RALP Chapter 25

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One day to his audition.

Since he was informed of its content, You Haoyu has been practising hard day in, day out. He also looked up previous works of the renowned director and took notes as he watched them.

He’s watched the movies before already, but that was as part of the audience, from his subjective, non-analytical perspective.

This time he paid more attention onto the actors, observing how they approached realising emotions and feelings with their facial expressions and gestures.

Time marched on, until today.

You Haoyu wasn’t that nervous in the beginning, and being absorbed in training didn’t give him the time to be anyway.

Though, for some reason, when there’s only single digits left to the countdown, when it reached ‘1,’ he has started to feel anxious.

This was the last day, and the teacher training him told him to have a good rest and face the audition tomorrow at his best.

Though he continued to stay behind in the training room.

He only stopped when he realised it was almost late evening already.

The more he practised, the more anxious he felt.

He took a bottle of water and gulped it all down. He drank too quickly and the water is overflowing through the corners of his mouth, rolling down his chiselled jawline and onto his Adam’s apple.

He emptied a bottle of water soon enough. After wiping his mouth, he seemed to have regained himself a bit.

What a waste of time.

He practised for half a day at almost zero efficiency. His performance was abysmal. If he continued like this, one could easily imagine the result of the audition.

Thinking like so, his face darkens, his grip strengthened and squeezed and crumpled the plastic bottle.

That was when footsteps rang out from the corridor. He looked towards the glass where attorney Fang was knocking on.

“Still practising? Hardworking, aren’t we?”

You Haoyu knitted his brows and asked, “what.”

“Go home soon,” continuing, “when I was coming in, a suspicious fella was about to toss rocks at the entrance, and I stopped him. He’s probably an anti-fan of yours, so try not to get involved.”

Hearing that, You Haoyu walked to the window and looks down. There’s nobody down there but a lone piece of brick.

“Remember to head out through the backdoor.” After having said that, attorney Fang left.

He was just here to retrieve documents.

“…”

A few minutes later, You Haoyu was outside the building.

The sky was already darkening outside. You Haoyu walked into the twilight.

At less than 15 hours before the audition starts, he would get sleep back home, and by the next day——It’s showtime.

He looked at his palm, and then, one by one, he curled his fingers inwards, and gripped tight.

He put his hand back down, and sighed gradually, before walking forward.

That was when his phone rang. It was a message from Du You.

[Good luck for audition tomorrow.]

With a gif of a cat cheering on after that.

The cat looking cute certainly didn’t suit Du You’s expressionless self.

When You Haoyu saw the message, he was stunned for a second before he put his hand to his mouth trying to squeeze his curling lips back down.

It was the simplest, even most robotic and indifferent words, but, the sentence seemed to have alleviated his stress somewhat.

[I will…]

A few words in and he deleted them all immediately.

What he wanted to say; what he was thinking about, even he himself wasn’t sure.

Like how it is now.

Standing in front of Du You’s home, with no reason.

He didn’t contact him beforehand, without asking if he were even home, and just, went here on a whim.

You Haoyu was feeling restless. He took his cap down and smoothed his hair for a bit before wearing it back up.

Maybe he should go home.

But just when he was about to turn, the door opens.

It is Du You himself, not in his suit, but in comfortable everyday clothes.

Like what he saw that night.

“You Haoyu?”

He turned his head around to see him with a curious look. You Haoyu felt like he was almost like a stalker, “apologies. I didn’t know why I just ended up coming here.”

Du You seems to be thinking before moving aside, “come in.”

“… what?”

“The auntie is cooking inside. Let’s eat together.”

After that, Du You walks back inside, then he tilts his head and looks back when he sees him not following.

The door is wide open.

You Haoyu snaps back to himself.

The sweet smell of food drifts outside from the house. He thought for a bit before pushing down on the brim of his cap and follows inside.

Neither of them seem to have noticed that a young man was standing behind a tree about a hundred metres away.

Xiao Tiantian was not tall and his figure was quite thin. He remained inconspicuous as he hid behind the trunk.

When he saw the two men who loved him dearly walk into the same house, his face went pale. He almost bit through his lower lip.

At noon he might have been rebuked at the restaurant, but he was looking for You Haoyu after all, so he went on.

Then, he managed to make his way to Xinwen Entertainment. When he saw how dilapidated it looked, he almost couldn’t believe in his eyes.

That once top-tier celebrity, even if he violated the contract with his original company for the materials, how could he have fallen so low as to settle into such a ‘company’ if he could even call it that?

He was wallowing in regret. He hated how he failed to notice the news as soon as possible and then save Haoyu from his predicament.

When he wanted to break in to save his lover and run away, he realised the door was locked.

If the system was right. then You Haoyu was then inside the building; what kind of company would lock their front entrance in the middle of the day?

He became more and more nervous thinking about that.

Thankfully the entrance was made of glass. When Xiao Tiantian found a piece of rock and was about to hit it with that, some guy that said he was a lawyer popped up all of a sudden to stop him.

He was afraid of attracting attention right there, so he retreated tactically; however, a second use of the positioning function located You Haoyu outside of Xinwen Entertainment, heading elsewhere.

That at least meant that You Haoyu still had freedom to move.

It was slight comfort for Xiao Tiantian, who chased after him until he made his way to this mansion with a garden.

The garden itself was large and complex, and he almost got lost in it.

But thank the Heavens he finally saw the person from afar. Though he had his mask and cap on, but just his appearance and posture was enough to suggest who he was.

He was elated to discover him. But before he could finish touching up his appearance and greet him, You Haoyu entered the house. The person opening the door was Du You.

Normally, Xiao Tiantian wouldn’t have thought otherwise, and would even worry that they were about to argue for his sake, but after that episode at noon, he has become unsettled.

Now that he thought about it, every time he looked for them, Haoyu almost spent all his time with You.

Did the two of them, behind his back…

Xiao Tiantian didn’t want to imagine any further, nor would he believe it. But, could You‘s cold attitude have come about because he had cheated and found a new lover?

No. He must know what happened.

Xiao Tiantian is not someone who would just wait patiently at times like this. With that thought in mind, he heads forward.

But before he can even press the doorbell, his arm gets pulled back. Looking back, it is Shen Chen.

He widens his eyes in shock, “you…”

“Why are you here.” Shen Chen, with his brows locked in a frown, asks him first.

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TL’s notes: It’s been about a month already, so another recommendation! 《超級男神繫統》(Super Male Heartthrob System) (Well, you can find full access somewhere, perhaps, not that I’m encouraging you to, of course).
It’s a good enough feel-good OP protagonist story that… well, if you could get past the first 20 pages that you might need shifting your mindset into ‘toddler’ stage you might start laughing at the absurdity like I do. It just felt really embarrassing to read at the start and, like, the story ended super abruptly in the end. The BL romance hinted at since the middle of the story was also cut out entirely. If it were up to me I’d say an entire arc or two must have been missing from the end, so I wouldn’t translate it. Still, it was a simple enough amusing story, and you could use it to practise Chinese or whatever. By the way, this isn’t on NU as far as I know, and no, this is not the Super Male God System novel.