Reborn as a Substitute

Ji Sheng didn’t go back to the dorm. After leaving Stardust Kindergarten, he got in the car with Xie Xuanming and left.

He sat in Xie Xuanming’s funeral parlour-like black limousine and brushed past the rickety little van that wobbled out of the car parking.

Looking at the band members in the van through the two layers of glass, Ji Sheng suddenly felt a sense of taking one for a team or selling himself to bury his father.

When he arrived at the villa, this feeling became even stronger.

First of all, Ji Sheng needed to solve the bathing problem.

He had just come out of the soggy doll costume, and his clothes were soaked in sweat. In the car, Xie Xuanming had already fully demonstrated his dislike. He frowned all the way and from time to time uttered a few full-scale ‘tsks’. Ji Sheng was frightened, feeling he would speak in the next second and order him to get out of the car and, like the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, walk to the villa(1).

“May I use the bathroom?” Ji Sheng asked carefully. Seeing Xie Xuanming’s eyebrows furrow  again, Ji Sheng quickly added, “You don’t want a dirty person to stay in the house and get in the way, do you?”

Xie Xuanming paused and reluctantly said, “Use the guest bathroom.”

The bath was arranged; now there was a problem with the clothes.

Ji Sheng came empty-handed and didn’t even bring a charger, let alone a change of clothes. Although the clothes were included in the purchase list, it was a pity that the things hadn’t been delivered yet.

The fire of hope still existed in Ji Sheng’s heart: “When I lived here before, I should have left a few pieces…”

“Thrown away.” Xie Xuanming extinguished the tiny fire mercilessly.

Ji Sheng: “…Then, can you be so kind and lend me something?”

Xie Xuanming said, “No.”

Ji Sheng’s smile gradually became gentle: “Then I will run naked?”

In the end, Xie Xuanming reluctantly opened the door of the cloakroom, chose inside for a long time, selected a few unwanted items and handed them to Ji Sheng: “You wear this.”

Ji Sheng glanced at the neat rows of black, white and grey loose T-shirts, tea brown and blue striped casual pants, and pulled down the corner of his mouth. He really didn’t quite understand what Xie Xuanming was hesitating about just now.

Xie Xuanming’s dressing style was widely criticised. On the one hand, he was a darling of the big brands, even though no matter what kind of “fashion” items were put on him, they would be drowned by his own aura of abstinence and madness without making a splash.

At the same time, Xie Xuanming was extremely perfunctory about the so-called “fashion”. Except on red carpets and other essential occasions when he would wear high luxury items to show his face in front of the camera, repeatedly emphasising the brand, at other times, Xie Xuanming was always seen by paparazzi or passers-by in uninteresting, cool-toned sporty pieces.

Although Xie Xuanming’s own body condition was enough to turn an emotionless old man’s black shirt into a hormonally charged ascetic new fashion, however, his overly straight style of dressing still left a serious stereotype impression on passers-by, causing many melon-eating netizens to express surprise when reporters revealed his ambiguous photos with Ji Sheng.

Ji Sheng took the clothes from Xie Xuanming’s hand, thanked him and quietly added the last knife: “Thank you, Senior, you haven’t given me underwear yet.”

Xie Xuanming’s expression visibly darkened.

He closed the cloakroom door: “You can’t wear mine.” Glancing down, he added contemptuously: “The size is wrong.”

Ji Sheng: … …

Even if it wasn’t his own body, he still clenched his fists.

And you’re a silvery spear point made of pewter, impressive-looking but useless.

Glancing at Xie Xuanming’s muscular forearms and reminding himself that this was a violent madman who could knock out people’s teeth at the drop of a hat, Ji Sheng tried to swallow his vicious retort.

He smiled softly: “If you don’t mind me wearing your pants naked, of course I can go commando.”

Two minutes later, Ji Sheng contentedly exited the cloakroom with disposable underwear in hand.

The cloakroom was located inside the master bedroom, and once outside, Ji Sheng again saw the sofa that was extremely inconsistent with the decor. Its narrow size made it look particularly shabby and pitiful compared to the large, wide bed beside it.

At the thought of his night of discomfort and sleeplessness, Ji Sheng’s waist began to ache faintly. With a sigh, he turned and asked, “Senior, maybe in the future, I can make my bed on the floor?”

Xie Xuanming was in a bad mood: “No.”

“Why?”

“Because I said no.”

A blue vein throbbed on Ji Sheng’s forehead: “Emperor Xie, people need to sleep.”

Xie Xuanming walked out of the room without looking back: “People can fall asleep while lying on the sofa.”

Ji Sheng was left in place, the corner of his mouth twitching uncontrollably.

He recalled that in his previous life, when the sexual harassment controversy broke out, he was receiving private messages from Xie Xuanming’s fans cursing him, saying that he was shameless, occupying the perfect lover but still looking for someone else, simply not respecting his husband’s honour.

Ji Sheng was puzzled at the moment as to why anyone would call Xie Xuanming the perfect lover.

The gold master who doesn’t even allow his lover to make his bed on the floor is destined to be the mean husband whose prenuptial agreement will be planned as clearly as the Chu-Han divide(2).

Ji Sheng went downstairs and walked into the guest bathroom, complaining while taking off his clothes.

Xie Xuanming really deserved to miss his white moonlight, with his terrible personality. Had he been that white moonlight, he might have shouted a few blessings and run away now.

After Ji Sheng took a shower, he went out to the living room in clothes that were two sizes too large and found that the items on the list had been delivered.

Xie Xuanming sat on the sofa and read his schedule, permitting him to check for any omissions without even looking up.

Ji Sheng pulled out a chair and sat down, opening the shopping bag.

He double-checked and found that there was really something that hadn’t been bought.

“The list is not complete.” Ji Sheng raised the list, pointing his finger at a certain line. “These two are missing.”

“I asked to remove them.” Xie Xuanming said coldly, “What do you buy lubricant and family planning supplies for? Don’t bring dirty things to my house.”

Ji Sheng held up the list, thinking: I’m still afraid that you will suddenly go crazy one day, so I take precautions to avoid heavy losses.

Xie Xuanming looked up, saw his weird expression and sneered with an unclear meaning: “I am not interested in you, so don’t get any filthy thoughts about me.”

The gold master warns his lover, do not have any designs on me.

The perverted murderer says, don’t fucking touch me or I’ll call the police.

Ji Sheng could not tell for a moment which was more confusing, nor could he ask, why were you touching my butt and leaving teeth marks on my neck if you were not interested in me.

He could only smirk and say, don’t worry.

I am definitely not fucking interested in you.

Although Xie Xuanming had an eccentric personality, he was barely qualified as a gold master, and making Ji Sheng sleep on the sofa was not for nothing.

After Ji Sheng suffered from backache for several days, he received his next job.

But this was a very poor resource, full of ridicule and contempt as if saying “you are only worthy of doing this kind of thing.“

“Live broadcast?” Lu Haoren was shocked.

“Carrying adult products.” Huang Sizhe’s face was as black as a pot, “Have you been brainwashed by that dragon fruit to take on such a lousy job?”

As soon as Ji Sheng wanted to ask who the dragon fruit was, the company boss slapped the table and violently interfered with his curiosity.

“It’s good to have work to do!” The boss shook the itinerary, “Don’t you need money to feed yourself? If you don’t make some extra money this month, you’ll all have to pack your bags and get out.”

The three of them were kicked out by the mad boss, looking at each other and feeling a little helpless. 

“Is it really a job?” Huang Sizhe was still raising a stink, “We are obviously here to be a band, but we are working on garbage.” 

Lu Haoren sighed: “The live broadcast is actually okay, but I heard that the anchor that is working with it… is difficult to describe.”

It was rare for the lead singer, who usually exuded motherly love, to make negative comments on people. Ji Sheng was curious: “What’s wrong with that anchor, not good at business?”

His question was perfectly answered in the live broadcast the next day.

The anchor was not lacking business ability.

He had no brains at all, and as soon as he opened his mouth, he exploded in a large-scale thunderclap.

If you have no filter on your mouth, no wonder you are relegated to the midnight slot with adult toys.

As soon as the God of Thunder anchor saw Ji Sheng, he shook his hand with tears in his eyes and said sincerely: “Baby, you look so similar to my ex-husband. It’s a pity that he passed away young and made me a widow early.”

Ji Sheng shuddered as if electrocuted, glanced at the camera of the live broadcast room that had already started operating and squeezed out a stiff smile: “Your ex-husband…”

“Harassed teammates, cheated while in a relationship, and finally died of drunk driving! A model of scum!” The anchor ruthlessly destroyed the last bit of hope in Ji Sheng’s heart. Demonstrating how angry he was, the anchor slapped the table and knocked down an adult toy standing on it, “In fact, his bad personality was okay, he was an idol, after all. The most unacceptable thing for me is that he actually demolished my cp. Deserves to die!”

Ji Sheng watched as the spherical rubber object bounced twice, vibrated at an alarming rate, jolted to the edge of the table, landed on the floor with a plop and stopped moving.

For a while Ji Sheng didn’t know whether it was him or the little adult toy that deserved to die in the anchor’s opinion.

The live broadcast was plunged into cold silence; Lu Haoren tried to speak in order to save the embarrassing situation: “I’ll take the liberty to ask, what do you mean by cp? ”

“Shengshi Shengping la.” The anchor waved his hand, “Yes, that’s right, it’s the pairing of the sexual harasser and the victim, and this cp is all dead.”

Outside the live broadcast room, the people watching from the brand side were so anxious that they held up a large whiteboard with three exclamation points, urging them to change the topic quickly and not to turn promotion into a funeral.

The anchor reluctantly changed the subject: “Come on, our guests today are the members of the Niepan band. Please introduce yourself.”

“Hello everyone, I’m Ji Sheng…” Ji Sheng was still recovering from his social death and almost made a fatal slip of the tongue. He broke into a cold sweat, glanced at the dark camera and braced himself to continue despite the pain, “… Senior Ji Sheng and Senior Xie Xuanming cp’s fan, so, the same as the anchor’s cp, my cp is also dead, yes.”

Behind him, Lu Haoren and Huang Sizhe were petrified. They looked at Ji Sheng in confusion as if they had been struck by lightning, with their faces full of “What are you smoking?”

Meeting a fan of an enemy cp, even though it was a dead cp, the anchor was still very unhappy. He smiled perfunctorily: “Oh, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Turning the microphone to Lu Haoren, he used his magical brain circuit to once again bring the topic into the ditch, “What about you, Shengshi Shengping or Xiefang Jifang (Xie Xuanming Ji Sheng cp name), which one do you like?”

Lu Haoren really couldn’t understand why a live broadcast with sex products was now talking about a certain celebrity who had passed away and his cps.

He only knew that the other two celebrities mentioned in the topic, Xie Xuanming and Sheng Kongzhi, were the current top stars, while they were irrelevant things who would be raised by their parents for nothing and scolded by fans to their ancestors’ graves if they said a wrong word.

So Lu Haoren took the microphone in a panic and stammered:

“Ah, I like Teacher Xie Xuanming’s movies, and I often listen to Teacher Sheng Kongzhi’s songs. Ji Sheng… Senior Ji Sheng, I… I, in short, I respect these three seniors very much and I can’t tell what’s better… If you insist on talking about cp… I am not… uh, a qualified… typical cp fan.”

He was talking gibberish, and Huang Sizhe couldn’t bear it anymore. He stepped in coldly, bringing the farce to a thunderous end.

“Oh, you are an atypical 3p fan.”

1. Metaphor orginiating from ‘Journey to the West’, meaning to show your unique talent

2. The Chu-Han War (206-202 BC), resulted in dividing the country into two parts.