The Cannon Fodder 'Seme' is the Center of Attention Again (Quick Transmigration) - Chapter 36

“Brother Yu? Brother Yu!”

Inside the dressing room on the sixth floor of Star Feather Entertainment, a black-haired young man nestled in a beanbag chair jerked his head up. Simultaneously, he reflexively stuffed the phone he had been holding behind his back.

“Ah, I’m here. What’s up?”

“I should be asking you what’s up, Brother Yu.”

Xiao Zhang, the assistant, glanced suspiciously behind Chu Yu’s back.

“What were you doing just now? I called you so many times and you didn’t hear me once.”

“Nothing much. Just, just browsing.” As Chu Yu spoke, he pushed the phone further into hiding, maintaining a facade of total nonchalance.

His acting skills were top-tier. His cold expression, paired with his sharp, handsome features, was usually enough to intimidate anyone.

However, as the assistant who had been with him since his debut, Xiao Zhang was intimately familiar with every one of Chu Yu’s micro-expressions. He huffed, watching Chu Yu’s fingers unconsciously pick at the sofa cover.

“You can fool Sister Lan with that, but I don’t buy it! Tell me the truth: were you checking Weibo again?”

Chu Yu: “!”

Sometimes, having an assistant who has been with you since day one isn’t exactly a blessing. Chu Yu忍不住 in his mind, while Xiao Zhang continued his lecture.

“Sister Lan told you to stay off Weibo for a while, didn’t she?”

This was especially true lately. After Chu Yu’s studio and Qin Yanyun’s studio simultaneously announced their participation in the variety show Let’s See the World Together, the comment sections under both actors’ accounts had become a chaotic mess.

It wasn’t that the two were rivals or that their fans were fighting. The main issue stemmed from a recent military drama they starred in together. They played childhood best friends who grew up and joined the army together, ending up in the same squad.

The story followed them from supporting each other initially to having a falling out over ideological differences, eventually leading them down divergent paths. They were supposed to be the Twin Stars of the military camp, but in the end, they stood on opposing sides. Things changed, and they eventually pointed their guns at one another.

The drama was actually a serious story about staying true to one’s heart and dreams, and both actors portrayed the theme of “choice” brilliantly. The plot was strictly professional.

The problem was that in today’s world, visual appeal is king, and fan edits are rampant. Originally, fans just edited solo videos of their respective idols. Then, some “genius” decided to edit the two of them together. Despite the unrelated plotlines, the “God-tier” editing made it look as though they were pining for each other in secret.

Specifically, at the end of the drama when Chu Yu’s character committed suicide and fell slowly as the camera rolled, the way Qin Yanyun’s pinky finger unconsciously twitched sent the “CP shippers” into a frenzy.

Childhood sweethearts, mutual support, parting ways, a sea of hate and love yet still harboring a shred of true emotion for you. Combined with the fact that both actors were incredibly good-looking, at least four out of every eight videos on major video platforms were CP edits of the two.

If fans just shipped the characters in the drama, Chu Yu could have tolerated it. The issue was that some obsessed fans dug up real-life clues and discovered that Chu Yu and Qin Yanyun actually were childhood friends who grew up together.

They were in the same school and the same class from kindergarten all the way through high school graduation. In graduation photos posted in the comments, amidst the blurred faces of other students, the two tall, handsome boys standing in the center of the back row stood out like sore thumbs.

“My god, what kind of novel plot is this coming to life!”

“Did you guys notice? They’ve been together in every photo since kindergarten! Their relationship must be amazing!”

“So sweet! Two cold-faced hotties, both looking annoyed at the camera, but they’re probably holding hands so hard they’re sweating under the frame, hahahahaha!”

Comments like these were too numerous to count.

If Chu Yu actually had a good relationship with Qin Yanyun, he wouldn’t mind. In fact, if their relationship weren’t as bad as it was, Chu Yu would have welcomed the publicity. After all, a popular ship brings heat to the individuals involved. No one complains about getting more famous.

The problem was that their relationship was nowhere near as good as the internet claimed. It was actually terrible; so bad that being in the same room as Qin Yanyun made Chu Yu physically uncomfortable.

When they first started filming the military drama, Chu Yu even broke out in hives. Physical reactions don’t lie. He had hated being bundled together with Qin Yanyun since he was a child, and he certainly couldn’t accept being part of a CP now. Especially since, in their ship, he was always designated as the submissive one!

On what basis!

Xiao Zhang remembered the day Chu Yu first found out he was the “bottom” in the ship. The top star of Star Feather Entertainment had spent the afternoon with a cold face, chopping twenty pounds of carrots in the company kitchen. As the round carrot chunks rolled off the cutting board, Xiao Zhang briefly wondered if Chu Yu was imagining the carrots were Qin Yanyun’s head.

That day, the company cafeteria’s menu was a vibrant, aggressive shade of orange. From that day on, Sister Lan forbid him from surfing the web; specifically, she banned him from checking the CP super-topic. Because the thing Sister Lan hated eating most in the world was carrots!

At the memory, Xiao Zhang felt the faint taste of carrots in his mouth. He looked at Chu Yu and sighed.

“Look, Brother Yu. You clearly hate seeing those posts linking you to Qin Yanyun, so why go on Weibo just to upset yourself?”

“Who’s upsetting themselves?” Chu Yu retorted. “I wasn’t looking at the super-topic!”

“Then what were you looking at?”

“I was looking at,” Chu Yu stalled. Xiao Zhang wore an “I knew it” expression and continued earnestly.

“Actually, Brother Yu, you know how Sister Lan is. She said not to look, but she didn’t stop you from logging in, right? She just wants you to look less because you always end up unhappy after reading those posts. We’re just worried about your mood.”

“I told you, I wasn’t looking at the super-topic!” Before Xiao Zhang could turn into a broken record, Chu Yu cut him off. “I was just looking at,看了眼私信而已.”

Thinking of the photo he had just seen, Chu Yu unconsciously bit his lip, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He slowly finished his sentence. “I was just looking at my private messages.”

“Oh, fan messages!”

“Mmh,” Chu Yu gave a vague grunt.

Xiao Zhang relaxed. “Checking fan messages is fine. If you have time, reply to a few. Everyone is here because they like you; we should give back some of that love.”

“Do I need you to tell me that?” Chu Yu rolled his eyes. Xiao Zhang chuckled, then remembered something and added:

“But Brother, be careful when you reply. Some obsessive fans hide in there to get attention. Don’t engage with those people, especially the psychological weirdos or the extreme ones. It’s best not to even look at their messages!”

Chu Yu: “How am I supposed to know if someone is a Sasaeng or not?”

“I don’t know either,” Xiao Zhang said, organizing clothes. “I guess, it’s best to pick fans from the official group to reply to. Don’t look at individual DMs, especially those that send a picture right away. Never click on those!”

Chu Yu: “Why?”

“Brother, what’s with you today? Do I really need to explain this?” Xiao Zhang gave him a strange look. “Did you forget when you first started? You played a minor villain, and someone DMed you a ghost picture? And then there was that other time, the adult one.”

“How could I forget,” Chu Yu rubbed his nose. “I just feel like people who send pictures aren’t necessarily bad fans.”

Mostly, it was because that hand was truly beautiful. No one knew that Chu Yu was an extreme hand-fetishist. He was so obsessed that when he bought things, the first thing he looked for was the detail of the model’s hands.

And the photo he had just opened; slender, well-defined, and paired with those glistening droplets of white liquid; it was practically the hand of his dreams. Chu Yu’s Adam’s apple bobbed again as his thoughts drifted far away.

Beside him, Xiao Zhang was still droning on. Chu Yu didn’t catch most of it, only picking up something about a fan in the group being “insane.” Someone who, like him, couldn’t accept the pairing with Qin Yanyun and claimed they were going to go undercover as Qin Yanyun’s assistant to dig up dirt.

“The messages he sends in the group are very suggestive and extreme. It’s creepy. It’s like he thinks you’re his boyfriend. He even asks for your phone number, wanting to call you and ask why you’re ignoring him.”

“A Sasaeng, then.” Chu Yu tapped his screen and gave a perfunctory reply. “Just kick him from the group and block him. Don’t let him ruin the mood for the other fans.”

“I did, but, forget it, I’ll try kicking him again right now.” Xiao Zhang went to work. Just as he entered the group chat, the fan he was talking about happened to post a message.

“It’s another day of being turned on by thinking of A-Yu. I wonder when A-Yu will actually help me for real. I’ll do it for you this time, but you have to compensate me later!”

Xiao Zhang grimaced in disgust, instinctively curling his pinky finger as he gingerly tapped the fan’s profile picture to remove them from the group.

Normally, he wouldn’t have to handle this manually. However, this particular fan seemed to have found a workaround. No matter how many times the system kicked or reported them, they would reappear at the same time the next day with the identical ID and profile picture, posting nonsensical messages.

 

Xiao Zhang decided that if this fan appeared again at this time tomorrow, he would officially escalate the matter to Weibo’s technical support.

 

[It won’t matter. Even if Weibo’s official team comes, they won’t be able to get rid of me!]

 

888 bragged to Li Qingran, [This world’s system is nothing compared to me!]

 

Li Qingran let out a light chuckle and played along:

 

[Of course. Our Little 8 is a high-level system; how could these mindless machines even compare?]

 

888’s metaphorical tail wagged even higher.

 

[However,]

 

After praising 888, Li Qingran paused before continuing, [Let’s not overstep this world’s operating rules too much. I’m afraid it might affect the plot. It doesn’t matter if I fail the mission, but I can’t let anything happen to you, Little 8. I want you to keep staying with me.]

 

[Host…] 888 was so moved that its circuits sparked with tiny currents. It immediately stopped its attempt to rewrite the program to re-enter the fan group.

 

[Don’t worry, Host! I will never let anything happen to me! I want to stay with you forever too!]

 

Li Qingran smiled. [Then the fan group?]

 

[I won’t rejoin. Anyway, I’ve sent enough messages already.]

 

In the original plot, the cannon fodder was constantly kicked and blocked. Between applying for new accounts and completing real-name authentications, they wasted a lot of time, so their messages in the group weren’t actually that frequent. 888 had been logging in daily at the exact same time lately, which had essentially fulfilled the “harassment” portion of the storyline for Li Qingran.

 

[That’s good.]

 

The smile in Li Qingran’s eyes deepened. Simultaneously, in a way 888 wouldn’t notice, he let out a quiet sigh of relief. The photos were shameful enough; if he had to send daily “dirty talk” on top of that, he really wouldn’t have been able to handle it.

 

Fortunately, 888 had stopped.

 

With that weight off his mind, Li Qingran felt much lighter and his mood improved significantly. He washed his hands thoroughly, rinsing off every trace of the ice cream, before heading toward the dressing room at the end of the hallway under the urging of the other assistant, Xiao Wen.

 

Usually, the atmosphere in a dressing room isn’t as quiet as depicted in dramas. Since the makeup artists are old acquaintances, people usually joke around and make quite a bit of noise.

 

Today, however, when Li Qingran pushed the door open, the entire room was deathly silent. Everyone kept their heads down, tip-toeing through their tasks, their eyes instinctively darting toward the figure sitting in front of the vanity mirror, staring down at his phone.

 

Qin Yanyun was scheduled for a magazine shoot today. He wore a black patterned shirt required for the shoot, with the top two buttons undone and a black tie hanging loosely around his neck. It was a “playboy” look that, on Qin Yanyun, created a contradictory sense of both roguish charm and cold abstinence.

 

Li Qingran guessed that this feeling primarily came from Qin Yanyun’s expression, which was so indifferent it seemed like he looked down on everyone, and his icy aura that kept people a thousand miles away.

 

When Li Qingran entered, he was looking down, scrolling through his phone with an air of boredom. Beside him, a makeup artist was carefully applying lipstick with a lip brush.

 

Hearing the door, Qin Yanyun lifted his eyelids to glance toward the entrance. Their eyes met for barely a second before Qin Yanyun lowered his lashes again. Until the makeup session was over, he didn’t look in Li Qingran’s direction once.

 

His cold demeanor made it seem as if Li Qingran was just an irrelevant stranger, and as if Qin Yanyun wasn’t the very person who had been hounding the other assistants every five minutes asking where Li Qingran had gone.

 

Li Qingran didn’t ask what Qin Yanyun wanted. Since he was being ignored, he walked over to Xiao Wen to help organize the clothes needed for the upcoming work. The hangers hit the metal rack, inevitably making a clattering noise.

 

Behind him, an impatient “Tsk” sounded, followed by a loud thud as a phone was tossed onto the table.

 

Li Qingran ignored it, but Xiao Wen stiffened. He peeked cautiously behind him, froze for a few seconds under their boss’s “death stare,” and then slowly turned back, his fingers white-knuckled on a hanger.

 

“Brother Li,” Xiao Wen whispered, his voice low, “Maybe you should go… coax him a bit?”

 

Li Qingran’s expression remained unchanged as he continued hanging clothes. He said calmly:

 

“Coax him how? Do you even know why he’s angry?”

 

“I’m telling you to coax him precisely because I don’t know why he’s angry!” Xiao Wen said with a bitter face.

 

In fact, it wasn’t just him. No one in the dressing room knew what had gotten into Qin Yanyun today. From the moment they picked him up this morning, he had radiated a low-pressure aura that said “Strangers stay away, and friends can go die too.”

 

Usually, this low pressure didn’t apply to Li Qingran. There had been several times before where Qin Yanyun was icy, only for Li Qingran to lean in and whisper a few words, turning his mood from stormy to sunny instantly.

 

No one knew what kind of magic this assistant, who had only been on the job for two months, possessed to be able to soothe a “Great Demon King” like Qin Yanyun.

 

Xiao Wen instinctively looked at the young man beside him—the one he used to call “Xiao Li” but who, after just a few days, had automatically become “Brother Li.”

 

To be honest, Li Qingran’s appearance was flawless. Even Xiao Wen, who had spent years in the entertainment industry and seen countless “flower boys,” was dazzled when he first met Li Qingran. He had assumed Li Qingran had walked into the wrong department and was about to personally lead him to the acting department next door.

 

He never expected that a young man with a face that could easily sit at the top of the entertainment industry’s pyramid wouldn’t want to be an actor, but instead wanted to root himself here as Qin Yanyun’s minor assistant, earning only a few thousand yuan a month.

 

Xiao Wen didn’t get it, but now wasn’t the time to analyze Li Qingran’s psychology. The priority was to smooth down Qin Yanyun’s ruffled feathers!

 

A bad atmosphere in the dressing room was a small matter, but if he stayed this way during the shoot and someone posted a photo of it online, they would be in trouble. Qin Yanyun had a drama coming out soon where he played a naive, kind, and sunny boy, so he absolutely could not be photographed with a dark, brooding face right now!

 

Xiao Wen looked at Li Qingran pleadingly. The latter pursed his lips and finally sighed, hanging the last jacket on the rack.

 

“Fine. I’m going out for a moment.”

 

“You just got here and you’re leaving? What do you think my dressing room is?”

 

Before Li Qingran’s hand could even touch the doorknob, Qin Yanyun’s irritable voice erupted behind him.

 

In an instant, everyone in the dressing room held their breath. Only Li Qingran didn’t turn around or speak; he simply pushed the door open and left.

 

“F*ck!” Qin Yanyun stood up abruptly, instinctively wanting to chase after him, but Xiao Wen was quick enough to grab him.

 

“Brother Qin, don’t worry! Brother Li just told me he saw your lips were peeling and wanted to go buy you a bottle of water! He’s not slacking off, don’t be mad, he’ll be back in a second!”

 

It’s one thing to go crazy in the dressing room, but he couldn’t let him go out!

 

Fortunately, Qin Yanyun wasn’t exceptionally stubborn, or perhaps he just liked the excuse Xiao Wen provided. After some back and forth, he sat back down with a cold face.

 

However, once seated, he suddenly asked Xiao Wen a question: “Who do you think is better looking, me or Chu Yu?”

 

“Huh?” Xiao Wen was stunned, then immediately recovered and answered:

 

“Well, obviously—”

 

Before the name “Qin” could leave his mouth, Qin Yanyun cut him off. “Forget it, I don’t want to know.”

 

He let out a sneer, whether to Xiao Wen or to himself, and added:

 

“What level is he? How can he even compare to me!”

 

Xiao Wen: “…”

 

Fine.

 

It was likely because of that travel variety show; the “Qin-Chu CP” was trending again, which naturally led to comparisons between their solo fans. Their boss was likely throwing a fit because of that.

 

Xiao Wen breathed a sigh of relief for Li Qingran. After all, emotional issues caused by internet comments were usually relatively easy for Li Qingran to handle.

 

Unfortunately, Xiao Wen might have relaxed too early this time.

 

When Li Qingran finally returned, only Qin Yanyun was left in the dressing room. He was even colder than before; even hearing the door, he didn’t lift his head once.

 

Li Qingran didn’t mind. He walked over and placed the yogurt he had just bought from the convenience store in front of Qin Yanyun.

 

“You haven’t eaten much today. The shoot will take at least two hours; eat some yogurt to settle your stomach.”

 

Qin Yanyun lifted his eyes to glance at the yogurt, then shifted his gaze smoothly to Li Qingran.

 

Li Qingran rested one hand on the back of Qin Yanyun’s chair and looked down at him.

 

“Stop being angry.”

 

Qin Yanyun curled his lip but still didn’t speak.

 

Seeing this, Li Qingran didn’t act panicked like Xiao Wen, nor did he act impatient like Qin Yanyun’s manager, Brother Zhang. He simply said calmly:

 

“Setting aside the fact that there was only one photo of Chu Yu in that album, didn’t a quarter of that specific photo have you in it anyway?”

 

Although the cannon fodder had definitely saved that photo because of Chu Yu, it didn’t stop Li Qingran from lying through his teeth.

 

“I saved it because you looked good in it. If you don’t believe me and want to label me a Chu Yu fan and fire me for it, then I have nothing left to say.”

 

As he spoke, Qin Yanyun snapped his head up. “What do you mean?!”

 

“It means I’ve laid out the steps for you here. Are you going to take them or not?”

 

Li Qingran reached out, opened the yogurt, poured the jam in, stirred it, and held a large spoonful to Qin Yanyun’s lips.

 

“Are you going to eat it?”

 

“…Yes.”