PLT | Chapter 3

Wife

Yan Chao took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to curse. “…That’s not the issue I meant. ”

As he spoke, he worked hard to keep a calm expression on his face. “Queerbaiting is a very sensitive issue. Ours is a satellite TV variety show, if you do it like that, it won’t pass censorship.”

“Even this isn’t okay?” Zhou Chenyu curled his lip. “When we perform xiangsheng onstage, we’re a hundred times more rio[1] than this.”

…Great, so this guy even knew the word rio.

We’re all straight men here, what are you rio-ing your mom for!

Yan Chao said, “And you’re not afraid the fans will take it seriously?”

Zhou Chenyu looked even more puzzled. “We’re both men, how could anyone possibly take two men seriously? Wouldn’t that just gross people out!”

Yan Chao felt as though he could hear a voice echoing by his ear:

Ding, first radar scan complete, this person is a straight man.

Ding, second radar scan complete, this person is not only a straight man, but also a complete dumbass among straight men.

They always said gays had gaydar. Today, Yan Chao finally learned that as a straight man himself, he apparently had a straight-man radar too.

He was developing a fear of straight men.

After the meeting ended and the styled promo photos were taken, it was already past ten at night. The day’s work was officially over.

The show would officially start recording tomorrow. According to the program flow, each pair of guests’ work routines as well as their private interactions all had to be recorded into the show, so the two of them were arranged to stay in the same standard hotel room, with the cameras in the room recording footage from their daily lives.

Yan Chao had recorded countless variety shows, so this kind of filming method was nothing new to him. He had long since stopped finding it strange. Although the private space under the hotel cameras had no script, the two guests would more or less interact according to the CP persona arranged by the production team. Everyone understood that tacitly.

But the moment he thought about the fact that Zhou Chenyu was his roommate, Yan Chao felt an unprecedented headache.

The production team had suddenly parachuted in a new guest, he had discovered that the new guest was an idiot, and tonight he was going to be living together with this idiot…

Yan Chao really found it hard to believe that all of this had actually happened within a single day.

It was simply too surreal.

Fortunately, it was already late tonight, so there was not much time left for Zhou Chenyu to have one of his episodes.

Yan Chao had not expected that although Zhou Chenyu looked like some Korean-trend cool guy on the outside, his living habits were actually pretty old-artist-like. The moment he got back to the hotel at night, he took a shower and went to bed right on time.

And as an internet-addicted teen, of course Yan Chao could not possibly live like an old man together with him, so after the lights went out, he was still scrolling through his phone in the dark.

He glanced at Zhou Chenyu on the opposite bed, who had fallen asleep at light speed, and could not help opening a certain video site.

From now on he was going to record a variety show with the legendary useless vase himself, so he really could not resist wanting to see just how terrible this so-called vase penggen’s[2] xiangsheng actually was.

As expected of an extremely popular xiangsheng duo, any random recording of He Chenfeng and Zhou Chenyu’s performance had views in the tens of millions.

Yan Chao normally never listened to xiangsheng, so naturally he did not understand any of these fancy titles. Out of habit, he clicked the first one at the top.

The video quality was very high. Under a lens like that, Zhou Chenyu’s breathtakingly handsome face was still flawless from all three hundred and sixty degrees.

Yan Chao was used to seeing Zhou Chenyu in casual clothes, so now that he suddenly saw him changed into a long changshan dagua’er[3], it actually felt rather novel.

He had to admit, it even looked a little good.

Even though he was only standing behind the table, with only his upper body visible and without much performance movement, he still could not hide that elegant and dashing air about him.

So much so that Yan Chao spent nearly a full minute just staring at the person standing behind the table.

By the time he finally paid attention to the actual xiangsheng content, the audience below the stage was already laughing so hard they were toppling over.

He finally understood why everyone said Zhou Chenyu was a vase.

But if the vase was too good-looking and drew all the audience’s attention, could that really be the vase’s fault?

Yan Chao could only drag the video back to the beginning and seriously watch their performance from the start.

Although this was his first time watching this kind of xiangsheng video that was not broadcast on television, as a host who also made a living with his mouth, he still managed to see a bit of the craft in it.

He Chenfeng really was an exceptionally outstanding dougen[4]. By entertainment industry standards, his looks were not exactly stunningly handsome, but he still belonged to that category of being more upright and pleasing to the eye than the average person. His height was neither tall nor short, his build was neither fat nor thin, in short, he was the sort of young man you would not find unusual to see in everyday life.

But what he had going for him was first-rate performance skill. Not only could he make whatever he performed feel convincing, all kinds of adorable little expressions also greatly enriched the comedic effect.

Then looking at Zhou Chenyu beside him, Yan Chao found that he had completely overturned the dumbass impression he had left on him all day long.

Although, as the penggen, he did not get many chances to perform, his stage presence was unbelievably steady. He could always smoothly catch He Chenfeng’s baofu[5] at precisely the best moment, and every time he turned a baofu over, it felt like a stroke of genius, drawing continuous cheers from the audience below.

…Who said he was a vase? Weren’t his baofu landing pretty well too?

The two of them echoed each other back and forth, to the point that people often found themselves wondering whether the jokes onstage were baofu prepared in advance or material they came up with on the spot.

In any case, whichever it was, it conveyed the two men’s tacit coordination, enough to be called a match made in heaven.

Although Yan Chao had only watched this little bit, he had already realized that the online claim that Zhou Chenyu was a “vase” contained quite a lot of awkward forced slander.

In truth, that was how things usually went. Most internet haters never even bothered to understand your professional level at all. As long as they had a keyboard, they could turn three people into a tiger, and before long it would become a whole-internet mockery.

Yan Chao spent three seconds repenting for believing and spreading online rumors.

The more he watched, the more engrossed he became. Then, with surprise, he realized that once you stepped away from the television, xiangsheng in a small theater could actually be this fresh and interesting, completely shattering his fixed impression of xiangsheng.

So when the next baofu in the video was unfolded, Yan Chao failed to hold it in and laughed out loud.

Then he saw Zhou Chenyu on the opposite bed turn over.

Yan Chao got a fright and hurriedly pulled off his earphones.

Borrowing the faint moonlight drifting in through the window, he carefully observed for a moment. Luckily, the other man still had his eyes closed and looked to be sleeping deeply.

Yan Chao could not help staring at Zhou Chenyu’s sleeping face. Under the moonlight, his face looked even more sharply defined. He no longer had that sloppy, unserious expression from the daytime, nor the bright and spirited look from the video, he was simply quietly and comfortably handsome.

Unfortunately, the moment Yan Chao thought of that irritating way Zhou Chenyu looked whenever he opened his mouth to speak, he felt that any handsome-man filter would collapse instantly.

If only Zhou Chenyu could be quiet as a chicken and not speak at all on variety shows with him, and honestly just be a vase.

But obviously, wanting Zhou Chenyu to stay quiet was impossible.

Yan Chao put his earphones back on, only to realize that he had forgotten to press pause just now, and the progress bar in the video had already gone more than halfway.

Then he heard He Chenfeng saying to Zhou Chenyu beside him, “…I went over to your house, you weren’t there, and the one who came to open the door was your wife.”

With a face full of surprise, Zhou Chenyu asked, “My wife? How come I’ve never seen her before? Where is my wife?”

In an instant, the voices of hundreds and thousands of fangirls rang out from below the stage: “Over here!”

Zhou Chenyu very cooperatively blinked at the audience, and immediately after that, there came a drawn-out chorus of “Yiiiii, ” from below the stage.

He Chenfeng pointed at the audience. “Hey now, I’ve got so many sisters-in-law here, can you possibly keep up with all of them?”

Without blushing or even changing expression, Zhou Chenyu said to the audience, “Don’t panic, don’t fight, you girls line up your shifts properly, one by one.”

The audience instantly burst into laughter.

He Chenfeng smiled and pointed at Zhou Chenyu. “Our Xiao Yu is famous for being a one-night-seven-times-lang[6].”

With a calm expression, Zhou Chenyu looked at him. “You’ve tried it, have you?”

With a smack, Yan Chao’s hand jerked, and his phone dropped straight onto his face.

…This person was a little too shameless, wasn’t he???

If this had been some traffic idol, for example Yan Chao himself, making dirty jokes, flirting with fans, and queerbaiting in one complete package at this scale, wouldn’t he have been blackened into charcoal?

Sure enough, xiangsheng performers really could not be judged by the entertainment industry’s ordinary standards.

So Zhou Chenyu had not been lying. On the variety show, he really had already restrained himself a lot.

Maybe it was because Zhou Chenyu’s xiangsheng had brainwashed him, but even in his sleep, Yan Chao heard that inescapable “wife” in Zhou Chenyu’s voice.

So the next morning, when he groggily opened his eyes again, he saw Zhou Chenyu standing right in front of his bed.

It took him three whole seconds to realize that the “wife” he had just heard was not part of a dream.

Yan Chao shot upright in bed. “Who are you calling that?”

Zhou Chenyu threw him a flirtatious wink. “Isn’t it just the two of us in this room, living our two-person world?”

It was clearly a completely normal room assignment, but once it came out of his mouth, it somehow became unspeakably obscene. Yan Chao snapped, “Are you sick in the head?!”

Only then did Zhou Chenyu pout. “Wasn’t it your production team that said we had to sell CP?”

Yan Chao’s morning temper still had not eased. “This isn’t even business hours right now, who exactly are you selling it for?”

Zhou Chenyu said, “But midnight wasn’t business hours either, and who was the one hiding under the blanket secretly watching someone else perform xiangsheng?”

…Holy shit!

For the first time in his life, Yan Chao felt the urge to perish together with the other person. “You saw it and still pretended to be asleep!”

“I just wanted to see what your reaction would be.” Zhou Chenyu looked at him with an ambiguous expression. “I didn’t think that just hearing me call you wife once would make you happy for so long. Since you like it, I’ll call you that every day from now on.”

Yan Chao cursed, “Like my ass! Are you sick in the head?!”

Zhou Chenyu laughed. “I’m teasing you. But why are you so funny? Why did you have to sneak around just to watch me perform xiangsheng? Anyone who didn’t know better would think you were watching gv.”

Yan Chao: “…You acted in one?”

“Caught by you,” Zhou Chenyu said, still laughing. “Isn’t the other male lead you?”

Yan Chao: “…Zhou Chenyu, are you sick in the head.”

Zhou Chenyu helplessly curled his lip. “Within five minutes, you’ve said that to me three times already.”

Yan Chao: “Stating facts doesn’t count as insulting someone, thanks.”

Zhou Chenyu: “Can’t take a joke that badly? Xiao didi, don’t the people around you find you boring?”

Yan Chao: “You’re the xiao didi! Your whole family is xiao didi!”

Trying not to laugh, Zhou Chenyu nodded. “Mm, you don’t have a xiao didi.”

Yan Chao: “…”

Yan Chao: “Want me to pull it out and show you?”

Footnotes:

[1] Rio: Internet slang used to mean bold, wild, unrestrained, or openly suggestive, especially in shipping or fannish contexts. Zhou Chenyu uses it casually here to say what xiangsheng performers do onstage is much more daring than what he just suggested.

[2] Penggen : The supporting role in xiangsheng, often functioning as the straight man who responds to, supports, and sets up the dougen.

[3] Changshan dagua’er : Traditional long gown attire commonly associated with xiangsheng performers onstage.

[4] Dougen : The comic-leading role in xiangsheng, usually responsible for pushing the joke, setting the comic rhythm, and delivering many of the punchlines.

[5] Baofu : Literally “bundle,” a xiangsheng term for a joke point, comic beat, or punchline setup and release. “Turning a baofu over” refers to revealing or landing the joke.

[6] One-night-seven-times-lang : A joking boast about extreme sexual stamina, literally “seven times in one night.” The “lang” ending gives it a humorous, mock-heroic ring.

[7] GV: Gay video, used colloquially to refer to male gay pornography.

[8] Didi : Literally “younger brother,” but often used as a form of address for a younger male. Here it also sets up the later dirty joke, because “little didi” can be heard in an embarrassingly suggestive way.