14. Everyone is a cosplayer

"Hello, my name is Master!"

His voice was full of magnetism and confidence, and it sounded a little unreal coming from his thin body.

Zhang Chenling walked forward to greet them with a smile and briefly introduced herself and her two teammates.

The young master's eyes, hidden under his hair, seemed to be scrutinizing the three of them. After a while, his vague gaze passed by Zhang Chenling and landed behind her. "I want him to help me take off my clothes, is that okay?"

Chen Yuang felt the young master's gaze and took a step forward. "Of course!"

On the way here just now, the two sisters had briefly explained to him the bathing assistance process and precautions. Fortunately, he is a nurse and has rich experience in caring for patients. He understands many things without being told, and may even be more professional than Zhang Chenling and Ni Yue.

However, after helping the young master prepare for bathing and lifting him into the bathtub, Chen Yuang's eyes flashed with hesitation when he saw Zhang Chenling handing him a bright orange bath towel.

As a native Shanghainese, he had only enjoyed bath scrubbing services in some Japanese hot spring houses and had never scrubbed anyone else's bath. Bath towels were naturally a new thing for him.

"Hold on!"

He shook his arms and rolled up his shirt sleeves high, looking as if he was about to draw a bow and shoot an arrow, which was very funny.

The two sisters laughed out loud at the same time when they saw this.

Zhang Chenling guessed that this fashionable young man in front of her had probably never scrubbed a bath before and might not be able to control the strength well, so she simply turned her wrist and put the scrubbing towel on her hand, "Let me scrub it! You help him with the key parts!"

Chen Yuang smiled awkwardly.

"Then I'll wash your hair!" Ni Yue rushed to say.

For some reason, she was a little afraid of the young master.

After the grumpy Old Deng, the young master became the second customer who made her feel a little scared at first sight.

But unlike the oppressive presence emanating from the irascible Old Deng as a superior, the Young Master seemed more like a being from a distant planet. Hunched over in his wheelchair, he reminded Ni Yue of Quasimodo, the bell ringer in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Of course, compared to that deliberately vilified hunchback, the Young Master had a much straighter back and a handsome face. But regardless, Ni Yue felt a little intimidated and didn't dare get too close to him.

So, the rescuer Chen Yuang was given the easiest job of watering.

The young master was lying sideways in the water, his legs bent at 90 degrees, as if he was still sitting in a wheelchair.

The large bath towel was soaked with water, clinging to his body like a layer of skin, clearly outlining the contours of his limbs. His slender leg bones were sticking out, with no flesh visible.

Ni Yue sighed silently. Compared to Quasimodo, he looked more like a humanoid bat wearing a white cloak!

She silently wet the young master's hair bit by bit, and seeing his full forehead and handsome eyebrows, she couldn't help but look up at Chen Yuang. They both had single eyelids, sharp eyes, and looked very energetic.

Zhang Chenling lifted the young master's arm, which was so thin that it could be held in one hand, with pity in her eyes. She gently scrubbed it with a wet bath towel and asked him if the water temperature was suitable and whether there was any particularly itchy part of his body.

The young master didn't say much, only responding with "hmm" and "ahh".

His eyes were always on Chen Yuang, or to be more precise, on his shiny and glossy hair.

After staring at her for a long time, she finally couldn't help but ask, "Brother, what kind of hairspray are you using?"

Chen Yuang curled his lips and said, "It's not hairspray, it's Hawkins hair oil from England."

"No wonder," the young master's voice softened. "It's a good thing. It smells of wood and has a natural color."

"I use it mainly because it's water-based, healthy, and easy to wash out!" Chen Yuang winked at him. "What about you?"

The young master was stunned.

"What hairspray do you like to use when you cosplay? Butterfly Shadow or Gardenia Moon?"

The young master was stunned again, and asked in a trembling voice: "Are you a cosplayer too?"

"No," Chen Yuang shook his head in denial, "but I have a female friend who is a cosplayer, so I know a little bit about it."

Ha! Ni Yue, who was washing his hair, couldn't help but roll his eyes inwardly when he heard the words "female friends".

Chen Yuang seemed to sense her rolling eyes and grinned at her, then said to the young master, "By the way, the display cabinet in her living room is exactly the same as yours!"

Upon hearing this, the young master immediately took off his cold mask and excitedly talked about cosplay with Chen Yuang. He said that he used to like cosplaying Qin Che the most, the wheelchair version!

"Huo, Qin Che, you are awesome!" Chen Yuang nodded in approval.

Ni Yue didn't understand what they were saying, but Chen Yuang suddenly gave her a meaningful look and whispered two words in lip language: Domineering CEO.

Oh, Qin Che is the domineering boss!

She couldn't help but chuckle, then quickly put away her smile and pretended nothing had happened.

The young master then asked Chen Yuang's female friends which characters they liked to cosplay.

"Hmm..." Chen Yuang frowned and thought for a while before saying, "Maybe her name is Cang Yue?"

"'Stealing the Stars in September'!" The young master's cheeks flushed. "A Laurence I know also likes to cosplay Cang Yue. She's a really nice person!"

Chen Yuang nodded. "Cosplayers are not bad people. They are all as innocent as children."

It seems that today is the day for young people. Zhang Chenling, who feels the generation gap, just listens without saying anything and concentrates on scrubbing her body.

"...One Halloween, I cosplayed as Edward Scissorhands. It was the most expensive cosplay I've ever done. The custom outfit alone cost over 10,000 yuan, but the result was amazing. That night, so many people surrounded me to take pictures that they blocked Yuyuan Road. They all said I looked like an extreme Edward..."

The young master began to chatter on and on about all the cosplays he had done, but as he spoke, his eyes gradually dimmed and the smile on his face gradually disappeared.

"What's wrong?" Zhang Chenling keenly noticed his change and quickly stopped what she was doing. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," the young master sighed softly, "I haven't done a cosplay in a long time."

This was not surprising, as everyone could see that the things in the cabinet and the live broadcast light in the corner of the living room looked like they had not been moved for a long time.

"Actually, I'm the first wheelchair cosplayer in China. I've made headlines at comic conventions and have over 100,000 followers on Bilibili and Xiaohongshu..."

There was almost no pride in his tone, only regret.

During the summer after graduating from high school, Young Master was obsessed with Japanese anime and online games, which naturally led him to the world of cosplay. He quickly became a dedicated cosplayer. The following year, at the Shanghai International Comic Con, he experienced his first cosplayer moment. That day, wearing a bright red vest, navy shorts, and a bright yellow straw hat, he successfully cosplayed Luffy from One Piece, causing quite a stir...

The young master's mother had been listening attentively to their conversation. When she heard her son mention the glory of the past, she quickly took out her phone and showed everyone old photos: Luffy, Edward Scissorhands, Qin Che...

Each shape is vivid and lifelike, as if it is 100% restored from the original.

"Every time I cosplay, it's in a wheelchair. At first, a lot of people liked to see me, and I was mostly showered with compliments. The nickname 'Young Master' was given to me by my fans, who said it suited my temperament," Young Master said with a wry smile. "But later, I noticed that the comment sections on Bilibili and Xiaohongshu started to get sarcastic, and then, for some reason, a war of words started. The worst one was two years ago, when there were over a thousand replies to a single Xiaohongshu video. I read them one by one and saw people scolding me for cosplaying a disabled person, saying that cosplaying any character in a wheelchair was an insult to the character. It seemed to make sense, so I quit the circle..."

Realizing that he was choking, the young master quickly stopped talking, biting his lower lip tightly with his upper teeth, locking his emotions in his body.

But he didn't notice that the hands that were scrubbing his hair almost stopped in mid-air at the same time.

Ni Yue, who had been listening to their conversation silently and hadn't spoken for a long time, suddenly choked up and whispered, "Master, you've been cyberbullied!"

Like her, he was cyberbullied.

A month ago, the whistleblower PPT was all over the place, and many indignant people emerged on the Internet. They took advantage of their ability to watch the fun and make trouble, and went to Weibo, Douyin and Xiaohongshu to make the matter bigger and bigger. There was no shortage of exaggerated rumors in the public opinion, as well as personal attacks such as "vixen" and "mistress", which made Ni Yue feel more painful than a broken heart and unemployment.

Later, she uninstalled all social platforms except WeChat, completely quit the Internet, moved to Shanghai to restart her life, and isolated herself from the disturbance of negative information.

After crying to her cousin last time, her mentality became much lighter, and the huge rock pressing on her heart seemed to have been removed.

But every night when she lay in bed, when the darkness came from all directions like a tide, she still felt fear. In the darkness, it seemed as if countless eyes were staring at her, ready to devour her at any time and anywhere.

She needed to curl up tightly like a cocoon to feel safe and sleep. She didn't tell anyone this secret, not even her cousin.

The trauma caused by unboxing and cyberbullying is like a virus that once infected, you will carry it for life and it will never be cured.

Therefore, she could empathize with the young master's experience.

The young master is no longer an "outlier," on the contrary, he is in the same victim league as himself.

Ni Yue was heartbroken.

The next second, she used her foam-covered fingers to straighten the young master's head, ignoring his scream of "Ouch!" and eagerly confronted him, "You're a young master, not a servant. Why do you care what others say? The world is a giant cosplay. Everyone is a cosplayer, everyone is performing. No one is their true self. What others think of you is not important at all. What matters is that you have fun acting and live to the fullest!"

The young master was stunned, and for a moment he couldn't understand why the young lady who was washing his hair suddenly became so excited.

"Those who say you're bad are just jealous of you! They're jealous of you being loved by everyone, jealous of you being the top cosplayer. If you quit, wouldn't that be playing into their trap? You'd give up your traffic and benefit those who envy you?"

Ni Yue paused, remembering what his cousin had said to him: The lower we are in life, the more we must strive for self-improvement and save ourselves from danger again and again!

So she told the young master all these words at once.

Chen Yuang stared at her in a daze, recalling that night when the two of them first met outside "Xiaoshengbb", and she looked just as indignant and confident as she did now.

A little impulsive, but also a little cute.

A smile unconsciously appeared on the corner of his mouth, and he didn't come back to his senses until he heard Zhang Chenling opposite him taking over the conversation.

Zhang Chenling said as she scrubbed the young master's shoulders, "That's right. The world is just a makeshift place. What does it matter if those idiots like to watch you? You have to learn to support yourself. You only live once, so if you want to cosplay, just cosplay. Who cares if others like to watch or not?"

The young master's mother also took the opportunity to take advantage of the situation and poured out the words that had been pent up in her heart for a long time. "Son, I think so too. Think back to when you were playing cosplay before, you were such a happy, positive and sunny person! Now you never leave the house, do you know how worried I am about you? Son, keep playing. Whether there is anyone watching you or not, I will always be your audience!"

After saying that, he raised his hand and rubbed the corner of his eye with his fingertips.

"...and me, oh no, there's us. We are all your audience, and we all want to see you cosplay!" Chen Yuang finally interrupted.

However, the three women had already said all the encouraging words, and he only uttered this sentence in a stammering voice.

The young master never expected that his unintentional complaint would cause such a huge uproar, causing everyone in the room to take turns giving him positive energy.

His hunched body rose and fell violently with his breathing, and his pupils contracted unconsciously. His gaze swept across the faces of several people and finally landed on the glass display case beside him.

He stared at a black wig that was as messy as weeds and had a dark punk style - it was the outfit he wore when cosplaying as Edward Scissorhands that year.

His eyes suddenly lit up, his lips trembled as if he wanted to say something, but he didn't say it.

"I completely understand how you feel," Chen Yuang thought for a moment, then added, "My female friend also went through a low point like you. For a while, many people scolded her, and she was even more ruthless than you. She threw away all her equipment in tears. But later, she spent more money to buy it back!"

Tsk tsk tsk, the "female friend" is here again! Ni Yue rolled his eyes unconsciously.

…

The two sisters soon ran out of words again.

Later, Chen Yuang told the young master that he was a nurse. Upon hearing this, the young master immediately grabbed Chen Yuang's arm and said excitedly that he had also thought about cosplaying as a nurse, and he must hold a super large syringe, the kind that is thicker than his legs, and hang a stethoscope bigger than his face around his neck!

Chen Yuang laughed out loud and said, "Guess what? I actually have a giant syringe and stethoscope at home! I also have an unused nurse's uniform. I'll bring it over for you to play with later!"

The young master clapped his hands and said yes, he was so happy that he couldn't close his mouth...

The atmosphere was surprisingly harmonious, beyond everyone's expectations.

If something hadn't gone wrong near the end of the bathing session, Ni Yue would have almost sung "Unforgettable Tonight".

But just as everyone was helping the young master turn his body and wipe the water off his back, the event she had dreamed of avoiding happened—

The young master is incontinent.

First there was a high-energy warning of a smell, but by the time everyone reacted, it was too late. A yellow strip of substance fell onto the bath bed with a plop.

Ni Yue lived up to everyone's expectations and vomited.

The young master's expression instantly became awkward and painful.

The young master's mother cried out "Ouch" and hurried forward to help deal with it.

Chen Yuang and Zhang Chenling stood up at the same time to stop her.

"It's okay, let's do it, this is within our scope of work."

"No, no, you are guests here, how can you do such dirty work?"

"It's really okay. I often clean up poop in the hospital. I'm a professional at this!"

…

The three people were pulling and tugging when they suddenly felt something was wrong. They turned their heads and saw Ni Yue wearing an N95 mask and disposable plastic gloves. He picked up the yellow object and rushed into the bathroom like lightning.

Then there was the sound of a toilet flushing. Chen Yuang pricked up his ears, as if he heard two sounds of vomiting mixed in.

After helping them bathe, the mother and son warmly escorted them to the elevator.

The young master was sitting in a wheelchair, wearing a newly changed blue pajamas. Perhaps because he had just taken a bath, his cheeks became rosy and his mental state was much better.

The young master's mother stood behind the wheelchair, one hand on his frail shoulder, her eyes and nose red.

The mother and son waved goodbye to them until the elevator door slowly closed.

Later, Ni Yue wrote this scene in her memo.

In the elevator, the two sisters solemnly expressed their gratitude to Chen Yuang and invited him to have dinner together.

Chen Yuang declined, saying he had already worked overtime for eight hours and his eyelids were drooping, so he needed to go home and catch up on some sleep. Besides, there was no need to bother the two sisters to send him off, as he had already called a Didi and was waiting at the gate of the complex...

Then he reached out and pressed 1F.

Watching him walk out of the elevator with his long legs and disappear from sight, Zhang Chenling couldn't help but chuckle in praise, "You're a really good rescuer! You're good-looking and have a good personality. Even an old lady like me is tempted by you!"

He turned to look at Ni Yue, but found that the woman was not listening to him at all.

She was holding up a pair of hands that had just scooped up shit, putting them under her nose, and sniffing each finger like a dog.

Zhang Chenling couldn't help but laugh, "Cousin, you handled it with plastic gloves just now, then washed your hands more than ten times, wiped them with alcohol, and even applied Master's mother's imported rose hand cream. The smell must be gone!"

Ni Yue turned away and asked seriously, "Cousin, have you ever eaten crayfish?"

"Huh?" Zhang Chenling was stunned. Why did they suddenly mention crayfish? It had nothing to do with the topic.

"After eating crayfish while wearing gloves, even if you wash your hands many times and apply hand cream, you can still smell the scent of crayfish. This shows that the molecular structure of the plastic bag cannot isolate the odor, and the odor cannot be washed off. Instead, it will stick to the skin for a while. It's the same principle!" Ni Yue said with certainty.

"Huh?" Zhang Chenling was surprised. She then put her arm around her, expressing sympathy and comfort. "Then, to compensate for the work-related injury you sustained while helping with the bath, I'll treat you to some crayfish tonight to help with the smell."