What's Wrong with Playing the Romantic? (Monthly Votes, Please)

"Where I work... several of them are celebrities."

Wei Jianguo wasn't trying to rain on his parade.

Being a celebrity and making money were two different things. Most celebrities struggled just to get by.

They could stick it out for a year or two.

But after three to five years, many lost the drive they'd started with.

In any industry, capital made the money. Workers were lucky to get a taste.

The pimp stood counting cash while the escorts knelt and worked.

It was the same for celebrities.

When they couldn't land roles or earn money, and didn't want to go work in a factory, it was easy to go down the "wrong path."

"Don't worry. I can do it."

Shen Qi was brimming with confidence.

"Pleasure in this world is like that too. Since ancient times, all things have flowed east like water. Really, what difference does it make how we live? We might as well stop struggling."

Wei Jianguo wiped his face. He looked so defeated he might have been at death's door.

"Why do this to yourself?"

Huang Qidao shook his head and sighed.

She's moved on, but you still can't let go.

Everyone in their dorm knew Wei Jianguo was heartbroken.

In the semester before graduation, his girlfriend of many years had left him for a rich man.

Wei Jianguo wasn't like Shen Qi.

Shen Qi's family was hard up. From his first day at university, he'd asked about student loans, scholarships, and work-study opportunities.

For all four years, he'd studied and worked.

He took shifts in the gym area of the campus sports center and carried buckets of mortar at construction sites off campus.

Wei Jianguo's family was much better off.

Both his parents were permanent employees at state-owned enterprises. He hadn't grown up in luxury, but his life had gone smoothly enough.

Yet because he'd never faced a setback, the first one of his life had reduced him to a wreck.

As Huang Qidao saw it, the guy just hadn't fooled around enough.

Of all things to get into, why choose true love?

A few more visits to foot-massage parlors and none of this would've happened.

"Want to be my manager? We brothers could make a go of it together."

Shen Qi knew starting a business with Wei Jianguo would be risky.

If Wei Jianguo's past as an escort came to light one day, Shen Qi could get dragged into it too.

But a man had to know what was worth doing. Wei Jianguo had helped him time and again, and Shen Qi wanted to give him a hand in return.

Shen Qi had never cared what others thought of him.

"Heh." Wei Jianguo raised his glass and laughed without restraint. "I may work as an escort, but I haven't disgraced the people of Anhui. I tell everyone I'm from Henan."

"Ah..."

Shen Qi didn't try to persuade him again.

No one could save anyone else in this world. Each person had to be their own savior!

Shen Qi thought Wei Jianguo had taken the wrong path, but Wei Jianguo didn't see it that way.

Wei Jianguo had changed a lot.

His hair was carefully styled in a fashionable cut.

His clothes were designer brands at a glance.

The watch on his wrist was probably a luxury item too.

"Don't sigh, big shot. I won't tell you to become an escort, and you don't tell me to quit. I'm enjoying myself anyway."

Wei Jianguo threw an arm around Shen Qi and had him pour another drink.

"All right. If you ever change your mind, you can come to me anytime."

Shen Qi filled his glass.

If this were a scene in a movie or TV show,

Shen Qi should have asked Wei Jianguo, "Can't you quit being an escort?"

"If I quit, are you going to support me?"

"I will!"

"Support yourself first, dumbass~"

The movie could be called—

King of Escort Kings!

"Same goes for you. If you ever get tired of working hard, I'll introduce you to a rich woman. Come on." Wei Jianguo clinked glasses with Shen Qi. "Life is a brief stay of a hundred years. Let's drink our fill while we can!"

"You're seriously messed up!"

Shen Qi still thought it was a shame.

Wei Jianguo was so well-read, yet he'd become an escort after graduation.

An educated escort.

"Hey, big shot, why didn't you ask me? What's Jianguo got that I haven't?"

Huang Qidao wasn't happy about being left out.

That was human nature. People minded unequal treatment more than going without.

"Come on, Dao. You're a graduate student with a bright future. My pockets are empty—how could I afford to hire you?"

Shen Qi wanted to help Wei Jianguo get out of the business, not drag Huang Qidao into it.

"I don't mind. Helping you when you're down beats jumping on the bandwagon after you've made it."

Huang Qidao sounded half serious and half joking.

"Damn, I might take you seriously!"

For a moment, Shen Qi almost felt like he was already a big star.

"If you need help with anything, let me know. I've got nothing going on during summer break anyway."

Huang Qidao certainly couldn't abandon his studies to follow Shen Qi right now.

But he did envy Shen Qi's nerve to go out and fight for what he wanted.

He could have made money lying down, yet he insisted on doing the work himself.

Unlike Huang Qidao, whose life felt so predetermined he could see the end from where he stood.

"Big shot, what roles have you played lately? When your movie comes out, I've got to book a whole screening for you!"

Wei Jianguo leaned in curiously.

When Shen Qi had been out of options, Wei Jianguo had urged him to become an escort too.

He'd even secured him the favorable condition of choosing his own clients.

If he got to choose, did it matter who was taking advantage of whom?

"You know Liu Tao, right?"

Shen Qi was willing to share a little with his friends, if only to keep them from worrying about him all the time.

"Whoa, you slept with her?!"

Wei Jianguo's eyes lit up.

He'd seen plenty of beautiful women in his line of work, but never anyone on Liu Tao's level.

"Get lost! We just worked together. She played the White Snake in Legend of the White Snake..."

"You played Xu Xian?"

"No."

"Then Xu Shilin? Holy shit, so you're doing courtroom dramas now!"

"Nope."

"Don't tell me you played Fa Hai. Big shot, I'm telling you, break up a couple and you'll get your dick chopped off sooner or later!"

"I played the Demon Dao Sage Lord, an original villain," Shen Qi explained. "I was only in one episode, but at least it shows I'm starting to get the hang of acting."

"Never heard of him. If you came to work with me, you'd get the hang of things without having to learn a thing."

Wei Jianguo grinned lewdly.

"Get out of here. I'm planning to audition for a new role in a couple of days. You've definitely heard of this one."

Shen Qi figured it was time to give them a shock.

"What role?"

"Yin Zhiping... Don't tell me you've never heard of him!"

"Holy shit!"

"Shit, shit, shit!"

The private room erupted into chaos.

"Big shot, if we went out one day and told people I'm an escort and you played Yin Zhiping, which of us do you think they'd beat to death first?"

Both Wei Jianguo and Huang Qidao thought Shen Qi had lost his mind.

He dared to play Yin Zhiping?

Wasn't he afraid someone would throw a sack over his head when he went out at night?

"It's not like I have many choices."

Did Shen Qi pass up playing Yang Guo because he didn't like Little Dragon Maiden?

"Fuck. You might as well come be an escort with me. Maybe you'll run into Liu Tao someday."

Wei Jianguo had to admit that when Shen Qi suggested they build a career together, he'd been tempted for a moment.

Now that temptation was gone.

He could already picture it: the two of them walking down the street as rotten eggs and vegetable leaves rained down on their heads...

"Wait... don't you have some kind of professional-sounding title? Do people in the business call you escorts too?"

All evening, Huang Qidao had been unable to stop thinking about escorts.

"Sure. Male hosts."

Wei Jianguo answered at once.

"Male hosts... Then female hosts... do they do that too?"

Huang Qidao could hardly believe it.

What had he been missing out on all these years?!

"Hahaha—"

Wei Jianguo was laughing so hard he nearly cried.

That night, Wei Jianguo drank a lot and talked a lot.

He talked about his ex-girlfriend.

He talked about how much he envied Shen Qi's strength and perseverance.

Shen Qi didn't try to comfort him.

Without going through the same thing, he couldn't understand Wei Jianguo's confusion and pain. He had no words of comfort to offer.

Shen Qi didn't get drunk either.

He was afraid Wei Jianguo might act on impulse and deliver him straight to some rich woman's bed.

Ever since his ex-girlfriend left, Wei Jianguo had become less and less like himself.

Worse than loss was the inability to accept it.

People often trapped themselves in a long, silent torture because they couldn't let go.

The next day, Shen Qi practiced swordplay with Wen Jingrou as usual.

Building on Basic Swordsmanship, he picked out the flashiest moves and learned a few more. The goal was to look good.

After that day's practice, he stopped.

That was enough. Acting in a martial arts drama didn't require him to actually make "three thousand guests drunk on flowers, a single sword chill fourteen provinces."

Still, Shen Qi didn't spend his free time "resting up." His pockets were empty, after all.

Legend of the White Snake had paid him a thousand yuan, and My Own Swordsman had paid seven hundred. On paper, he'd earned seventeen hundred in less than half a month.

But...

Hadn't his ticket to Beijing cost money?

Could he live on fresh air instead of food?

And after paying Wei Jianguo back eight hundred yuan, Shen Qi checked his balance: less than five hundred remained.

If he didn't find work soon, fresh air really would be all he had.

Fortunately, his luck was good that day. Several production crews came to the entrance of Beijing Film Studio looking for extras.

Though he arrived a little late, he still landed a job, this time on the crew of Ten Months of Pregnancy.

The director was Cao Baoping, and the leads were Xu Yajun, Niu Li, Wu Gang, and Yang Tongshu.

They were shooting a wedding scene. Shen Qi was told to change into a suit and paired with a fashionably dressed "date." The two were to play a couple attending the reception.

No script, no lines.

But because he was handsome and his "date" was attractive too, the crew actually gave them a close-up.

In the shot, Xu Yajun and Niu Li greeted guests and stopped to speak when they reached Shen Qi and his "date."

Then Wu Gang and Yang Tongshu came over to find the newlyweds, and the leads chatted together. Shen Qi's part ended there.

Later, when the newlyweds tossed confetti, he and his partner just had to join in the celebration.

An easy twenty yuan in his pocket.

When a crew hired extras, they had to pay for a full day even if filming took only half an hour.

The problem was the female extra playing opposite Shen Qi.