Chapter 105

Chapter 105

unedited

The plot and the description being light years apart from each other wasn’t the main point. The main point was, even though they all knew that the two of them didn’t line up, there was not a single person on the spot who wanted to return their tickets. Everyone just stopped breathing, waiting for the follow-up with their ears perked up.

And so, the follow-up came about.

“Right, I still have yet to properly give you thanks for coming just to cheer for me that time—thank you.” Crossing the bridge noodles was the first to speak—not in the youthful voice he usually used to voice-act in dramas, but in his actual, natural voice. It still sounded young, but it was apparent that he was a young adult man. If one was to compare him to water, he would certainly be a clear, minty one.

“No need to be so polite,” The tone of Qi Jing’s reply was as if he spoke with an old friend, light and leisurely, “If anything, I have to thank you for refuting the rumours about me under the gossip post—cheering on for you is merely me returning the favour.”

“That gossip post about me and you was clearly heading towards bringing your name down later on, so as a person involved, me coming out to refute it was just a matter of course.” This phrase from Crossing the bridge noodles was said in such a calm tone, that there was no intent to attack anyone to be heard, aside from those who were too obstinate and used to hating to realise this.

“That’s true as well.” Qi Jing said with a chuckle.

Audience 1: Σ(っ °Д °)っ...

Audience 2: Σ(っ °Д °)っ... Eh? Eh eh eh?

Audience 3: Σ(っ °Д °)っ So it turns out that Little Noodles and Don’t ask for my return date... they actually came here as friends??

Audience 4: Holy crap!! The reality really shook me!! Wait wait... My mind is so blank that I can’t think straight... But, about them knowing each other and even having a good relationship, I kinda feel really happy about it!!【As a Time Limit shipper I’m so hyped, I want to go run circles downstairs】

Audience 5: Help... Return and Crossing the bridge noodles were actually so close?? I remember that post, I think it was about Return sowing discord between him and the great god Bronze Sparrow Terrace or something.

Audience 6: Remembering that post +1. Seeing both of the people involved coming out to clarify it, I’m suddenly so excited and happy~ \(≧▽≦)/

But those listeners didn’t know that at this point, the true highlight of their show was still ahead.

“I feel like it’s because we never played main roles together that the rumours of us being in a conflict keep cropping out outside there.” Qi Jing smiled slightly before suddenly changing the topic.

“Didn’t we already have a collaboration though?” When Crossing the bridge noodles said that, the entirety of the audience bursted into exclamations of surprise, asking where the post thread for this drama was, or where it could be downloaded. But his following words disappointed all the Rice Noodles Fans. “It’s a pity though, the producer still didn’t have time to officially make this news public.”

“But the strange thing is, the names of the main characters from this drama are just the same as our IDs.” Qi Jing faked a musing.

“What’s even more strange is, the producer actually sent our lines separate from each other,” Crossing the bridge noodles continued lukewarmly, “And they even sent us the wrong scripts, with the one you got being for me, and me getting yours.”

“So that’s how it was?” Qi Jing raised his voice, showing a surprised reaction, “No wonder then, and here I was just thinking why am I the one cursing myself.”

The audience’s appetite got instantly whetted, just as did their interest.

Audience 1: o(≧▽≦)o Aaaah! Begging everyone for this drama with the character names based on the main actors’ IDs!!【What is even that producer thinking, sending the wrong scripts?? This feels so weird...】

Audience 2: o(≧▽≦)o Could it be an IRL ship audio drama?? I just can’t be this happy as a Time Limit shipper!!【covers face】

Audience 3: The one above, buddy, you probably guessed it wrong~ Return Date has clearly said that he was cursing himself in it, so it doesn’t seem like a ship audio drama, and more like a fight... Aaaaaah, in the end what is that drama, this curiosity is about to kill me! Begging to publish the script! Even a small paragraph is fine!

“Everyone seems very interested in listening to it, so how about it, Noodles?” Qi Jing sought his opinion courteously.

“Since the scripts got swapped, then we might as well go on with how it is now. Let’s try acting it out together, shall we?” Crossing the bridge noodles also agreed magnanimously.

“Fine, then let’s begin from me—” Qi Jing’s eyes curled up in a silent smile as he opened the picture he got back in a day from Jade Butterfly, using the classic “delicate and superficially pure” tone of a scheming concubine from the TV dramas, as if throwing a fit, “What kind of joke is that?! Who would want to play together in the same drama with someone as shameless as you, Don’t ask for my return date, and tarnish their good name?”

The audience was dumbstruck.

Crossing the bridge noodles immediately replied in a mocking tone, “Crossing the bridge noodles, now that you consider yourself as god’s official CP, you suddenly dare to behave like Her Majesty the Empress? Such an excellent VA as me, of course I would get much better and popular than you. I’m just not as shameless as you and don’t run around clinging to people, so I never got a chance to collaborate with the god. Now that I finally got such a huge backing as Bronze Sparrow Terrace, I need to get a good hold on that opportunity.”

The audience was again flabbergasted.

Qi Jing had a hard time holding down his urge to laugh, but he still persevered in maintaining the resentful lady’s tone—”Empress in the Palace” style. “Humph~” He even added a nasal hum, like a living display of a princess syndrome, “I know you’re cooperating with Bronze Sparrow, so you’re probably about to get popular from now on, but do I, with the amount of my fans in five digits, have to rub off some of your popularity? What’s more, the sheer thought of being in the same production crew as you makes me feel sick and all of the staff members who know me are aware of that.”

At that moment he paused for a little, then said, filled with immense pride, “If either me or one of them is in the production crew, you can forget about staying in it!”

Audience 1: ...

Audience: ...That’s so much information at once... _(:з」∠)_

Audience 3: ...I seem to have realised something... _(:з」∠)_

Audience 4: ...I also remembered something... A few months ago, there was a similar rumour passed secretly between the staff members in the circle, so Don’t ask for my return date got kicked out of a lot of drama teams. This rumour got passed really far, I even secretly rejoiced in the fact that I didn’t look for him before.【Now that I remembered it, I only want to cry... Lord Don’t ask for my return date, I’m begging for your forgiveness TAT】

Audience 5: So right now, are they... they’re being sarcastic with it on purpose?? Aaaaah!! I can’t calm down now, begging for the truth!! (╯－＿－)╯╧╧

Audience 6: Honestly, when I first heard this gossip, I thought that it was either Don’t ask for my return date courting a disaster, or Crossing the bridge noodles. But now that I got enlightened by hearing this... Hehe, listening to that, it’s probably someone using Bronze Sparrow Terrace to set them against each other? ╮(╯▽╰)╭

Them getting set against each other—there were sure many clever people among the audience, they got the clue very quickly.

In the end, it didn’t matter if Bronze Sparrow Terrace, as a driving point of the conflict, knew about being used or not. After all, they would make this “driving point” unable to ever appear in the gossip about them again, no longer letting it be used as the reason behind their “love affair catfights”, the rumour about their so-called mutual jealousy collapsing on its own.

At that time, Crossing the bridge noodles raised his voice proudly, as if all mighty and lofty in his contempt, “And what about it? Are they even remotely as plenty as Bronze Sparrow Terrace’s fans? As long as he turns towards me, his fans would follow his suit—the majority of Crossing the bridge noodle’s fans like Bronze Sparrow Terrace, so when the time comes, they would all switch sides, heh.”

This “heh” of his got “heh-ed” so very confidently, so frivolously, that hearing it made one’s palms itch, ready to give him a slap.

Qi Jing on the other hand assumed a wronged tone—the must-have of every superficially pure darling—as he murmured instinctively, “In a word... I won’t give up Bronze Sparrow to anyone else.”

Crossing the bridge noodles’ contempt reached its highest, “Heh, boy, you are so delicate, making yourself seem so pure, using your lovely and pitiful looks to earn the Great God’s doting, just seeing this makes me sick.”

Their exchange stopped at that.

The audience was completely dumb.

“Pfft...” Suddenly, one of them couldn’t keep himself from laughing anymore and bursted out in loud laughter and the other followed, laughing to his heart’s content. Two completely different, yet equally clear and pleasant voices resounded together and only then everyone woke up quickly from their shock among their laughter.

Audience 1: ～\(≧▽≦)/～ Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...

Audience 2: ～\(≧▽≦)/～ Hahahaha, I finally got it!!

Audience 3: Hahahaha, can’t stop slapping my desk!! It sure is a wholly new way to start an introduction!!【I also suddenly got it... Heh, some spheres sure are messy】

Audience 4: It should have been a very serious topic, but I just can’t! Whoever wrote these lines from behind the scenes, what the hell were they thinking, hahahaha...

Audience 5: (/≧▽≦)/～┴┴ Aiyo! Those two are just too funny! Impersonating each other to curse themselves out, hahahaha!

Audience 6: (/≧▽≦)/～┴┴ I don’t know why, I used to be a passerby “Moss” shipper, but now I’m proclaiming! I’m now officially a “Time Limit” stan!

This much plot development should be enough. Qi Jing skimmed through the comments in the chat, his voice returning back to usual as he said, laughing lightly, “Enough with it. In fact, today we wanted to make use of this occasion to say this to the producer—if you’re listening, of course.”

Crossing the bridge noodles continued with the rest of his thought, “The script wasn’t too shabby, just remember to not send the wrong one next time.”

The corners of Qi Jing’s lips curled up, “Also, if you were planning to produce a drama like this from the beginning, then...”

At that moment, out of the two of them, one laughed, the other snickered, both of them finishing the last bit tacitly.

“Sorry, but you chose the wrong leads—”

Audience 1: Aoaoawoooo!!

Audience 2: Aoaoawoooo!【No can do, just howling like a wolf!】

Audience 3: (*艸‘*) Aoaoawoo! This random plot twist is just so... I’m really beginning to feel for those two!! It can be said that even without participating in the audition, Bronze Sparrow Terrace got his slap, pfft.

Audience 4: ┭┮﹏┭┮ What is it with me being both sad and happy?

Audience 5: ┭┮﹏┭┮ Both sad and happy +1【Lighting a candle for myself, a past Moss shipper】

Audience 5: ┭┮﹏┭┮ Both sad and happy +2【As someone who didn’t know better and scolded Don’t ask for my return date for the sake of Little Noodles I really am about to die from shame...】

“Okay, this should be enough to clarify everything for everyone, so let’s continue.” Qi Jing smiled slightly, then went ahead to concede to Yang Chunqu, “Otherwise the host would be at a loss of what to do.”

Crossing the bridge noodles hummed in agreement, but he didn’t leave immediately, suddenly calling Qi Jing lightly. “Return Date.”

“Hm?”

“I had said so before on weibo, and today I will say it again.” As he was leaving, Crossing the bridge noodles just had to drop the heavy artillery without much care in the world, giving an unhurried, ambiguous chuckle, “Compared to Bronze Sparrow Terrace, I like you more.”

That emphasis on the “you” really did let one’s imagination go completely wild—

The Time Limit shippers erupted in howls.

The Moss shippers cried, their hearts in shatters.

And Qi Jing facepalmed in silence.

Noodles-kun... You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?

“Thank you for your confession of friendship,” He took advantage of the course of this conversation and said, “I hope that your real boyfriend won’t get jealous when he hears this.”

“You too,” Crossing the bridge noodles heard the hidden reverse flirtation in his tone and laughed calmly, “I won’t make a scene anymore, you too say hello from me to your boyfriend.”

Information load, information load, information load...

The key words, the key words, the key words...

For now, there were only those two phrases in the listeners’ brains, buzzing around incessantly. This huge information overload was impossible to stomach at once. He believed that tomorrow, it would get analysed bit by bit by the folks in the forum—it was bound to nourish the fields of gossip in the online VA circle well. Aside from that, the post thread for “Time Limit” was probably going to grow another page or two.

And as for someone who had nothing to do with the online VA circle like Yuan Zhengming, he could only silently type out in the chat, “Are you guys making fun of me?”

But he really didn’t expect that those two really were about to have fun—an earnest, but also unconstrained “fun”.

Even though “Fang Yisheng” didn’t actually get his POV in the original novel and was only described through the others’ characters observations, he could still be said to be the hardest role to grasp in the fifth instalment of ⟪Order to End the Heavens⟫ in terms of the changes in his psyche. Each and every move of his got described by the author in great detail, only his mind didn’t.

That was because “Fang Yisheng” was set as an “unfathomable man” in the first place. For the contestants, a role like this could be said to be especially vague, with quite a lot of freedom of interpretation. If playing a different role could be said to be like writing a conventional essay with strict guidelines, then playing this character was like writing prose—not letting it lose its essence while taking some creative liberties was quite a tricky matter.

Even after many years, whenever Yuan Zhengming recalled the performances of these two, he would still pull his hair and fume while complaining to others that “They really were making fun of me.”

Don’t ask for my return date was No.7, Crossing the bridge noodles No.8.

They were lined up closely one after another, so the contrast was naturally even more acute.

First of all, in the characters introduction provided by the competition, “Fang Yisheng” was mentioned to be “Cold and noble with arrogant temperament, ruthless when necessary”. But they didn’t provide any clear guidelines as for how these characteristics were meant to be embodied, as even in the original novel, he was only depicted through show-don’t-tell.

Qi Jing’s voice sounded noble by nature, everyone who listened to his previous two auditions knew that, but when it got paired with this role, it was still a bit too warm. But at the same time, his voice also had a conniving undertone to it, which was very suited for the shrewd and cautious side of this character.

Crossing the bridge noodle’s voice quality was cool, so he could completely embody that “coldness” in its fullest when he remained solemn, but it also sounded too clear and pure. Just looking at the roles he usually took, he wouldn’t be able to play a man well-versed in the bloodstained depths of the court.

Yuan Zhengming really wished he could just smash those two into one.

Their strengths and weaknesses were plain to see, it was easy to foresee the effects of their acting and that would best be avoided.

After all, a competition is a competition—everyone would need to do their best to stress their good points while covering up their drawbacks. Currently, no matter if it was No.7 or No.8, neither of them was ideal, and their way of thinking was probably the same as his, to do their best to meet in the middle.

Or... at least that’s what he thought at first.

A/N:

Peddling, peddling, peddling the Time Limit ship~

T/N:

Lucilla: Gobbling, gobbling, gobbling down the Time Limit~