Reborn as a Substitute

Backstage, VIP lounge.

Sheng Kongzhi sat in the armchair with his eyes closed, relaxing.

The two makeup artists by his side whispered: “Is he asleep?”

“Maybe, isn’t he in the finale? There is still more than an hour…”

“Which show is it now?”

“Now?”

The makeup artists raised their heads and turned on the TV on the wall. The screen was broadcasting the stage. The young man’s drumsticks were flying in front of the camera, his voice clear and beautiful.

The makeup artists forgot what they were talking about, drawn into the drummer’s performance.

Behind them, Sheng Kongzhi opened his eyes when he heard the sound and suddenly looked at the screen with his gaze full of disbelief.

The first performance of “Ji Hui” on the big stage, not to say that it ended perfectly, but at least it didn’t ruin the show.

But obviously not everyone was satisfied with the result.

“You did it on purpose! You deliberately embarrassed me, didn’t you?!” After the show, Wang Pengpeng demanded fiercely, grabbing Ji Sheng’s collar.

“I was just filling the gaps.” Ji Sheng said calmly, “The audience doesn’t spend money to watch pantomime. You didn’t make a sound for various reasons, so I could only bite the bullet. If I didn’t sing well, please forgive me. After all, my job is a drummer, I only sing to make up for other people’s mistakes.”

“You!” Wang Pengpeng, red in face, roared, “You bitch sleeping for money, dirty farmer out of a poor neighbourhood. Believe it or not, I can block you with one phone call! Even if you go begging from one gold master to another, you won’t even get on the fucking stage.”

The corners of Ji Sheng’s lips twitched as he watched his incompetence and anger coldly.

Wang Pengpeng was angered by his mockery and raised his hand to hit him.

Bai Fei quickly stopped his fist with his hand and said angrily: “Have you been crazy enough? You have the gall to scold someone who did a good job after your own mistake. Besides, can those uncouth contacts of yours touch Xie Xuanming?”

Upon hearing Xie Xuanming’s name, Wang Pengpeng’s anger quickly melted away like ice under fire.

After the performance, he just lost his face. With his backing, the company would give him another job and there would be no accusations.

If Xie Xuanming was offended, no one could protect him.

Xie Xuanming was always beating people without looking at their background.

Wang Pengpeng’s chest rose and fell violently, and he felt that the arc of Ji Sheng’s lips became terrifying in addition to being hateful.

He pushed Ji Sheng away fiercely, threw a dignified “You wait”, turned and left.

His two sidekicks also followed.

After Wang Pengpeng left, Bai Fei’s expression relaxed; he turned to Ji Sheng and said, “Thank you just now. Without you, the performance would be ugly.”

“It’s okay.” Ji Sheng tidied up his collar, “Thank you too, for speaking for me twice.”

“Huh.” Bai Fei shrugged, “I have long disliked these guys. Venting for you can count as speaking for myself.” 

Ji Sheng smiled.

“I still have an interview, I have to go. Hope we’ll have an opportunity to cooperate next time.” Bai Fei glanced at his watch, “Your drums are really good, and you sing well. You shouldn’t be buried. See you later.”

“Thank you for your compliment.” Ji Sheng waved his hand, “Goodbye.” 

Sending Bai Fei away, Ji Sheng breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed his wrist.

It was a bit of a struggle for Ji Hui’s body to sing and play, and he even suffered from hypoxia by the end of the song. Fortunately, the pre-recording was interrupted already in the latter part and there weren’t many words left to sing, so Ji Sheng was able to finish it without any mistakes.

However.

Just a few lines, not too difficult, and Wang Pengpeng couldn’t even sing them.

Ji Sheng secretly thought, their ability was really incomparably bad.

Ji Sheng rubbed his wrist while walking forward, not noticing that someone in the distance strode towards him anxiously.

Ji Sheng didn’t look up until his shoulder was suddenly grasped.

“Xiao Sheng?” Sheng Kongzhi’s face was full of shock when he met his eyes, his lips trembling, “Xiao Sheng, you are alive, why are you here, why didn’t you come to me?”

That familiar face made Ji Sheng freeze for a moment. He saw the gentle young man from a few years ago, smiling and begging himself to sing him a song, his expression full of sentimental innocent love.

Ji Sheng returned to his senses and made a muffled grunt from being squeezed by Sheng Kongzhi. He pushed Sheng Kongzhi away: “Senior, I don’t know what you are talking about, you must have admitted the wrong person!”

Sheng Kongzhi seemed to be stunned. He murmured “Xiao Sheng” and “This is impossible”, holding Ji Sheng firmly and not letting go.

Ji Sheng pushed him three or four times but couldn’t get free. Sheng Kongzhi’s hand was like iron pliers; he couldn’t break away from his grip at all.

Ji Sheng frowned in pain and said deliberately: “You have admitted the wrong person, please let go!”

Damn, both of them like to use force.

Ji Sheng and Sheng Kongzhi were in a stalemate in the corridor, when a cold voice came from behind.

“Ji Hui.” Xie Xuanming stood not far away, looking at the two of them with a vague expression, “Come here.”

Ji Sheng’s body stiffened; he struggled twice, still to no avail.

Don’t I want to come here? I can’t get away!

Seeing Xie Xuanming’s expression getting darker and darker, Ji Sheng felt very helpless.

Aren’t you good at fighting? Come here and help me pull these iron pliers away!

Sheng Kongzhi turned his head.

When he saw Xie Xuanming, his expression changed and his hand relaxed a little.

Ji Sheng took the opportunity to break free but as soon as he took a step towards Xie Xuanming, he was stopped by Sheng Kongzhi who grabbed his wrist again.

“Xuanming.” Sheng Kongzhi glanced suspiciously at Xie Xuanming and then at Ji Sheng again. He suddenly understood something and his expression turned ugly, “Xie Xuanming, do you know what you are doing?” 

“It has nothing to do with you.” Xie Xuanming was cold and said louder, “Come here, don’t make me repeat myself.”

Ji Sheng set off again, but was stopped by Sheng Kongzhi once more.

He was helpless: ”Senior…”

Before he finished speaking, Xie Xuanming quickly walked up to the two of them, pulled off Sheng Kongzhi’s hand holding Ji Sheng, and pushed Ji Sheng to stand behind him.

He didn’t even look at Sheng Kongzhi, saying to Ji Sheng, “Let’s go.”

He was about to drag him away.

Sheng Kongzhi seemed to want to stop them but was afraid that Xie Xuanming would overreact and make an ugly scene.

He finally gritted his teeth and growled, “Xie Xuanming, what do you mean by finding a kid who looks like Ji Sheng to keep beside you?!”

Xie Xuanming paused, and Ji Sheng felt the grip on his wrist tighten.

“That’s what it means.” Xie Xuanming sneered, “The old ones are gone, and I am not as innocent as the King of Songs Sheng, I can’t help but find new people to talk to.” 

“Treating Xiao Sheng like this, it’s not even  fair to this kid.” Sheng Kongzhi said angrily.

Xie Xuanming’s expression changed, grimness crawling out of his eyes, enveloping his entire face.

He sneered in a low voice:

“If you had saved a little of this hypocrisy for Ji Sheng, he wouldn’t have died.”

Sheng Kongzhi stiffened and shut up.

Xie Xuanming paid attention to him no longer and dragged Ji Sheng away from the scene.

On the way back, Xie Xuanming frowned and said nothing.

When he didn’t say anything, Ji Sheng naturally didn’t make a fool of himself; he didn’t ask nor did he want to ask why he was at the party and if it was another planned arrangement.

Ji Sheng had already been neatly subdued by this unpredictable master and knew that no good information would come out of a dog’s mouth.

Xie Xuanming would talk when he wanted to talk. When he kept his mouth shut, even a tiger bench(1) or a whip wouldn’t force him to speak.

Back at the villa, Xie Xuanming finally remembered that he still had a language function.

“You are really top-notch and dedicated, even replicating emotions and eyeing Sheng Kongzhi in front of me.” Xie Xuanming sneered, his voice sarcastic, “Why, are you so short of money that one substitute job is not enough for you, you have to take two?”

“I already have two jobs with you.” Ji Sheng was neither humble nor overbearing. “But you are right. There’s never enough money, so who would refuse to be a substitute for you?”

Xie Xuanming’s face changed instantly to a gloomy expression: “Are you threatening me?”

“How dare I.” Ji Sheng chuckled dryly, “After all, you are the boss, and you are in charge of how to play. If you make me play drums, I will play drums. If you don’t let me sleep, I won’t sleep. If you tell me to undress, I will strip without saying a word. Even if you make me meet your old enemy by coincidence, I can only bite the bullet. And then I have to come back and endure your anger for no reason.”

Ji Sheng wanted to understand something on the way back. Xie Xuanming spent a lot of effort to send him to the Double Twelve Light Festival just to let him and Sheng Kongzhi “meet by chance”.

He himself appeared there to observe Sheng Kongzhi’s reaction after meeting “Ji Hui“, so as to judge whether Sheng Kongzhi was the one who attacked ”Ji Hui”.

The result was negative.

So Xie Xuanming appeared suddenly as if teleporting and picked up ”Ji Hui”.

Everything was very clear and was perfectly executed in accordance with Xie Xuanming’s plan.

Ji Sheng thought it through and only wondered what Xie Xuanming was throwing a tantrum about at the moment when his plan had worked.

He couldn’t figure it out and could only attribute it to the genetically inferior nature of males— their insane and silly possessiveness of their belongings.

Simply put—

Xie Xuanming felt that he had a toy named Ji Hui, and now this toy was touched by other children.

The child Xie Xuanming was very angry and turned his head to scold the toy for being indiscriminate.

Toy: ……

Toy: It’s none of my business!

Ji Sheng was very upset; not to mention that he did not like Xie Xuanming’s action of classifying him as his property, but this kind of Xie Xuanming’s unsavoury temperament made him very angry.

How cute he was when he was a kid.

What kind of dog did he become now?

Ji Sheng was angry when the door was suddenly knocked on.

“Hello! Sofa bed installation at your home!”

Ji Sheng was taken aback and blurted out: “What are you going to do with a sofa bed?”

Xie Xuanming gave him a look, mixing “you are an idiot” and “too lazy to flip you a bird”. He went over and opened the door without saying a word to let the furniture company brother in.

The little brother came in with a big load on his shoulders. He was stunned for a moment when he saw Xie Xuanming but in the end he didn’t ask any questions due to his professional ethics and only said, “Excuse me, where do I put this?”

“Master bedroom.” Xie Xuanming didn’t lift his eyes.

He knew it with his butt that Xie Xuanming bought this bed for him to sleep on.

In normal times, Ji Sheng might get a bit emotional. Xie Xuanming was still somewhat human in the end. But taking into account the previous scene with Xie Xuanming regarding him as his property, Ji Sheng guessed that when he bought a sofa bed, he was just changing the toy’s display stand to a better one.

Ji Sheng’s spikes rose all over his body; he was so angry there was nothing he wouldn’t dare to do, so he choked out, “Please put it in the living room, thank you.”

“Master bedroom.” Xie Xuanming said coldly, “This is my home.” 

“This is my bed.” Ji Sheng was not to be outdone, “Living room.” 

“Master bedroom.”

“Living room.”

“Master bedroom.”

“……”

Brother: “……”

The little brother couldn’t help it and said angrily in a dialect: “You two melon babies, while you quarrel, my shoulders ache, can you unify your opinions!”

He looked at Xie Xuanming and shook his head bitterly: “Especially you! As the head of the family, don’t let your wifey yell so much, he’s too stubborn!”

Xie Xuanming: ……

Xie Xuanming: He is not.

Ji Sheng seized an opportunity and won the game by a narrow margin: “Living room! Thank you!”