talents, you can actually become a screenwriter, your story-telling skills are really amazing.”

“Really?” Xiao Jiashu completely unaware that Ji Mian was being sarcastic, and contrary to their expectations, nodded and said, “So I had this sort of talent as well. People indeed need to undergo hands-on experience, or else they will completely not realise and understand what they're good at, and what their limits are.”

Ji Mian: “…” After a moment of silence, he continued, “You're the peasant, Li Jiaer is the viper?”

Xiao Jiashu put down his knife and fork, and firmly shook his head. “I'm not that stupid.” After he finished speaking, he inexplicably hinted by motioning with his chin, his meaning being: If I don't block her, you guys will be that peasant who got bitten to death.

Ji Mian was not a person who rashly believed in people so he had carefully investigated Li Jiaer, and had also met her mother and friends. He had also used a good number of months to observe and study her moral conduct. Compared to this hedonistic young master who was drunk on his own power, he was naturally even more partial towards Li Jiaer. However, judging from the current situation, this young master seemed to have no intention of explaining the reason behind his actions. Which made sense, how would an up-in-the-skies pampered prince like him who had never had to worry about food, ever understand the feelings of the lowly people struggling at the lowest rungs of society? He only knew——to eliminate whomever he didn't like the look of.

If he continued to press on this matter, it would not obtain leniency for Li Jiaer, but would instead incur more animosity towards her. Ji Mian frankly ended the conversation. “I've finished eating now. Please take your time, a.s.sistant Xiao.” He put down his knife and fork, pulled off his napkin, nodded and left.

Fang Kun gave a cursory smile, and followed after him.

Finally not needing to eat the steak in front of his boss, Xiao Jiashu let out a breath of relief. He hadn't wanted to tell such a long story either, but if he didn't do that, he would have to eat… And as that was the case, telling a story was the best choice. He waved his hand to call a waiter over, and said in a quiet voice, “Add a bowl of thick cream pumpkin soup to my order.”

“Yes sir. Please wait a moment.” The waiter conscientiously recorded his order.

—

One after another, the top ten contestants of SUPER New Voice Generation found homes/agencies/bosses. The champion however, had still yet to show signs of glad tidings, and she couldn't even partic.i.p.ate in the fan concert, drawing the attention of many people. Some people guessed that she must be working on something big, and maybe the agency she signed with was too awesome, and needed to find a conspicuous day to announce, and hold contract signing ceremony, with numerous media in attendance. With Li Jiaer's current popularity, this sort of conjecture did not seem like an exaggeration at all.

Seeing all these kinds of news about her, Li Jiaer felt it was very difficult to bear. She had already met with Tiantian Entertaiment's chairman Zhou Nan and had had a discussion regarding the contract. She had even gone to the audition for the female lead of [Cold Crown Prince, Smart Consort], and had received the director's admiration and praise for her exquisite acting.

Before she left, the director told her, “With you here, I truly can let out a breath of relief. We haven't managed to find any actors with any fame in our cast, and our funds are limited. We'll be relying on you to hold up this entire drama. Look, we can't even afford to buy decent costumes, all of these costumes were handmade for us by the chairman's friend. The actors and actresses also have to bring their own makeup, we don't provide it. We also don't have enough makeup artists. If your makeup skills are good, when the time comes, you can lend a hand and help the actors apply makeup.”

Li Jiaer listened seriously, and agreed to everything. Her cute, smart and thoughtful manner was very charming. The director obtained a very good impression of her, and chose her as the lead actress after her audition. He also gave Zhou Nan a phone call, giving her enormous praise. Zhou Nan was also really satisfied, and softened the terms on Li Jiaer's contract where appropriate. He then sent his good friend a message, telling him that the matter had been settled.

It was only then that Ji Mian relaxed. The next day, he left for Mt Wuyi to film a big-scale Xianxia drama. Nowadays, he had already slowly started to retreat from acting to work behind the scenes and rarely played the lead. He was only doing a guest appearance this time. He only had a few lines, and his scenes could be filmed in a few takes. He stayed on set for three days and finished filming all his scenes. He rode in his agency car that very night to rush back to town. Afterwards, he got on a plane to return to the capital, never expecting that he would encounter a strange occurrence on the road.

“Ji-ge, does that bright dot in the sky look like a flying saucer to you?” His lifestyle a.s.sistant asked while pointing out the window.

“Where?” Ji Mian leaned over to look. Sure enough, he discovered that there was an elliptic circular light moving in the middle of the sky. At first, its speed was very slow, but ended up in front of them in a blink of an eye.

“This isn't good, it's dropping!” As soon as the a.s.sistant finished his words, an iron lump fell from the sky, landing right on top of their speeding car. The car rushed out of the road railings (slid/ran over the railings), falling to the bottom of the hillside. After the car rolled a few times, it got wedged between two big trees. The lifestyle a.s.sistant and the driver had already long fainted during to the severe collisions. Ji Mian, who was seriously injured and at the brink of death, saw a thin human shaped organism with a ma.s.sive head slowly approach him through the blood in his eyes. When it arrived at the smashed car window, it reached out and pressed its fingertip on Ji Mian's forehead. A sudden intense burst of pain finally made him lose consciousness completely.

The author has something to say:

I cautiously declare that the person himself (Ji Mian) is still there, he won't go to heaven, and his soul won't transmigrate. I just wanted to write something that was slightly different from my previous works. It will still be “shuang[1]“, it will still be sweet, but the tempo/process might be relatively slow.

Oh right, this novel only has a tiny little bit of Scifi. There will definitely not be any alien invaders, and there definitely won't be anything like “My Love From Another Star”. Besides the Gong (top/seme) being able to see through the thoughts of the people he's close to and the people he doesn't like, he doesn't have any other golden finger (cheat). This story has no rich family inheritance wars, no aristocratic familial grudges, no overbearing chairman acting cool and unreasonable. This is only a story where this old chap, who's decided to withdraw from the entertainment world, gets infected by a little sapling and rekindles his love for acting again. Hm, you could also reword it as: there's also another little sapling who loved acting, and is corroded by the entertainment world, and loses his initial heart, a tragedy where everything turns to rot.

Don't take the many landmines(warning tags?) I've piled up too seriously, I've actually discarded them all, I'm purely introducing the backdrop, the novel won't touch on it. This story is really simple, that is: the gong and shou (bottom/uke) act together, and then I have a secret crush on you and think that you don't know. I know that you're in love with me but I pretend that I don't know and start preparing to keep my distance from you. Suddenly one day I discover, Aiyo, you're not in love with me anymore, no, I'm in love with you now, don't go, let's date! Isn't that really simple?

PS. If your demands regarding the gong's love life is especially strict, and you absolutely cannot tolerate the gong dating before meeting the shou, please withdraw. There may be some plot that won't suit your tastes, let's meet again in my next novel.

Thank you to all my readers who have always supported me, kiss kiss (blows kisses)!

Translator's note:

Author's note has been translated really roughly so you don't need to take the author's note too seriously (besides the PS part that is). A lot of authors have an initial plan set out but may not necessarily follow it – that's why you get so many synopsis' that aren't that true to the actual plot of the novel.

[1] "shuang" means bright; clear; frank; straightforward.  In general a "shuang" novel is one where everything always works out swimmingly for the main character.