Two fires on a man's shoulders
Manr.
In the preliminary round of the Star Show competition, 50 finalists will perform on stage one by one according to the order drawn by lot. Immediately after the performance, judges and audience will vote on the spot. The background screen list has only 20 seats, which will be automatically ranked according to the number of votes each contestant receives.
The process of survival of the fittest is both direct and brutal.
After the preliminary round, Jiang Songyun and LEO formed a training duo. Jiang Songyun taught LEO drums and ciwen, and LEO reciprocated by helping Jiang Songyun brush up on music theory and dance.
The two made a private agreement to work together to reach the finals, strive to join Janus' team, and share the glory.
For the past two weeks, aside from eating and sleeping, Jiang Songyun devoted almost all her time and energy to practice, never daring to stop for a moment. Because if she stopped, she would be unable to extricate herself from the swamp of wild thoughts.
However, at this moment, in the preparation room with only 50 contestants left, the noisy singing and laughter of the preliminary round was gone. The atmosphere was tense and quiet, with undercurrents surging within.
Every word and action is easily captured and magnified by the live broadcast camera, so no one is willing to make any rash moves, both to conserve energy and to maintain mystery.
Only the video message Janus sent before the official start of the competition, after the celebrity judges' opening show, caused a brief commotion in the preparation room.
"...So, wish you guys good luck! And I'll be right here waiting for the next shining stars!"
Kang Song-yoon's gaze lingered on Janus's frozen face in the split-screen broadcast, before shifting to the background behind the idol.
Why does the background furniture look so familiar?
Also, at the end of the VCR, why is there a voiceover saying "Ciwen"?
The voice was very soft and didn't attract the attention of other spectators, but because it was Jiang Songyun's native language, he still caught it. The voice also sounded familiar, as if it were saying, "Time to eat."
Is Janus currently in Jingting? At home? With his brother?
Jiang Songyun rubbed the lucky drumsticks Janus had given him in his hand, then looked at the lucky sneakers his older brother had given him, and thought, "Could it be? Am I just too nervous and hallucinating?"
"What are you thinking about?" Leo, sitting beside Jiang Songyun, nudged him gently with his shoulder. "Are you nervous?"
"It's nothing." Jiang Songyun tucked the drumsticks into his lower back and bumped back lightly. "You're the one who's nervous. I'm just mentally rehearsing. It's an actor's self-discipline, you know?"
The two exchanged a smile and then re-entered a standby, recharged state.
Jiang Songyun was able to remain calm at first, but his draw was particularly late, and as the preparation room gradually emptied, the waiting process became increasingly agonizing.
The positions on the list change in real time. Some names soar to the top and remain firmly in the lead. Others struggle to stay afloat, barely managing to hold on for a few rounds before ultimately being squeezed off the big screen.
Contestants who were temporarily safe returned to the preparation room, where they either yelled or cried to vent their overwhelming emotions. Contestants who were eliminated on the spot were moved directly outside the factory after leaving the stage, without even a chance to be filmed again.
Jiang Songyun closed his eyes, trying to block out everything that was bothering him, to prevent himself from being affected. However, because of this stagnant state, the memory that had caused his cognition to collapse a year ago still managed to invade his mind.
...
"So it was you who threw the letter my sister wrote to you into the trash can in public?"
"Who are you? Move aside, I'm on my way to class."
"Who am I? Who am I, He Nantian's brother?!"
"I don't know him. I'll say it again, move aside!"
“Where are you going? I’m telling you, Jiang Songyun, by tomorrow at the latest, you’ll read this letter aloud in front of everyone next to that trash can, then go to my sister’s classroom and bow your head to apologize to her. Only then will this matter be over. Otherwise…”
"Dream on! You know me, right? If you know me, you should know I have a brother, who's taller and more handsome than you! You're so sure about that. Save your 'I don't think so' for when you get off school and go talk to my brother."
With a thud, Jiang Songyun was shoved against the toilet stall door by a sleazy-looking older boy.
"I know you all too well! You little actor!" The boy approached and patted Jiang Songyun's face. "Back in the day, you were just a lowlife, someone who dared to cause trouble for my sister?"
Jiang Songyun was only sixteen years old at the time. Although he had learned many moves from the action director in the crew, those moves were only for looking good on camera and had almost no advantage in actual combat.
Outmatched in both size and strength by the tall man before him, Jiang Songyun struggled a few times but was unable to retaliate, and his face burned with anger.
Jiang Songhe, Jiang Songyun's older brother and manager, never allowed him to swear or curse.
Several years ago, on a film set, the director spoke fluent and beautiful Mandarin Chinese, and he didn't hold back when giving acting instructions to Jiang Songyun, who was eleven or twelve years old.
Jiang Songyun found it amusing and imitated a few phrases after filming. Just then, Jiang Songhe, who had just returned from collecting the actors' meals, caught him red-handed. Jiang Songhe was furious and warned him that if he did it again, he would never be allowed to join a film crew again, so that he could completely cut himself off from the messy environment.
So even though Jiang Songyun was furious, he could only open and close his mouth, unable to utter any truly vile words. Instead, he adopted a "I'll kill you with my eyes" attitude and angrily retorted, "You! You're the real scoundrel!"
"Oh, you've only been on TV a few times, so you think you're so important that I can't even say anything to you?" The boy wiped the dirty envelope on Jiang Songyun's school uniform. "What do you think you are, huh?"
The envelope had clearly been deliberately tampered with recently; the glue, mixed with curly hair, withered leaves, and sand, was still wet and smeared all over Jiang Songyun's tie and lapel.
Although Jiang Songyun wasn't as fastidious as Jiang Songhe, the cool liquid seeped through the fabric and onto his skin, making him gag. He couldn't say anything, and his eyes suddenly turned red and moist.
"How about I tell you?" The boy became even more audacious upon seeing this, grabbing Jiang Songyun's school uniform tie and pulling him closer. "You are just a pitiful worm without parents. Your worm-like life was given to you by your mother with her last strength before she died."
She pouted and pretended to wipe away tears, saying, "Uncle Jiang and Aunt Shen, if they knew they had such a despicable son, they probably wouldn't be able to close their eyes in heaven, sob sob!"
"Uncle Jiang? Aunt Chen? Who are you? Why are you calling my parents like that?!" Tears welled up in Jiang Songyun's eyes uncontrollably. His blood boiled, and he grabbed the hand holding his tie, pulling the man down and delivering a powerful knee strike to his stomach. "I'll teach you to talk nonsense!!!"
The boy yelled in pain, then rolled his eyes fiercely, grabbed Jiang Songyun by the neck, and slammed him against the door with even more force. He chuckled evilly, "I'm talking nonsense? Heh, interesting. Looks like your troublesome family affairs, even your jinxed brother didn't dare tell you?"
Jiang Songyun's face flushed red and he couldn't breathe as his fingers dug into the gap between his fingers. He managed to choke out, "You...cough...shut up! You're not allowed...to say that about...my brother..."
"Still protecting him? Do you know why your brother is a jinx?" The boy slapped Jiang Songyun on the neck again. "Your parents were killed by your brother! He also wiped away half of your parents' life's work."
"You're talking nonsense!" Jiang Songyun managed to squeeze out the most vulgar word he could muster, but the strength in his resistance unconsciously weakened. "My parents... passed away on April 20th, 2008... It's not... it's not..."
"It wasn't even on the day you were born?" Seeing that Jiang Songyun's face had turned purple, the boy slightly opened his tiger's mouth to let in a breath of fresh air. "Junior, you're quite naive and innocent, aren't you?"
Jiang Songyun seized the opportunity, shoving the boy away with all her might. She braced herself on her knees, arching her back and breathing heavily. Two tears fell to the ground with a pattering sound due to the violent movement.
My heart pounded in my chest, and the voices in my ears gradually became indistinct.
"Judging from how you kept calling me 'brother' just now, have you already been trained by your brother to be a dog tied to your belt? Haha!"
"No wonder he would lie to you. If he didn't lie to you, why would you willingly become an actress and his perpetual money-making machine? Hey, let me interview you. Did he discuss this with you before you took on your first role?"
"But I really have to thank your good brother! If it weren't for his reckless behavior, forcing your parents to rush back to Jingting during the New Year, they wouldn't have had that car accident. If they hadn't been in that accident, how could your brother, the young master of Haijun Trading, have been in charge of your Jiang family's business, and had ended up in the hands of our He family..."
Jiang Songyun realized that her chest tightness and shortness of breath had not improved, her throat was sore, and she was having difficulty breathing, which were signs of an impending asthma attack.
His mind and heart were in turmoil. He didn't want to believe a single word that this scoundrel uttered, but his physical reactions didn't lie, and his psychological defenses were still severely shaken.
He needed to calm down, process the situation, and think things through. Before that, he couldn't face Jiang Songhe, so he couldn't let his asthma attack flare up and needed to preemptively stop the attack.
So he slid down the door panel, put his hands on his knees, leaned forward, closed his mouth, and controlled the rhythm of his breathing through his nose.
"What's wrong with you? You've lost your mind, are you about to mutate?"
As the boy spoke, he squatted down and peered intently at Jiang Songyun's face. When he saw large beads of sweat on Jiang Songyun's forehead, his face flushed red, and his lips pale, he paused for a moment and quickly stood up.
"I've made myself clear about what I should and shouldn't have said." The boy condescendingly tossed the envelope into Jiang Songyun's arms. "Take a good look at your own capabilities, and then do as I said at the beginning."
"Otherwise, as long as you're in this school, don't expect to have a single day of peace! If you don't believe me, just wait and see."
After saying that, the boy slammed the bathroom door shut and walked away.
Jiang Songyun leaned against the door for the duration of a class. When the bell rang, he stood up, opened the cubicle behind him, stepped inside, and threw all the torn envelopes into the toilet and flushed them away.
After quickly cleaning the stains off his school uniform at the sink, Jiang Songyun returned to the classroom and spent the entire day in a daze, motionless.
When school was over, he put on his mask, pulled his hat down, ignored the classmates who surrounded him and greeted him along the way, went straight out of the school gate to find the conspicuous Luman, opened the car door, and sat in the back seat.
Jiang Songhe tapped the steering wheel twice, looked back at Jiang Songyun for a moment, and asked with a rare humor, "What's wrong? You were a young swordsman in Hengdian for three months, and now you're not used to being a student in Jingting?"
"No." Jiang Songyun wrinkled his nose, twisted his body, and suddenly felt that the leather seats in the car were hard and smelly, so he rolled down the rear window, stuck his head out, and inhaled the exhaust fumes from other cars.
Jiang Songhe didn't say anything more and started the car to drive home.
While stuck in traffic during the evening rush hour, Lu Man was stuck in the flow of cars for nearly ten minutes without moving. At this time, he asked Jiang Songyun, who had rolled up the car window, "My homeroom teacher called me and said that you missed a class without reason. What were you doing?"
"I want to transfer schools." Jiang Songyun looked straight into the rearview mirror and met Jiang Songhe's eyes.
"Huh?" Jiang Songhe's eyes widened in surprise, then a hint of anger appeared. "Is someone at school picking on you?"
Jiang Songyun suddenly didn't want to rely on Jiang Songhe to handle everything when problems arose. Unfortunately, he was still a minor, and starting over in a different environment meant that his guardian still had the final say.
“No.” He took off his mask and hat, smiling brightly as if to prove himself. “The English teachers at this school don’t speak fluent English, and the courses aren’t very demanding. Didn’t you require me to finish university before becoming a full-time actor? I was thinking, since I’m going to take the entrance exams for Beijing Film Academy and Central Academy of Drama anyway, I might as well switch to a school with higher requirements for students. If my academic scores are higher, my chances of getting accepted will also increase significantly.”
The eyes and brows in the mirror relaxed, and a smile replaced anger: "Songyun has grown up. Cheng, your brother Rong should get to know him."
"By the way, brother, what's the anniversary of Mom and Dad's death?" Jiang Songyun leaned forward and asked with a grin.
Jiang Songhe froze, unable to answer such a simple question for a long time.
The long line of cars finally started to move forward. Jiang Songhe turned his face to look in the rearview mirror, adjusted the steering wheel, and reprimanded in a deep voice: "April 20th, remember this, don't joke about your parents' death anniversaries in the future."
Okay.
Jiang Songyun sat back in the back row, his smile fading.
"I've got it."
...
"Wow, ho!"
Suddenly, his shoulders were gripped tightly. Jiang Songyun snapped out of his reverie and looked up at LEO, who had just come off the field and returned to the preparation room.
The fact that they were able to come back means they are safe for now.
Jiang Songyun turned to look at the split screen of the live stream again, and sure enough, LEO's name had already jumped to the top of the list. It was not just temporarily safe, it could be said that he had won for sure.
"To congratulate you, I'll teach you another classic porcelain phrase." Jiang Songyun raised his arms and pried LEO's hands away. "A man with two fires on his shoulders, if you're looking for a beating, then go ahead and hit him."
"Hahahaha! I don't remember you preparing a rap performance later?" LEO wasn't annoyed by the scolding and sat down next to Jiang Songyun. "You get excited so easily, and you say you're not nervous?"
"I'm so nervous, I can't wait to go on stage and outdo you."
"Oh? Then I'll wait and see."
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