PLT | Chapter 15

Sharing a Bed, Dreaming Different Dreams

The “home” Yan Chao brought Zhou Chenyu back to was still that same little house where he had once depended on each other with his grandmother.

The place was small, only around sixty square meters. Later, after his grandmother passed away, Yan Chao also went to Beijing for school, so the house was naturally left empty.

Now, he had no family at all here. On top of that, the journey was long, so he could not come back even once in a whole year most of the time. But he still hired an ayi to come clean on a regular schedule every week.

So although the place was small, it was spotless and bright. Only in an atmosphere like this could Yan Chao barely find a little of that long-lost feeling of “home.”

Yan Chao brought back Xinjiang-style dapanji packed up from a restaurant. After the two of them finished eating, Zhou Chenyu still did not forget to push his luck and ask, “When will I get to eat dapanji personally made by Xiao Yan-gege?”

Yan Chao said crossly, “I’ll let you eat dapanji tonight.”

Only after saying it did he realize that, at some point, he had somehow already been infected by Zhou Chenyu and turned into the kind of person who blurted out dirty jokes without thinking.

Sure enough, Zhou Chenyu clicked his tongue on purpose and said, “Xiao Yan-gege, I remember that just last week you were still a proper gentleman. How come after only one week you turned into this?”

Yan Chao sighed. “Those who get close to you turn dirty.”

After dinner, it was getting late, and Yan Chao started arranging the sleeping arrangements. Only then did he realize that there were only two bedrooms in the house to begin with. After his grandmother passed away, the bed in the room she used had already been removed, so right now, only Yan Chao’s bedroom was fit for sleeping.

Yan Chao said simply, “I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

Zhou Chenyu said, “How can that work? Wouldn’t that be the guest taking over the host’s place?”

Yan Chao said, “‘The guest taking over the host’s place’ isn’t used like that.”

Zhou Chenyu thought for a moment, then nodded. “Right, a dove occupying a magpie’s nest.”

Yan Chao shot him an annoyed look. “Then you sleep on the sofa?”

Zhou Chenyu glanced at Yan Chao’s double bed and said, “Your bed is big enough anyway. I don’t mind squeezing in with you for one night.”

Yan Chao said, “I mind.”

Zhou Chenyu looked at him pitifully. “What do you mind? We’ve been sleeping together for so long already. I’ve never talked in my sleep, ground my teeth, or snored. You know that best.”

Yan Chao was baffled. “Who’s been sleeping with you?”

Zhou Chenyu lowered his eyes and let out a faint, aggrieved sigh. “Tch, scumbag. You sleep with me and then refuse to admit it, heartless after getting what you wanted.”

Yan Chao: “……”

Zhou Chenyu: “I’m giving you one last chance to win me back.”

Yan Chao: “……Why do you want to sleep with me so badly?”

Zhou Chenyu: “Wasn’t it you who said you’d let me eat dapanji tonight?”

Yan Chao: “……Do you seriously want to eat it that badly?”

Zhou Chenyu: “Come on, then. If you dare to stir-fry it, I dare to eat it.”

Yan Chao: “……”

Zhou Chenyu lifted his eyes to look at him, then finally could not help laughing out loud. “I couldn’t bear to let you sleep on that tiny sofa, and you still have so much crap to say. You’re really treating kindness like donkey liver and lungs.”[1]

Yan Chao: “I’d rather sleep on the tiny sofa.”

Zhou Chenyu looked up at him. “What, are you really afraid that in the middle of the night you won’t be able to resist my beauty and start getting handsy with me?”

Yan Chao: “……I’m homophobic.”

Zhou Chenyu said, “Relax, I’m straight.”

Yan Chao thought for a moment, then said, “Forget it. I’m probably not homophobic. I’m probably Zhou-Chenyu-phobic.”

Zhou Chenyu stared at him for a while, then suddenly burst out laughing. “Have you noticed? Every time you’re with me, you’re especially like one of those unwilling concubines who’s been forcibly seized.”

Yan Chao: “If you’re sick, go get treated already.”

Zhou Chenyu was still completely immersed in the joy of teasing Yan Chao. “Just wait. Once the show airs, you’ll become the furen of Liao Feng Pavilion that everyone knows.”

Although Yan Chao desperately wanted to refute him, when he realized that what Zhou Chenyu said was very likely to become reality… he felt utterly hopeless.

Yan Chao gloomily carried two quilts into the bedroom, tossed them onto the bed in one go, then turned around and kicked the door shut.

Zhou Chenyu had already flopped onto the bed. Scrolling through his phone, he said, “Can you stop being so irritable? Hurry up and look at Weibo. Second Role premieres tomorrow.”

The moment he brought this up, Yan Chao’s expression instantly turned much more serious.

Zhou Chenyu glanced at him, as if he had guessed what he was thinking, and asked, “Worried about the ratings?”

Yan Chao was silent for a while, then nodded. “This show was the very first proposal I put forward. Back then, a lot of the station’s leaders vetoed it. It went through dozens of revisions before and after, and only after a lot of difficulty did it finally get approved.”

Zhou Chenyu asked in confusion, “Why? Your show is so creative.”

Yan Chao said, “Precisely because it’s completely original. There’s no precedent at all, and there’s no established audience base either. Everything is an unknown. If it’s handled even a little badly, it could flop without making a sound.”

Zhou Chenyu said, “No wonder variety shows these days all borrow foreign formats. Even carrying that much criticism, they still keep coming one after another.”

Yan Chao smiled helplessly. “But the facts prove they really can become hits. Look at the variety shows with the highest buzz on the market right now, how many of them aren’t imported? The original programs we genuinely want to make end up making barely any money. That just shows the market doesn’t recognize you at all, and next time the station will be even less willing to approve a project.”

Zhou Chenyu thought for a moment, then said seriously, “But anything always has to move forward, and the market is the same. As long as the show is good enough, there’ll definitely be a chance for it to become that breakthrough point. I don’t understand other things, but just take xiangsheng for us. If you go back ten-odd years, people were saying this line of work was reaching its end. But ten-odd years later, who would’ve thought that so many young girls and boys would come running to the theater to listen to xiangsheng?”

Yan Chao turned his head and, for once, carefully studied Zhou Chenyu’s handsome, charming face. After a long while, he said with feeling, “I’ve realized that when you actually talk like a human being, you’re pretty proper.”

Zhou Chenyu rolled his eyes. “Is what you just said something a human being would say?”

Yan Chao said, “Then why can’t you be a little more proper on the show?”

Zhou Chenyu said, “I’m a xiangsheng performer, not a news spokesperson. Why do I need to be that proper? We don’t have any idol baggage. Isn’t the point of asking you onto a variety show to watch you amuse people? If you’re too stiff about it, what’s the point?”

For a moment, Yan Chao actually felt that what he said made quite a lot of sense. After thinking about it, he added, “But once you’ve stepped half a foot into the entertainment industry, it’s different from the xiangsheng stage. You have to be ready to be judged by the entertainment industry’s standards. For example, if you say one completely ordinary sentence on a show, it might get interpreted online into all kinds of weird meanings, and then you’ll get cursed at for a long time.”

But Zhou Chenyu looked completely unconcerned. “If they curse me, then let them curse. Since when are xiangsheng performers afraid of getting cursed? Back in the old days, this was all considered a lowly trade. Now that so many people are willing to hold you up, that’s already pretty good. Besides, if there are people who like you, there are definitely going to be people who don’t. As long as my audience is happy, why should I care what other people say?”

Hearing Zhou Chenyu’s words, Yan Chao was stunned for a moment.

From childhood to adulthood, because of his unusual family background and the experiences he had gone through growing up, Yan Chao had unknowingly developed a personality that demanded a lot from himself and consistently pursued perfection. In the years he had spent making shows, he had always upheld the idea that the audience was God. He always wanted to consider everyone’s needs, wanted to make every piece of work as perfect as possible, and wanted to receive the highest praise he could.

But Zhou Chenyu’s words suddenly made him wonder whether some of the standards he had always upheld were too harsh, to the point that he had become overly cautious and too bound by his own limits.

Before he could sort out these thoughts, the phone beside him suddenly rang.

He picked it up and looked. The name on the screen made his nerves tense instantly.

He hurriedly took the phone and walked out of the bedroom, slipped into the bathroom, shut the door properly, and only then pressed the answer button.

A familiar voice came from the other end. “Xiao Chao?”

Yan Chao’s voice was low as he gave a flat, indifferent response.

“I was too busy with work before, so I didn’t get the chance to ask about your new show. I heard the guest was suddenly changed?”

The other person’s tone was not as spirited and commanding as usual. Instead, it carried a rare drag to it. Calling at this hour, he had probably just finished a dinner engagement and had drunk quite a lot.

Yan Chao still only gave a brief “Mm.”

The other person asked again, “How is he? I heard from the production team that you and he don’t get along very well. If you don’t like him, I’ll say something to the director and have him replaced.”

“Who said that?” Yan Chao’s voice suddenly turned cold. “We’re doing just fine. No need for you to bother with it.”

The other person was silent for a moment, then asked, “I heard you didn’t go back to Beijing with the production team today?”

Yan Chao said nothing. The other person understood that as a silent admission and cautiously said, “Then did you go to see your…”

“Where I go has nothing to do with you.” Yan Chao cut him off stiffly.

The other person’s tone turned hesitant. “Xiao Chao, I…”

“It’s late. I’m going to sleep,” Yan Chao said. “You should sleep early too.”

Yan Chao hung up the phone. Looking at the mirror in the bathroom, he saw that his face was still covered in an unshakable gloom.

He tried hard to adjust his expression a little, then went back to the bedroom.

Zhou Chenyu was lying there playing on his phone. When he saw him return, he did not ask who had called. But Yan Chao was afraid that his reaction just now had been too abnormal, so he guiltily cleared his throat and explained, “My boss. Talking about the show.”

Zhou Chenyu nodded absentmindedly, clearly not taking the call to heart at all. Only then did Yan Chao secretly relax.

By now it really was quite late, and not long after, the two of them turned off the lights.

Yan Chao was afraid of affecting Zhou Chenyu’s sleep, so he did not play on his phone. Zhou Chenyu, on the other hand, still maintained his excellent sleep habit of falling asleep in one second, and very quickly slept like a dead pig.

Yan Chao kept thinking about that phone call just now, then about tomorrow’s premiere. The more he thought, the less he could sleep, so he could only lie stiffly on the bed and stare at the ceiling.

He did not know how much time had passed when he suddenly felt a weight sink onto his shoulder.

The dead pig beside him had actually latched onto him, tightly hugging his arm, then resting his head on his shoulder and burrowing inward comfortably.

…He really did like hugging something the moment he fell asleep. He was basically like a sloth.

Yan Chao could not help lowering his eyes to look at him. Zhou Chenyu had been born very good-looking. Even with those lively, smiling eyes of his closed, there was still an inescapable air of flirtatious charm between his brows, as if he had been fated since birth to attract romance. No wonder everyone said he was a girl-flirting maniac.

Now that he was asleep, his whole person looked even more defenseless. Yet the corners of his mouth still held a faint trace of a smile, silly and a little foolish, like a child who had never grown up.

As if sensing Yan Chao’s gaze, Zhou Chenyu rubbed himself into the hollow of his shoulder again. His fluffy, messy hair made Yan Chao’s neck itch a little, so Yan Chao shifted slightly to the side. Unexpectedly, this sloth kept clinging back onto him with tireless persistence.

With all that back-and-forth movement, the quilt on Zhou Chenyu kept sliding downward. By now, it had already slipped to his lower body, exposing half of a pale, lean waist.

Yan Chao lowered his head and looked at his peaceful sleeping face. For some reason, he only felt that the other man’s pale, slender waist looked especially dazzling in the pitch-black night.

As if possessed, Yan Chao raised his hand and reached toward his waist. But before he could touch it, Zhou Chenyu unconsciously turned over, and only then did Yan Chao suddenly snap back to his senses.

…What had he just been trying to do?

…Sexual harassment?

…How had he really started getting handsy in the middle of the night just like Zhou Chenyu said?

No, no, no. He was only acting out of habitual concern for this giant baby. He was afraid he would get cold and only wanted to help pull the quilt over him.

Thinking this, Yan Chao felt that it had to be because he was staying awake in the middle of the night and was so sleepy he had gone a little dazed.

So he quickly reached out, pulled the quilt back up over Zhou Chenyu, paused, then tucked the edge of it around his neck.

Why was it that this person was obviously two years older than him, yet childish like a little kid?

And yet at certain moments, this person seemed to live with perfect clarity, as if he had already seen through many worldly things, as if in the end everything in this world was nothing more than a toy for him to use for amusement.

Yan Chao felt that Zhou Chenyu was becoming harder and harder for him to understand, but he had already vaguely sensed that some strange feeling deep in his heart had begun to arise toward him uncontrollably.

It was probably a kind of yearning, a heartfelt longing for something he had always deeply desired, yet had never possessed.

Footnotes:

[1] “Good intentions are treated like donkey liver and lungs” is a Chinese idiom used when someone rejects or fails to appreciate another person’s sincere kindness. It has the same force as “taking kindness for granted” or “treating goodwill like garbage.” The whole dapanji exchange is also a sexual joke: “eat dapanji tonight” is being twisted by Zhou Chenyu into a dirty double meaning, and “if you dare to stir-fry it, I dare to eat it” continues that teasing innuendo.