Jiang Li had just possessed the body and undoubtedly courted death when he vehemently went against the Original's lingering obsession.
Without even managing to enter the backstage, he collapsed. The people behind him, mostly his friends, panicked and ran to his side. By then, the young vocalist had long kissed the ground with his eyes shut. His face was almost devoid of any other color apart from white. Despite his peaceful breathing, based on the beads of sweat on his face, it could be easily seen that he was not in a good condition. Thankfully not many people saw it since they were at least obscured by the cream painted wall.
"Brother He is burning up!"
"Bring him to the clinic!"
"Big Bro, help me support this rascal. Jeez! So the reason he was pale-faced was because of this. Yet he still came instead of telling us honestly about his condition?"
"Bastard!" One of them bellowed angrily, red-eyed. "This damned rascal rushed here to perform. It's always like this! Yet what did he gain?"
The one acting as the big brother, Cheng Du, gave the other three a glare. He was another graduating senior from the Music Department and was the oldest of them all. He was the most clear-headed among them, hence, he sternly shouted, "Shut up, boys! Clinic!"
The rest did zipper their mouths as they rushed towards the building. They did not forget to cover their unconscious brother from prying eyes.
Deep inside them though, they felt indignant. All of these graduating boys treated each other like blood related brothers from different parents. This was why the anger they felt towards Tang Lan could not be described by words anymore.
In their hearts, they believed that woman's heart was made of stone. She surely did or show something to He Chen halfway the performance. Otherwise, why would their brother become that very brokenhearted and choose to do that?
None of them could understand why a girl would stay unmoved after being shown such great love for so long. They were men and knew how much pride had to be laid down to be able to do what He Chen had been doing for more than a year.
While they also didn't really condone He Chen continuously making a fool out of himself courting a woman like that, when persuasion didn't prove effective, they selflessly decided to always be there for their brother. They even started to help He Chen in his antics.
At last, it seemed this would be the last day that they would do this.
Still...
'... Even if I'm glad that Brother He finally awakened, Tang Lan is still unforgivable!' All of them thought in their hearts.
They watched as the nurse helped the unconscious Jiang Li with the IV drip. While the nurse in her early thirties was admiring these guys appearanc... cough, friendship, the four boys looked at each other. All of them either had a worrying look put on, or simply very angry.
...
Hours later.
Jiang Li woke up after recovering from the pain and discomfort brought to him by his stupidity earlier. Instead of repenting, due to the repressed anger in his heart, he wanted to scold He Chen in his mind. However, he could only grit his teeth after realizing that he couldn't actually do it.
While he disliked He Chen's character, the admiration, pity and headache won over it. Seriously, he was a great and dedicated guy, a rare male specimen actually. Why was the happiness of side characters like him had to be sacrificed just so the female lead would appear very desirable?
There were so many complaints in his mind. But he chose to shut up and focused on massaging his forehead to lessen the anger and hatred for the world building up inside him.
"Brother He, I'm glad you've finally woken up." It was the drummer earlier, Xie Delan, a bright-eyed bespectacled young man.
Jiang Li gave him a nod and then inquired about the time. The one who answered him was another big boy whose hair was dyed dark blonde.
"It's 5 pm, you bastard!" The rebellious-looking guy seemingly wanted to punch him but Jiang Li managed to dodge easily. "You're asleep for more than five hours! Five hours! Your fever is so high we thought you'll be dying soon!"
"Hey, rascal Su, go away!" The big brother figure had a loud and thunderous voice and so the dark blonde guy sported a displeased face but still left Jiang Li who was sitting on the bed.
"We've gotten you a sick leave from all the profs so we're free to leave anytime soon."
"We?"
Cheng Du ignored the raised brow of He Chen and said, "We have to fulfill a promise so we created an account on YouTube. I ambushed a classmate to get a footage of your song earlier. That's our first video uploaded there. See Little Nian? He's replying to comments and doing promotions."
"Yeah. Hello."
The youngest of them, Nian Xiwen, a baby-faced lanky guy wearing huge headphones, waved at him then went back to madly typing on his tablet.
Jiang Li went silent. The other guys thought that he was just reminded of everything that happened earlier and was feeling sad about it. Little did they know he was made speechless by how efficient they were.
'I only said that to divert a bit of people's attention from me to the group and to that annoying female lead. These people sure take my words more seriously than they should!'
He tossed the matter about this group obviously ditching their classes aside and left the clinic with them. As they headed towards the college building's exit, he realized that going viral online could be a good direction to take.
Anyway, the Original was not a business-oriented person and was also only in college. Going too OOC would cause Jiang Li to pass out. The thought made him want to meet the system and hack it, literally, with a huge knife. Throwing a bomb at it would also be good.
But yeah, with that as a problem, he could only utilize He Chen's original talent which was all music-related.
"He Chen. Look."
Jiang Li's train of thoughts got interrupted by the headphone-wearing guy. The group had just crossed the exit and were greeted by the sight of many people rushing out of the nearby buildings. A crowd congregated just outside the Music Department.
"What's happening?" Cheng Du asked.
The dark blonde volunteered to check what it was. Jiang Li narrowed his gaze in front because from afar, he noticed a police car parking hastily.
He was not the only who noticed it.
Jiang Li looked around and saw that fear was evident on the faces of most of the people around. Because there were also some pointing their cameras upwards, he remembered that the plot had long started. A complicated expression flickered in his eyes.
'So this is will be my first encounter with the villainess?'
He also looked up. The distance might have blurred most of the details and made it almost impossible to know the face of the person above.
But he could perfectly see that there was a female figure on the rooftop. Her eyes were closed and the safety railings were behind her, her hands were grabbing on the metal bars by her side. The wind blew her hair away, but because a few strands stuck on her face, they realized that she was crying.
Jiang Li froze.
She looked like she was planning to jump off anytime soon!