Chapter Five
"Will you accept his challenge?"
You and Me Back Then featured a mysterious guest in every episode, responsible for roasting people, livening up the atmosphere, and stirring the audience's nostalgia. This guest usually came out near the end to warm things up, and they were not limited to singers—they could be directors, screenwriters, authors, and so on.
Naturally, the mysterious guest had a few other privileges as well, such as making things difficult for the actors, like now.
A hoarse male voice, electronically altered and utterly at odds 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 celebrate too soon. I have very picky tastes."
Of course Jin Yue would not let such a good opportunity slip away. Before Li Wenchuan could speak, he agreed. He had merely not been in the right state earlier. He refused to believe Li Wenchuan could outperform him again. Smiling gently, he said, "Wenchuan, don't panic. Just follow your feelings later."
In other words, Li Wenchuan had merely gotten lucky before. There was no guarantee his performance would be stable.
But Li Wenchuan ignored him and looked at Lin Ye with eager eyes. "The pay for being your mysterious guest must be pretty high, right?"
"What, want me to arrange a spot for you if there's a chance?" Lin Ye teased. He found artists like this, unpretentious and easygoing, very approachable.
But Li Wenchuan shook his head. "No. You change one every episode. I want a long-term position, preferably one with full social insurance and housing benefits." He had heard that, in this era, jobs like that were more secure.
The viewers in the comments were about to laugh themselves sick:
"Sure enough, he came here to steal someone else's job."
"I never thought celebrities had the same worries as me."
"Keep pretending. You earn more than anyone else and still act miserable. Ugh!"
"Did his sugar daddy dump him or something?"
Before long, the comments erupted into a war. Looks fans and haters flew at each other, insults toward mothers and fathers filled the screen alike, and the livestream descended into chaos.
The show used a drawing format. The challenge depended entirely on the guests' luck.
After a staff member brought up the draw box, Jin Yue put on another gentle smile. "Wenchuan, you draw. I believe in you."
The camera focused on Li Wenchuan's face. He showed no sign of nervousness. If anything, he seemed to radiate Buddhist serenity, without the slightest hint of fighting spirit.
Zhao Shiyao immediately laughed 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, almost unable to watch. Though many had switched sides and become looks fans, anyone with sense knew Li Wenchuan was the ultimate pretty face with no substance. His earlier performance had been stunning, but who had never gotten lucky once in a while?
Forcing this kind of persona really was a little annoying.
The host took the slip Li Wenchuan had drawn and smiled slyly. "A 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 that the scripts were usually especially absurd. Many actors completely lost control of their expressions during their performances.
Last time, a male actor had been asked to portray a cross-dressing expert who was masculine inside but delicate on the outside. That performance had spread across the internet and become essential material for parody videos.
The two of them received different scripts. The mysterious guest said, "Jin Yue, you go first."
"Only Jin Yue will be watchable..."
"Is Li Wenchuan saving the finale with comedy? Hahahaha."
"He's lost, he's lost. There's no suspense at all, right?"
"If it were me, I'd quit. He finally started gaining some momentum, only to expose his terrible professional standards again."
The script the mysterious guest gave Jin Yue was about a dashing young master from a wealthy family, dressed in fine clothes and fed on delicacies. But one day, both his parents died, his family fell into ruin, and nearly everyone he knew came to kick him while he was down. Then his enemies took revenge and crippled him, costing him one leg.
From then on, he became silent. Yet in the end, he stood up again and became a merchant, no longer feeling inferior.
What was missing was the process—how he overcame his inferiority complex and stood back up.
Jin Yue's acting was decent and conventional. During the part where the protagonist hit rock bottom, his whole being seemed to darken, and quite a few fans quietly began to cry.
It was just that, when returning to confidence, he chose self-reflection and personal transformation.
When the performance ended, applause broke out everywhere. Zhao Shiyao clapped as well and said, "You really acted very well."
That was considered high praise. Everyone knew Zhao Shiyao had a sharp tongue.
However, the mysterious guest showed him no courtesy. "You've acted in quite a few dramas already. Were you using stand-ins for all of them? In your hands, this character seems brainless. Your understanding is far too shallow."
Jin Yue's fans in the comments immediately refused to accept it. What kind of person had the production team invited? His mouth was nastier than athlete's foot. 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 even more furious.
But with Li Wenchuan there to come in last, they thought Jin Yue would be fine. Looking at Li Wenchuan's lazy manner, he was clearly just giving up. He would definitely be criticized even more harshly.
Backstage, He Meng was already worried sick. The coming development would probably be beyond even public relations' ability to salvage.
The lighting shifted, and the mysterious guest began, "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. Soon afterward, news comes from the palace that the emperor has died suddenly, the empress is manipulating power, and powerful ministers are colluding. In the end, you become the new emperor."
This script resembled Jin Yue's, but it was even more difficult.
Li Wenchuan remained seated without moving. Just when everyone thought he would muddle through like that, his entire aura suddenly changed. The Buddhist serenity around him vanished, replaced by an innate air of nobility.
He barely left his seat throughout the entire performance, yet everyone could clearly sense the changes in his presence. Especially after the assassination attempt, the look in his eyes, together with the curl of his lips into a smile, sent chills down their spines.
That final glance as he ascended the throne made people want to kneel and shout, "Long live Our Emperor!"
The comments exploded.
"Has Li Wenchuan been possessed?"
"Those 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 much 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 even tell that?" Li Wenchuan mocked himself without hesitation.
The comments were instantly flooded with hahahahahas again, and someone shouted for everyone to look at Zhao Shiyao's face.
Her expression was dark beyond belief. She had mocked Li Wenchuan earlier for being a pretty face with no substance, only to be slapped in the face now. She had not said a word since.
But Li Wenchuan did not let her off. "Oh, Teacher Zhao, your forehead looks dark. Why don't you go back and rest?"
Li Wenchuan's motto in life was simple: if others did not offend him, he would not offend them. But if they did, he would find a shovel and bury them.
Near the end of the show, the mysterious guest finally stepped out from behind the curtain. Jin Yue's fans were poised and ready, waiting to see which blind fool they could curse out.
But unexpectedly... it was that person.
The livestream comments all turned into "Aaaaaahhhhh!"
"The master of sarcasm may be late, but he is never absent."
"It was obvious from the moment he spoke, sob sob sob."
"Did the master come to kill time on a variety show again?"
"Worth it, worth it. In the first month after he stopped taking jobs, I found him here."
"Jiang Hansheng! It's Jiang Hansheng!"
The man wore a black palace robe embroidered with pines and cranes, smiling faintly toward the camera from afar. "I thought everyone would have forgotten me after I disappeared for a while."
Then he looked at Li Wenchuan. "You acted well."
Jiang Hansheng—the youngest Best Actor in the entertainment industry, a man heaven practically begged to make a living from acting. When he kept silent, he was the dream of countless young women. Once he opened his mouth, though, he could kick someone straight into the underworld.
Yet he had actually praised an eighteenth-tier nobody.
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