Chapter 50

Act VII: Fan Letter (2)

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For a second, Tan Yiming thought he heard it wrong.

Or, Xiang Cai’s boyfriend was something else. Such as a bicycle called boyfriend, or an obedient stray dog that would walk him home.

But the truth was, he didn't hear it wrong—he looked towards Xiang Cai’s hand pointing out the window, and just off the street under a street lamp, a flamboyant red motorcycle was parked.

Tan Yiming froze.

The young knight leaned on the side of the car, holding a helmet in one hand and a bouquet of flowers tied up with newspapers in the other.

The bouquet looked a bit humble, and a few bright red-orange sunflowers came together in a lively way. The branches were long, short, and interspersed with scattered small flowers that he had never been seen before.

But such a patchwork of flowers, was given in exchange for the boy's big smile.

"Manchuan!" Xiang Cai opened the glass door and ran over like a happy bird.

Cen Manchuan embraced him with open arms. He was a full head taller than Xiang Cai, tall and sturdy, and his skin was the wheat color of one who loved outdoor sports.

The young gay couple hugged tightly on the late night street. Only Tan Yiming was left behind them, his heart complicated. He didn't know where to start.

It had been five years … Wasn’t it a matter of course that Xiang Cai had a boyfriend?

Cen Manchuan gave the bunch of flowers to Xiang Cai, like a big dog that only wanted to please the owner. He wagged his tail to invite praise: "This is for you! Congratulations on your successful debut!"

Xiang Cai asked, "You have just started working, and you could hardly even afford a motorcycle. What kind of flowers did you buy?"

"Hehehe, it cost no money," Cen Manchuan said proudly. "On my way here, I saw a grandma selling flowers who couldn't move a box. I sent her home, and she gave me the flowers!"

Xiang Cai was somewhat happy and shy. He took Cen Manchuan's hand and led him to Tan Yiming.

"... Tan Ge, I’ll introduce you, this is my boyfriend."

When he spoke, his expression, eyes, and tone were very calm.

He thought, he really didn't have much to panic about.

After all, Wang Qingyun, or Tan Yiming—was just a dream he had five years ago.

He dreamt this dream for a long time. In the beginning, he woke up crying almost every night from the dream. Now that he was clear-headed, he would laugh and recall the content of the dream… After five years, he had grown up.

… He had a new life, and also met new people who were close to him and worthy of his love.

Two months ago, who knew what the leaders of Huacheng Dance Academy were thinking. They were so bold that they decided to play a friendly basketball game with the sports university next door. Cen Manchuan was the main starting player of the sports university’s basketball team. He went down and grabbed eight goals in the game, winning over the Chinese dance school and gaining MVP on the spot.

However, the next day after the game, the MVP stopped Xiang Cai outside the vocal music classroom, gave him a pair of dance shoes and a bunch of flowers, and asked if he could be friends with him.

Xiang Cai took a look at shoes and flowers, and said helplessly, "... You don't seem to want to be friends with me, doing things like this."

"We can also skip being friends!" Cen Manchuan stammered, "Straight ... to being boyfriends."

Xiang Cai thought, boyfriend?

What did boyfriend mean? Did it mean eating together, dating, occupying every space in his heart?

So Xiang Cai agreed.

Cen Manchuan was an excellent boy. He was two years younger than Xiang Cai, but he went to school earlier, so he was a senior with him. The employment scope of the sports students was relatively narrow. Fortunately, Cen Manchuan had good grades and had secured a postgraduate degree. He was now an interning physical education teacher in a primary school.

His cheerful sunshiney temperament was the type that Xiang Cai had never touched—it was as if as long as he stayed with him, the sunlight on him would radiate to himself.

Xiang Cai liked Cen Manchuan. Rather, he liked the refreshingness of Cen Manchuan.

Cen Manchuan would accompany Xiang Cai to listen to musicals that he would never listen to before. Even if his eyes would droop, he insisted on not sleeping. Xiang Cai would get up at 3:00 in the morning to accompany him to watch a foreign basketball game and save money to buy him the limited edition mandarin duck AJs he dreamed of. They had many differences, but they were trying to move closer to each other.

Obviously, they had only spent two months together, but the atmosphere between them was as tacit as if they had spent two years together.

Today, Teacher Cen took the children out to play games, and didn't go back to the dormitory to rest until the evening. Xiang Cai secretly sent him a message half an hour ago and asked if he could come to pick him up, so Teacher Cen immediately turned out of the teacher's dormitory building, drove his little motorcycle, and rushed to pick him up.

Xiang Cai introduced Cen Manchuan to Tan Yiming, and also introduced Tan Yiming to Cen Manchuan.

Tan Yiming looked at the young man in front of him who was taller, stronger, and much younger than he was. For a while, he didn’t know what expression to make.

On this night, Tan Yiming's mood went up and down. The taste of losing something and regaining it could not be savored before he had to realize the taste of losing it again.

"Teacher Cen, nice to meet you." In the end, it was "face" that prevailed, and Tan Yiming reached out his hands in a thoughtful manner, thinking that he could not be rude anyway.

Who would think that Cen Manchuan would stupidly stand there, stop for a few seconds, and suddenly say, "Tan ... Tan Ge, can you say more?"

Tan Yiming was stunned: "What are you talking about?"

Cen Manchuan: "Just ... say a few more words?"

Tan Yiming: "Uh, I don't quite understand what you mean ..."

Suddenly, Cen Manchuan's face was lit with ecstasy. He stepped forward, holding Tan Yiming's hand tightly, like an avid fan meeting an idol. He shook his hand up and down vigorously, and said excitedly and uncontrollably: "You are 'Wang Qiang', right?!"

Tan Yiming: "..."

Xiang Cai was also confused by his behavior: "Manchuan, you ..."

Cen Manchuan danced, and actually stretched out his hands to hug Tan Yiming hard. Relying on his height, he even directly lifted Tan Yiming off the ground: "You are definitely Wang Qiang! Wang Qiang from The Realm of Questions!!!"

Tan Yiming then understood what Cen Manchuan was talking about.

Two years ago, Blizzard Entertainment’s "q" project was officially tested after numerous, countless delays. As soon as this game was launched, it swept the streets and lanes like thunder. They casually opened a game website, and the front page was meant to discuss the plot, personality, and hero skills of the game characters.

The final official Chinese translation of the "q" project was changed to The Realm of Questions. The protagonists that the player could control had also expanded from 6 to 10. The Chinese astronaut Wang Qiang, who first appeared on the stage had the strongest personal skills, and no doubt earned the favor of the most players.

Wang Qiang's US and Chinese script was all dubbed by Tan Yiming. Later, when The Realm of Questions was launched, he also participated in multiple promotions as a voice actor guest. Cen Manchuan was a veteran player of The Realm of Questions. He would feel out of sorts if he didn't play the game at least twice every night. Now, he accidentally found that his idol actually appeared in front of himself. He was so happy that he wanted to beatbox!

He stuck an arm around Xiang Cai and said cheerfully, "Mr. Tan, you don't know. Every time I played the game, Cai Cai always sat with a stool and watched. I just thought he wanted to play and wanted to take him to play a few rounds. However he said that he didn’t like playing games, he just liked to listen to your voice. By the way, he also said that you two were good friends before. I thought he was just trying to make me happy, I didn't expect him to really ... "

"... Okay, Manchuan." Xiang Cai interrupted him and suddenly found out that calling his boyfriend was the wrong decision. He embarrassedly switched the topic, "It's getting late today, I'm tired."

"Oh, oh." Cen Manchuan immediately answered, obediently acting like a trained domestic dog. "You sang and danced all night today. I'll take you home first."

He handed the helmet in his hand to Xiang Cai and let Xiang Cai sit behind him. Then, he pulled Xiang Cai’s hands around his waist again, and urged him to stabilize himself.

The interaction between the little lovers was intimate and natural. Tan Yiming stood awkwardly to the side, his gaze gliding over the boy in the back. However, the reflective motorcycle helmet covered his expression.

The throttle roared, and before the man could say goodbye and to meet again, the motorcycle was gone. It disappeared into the vast night in the blink of an eye.

It was then that Tan Yiming remembered that he and Xiang Cai had not exchanged contact information yet.

※

"Master, how was the musical yesterday, was it good?"

As soon as he came to work, the little girl at the front desk smiled and asked this.

Tan Yiming had a layer of dark circles under his eyes. He covered it with a pair of flat glasses, which did not let her see his low energy.

"It was pretty good." Tan Yiming smiled. "I also met an old friend of the former society."

"Old friend? Was it from Voice of Jiuxiao?" The front desk girl asked excitedly, "Do I know them, do I know them?"

After Tan Yiming returned to China, he did not choose to fight alone. Under the introduction of the second son, he directly absorbed some members who were interested in commercial dubbing from the Voice of Jiuxiao Troupe, including voice actors, screenwriters, vocal directors, and post-production, etc. They formed the prototype of Blockbuster Studio.

[T/N: The studio is called ‘Yīmíngjīngrén’ which can be either ‘Yiming Amazing’ or ‘Blockbuster’. I’m going to use Blockbuster.]

After years of development, the voice acting circle itself had undergone tremendous change. Tan Yiming's vision was precise and he was very business-minded. He seized the opportunity to win the copyright of a number of outstanding novels, and also cooperated with many film and television companies, and animation companies. After several years of development, Blockbuster Studio’s scale had also gradually expanded. From the original grassroots team of more than a dozen people to the establishment of their own business team, each step had been extremely difficult.

Because of the business expansion, the people under his hands were not enough. HR shouted every day to recruit people, but were never able to attract the new talents they wanted.

Therefore, the little girl at the front desk heard that Tan Yiming saw an "old friend", and thought he was going to recruit a new person from the society.

"No, he didn't do voice acting before, he was a cover singer." Tan Yiming said. "He now ... has a new job and a new life, I don't want to disturb him anymore."

The little girl at the front desk muttered, "Listening to you, I feel that he is not your old friend, but your ex-boyfriend."

Tan Yiming: "..."

Tan Yiming returned to his office and wanted to work, but his hand went to a search engine.

Now that the Internet was so powerful, even if he and Xiang Cai hadn’t exchanged contact information, it didn’t mean he couldn’t find him.

Sure enough, when he entered Xiang Cai’s name, all the news related to Xiang Cai soon jumped out. Unexpectedly, Xiang Cai actually had his own artist entry. Tan Yiming quickly browsed it. Musical actors belonged to a very niche role among actors, and the entry was also very simple. In addition to the name and the school attended, it only contained a musical that Xiang Cai starred at the age of 20.

Tan Yiming wrote down the name of the musical and decided to take a look.

At the end of the artist's entry, Xiang Cai’s personal Weibo homepage was also thoughtfully attached.

Tan Yiming opened it up and found that Xiang Cai’s Weibo was very deserted. Although it was verified, he only had two or three thousand fans. He rarely posted his status, and the last time he posted was a month ago.

As for the people he followed, they were even fewer. There were only around thirty in total. Looking at the avatars, all were his classmates or other actors who had worked with him.

Tan Yiming didn't find that his behavior resembled the disdained "stalkers". His mouse scrolled, and the over thirty following accounts quickly came to an end, showing that this user first followed two accounts.

— "Blockbuster Studio"

— "CV | Wang Qingyun"

The time of five years seemed to go in a circle, circling around and back to its original point.

Tan Yiming thought, when he was looking for Xiang Cai in the vast crowd, how did Xiang Cai spend these five years?

***

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