Have you seen Farewell My Concubine?

The music theory class ended at 5 PM. Jiang Songhe reminded Jiang Songyun not to forget to take online classes when she wasn't tired, just to give her a break. Jiang Songyun hurriedly agreed and was then called away by the staff to board the bus back to the Tang Dynasty Hotel with the other contestants in her group.

"Your younger brother is much more pleasing to the eye than you."

Suddenly, the voice of Jiang Songhe, who had been itching to beat up that person three hours earlier, came from beside him.

Jiang Songhe turned to look at Kun Ji'en directly. He really wanted to give this troublemaker a couple of lines of classic Chinese poetry, but considering that his younger brother was able to understand the bigger picture and apologize to this person, and considering that the contestant and judge would be seeing each other every day for the next two months, he held back.

"Oh, that's right." He said with a professional fake smile, "Then I'll be grateful for your help in the future."

After saying that, I turned and left. Rather than standing by the roadside listening to this person continue rambling on, I might as well go to the nearby hotels and ask if there were any vacancies.

Unexpectedly, Kun Ji'en caught up with him and kept saying, "Hao Lang's affairs are my affairs, and I will naturally take care of your brother in the future."

"It must be tough." Jiang Songhe kept walking. "But please treat me fairly. Song Yun is a very promising player."

"You're still as fake as ever." Kun Ji'en took a big step and blocked Jiang Songhe's way. "You've repeatedly used Haolang to take shortcuts for your precious younger brother, and now you're talking to me about 'fair treatment'? Don't you think you're ridiculous?"

Jiang Songhe narrowed his eyes, feeling both annoyed and confused, as he recalled the scene when the two first met.

At the time, Kun Ji'en had mentioned the "exploitation" aspect. Jiang Songhe was really annoyed by Jonathan and Jiang Songyun, and he did indeed have the idea of ​​using Ni Haolang as a go-between to persuade Kun Ji'en to take his younger brother into his team during the finals. Jiang Songhe thought that "exploitation" referred to this, so he didn't deny it.

But Jiang Songhe was unable to persuade him that day due to illness, and he is not planning to ask again now.

This "exploitation" refers to Ni Haolang helping him find Kun Ji'en and promising to let Jiang Songyun return to Xingxiu.

Ke Kun Ji'en kept saying "again and again," but Jiang Songhe thought there was only one "once," and the "again" hadn't happened. So where did the "third" come from? Could it be that Ni Haolang had once again taken it upon himself to find this person to do him a favor that would only hurt him more?

"I also want to know what shortcuts I've taken?" Thinking too much was useless, so Jiang Songhe decided to ask directly, "Why don't you elaborate?"

Kun Ji'en chuckled and then became mysterious: "No rush, let's go somewhere else and finish the drinks we didn't get to enjoy last time."

-

"Tell me! Are you... trying to use helping as an excuse to... steal Haolang away from me?!"

"Let me tell you... don't even think about it! My figure is better than yours! My skills are better than yours! My body is better than yours too! I'm not only more talented than you! I'll also make Haolang shine forever! So that you'll never be good enough for him!"

"What are you looking at? You...don't believe me?!"

Jiang Songhe: "..."

About two hours ago, Kun Ji'en led Jiang Songhe to a secluded alley at a fork in the road in Tang Street.

The further they went, the more wary Jiang Songhe became of the ill intentions of the newcomers. He followed behind Kun Ji'en, silently unbuttoning his suit jacket and rolling up his sleeves as he walked, constantly alerting his surroundings with his ears and peripheral vision.

As dusk fell, neon signs in various languages ​​lit up the closely connected walls. As the two walked deeper into the alley, Kun Ji'en suddenly stopped and turned around. Jiang Songhe saw his face shrouded in a cold green light, took a step back with her right foot, and clenched her fists in the shadows.

As a result, Kun Ji'en only glanced at Jiang Songhe, then stretched out his thumb and pressed the fingerprint lock on the door under the light. The door opened with a recognition sound, and Kun Ji'en opened the door and stepped inside first, saying to Jiang Songhe, "Come in."

A faint melody drifted from inside. Jiang Songhe frowned as he looked at the ambiguous Siamese sign on the door. Although he was suspicious, he thought that Kun Ji'en would be appearing on the show in the future, so he wouldn't do anything too outrageous. In the end, he slipped inside and followed him.

It turns out that it's a members-only bar.

As soon as the two sat down in the private room, the waiter began serving drinks. Given the absurdity of his previous experience drinking with the Maner artists, Jiang Songhe cheated this time.

Jiang Songhe was still recovering from a cold, and his throat was always hoarse. Whenever Kun Ji'en raised his glass, he would drink it all in one gulp, but he would use the action of coughing and wiping his mouth to spit all the wine into the handkerchief.

When he realized he had been caught red-handed, he pressed the call button to have the waiter empty the ashtray, and casually suggested replacing it with a new one.

When the third hand towel was used, Kun Ji'en's tongue became swollen.

Jiang Songhe repeatedly steered the conversation toward "shortcuts," but Kun Ji'en always managed to steer the conversation back to his relationship with Ni Haolang, accompanied by a frantic boast. The further Kun Ji'en strayed from the topic, the more Jiang Songhe felt something was amiss.

This person's attention to Ni Haolang has clearly exceeded the boundaries of friendship, and his current act of "comparing" is clearly a competition with Jiang Songhe, treating Jiang Songhe as a rival in love.

Upon realizing this, Jiang Songhe instantly understood why Kun Ji'en had harbored such hostility towards him from the very first meeting. At the same time, he had a new question: Did Ni Haolang know about this man's intentions?

If Ni Haolang knew about it, that would be fine. The fact that they could still be roommates under the same roof even though they knew suggests that they had reached some kind of harmonious consensus on the matter.

If Ni Haolang was unaware of the situation, given Kun Ji'en's behavior in these different ways, he might suddenly lose his temper and do something to Ni Haolang!

Jiang Songhe pressed the call bell again; this time, he changed his hand towel because he genuinely wanted to wipe his hands.

Seeing that Jiang Songhe was already quite drunk, Kun Ji'en propped his head up and pointed at her carefully wiping his face, then said arrogantly, "I'm not like you... with a... troublesome germaphobia."

Jiang Songhe paused, then lifted her eyelids and looked straight ahead.

"You're wrong. 'You have OCD' was something Haolang... told me. I don't know... anything secret." Kun Ji'en leaned forward, his tone laced with Tom Yum flavor, not forgetting to provoke, "You know about Liaoma? If you do, then... don't mess with Haolang's... intentions!"

"..." Jiang Songhe's lips curled up slightly on one side, and she wondered if she had overestimated him a bit.

Just as the two were awkwardly stuck in this bizarre atmosphere of "filling a cannon with vinegar and sprinkling popping candy," speak of the devil, and "Ni Hou Liangzai" sent Jiang Songhe an awkward message.

From Kun Ji'en's perspective, Jiang Songhe calmly answered the phone and began an encrypted conversation: "Hello? Yes. It's nothing. Stop for now, I have a question for you. Are you happy to be with him?"

A 30-second pause.

"Okay, I understand. Don't interfere. Okay, I'll be back later."

It's over.

As soon as Jiang Songhe lowered his head and looked up while locking his phone, his aura changed.

Kun Ji'en couldn't quite put his finger on what had changed, but there was a certain fatherly authority about him, even though he was only a few years younger than the man surnamed Jiang, which made Kun Ji'en feel inexplicably nervous.

“Now I have a few questions to ask you,” Jiang Songhe said in a fatherly tone.

"What is it?" Kun Ji'en asked, quickly realizing what was going on, and angrily knocked over the empty glass beside him. "It was Haolang?! If it were me, I wouldn't have brushed it enough..."

"Shut up. Listen to my question."

-

"...Mixed Thai and Korean, full name is Kun Ji'en Duislange, 32 years old, 189 cm tall, independent...Siam and Man'er have legal same-sex marriage...Hao Lang can choose anywhere..." Kun Ji'en's upper body swayed straight.

"Uh, who asked you that?" Jiang Songhe cleared her throat. "You just said so much about 'what you think,' 'you know more than,' and you really enjoyed talking about it. Now, let's talk about Ni Haolang. How much do you know about him?"

“He is my sun. My, sun. Yes, that’s right… sun, mine…” It was already nine o’clock at night, and Kun Ji’en was probably drunk to the point of exhaustion. His vocabulary was suddenly running out, and he started repeating the same thing over and over again.

Jiang Songhe's original intention was to test how much Kun Ji'en knew about Ni Haolang's childhood opera training, because based on what he learned from Ni Haolang and from what he saw with his own eyes, Kun Ji'en was a scheming, self-centered, and vindictive person.

But this jealous man also had the air of being devoted to Ni Haolang, having already planned where the two of them would get married.

In fact, in the years after Ni Haolang left without saying goodbye on New Year's Eve in 2008, which were also the years when Jiang Songhe's life underwent tremendous changes that were difficult to face, she resented Ni Haolang.

She resented him for shamelessly barging into her life, and resented that he had called her brother for many years, making her used to his presence, only to disappear without a word when she was most helpless and in the most pain.

But he only resented those years. After passively accepting everything and stepping into the world outside the closed-off world, he witnessed the joys and sorrows of others. He gradually understood the struggle behind Ni Haolang's smile back then and the reason why he gave up everything to come to Maner.

"A chameleon is still a dragon," he now understands—Ni Haolang needs to unleash his true self and shine brightly elsewhere without pretense.

No one should be bound by any reason to force another person to give up themselves and share the pain.

Although he still needs some time to accept the fact that Ni Haolang likes men, it is something he needs to process on his own, and it does not affect his original intention to wish Ni Haolang happiness.

Ni Haolang said on the phone that he was happy to be with Kun Ji'en, and that he probably couldn't live without him, and that was enough.

That wasn't enough. Jiang Songhe wanted to do one last thing for her childhood friend, to let Kun Ji'en know, more or less, that Ni Haolang's past was truly too bitter.

Jiang Songhe had never been in a relationship, but subconsciously he felt that if Kun Ji'en truly liked Ni Haolang and knew about Ni Haolang's past suffering, he should feel sorry for him and treat Ni Haolang even better in the future.

However, he couldn't say too much or go into too much detail, presumptuously taking away Ni Haolang's initiative to reveal his true feelings to Kun Ji'en.

"Have you seen Farewell My Concubine?" he asked.

"Buried..." Kun Ji'en's upper body slumped down for a moment, then quickly stood up again, showing off defiantly, "But Haolang and I, I almost surpass all the other classic canal balls together!"

He's quite adept at showing off.

"Tsk, you can go back and take a good look for yourself first." Jiang Songhe got up, poured himself a glass of wine, and tapped it on the glass in front of Kun Ji'en. "The little rascal inside is about the same as Ni Haolang."

He then tilted his head back and drank the wine in his glass in one gulp. This time he didn't vomit. He exhaled a breath of alcohol and put down the glass.

“But Ni Haolang was braver; he successfully escaped.”

-

Jiang Songhe carried the heavily drunk Kun Ji'en over his shoulder to the main road of Tang Street, stuffed him into a taxi he hailed by the roadside, then bent down and patted the car roof, telling the driver the address of Ni Haolang's studio.

Just as he was about to get up, Kun Ji'en, as if possessed, grabbed his hand through the car window and muttered, "You surnamed Jiang, that bottle of 'Hanwang Maoting' was originally meant to be saved as wedding wine for Haolang."

Jiang Songhe was taken aback, then ripped Kun Ji'en's hand off and threw it back into the car: "Damn it. Can I just consider this an early celebration of your wedding?"

“Heh, the third ‘shortcut’ is already in your hands.” Kun Ji’en rolled up the car window. “Room A on the top floor of the Tang Dynasty Hotel, exclusively for celebrity judges. Check-in before midnight, or you’ll miss it.”

...

Once the taxi was out of Jiang Songhe's sight, Kun Ji'en straightened his clothes and sat up straight, showing no signs of drunkenness.

He took out his phone, dialed a number, and laughed after the call connected: "If I'm not mistaken, he's on his way to the Tang Dynasty."

Have fun.