Reborn as a Substitute

There was a weird silence on the other end of the phone; the director seemed to have been frightened by the sudden melon-eating opportunity  and lost his voice on the spot.

“Hello, are you still there?” Ji Sheng asked sheepishly, glaring at Xie Xuanming, who was resting his chin on his shoulder for unknown reasons.

“You… you and Teacher Xie…” It took a while before the director stumbled over his words, “Are you going to come out of the closet on our show?”

Ji Sheng: “……”

Ji Sheng coughed: “No, just… If this will add a lot of trouble to your work, we won’t participate. Thank you for your hard work.” 

Seeing that he was about to hang up, the director finally pulled himself out of the state of shock and hurriedly persuaded: “No hard work, no hard work, we can handle it later, you and Teacher Xie can just think of it as a holiday and come on a trip.”

“That’s it.” Ji Sheng turned his head, covered the microphone and asked in a low voice, “There is an invitation to a show that can promote “The Drummer”, go?”

“Do you want to go?” Xie Xuanming, still not quite awake, asked lazily, holding Ji Sheng.

“It’s okay.” 

“Then let’s go.” 

“Okay.” Ji Sheng turned back to the phone and said, “We’re in.”

“Okay.” The director was afraid that the two of them would think it through and regret it, but he also needed time to calm the palpitations of knowing the big secret, so he said quickly, “I’ll send you the contract by Email, the time and shooting schedule are written in it, so give us a call after you sign it and we’ll send someone to collect it.”

“Okay.” 

After hanging up the phone, Ji Sheng breathed a sigh of relief, his heart thudding at the thought of suddenly coming out of the closet in front of an outsider just now.

He looked sideways at the culprit angrily, but Xie Xuanming squinted carelessly, surrounding him like a big dog basking in the sun.

Ji Sheng looked at him for a few seconds and lost his temper.

With difficulty, he pulled his hand out of Xie Xuanming’s grip, searched the Internet for relevant information about “We Are CP”, and suddenly found a blind spot.

“Ah, wake up.” Ji Sheng freed his other hand and squeezed Xie Xuanming’s cheek twice, “We might need to live in separate rooms…”

“What?” Xie Xuanming sat up in shock, his eyes opened and sharp.

“…for one night.” Ji Sheng finished the sentence, “The show is coming to the house to film the packing.”

“…” Xie Xuanming thought for two seconds, and said with certainty, “We’re not participating.”

“I just promised people.” Ji Sheng said with a smile.

“Then tell them not to come.” Xie Xuanming frowned.

“It’s just one night.” Ji Sheng said, “I’ll just find a random hotel to stay in the day before the recording and let the programme crew come to the house to film, they should have a sense of proportion and know what to film and what not to film.”

Xie Xuanming was still unhappy, but Ji Sheng insisted, so he could only reluctantly accept it.

Xie Xuanming’s displeasure lasted until the show crew came to the door four days later. He opened the anti-theft door with a cold face, his expression so horrifying that the battle-hardened camera master’s hand shook violently.

“Here you are.” Xie Xuanming said quietly, “Please come in.”

The cameraman bit the bullet and stepped into this place of lawlessness. He was just about to change into the spare slippers at the door, when Xie Xuanming quickly blocked them, the door of the shoe cabinet opened and closed, and a brand new pair of slippers was thrown in front of the cameraman.

“You wear these.” Xie Xuanming said.

Although he couldn’t understand why he had to wear the slippers from the shoe cabinet, the cameraman obediently changed his shoes and followed Xie Xuanming into the room with bated breath.

Although he was unhappy because of Ji Sheng’s short-term moving away, Xie Xuanming would not embarrass the hard-working employees. For the rest of the recording, he behaved very cooperatively. The process of showing the house and gathering the clothes went unexpectedly smoothly, but when he was packing up the toiletries, some problems unexpectedly appeared.

The cameraman followed Xie Xuanming into the bathroom of the master bedroom and instantly saw two bathroom cups on the sink.

The cameraman’s heart thudded; he also thought of the slippers at the door and the two pillows on the bed. The combination of these signs undoubtedly pointed to one result — Xie Xuanming, who presented himself as a single person, was actually living with someone.

A stormy wave was surging in the cameraman’s heart. The camera, as his other pair of eyes, had already consciously turned around to steadily take in the items on the sink.

A light orange tube fell into sight, and the cameraman took a closer look: lemon-flavoured children’s toothpaste.

The cameraman was shocked.

Even having a child??

Too efficient, right?

Xie Xuanming didn’t know that in just a few seconds, the cameraman’s mind was already in such a state of shock. He just calmly put the toothbrush into a storage box and the mint-flavoured toothpaste into a transparent wash bag together with the lemon-flavoured toothpaste.

He turned his head and confronted the cameraman’s distorted look.

Cameraman: ……

Xie Xuanming: ……

Xie Xuanming glanced down at the two toothpastes peeking out of the bag, and calmly explained: “It tastes good to use it occasionally.” 

Cameraman: ……

Cameraman: You think it’s a dessert?

But he couldn’t afford to offend Xie Xuanming and this image would definitely be cut out later. The cameraman could only pretend to be confused, nodding with a fake smile: “Makes sense…”

After a lot of fuss, the packing part was finally over. Xie Xuanming politely sent the cameraman out the door and sent a “miss you” message to Ji Sheng.

Never mind that they had been separated for less than twenty-four hours and would meet again soon.

Two other guests of “We Are CP” recorded at the same time as Ji Sheng and Xie Xuanming were an on-screen couple from a recent hit costume drama and were very popular.

The program group required the participating stars to gather in the city before setting off to the resort for the recording.

Since he set off separately from Xie Xuanming, Ji Sheng arrived at the meeting place first and met the woman from the on-screen couple — the new generation little flower Wang Yao.

The two met, greeted each other politely and sat down.

You can’t behave coldly on a variety show. As a variety show regular, Wang Yao smiled and exchanged pleasantries with Ji Sheng.

She was actually a little embarrassed to be here this time. Although her CP with the male lead was hot, nowadays, with the background of fan traffic being the most important, being in cp with a big actor could cause you to be abused by the opponent’s girlfriend’s fans nine times out of ten.

Wang Yao was already inferior to the male lead in terms of popularity. Because she was worried about being scolded, she was reluctant to sell CP and win CP fans. But the traffic of “We Are CP” was too large, and her company didn’t want to let go of this resource, so she had to bite the bullet.

She was going to offend the girlfriend’s fans if she promoted the CP, and anger the CP fans if she broke it up. There was no way in, no way out, so to speak, it was like walking on thin ice.

Now that there was a hotter “Round Ten” CP to attract fire, Wang Yao was relieved and at the same time felt some sympathy for Ji Hui.

After all, in terms of seniority, origin and business ability, this guy was more likely to be torn apart by non-CP fans than her.

Moreover, a straight man was bending over to promote the same-sex CP, committing himself to a lower position.

Money is not easy to make, (C)P is not easy to sell!

Deep sympathy surged in Wang Yao’s heart.

“Sister Yao.” Ji Sheng didn’t know that the other party had taken pity on him after one look, but he knew that Wang Yao had already recorded two episodes of the show, so he thought of getting some experience from her, “This show, what do we usually have to do?”

He got on the pirate ship without even knowing what he was going to do there.

Wang Yao felt even more sorry for him: “Generally, it just records some daily routines, cook, play games, watch dramas, and do whatever you want at home… but two people have to do it together.” 

“Oh…” Ji Sheng nodded as if he understood.

His face was full of confusion. Wang Yao thought it would be very difficult for him to spend the next 48 hours face to face with Emperor Xie, so she kindly offered an invitation, “We’ll be right next door to you, so you’re welcome to come and have dinner with us if you want.”

Ji Sheng was struggling with how to conceal his intimacy with Xie Xuanming in front of the camera when Wang Yao suddenly extended an invitation. He considered it and found that reducing the time spent with Xie Xuanming tet-a-tet was indeed a good way to avoid suspicion.

Ji Sheng was overjoyed, and as soon as he was about to agree, he heard someone say nearby, “Good morning, what are you chatting about?” 

Ji Sheng and Wang Yao raised their heads simultaneously. Xie Xuanming pushed the suitcase with one hand. Wang Yao hurriedly got up to say hello, but before she could stand up straight, she saw Xie Xuanming put the suitcase down and lean on the arm of the sofa where Ji Sheng was sitting, lowering his head, “You forgot to pack your toothpaste.”

“Oh.” Ji Sheng coughed, gave Xie Xuanming a small pat as a reminder, and stretched out his hand to Wang Yao, “Teacher Xie is here, this is Senior Wang Yao.”

Only then did Xie Xuanming notice that there was another person standing next to him. He got up and nodded, “Hello.” 

“Hello, hello.” Wang Yao was shocked by the intimate posture of the two and the surprisingly informative dialogue, and said dryly, “There is a shop next to the recording site, you can buy toothpaste there.”

“There may not be children’s toothpaste.” Xie Xuanming replied politely, but his eyes never moved away from Ji Sheng. ”He’s rather picky and only uses children’s toothpaste.”

“Oh, so…” Wang Yao smiled awkwardly.

“And it’s best to be lemon-flavoured.” Xie Xuanming didn’t know how to stop.

So Ji Sheng could only laugh awkwardly with Wang Yao.

Out of sight of the camera, Ji Sheng pinched Xie Xuanming hard.

“Get up.” Ji Sheng warned him, shaping the words with his mouth soundlessly.

Xie Xuanming lowered his eyes to look at him, and moved his lips silently: “No.” 

Ji Sheng: ……

Ji Sheng helplessly slumped back onto the sofa.

An eerie silence fell on the recording set.

After thirty seconds of silence, the director outside the scene couldn’t sit still and gestured frantically, signalling to the three to say something.

“Right.” Wang Yao’s lips stiffened; she had never been so desperate for her unlucky business partner to hurry up and appear, “I just discussed with Xiao Ji, would you like to come to us for dinner tonight?”

“Xiao Ji? For dinner?” Xie Xuanming narrowed his eyes slightly.

Ji Sheng was keenly aware of the danger, so he shrank back again and chuckled dryly.

Xie Xuanming didn’t let him go; he pressed down slightly and asked, “Do you want to go to dinner?”

Wang Yao: ……

Wang Yao suddenly felt the atmosphere of fifty shades of grey.

“Sorry for the long wait.” At this moment, the ancient puppet male lead arrived late with his suitcase. As soon as he appeared, he saw his usually lukewarmly polite CP partner sitting up straight with her eyes glowing as if she had seen a long-lost family member.

As his gaze shifted to the left, he saw two overlapping figures of the sofa, looking like they were either necking or kissing. How did they manage to look so adulterous?

The actor stopped hesitatingly. As soon as he saw that the two people stuck together were the famous Xie Xuanming and the confused Ji Hui, he heard Xie Xuanming, who was on top, say in a low voice:

“Call me ‘gege’ and I will let you go.” 

Actor: ????

Actor: !!!!

Actor: Fuck! Is this show already this bent?