Chapter 14 - Hustle and Bustle
In fact, Yao Shasha was indeed killed by the smile on Li Zhao’s face. Two years ago, she used these eyes to intimidate a new female artist. From that day on, the female artist thought Yao Shasha would get revenge. She was so scared that she disappeared from the circle.
She didn’t expect that this trick would be completely useless on Li Zhao. She didn’t know it but a long time ago, Li Zhao had seen more terrible and cruel eyes.
After the smile, the atmosphere inexplicably became awkward. The trio walked one after another and no one spoke.
They entered the backstage of the studio and makeup artists did the makeup for the three people before they were told the rough process of the program. Director Liu next to them looked at the three people in a speechless manner. He was worried that he would lose two more hairs from his forehead.
The atmosphere was so stiff that who wouldn’t be able to see the conflict between the leading roles on the stage? In the past, he always suppressed Li Zhao and held up the other two. Now Li Zhao was the most popular one and maintaining the heat of his drama. He couldn’t afford to offend anyone.
The program didn’t seem to see anything wrong with the stars of Overbearing Female President. Once the recording began, they had the three people stand together to play a game.
There were many girls in the audience holding Li Zhao’s sign. This was the first time he had faced such warm and lovely little girls. His heart was happy and he waved to the audience with bright eyes.
There was a burst of cheers at the scene. In the eyes of the fans, their baby had their own aura and his beauty was in his period of prosperity.
For artists like Li Zhao, the program group would give them a chance to showcase their talent. Yao Shasha sang the theme song of the drama and Song Yu played the drums, making the scene extremely lively.
“Zhao Zhao, a man who makes countless women want to become an overbearing president. What talent do you want to show everyone?”
In the rest area, Yao Shasha showed a disdainful smile. Li Zhao was a poor boy who couldn’t even go to university. What talent could he have?
Li Zhao didn’t know how to play instruments that required a lot of money and energy. He also didn’t understand music professionally. Even his standard Mandarin had been gradually corrected in the past two years. However, the crew had agreed to the arrangements of the program team and he could only cooperate with the publicity work.
Facing the expectant eyes of the fans under the stage, Li Zhao held the microphone in the centre of the stage and had a few moments of interaction with the host. “Brother Song’s drumming was so handsome and Sister Shasha’s voice is sweet. I can only stand here showing my ugly face and it is too lacking.”
“Don’t give up!” The fans below the stage shouted. “Baby, even if you stand still on the stage, we won’t hate you!”
The host spoke with a strange expression, “Who said this sentence. I didn’t expect you to have such a request. Should I meet it?”
The audience burst out laughing.
“It is hard for people without talent.” Li Zhao shook his head and sighed. He touched his pocket and suddenly pulled out a bunch of beautiful flowers.
“It’s strange. Why do I have a bunch of flowers on me?” Li Zhao bowed in a gentlemanly manner and handed it to the girl in front holding a light sign. “Come, little sister. I wish for you to study well and make progress every day.”
The live audience, “&#k2026;&#k2026;”
Study well and make progress every day? What type of blessing was this?
The girl who received the flowers blushed with excitement. No matter what Li Zhao said, she just nodded. Her baby just told her to study hard. Even if she was first in her year, she would still go mad learning.
“Zhao Zhao, are you going to perform a magic trick for everyone today?” The host saw that Li Zhao didn’t forget to remind his underage fans to study hard and let out an amused laugh. “If it wasn’t for your handsome appearance, I would almost think the school’s teaching director had mistakenly entered our program.”
“Brother! Brother! Brother! Don’t say that.” Another host hurriedly said. “You will be suspected of discriminating against the face value of teaching directors.”
“Teacher, I was wrong.” The host quickly bowed to the camera and apologized. “In order to express my apologies, I have decided to let Zhao Zhao show something else.
“Come, Zhao Zhao, help me with this favour.” The host reached for Li Zhao’s shoulder. “Let’s give them another show.”
“In order to prevent you from being criticized by the teaching directors, I can only continue with my shameless show.”
The staff brought out a tray covered with red silk and Li Zhao removed the red silk.
“Wow.” The three hosts came together to look. “This is… a flute?”
“Yes, a paixiao (ancient Chinese instrument similar to a pan flute).” Li Zhao was very good-looking. He looked like the most adorable baby as long as he laughed. He picked up the paixiao with both hands. “The paixiao has a history of at least thousands of years in China. So far, the first discovered paixiao was 3,000 years ago. Due to its beautiful shape, it was once called a phoenix wing by the ancients. Unfortunately, due to the loss of the paixiao playing method in China, all the playing methods we use now are imported from overseas.
“There are many materials for making the paixiao. This one…” Li Zhao looked carefully. “It should be bitter bamboo?”
The fans below the stage didn’t expect their baby to play a musical instrument and be so knowledgeable. They obediently listened out of fear of missing a single word. Who said that science was boring? It was clearly super interesting. They could listen for 10 hours.
The baby’s voice was good to listen to and his attitude on stage was nice. What was this peerless immortal man?
In the rest area, Yao Shasha sneered. Memorizing these words in advance must not be easy? She was in the rest area that couldn’t be noticed by the audience so she didn’t have any scruples about showing her feelings.
Song Yu secretly rolled his eyes and moved his stool a bit further from Yao Shasha. He was afraid that the stupidity would infect him.
The host wondered, “Zhao Zhao seems to know this very well. Did you learn it at school?”
Li Zhao shook his head. “When I was a child, I used to be cared for by a grandfather who was a retired teacher at the Conservatory of Music. He would teach us to play when he came to our school. Unfortunately, I was a child and always thinking about running around, so I didn’t learn many songs.”
The dean told them that people who really liked musical instruments would have their favourite one. Li Zhao rarely spent time on the paixiao so he was ashamed to say that he ‘learnt’ it.
The bitter bamboo paixiao had a clearer sound than those made of other materials but Li Zhao didn’t play any famous songs. He just blew a local folk tune. The sound effects of this live broadcast weren’t comparable to the professional music halls but the live audience still felt a sense of nostalgia from the unknown tune.
There was thunderous applause at the end of the song, especially the fans. They looked at Li Zhao like parents looking at a child who got full points on a test. There were all types of pride and satisfaction.
Their baby was indeed a perfect boy with both talent and appearance.
The talent show and game portion ended. Finally, it was time for the chat questions session. Since the heroine and second male lead of Overbearing Male President were both rich people in the drama, the host talked to the guests about their rich friends.
Li Zhao heard this and as the other guests weren’t paying attention, he hurriedly took out his phone to send a message to Yan Ting. Most of his friends were as poor as him. The only one with money was Yan Ting.
After listening to other guests talk about local tyrants with cruises, villages or helicopters, Yao Shasha suddenly asked Li Zhao. “Zhao Zhao, you were playing with your mobile phone while we were just chatting. Why don’t you share with us a rich person in your life?”
Yao Shasha wasn’t willing to let go of any chance to humiliate Li Zhao.
Her agent saw in the audience area and saw this scene with a green face. Before coming to Xiangguo, he had told Yao Shasha not to make trouble for Li Zhao. As a result, she didn’t listen to his words. Sure enough, it was an extravagant hope to control a person who wanted to be popular but couldn’t.
“Just now, I was sending a message to my rich friend about his assets.” Li Zhao smiled like he didn’t know Yao Shasha was deliberately looking for trouble. “My good friend is a person whose house was demolished and he was relocated.”
“A relocated household?” Yao Shasha couldn’t help sneering. A bumpkin was a bumpkin. Even a person with a relocated home could be called rich. “There are many relocated households but not all of them are rich.”
“You’re right. However, for the poor me, he is a rich man.” Then Li Zhao read the reply to his message and his mood became a bit complicated.
Hearing him say this, Yao Shasha was even more dismissive. “Did you ask yet?”
“He said he has too many homes and can’t remember clearly. There are probably one or two houses and dozens of stores…” Li Zhao secretly calculated the value in his heart and gulped.
“Only…” Yao Shasha wanted to say ‘only a few houses’ but she couldn’t speak. If she had so many houses then why would she mix in the entertainment circle?
“Zhao Zhao, does your friend have any shortage of friends?” A host hugged Li Zhao’s arm. “I can talk really well and is the type of easily sleep.”
“There is no shortage.” Li Zhao looked at the host defensively. “It is enough that he is my friend.”
“Two people can have fun but three people can play cards.” The host still didn’t let go of Li Zhao.
“Four people can play mahjong.” Another host came over and grasped Li Zhao’s other hand. “More people is livelier. I’d like to suggest to your friend to think about it.”
Yao Shasha’s eyes were red with envy as she stared at Li Zhao surrounded by two presenters. She was about to open her mouth again when Song Yu’s microphone accidentally hit the back of her hand. She knew that Song Yu did it intentionally but she could only smile.
The two starring male actors of this crew had brain problems. They didn’t have a gentlemanly demeanour and fought against her everywhere. What type of men were they?! The thing that embarrassed her the most wasn’t the live recording of the show. It was that two days later, the program released some interesting highlights on their official Weibo.
It included a scene of her chatting about her rich friend. The friend she mentioned forwarded the post, saying they only had a bit of contact with Mrs Yao. This caused countless people on the Internet to taunt and ridicule her. She called her friend and found that her phone number had been blacked out.
She claimed to be a friend of a rich tyrant and as a result, the rich tyrant didn’t know her at all. This was the scene of her tragically failing to hold a thigh. The worse thing was that the national audience knew that she failed to hold the thigh.
This farce meant that the program caught on fire before the episode air. Many people who didn’t even watch Overbearing Female President started to look forward to the program. Eating melons was always the biggest hobby of bored netizens.
On the day that the program was broadcast, Mr Yan Ting, the rich relocated household with two buildings and dozens of shops, sat in a popular night market barbecue store, having his first friendly meeting with Li Zhao’s agent.
The people outside the door, the men and women drinking in the store, the burning fire that occasionally burst out of the frying pan interwoven with the lively symphony of the night market roared in Yan Ting’s ear.
It was a world he had never set foot in.
“I had the boss make it less spicy and with less pepper.” A skewer of fragrant grilled shrimp was handed to Yan Ting. “His ingredients are very fresh and you can eat it at ease. Do you want to try it?”
The young man dressed in a black t-shirt and a cap was looking at him with a smile. The pattern on his cap was a brilliant red.
The noisy world seemed to quiet down again.