What does it feel like to like a man?
Since Jiang Songhe promised on New Year's Day that he would loosen his grip on Jiang Songyun's affairs, Jiang Songyun's attitude towards Jiang Songhe has become less resistant. He even takes the initiative to inform Jiang Songhe of the upcoming schedule of the Star Show, so that Jiang Songhe can accompany him as his agent.
Jiang Songhe was naturally happy, but also secretly worried.
The Star Talent Competition organizers issued a last-minute notice that the 100 contestants who entered the preliminary round will undergo a closed training camp before the start of the semi-finals. The training will include courses with professional instructors and celebrity judges providing guidance in vocal music, dance, and physical fitness.
It's understandable that behind-the-scenes footage documenting the trainees' training process can enrich the entertainment value of variety shows. However, based on Jiang Songhe's experience in the entertainment industry, talent shows, whether online or offline, should always be well-planned and comprehensive projects.
The competition schedule should have been set in advance, instead of being announced only after the players had been staying for several days.
For a moment, Jiang Songhe suspected that Jonah might have used his privileged status as a top TANG artist and a judge on a talent show to do something behind the scenes for his own selfish reasons.
But the truth is, Jiang Songyun hasn't mentioned Janus, his idol whom he "really, really likes," at all these days. So perhaps Jonah really is being sensible and keeping his word, and won't cause any more trouble for him and his brother in the future.
"Maner and his gang are all undisciplined and have no sense of time," Jiang Songhe recalled Ni Haolang saying.
Given this, if he were to speculate further, it would seem that he was being overly concerned.
So he stopped daydreaming in that direction and started to consider the practical issues and the next course of action.
Jiang Songyun has never worked independently in an unfamiliar environment since she was a child. She is always accompanied by Jiang Songhe or by an executive or assistant arranged by Jiang Songhe.
Guiman is about an hour's drive from Tang Dynasty. If Jiang Songhe wants her younger brother to eat a hot meal cooked by her own hands, this distance is too far.
Moreover, this godforsaken place, Manr, is always having some ridiculous holiday like Sleep Day, and then there's the problem of not being able to get a taxi...
Jiang Songhe didn't want to miss any of her brother's performances during the last two months of her abstinence, so she made a quick decision to stay at a hotel near Tang Dynasty.
-
Ding ding ding, someone is knocking on the door outside 512.
"Yes, still a full house since the MGT show..." This is what the front desk of one of the many hotels has told us.
“Fine.” Jiang Songhe held his phone between his shoulder and ear, drew a line on a sticky note covered with hotel names, and then walked towards the entrance.
As soon as the door opened, Jiang Songhe saw Ni Haolang enter. She beckoned into the room with one hand, then turned back to continue her phone call: "Please let me know if your hotel is available..."
Ni Haolang entered the house and saw two suitcases, one new and one old, lying open on the living room floor. He immediately squatted down and started scratching at them with his hands.
The old room was mostly black and sparsely furnished, while the new room was filled with trendy odds and ends. You could tell which room belonged to which person without even looking at the two key cards stuck under the rope.
"Songhe, are you leaving already?!" Ni Haolang asked anxiously, looking up.
After finishing the call, Jiang Songhe glanced at Ni Haolang's question and remembered that she had said last time that she "wouldn't be staying in Maner for more than a few days." She replied succinctly, "Not yet. Songyun went to Xingxiu for training. I'm planning to switch to a place that's closer."
"Pshaw, you scared me half to death." Ni Haolang breathed a sigh of relief and resumed his carefree demeanor.
Jiang Songhe only remembered to take her medicine when she saw Ni Haolang. She walked to the dining table, picked out the pills, and asked, "What's wrong?"
"Going to see a patient, huh? What's up..." Ni Haolang answered casually, only caring about wandering around in the light, sniffing the air. "Hey, what's that smell in your room?"
Jiang Songhe paused as he fiddled with the medicine, unconsciously recalling whether Jonathan had gone that far on New Year's Eve, and how to explain it later. He rarely needed to make up lies.
It's been four or five days, that can't be.
Before she could even get into the mood, just as Ni Haolang was about to enter the bedroom, Jiang Songhe had a sudden thought and started to tell a half-truth.
"Um, it's myself—"
"You've started wearing perfume?"
"..."
Ni Haolang rubbed his nose: "What happened to you?"
"Nothing much, uh, I don't touch that stuff." Jiang Songhe turned her back and poured herself a glass of water. "Maybe the cleaning staff changed the fragrance, I didn't notice."
"You brought someone back again? That shouldn't be the case, with your health..." Jiang Songhe's last sentence was too soft for Ni Haolang to hear. He persistently scanned the four corners and eight edges of the double-opening curtains several times, acting furtively, as if trying to peek into the golden house to see if there were any little devils hiding there.
Although Jiang Songhe was abstinent, he was still a healthy man. The word "body" was unpleasant to hear. He clicked his tongue silently, then tilted his head back and swallowed the handful of medicine with water.
"This smell is strange and peculiar. It smells like a dancer offering incense. Hmm, I can't tell if it's a man or a woman." Seeing that Jiang Songhe didn't say anything, Ni Haolang sat at the foot of the bed and began to talk to himself, "Do you think it's possible for someone to like both men and women? Hey Songhe, what does it feel like to like a man?"
Men...
"You're dreaming right now, baby."
“If it’s you, I can make the bottom.”
“Yeah, right like that, baby…”
...
Jonah's seductive voice and alluring imagery appeared simultaneously before Jiang Songhe's eyes.
Jiang Songhe's ears burned, he choked, and coughed as he cursed, "How the hell would I know?!"
"Jiang Songhe, you're not being fair! I asked you something, and you're hiding it from me! I've been working for you, even selling my body!"
Their relationship has always been like this: Jiang Songhe is cold and fierce, while Ni Haolang is obsequious and cheeky. Now, the oblivious Ni Haolang is actually getting annoyed by Jiang Songhe's usual way of speaking.
Jiang Songhe was also confused by Ni Haolang's unusual behavior. He raised an eyebrow and asked, "'Selling your art and your body'?"
"Well, when I went back from your place last time..." Ni Haolang's face turned red and then dark, and he couldn't finish his sentence.
When Ni Haolang left Jiang Songhe's place last time, he was furious and cursing, "Just wait till I get back, I'll give that bastard a piece of my mind..."
Jiang Songhe was already half-asleep and delirious at the time. Based on his understanding of Ni Haolang, he probably wouldn't dare to really go head-to-head with Kun Ji'en, who was much smaller in stature. At most, he would just say a few words to vent his anger, so he didn't say much to stop him.
Then he thought again that they hadn't hung out together for over ten years, and he couldn't draw conclusions based on his past impressions.
Remembering Kun Ji'en's muscular physique, and combining it with the sentence above, he suddenly tensed up. He rushed over to Ni Haolang in a few quick steps: "What did you do? Or did he do something to you?"
"Wh-what do you mean, do it or not?!" Ni Haolang was flustered, then seemed to remember something, "It's just..."
Jiang Songhe had never seen Ni Haolang so hesitant. The more Ni Haolang stammered, the more uncertain he became. In his anxiety, he reached out and tried to pry open Ni Haolang's skull, hoping to find the answer directly from that monkey-like face that could never hide anything.
"Oh dear! It's about my brother being eliminated! He's the kind of person who won't do anything without a benefit. He said he'd only agree to let Song Yun enter the preliminary round if I gave him something in return. Then, I said I'd draw the cover for his next album for free, but he took advantage of that and insisted on staying at my house, saying it would be convenient to communicate with me 24/7..." Ni Haolang's face turned suspiciously redder.
Jiang Songhe was furious. She was angry that Ni Haolang had acted on his own initiative and been taken advantage of. She was even angrier at herself for causing such a big problem for her friend who was alone in a foreign country.
He had previously thought he was the one who attracted the attention of a crazy kid, allowing the kid to repeatedly manipulate him by using his brother's nomination as bait.
Jiang Songhe also became conflicted and irritable. Saying thank you would be insincere, and saying sorry would be a useless hindsight. He was momentarily confused and didn't speak properly: "Are you stupid?!"
"Me, stupid?! I'm a shrewd one!" Ni Haolang brushed Jiang Songhe's hand away, ruffling his red hair in protest. "I've already planned this all along! I was afraid that guy wouldn't keep his word, so I signed everything into the contract! It's all in black and white, I'm on guard!"
What kind of contract are you signing with zero pay?! Now look what you've got, you can't back out now, is that what you call not being stupid?
Jiang Songhe closed his eyes silently and rubbed his temples.
After rubbing for a while, as if he had cleared up his brain circuits, he said from the perspective of minimizing losses: "How about this, two paths."
Jiang Songhe held up one finger: "One, if you feel that there is still a need for you two to have contact in the future, I will pay you back for the compensation you received for your previous cooperation with him."
Then he held up another finger: "Second, if you really feel uncomfortable with him and want to cut ties with him completely, go back and look at how much the penalty for breach of contract is. I'll pay it too."
"Ultimately, this matter is up to me. Tell me what you want to do, and I'll settle it."
Ni Haolang, who had been shouting and arguing, suddenly fell silent when Jiang Songhe unexpectedly presented two solutions. He seemed confused about what was going on with such a simple matter. After a long pause, he stammered, "I'm not choosing either path."
Then, as if he'd been stabbed in the back, he vaguely realized that Jiang Songhe's words were a roundabout way of insulting him for being "naive and greedy," and he jumped up abruptly: "I'll handle my own affairs! Stop talking nonsense! Who are you calling a liar?!"
"..." Jiang Songhe took a deep breath, closed his eyes speechlessly, and rubbed his temples.
However, Ni Haolang's reaction put Jiang Songhe at ease. Although Ni Haolang usually seemed mysterious and eccentric, he was loyal and sentimental. He had stayed in Maner for more than ten years without mentioning returning to China, so he must be very popular. There was no need for him to act like a big shot like when he was a child.
Last time at Ni Haolang's studio, he could tell that the relationship between Ni Kun and Ni Haolang was unusual. Ni Haolang didn't choose either path, which just meant that the two of them had a deeper friendship, and even if they quarreled, they wouldn't break up.
“Okay, I’m superfluous.” Jiang Songhe returned to the dining table, detached the ballpoint pen from the notepad with one hand, took out his phone with the other, and said half-jokingly, “Please calm down, I still have a few hotels to contact.”
Jiang Songhe? Would he be joking?
Ni Haolang scratched the top of his head with his monkey paw, then his face turned pale and he laughed: "How can I not vent my anger?"
"Oh, right, when I left your place that night, I think I saw... Janus in the hallway!"
The smooth handwriting slipped on the paper with a swishing sound and veered sharply into a corner.
"Uh, are you thirsty? Let me pour you a glass of water," Jiang Songhe said hospitably, getting up to greet him.
"He seems to be gay too... Speaking of which, Songhe, what does it feel like to like men?"
Upon hearing this, Jiang Songhe looked up abruptly and nearly crushed the cup when he saw the scene before him.
Ni Haolang was using peacock dance gestures, his fingernails pinching a piece of fabric with the words "C" and "K" written on the edge, his head and the fabric rotating around each other.
"This..." Ni Haolang fanned himself with his other hand, exclaiming, "What a joke! A dancing girl offering incense!!"
Joe! Na!! Shi!!
Don't you mind the fuck getting stuck in your crotch?!
Is it crazy to spray perfume on there?!
...
Now he was in a situation he couldn't clear his name even if he jumped into the Yellow River. Jiang Songhe's heart, which had been determined to defend his straight identity, was ashen. He decided to be reckless and lay his cards on the table: "I really don't know... After what happened with Tao Nian, I don't plan to talk about relationships anymore."
Ni Haolang listened and looked away from C and K, blinked and rolled his eyes, seemingly recalling fragments of the past, but was still confused: "No, I remember she was the one who took the initiative to pounce on you, wasn't she? She got what she wanted, and you didn't lose out."
"Utterly despicable." Jiang Songhe frowned and belittled himself.
"You were drunk back then! Even though you didn't hold hands with someone you liked the first time, it shouldn't have come to this..."
"This is probably how my life will be. As long as the Jiang family has Songyun, that's enough." When Jiang Songhe encounters a problem that she can't explain, she just says it all outright. No matter how many twisted arguments Ni Haolang makes, he'll run out of words.
"You really want to know what it feels like to like a guy?" Two completely unrelated nerves suddenly clicked. "You and Kun Ji'en, the two of you?"
"Holy crap! What are you saying? I'm a straight man! A real man!" Ni Haolang changed the subject, "Well, I just remembered I have some things to take care of at the studio, so I'll be going now, Ha Songhe. I'll ask about the hotel for you, no need to see me off..."
Jiang Songhe vaguely remembered that when Ni Haolang was being coy and acting against his will, he especially liked to call himself "Laozi" (a self-deprecating term).
Before he could even review where "I" had just appeared, Ni Haolang had already vanished like a rocket.
"...What did I say?"
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