The Pampered Young Master Is Adored at Art School - Chapter 2

The seasons were shifting in Southern California. Winter had just arrived, bringing a sun that felt warm on the skin, yet the wind sliced through the air, stripping away every bit of body heat and leaving a bone-chilling cold in its wake.

Su Zhan stepped out of the theater’s side door, shrinking his neck into his collar against the gust. He jogged a few paces, intending to slip quickly through the back entrance, when he spotted a towering figure standing by the stage door. Even in the dead of winter, this man was wearing short sleeves, as if his body temperature ran much higher than the average person’s.

The man was leaning over, placing a massive bouquet of roses on the ground.

His blonde hair seemed to merge with the winter sunlight. The white T-shirt clung to a powerful build, his biceps filling the sleeves to their limits. As he straightened up, Su Zhan’s gaze followed him upward, his head tilting further and further back.

He’s so tall. Su Zhan’s breath hitched for a moment.

Su Zhan wasn’t short by any means, but the man before him was so tall he had to look up at him, the stranger seemed to be nearly two meters tall and clearly spent plenty of time at the gym. They were both men, yet the other was a full size larger than Su Zhan in both height and muscle.

Su Zhan couldn’t help but feel a surge of envy. This was exactly the kind of height and physique he had always wanted.

But a body isn’t something you can just build through sheer will. Su Zhan’s constitution wasn’t suited for heavy lifting, no matter how hard he trained, he only ever developed a thin layer of lean muscle. His height was the same story, he had never managed to break the 1.8-meter mark. It was especially irritating because his childhood friend, Xu Chenjian, stood exactly at 1.8 meters, making Su Zhan even more jealous. Why did everyone else get to grow while he stayed stuck?

Unfortunately, the world wasn’t a wishing well for Young Master Su. At the hospital, he had received the definitive diagnosis that his epiphyseal plates had closed. His height was permanently capped at 176 cm.

The blonde man seemed to notice someone trying to enter. He turned and flashed a radiant smile. “Could I ask you to help me take these flowers to… Su?”

The man’s smile didn’t waver, but he took a quick, subtle glance down at his own university spirit wear, and a shadow of dimness flickered in his eyes.

“…You know me?” Su Zhan asked, quietly sizing up the blonde man while hesitating to say more.

He suddenly realized who this was. This was Dylan, the very person whose profile he had just been looking at.

But Su Zhan couldn’t admit he recognized him. It would be a bit creepy to confess he’d been staring at a buyer’s photos. He settled for a shallow, polite smile, acting as if they were meeting for the first time.

This is a potential buyer, Su Zhan reminded himself. I can’t afford to offend him.

For the first time in his life, Young Master Su adopted a service-oriented attitude, offering a smile that was both professional and sweet.

“You’re the little genius of the Arts Academy, it’s only natural to recognize you.” Dylan’s eyes crinkled into crescents, his golden lashes casting a soft veil over his blue eyes. “I love coming to see the shows. I’m Dylan Foster.”

Dylan picked the flowers back up and handed them to Su Zhan. “The flowers backstage must have been sitting there for a few days. They aren’t fresh enough anymore, it’s time for a new bouquet.”

He intentionally placed his hand on the front of the bouquet. If Su Zhan reached for the flowers, he would inevitably touch Dylan’s hand, unless he tried to lift them awkwardly from the very top.

Unaware of Dylan’s little calculation, Su Zhan reached out. His fingers brushed against Dylan’s hand just as the man had predicted.

Su Zhan thanked him in a small voice, then added with a burst of hospitable enthusiasm, “Student productions actually have slots for backstage tours. If you’re interested, you can come in and take a look. I’m today’s stage manager, so I can let you in.”

Su Zhan winked. “No need to go through the formal application process, just don’t tell anyone.”

He mentally applauded his own brilliant idea. He was grateful Adrian wasn’t around today, allowing him to use a tiny bit of authority to win over his potential buyer.

Su Zhan used a pseudonym on Facebook Marketplace, which was common practice. He figured Dylan had no idea he was the one selling the watch. This way, when they eventually met in person for the transaction, they could “discover” they were acquaintances with “great surprise,” making the relationship even closer.

Since they’d be “friends,” it would be only natural to ask for a favor. Su Zhan figured he might even get Dylan to mark the payment as a “gift” to dodge the exploitation of the IRS.

Besides, Dylan seemed so wealthy that Su Zhan might be able to offload his other belongings to him too.

Su Zhan stole a glance at Dylan’s wrist. Dylan wasn’t just tall, he was big-boned. His wrist was significantly thicker than Su Zhan’s, it was almost as if they weren’t even the same species.

Su Zhan began to worry if the watch strap would be too thin. If Dylan couldn’t wear it, would he suddenly back out of the deal?

I definitely have to stay on his good side, Su Zhan thought. Make him too embarrassed to say no!

Su Zhan grew even more welcoming, trying to bond with the man who seemed to radiate the glow of money. “Have all the recent flowers been from you? Which play are you interested in? Which actor”

BANG! CRASH.

The sound of heavy objects hitting the floor, the clatter of metal, and a woman’s scream erupted simultaneously.

“Is anyone there? Help, quickly!” a panicked shout came from backstage.

Su Zhan was startled, his mind momentarily blank, but Dylan had already yanked the door open.

The two of them peered inside to see a scene of total chaos. A rack of costumes had toppled over, knocking down a spread of makeup. Mia was lying on her back on the floor, her face already starting to swell, making wet, gasping sounds as her throat began to close up.

Seeing the mess, Su Zhan’s body moved before his brain did. He rushed into the backstage area and knelt beside Mia. The other actors gathered around, hands trembling and unsure of what to do. They were debating whether to call an ambulance, but no one dared to touch her.

“Lucian! Lucian, look! What’s happening to her!” Satine cried out, looking at Su Zhan as if he were her savior. She was on the verge of tears, frantically patting Mia’s shoulder. “She ate a brownie not long ago, was there something wrong with it?”

Dylan knelt down as well and asked Su Zhan, “An allergic reaction? Does she have an EpiPen or medication here?”

Su Zhan’s face went pale. There was no medical kit backstage.

The people around them started rummaging through their bags, creating a frantic clatter. Amidst the noise, a male student actor pulled Mia up. “Don’t call an ambulance yet, it’s too expensive and she’ll be furious. The school clinic is close, I’ll take her there.”

The two of them left, but the remaining actors looked even more lost. “But… she has a tango scene. In Moulin Rouge, that scene of the love triangle conflict is just people standing around without the tango to ground it.”

Mia was a guest performer from another department, and the guy who took her to the clinic was her partner. The troupe had gone to great lengths to find this specific pair.

Though they were amateur dancers, they had rehearsed with the troupe for a long time. With the right lighting and props, their performance was incredibly powerful. Their absence from the triangle conflict scene would undoubtedly make the whole play lose its luster.

“Where’s the professor? Where’s Adrian?”

There was no answer.

The backstage chaos shifted into a different kind of panic. A key performer was gone, the director was absent, and the stage manager was missing. There was less than an hour before the curtain rose.

“What do we do? We’re about to start and the stage manager isn’t even here?”

“This isn’t just us drama students, there are music students involved too. It’s a cross-department collaboration, we can’t just let it fall apart.”

“I even hired a photographer to record this for my portfolio. What am I supposed to do now?”

Looking at the bickering crowd, Su Zhan’s lips trembled slightly, but he forced himself to stay composed. “Adrian isn’t here, I’m the acting stage manager… I’ll take responsibility.”

If he didn’t take charge, the play would become a laughingstock. He would have to apologize to hundreds of audience members and the orchestra students. His financial situation was already hard enough to hide, if this turned into a disaster, who knows how many people would look down on him.

The other actors turned their eyes to Su Zhan. Now, everyone was waiting to see how this temporary stage manager would handle things.

From the main stage outside, the dull thuds and footsteps of the orchestra could be heard. It sounded like the music students had already unpacked their instruments and were beginning to tune.

Su Zhan had nowhere left to retreat.

“Can anyone get a hold of another student who knows how to tango?” Su Zhan asked, though he didn’t have much hope.

Everyone shook their heads.

“Lighting, props, see if there’s a way to use the staging to blur the positions. I’ll try to find someone, if all else fails… I’ll dance it myself.” Su Zhan bit his lip and pulled out his phone.

“You can dance the tango?” Satine asked, her voice lifting with hope. “Can it be learned quickly?”

“No.” Facing Satine, Su Zhan remembered the gossip he’d overheard and felt a bit uncomfortable. “I’ve learned a bit, I used to dance it for fun with a friend, the chemistry is there.”

Everyone watched him with a mix of expectation and skepticism.

Including Dylan.

The pressure from their stares made Su Zhan want to run away. He grabbed his phone and ducked into a corner to call his childhood friend, Xu Chenjian.

The call connected, and Su Zhan felt an immediate sense of relief. “Brother Jian, you said you wanted to have dinner with me tonight, can you come a little earlier? Come to my school and dance with me.”

“Tango. El Tango de Roxanne.”

“Yeah, I’ll take the female lead. I know you don’t like performing or dancing… Brother Jian, just help me out this once.” Su Zhan covered the receiver and turned his back, foolishly hoping these foreigners wouldn’t understand him pleading for help.

The people present didn’t understand, and they soon turned back to their tasks.

Only Dylan was still listening. Su Zhan’s expression had softened significantly the moment the call connected. Why was Su Zhan so certain the person on the other end would help him? Or did simply talking to that person give Su Zhan a sense of security?

Dylan’s startup had many Chinese programmers. He used to think they sounded like they were arguing when they spoke Mandarin, though to be fair, they usually were arguing about system implementations.

But when Su Zhan spoke it, it sounded entirely different. It was like singing, with beautiful rises and falls, even if Dylan couldn’t understand a single word.

El Tango de Roxanne?

Dylan caught a few familiar words in Su Zhan’s conversation. He searched it on YouTube, and after watching for just two seconds, his brows furrowed.

Dylan had seen the movie Moulin Rouge. He only needed a glance to connect the song to the original scene.

Roxanne’s tango was an incredibly intense part of the play. In the original, the girl is passed between several male partners, her bare back and thighs touched by multiple hands during the dance, reflecting Roxanne’s status as a prostitute.

Here, it was supposed to be a group tango, but because student resources were limited, they could only find one pair, and the scene had been simplified as much as possible.

The scene needed a Roxanne, a woman manipulated and pushed by fate. And Su Zhan was going to play her?

An nameless fire surged in Dylan’s heart, but he kept it perfectly hidden behind his bright blue eyes.

Dylan looked up, gazing at Su Zhan while he was still on the phone.

He couldn’t understand what Su Zhan was saying to the man on the phone, but the muffled voice on the other end was clearly a man. A man who knew Su Zhan well and shared a deep chemistry with him. It made the jealousy in Dylan’s heart burn hotter, even though he knew he had no right to feel that way yet.

Dylan watched as Su Zhan absentmindedly toyed with a bunch of ostrich feather props while he talked.

Su Zhan didn’t realize how transparent his tone was. When he pleaded, his expression changed, his brows knitting slightly, making him look soft and pitiful.

It felt as though if you pinched him, he would let out a small, pathetic cry, looking even more helpless than Roxanne.

Dylan might not understand Chinese, and he might not know how to dance the tango, and he barely knew Su Zhan, but he wasn’t short on the best thing in the world: money.

With enough money, he could find professional tango dancers within fifteen minutes. For professionals, stage presence was never an issue, and they wouldn’t even need to worry about the lighting or props.

While Dylan quickly typed on his phone to find people, he continued to watch Su Zhan. His hand gripped the edge of the table, tightening and then relaxing, imagining a hand he didn’t yet have the right to hold.

He suddenly wanted to hear Su Zhan use that same pleading tone with him.

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