Salted Fish Confusion

"Will you accept his challenge?"

You and Me Back Then had a mysterious guest every episode, responsible for roasting people, livening up the atmosphere, and stirring the audience's emotions. This guest usually came on at the end to warm things up. They were not limited to singers, but could also be directors, screenwriters, authors, and so on.

Naturally, mysterious guests had certain other privileges too—like making things difficult for the actors, as they were doing now.

A hoarse male voice, electronically altered and utterly mismatched with his dashing figure, rang out. "Let's draw scripts at random. Whoever satisfies me will receive a gift from me personally."

"But don't get smug too soon. I have very picky tastes."

Jin Yue naturally would not pass up such a good opportunity. Before Li Wenchuan could speak, he agreed. He had merely not been in the right state earlier. He did not believe Li Wenchuan could outperform him again. Gently, he said, "Wenchuan, don't panic. Just follow your instincts later."

The implication was that Li Wenchuan had only gotten lucky earlier, and that his performance might not be stable.

But Li Wenchuan ignored him, instead looking eagerly at Lin Ye. "Being your mysterious guest must pay really well, right?"

"What, want me to arrange a chance for you sometime?" Lin Ye teased. He found artists like this, unpretentious and easygoing, especially approachable.

Li Wenchuan shook his head. "No. You change guests every episode. I want a long-term position, the kind with full social insurance and a housing fund." He had heard that jobs like that were more secure in this era.

The people in the comments were practically laughing themselves sick:

"Coming here and trying to steal someone else's job too."

"I never thought celebrities had the same worries as me."

"Keep pretending. You make more than anyone else and still act miserable. Bleh!"

"Did his sugar daddy dump him?"

Before long, the comments descended into a brawl. Looks fans and haters alike flew into battle, insults at mothers and fathers filling the screen alike. The livestream was a bloodbath.

The show used a drawing-lots format, with the challenge entirely dependent on the guests' luck.

After the staff brought up the box of lots, Jin Yue put on that gentle smile again. "Wenchuan, you draw. I believe in you."

The cameras focused on Li Wenchuan's face. He did not look nervous at all. If anything, he seemed to have a Buddha-like glow about him, without the slightest trace of fighting spirit.

Zhao Shiyao immediately laughed out loud and spoke directly into her microphone. "You can forfeit now, you know. After all... it doesn't really suit you."

Quite a few audience members pursed their lips and covered their faces, too embarrassed to watch. Though many had switched sides and become looks fans, anyone with any sense knew that Li Wenchuan was the ultimate pretty vase. His performance just now had been stunning, but who had never had a blind cat stumble across a dead mouse?

Forcing this kind of persona was honestly a little annoying.

The host took the slip Li Wenchuan had drawn and smiled slyly. "A historical costume drama script."

The actors had to improvise according to the script requirements given by the mysterious guest. It sounded normal enough, but viewers who had watched before knew the scripts were usually absurd. Many actors completely lost control of their expressions during the performance.

Last time, a male actor had been asked to play a cross-dressing boss who was masculine inside but delicate and frail on the outside. That performance had gone viral online and even become essential material for parody videos.

The two had different scripts. The mysterious guest said, "Jin Yue, you go first."

"Only Jin Yue will be watchable..."

"Is Li Wenchuan going last to be the comic relief? Hahahaha."

"It's over, it's over. There's no suspense at all."

"If it were me, I'd quit. He finally gained a little momentum, and now he's going to expose his awful professionalism again."

The script the mysterious guest gave Jin Yue was about a wealthy, carefree, and charming young master from a prominent household. But one day, both his parents died and the Lineage fell into decline. Nearly everyone he knew came to kick him while he was down. Then his enemies crippled him in revenge, costing him one leg.

From then on, he became silent. Yet in the end, he rose to his feet again and became a merchant, no longer burdened by inferiority.

There was a missing process here: how had he overcome his inferiority and stood back up?

Jin Yue's acting was decent and conventional. During the part where the protagonist hit rock bottom, his whole presence seemed to darken, and quite a few fans quietly began to cry.

When it came to regaining confidence, however, he chose self-reflection and personal transformation.

When the performance ended, applause erupted. Zhao Shiyao clapped as well and said, "You really acted very well."

That was high praise indeed. Everyone knew Zhao Shiyao had a vicious tongue.

Yet the mysterious guest did not give him any face. "You've acted in quite a few dramas already. Were you always using stand-ins? When it came to you, this character seemed to have lost his brain. Your interpretation is so shallow."

Jin Yue's fans in the comments immediately refused to accept that. Who had the production team invited? His mouth stank worse than athlete's foot. If arrogance came three for ten bucks, was he even worth it?

Jin Yue froze for a moment, then lowered his head to hide the disappointment in his eyes. "Thank you, teacher. I'll keep working hard."

That only made his fans burn with even greater fury.

But with Li Wenchuan there to come in last, they could wait and watch. With that lazy look of his, he had clearly given up. He would definitely be criticized even more harshly.

He Meng was worried sick backstage. Given what was about to happen, even public relations probably could not turn things around.

The lighting shifted, and the mysterious guest spoke. "You are an unfavored prince in the imperial court. Your mother's status is low, and your princely residence is deserted. Yet one day, a group of assassins breaks in. Not long afterward, news arrives from the palace that the emperor has died suddenly, the empress has seized power, and powerful ministers have conspired together. In the end, you become the new emperor."

This script resembled Jin Yue's, but it was even more difficult.

Li Wenchuan simply remained seated. Just when everyone thought he would muddle through it like that, his entire aura suddenly changed. The Buddha-like air vanished, replaced by an innate nobility.

He barely left his seat throughout the performance, yet his aura underwent several unmistakable shifts. Especially after the assassination attempt—when he curled his lips into a smile, the look in his eyes sent chills down everyone's spine.

That final glance when he ascended the throne made people want to kneel and cry, "Long live His Majesty!"

The comments exploded.

"Has Li Wenchuan been possessed?!"

"His eyes were like a wolf's. I saw one in the mountains when I was little. It was terrifying."

"My face has never hurt this badly in my life."

The mysterious guest was stunned for quite a while before speaking. "Anyone who didn't know better would think you were playing a disabled emperor."

"You could sense that too?" Li Wenchuan readily mocked himself.

The comments were instantly flooded with hahahahas again, while someone shouted for everyone to look at Zhao Shiyao's face.

Her expression was dark as hell. She had mocked Li Wenchuan as a pretty vase earlier, only to get slapped in the face now. She had not said a word since.

But Li Wenchuan did not let her off. "Oh? Teacher Zhao, your glabella is dark. Why don't you go back and rest?"

Li Wenchuan's life motto was: if people did not offend him, he would not offend them. But if they offended him, he would find a shovel and bury them.

Near the end of the show, the mysterious guest emerged from behind the curtain. Jin Yue's fans were poised and ready, waiting to see which blind fool they should go curse out.

But unexpectedly... it was that person.

The livestream comments all turned into "Aaaaaaaah!"

"The master of sarcasm might be late, but he is never absent."

"It was obvious the moment he spoke, sob sob sob."

"Has the master come to kill time on a variety show again?"

"Worth it, worth it. In the first month after he stopped working, I found him here."

"Jiang Hansheng! It's Jiang Hansheng!"

The man wore a black palace robe embroidered with pines and cranes for longevity. He smiled faintly at the camera from afar. "I thought everyone would have forgotten me after I disappeared for a while."

Then he looked at Li Wenchuan. "Not bad."

Jiang Hansheng, the youngest Best Actor in the entertainment industry—the man heaven practically chased after, begging him to make a living. Without speaking, he was the dream of countless young women. Once he opened his mouth, though, he could kick people straight into the underworld.

Yet he had actually praised an eighteenth-tier nobody.