Chapter 109: The Golden Toad Family
His sudden and drastic move caught Li Sishi off guard. Not only was she caught off guard, but Wu Shanluan, who was standing next to her and had a more objective perspective, could only feel a gust of wind pass by before he subconsciously looked over and found that there was already an empty seat next to him...
Unexpectedly, while watching the commotion from the sidelines, Li Sishi was suddenly grabbed. After realizing what was happening, she tried to break free, but not only did she fail, Shang Hanyou tightened his grip on her arm to prevent her from making any trouble and running away.
To make it easier to grab her, he even switched his right hand, which he usually used to hold the microphone, to his left. With a quick twist of his arm and a clamp, Li Sishi was completely restrained by him.
"Hey, hey, aren't you going a bit too far?" Le Yun was almost dumbfounded by the situation.
Putting aside the fact that he had never seen such an operation before, the most important point is that his little apprentice, Li Sishi, is his biggest trump card in this competition!
Li Sishi deliberately stood slightly towards the middle of the door so that when her master, Le Yun, was singing in front, she could lean back a little and hear her whispered instructions...
Although cheating in such situations is harmless and may even have a certain stage effect, everyone needs to set a good example and not be so obviously arrogant.
Now, Shang Hanyou is directly holding her by the arm, seemingly with his hand, and hooking her arm around his side away from Le Yun. So if Le Yun wants to hear his advice, he has to reach over the broad bodies of the two big men, the host and Shang Hanyou, to barely reach her side. This is not an easy task for Le Yun, who is relatively small in stature due to the era and environment.
Besides, even if Yue Yun is tall enough, reaching across two people like that is just too obvious and too blatant cheating...
While Li Sishi was still pondering the sharpness of Shang Hanyou's move, Shang Hanyou continued to exaggerate, saying, "Where is it excessive? You brought four, while I only brought one, and two of your four are my partners and junior sisters..."
"Ah May is also my apprentice whom I treat like my own daughter!" Seeing that he was still getting into the role, Le Yun couldn't help but laugh and play along.
"Alright then, if you beat me, I'll give her back to you." As Shang Hanyou spoke, he tightened his grip again, restraining Li Sishi, who was still restless despite being held by his arm. "Be a good girl and listen to me!"
That seemingly fierce little face looked exactly like a thug harassing an innocent woman, which made the audience burst into laughter: Just now, Le Yun's little...
The truth is obvious to all, and now Shang Hanyou has turned the tables on them, it's truly a case of tit for tat.
It's a pity that the innocent and beautiful woman was dragged out and became the prize for the battle between the two kings.
"Alright, alright, since that's the case, then I'll trouble you, Meili, to temporarily serve as the 'prize' for this competition..." The host, Cen Yinjian, is a top-notch emcee who has hosted many large-scale galas. He even participated in the semi-finals and finals of Li Sishi's Miss Hong Kong pageant. Therefore, he quickly guessed what the audience was thinking and greeted them in the atmosphere.
“Since Philip has spoken, I have no objection…” People in the industry all call Cen Yinjian by his English name, Philip, and Li Sishi, who was planning to give face to this top-notch emcee with whom she had a strong connection, was no exception.
However, Li Sishi quickly changed her tone and started wriggling again: "Hey, don't pull so tight, I'll behave!"
"Do you think this is the first day I've met you?" Shang Hanyou's helpless and speechless expression reminded the audience, who initially thought the two's posture was a bit too intimate, of the farce of running away with the microphone during last month's anniversary celebration...
So, the person who started laughing first then told the story to those who hadn't seen the farce, and the atmosphere became even more cheerful and joyful.
I was almost fooled by Li Sishi's seemingly innocent and naive appearance—as a junior whom Pei Yansang personally said he greatly admired, her lively and unrestrained thinking and personality were definitely not to be underestimated!
After the laughter subsided, the backstage area began playing the instrumental version of the first song.
Li Sishi immediately recognized the lively and cheerful tune: Fortunately, it seems that her master, Yue Ji, is not only popular but also lucky, as everyone, including the machines, is willing to "favor" him.
In contrast to Li Sishi's relaxed demeanor, Shang Hanyou, upon recognizing the song, instinctively let out a teasing "tsk~".
The ending of that word was so evocative and nuanced, clearly indicating that he didn't believe Le Yun's first song to guess just happened to be one of her own, but rather suspected that the people backstage had given Le Yun a biased answer.
At this moment, Le Yun started jumping around without any suspicion: it was rare to encounter a song that was his own "Persian Meow" as the first song, and since the song had dance moves, singing and dancing at the same time made it less likely for him to forget the lyrics...
"What are you tsk about!" If she couldn't be her master's perfect teammate, she'd be the audiophile's worst teammate, Li Sishi thought to herself.
She pulled him back with her hand.
“Can’t I even play his songs? Fine then—” Shang Hanyou snorted.
Then, when Yueyun sang the line "Persian cat's voice is sweet and charming," he picked up the microphone and added a "meow~" to the recording...
The "meow" sound, combined with Yueyun's waist-swaying movements in sync with the lyrics, elicited laughter and applause from the audience.
The upbeat electronic music quickly replaced the melodious ancient music, and Shang Hanyou frowned.
He quickly and hesitantly sang the lyrics to the next song, "Ode to the Plum Blossom."
"I'm reporting him for mixing up the lyrics... Ouch." Before Li Sishi could even say she was being a terrible teammate, Shang Hanyou quickly bumped her head against her head and then, with an incredibly confident expression, finished singing the lyrics he had mixed up.
This classic song is so old that even its original singer, architect and music mogul Ban Jingjie, has long since retired from the industry and immigrated. Logically speaking, the new generation of people like them from the 90s might not know it, let alone know how to sing it.
Coincidentally, Ban Jingjie was one of the masters of music in early martial arts dramas, and Shang Hanyou, who was a karaoke enthusiast since childhood, covered Ban Jingjie's "Wandering Alone Through Thousands of Mountains and Rivers" when he first participated in a singing competition on screen...
Based on this connection and fondness, he forcibly dug out "Ode to Plum Blossoms," sung by the same singer, from his vast memory of lyrics.
Although he sang the lyrics incorrectly, he seemed so confident that, for a moment, apart from Li Sishi, no one actually noticed that he had mixed up the lyrics.
The next song was sung by Yueyun. As soon as the melodious and lingering tune started, Li Sishi, who had memorized the lyrics for a long time, immediately understood what it was. But Yueyun's words, "My memory has never been very good," were true. He couldn't recognize the song at first...
Wen Huihui, who was standing to the side and behind him, stepped forward and whispered something to him. Le Yun, as if waking from a dream, hurriedly raised the microphone: "I'm afraid you'll change your mind and end up in tears..."
"Master, I won't change my mind, please save me!" Li Sishi quickly moved closer to Shang Hanyou's microphone and said.
Judging from the laughter at the scene, her plea for help did have a good stage effect, but given that Yue Yun could forget such a classic Cantonese song, a pioneering masterpiece, it's probably a bit risky for her to go back there.
Shang Hanyou was already in the zone, and then it was Le Yun's turn.
As for their singing skills, opinions on those two are subjective.
When it comes to intelligence, however, the elderly and young people are really no match.
Moreover, Le Yun still had several songs to perform with her old partner Yin Mei, which severely overloaded her brain. When she took this song, she basically relied on her confused little eyes to look left and right. In the end, she was only able to finish the song with the help of the four beautiful women behind her.
Seeing Le Yun so anxious she was practically sucking her thumb, Shang Hanyou smugly pulled Li Sishi past the host to Le Yun's side and confidently continued singing: "Keep the past..."
Perhaps it's because he's been walking the dark roads too many times that he finally encountered a ghost. Even with his confident expression, he couldn't hold back his frustration. Shang Hanyou, mimicking Le Yun, looked around with pleading eyes several times but couldn't find any helpful answers. He immediately stamped his feet in frustration.
Then I just mumbled "la la la" and got through it...
Seeing that both of these top male singers from different generations of the music scene were equally silly and adorable when they forgot the lyrics, Li Sishi couldn't bear to watch and covered her face, deceiving herself into thinking that the increasingly loud laughter on site was just air.
Unfortunately, the problem is that once the bottom line is crossed, it only gets lower and lower. When the accompaniment of the next song came out, Le Yun, along with his microphone, huddled next to the four pretty girls who were secretly supporting him from the back. He was completely led by others to sing, and it turned into a five-person chorus. The host came over and couldn't pull them apart. In the end, he could only watch helplessly as the audience laughed and he just gave up like that.
Even Shang Hanyou was shocked by the shamelessness of this senior whom he respected so much, so he simply joined in and sang along with him, holding the microphone on Le Yun's shoulder: "He happens to know this song too."
Before he could finish singing two lines, Shang Hanyou realized that Li Sishi, whom he had been holding onto, was trying to sneak away again. So he quickly pulled his "hostage" back two steps and took over the song with the microphone: "Silently leaning against the window, gazing at the rain, which is heavy and chaotic..."
Last year, when he sang "The Ups and Downs of Life" with Le Yun, he was too rushed in his schedule and didn't remember the lyrics, so he sang it on stage in fits and starts. He was secretly angry with himself for a long time and spent a lot of time memorizing the lyrics... Today, he can finally redeem himself!
Taking advantage of the space created by Shang Hanyou taking two steps back, the host pulled Le Yun to the front of the dance steps, indicating that he should stay there to sing. Then, he performed a "spreading wings" pose to block the four beautiful women who wanted to follow and help.
When the host pulled him out and he suddenly heard this accompaniment and lyrics, Le Yun was both amused and exasperated: it was rare to have another song that he was "familiar" with, but unfortunately he was assigned to the opposite side!
However, seeing her admired junior perform her hit song so completely and fluently this time, Yueyun also...
With a sense of satisfaction, the old man and the young man waved and made gestures in unison, seemingly bickering as they sang the rest of the song, pointing at each other.
Shang Hanyou then made a particularly amusing gesture, as if he was angry and turned to leave. He then grabbed Li Sishi with one arm and turned back to pull Le Yun aside, saying, "Mr. Le, don't be angry. I really respect you..."
“I respect you, but I haven’t seen you give my daughter back!” Le Yun retorted playfully.
"A daughter is like a tree that grows up and can't stay at home forever, Leji!" Shang Hanyou now had the expression of a new son-in-law coaxing his future father-in-law. "It's time to let go!"
"You...you...you...you're like a toad trying to eat swan meat!" Amidst the burst of laughter from the audience, Le Yun pointed at him, laughing and cursing, then looked at Li Sishi with concern, "Girl, what's going on here?"
"I..." Li Sishi only managed to utter one word before Shang Hanyou, who was currently free of singing, covered her mouth again.
"A toad, if you paint it with gold, becomes a golden toad, which is a match for a swan..." At this moment, Shang Hanyou fully displayed his naturally comedic side, and in the close-up shot, he stepped from the three-dimensional world into the two-dimensional world. His face, which easily produces cartoonish comedic effects with his expressions, was grinning so wide that his eyes were almost invisible. "What's wrong with me croaking a couple of times to get a wife? -- Hey, let's go prepare and then come over to tell you the whole story... As for Le Ji, you'd better go and calm down first."
"Yes, if I don't calm down, I'm going to get so angry that my blood vessels will burst!" After saying this, Le Yun left the stage amidst laughter and the electronic beeping of increasing donations, thus introducing his returning old partner—the iron-lung diva Yin Mei.
Unexpectedly, these two clowns improvised and led to the rest of the program. Li Sishi was both annoyed and amused as Shang Hanyou, who had been nagging her all the way, dragged her back to the backstage amidst the continuous laughter from the audience.
immediately
The two immediately began changing their costumes and styling, preparing to go on stage after Le Yun and Yin Mei's duet to perform the last program of the night: the Cantonese opera "The Dragon and the Phoenix".
It was already past 2 a.m., and "Joyful Kwong Wah" usually runs until 3 a.m., so they had been staying up all night and were just one last show away.
"Alright, alright, it's almost our turn, get ready to go on stage." Male celebrities usually change clothes faster than female celebrities, and Shang Hanyou's short hair doesn't require a hairstyle change, so he came over to urge her after only a few minutes.
Li Sishi, who was letting the stylist style her hair, tilted her head and looked over. She saw that he had put on a golden suit jacket over his previous vest and shirt, making him look like a bunch of bananas...
"Are you kidding me? I changed the color to match you and the 'Dragon Soaring' theme!" Shang Hanyou would not allow anyone to object to his rainbow-colored suit jacket series, which he could wear to any occasion.
"Okay, I was just joking. Didn't I pair it with a pink cheongsam dress for you?" In "The Emperor and the Phoenix," the classic color scheme for the male and female leads' opera costumes is gold for the man and pink for the woman, implying the emperor's majesty and Li Fengjie's beauty as a wine counter lady.
As they prepared to go on stage, the two overheard Le Yun's seemingly heartfelt words to her partner Yin Mei, which were actually a complaint directed at the entire audience: "Sigh, I'm so reluctant to part with my beautiful daughter, but that rogue emperor is just too, too, too... sigh!"
Le Yun's long sigh, delivered with a theatrical flair, undoubtedly paved the way for their performance on stage.
The stage went dark for a moment, then brightened again. In the darkness, Shang Hanyou's witty and somewhat endearing teasing words opened the curtain on the final performance: "Oh, so your name is Sister Feng? That's a really sweet name..."
“Sweet, sweet, sweet, what do you mean by Sister Feng? You are indeed sweet…” He, playing the role of Emperor Zhengde, waved his fan and came closer, attracting attention with his operatic tone before pointing upwards again, “It’s a pity that the shop name is not natural enough. Haha, it’s a joke to pair a phoenix with a dragon. They should tie us together as a phoenix and a dragon.”
"Today at the Dragon and Phoenix Restaurant, I'm hosting a Dragon and Phoenix Feast. Our two families are truly a perfect match, like dragons and phoenixes..."
Speaking of Shang Hanyou, although he is generally considered to be the least handsome of the Four Heavenly Kings, his strength and talent can create a clear and upright atmosphere. When you are with him, you will not be overshadowed by the handsome Ling Chen or the other two handsome Heavenly Kings. Instead, you will have a unique and perfect harmony with him.
Perhaps this is why an interesting soul can be just as good-looking as a handsome appearance?
Li Sishi thought to herself, and then, following his lyrics, she waved the silk scarf in her hand and continued singing: "You don't care about manners at all, if you want to order food, hurry up, I don't want to listen, do you want to wait until the end of the year?"
The large red silk scarf waved, making a pushing motion to shove him away. Then, Shang Hanyou, playing the part of a charming and amorous emperor, immediately reached out to touch the back of the jade-like hand that was pressed against his chest—
Just as their hands were about to touch, that one
Her jade-like, icy hand slapped him again, restraining the lustful emperor who was blinded by her beauty. He frantically circled the beauty once more, grinning mischievously as he approached her again: "I don't want your dragon intestines or phoenix wings—I only want Sister Feng to offer her her heart..."
The pre-planned, seductive shoulder-bumping gesture was accompanied by the emperor's lyrics, where he would silently touch the beauty's shoulder.
"Get off me, get off me! Why are you so foul-mouthed? It's really annoying that you haven't bothered me for so long. You're just a butterfly that only picks flowers, stop pestering me!" The beauty, finally annoyed by the pestering, cursed and pushed him away.
However, the amorous emperor retreated while continuing his journey, even raising two fingers of each hand to form a pair: "Our extraordinary encounter, bound by fate across ten thousand miles, has made me the current emperor, the one who is connected to the dragon..."
"Then you'll be able to fly to the sky." The beauty grew increasingly impatient and retorted casually.
"Why suspect and deceive?" The amorous emperor pressed closer, causing the beauty to wave her silk scarf and retreat repeatedly. "You've truly gone mad..."
The playful banter finally came to an end with this sentence. The amorous emperor strode around and blocked the beauty's retreat, then closed his paper fan with an arrogant air: "I have proof—the current imperial seal... is right before my eyes!"
"Really?" After Li Sishi asked softly, the stage went dark again, followed by enthusiastic applause from the audience.
Once again, amidst applause, Le Yun stepped onto the stage with a helpless expression and said to the host, Yin Mei, and the group of singers who had just competed as human background figures, "Hey, that's how he tricked my daughter away... Sigh!"
"Your daughter is now the emperor's imperial concubine, isn't that a great thing that deserves to be sacrificed like a pig to appease the gods?" Emerging from the shadows behind, Shang Hanyou, in the guise of a drama queen, promptly stepped forward and spoke again.
This time, however, Li Sishi, freed from constraints, was able to fight head-on again—she followed behind with a smile, and in close-up shots, her face appeared as innocent as a little deer that had appeared by chance.
But after showing the world her clear and innocent smile, the little deer curled her lips up slightly and then smeared the bright red silk handkerchief on Shang Hanyou's face again, "Alright, Your Majesty, I will now cover your face with the red veil in advance..."
"Hey, hey, hey, don't hold me down! If I'm covered with a red veil—what will that look like...?" Seeing Shang Hanyou being held down by a group of people until he cried out in pain, Li Sishi, the instigator, laughed even more heartily.
“What else is there? The husband’s authority is weakened.” Li Sishi blurted out.
However
Then Yin Mei, who was standing next to her, patted her shoulder with a motherly smile and said, "It doesn't matter, men who are afraid of their wives will prosper!"
The camera then gave the two generations of divas a close-up shot. Against the backdrop of the glamorous and domineering Yin Mei, Li Sishi, whose radiance was just beginning to blossom, smiled exceptionally beautifully.
Although her eyes no longer held the alluring charm she displayed when playing Li Fengjie, this half-pursed smile paired with the faint dimples at the corners of her mouth made her seem like a celestial being descended to earth.
The solitary and aloof spirit of towering clouds has been transformed into a rich and intoxicating brew that intoxicates even without the wine itself.
This must be the most beautiful smile in the world.
Years later, looking back at the variety show featuring the legendary beauty Li Sishi in her early days, a netizen left a comment on the second floor of the video's comment section with such a beautiful smile: "What's the point of comparing fan value? Who can love beauty more than my family? My grandfather likes her, my dad likes her, and I like her the most!"
Satisfied, this netizen closed the webpage and went to sleep, expecting to receive praise from a bunch of silly netizens the next day. The next morning, however, he opened the red notification dot with a beaming smile, revealing 99+ messages.
Third floor: Three generations of toads? What kind of golden toad family is upstairs?
Fourth floor: *Pfft*
Fifth floor: The truth is out on the third floor! (A series of seemingly random, humorous comments follow, which are not translated as they are not part of the main text.)
Seeing the comments about the "Golden Toad Family" website accumulating over a thousand "doors" overnight, netizens felt dizzy.
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