On top of his head was a bun personally tied by His Majesty, and Ye Shanshan couldn’t wait to show it off to the whole world. However, he was reluctant to let others see it, so he came up with a perfect idea—take pictures from various angles and show off to his future self. That way, he could boast for many years!
After dinner, without any reminder, Ye Shanshan voluntarily walked along the lakeside with Gong Yue and even fed the swans along the way.
He felt like he had started living a leisurely retirement life in advance.
“Brother, I want to cut my hair. It’s growing too fast lately, covering my eyes.” Ye Shanshan kicked a small pebble under his feet, full of enthusiasm, but due to poor aim, he often kicked it off the intended path.
At such times, Gong Yue would stop, wait for him to kick the pebble back, and then continue walking.
“But I don’t know what hairstyle I should get. What if it turns out really ugly?”
“They all look good.”
Ye Shanshan understood but didn’t catch on, “Huh?”
“They all look good,” Gong Yue repeated.
This time he caught on, but with a flash in his mind, Ye Shanshan put on a perfect act, looking at Gong Yue with a bewildered expression, “Ah” he exclaimed.
—Praise me for the third time quickly!
Gong Yue looked at Ye Shanshan, who was acting with all his heart, couldn’t bear it, raised his hand, and ruffled his hair, “You look good no matter what.”
Ye Shanshan felt like fireworks were exploding in his mind.
※※※
Returning from a stroll, with today’s lollipop in his mouth, Ye Shanshan chewed on it while working on problems with a pen. He always felt like he had forgotten something. After half an hour of online classes, he suddenly remembered that he hadn’t seen his phone for a long time.
Estimating, it must have been about five hundred years!
Wearing slippers, he hurried back to the bedroom. Ye Shanshan flipped the blanket, lifted the pillow, and finally found the phone at the foot of the bed. In the morning, he had turned it to silent mode to avoid disturbing Gong Yue’s sleep with the ringtone.
Afterward, of course, he completely forgot about it.
But somehow the phone was turned off. Ye Shanshan charged it for a while before turning it on, and a call from Xu Luoyang came in.
Ye Shanshan took the lollipop out of his mouth. “What a coincidence! My phone just ran out of battery and turned off by itself. I just charged it.”
“What a coincidence my a**!” Xu Luoyang was scrolling through Weibo, had made many calls, and suddenly got through. Despite feeling a bit surprised at first, upon hearing Ye Shanshan’s voice, he felt a pang in his heart. “Have you been online today?”
“No, today was too busy.” Busy counting Gong Yue’s eyelashes, busy taking a walk together—yes, it was a busy day, fulfilling!
“Alright, by the way, do you remember when I asked for your help urgently before? I mentioned that the program team had arranged a partner for me, but the person didn’t show up?”
“I remember, his name is Xu Tian.”
“Yeah, that’s right. He caused some trouble on his end. Still wants to drag you into it. Let me give you a brief overview.”
In the next half minute, Xu Luoyang quickly summarized the situation, then said, “Now, the situation is that Xu Tian’s agent, Zhao Yaozu, updated a message an hour ago. It seems he has resolved things with Xu Tian and made concessions. He claimed it was due to excessive nervousness, panicked upon hearing about the replacement, felt ashamed after Xu Tian explained things to him, and hopes the program team can accept his apology.”
Taking a deep breath, Xu Luoyang spoke with excitement.
“Damn, these are all bullsh*t excuses! The key point is, at the end, he added, ‘From my perspective, I still hope the newcomer will be down-to-earth, step by step. Don’t think you can become famous overnight using some tricks.’ When I read that, I was f*cking irritated! What does he mean? Is Ying Shi Entertainment going to let this mad dog bark recklessly?”
While Xu Luoyang was venting, Ye Shanshan put the phone on speaker, opened Weibo, and prepared to keep up with the latest trends.
Quickly finishing reading several related Weibo posts and various comments, Ye Shanshan switched back to the call interface, sounding puzzled, “Is he so arrogant— is he stupid?”
“Finished reading? Zheng Dong told me that this is Ying Shi testing the waters with Zhao Yaozu, checking our attitude.”
Xu Luoyang sighed, “But speaking of Zhao Yaozu, it’s really annoying. This pimp from Ying Shi Entertainment is quite notorious. Relying on pimping, he established connections with so-called billionaire financial tycoons. Maybe he feels he has a backing and can get away with anything. He’s become more arrogant lately.”
His tone became somewhat heavy as he continued, “About half a year ago, he sent a seventeen-year-old rookie under him to a bed of a man in his forties. That man had some dirty habits. I don’t know what happened that night, but the girl committed suicide not long after. The official announcement stated she had long-term depression.” Unable to hold back, he added, “It was damn depression!”
Opening his mouth wide, Ye Shanshan, holding the phone, suddenly couldn’t continue asking.
After hanging up the call, Ye Shanshan stared at the phone in a daze. Not knowing how long he had been lost in thought, he suddenly heard Gong Yue calling him.
After a few seconds, he turned around and saw Gong Yue standing at the bedroom door. Ye Shanshan’s thoughts were still a bit tangled, and he stared blankly, “Brother, weren’t you in the study?”
“You never came over.” Gong Yue had listened carefully to what Xu Luoyang said, probably knowing what was on Ye Shanshan’s mind. He walked over, gently pinched the small bundle of hair tied by Ye Shanshan, “You don’t need to care about this; I’ll handle it,” he said and added, “Okay?”
Ye Shanshan quickly nodded. How could it not be okay!
After returning to the study with Gong Yue, he felt his heart rate, which had been speeding up, and the irregular rhythm recently were really something to be concerned about.
※※※
In the following week, Ye Shanshan once again immersed himself in the vast ocean of studying. Regardless of the fierce winds blowing on the internet, he remained unmoved.
It wasn’t until after eleven o’clock one night that Xu Luoyang called again.
“If you have something to say, say it. If not, I’m doing my homework.”
Starting with an impressive opening filled with the aura of a study god, Xu Luoyang was directly rendered speechless. How did he feel that, compared to studying, what he was about to say was so low-end?
It must be an illusion!
Clearing his throat, he said, “I wanted to tell you that the variety show we filmed together has been split into two parts for broadcast. Starlight Satellite TV aired the first half tonight, and the second half will be broadcast tomorrow night.”
Ye Shanshan felt a bit confused, “Already aired so quickly?” Clearly, the time spent immersed in studying felt incredibly fast.
Not knowing where Ye Shanshan was cultivating in seclusion, after Xu Luoyang hung up the phone, he sent the link and added a comment, “Let Zhao Yaozu see what it means to become famous overnight!”
At this moment, Ye Shanshan was solving a math problem. This question had already wasted more than two hours of his time, so the consequence of multitasking was that he hung up the phone and completely forgot about this matter.
When he finally remembered, it was already between two and three in the morning.
After giving it some thought, Ye Shanshan was curious about how the program turned out. So, he opened the link provided by Xu Luoyang.
The link led to a popular video streaming website. After enduring sixty seconds of ads, the actual episode began. However, he clumsily realized that, after watching for over ten minutes, he hadn’t seen his own face at all—because it was entirely blocked by a thick barrage of comments. Not to mention seeing clearly, he couldn’t even see anyone; the screen relied entirely on imagination.
Later, Ye Shanshan crisply read the barrage comments, finding them quite amusing.
“—Heartbroken for Luoyang! But who is that little brother? I’ve fallen for him!! Even with a weird style, he crushes with his looks! Impressive!”
“—Drinking dewdrops, hahaha, laughing for a year! What should I do? The performance was too serious; I actually believed it! OP, let’s drink dewdrops together, okay?”
“—What’s with the show’s script? Why is it so fake? But I love it! Especially the part with the gun, couldn’t close my legs, ahhhh!”
“—Feels like I wandered into the Agricultural Technology Channel!!! Laughing so hard my cheeks are about to split!”
However, the most common comment was, “Claiming this frame, not showing you guys!” The density was comparable to mosaic.
After reading the audience’s comments for a while, Ye Shanshan decided to switch to Weibo. Since he had turned off all kinds of notifications on Weibo before, when he logged in, it immediately froze.
“…”
Ye Shanshan silently logged in again twice before succeeding.
He checked the trending topics and found his name at the top. However, “Ye Shanshan raises pigs” – what on earth was that?
Feeling a bit upset, he scrolled down, and the sixth one was still related to him, “Ye Shanshan variety show” – that was more normal. He curiously clicked on it and found all his cut scenes inside, with various video titles:
“I can’t flash anymore, please don’t make me flash!”
“Ye Fairy, did you grow up drinking dewdrops and want to ascend to the heavens?”
“Follow Ye Ge to roam the rivers and lakes!”
Ye Shanshan: “…”
Exiting, he clicked on his own profile picture and suddenly noticed that his follower count had surpassed ten million at some point.
Ye Shanshan counted again and found that it was indeed eight digits—so what happened during the time I was immersed in studying?
His most recent update was a few days ago, a picture of mixed sauce noodles taken during a meal, with no accompanying text. The comments at that time were refreshing and genuine, but now, when he checked the comment section, he realized that his comment section had somehow veered off into who knows what direction.
“—Don’t ask why my hand is cramping, because I’ve been screenshotting the entire time!!! Ye Shanshan is really shining! Ahhhh, the holy light is nurturing the pig-raising child!”
“—The person I like is a pianist who got delayed by the entertainment industry, no, a professional pig farmer. [dog emoji]”
“—OP said he wiped that place, I’ve watched it more than fifty times, definitely not just me!!! Little Immortal Male looks so good even when half-asleep!!!”
“—#AnnualHighestFaceValuePigRaisingExpert# After watching this episode twice, I went to find OP’s piano performance, then told myself, hallucination, hallucination, everything is a hallucination! Tears streaming down my face!”
“—So, while worrying whether Master Ye will enter the classical music world, I’m also concerned about whether he might have a sudden idea to venture into pig farming and overturn the livestock industry? What kind of artist have I become a fan of?”
The top-comment that got pushed to the top was a psychological monologue.
“—Since I became a fan of Master Ye, my initial dream was to roam the rivers and lakes with him. Later, my dream changed to become a piano, letting his fingers brush over me every day. However, after watching this episode, my goal has become, someday, to sit on a tricycle with him, wearing a rough hat, discussing how to raise pigs and become wealthy.”
1TL: YSIAD “You can support me if you like my translations by leaving a comment below, or by sending me a Ko-fi. Thank you ❤️”
