After their performance ended, id returned backstage before heading out together for a group dinner. As they had tomorrow off for the Mid-Autumn Festival, tonight’s meal would be an early celebration.
While his teammates went to change their clothes, Wang Chao demanded Xie Zhuxing accompany him to use the bathroom. Once he finished, he trailed behind the latter with both hands draped over his shoulders, sashaying toward the makeup room.
“Leo.” Someone called from behind.
Both of them paused and turned around.
Xie Zhuxing had a knack for remembering faces. This one too, he recognized, was the acclaimed actor Bai Tu’s talent agent. They met during Duan Yikun’s birthday party.
Politely, he uttered: “Greetings, Mr. Sen.”
Zhou Niansen nodded at his recognition, yet his eyes surveyed Wang Chao instead: “Done with your performance?”
Wang Chao didn’t expect this bastard to strike up a conversation with him. Impatient, he murmured “yes” underneath his breath, unwilling to speak even one word.
Undeterred, Zhou Niansen urged: “Leo, are you going to be busy later? How about we eat dinner together? It’s just that one of my actors is scheduled to perform, I can only leave after he’s done.”
One of his artists, an idol actor, was scheduled to perform the theme song of an idol drama at the gala.
Wang Chao was a bit bewildered by his invitation: What does he want?
Likewise, Xie Zhuxing sensed that something was amiss. Wang Chao never mentioned him as a friend close enough to have dinner with.
Although Wang Chao wished to ignore him, he feared that the latter would mislead Xie Zhuxing, filling his head with nonsense. Begrudgingly, he spoke: “Forget about dinner. If you want to talk, spill it now. Xiao Xie, you go change first. I will be there in a bit.”
Wang Chao watched until Xie Zhuxing had left his sight before he asked with a sullen scowl: “What are you up to? What happened last time was all your fault. I didn’t bother to stoop to your level, but you bastard has the face to confront me?”
With no audience left, Zhou Niansen dropped his gentlemanly facade. Coldly, he spoke: “I misjudged you last time. Thought you were a bed warmer for Liang Xi. Apologies.”
Wang Chao gave him a strange look: “You confronted me just to apologize?”
Zhou Niansen scoffed in disdain: “The apology was a side note. I mainly wanted to show you something.”
He took out his phone and tapped it a few times before flipping it over for Wang Chao to see.
It’s a video from that day at the hotel.
Wang Chao shielded his eyes after only one look. Appalled, he cursed: “What the fuck? Are you a pervert? Why did you record it and show it to me? How appealing do you think your asshole is? Nasty!”
Zhou Niansen gritted his teeth, snatched his phone back, and snarled: “The camera angle was just right. It captured your face with perfect clarity.”
Having frequented places of debauchery for years, he’s heard lots of such incidences. Those with moderate status yet harbored dirty intentions often utilized tricks to coax young artists into sleeping with them, and worse, recorded their intercourse for future blackmail. Typically, the recipients remained silent in fear of retaliation; the weak ones, however, may have ended up as their playthings.
“You are using this to threaten me?” Wang Chao was thoroughly revolted, “I’m glad I didn’t forget to wear a condom that day. You are completely rotten from the inside, and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you are infested with some nasty STIs.”
Zhou Niansen glowered, clenching his jaw: “I heard your brother is getting promoted to director. If this video makes its way to his department, things will get very, very interesting.”
Id’s other five members had finished changing and were waiting for their captain to have dinner.
“Where is he?” Ji Jie wondered, “Didn’t we agree on a group dinner? If we don’t leave now, the dinner will truly be a midnight meal instead.”
Xie Zhuxing said: “We ran into Bai Tu’s talent agent just now. They had something to discuss and probably haven’t finished. Let’s wait a bit longer.”
Curious, Chen Yao probed further: “That Best Actor’s talent agent? What were they discussing? Casting captain for his movie?”
Ji Jie rebuffed with contempt: “Him? Casting a movie? That movie has gotta be X-rated then, the type that features nudity.”
Yang Xiaomu chuckled: “I don’t think it was for casting either. Apart from Bai Tu, that talent agent never represented any respectable artists. His success is pure luck – had he not signed Bai Tu right after the latter’s debut, he’d be far below our Brother Kun. The newcomers he signed are indeed unpopular. The most successful among them is perhaps the idol actor he brought over to sing at the gala tonight.”
Gao Siyuan began to gossip too: “His sexual orientation is an open secret in our circle. Rather than nurturing artists, he leeches off of Bai Tu’s stardom and leverages it to harass the male ones. Rumor has it that he even dated Bai Tu once until the latter could no longer tolerate his fooling around. Post-breakup, however, his behavior escalated. He blatantly coerced new artists with his power, and worse, drugs. He carried them with him everywhere: whenever identified a target, he’d offer him roofied drinks. Once the victim woke up with injuries down there, it was already too late.”
Given Gao’s habit of exaggerating gossip, Xie Zhuxing dismissed what he considered a far-fetched rumor: “Siyuan, stop with the nonsense. You may get into trouble if others hear you.”
Unexpectedly, Ji Jie came to the former’s defense: “Siyuan isn’t spouting nonsense this time. I’ve heard of Zhou too. He delivered a guest lecture in our university once. There, he hooked up with the finest student of the graduating class. Thinking it was true love, that student outed himself at school and was promptly disowned by his family. He didn’t even receive his graduation certificate. Soon, however, Zhou got bored and dumped him. The student nearly committed suicide. You see, Zhou is not a good person.”
Xie Zhuxing: “……” What could Wang Chao possibly discuss with such a person?
Ji Jie continued to describe the student’s past brilliance, and in contrast, his present abjection clerking at a mere theater. The few of them sighed in audible distress.
Suddenly, the door burst open, and in came Wang Chao. Everyone raised their heads to his location.
“What are you looking at?” Wang Chao scowled at them defiantly.
None of his teammates knew what ticked him off again. Neither did they care to ask.
Xie Zhuxing broke the silence: “Hurry up and change, we are all waiting for you.”
Wang Chao went inside to change. Out of nowhere, the clothes hangers rattled and clanked. He exploded with rage, spewing loud, irrational curses inside the locker room.
Outside, his teammates looked pleadingly into Xie Zhuxing’s eyes, silently begging the latter to check what happened with their captain.
Wang Chao had removed his stage outfit already. He was topless in just a pair of unzipped jeans, fuming while staring holes into his phone.
Xie Zhuxing asked: “What’s wrong?”
Huffing, Wang Chao flung his phone in the other man’s direction. Xie Zhuxing caught and inspected the device: its screen had shattered.
Wang Chao cursed again as he zipped up his jeans.
Xie Zhuxing knew Wang Chao’s anger wasn’t provoked by a broken phone.
Quietly, he whispered: “What did Bai Tu’s talent agent say to you?”
Wang Chao was audibly more exasperated as he replied: “Nothing.”
With two rooms separated only by a curtain, Xie Zhuxing assumed that the other simply did not want to be overheard by their teammates. Thus, he said: “Put on your clothes first, we’ll talk after dinner.”
Wang Chao, however, refused: “I won’t go to the dinner anymore. Go with the rest of them, I have something to do.”
Xie Zhuxing: “……Like what?”
Averting his eyes, Wang Chao murmured: “I’m heading home……My brother asked for me.”
Rather than disappointed, the other members were delighted by their captain’s cancellation. Along with Xie Zhuxing, they headed toward the station’s parking lot, where their company’s car awaited.
“You guys go ahead, I left something behind,” Xie Zhuxing said after everyone else had filed into the car: “I will look for you later.”
Everyone knew he wasn’t one to forget his belongings. Everyone besides Cheng Yao, who innocently insisted: “No worries, we will wait here until you get it back.”
Ji Jie hurriedly tugged the other’s arm and said: “Well, I’m starving. Take your time, Brother Xie. We will leave first. Once you’ve found it, feel free to catch up to us then.”
Xie Zhuxing waved in response.
Soon after, Wang Chao and Zhou Niansen arrived at the parking lot, one after the other. Each driving his own vehicle, the two left in succession once again.
Xie Zhuxing emerged from behind a nearby pillar.
Xie Zhuxing arrived at Wang Chao’s apartment building. The latter’s Phaeton was readily parked in the space adjacent to a silver-gray Hyundai, the one driven by Zhou Niansen.
Xie Zhuxing called Wang Chao’s cell. No answer.
Wang Chao returned his call: “I was busy just now, what’s up?”
Standing in front of the blue Phaeton, Xie Zhuxing asked: “Are you home yet?”
Xie Zhuxing asked: “Have you eaten yet?”
Wang Chao replied: “No, I wasn’t hungry.”
Xie Zhuxing continued: “Did your brother beat you up today?”
Wang Chao answered: “No.”
Xie Zhuxing continued to ask: “Do you want spicy crawfish?”
Wang Chao mumbled: “……Not today.”
Both of them fell into silence, but neither one hung up.
Xie Zhuxing noticed Zhou Niansen walk out of the building.
Zhou Niansen spotted him too.
He shifted his phone away from his ears and hung up.
Xie Zhuxing did not respond. He stepped forward and without warning, swung a punch at the other man’s face.
There was no time to dodge. The punch landed squarely on the bridge of his nose and knocked him into a backward stagger. Once steady, Zhou Niansen ran his fingers over his tender nose until he felt, to his momentary shock, the sticky, trickling blood beneath his nostrils. Swiftly, he retorted: “This is not what you think!”
Xie Zhuxing responded: “I’m not thinking about anything.”
Preempting another punch, Zhou Niansen frantically backed away and urged: “Don’t look for trouble! I didn’t fuck him!”
Xie Zhuxing: “So you specifically came here for a shower?”
Xie Zhuxing pressed on: “You drugged him, right?”
He continued to search for words, but Xie Zhuxing only had the patience for kicks and punches.
Up until then, he has led a life of luxury and privilege. Overindulged in sensual pleasures and devoid of any fighting experience, he was no match even to Wang Chao, not to mention Xie Zhuxing, who had practiced martial arts.
As such, he took another beating.
Last time, Wang Chao had beat him black and blue. Now, only a few days after his recovery, he’d appear bruised and swollen again.
“I told you: I never fucked* him,” he confessed in resignation, cradling his injured stomach, “He was the top. Both last time and this time. Hell, I’m so damn unlucky. Why won’t you even let me finish my sentence?”
Xie Zhuxing only replied: “I know he was the top. Given his temper, if he was drugged and topped, crying would not cut it.”
Xie Zhuxing continued: “You deserved the beating. You drugged him; yet you are the one whining?”
Zhou Niansen had always topped before. Bottoming last time was enough to make his blood boil; he only approached Wang Chao this time since he needed the latter’s help. Never did he expect Wang Chao to demand sex as the exchange nor be beaten black and blue by Xie Zhuxing when he was already frustrated. Infuriated, he sneered at the palpable rift between the two of them: “You like him? He insists on fucking me instead when you’re right next to him. Jealous much?”
Zhou Niansen fixed his collar and straightened his back. He spat, words dripping with venom: “If you go upstairs now, you can still help yourself to my leftovers.”
Wang Chao sat cross-legged on the bed, sobbing intermittently as he emptied cans of beer that strewed the floor beside him.
Zhou Niansen had gotten wind of his circumstance from God knows where and threatened to send Wang Qi their vile video – unless he helped that idol actor get cast in a movie.
He didn’t want his eldest brother to find out nor be hampered by his affairs, so he agreed begrudgingly. Yet, once he returned to the dressing room, his frustration compounded: why did he go so easy on that sleazy piece of shit?
Ever since Wang Qi disciplined him, he hadn’t hooked up with anyone in a while. Every day, he fantasized about Xiao Xie, knowing the latter would never sleep with him. He couldn’t hold his desires back anymore.
He thought – he’s already slept with a guy. Doesn’t matter once or twice.
Except, the experience with Zhou Niansen was so boring that he finished after a few half-hearted pumps.
After Zhou left, he noticed a missed call from Xiao Xie. Immediately, he called back.
Xiao Xie asked him if he wanted to eat spicy crawfish.
Of course, he did, and more, he wanted to sleep with him afterward.
But he’s ashamed of showing up with a body full of bloody scratches from Zhou Niansen.
Xiao Xie stopped talking, and after a while, he hung up.
He felt Xiao Xie was unhappy.
Grabbing a can of beer, he opened it and took two sips before his eyes brimmed over with tears of sadness.
Why couldn’t he stick to hooking up with girls? Instead, he had to fuck a disgusting dude.
He couldn’t even go eat crawfish afterward; nor could he sleep with his buddy.
What sin did he commit?**
*搞: This word means fuck but could refer to top too. I translated to fuck because it flows better and is more fitting (as Xie’s reaction implies, the definition of it is quite vague).
**造孽: This is a slang that’s tough to translate. It literally means “what a sin” but could be used in casual setting as an exaggerated way to say what a mistake you made/what a disgrace you are. Since WC is such a drama queen, I stuck with this.