Ch20 - A Bit Cute

Edited by Ghost

That night at 8pm, the company’s Weibo and official website was updated simultaneously to reveal the profile of Tomas,  the first member of the latest boys group IceDream.

Tomas was Xie Zhuxing. Because there were too many members, short English names were easier to remember by the fans rather than Chinese names, so every member had an easy English stage name.

Their names were as such: Tomas was Xie Zhuxing, Able was Ji Jie, Benson was Gao Siyuan, Leo was Wang Chao, Carl was Yang Xiaomu, and Cute was Cheng Yao.

After the six people finished practicing their songs, they didn’t go home. They all stayed at the company, sitting around in a circle as they huddled together, scrolling through Weibo.

The company spent a lot of effort on the promotions. The post was forwarded to thousands, and there were already hundreds of comments.

Duan Yikun had already warned them beforehand. He said that when new idol groups are first launched, it’s unlikely they would be widely praised and quickly accepted, so they should be mentally prepared first for the offensive remarks in the comments.

Even so, it’s hard not to be affected after seeing such offensive comments. They all felt frustrated after seeing comments like, “How can you be an idol looking like that?”, “His chin looks weird”, and “He must’ve had it done before debuting”. Xie Zhuxing was very good looking. He 100% had never gone under the knife before, and his dancing skills were also known to be very good. The fact that he was ridiculed so much upon his debut made the rest nervous for their individual releases the rest of the week.

But, Wang Chao was very upset. He cursed as he scrolled through the comments.

“Fuck them! How is Xiao Xie’s dancing not good? Fuck do they know!”

“You think that just because injections exist means that everyone’s gotten it before? Your mom needed injections on her placenta to give birth to you!”

“Foretelling that you won’t be popular? Fuck off to the streets and go tell other people’s fortunes you idiot!”

Xie Zhuxing couldn’t bear to listen anymore. “Alright, we should expect to get criticized if we show ourselves to the public. It’s not like I’m getting hurt.”

Wang Chao was so mad he couldn’t hold it in. “What do you mean ‘not like I’m getting hurt’? Everyone’s so brave online, but the moment they see you in real life, they won’t have the balls to say anything! What are these people good for? Do they have manners or not?”

Ji Jie actually agreed with him this time as he said, “Wang Chao has a reason to spew curses from his shitty mouth this time. Even I’m angry from looking at these comments.”

Wang Chao, “Can you speak properly? Whose mouth are you calling shitty?”

Ji Jie, “Look at how mad you are – lungs about to burst from anger over Xiao Xie’s comments. Are you gonna turn into a pufferfish when it’s your turn on Thursday?”

Wang Chao jabbed at his sensitive spot, saying, “Are you really bringing up a pufferfish when your face looks like a big meatbun?”

Ji Jie indeed had a bun face. He was always unsatisfied with his appearance and had mentioned that he wanted to get his molars removed before. The moment he heard this, he was unhappy. “I have a bun face? How come you’re not talking about how big your ass is?”

Wang Chao cursed, “Whose ass is big?! Look at your plate-sized face!”

Xie Zhuxing saw they were about to quarrel again. He dragged Wang Chao to the side hurriedly and said, “Stop arguing. You think I’m not annoyed already?”

Wang Chao didn’t pay Ji Jie any more attention. “Don’t be annoyed – it’s just today. They’ll forget about ridiculing you tomorrow. It’ll be Gao Siyuan’s turn tomorrow.”

Gao Siyuan who was going to be released tomorrow, “…”

“Hey, hey, hey! Look guys!” Cheng Yao said excitedly from the side. “Mr. Liang shared the post!”

Everyone looked down at their phones.

Indeed, Liang Xi had shared the post; he even commented: “Oh~ Looks like the little train is about to debut.”

He was very popular—not to mention he also had a lot of fans. The number of shares skyrocketed. Those who were close with him within the entertainment circle and those who wanted to be close with him also shared the post. And so the popularity of the Huixing Entertainment official Weibo account that was promoting Xie Zhuxing skyrocketed in popularity.

“What’s a little train?” Wang Chao asked with a confused face. He suddenly thought of the matter with Yan Jiajia cheating, then asked, “Xiao Xie, Liang-ge knows that you were cheated on? You told him last time?”

Xie Zhuxing, “…”

Cheng Yao explained, “There’s a cartoon where there’s a little train called Thomas.”

However, it seemed that the other members had all misunderstood the meaning of the phrase.

Gao Siyuan curiously asked, “Wang Chao, what did you mean last time? Is it when we went to the spa together?”

Wang Chao could tell from his voice that he wanted to act sour again. “Do I have to report everything I do with Xiao Xie to you? Why are you even stricter than Kun-ge?”

Gao Siyuan sneered then didn’t say anything more.

Xie Zhuxing felt a bit awkward. He usually wouldn’t offend people as it was best if everyone got along with each other, but in these situations, there’s no way to avoid offending someone unintentionally.

Wang Chao tapped on his shoulder and he turned to look at him.

Wang Chao stared at his face, analyzing carefully.

Xie Zhuxing, “???”

Wang Chao made a silly face, then said to everybody, “Um, uh, let’s all go to Liang-ge’s house some time for a housewarming party. He just moved into a new place.”

Everyone looked at each other. Ji Jie spoke up, “We’re not that close with him. Is it alright if we just go to his house like that?”

Unexpectedly, Wang Chao said, “Don’t worry. He loves fresh meats like you the most.”

The so-called bunch of fresh meats, “…”

At around 9, the wave of sharing and excitement on the Weibo post had died down gradually. Everyone went home and told each other to not be late for the recording tomorrow.

On the road, Xie Zhuxing was driving. “You told them to go over to Liang Xi’s place, but you haven’t even asked him yet. What if Liang Xi doesn’t want you guys to go over?” Xie Zhuxing asked.

Wang Chao was currently looking down at his phone playing a game. He said without a care, “He really doesn’t care. He often calls a bunch of people to go over to his place. Every type of person – some of them he doesn’t even know. He just wants it to be lively.”

Xie Zhuxing couldn’t understand this type of lifestyle. He also felt that Liang Xi’s lifestyle was a bit messy. “Don’t bring them to places blindly. You’re going to negatively influence them .”

Wang Chao lifted his head up and looked at him. “What do you mean ‘negatively influence them ‘? What do you think Liang-ge does for fun? You think he goes to clubs like me? No way. He doesn’t even mess with girls.”

Not playing with girls is the worst, alright? Xie Zhuxing asked in a roundabout way, “Then, what do you guys do?”

“Drink some alcohol, play some cards, play aeroplane chess.”

“…That’s it?

Wang Chao continued to play on his phone. “Nothing else. He doesn’t really like to stay up late. Once it’s eleven or twelve, he’ll chase us out cause he’s tired. We even have to go find some other place to hang out.”

“Then what about him?” Xie Zhuxing asked.

” At home sleeping. I told you: he doesn’t like staying up.”

….Is he really talking about the same Mr. Liang who was moaning and whining while he was jerking off?

Xie Zhuxing didn’t ask anymore. Wang Chao also didn’t seem to have anything else to say.

This habit of his was something Xie Zhuxing had noticed a long time ago. Although his mouth was super dirty, he would never gossip about someone’s private affairs behind their backs. Even though he hated Gao Siyuan, he would only  mouth a few bad words, but never the bad things he did in the past. Even Feng-jie, who only taught them for a few days, knew that Gao Siyuan used to be a trainee in South Korea, but he was kicked out in less than three months. He told other people that the Koreans didn’t like him, but another Chinese who went with him told others that Gao Siyuan had actually wanted to get involved with an older member in a female group who had already debuted with the company. But then there were harassment complaints against him. And so, he was expelled from the company and returned to the country in a desperate manner.

“I’ll just bring them over once so they won’t be so jealous of you and do things behind your back.” Wang Chao had both of his hands focused on his game as he muttered, “You probably didn’t even see how jealous Gao Siyuan was when Liang-ge shared your post today.”

Xie Zhuxing, “…” So it was because of that?

Wang Chao put down his phone and said, “If that person gets jealous of someone for real, he’ll probably even do the unthinkable. When I first came to Beijing, I wasn’t able to speak Mandarin well. A few male classmates would tease me all day long. Then, I learned how to play piano. The female classmates thought I was cool and would all talk to me. So then I bought lollipops for all the girls in the class because I was happy. Some of the boys also wanted to eat candy, so they came to flatter me. Only those head bullies were jealous and ended up calling over a few middle schoolers. They kept me after school and wouldn’t let me leave. They kept saying that I owed them money and demanded I pay them back.”

Xie Zhuxing, “…So did they beat you up?”

Wang Chao said smugly, “Of course they wanted to. But before they could land a punch, my big brother came and beat them all up. He just so happened to be there because he was coming to pick me up. He was already six foot tall and was training in Sanda at the time. I stood on the side eating a lollipop as I watched him use those idiots as a training bag. Hehehe.”

Xie Zhuxing also laughed a bit. “Your brother’s pretty good to you.”

Wang Chao got smug and continued, “I was actually super cute when I was young. My brother said once that if I still looked the way I did when I was younger, he probably wouldn’t have the heart to discipline me. Whoever saw me would call me cute when I was young.”

Xie Zhuxing looked at him. He thought he was also very cute now. His smiles of delight were also very cute.