abcnovels
Chapter 23
Chapter 23
Chapter 23
Bonus ko-fi chapter brought to you by Gimmi pizza and an anonymous reader!
After Jing Yuanqi left, Shi Qing chased his assistant out as well. He was the only one left in the dressing room.
It was only then that he closed his eyes and carefully received the information about this world.
It was a novel involving the entertainment circle. The male lead Jing Yuanqi was born into a rich family, but he began to quarrel with them after graduating from university. In a fit of rage, the business genius ran away from home to become an entertainer. In less than half a year, he rose from an unknown newbie to the hottest upcoming star.
Of course, it wasn’t through his efforts alone. He might’ve had a falling out with his family, but he still had his connections with young adults of similar family backgrounds. These young adults were all pampered at home, and had quite some clout outside as well. Their influence was especially pronounced in the entertainment circle. When Jing Yuanqi came, they took very good care of him.
However, the disadvantage of hiding his identity as a young master and having many rich supporters was that people might mistake him for someone who sold their body to get ahead.
Particularly because this young man was quite good-looking. He has a lithe body with well-defined eyebrows and peach blossom eyes. He looked like he always had a slight smile even if it wasn’t true. This, in addition to his great physique, made him stand out even amongst his fellow entertainers.
As a result, some people, including the original owner, who were intolerant of people like Jing Yuanqi regarded him as just a one-hit wonder relying on his face.
Jing Yuanqi’s original life should have been smooth sailing. He would reach the top of the entertainment circle and then work hard to build his own business empire.
Unfortunately, maybe due to the author fleshing out his character too much, the novel gained a life of its own.
Reality was often even more dramatic than fiction.
In the end, Jing Yuanqi died at the hands of the biggest BOSS in the book.
In the original storyline, although the biggest BOSS had a powerful family and an advantage in the entertainment circle, none of his schemes succeeded and he was killed by Jing Yuanqi in the end.
But after this world became real, the biggest BOSS didn’t want to wait for Jing Yuanqi to grow up at all. He hired a mercenary to deal with him early on.
With the death of the protagonist, the world collapsed. It was game over.
The System waited patiently for Shi Qing to finish digesting the plot. It only spoke out in a lively manner when he opened his eyes: [Host, your task is very simple. It’s still to guard the protagonist and reduce the animosity value to less than 50% in a month!]
After passing through the last world, it has been completely convinced of the prowess of an experienced Host like Shi Qing. It was patiently waiting to win, as if victory was a foregone conclusion.
Shi Qing leaned back in the chair. His tone was gentle: [Take a guess, Baby System. Who is the biggest BOSS in this world?]
The System suddenly had a bad premonition: [......I don’t know.]
[It’s me.]
System: [......]
[Surprise, surprise, surprise.]
While flipping through the memories, Shi Qing said: [The last one at least didn’t have the time to do anything. It’s a lot more tricky this time. Before we came here, this person’s already done everything he shouldn’t have.]
[Abusing his position, demeaning his juniors. Let me check the latest ones. Ah. In addition to this devil’s pepper incident, he also wanted to secretly use his connections to remove Jing Yuanqi from this film after learning that it would become a big hit.]
System: [......]
It was silent for a long time before it carefully asked: [He doesn’t know, right?]
Shi Qing mercilessly shattered the System’s last hope: [He knows. Why else would his animosity towards me be 100%?]
System: [Wu......]
[Host, maybe we should give up. We earned points from the last world anyways. It’s not a big deal to leave this one.]
[Why leave?]
Shi Qing squinted at himself in the mirror: [Don’t you think that the harder the problem, the more interesting it becomes?]
[But before all that, replace my dulled sense of taste with pain immunity. Then get me an iron stomach.]
As soon as the System heard that they were staying, it was happy again. It joyously opened up the exchange interface: [Host, pain immunity is free already, so you can exchange the dulled taste buds for an iron stomach.]
[Do it.]
The System couldn’t follow the thought process of the Host, so it asked curiously: [I can understand the iron stomach, but how does the pain immunity help with this task?]
[I forgot the feeling of spiciness came from pain. My mouth would be on fire if I didn’t do something.]
The System that listened to him say all that in a flat tone: [......]
This Host really was too much sometimes.
Shi Qing stood up and straightened his clothes. He looked at himself in the mirror.
This face was quite nice actually. Although it was approaching thirty, his skincare routine was on point, with a fair complexion and tidy eyebrows. Even before makeup, the lips naturally glistened with a delicate colour.
He was an outstanding beautiful man no matter how you cut it.
It’s just that the original was always so gloomy all the time. He refused to interact with people of a lower status. Every day he wore the same untouchable look on his face. Even if his features were ten out of ten, it had to be reduced to a seven.
This was the reason that most of his fans were attracted by their empathy towards the roles he played rather than his face.
Shi Qing skipped over a significant part before.
The background of the original owner was indeed more prestigious than the male lead. However, his mother died early on and his stepmother brought her son into the family after his father remarried. Although this son had no blood relationship with him, the original owner’s father was very friendly to him because of his sweet mouth.
The original owner was jealous. He acted against his stepbrother several times. The other person retaliated by tattling on him to their father. How could someone like him that was always doted upon bear to be scolded? He ran away from home in anger like Jing Yuanqi.
But he was also luckier than Jing Yuanqi. His father wasn’t really angry with this son of his. Although the original owner left home to come to the entertainment circle, his father has always used his own connections to protect his son and allow him to become a film emperor.
Despite this, the original owner became more and more gloomy because of his stepbrother. He couldn’t stand to see other people be cheerful. After all, his stepbrother seemed so cheerful everyday. That mouth of his was nimble enough to bring the dead back to life.
In addition, he also hated anyone who was even slightly more talented than himself. He suppressed them with extreme prejudice as soon as he found out about them.
People like Jing Yuanqi, who were used to publicity and had amazing talent, was the type that the original owner despised the most. So after finding this ‘thing that was just like his younger brother’, he made a move without needing to think about it.
After that, the more he tried, the more he hated this person. The more he hated him, the more he tried. In the end, he couldn’t wait for Jing Yuanqi to just kneel over where he stood.
It was strange to bear such a strong grudge against someone whose only crime was to be more talented than him. But the original owner didn’t think that he did anything wrong.
Ever since he was a child, he has been raised to be the best. He got whatever he wanted. Was it really so strange to step on an ant that offended him?
Jing Yuanqi was the biggest ant that he wanted to trample beneath his heel.
When Shi Qing opened the door of the dressing room and went out, the assistant was waiting outside. He hurried to greet Shi Qing as soon as he saw him: “Shi-ge, you’ve finished filming for the day. Do you want to go back to the hotel?”
This assistant was a new hire according to his memories. The previous ones were all dismissed by the original owner before long. Since none of his assistants lasted longer than a month, he gained the nickname ‘Loose Hand’ in the circle.
The meaning behind it was that while others held on tightly to their subordinates, his grip was so loose that he couldn’t even hold onto them for a month.
“I’m not going back to the hotel. I’ll be staying here,” Shi Qing replied frigidly.
He glanced at the young assistant: “What was your name again?”
The assistant who served him for three days thought it took way too long for this lord to ask about his name. Nonetheless, he put on a look that said ‘it’s normal that you don’t know your assistant’s name after three days’. He replied: “My name is Gao Zhi. Shi-ge, it’s fine to just call me little Gao.”
“En,” Shi Qing responded dismissively.
Gao Zhi glanced at the lazy demeanour of the man in front of him. He thought the rumours that circulated around were true after all.
This ancestor really was hard to please and communicate with.
Although Gao Zhi has been here for three days, he was busy running errands for the first two. Right after meeting Shi Qing properly today, he was assigned to put the purified devil’s pepper sauce in the meal of the rising star in the same production crew.
At first, Gao Zhi felt that he was seeing the ugly side of the entertainment circle firsthand. He didn’t stand up and say that this was wrong. Instead, he obediently bought devil’s pepper sauce and dosed Jing Yuanqi’s meal.
When he first started his career, his seniors had warned him that there were many underhanded secrets in this circle. If you want to keep your job, you should ignore what the higher-ups are doing unless it’s something illegal.
After all, there was no way that Gao Zhi could continue to live in this city with a soaring cost of living if he became unemployed.
He used to feel sympathetic towards Jing Yuanqi, but the chain of events that followed were beyond his expectations.
First of all, Jing Yuanqi, who was a little fresh meat that should’ve kept his head down stood up for himself.
Then, Shi Qing, who was the instigator with a supposed grudge against Jing Yuanqi, actually ate the entire lunchbox that had devil’s pepper sauce added to it.
That was devil’s pepper sauce!
Before Gao Zhi purchased it, he scrolled through its reviews on Taobao. The comments were quite scary, mentioning after effects like sausage lips, chrysanthemum pain and even ulcers.
He personally added that bottle of devil’s pepper sauce which was guaranteed to make people question their life with one mouthful.
But Shi Qing finished eating it all with a straight face......
Gao Zhi snuck another glance at his new boss. He was very worried about his digestive health.
Shi Qing felt more than fine.
When Jing Yuanqi saw Shi Qing again, the film emperor was seated and leaning back slightly with a lax posture. His light expression was impossible to decipher as he talked to Gao Zhi who was nearby.
Shi Qing’s body was long and slim. He painted a pleasing picture just by lounging on the chair. Under the sunlight, his skin was so radiant it appeared to be clear. Every part of him seemed to be carefully sculpted. Some muscle there, less muscle here. All of it combined into perfection.
Unfortunately, the more attractive he looked, the more repulsive Jing Yuanqi found him to be.
It made him uncomfortable that a person with this kind of appearance would rely on his identity to suppress the younger generation.
Maybe it was due to his extraordinary features, but Jing Yuanqi was somewhat curious about what Shi Qing was saying to his assistant. He was never one to restrain himself. Jing Yuanqi didn’t bother to think about anything else as he quietly moved closer to Shi Qing.
When he vomited after eating a single mouthful of rice, he didn’t even have to guess who did it. This undisguised primary school level sabotage could only be the work of that person who has always been against him for some reason, Shi Qing.
Jing Yuanji was so angry that he started laughing.
Where did all of Film Emperor Shi’s confidence come from? He didn’t bother to conceal his actions in the slightest.
Did he really think that his family background and status were enough to safeguard him from retaliation?
He was not going to tolerate this person’s bad habits.
He stormed out to find him, but without hesitation, Shi Qing finished the food that Jing Yuanqi couldn’t stomach even one bite of.
This caused Jing Yuanqi who was determined to teach Shi Qing a lesson to lose steam. It was like his punch met only air.
He really wanted to know whether Shi Qing was pretending just now or if he really had a high tolerance for spice.
Like a leopard on the hunt, the young man smoothly tightened his muscles and stepped silently behind Shi Qing without attracting any attention.
The film emperor was talking to Gao Zhi. His voice was cold and distant: “That sauce tasted pretty good. Order another box.”
Gao Zhi: “......”
His mind was filled with images of perforated intestines, but his love for a salary forced him to be strong: “Okay Shi-ge.”
Shi Qing: “Tell the stage manager that I’ll be buying dinner for everyone as well. Take some money to pay for it.”
With the thought of “whatever you say boss” and other ideas of selfless devotion to your superiors in his head, Gao Zhi asked carefully: “Shi-ge, should I add that sauce to Jing-ge’s portion again?”
Jing Yuanqi also wanted to know.
From where he was standing, the young man could spy on the man who was completely unaware of his existence from above.
His lazy back was resting on the chair, and his posture was completely relaxed. Jing Yuanqi can see his small, white and tender earlobes, as well as the slender nape of his neck under his soft hair.
It wasn’t bad to look at.
Shi Qing spoke then.
It was only now that Jing Yuanqi realized that Shi Qing’s voice was very distinctive. It was clear and cold and reminded him of jade beads which were cool and transparent. It made people feel like this was a person who kept everyone at a distance.
His voice was chilly, and he sounded unhappy.
“He doesn’t like it, so why put it in?”
Jing Yuanqi was pleased by his words.
They sounded so unhappy ah.
After hearing this, Gao Zhi was silent for a long time. He then carefully reminded his boss:
“Shi-ge, um. Ordinary people usually don’t like sauce made with purified devil’s pepper extract......right?”
Jing Yuanqi was hidden right behind Shi Qing. He looked down as those delicate and petal-like lips slightly fluttered.
Shi Qing was expressionless, but Jing Yuanqi could sense a hint of dejection emanating from the man.
The film emperor’s voice was quieter than before, as if he was muttering to himself:
“I happen to like it.”
[Ding! Jing Yuanqi’s animosity value: 99/100.]