If You Don’t Go To Hell, Who Will? - Chapter 31

“Hey, Xiaojie? Well, yeah, didn’t you tell me…. you must know blockhead, it’s Mu er, from your environmental protection club’… Don’t worry, she looks so good. …… Right, I think she is a good fit… Yeah, the hair style is also very suitable, just right… What? Wrap her chest? No no, she doesn’t have too much…”

I sat on the sidelines with black lines on my forehead . I resisted the urge to swear at her and continued listening to Xiao Er as she spoke to Xiaojie.

The two continued their discussion for a long time till Li’l Second finally hung up. After hanging up the phone, she looked at me excitedly: “Hey, Xiaojie said that she recently met a new student in the philosophy department. He is very handsome and has promised to act in this drama.He will be the lead. ”
I was not excited by the news at all, and replied lazily: “Is it?” I don’t know how Xiaojie tricked the poor student.

Li’l Second grabbed my hand  and continued to talk excitedly. “Originally,  I wanted Zhong Yuan to play the role. Although his temperament is more placid than Lu Zijian, but he is still more than enough to dominate you. How do I do this, both actors will be the main protagonists ?”

I shook my head wearily . “Do not worry, Zhong Yuan will not play such a perverted character.”
Li’l Second grabbed my collar so hard I yelped with pain. “Block head, you are the one who is perverted, you are perverted! This is art, you just can’t understand!”

I pried her fingers off my collar  and said calmly: “Well, actually, Zhong Yuan hates  people who try to take advantage of him. If you have the guts, you can go ask him.”

Li’l Second was silent.

I knew that Zhong Yuan had a strange ability. He had a good temper and I had seldom seen him get angry. In fact, he was quite cheerful and got along well with others. But there were some things that touched his bottom line and few people would dare to do those things. For example, Li’l Second had been acting arrogantly with me all throughout the day, but when she heard that Zhong Yuan hated the people who tried to take advantage of him, she would never dare mention her proposal to him. That was not true in the case of Lu Zijian. Even though he had the same temperament as Zhong Yuan , he was often bullied. In fact, lil second used to constantly call him ‘pitcher’. When Lu Zijian realised what it meant and asked her to stop calling him that term. But she did not relent. It was only later when Miss Fourth taught Li’l Second a lesson that the bullying stop.

I have been thinking, how insidious did a person need to be to reach Zhong Yuans level!

……

In the evening, I realised Xiao Jie herself was the director. The two male protagonists of the film ( umm..actually I was the heroine, damn it) were supposed to meet in the coffee shop and get to know each other while discussing the specifics of shooting the film. We also invited the producer and screenwriter, which was Li’l Second.

When I saw the legendary handsome young man from the Philosophy department, I was rooted to the spot.

I couldn’t believe it! Of all the handsome guys in B University, how could Xiao Jie choose him?

Su Yan saw us and ran to me in surprise. He smiled and asked me, “ Mu er, the woman who’s playing the other hero is you ?”

I pulled Li’l Second in front of me. “ Classmate, you have misunderstood. I am the screenwriter, here’s your partner.”

But Li’l Second spared not a minute’s thought before she betrayed me. Su Yan wrapped an arm around my shoulder. He looked pretty pleased. “ Mu er, don’t be shy.”

I was really annoyed. I pried his arm off my shoulder and turned to Xiaojie. “ Director, can I ask to be replaced or can you get someone else in his place ?”

Xiao Jie glared at me, “ No.”

Due to Su Yan’s extreme cooperation and my very visible dissatisfaction, the talks in the evening were neither a success nor a failure. In fact, I didn’t deliberately set out to create trouble, but I was not at all comfortable acting as a couple with Su Yan. Irrespective of whether his feelings for me were true or false, he had been interested in me. In fact, even now, it seemed like he was still interested. With this kind of past and present relationship between us, it was inevitable that play acting as a couple would be extremely awkward.I was the kind of person for whom feelings were unambiguous. If I liked someone, it was fine, but if I didn’t like someone, I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.That person would be better off staying away from me as much as possible.

As we walked back from the coffee shop, both Xiao Jie and Lil Second sneaked off, leaving me and Su Yan alone.

Su Yan and I were side by side, walking slowly under the orange street lights.

“ Mu er, do you hate me?” He suddenly stopped and looked straight at me, asking me this question in a low voice.

I shook my head,”No.”

“Then why are you not accepting my proposal?”

I grabbed my hair in frustration. “ Hey, I have a boyfriend. You are trying to be a third party in the relationship. That’s very bad.” Sorry Zhong Yuan, I needed to use you at this crucial moment.

Su Yan laughed out loud. He didn’t sound like a young boy when he laughed like that.

“ You don’t have to lie.The truth is quite obvious to me. Zhong Yuan acted well, but you were a disaster.”

I lowered my head in guilt, unable to figure out if what he said was real or not.

Su Yan continued, “ So now Zhong Yuan and I are competing on an equal footing. I hope you will not unduly favour him over me.”

I shook my head. “ I’m not favouring anyone, I just don’t like you. That’s the reason I can’t accept you. It’s as simple as that. I don’t hate you, but that doesn’t mean that I like you. Try to understand.”

Su Yan smiled at me. “ You haven’t even tried to like me yet. How do you know that you will never like me?”

Huh? What logic was that ??

Su Yan continued , “ It’s like a snack you haven’t eaten yet. How do you know if it is delicious? Whether it suits your taste? At least, you will take a bite and then decide if you want to continue eating it, isn’t it? This is the same. Give the snack and yourself a chance.”

“You are really eloquent.”

Su Yan was nonchalant. “ I haven’t won anything yet, I just hope that you will give me a chance. Why don’t you test us?Then you can refuse if it really doesn’t work out.”

I scratched my head and conceded to myself that what he was saying sounded right.

“ But…”

“ No”, Su Yan interrupted. Suddenly, he reached out and put his hands on my shoulders. He looked seriously at me. “ I hope that you will try to make this work. When you are absolutely sure that you don’t like me you can push me away.”

“ Oh”. I wanted to say no, but when I saw Su Yan looking so eagerly towards me, I thought what he said sounded right.

So I nodded. “ Ok.”

A warm smile lit up Su Yan’s face.” So you promise you will allow me to chase you?”

I looked at him a bit dumbfounded and said,“ Seems so.”

“ Why are you looking at me like this?”

“ Nothing. I just felt that suddenly you are acting like a normal person. I’m just not used to it.”

Su Yan’s mouth gazed open in surprise.

The next day, Lil Second told Zhong Yun about the movie as if she was snitching on me. She used this way to make Zhong Yuan jealous. But to my surprise, Zhong Yuan was very casual about it and promised to act in the film as long as he was given a leading role in the film.

So there was a small discord within the crew.

The film had two protagonists, one supporting role and the rest were relatively minor characters. At first, the other characters apart from the two heroes were divided up among the members of the film club. Although they were not willing to participate in a movie with a gay theme, they were under severe pressure from the Vice President. So they had no option to refuse.

Since the main  principle of the film was that appearances were more important than acting skills, Su Yan and I were set to play the main protagonists. Now Zhong Yun had appeared. It would be no problem if he was willing to play the supporting role. But this guy was adamant that he would only play one of the main roles.

 Therefore, the situation was this – there were three main actors with only two main roles.

Zhong Yuan sat in the conference room of the film club. He patiently  listened with a smile as Xiao Jie explained her difficulty in assigning characters. What she really wanted to say was that the main roles were already taken, and Zhong Yuan was creating trouble. The supporting role was also very important, it added some key drama to the entire plot…

When Xiao Jie finished, he calmly said, “ Well, you can do as you plan. Pretend I was never here.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Lil Second could no longer sit still. She took Xiao Jie out for a private consultation. They discussed for a long time but could not come to an agreement. Li Second wanted to replace Su Yan, while Xiao Jie insisted on retaining him. The two analysed the problem from all possible sides, but were still in deadlock.

Finally, Su Yan , who had been silent all this while,spoke. “ I can provide sponsorship for the film. Do you need some new equipment?”

When Xiao Jie heard this, her eyes brightened instantly. This was a huge temptation.

But Zhong Yuan immediately piped in with no hesitation. “ Whatever he is sponsoring, I can give the same, or more.”

 And we were back in deadlock. Xiao Jie and Lil Second discussed till there were dry mouthed before finally reaching a consensus – Mu er would decide who among the two would stay !

For a moment, all four pair of eyes looked at me,and all the gazes were so hot I thought I would get cooked.

I coughed and said weakly, “ I have a perfect suggestion.”

“ What?”

I looked at Zhong Yuan, then Su Yan. “ Why don’t I play the supporting role? “

“ No.”

“ I object.”

“I agree.”

“This is a good idea.”

All four voices spoke at the same time. The boys were quite loud after listening to my suggestion , and the two wretched girls , Li’l Second and Xiaojie were surprised . In fact Li’l Second was so excited she patted my head, making my hair even messier.

When Zhongyuan and Su Yan looked like they wanted to continue arguing ,Xiaojie knocked hard on the table with a pen. She said, “Don’t make a fuss , I will follow the suggestion of Muer. I am the director and I have the final say!”

Zhong Yuan looked at me and suddenly smiled. Then he turned to look at Su Yan and said, “Ok, I’ve decided to follow the director’s arrangement.”

Su Yan’s eyes widened as he looked at Zhong Yuan incredulously.

Zhong Yuan turned over the script in his hand. Then he looked at Su Yan and said to him in a serious tone, “ There is a princess carry in this scene. Are you going to carry me or shall I carry you?”
Su Yan looked at Zhong Yuan with an expression as if he had just swallowed a fly. “You really want to act?”

Zhong Yuan nodded. “Of course. I still don’t want to play a supporting role… So tell me , are you going to carry me or shall I ? Personally, I like to carry others, but  of course I will respect your choice.”
Su Yan was furious. “ I will not   carry a man . Nor will I be carried by a man!”

Zhong Yuan shook his head calmly. “You can’t say that. We have to listen to the director.Now , director, I think this script is too plain, not enough drama. I suggest adding a kiss, oh, it’s better if it were to be a French kiss……”Xiao jie held the pen and smiled. “Good, this idea is good.Screen writer, please add this scene to the drama!”

Lil Second seemed to have a nosebleed almost immediately.

Su Yan looked at Zhong Yuan in horror and couldn’t speak.

Zhong Yuan closed the script and looked at Su Yan meaningfully. “Ok, if the director wants to add a kiss to the film, we… do you think we should practice first? French deep kiss…” He said, lifting the chin of Su Yan. His face slowly moved closer…

Lil Second’s nose started bleeding again.

“Pervert!” Su Yan pushed away Zhong Yuan, and stood up from the chair. “Director, I don’t want to act with him!”

Zhong Yuan smiled calmly. “What a joke, you are the main protagonist.”

Su Yan: “I want to play the supporting role!”

Zhong Yuan leaned back in the chair and smiled at me.　I quietly erected my middle finger to him in my heart>_<

After the meeting, I walked back alone with Zhong Yuan. I couldn’t help stem my curiosity and finally asked him: “You… could you really stand kissing Su Yan and carrying him like a princess ?”

Zhong Yuan: “Of course not.”

I was bemused, “Then , why did you still insist..”  He was so calm at that time , as if he was completely willing to accept.

Zhong Yuan: “Because I knew, he would not be able to accept it. I just needed  to wait for him to quit.”
I was speechless.
Can anyone be as insidious as Zhongyuan?>_<