"Feng Ru, help her get into the car."
When the girl fainted on the road from exhaustion or from drunkenness, Jiang Li didn't make things difficult for himself and had the ghost possessed Na Yu's body. Feng Ru almost turned berserk. For her, it was not funny being made to run errands. But Jiang Li stared at her quietly with eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, therefore, she indignantly relented.
The ghost controlled Na Yu's body to hop into the car with awkward and stiff movements. He too climbed into the driver's seat. After that, he didn't drive off but instead pull up his phone to play some games and tire his eyes out. He convinced himself that it was because there was nowhere to go, and it would be troublesome to check into a hotel only to get embroiled in a misunderstanding once the other party woke up.
'Shouldn't you drive her home?'
He indifferently replied to Feng Ru, 'I don't know her address, 'officially'. Troublesome too. Let her just sleep here. A lesson that she should not go drink wine again.'
Five or so hours later, Na Yu woke up groggily. Jiang Li had taken another short sleep earlier, and woke up thirty minutes before her. While dumbfoundedly watching him play mobile games, she remembered everything she did last night. Looking at her red face and the smoke seemingly coming out of her ears, Jiang Li sarcastically sneered. Although inwardly, he was feeling greatly amused.
"Let's pretend all of this never happened." After dropping that line to her, he exited the car which had stopped a street away from the dormitory.
The woman blushing from embarrassment poked her head out of the car window, a hand covering her forehead. In a tiny voice, she said, "... Thanks and sorry."
Jiang Li did not respond and very soon, he disappeared into the distance. By then, the sun was already starting to dye the sky red and the chirping of the birds was waking up the drowsy world.
For some time, Na Yu was banging her head onto the dashboard, letting out some whimpering sounds and words of blame. However, when she noticed a note stuck in between the two front seats and read what was written on it, she fell eerily silent.
'Did I tell him anything last night?' The girl squinted her eyes, subconsciously flipping the note.
A couple of moments later, she once again went back to staring at his dorm's direction with shock written all over her face.
...
One and a half month later...
Half of the allotted time had passed. The plot somehow stagnated, most probably due to Feng Ru who hadn't killed anybody since then. Good for her since there was also no way for the leads to connect the dots correctly. Now the ghost spent most of her time lurking around him and Na Yu.
And the two leads' relationship with each other? Maybe they had become close already. Or maybe the blockhead Gu Feng had yet to realize Tang Lan's affection for him. Jiang Li actually didn't know. He was too busy to care.
Through a dozen hit covers, the band successfully got the attention of a relatively big record label and spent the past few weeks recording and practicing their originals. Using the fandom Pesticide's cover had brought to life, Na Yu persuaded the higher-ups to stage a mini-concert for their debut tracks.
Now here they were, at the backstage fixing their looks and attires. A corner of his lips rose up, twitching a bit.
"Wow, He Chen!!! You have such great skin and facial features. Gosh, this great veteran makeup artist is telling you, you don't actually need makeup!" Blabbered a slightly obese woman in her forties to Jiang Li in front of a mirror.
"...If I don't need that, why did you ambush me and almost chain me to this chair?"
His question was ignored. The obese madam exclaimed while touching his face all over, "Don't think too much about that. Look here! You made the correct decision to enter the industry! It's a great sin to not share the world of your great looks! Even though I've been in the showbiz world for two decades and is used to seeing good-looking people, I am still in awe of your appearance. You should have debuted sooner!"
Jiang Li stared at the brush in the woman's hand. While he agreed his face could feed him, the behind the scene preparations were actually not something he could like.
"... It's not my fault that my band just chose to go official one and a half month ago. And I am a music student. Supposedly, I should be venturing this industry only after I graduate. What are you planning to apply to me by the way?" The man looked at his friends through the mirror and saw them uncomfortably receiving care from the other makeup artists too.
To his question, Miss Liu, the one tending to him replied, "Don't worry much, pretty boy. I know you guys are not as patient as girls. So I'm only applying a bit of foundation. Later, I'll also apply a bit of blush, loose powder, some highlight, and a little eyeshadow! Aye, wait! Maybe some silver glitters on your neck, jaw, and right cheeks will add some twist. Magical twist!"
She even clapped as though she just came up with a very awesome idea. Her eyes shining like stars, a final product flashing in her imagination. "Alright. It's decided then. It will only take ten minutes and you will be good to go on stage!"
"Uhhh, Miss Liu, I'm not a girl. Why do I have to have that much stuff in my face?"
"Hush, don't distract me. I have to focus on applying the moisturizer and cream."
Jiang Li's mad protest entered a deaf ear. Not long after, he was in the practice room, being laughed at by the other guys.
"Haha, Brother He. My makeup artist said their chief, the one who handled you is quite weird. I didn't know it's to this extent!" Little Nian laughingly poked at his cheek which had a few glitters sparkling conspicuously there like stars in a clear night sky.
"He Chen." Even the usually stoic Cheng Du laughed. "You really deserve to be our center. Oof!"
Jiang Li gave them the evil glare and everyone shut up, apart from Rascal Su.
The guy with a few layers of eyeliner replied to Cheng Du with a serious face, "Big Bro, our pretty boy is so good-looking. What should we do? Once the time to go on stage comes, he'll officially be feasted on by thousands of eyes! Maybe we have to ready ourselves now from girls wanting to kidnap him home, or guys wanting to murder him. It's hard to know what extreme people could do!"
When Na Yu came in with Nangong Xue and the Team Leader handling them, Su Xuefeng took that chance to free himself from Jiang Li's suffocating headlock.
"TL, Miss Na, how's the situation there?" asked the nervous Xie Delan, pushing his eyeglasses up.
The handsome middle-aged guy said, "See for yourself. Let's go there now. The seats are full. They're all waiting for you to make a fool of yourselves." Everyone there knew the tall man had a unique sense of humor so half of them laughed and played along.
Led by the team leader, the members walked out of the room. Before walking down the corridor connected to the stage, the manager waited for everyone to come out, then said to the last person, "You look so amazing..."
"Oh. Really?"
Jiang Li looked at the nodding girl, not the least bit flattered. Perhaps he would have felt moved, if only she was not biting her lower lip and forcibly stopping herself from laughing.
When she said, "You look... so amazingly pretty, even matrons and grannies will fall in love with you," his face darkened to the extreme. Only the muted system knows how much he wanted to speed up the plot again and have Feng Ru haunt this beautiful trouble who somehow had become comfortable making fun of him.