Chapter 76

Act X: Singing In The Rain (1)

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Xiang Cai performed five shows in a row in Huacheng, and Tan Yiming was always there, watching in the front row. He not only watched it by himself, but also brought people from his entire company to watch Xiang Cai’s performance in the name of ‘team building’.

The staff member in charge of ticket checking knew him, and every time he showed up, the little sister who checked tickets whispered: "Look, Xiang Cai’s hard-core fan is here again."

This romantic comedy was suitable for all ages and the young ladies in the company enjoyed watching it.

After Ye Ye and Gu Liang came to brush up the company's welfare the first time, they brought their son the second time. Fanfan recognized the ‘Xiang Cai gege’ on stage. He was very serious when watching the show, and stared attentively with his cheeks in his little hands. Such a little adult looked very cute.

This show was Xiang Cai’s last performance in Huacheng. Tomorrow, he would fly back to the Southwest tour group to start the next round of touring.

Don't look at it like Xiang Cai had only been there for five performances, he had convinced the whole Huacheng audience with his superb acting skills and youthful, flamboyant style. At the curtain call, the applause lasted for a long time, and after the end, there were several audience members waiting outside the SD.

Tan Yiming hugged Fanfan and walked amongst the crowd to the parking lot with the Gu Liang husband and wife.

Gu Liang pushed him with his shoulder, asking teasingly: "Class leader, I think I see your spring breeze. Good things are coming soon, right?"

From the curtain’s opening to its closing, Tan Yiming's eyes had never left the actor on the stage. When the curtain call came, Tan Yiming held up his mobile phone and recorded Xiang Cai’s every move.

Gu Liang was not blind, and he knew his old friend's sexuality long ago. Thinking of his recent unusual behaviors, Gu Liang naturally guessed what was going through Tan Yiming’s head.

Tan Yiming shook his head and said to himself: "What good things are coming? You are thinking too much, he is my tenant."

Ye Ye's eyes immediately lit up, as if she wasn’t too busy to watch the excitement: "Oh? First living together and then falling in love, I can!"

Tan Yiming: "...The child is still here."

Fanfan immediately covered his small ears, blinking and looking at him eagerly.

Fanfan asked in a low voice, "Uncle Class Leader, are you going to fall in love with Xiang Cai gege?"

"...How old are you, what do you know about falling in love?" Tan Yiming denied, "Besides, your Xiang Cai gege has a boyfriend."

When these words came out, the Gu Liang and Ye Ye couple looked at each other, and couldn't speak anymore.

Tan Yiming said: "In fact, you all know Xiang Cai from before. Do you remember ‘guess’ from the troupe before? It's him."

Only then did Gu Liang learn that the person Tan Yiming had been looking for for five years was actually the confident and calm little swan onstage. It was also a special kind of fate that the two could live together under the same roof.

After Xiang Cai got off the field, he hurriedly removed his makeup and rushed to the parking lot to meet them.

After the autumn rains of the previous few days, the temperature in Huacheng dropped ten degrees, and there was a cold breeze in the evening. One mustn’t only wear long trousers, but also wear a scarf when they went out. Everyone discussed it, and then went to a Cantonese restaurant for a porridge supper.

Fanfan hadn’t seen Xiang Cai for a long time, and spread his arms, acting childish and insisting on hugging Xiang Cai gege.

Xiang Cai also missed him very much. The two simply sat together during the meal, a big friend and little friend with an age difference of a dozen years. Who knew how they had so much to whisper on about.

Xiang Cai asked Fanfan what he had been up to lately.

Fanfan replied loudly: "Busy learning, playing games, and dubbing!"

"Huh?" Xiang Cai asked curiously. "Didn't you say that you hated dubbing and didn’t want to dub anymore?"

Fanfan vaguely said while eating, "This food is so fragrant!"

Xiang Cai: "..."

Tan Yiming leaned over and whispered in his ear: "Children, their minds move past things quick. During summer vacation, he was aggrieved and said that he was made fun of by his classmates for dubbing a dog, so he would never step into a recording studio in the future again. As a result, after he didn’t enter the studio for a month, he took the initiative to ask me when he could dub."

Tan Yiming smiled and said: "Capriciousness is the patent of children."

Xiang Cai raised his hand and touched Fanfan's head, saying, "This is not called capriciousness. Although he temporarily let go of his preferences because of external matters, things like his ‘true heart’ can be held down for a while, but not be hidden permanently."

※

The ginkgo trees on the roadside had all turned yellow.

Xiang Cai ended his performance in Huacheng, and went to the Southwest crew early the next morning to start a new tour.

Although he was gone, the bouquet of roses remained at home.

There were no ready-made vases at home, so Xiang Cai took a few large glass bottles and filled them with water, taking apart the bouquet and putting a few flowers in each bottle.

One bunch was placed on the TV cabinet, one bunch was placed in the center of the dining table, one bunch was placed beside the bay window, and two bunches were kept with his hanging basket.

As the weather became colder, Tan Yiming brought Dabao back from his studio, put him in a terrarium, and turned on the heating lamp for 24 hours a day.

Xiang Cai specifically told him not to let the blue-tongued skink out, for fear that it would crawl all over the ground and bite his roses.

Yes, as Xiang Cai said, that bouquet of flowers was already ‘his roses’.

Tan Yiming took the opportunity to laugh at him when taking him to the airport: "Little prince, I will remember to weed, catch insects, and water your roses."

Xiang Cai squirmed in the front passenger seat, tightening the scarf around his neck.

"I'll be back in two weeks," Xiang Cai told him. "You have to send me photos of the roses every day. I believe that they can last until the end of my tour!"

So from that day on, Tan Yiming had a new habit, which was to rush to the roses when returning home every day to see if any petals had fallen.

The neglected Dabao was so wronged that he crawled out of the terrarium and hooked Tan Yiming's socks with his long claws, hoping that his cruel old father could take a look at his eldest son.

It was a pity that his old father had forgotten what was right, and he hadn’t drawn any of his attention away from the roses at all.

On the day of heating in Huacheng, Xiang Cai finally finished his work and flew back with three boxes full of specialty products.

[T/N: day of heating = something about how some parts of China have government-provided central heating that turns on and off at a specific time.]

The picking up fell on Tan Yiming’s back again.

After arriving home, Tan Yiming accompanied Xiang Cai in disassembling the boxes of specialty products, including rabbit heads, ladders, and hot pot materials, which piled up in the living room everywhere.

This was Xiang Cai's first job after graduation. He was also touring a city that he had never been to before. Naturally, he wanted to buy everything.

The most important thing was that the place he lived in now was much more spacious, so no matter how much he bought, he could put it somewhere.

Xiang Cai was quite ceremonious, so for everyone who had expressed kindness to him, he prepared a small gift. He didn’t even forget his head teacher in high school.

Not only that, he also brought Dabao a pet shirt that he bought on Chunxi Road. It was black and white, and he would look like a lanky giant panda when it was worn.

After the gifts were divided, the little prince couldn't wait to see his roses.

Tan Yiming took care of them very carefully. He also ordered powders to extend the flowering period, which he had heard of from the Internet, and dropped them in the bottle, for fear that the flowers would wither before Xiang Cai came back.

However, no matter how hard he took care of them, the roses would not bloom forever. They had yellowed, and the rose petals curled around the edges, their heads hanging listlessly.

Yes, Xiang Cai still liked them.

Each scattered petal was not wasted by Tan Yiming, he collected them and they accumulated in a small container.

Xiang Cai was surprised: "What are you doing with them?"

Tan Yiming said: "Uh...you can take a flower petal bath?"

Xiang Cai asked disgustingly: "Where can I go take a bath? The bathroom only has a shower head, not a bathtub."

"You can also take a flower petal shower." Tan Yiming said, "You will be responsible for washing, and I will be responsible for spraying the flowers next to you."

Xiang Cai: "..."

Xiang Cai suddenly raised his face and solemnly asked him, “As the landlord, are you suggesting that you want to take a bath with me, your tenant?"

Tan ‘A Gentleman’ Yiming immediately denied: "I am not! I am not!!"

Of course, even if he was, even if he had, he would never admit it.

In the end, Tan Yiming's petal bath came true - Dabao hadn't bathed in a month, and the wrinkled skin on his body exuded a strange smell.

Now Xiang Cai was not so afraid of the blue-tongued skink. The two teamed up to press the little lizard in the basin; Tan Yiming was responsible for washing it, while Xiang Cai was responsible for adding chaos on the side.

Xiang Cai clearly claimed to be bathing Dabao, but he was having more fun than anyone else. He held the petals in both hands and raised them; the rose petals flew up, and before reaching the ceiling, fell one after another under the influence of gravity.

The petals fell on the tip of his hair first, and he shook his head like a small animal, so the petals slid down and landed on the tip of his nose. The boy sneezed, causing the fluttering petals to fly higher.

Through the petals falling all over in the air, Tan Yiming stared at the boy's smiling face in awe.

If possible, he hoped to see such a Xiang Cai every day in the future.

...

After washing the lizard, Tan Yiming wiped off its wet skin, and opened a can of fresh dog food for Dabao, who was throwing a tantrum.

Dabao dragged its long tail and slowly returned to the terrarium, not even willing to give his shit shoveling officer a look.

"Yes, angry again." Tan Yiming had no choice but to slap his long tail. Seeing that he was bitterly immersed in its food, he began to hate him. Tan Yiming patted its behind, "You love dog food so much, were you a single dog in your last life?"

The lizard's answer was to turn his head and slam Tan Yiming hard.

...

When bathing Dabao just now, the lizard was very uncooperative, turning his head and wobbling his tail. He had splashed the two of them with water all over.

So, after finishing up with the lizard, Xiang Cai and Tan Yiming took a shower in the bathroom one by one.

Men were not so particular about taking baths. Xiang Cai didn’t even use a hair dryer, and walked into the living room with his wet hair just like that.

He sat idly on the sofa while doing some exercises, not caring about his image. The heating in the room was very hot, so Xiang Cai only wore thin pajamas. However, his feet were hidden in thick plush socks, as his injured feet grew very cold. Whenever it came to this kind of weather, his feet were as cold as two balls of ice.

He knelt on the sofa and pressed a foot under his hip. Dancers needed to press their insteps every night to exercise the flexibility of their feet, but he had been injured and didn’t dare to press too hard, so he could only exercise himself in this way.

Kneeling didn’t mean anything to him. He played with his phone for a while, giving @s to his fans in his circle of likes on Weibo, chatting with Chen Ziran for a bit, and then just kneeling there in a daze.

When Tan Yiming walked out of the bathroom, he saw Xiang Cai sitting there with his long neck stretched out tiredly, looking bored.

He didn’t look like a little swan, but like a bored goose.

Seeing Tan Yiming passionately stepping out, Xiang Cai immediately asked, "Would you like to watch a movie?"

"Watch." Tan Yiming took a seat on the sofa.

Tan Yiming’s sofa was a large three-person couch. The two of them sat on the left and the right, separated by the Mariana Trench.

The projection screen lowered, the lights up above were turned off, and the entire living room became a private theater again.

The dark environment reminded Xiang Cai of the last time the two watched a movie together. He subconsciously moved his ankle, recalling how he had kept spinning in front of the screen.

"What do you want to see?" Suddenly, a magnetic, gentle male voice rang in his ear.

Tan Yiming leaned in from the darkness, and the projection light only vaguely outlined his figure. The boy's vision almost failed, but at the same time, his other senses were infinitely magnified.

He could hear Tan Yiming's gentle breathing, and the heat blowing on his ears caused his heart to beat faster; he could smell Tan Yiming's shampoo, the scent of the ocean and forest, exactly the same as his own; He could still feel the heat from Tan Yiming's body, and could hear the sound of his clothes rubbing.

Something bloomed silently in this darkness.

Xiang Cai’s heartbeat was like a drum, but he didn’t know why he was panicking.

He pressed the remote control indiscriminately, and browsed the movie library. He confusedly, coincidentally clicked on an old movie.

-Singing in the Rain

This was a very classic American musical film with a story set in the first half of the twentieth century. At that time, the film industry was undergoing tremendous changes: silent films were eliminated, and sound films became the new favorite pastime of the audience.

In the play, a silent film actress who was beautiful but had an unpleasant voice hired a sweet-sounding girl to be her ‘voice actor’, for her vanity.

Thinking about it carefully, would the job of the female protagonist in the current terms just be a voice actor who stood behind the scenes and provided the voice for traffic actors?!

This film had an iconic position in film history. Its singing and dancing was something that all musical actors had observed and learned. Xiang Cai didn’t know how many times he’d watched it, and he could sing along with every single song. The role of the female protagonist as a voice actor also caused Tan Yiming to have a good impression of this movie.

The two of them sat on the sofa and quietly watched the old movie.

Xiang Cai tried his best to focus his attention on the movie, but in fact, he was paying attention to the other figure on the sofa the whole time.

He didn’t know when it started, but the two got closer and closer. There was only a negligible gap left of the Mariana Trench between them. Xiang Cai could touch the other party’s hand as long as he moved his finger.

On the screen, the optimistic and cheerful female protagonist bounced around and sang a little love song.

This song was called All I Do Is Dream Of You. It was not the most famous song in the musical, but it was Xiang Cai’s favorite song.

“All I do is dream of you

The whole night through

With the dawn I still go on

Dreamin' of you.

You're every thought, you're everything,

You're every song I ever sing

Summer, winter, autumn, and spring.

And were there more than 24 hours a day,

They'd be spent in sweet content just dreamin' away.”

Before he knew it, Xiang Cai opened his mouth and sang to the music. His vocal range was not as high as that of the female protagonist’s, and his voice was very light when singing, but when this love song was sung from his mouth, it gave a different graceful taste.

Tan Yiming turned his head to look at him.

The boy carried a very nice scent of white rose, and his eyes that were set against the light on the projection were bright, like two stars.

Tan Yiming wanted to win over those stars. He wanted those two stars to belong only to himself.

So Tan Yiming leaned over.

Attentively, at that moment, Xiang Cai stopped singing along, and looked up at Tan Yiming.

It might be because the music was so beautiful.

It might be because the rose was fragrant.

It might be because the dark environment breeded infinite courage.

It might be because the endless waiting had killed the last minute of hesitation.

Xiang Cai didn't blink, watching the man lean forward intently, and shorten the distance between the two bit by bit.

"Cai Cai..."

"Is it okay?…"

The last note in the boy's throat disappeared into the overlapping lips of the two.

—They had a real kiss.

On that quiet night.

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The author has something to say: woo woo woo [old mother crying].jpg

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