Chapter 35

Act V: Avenue Q (7)

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If you were given one second, you may not be able to accomplish even the simplest thing. But one second was absolutely enough for the brain to flash through many countless memories.

That's right, the moment the video was switched on, when Xiang Cai saw what the man at the other end of the screen looked like, his brain seemed to be suddenly pressed by the rewind button, and it instantly returned to half a year ago, and then time quickly fast-forwarded back to the present.

The boy stared blankly at the screen.

Although, with Qi Ji’s reminder, he was ready to "see the light and die", Wang Qingyun’s appearance was a little ... too ... too ...

His language vocabulary was overloaded and he was completely confused; in the end, only the word "unique" could barely describe the appearance of the man.

In fact, before he came to the United States to get a Ph.D., George had a lot of hair and was not so fat. But who made it so difficult to study? He often sat in front of the computer for the whole day, and his three meals all relied on a hamburger and soda. As a result, his weight quickly increased and his hair quickly decreased. If he cleaned himself up, he could still bluff, but now it was when he was most relaxed, throwing back a drink or two, and he naturally looked a bit sloppy.

Because of the large drop impact, Xiang Cai lost his ability to speak for a moment.

He was shocked by "Wang Qingyun's " appearance and guilty of his own nature as a face-con. The restless boy's heart didn't know how to beat.

Fortunately, this weird atmosphere did not last long.

George asked him very familiarly: "Little brother, are you Old Tan’s relative? Happy New Yearl!"

As soon as George spoke, he revealed his true identity.

His voice was completely different from Tan Yiming’s. Xiang Cai slept while listening to Wang Qingyun's radio drama. Naturally, he was more than capable of immediately realizing that that was definitely not Wang Qingyun!

Combined with the content of his words, Xiang Cai instantly understood what he had misunderstood.

"Happy New Year." ..... "I'm Tan ... my brother's relative. Is he not here now?"
He was never good at lying, and almost bit his tongue in the process.

 "Yes, of course!" George saw him pure and white and had a good impression of him. "He’s cooking, please wait a minute, I'll call him for you."

With that, George got up and walked towards the kitchen.

He carefully adjusted the lens to the rear and the camera shook. Xiang Cai looked at the trembling view, and somehow suddenly became nervous.

Before dialing the video call, he had the desperate courage to see Wang Qingyun. However, when the call was connected, his indomitable momentum suddenly slipped away between his fingers.

Was it because of the misunderstanding caused by George? ...... That might really be related to it, but it was more because Xiang Cai was swept up by unexplained cowardice.

He thought, what was he going to do after seeing Wang Qingyun? Just see him? Or confess?

If it was the former, he was a little unwilling; if it was the latter, he was very reluctant.

Too contradictory, too hesitant. He even started to regret why he had dialed the number in the first place.

He called out to George subconsciously: "No need!" He panicked. "If he's busy, I'll call back later."

"It's okay!" George was walking quickly, and he was about to open the door to the kitchen. "He's just cooking a dish, it’s not rocket science. I'll let him say hello to you!"

He pressed his hand on the doorknob of the kitchen door and pressed it down gently, it opened in response.

The heat poured out along the door gap, and the water vapor quickly adhered to the lens, making everything blurry.

And in that white mist, a tall figure was standing in front of the stove. He saw him holding a spatula in one hand and quickly twisting the wok with the other, his posture savvy, and at first glance, it looked like he often cooked.

Although he couldn’t see his looks, the man's back was upright and his shoulders were wide. Even the simplest t-shirt and jeans gave him a special charm. The dark brown apron hugged his body, and the straps hung loosely around the man's thin waist, which perfectly complemented his figure.

The sparks from the stove's fire licked the bottom of the wok. After the stir fry was done, the man took out chopsticks from the cutlery box next to him, picked up a piece of meat and tasted it, then nodded with satisfaction.

He turned off the fire decisively and was about to bring the dishes out. Another young man who was waiting by the side had already prepared the plate in advance and passed it with great hindsight.

"Thanks." The man thanked him briefly.

Even if he only said two words, and even if the sound of the vent in the kitchen was roaring, Xiang Cai’s ears accurately captured the man's voice through the noise—that was Wang Qingyun! That was definitely Wang Qingyun!

Xiang Cai froze all over. He clenched his phone in both hands and couldn't even blink, staring at the man's back just like that.

It turned out that the person he had a crush on, surnamed Tan, was good at cooking, tall, and his hair was very refreshing ... It was like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and the boy collected all these bits and pieces together in his heart to build the silhouette of his crush.

In the kitchen, after the man thanked him, the young man who helped hand him the plate smiled and shook his head: "With such little effort, why are you thanking me?"

Because the young man was standing sideways, Xiang Cai could see his appearance on the screen. He saw a man with exquisite facial features, and his eyes narrowed into two crooked moons when he smiled.

"You didn't drop this plate, unlike the last unfortunate one, of course I have to thank you," the man replied.

"It was really an accident just now!" The youth reluctantly raised his hand to surrender. "I entered the kitchen for the first time in my life. Even if I broke two bowls, shouldn’t it be excusable?”

The two casually chatted about the trivial matter that had just happened.

What made Xiang Cai anxious was that the two of them wore identical aprons, just in different colors and their actions were very tacit.

Were they friends?

In the midst of it, a bold conjecture jumped into the mind of the boy, and he wanted to ask, but suddenly realized that he was unqualified to do so.

Before he could continue to think deeply, the two in the kitchen had noticed George who suddenly broke in, holding the phone.

"Why, waiting for the food?" The man teased while turning around.

His good-looking face appeared in the camera inch by inch. Xiang Cai’s hand was one step faster than his brain, and his finger quickly pressed the hang-up button!!!

—The screen instantly became dark.

Xiang Cai held the phone in a daze, remembered what he saw, heard, and thought in the past few minutes, and suddenly dropped his phone. The phone fell to the floor of the exercise room.

In the end ... he still failed to see Wang Qingyun.

He didn't want to see him anymore.

...

In the kitchen, George lifted up his phone: "Old Tan, your brother was calling for you, presumably to give you a New Year's greeting ... Eh, why did he hang up?"

Tan Yiming's hands were dirty and he couldn’t pick up the phone: "I guess it was my aunt who threatened him to call. Now it's not yet noon in China. This kid usually sleeps until the afternoon and never gets up. It doesn’t matter, I'll call him back later.”

"Alright!" George shoved the phone into his pocket, and immediately threw the call to the back of his mind. "By the way, don't cook too much food. The crayfish will be here in a while!"

"Even if I wanted to make more, there is nothing in the refrigerator." Tan Yiming pointed to the celery and fried meat just out of the pan, "Xiaorui has nothing in the refrigerator except for yogurt, ice cream, and fruit. There were only a few sticks of celery and some meat so we took it out to make this dish first."

"Oh." George smelled the fragrant aroma and immediately pounced on him. "You don't need to wash the pots and pans, just leave it in the sink!"

After that, he happily took the dish and went out to feed the hungry wolves.

After Tan Yiming finished cooking, he cleaned the countertops. Yao Yin had never done this kind of work before, so he couldn’t help. He could only follow him like a tail.

Tan Yiming stopped suddenly and turned to look at him: "... Yao Yin, shall we two have a frank talk?"

"Yes," Yao Yin said with interest, "What's the matter?"

"Just say it, why on earth do you want to pursue me?" This question had troubled Tan Yiming for a long time.

Yao Yin was excellent both in terms of hardware and software. As a senior, he was selfless; as a friend, he was enthusiastic. Based on his appearance and family background, Tan Yiming believed that there would be countless people rushing to him, but Yao Yin pursued himself instead.

Yao Yin thought for a while, and answered very seriously: "Because there is always commotion about the unobtainable, and confident with the favored?"

[T/N: Song lyrics of Eason Chan’s Red Rose and originally from the poem “Red Rose and White Rose”. Means that the more unobtainable something is, the more it’s wanted, and the easily obtained will be discarded. Don’t quote me on this, though.]

"..." Tan Yiming had a headache.

Yao Yin: "I've said long ago that I was in love with you at first sight. If I could control my heart, wouldn’t I'd rather pursue someone one also liked me in return?"

His answer was that straightforward, and his eyes stared in his direction. This was a passionate feeling that Tan Yiming had never felt before; seemingly cynical, but extremely firm.

Tan Yiming was confused.

He had performed so much romance in radio dramas, but in his over twenty years of life, he had yet to experience the feeling of a racing heartbeat.

He knew that if someone was in his position and faced a strong and outstanding suitor like Yao Yin, they would definitely be moved, and then try to socialize and cultivate good feelings.

But Tan Yiming felt that he was not moved ...and this was not love, and love should not be like this.

To him, Yao Yin was like a shortcut in life. There was happy love on this shortcut, a rich life, and everything represented by ‘a winner in life’.

But Tan Yiming always felt that something was not quite right.

Maybe it was a little bit short-lived, a little bit nostalgic, and a little bit like "he was obliged to".

On New Year's Day, the two were in the kitchen with another round of meaningless love debates. At the end of the debate, Tan Yiming was mentally drained, and Yao Yin was also worn out.

"Don't you think we're a little ridiculous?" Tan Yiming rubbed his forehead, "Talking of this ‘can you like me’ and ‘can you not like me’ that only appears in high school students’ conversations?"

"You are wrong." Yao Yin pointed out sharply, "Only cheeky adults will treat love as a serious matter to discuss the solution for. As for the genuine high school students, their love does not ask for a reward at all, and they would rather be strangled than say it.”

The conversation between the two ended there, it was deadlocked again.

Tan Yiming heard the door bell ringing in the living room. The cheeky adult rounded the field and said, "It should be the crayfish. Let's go out and eat."

"Wait." Yao Yin stopped him. "There is one thing I haven't told you."

The young man's tone eased and relaxed: "Do you know Blizzard Entertainment Company?"

[T/N: It’s real.]

"Of course I know it, it’s one of the biggest in the United States ... no, actually, one of the biggest game companies in the world." Even if Tan Yiming was not as addicted to games as George, he had still heard about this company.

Blizzard Entertainment was founded in the 1990s by three high-level UCLA students who started up this small workshop-style gaming company after graduation. That era was the age of rapid computer development, and even more of all kinds of software, games, and operating systems. The small workshop-style company quickly established itself with a series of excellent games. After financing, expansion, refinancing, expansion ... With the development of the Internet, their company launched a cross-era game work, and has today become one of the greatest companies in the gaming industry.

When Tan Yiming was still studying in China, he also went to Internet cafes to fight monsters with classmates all night. Thinking of it, he had not logged into his game account for a long time.

"Then your account can now be retrieved." Yao Yin said positively.

"……What?"

Yao Yin: "I've got an insider information that Blizzard is developing a new game that will bring together all the game characters produced by their company, and there will also be eight new protagonists."

He took a deep breath: "These eight protagonists will come from different countries, one of whom is from China."

"You mean ..." After hearing this, Tan Yiming still didn't understand. Although the background of this game was unknown, and its time to market was unknown, and its genre was unknown—But if Blizzard produced it, it must be amazing! Once the game is released globally, no doubt, everything in the game would be analyzed by those who called themselves "gamers".

People, plot, art, modeling, skills, maps, soundtrack, dubbing ...

This was a world that Tan Yiming had never touched, and an opportunity that the CV Wang Qingyun could not miss!
 
Tan Yiming hurriedly asked, "Is the voice actor spot open for recruitment?"

"No, on the contrary, because the game requires the highest level of confidentiality, all personnel are internally referred." Yao Yin said, "As far as I know, Blizzard has sent letter invitations to five well-known commercial dubbing companies in China. The company has two spots filled, out of a total of ten places."

Tan Yiming was agitated. Although he accidentally hit the road of commercial dubbing, he was far away in the United States and knew nothing about the domestic situation. Even if he knew those big commercial voice acting companies, he couldn’t make a living by joining one of them.

But since Yao Yin spoke about it, he would have his ways.

"In addition to the company's quota, there are also private referrals." Yao Yin looked up at the man in front of him. "It just so happens that my mentor knows the production director of the audio department of Blizzard Entertainment—so, Tan Yiming, what price are you going to pay, in exchange for this letter of recommendation from me?"

***

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