Chapter 70
Act IX: The Secret That Cannot Be Told (4)
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Voice actors were not like ordinary white-collar office workers, there were no so-called working hours and off hours. As long as they had a job, they would enter the recording studio when they arrived at the company, and could leave when they finished recording. If they didn’t have work scheduled for several days, they didn’t need to report to the company.
However, as the company owner, Tan Yiming had always been diligent. Even if he didn’t need to enter the shed today, he would arrive at the company early to do some administrative work.
However, the young girl at the front desk found that Class Leader Tan had been coming to work later in the past couple weeks.
Before, he would appear in the company at 9 am, but recently, he often didn’t step into the gates of the company before 10 o'clock.
Gu Liang also felt that it was strange, and asked him, "Have you not been sleeping well lately? Are you getting up too late? The company is not far from your home, even if you walked, it would take half an hour for you to arrive."
Tan Yiming answered quietly, "Oh, my tenant stays a little far from work. You also know the subway station in front of my house. During every morning rush, it takes half an hour to get in, and only three cars are available. Anyway, I don't have to check in, so I drop him off at the terminal, where there are seats."
The problem was that the terminal was not far from his home, but one had to drive around the viaduct for twenty minutes. When he said, ‘on the way’, he didn’t disclose how much time it would take.
Gu Liang was shocked: "You are really a twenty-four-hour filial landlord, you even have a pick up and drop off service!"
How could he know that the twenty-four-hour filial landlord not only included transportation, but also included meals.
After a while, Xiang Cai would set off to the southwest. Happy Pancake was a particularly mature stage drama company. In addition to Xiang Cai, the other actors who played with him were all Pancake’s contracted artists. The reason why Xiang Cai could become the Corner A [?] was because the producer liked his ‘outstanding performance from Fan Letter’.
Xiang Cai was under great pressure. Recently, he had been practicing extremely hard. In order to protect his throat, he rejected all iced, spicy, and salty foods. Every day when he went home, he cooked noodles in clean water, cut cucumbers, and ate vegetables like tomatoes and mushrooms along with it. He paid great attention to nutrition amount, insisting on one poached egg for each meal, and replaced the empty spot with chicken breast after the egg was eaten.
Tan Yiming asked him: "Eating noodles every day is too monotonous. Why not make some stir-fry or something?"
Xiang Cai replied, "It's not tiring to cook, but it is too tiring to chop vegetables, wash rice, and wash pots and pans. I want to sleep when I get home, not continue to work upright."
So the next day, Tan Yiming ‘accidentally’ made two more dishes and left them on the dinner table. There was still a thin layer of rice left in the pot, just enough for a bowl.
Xiang Cai: "..."
He looked at the hot meal, and then looked at the ‘focused’ Tan Yiming, who was working hard in the living room. He whispered a thank you, and sat down to finish eating.
Tan Yiming cooked meals for three days in succession, and Xiang Cai ate the meals for three days in succession.
On the morning of the fourth day, Tan Yiming had just gotten out of bed and saw five red banknotes on the coffee table in the living room.
[T/N: the red banknotes are 100 yuan (different amounts of money by color).]
Tan Yiming gestured to it with one hand, asking, "What is this?"
Xiang Cai replied, "This is the money for meals, the car, and for not bathing the lizard."
Tan Yiming looked at the banknotes and felt terribly hot. However, he also knew that if he did not accept it, he was afraid that Xiang Cai would never sit in his passenger seat again, let alone eat a grain of his rice.
In the end, Xiang Cai used this method to make up for the rent.
...
An emergency job came in this weekend. The censorship department of a satellite TV dramas to be broadcasted next week suddenly notified them that ‘multiple episodes of lines involved sensitive content and needed to be revised again’.
The drama was finished last year, and it was said to be broadcast at the beginning of this year. However, it was dragged out until September. This was a modern drama. Modern dramas were highly time-sensitive and likely to be outdated if not published at the right time. If it couldn’t be broadcasted at this time, it would be dragged on to next year.
[T/N: I think this means that the mentioned modern drama was changing things that would be outdated from last year to keep up with the trends. If they didn’t quickly change it now and publish it, they would have to wait until next year and review it again.]
Therefore, the producer made an emergency call to Tan Yiming and asked him to quickly organize a supplementary recording.
In the small recording studio, editors, screenwriters, dubbing directors, and voice actors crowded together. All of them had red puffy eyes, throat lozenges, coffee, and Red Bull stuffed casually into their stomachs.
After Tan Yiming finished recording, he struggled to drive home. He fell asleep on the sofa before he could reach the bedroom.
He slept for more than ten hours, and when he opened his eyes again, it was already the next afternoon.
He was still lying on the sofa in the living room, but with an extra pillow under his head and an extra blanket on his body. The air conditioner was set to a comfortable 26 degrees (Celcius), the curtains were tightly closed, and an elegant and soothing lavender aroma wafted in the air.
Tan Yiming froze for a while, then lifted the blanket and sat up.
Only then did he realize that he was still wearing the suit he had used to record, which had become crumpled because he had slept in it all night. However, all the buttons were unbuttoned, and his belt was pulled out and rolled up on the coffee table.
Needless to say, all this could only be done by the other resident in the household.
Tan Yiming was in a daze, when the kitchen door suddenly opened.
Xiang Cai held a bowl of porridge in his left hand, a dish of pickled vegetables in his right hand, and a pair of chopsticks in his mouth. He opened the door with his butt, and walked backward into the living room like a juggler.
Tan Yiming: "..."
Xiang Cai asked vaguely through the chopsticks he bit in his mouth: "Wuwuwu?"
[T/N: ‘wu’ by itself means ‘well’.]
Tan Yiming: "Well, I just woke up." As soon as the kitchen door opened, the light but seductive aroma of rice porridge wafted out. Tan Yiming's last real meal had been eaten 24 hours ago. Instantly, he licked his dry lips and asked, "How much porridge did you make, is there extra?"
Xiang Cai nodded: "Wuwuwu."
Tan Yiming: "It's all right, you can eat this bowl, I'll go serve myself a bowl."
Xiang Cai said again, "Wuwuwuwu."
[T/N: a lot of ‘wus’ like this means ‘no no no’. I’m confused too, I don’t know Mandarin.]
Tan Yiming pretended not to hear him. He raised his hand and touched the stubble on his jaw, intending to go take bath and brush his teeth after eating.
Two minutes later, Tan Yiming and Xiang Cai sat down on each side of the dining table. On the table between them, there were two plates of side dishes, fried eggs and luncheon meat.
Xiang Cai had always eaten in the school cafeteria, and his cooking skills were limited. For the first time, he used a pressure cooker to cook porridge. Fortunately, he bluffed the whole process. He didn’t waste any energy except for the rice washing and pumpkin cutting.
Tan Yiming blew cold air onto it before swallowing the sweet and thick pumpkin rice porridge, only to feel a burst of heat rise from his stomach, and then gradually flow to his limbs, filling his empty heart inch by inch.
Xiang Cai was not very hungry, he held the bowl of porridge and drank slowly. He didn’t like to eat food that was too hot, he had to blow it before he could eat it. However, even so, his lips were red with porridge, and the tip of his pink tongue flashed between his two rows of pearly teeth.
Between them, there was nothing to talk about.
Xiang Cai took the initiative to say: "I didn't go home the night before and couldn't get through to your phone. As soon as I came back yesterday, I saw you asleep on the sofa. I couldn’t wake you up, I thought you were sick."
"We had been in a hurry to work these days. When entering the recording studio, our phones must be turned off. I forgot to tell you in advance," Tan Yiming said quickly. "Sorry, if I can't go home at night next time, I will tell you in advance."
After saying this, Tan Yiming felt as if something had changed. He finally had someone in his household waiting for him to go home, even though he and Xiang Cai were just ‘roommates’.
Xiang Cai didn't seem to notice the subtle changes in Tan Yiming's tone. He got up and filled Tan Yiming’s bowl with another round of porridge. Then he said, "Fortunately, I was home when you came back. If you came in two days, no one would know if you were passed out on the sofa."
Tan Yiming didn’t react until he understood what he was saying: "Are you going on tour?"
"Well, the flight is tomorrow." Xiang Cai said, "The producer gave us two days off and let us go home to pack our luggages and adjust our state. The props have been shipped in advance, and the rehearsal will be performed directly after landing. The premiere will be the day after tomorrow."
Tan Yiming didn't expect time to pass so fast. It felt like they had only gotten along for a few days before they had to be separated again.
----------
Voice actors were not like ordinary white-collar office workers, there were no so-called working hours and off hours. As long as they had a job, they would enter the recording studio when they arrived at the company, and could leave when they finished recording. If they didn’t have work scheduled for several days, they didn’t need to report to the company.
However, as the company owner, Tan Yiming had always been diligent. Even if he didn’t need to enter the shed today, he would arrive at the company early to do some administrative work.
However, the young girl at the front desk found that Class Leader Tan had been coming to work later in the past couple weeks.
Before, he would appear in the company at 9 am, but recently, he often didn’t step into the gates of the company before 10 o'clock.
Gu Liang also felt that it was strange, and asked him, "Have you not been sleeping well lately? Are you getting up too late? The company is not far from your home, even if you walked, it would take half an hour for you to arrive."
Tan Yiming answered quietly, "Oh, my tenant stays a little far from work. You also know the subway station in front of my house. During every morning rush, it takes half an hour to get in, and only three cars are available. Anyway, I don't have to check in, so I drop him off at the terminal, where there are seats."
The problem was that the terminal was not far from his home, but one had to drive around the viaduct for twenty minutes. When he said, ‘on the way’, he didn’t disclose how much time it would take.
Gu Liang was shocked: "You are really a twenty-four-hour filial landlord, you even have a pick up and drop off service!"
How could he know that the twenty-four-hour filial landlord not only included transportation, but also included meals.
After a while, Xiang Cai would set off to the southwest. Happy Pancake was a particularly mature stage drama company. In addition to Xiang Cai, the other actors who played with him were all Pancake’s contracted artists. The reason why Xiang Cai could become the Corner A [?] was because the producer liked his ‘outstanding performance from Fan Letter’.
Xiang Cai was under great pressure. Recently, he had been practicing extremely hard. In order to protect his throat, he rejected all iced, spicy, and salty foods. Every day when he went home, he cooked noodles in clean water, cut cucumbers, and ate vegetables like tomatoes and mushrooms along with it. He paid great attention to nutrition amount, insisting on one poached egg for each meal, and replaced the empty spot with chicken breast after the egg was eaten.
Tan Yiming asked him: "Eating noodles every day is too monotonous. Why not make some stir-fry or something?"
Xiang Cai replied, "It's not tiring to cook, but it is too tiring to chop vegetables, wash rice, and wash pots and pans. I want to sleep when I get home, not continue to work upright."
So the next day, Tan Yiming ‘accidentally’ made two more dishes and left them on the dinner table. There was still a thin layer of rice left in the pot, just enough for a bowl.
Xiang Cai: "..."
He looked at the hot meal, and then looked at the ‘focused’ Tan Yiming, who was working hard in the living room. He whispered a thank you, and sat down to finish eating.
Tan Yiming cooked meals for three days in succession, and Xiang Cai ate the meals for three days in succession.
On the morning of the fourth day, Tan Yiming had just gotten out of bed and saw five red banknotes on the coffee table in the living room.
[T/N: the red banknotes are 100 yuan (different amounts of money by color).]
Tan Yiming gestured to it with one hand, asking, "What is this?"
Xiang Cai replied, "This is the money for meals, the car, and for not bathing the lizard."
Tan Yiming looked at the banknotes and felt terribly hot. However, he also knew that if he did not accept it, he was afraid that Xiang Cai would never sit in his passenger seat again, let alone eat a grain of his rice.
In the end, Xiang Cai used this method to make up for the rent.
...
An emergency job came in this weekend. The censorship department of a satellite TV dramas to be broadcasted next week suddenly notified them that ‘multiple episodes of lines involved sensitive content and needed to be revised again’.
The drama was finished last year, and it was said to be broadcast at the beginning of this year. However, it was dragged out until September. This was a modern drama. Modern dramas were highly time-sensitive and likely to be outdated if not published at the right time. If it couldn’t be broadcasted at this time, it would be dragged on to next year.
[T/N: I think this means that the mentioned modern drama was changing things that would be outdated from last year to keep up with the trends. If they didn’t quickly change it now and publish it, they would have to wait until next year and review it again.]
Therefore, the producer made an emergency call to Tan Yiming and asked him to quickly organize a supplementary recording.
In the small recording studio, editors, screenwriters, dubbing directors, and voice actors crowded together. All of them had red puffy eyes, throat lozenges, coffee, and Red Bull stuffed casually into their stomachs.
After Tan Yiming finished recording, he struggled to drive home. He fell asleep on the sofa before he could reach the bedroom.
He slept for more than ten hours, and when he opened his eyes again, it was already the next afternoon.
He was still lying on the sofa in the living room, but with an extra pillow under his head and an extra blanket on his body. The air conditioner was set to a comfortable 26 degrees (Celcius), the curtains were tightly closed, and an elegant and soothing lavender aroma wafted in the air.
Tan Yiming froze for a while, then lifted the blanket and sat up.
Only then did he realize that he was still wearing the suit he had used to record, which had become crumpled because he had slept in it all night. However, all the buttons were unbuttoned, and his belt was pulled out and rolled up on the coffee table.
Needless to say, all this could only be done by the other resident in the household.
Tan Yiming was in a daze, when the kitchen door suddenly opened.
Xiang Cai held a bowl of porridge in his left hand, a dish of pickled vegetables in his right hand, and a pair of chopsticks in his mouth. He opened the door with his butt, and walked backward into the living room like a juggler.
Tan Yiming: "..."
Xiang Cai asked vaguely through the chopsticks he bit in his mouth: "Wuwuwu?"
[T/N: ‘wu’ by itself means ‘well’.]
Tan Yiming: "Well, I just woke up." As soon as the kitchen door opened, the light but seductive aroma of rice porridge wafted out. Tan Yiming's last real meal had been eaten 24 hours ago. Instantly, he licked his dry lips and asked, "How much porridge did you make, is there extra?"
Xiang Cai nodded: "Wuwuwu."
Tan Yiming: "It's all right, you can eat this bowl, I'll go serve myself a bowl."
Xiang Cai said again, "Wuwuwuwu."
[T/N: a lot of ‘wus’ like this means ‘no no no’. I’m confused too, I don’t know Mandarin.]
Tan Yiming pretended not to hear him. He raised his hand and touched the stubble on his jaw, intending to go take bath and brush his teeth after eating.
Two minutes later, Tan Yiming and Xiang Cai sat down on each side of the dining table. On the table between them, there were two plates of side dishes, fried eggs and luncheon meat.
Xiang Cai had always eaten in the school cafeteria, and his cooking skills were limited. For the first time, he used a pressure cooker to cook porridge. Fortunately, he bluffed the whole process. He didn’t waste any energy except for the rice washing and pumpkin cutting.
Tan Yiming blew cold air onto it before swallowing the sweet and thick pumpkin rice porridge, only to feel a burst of heat rise from his stomach, and then gradually flow to his limbs, filling his empty heart inch by inch.
Xiang Cai was not very hungry, he held the bowl of porridge and drank slowly. He didn’t like to eat food that was too hot, he had to blow it before he could eat it. However, even so, his lips were red with porridge, and the tip of his pink tongue flashed between his two rows of pearly teeth.
Between them, there was nothing to talk about.
Xiang Cai took the initiative to say: "I didn't go home the night before and couldn't get through to your phone. As soon as I came back yesterday, I saw you asleep on the sofa. I couldn’t wake you up, I thought you were sick."
"We had been in a hurry to work these days. When entering the recording studio, our phones must be turned off. I forgot to tell you in advance," Tan Yiming said quickly. "Sorry, if I can't go home at night next time, I will tell you in advance."
After saying this, Tan Yiming felt as if something had changed. He finally had someone in his household waiting for him to go home, even though he and Xiang Cai were just ‘roommates’.
Xiang Cai didn't seem to notice the subtle changes in Tan Yiming's tone. He got up and filled Tan Yiming’s bowl with another round of porridge. Then he said, "Fortunately, I was home when you came back. If you came in two days, no one would know if you were passed out on the sofa."
Tan Yiming didn’t react until he understood what he was saying: "Are you going on tour?"
"Well, the flight is tomorrow." Xiang Cai said, "The producer gave us two days off and let us go home to pack our luggages and adjust our state. The props have been shipped in advance, and the rehearsal will be performed directly after landing. The premiere will be the day after tomorrow."
Tan Yiming didn't expect time to pass so fast. It felt like they had only gotten along for a few days before they had to be separated again.
***
Waw, there's finally a comment section (at least i didn't noticed it until now).
ReplyDeleteThank you for all your hard work translating this awesome novel so far. Some of the chapters were really touching and wholesome ^•^
That's good to hear!
DeleteYay, a comment section!! ^^ Many thanks for the chapter!! :3
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting, it's nice to see a response :)
DeleteThank you for the amazing translations!
ReplyDeletethe wuwuwu represents the sounds when you try to talk when eating
ReplyDelete