TLC: Lilies

  Editor: Mashiro

  —Of course I heard of it, it was me who came up with this ID.

  —And the man behind that ID, he’s my IRL boyfriend.

  —That’s right, boyfriend. And there’s no way I would let you have anything to do with him, no—way—in—hell.

  Qi Jing really wanted to holler that out loud, see what expression this information would put on Jade Butterfly’s face.

  But in the end, he didn’t say a thing.

  For the sake of Shen Yan, he couldn’t say a thing, at least not yet. He could only clench his fists and silently endure the suffocating feeling in his chest alone, as if he was drowning in the depths of freezing water. He kept staring coldly at the chat window until the end of their conversation. Even his parting words were composed and urbane, as he temporarily maintained his gentlemanly facade.

  But the moment the voice chat window disappeared, so did his facade. With his heart in disarray, he couldn’t even bother to browse the internet anymore and directly put the computer in sleep mode. Once the screen turned off, what reflected on its black surface was his cold face, not a bit of his gentlemanly self left anymore.

  That’s so…… annoying.

  He didn’t feel this annoyed even when he was being smeared by the antis on the forum.

  To him, voice acting was always akin to a safe abode, something both pleasant and pure—but now, for the first time in his life, he felt an aversion towards this hobby and was starting to feel angry at himself for pushing Shen Yan up this stage full of fierce undercurrents.

  Qi Jing furrowed his brows, reclining on the chair for a long while as he tried to calm down.

  “.…… Don’t worry about that, don’t worry about anything else—it’s fine as long as Shen Yan can gain encouragement from this.”


  He forced himself to bear with this duality of the competition. There were people like Jade Butterfly and Northwest Road, but likewise, there were also ones like Longbow and Pu Yuzhi. He should leave all the shady business happening behind the scenes for him to bear, Shen Yan only needed to focus on his performance. He would just have to remove all the obstacles as they come—everything would be fine.

  “Haa……” Qi Jing breathed out slowly, finally steadying his feelings.

  Looking at the time, it was almost noon. He shifted around in the chair, but in the end, he just couldn’t stay seated anymore—Qi Jing shot up to his feet and threw on a random jacket and walked briskly to the door.

  He didn’t know why, but he had the urge to see “Kitty の Papa” right now, and just couldn’t wait until he came back home.

  Qi Jing opened the door with a jerk, only to suddenly hear the crisp sound of keys clanking against each other.

  He was shocked at first, then when he lifted his head, the sight before him gave him yet another shock—Shen Yan was standing right before the entrance in surprise, staring straight at him with his hand still in the midair.

  A big bunch of keys was dangling as it hung from the door lock—it seemed like Shen Yan had just put them in, but didn’t even have time to turn the key when Qi Jing interrupted him by opening the door so abruptly, hence the current situation with the two of them staring blankly at each other.

  “Uh…… You’re already off from work?” Qi Jing coughed so that he could turn his head to the side.

  Even though a couple of hours had already passed since the morning, once he came face to face with Shen Yan, he still couldn’t help but feel somewhat embarrassed.

  “You’re going out?” The first thing Shen Yan noticed wasn’t the awkwardness on Qi Jing’s face but the fact that the latter was dressed to go out which really stunned him.

  “Pft-” Qi Jing heard the confusion in Shen Yan’s tone and couldn’t help but laugh. He took the keys hanging from the door first, then reached out his hand to pull the still dazed man inside from the front of the entrance, “Not anymore, since the person I was going out to find has already returned.”


  Shen Yan laughed along the moment he understood the meaning of Qi Jing’s words, and let him lead himself inside.

  It was just about mealtime and Shen Yan was carrying bags filled with fresh ingredients he had just bought from the market in his other hand. The two of them didn’t spare any time for idle talk and went straight to the kitchen to take out the groceries first. Qi Jing wouldn’t be of any help with his injury, so he only watched Shen Yan in silence as the man was taking all kinds of stuff from the bags and sorting them out.

  He may have been looking, but his mind kept wandering; he couldn’t get rid of what Jade Butterfly had said to him earlier that morning from his head.

  That’s why he blurted this question out of the blue, “Shen Yan, do you think I give off a promiscuous vibe?”


  Shen Yan was taken aback by this question.

  Only then did Qi Jing realise that the way he conveyed his meaning was quite off—he was asking about his voice but the person listening definitely wouldn’t be able to get that with the way he phrased it. He didn’t even have time to feel embarrassed when he saw Shen Yan bring a hand to his lips, as if holding back something. A small chuckle eventually still slipped out—Qi Jing could hear the quick movement of air as the other man laughed.

  Qi Jing’s face grew a bit hot.

  “That’s not it, I meant……” my voice.

  Shen Yan turned his head over to look at him, a smile still gracing his lips, and without waiting for Qi Jing to finish his words, he gathered him gently into a hug.

  At that moment, Qi Jing very much needed a place to heal, and the embrace of the person before him fulfilled that criteria completely. He had no reason to reject, so he closed his eyes and calmly accepted that hug. Shen Yan stroked Qi Jing’s hair and rested his face against the other’s temples as he whispered, “You don’t. I think you’re great as you are; you feel very natural.”


  Hearing him say so, the gloom in Qi Jing’s heart easied quite a bit. He couldn’t help but chuckle, using Jade Butterfly’s wording on purpose to tease him, “Meanwhile, I wish I was promiscuous, this way I would be able to taint the straight and righteous you.”


  Shen Yan was completely at loss, unable to understand what he was saying, “What straight and righteous?”


  Qi Jing only laughed and shook his head slowly.

  At that moment, his gaze wandered slightly, suddenly landing on Shen Yan’s collar right before him, making him recall those hickeys hidden underneath. His heart grew hot and in a moment of unrestraint—he found the courage to move over, and planted a kiss on Shen Yan’s neck.

  Shen Yan was caught completely off guard—his whole body tremored, but Qi Jing held his arm tightly, keeping him from moving.

  Those lips branded the constantly throbbing pulse on the side of his neck—it was hard to tell whether they were scalding, or being scalded. Kissing and biting, Qi Jing ignored the hammering noise of his own heart as he slowly sucked in patience, till he left a light mark.

  At last, Qi Jing let him go once he was done, panting slightly.

  He opened his eyes slightly. Very well, seems like I finally managed to leave my own mark on you—


  “And you got tainted by me just like that.”


  He smiled with satisfaction, his eyes full of glee as he leaned his forehead against Shen Yan’s shoulder, immersing himself in the other man’s warmth, his heart at ease.

  After a long moment of shock, Shen Yan once again held him in a secure hug and asked in a low voice, “What happened? Why are you suddenly doing…… this?”


  “I’m taking my revenge,” Qi Jing laughed throatily, “a revenge for leaving me with these last night.”


  He had been resting his head on Shen Yan’s shoulder all this time, and only now did he lift his head and take half a step back. Then, he pulled on the side of his collar with a finger, smiling as he let the other man see two, three of the hickeys hidden beneath it.

  Shen Yan blanked for real this time.

  As the one who brought up this topic, Qi Jing, on the other hand, didn’t feel as embarrassed about it anymore. He observed Shen Yan’s face with a grin until he saw him looking away, all ill at ease with his face faintly blushing—only then did he burst out laughing. His mood that was previously weighed down with heavy clouds had now cleared up all at once, and he wasn’t as negative about the upcoming competition anymore.

  Once one’s mood improves, any food is bound to taste wonderful—this saying is indeed true.

  The lunch was unexpectedly sumptuous that day. The two of them would eat one meat dish and two vegetable dishes, sometimes supplementing them with a soup—but that day, Shen Yan prepared four dishes and a soup, the amount of food obviously out of ordinary.

  Qi Jing was helping with laying out the bowls and chopsticks when he looked with surprise at Shen Yan bringing out the dishes from the kitchen, placing them on the black walnut table. He couldn’t help but ask in puzzlement, “Why did you make so many dishes? We won’t be able to finish it for lunch.”


  “Mhm, it also includes a share for dinner.” Shen Yan replied.

  Qi Jing looked at the lavish set up on the table. There was indeed no need to prepare the dinner, in fact that food was enough to eat until tomorrow.

  Yet usually, Shen Yan would rather make him fresh dishes, always advocating eating food right after it was made, so he wouldn’t stint on his time while making dinner out of mere laziness. Him saying beforehand that they had to eat that one lunch for two meals sparked some curiosity in Qi Jing.

  “Why are you goofing off today? You don’t want to make dinner anymore?” After the dishes were served, Qi Jing cracked a joke with a smile when the two of them took their seats.

  Currently, the only person capable of cooking in their house was Shen Yan, so the reason behind it had to be related to him.

  It seemed that Shen Yan had already expected him to ask this. He didn’t reply immediately, scooping the rice for him in silence and adding some side dishes before he said slowly, “Actually…… I will be having an evening shift tonight, so I won’t be back for dinner. That’s why I made the food beforehand, so you can just heat it up before eating at that time.”


  There seemed to be nothing unusual about that, but Qi Jing was suddenly stunned after hearing those words, immediately staring at him in shock.

  “Evening shift?”


  “That’s right, from the afternoon till the evening.” Shen Yan knew he would react like that, so he only smiled bleakly.

  “Shen Yan,” Qi Jing couldn’t bear it and placed the chopsticks down to grab his sleeve in a hurry, “You…… Don’t you tell me that you want to forfeit tonight’s ‘Bai Ke’ audition—”


  Shen Yan held his hand gently and comforted him, “No, I don’t intend to forfeit it. Don’t worry, it’s just the time I’ll be back will be a bit late, but I should be able to be on time for the audition.”


  “At what time will your evening shift end?”


  “Technically, it should be from 6PM to 10PM…… But I talked with a person from the related department, and asked to adjust the timing and make up for the hours with the time set aside for dinner from 5PM to 6PM, so I can leave earlier at 9PM. Even in the worst case scenario I should be back at 9:30PM.”


  Hearing this, Qi Jing breathed a sigh of relief.

  Luckily, the “Bai Ke” audition was the second competition to take place that evening—it would only begin at 8:30PM, and Shen Yan just so happens to be the last to go. According to Qi Jing’s experience of listening to the previous two semi-finals, it would be past 9:30PM by the time the last competitor was to perform.

  He finally let go of Shen Yan’s sleeve he had been gripping so tightly and held his chopsticks again. But after thinking for a while, he put them down once again.

  “Sigh……” Qi Jing knew that he shouldn’t comment about Shen Yan’s work, but he still couldn’t keep a sigh from escaping his mouth, temporarily unable to continue eating in peace, “It just had to be to be on the day of the competition that you had to get the evening shift, that’s so unfortunate…… Maybe during the afternoon you should go and ask your colleagues if there’s someone who would exchange shifts with you?”


  “Actually, regarding today’s evening shift…… It was me who asked for it.” Shen Yan said in a quiet voice.

  This took Qi Jing by surprise, “Why?”


  He was clearly aware that it would cause the issue with the timing, why would he ask for it himself?

  Shen Yan sighed and asked, “Did you forget? Tomorrow you have to go to the hospital for the follow-up check-up, you’ll be having the last X-ray and reexamination taken before taking the cast off. I……”


  He hesitated after saying that, as if he was thinking of the wording he should use so as not to make Qi Jing feel that he was being a burden to him.

  “With that accident at the hotel from a few days ago, I…… I’m a bit worried. I wouldn’t feel at ease letting you go out alone before you get your cast taken off. What’s more, from here you can only take a bus to get to the hospital, so with how crowded it can get, it would be better if you had someone by your side to look after you. That’s why I asked a few of my colleagues if there would be someone willing to exchange with me for the four hours of my morning shift tomorrow, but unfortunately, the only alternative was today’s evening shift from 6PM to 10PM.

  Usually, whenever Qi Jing went to work, he was accompanied by colleagues he was well acquainted with, so that wasn’t a problem.

  But the thought of having him go alone to the hospital with strangers all around him…… It made that “once bitten, twice shy” mentality of his flare up, leaving him unable to feel at ease.

  That Qi Jing understood very well. He gave Shen Yan a guilty smile, “I’m sorry, I didn’t handle that matter well and made you worry.”


  Shen Yan gently made a gesture to stop him from apologizing any more, “Don’t apologize, it’s not your fault. And it’s also not like I do this only because of that matter…… I planned to go with you from the start, so it’s still all according to my original plan.”


  Qi Jing furrowed his brows, sitting there all quiet.

  Shen Yan soothed him in a soft voice, “Don’t worry about it, it’s only ten minutes from here to the clinic, even less if I were to walk quickly. I will make sure to be back before it’s my turn.”


  There was nothing Qi Jing could do but chuckle, “Well, alright…… Then I will help you log in into your YY account and set up the equipment while waiting for you to come back.”


  He thought, I just hope there will be no unexpected accident—


  But in reality, unexpected accidents are “unexpected” for no other reason than because one could never guard against them.

  Qi Jing wholeheartedly hoped there would be no unexpected situation during Shen Yan’s evening shift, so he sent him a message every now and then to ask about his situation. But it was still long before the nightfall when an unexpected situation occurred; what’s more, it occurred in a surprising way, in a surprising place.

  After his conversation with Jade Butterfly, Qi Jing already had a grasp of the overall matter, so he intended to maintain that “hostile” act between him and Crossing the bridge noodles to mislead her. That’s why he logged on his weibo account and sent Crossing the bridge noodles a private message: “Because of a certain matter I will be temporarily cancelling my follow of your account; it’s related to the matter we discussed in the morning. It’s not convenient to talk about it in PMs, so I will contact you later on QQ.”


  After sending that message, he cancelled his follow, making it seem like he had some enmity with Crossing the bridge noodles on the surface.

  “Like this, I can at least fool Jade Butterfly during the semi-finals……” He muttered towards the screen.

  After closing the private messages, he off-handedly opened the “messages from non-mutuals” folder.

  He wasn’t in the habit of checking those messages often before, considering that with how he had a good few of thousands of fans on weibo, he would often receive advertisements or private messages from some zombie fans. But since he missed the message Crossing the bridge noodles left him those two days ago, he made it a point to remind himself to pay attention to it, so as not to miss another important message without even knowing it.

  He didn’t expect that there would really be another message inside the “messages from non-mutuals” folder.

  The signature of the sender was unusually plain, so plain that if Qi Jing didn’t check the content, he would most probably have taken that private message as an advertisement and deleted it—”★Five★”, that was the sender’s weibo ID. It’s so overly simple that two stars had to be added on its sides to make it more recognizable.

  This kind of ID would make anyone who saw it think it suspicious, even more suspicious than adding “King” at the beginning. And Qi Jing also subscribed to that train of thought.

  He was already automatically moving the cursor towards the upper right corner of the message to delete it, but his hand froze momentarily. And it wasn’t only his hand that froze, even his breathing and his heart virtually stopped functioning.

  ★Five★: Mr Don’t ask for my return date, I know who “Kitty の Papa is, moreover…… I also know that you know who he is as well. I just want to ask you one question: did he decide to take part in the competition out of his own volition, or……? I will decide whether to say more after I get your answer, thank you.

  In that moment, cold sweat covered Qi Jing in an instant and his body began to shake as he froze stiffly before the computer.

  Impossible—The first thing that appeared in his head was that exact word, then, that single word started repeating frantically in his mind, looping unstoppingly: impossible, impossible, impossible……

  Most CVs would register their weibo with their real voice acting IDs, so “CV-Don’t ask for my return date” was without doubt Don’t ask for my return date himself. And this “Five” came directly, straight to his face and told him with such certainty, “I know who he is, and you know that as well”—that wasn’t a tone of someone making a speculation.

  Even if it was a staff member who had cooperated with Shen Yan before and recognised him by his voice, they wouldn’t come looking for Qi Jing.

  Qi Jing kept the fact that Shen Yan = Geese Fly North = Kitty の Papa away even from Ning Xiaoxiao, his Junior whom he had the closest relationship with.

  That person…… Just how on earth did they know?

  But now wasn’t the time to be in shock. He restrained his body’s reflexes, suppressing the cold sweat and maneuvered the mouse with his trembling fingers to click on that ID, opening that person’s main page to see just who on earth was this person.

  But to his despair, that “★Five★”’s main page was completely empty, with nothing posted in it. There wasn’t even a single follower or fan, so it was clearly a newly registered account. Qi Jing could even safely assume that this account was registered for the sole purpose of sending him that private message; it was most probably just a smurf with the real identity nowhere to be found.

  But that wasn’t important.

  What was important at the moment, was that Qi Jing noticed that this person was online, because the green light indicating that was on.

  “Don’t go offline, don’t go offline!” It was the first time for Qi Jing to feel so anxious about his typing speed being affected by his injury—muttering those words repeatedly, he jabbed with his finger at an astonishing speed, typing out a couple words of reply with great difficulty.

  CV-Don’t ask for my return date: Who are you really?

  Very quickly the currently online “Five” replied to him.

  ★Five★: It doesn’t matter who I am. Mr Don’t ask for my return date, please reply to my question, did he sign in for the competition voluntarily?

  CV-Don’t ask for my return date: …… Yes.

  ★Five★: So that’s how it is…… I understand then.

  ★Five★: Now, I know you probably have a lot of questions to ask, but I still can’t tell you too much. I just want to give you a friendly reminder to be careful when using YY. If he intends to take part in the competition undercover, then it would be better to register a side account for the competition from the start—this way, there would be no need to worry about getting recognised.

  ★Five★: My suggestion is—it would be better if he didn’t use the YY account he used during the previous competition and made a new side account. It’s because that day, he had just made an appearance for the first time, so there’s not that many people in the know. Many of the producers only listened to the recording after the fact, so they have no way of contacting him. And those who were present at the time probably weren’t that quick to think or good at stalking. But with a bit of research they would realise that his main account had appeared in ⟪Trap⟫’s production crew’s voice channel, and if someone checked the cast list and noticed the grandpa role, they would be able to guess his identity with ease (but as for now, there shouldn’t be anyone who knows about it aside from me, haha).

  ★Five★: I took the liberty of contacting you because I feel like he really trusts you, Mr Don’t ask for my return date, so I just wanted to warn you about it. Don’t worry, I’m just a casual passer-by, I don’t have any malicious intentions~ I won’t tell anyone about what I know, I can swear about that. And finally, I wish you both good luck during the competition~ (づ￣ 3￣)づ


  Seeing the last message, Qi Jing felt his heart which had been in his mouth return back down a little closer to where it belonged. He breathed a big sigh of relief and felt his nerves calm down. Judging from the way that “Five” was talking, it seemed like he was rather trustworthy.

  He didn’t know what the other party’s objective was, but looking at that long-winded advice, it indeed made sense.

  In terms of security, simply changing the ID of the main account couldn’t compare to using a side account…… He would help Shen Yan register a new account, so as to avoid him getting uncovered by more clever people like “Five”.

  After the other delivered the last message, Qi Jing typed two words, “thank you”—the other replied with a simple “you’re welcome” and disappeared into the internet.

  “Crap, I’m really worried about that “Five’’s identity……”


  Qi Jing’s fears were still to be completely dispelled. He gripped the mouse tightly in his hand, not letting it go as he stared at those few messages left by that person, seeking for any trace of a clue.

  But he didn’t find a single thing.

  At that time, he caught sight of his phone on the desk from his peripheral. He he froze slightly before quickly grabbed it, sending Shen Yan a short message:

  【Shen Yan, do you know someone called “Five”?】


  A/N:

  Our dear 2Yan is indignantly putting his mark on Kitty Grandpa’s body~ =v=

  Moreover…… Please, Don’t ask for the identity of “Five”, the author will play dead, en.

  T/N:

  Lucilla: Yooo, look at who forgot about his embarrassment and goes around “tainting” the prim and proper citizens~ Tsk tsk tsk, Big Return Date, you weren’t so bold in the morning……

  Mashiro: Well well well, who is this new character now?