PLT | Chapter 5

Little Ancestor

Yan Chao took a couple bites, then glanced at the time. The recording for the first episode would begin in the afternoon, and there were still several hours left before then.

So he casually asked, “Why are you up so early? Aren’t you sleepy?”

Zhou Chenyu said, “I’m opening my voice. Decades like a single day.”

Yan Chao instinctively shot back at him, “You’re not an opera singer, so what are you opening your voice for?”

He lowered his head and took a sip of soy milk, fully expecting Zhou Chenyu to fire back, but to his surprise, Zhou Chenyu said nothing this time.

Yan Chao lifted his eyes to look at him almost unconsciously, and in that split second, he felt as though a trace of loneliness he had never seen before flashed through Zhou Chenyu’s gaze.

Before Yan Chao had time to think through exactly where that little bit of loneliness had come from, he suddenly got a call from the program team urging them to head to the set for styling.

The first episode’s recording would follow the script. The main content was the two of them meeting, along with the exchange of roles.

Their duo name was the “Verbal Sparring Group.” As the name implied, there had to be plenty of mutual sniping, while at the same time digging out a little sugar from the bickering in the process. They were probably trying to create the feeling of quarrelsome lovers.

Yan Chao was glad that this CP mode at least fit their personas. If they force-fed the two of them some kind of script full of deep feeling and unspoken longing, he figured Zhou Chenyu would anger him sooner or later until his carefully maintained persona collapsed on the show.

Although Yan Chao had not come from a broadcasting and hosting major, his undergraduate degree was in journalism. For reporters, the way they chose their words in front of the camera was not held to any lower a standard than for hosts. After all, live interviews had no post-production editing. If a single sentence came out wrong, it could cause a live broadcast accident.

People always said that despite his young age, he spoke very appropriately and almost never gave anyone anything to attack, but what they did not know was that speaking itself was no simple skill. So-called high EQ and good eloquence were both sharpened little by little over time.

But Zhou Chenyu was different. Xiangsheng performers had long grown used to the way “there is no hierarchy onstage.” Most of them simply had no filter on their mouths. Lunli gen[1] , and using other people as targets for gags, were practically just part of their everyday speaking habits.

To him, many things were just careless teasing, but once someone with ulterior motives heard them, they were bound to start turning them over in their minds.

Not to mention that on a variety show, for the average young male or female idol, even a single expression or movement could be interpreted in a hundred and eight different ways, and fan wars between stans and antis could flare up for ten days or half a month at a time.

With a guy like Zhou Chenyu, who already spoke in such a dumbass way in real life, if he really went on a show, Yan Chao was afraid he would get blackened into charcoal.

Before this, Yan Chao had thought it was too uneven in difficulty to make Zhou Chenyu do hosting while he himself went to learn xiangsheng.

Now he finally understood. Getting Zhou Chenyu to speak properly might actually be harder than making himself learn xiangsheng well.

When he thought about how he still had to take Zhou Chenyu through so many episodes of variety recording after this, Yan Chao inexplicably felt a kind of helplessness like he was raising a child.

…Even though this person was clearly two years older than him.

For the first piece of content after their identity exchange, the program team had arranged for Yan Chao to take Zhou Chenyu to record one episode of End of the Earth, the variety show where Yan Chao was a regular, as a guest participant.

End of the Earth was a slow-paced variety show with a travel theme. The travel destinations were usually relatively remote folk-custom towns, but ones that still had distinctive local character.

In order to make the show more watchable, this variety show usually filmed using a two-person partner format. In reality, that just meant forming CPs.

As a regular mc, Yan Chao had been paired with female guests for the previous travel episodes. Now that he had brought Zhou Chenyu as a guest participant, he naturally had to sell CP with him.

On the way to the airport, Wei Lan gripped Yan Chao’s arm tightly, exactly like an old mother sending her son off to war, terrified her son would go and never come back. “It’s all my fault for not finding you a good partner in advance. You’ve really been wronged.”

Yan Chao looked helpless. “Wei-jie, it’s not that serious.”

Wei Lan continued in a deeply emotional voice, “Your temper is just too good. You keep everything bottled up inside. Usually I’m always there protecting you, but this time I’m not around, and I’m afraid that brainless Zhou Chenyu will keep talking nonsense all day and make you angry…”

Yan Chao did not know whether to laugh or cry. “Why are you making me sound like Lin-meimei?”

Wei Lan was so genuinely emotional that she was only one step away from actually wiping away a tear. After a long while, she suddenly remembered something else and said seriously, “Thankfully, the post-production editing is all ours to do, so the control is still in our hands.”

Yan Chao thought to himself that she really was planning far ahead, so he could only comfort her. “As long as you know that, then don’t worry about me.”

In the end, Wei Lan forcibly staged a whole scene of reluctant parting with him at the airport. It was only after she escorted him all the way to where the rest of the program team had gathered that she finally left, still uneasy.

The recording location for this episode of End of the Earth was a small city in Xinjiang, at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains.

And by sheer coincidence, it just so happened to be Yan Chao’s hometown.

Looking down from the airplane window, intersecting glaciers were piled with bright white snow, reflecting crystal-clear gleams under the sunlight.

And after that came the boundless desert stretching endlessly, the vast yellow sand carving out ravines like heavenly chasms across the earth. At a single glance, one could tell it was an ancient, uninhabited realm, and it naturally gave rise to a sense of awe toward nature.

It was Zhou Chenyu’s first time seeing such a scene so directly and vividly in real life. The way he kept exclaiming in admiration made Yan Chao, sitting beside him, both amused and exasperated. He felt Zhou Chenyu was practically like a child who had just started kindergarten.

After a while, Zhou Chenyu suddenly asked him, “How come you don’t look like a Xinjiang person at all? I see other people and they’re all thick-browed, big-eyed, every single one of them good-looking.”

Ever since coming to Beijing for university, Yan Chao had already been asked this question countless times, so for the hundred-and-first time, he explained, “The especially good-looking ones are ethnic minorities. I’m not.”

Zhou Chenyu gave an “oh,” and before he could say anything else, Yan Chao said irritably, “So what you mean is that you think I’m not good-looking, huh?”

Zhou Chenyu smiled brightly. “No, no. I just like your type, the fine-browed, narrow-eyed kind.”

Yan Chao was so angry he practically wanted to cough up blood.

He was not like Zhou Chenyu, who had those deeply affectionate peach blossom eyes that made every glance seem lively and flirtatious. Yan Chao had hidden double eyelids. He was not the kind of gorgeous, striking beauty with heavy features, but at the very least, from childhood to adulthood, he had always been school-heartthrob level. Back when he first became famous through that talk show, the internet had even praised him as having a “first-love face.” So how had his handsome, sunny, next-door upperclassman style somehow turned into “fine-browed, narrow-eyed” when it came to Zhou Chenyu?

Yan Chao said sourly, “Who needs you to like me?”

Zhou Chenyu’s smile remained dazzling. “Of course you do. You’re my wife.”

Yan Chao had already become resigned to his behavior. He could not even be bothered to argue back anymore, and in utter helplessness, he warned him, “Little Ancestor, once we’re on the show tomorrow, don’t go spouting nonsense again.”

Zhou Chenyu stuck out his tongue. “Got it, grandson.”

Yan Chao: “…Once we’re offstage, can you stop doing lunli gen already?”

Zhou Chenyu said, “But you were the one who called me ancestor first, weren’t you?”

Yan Chao had no answer. He resigned himself to his bad luck and put on his earphones, in hopes of saving his still-young twenty-three-year-old life from being shortened and cut off early by Zhou Chenyu’s antics.

Who would have thought that the moment he put on his earphones, a selected xiangsheng clip from Zhou Chenyu would start playing automatically.

…He really was haunting him like a ghost.

Just as Yan Chao was about to switch to the next track, one earbud was suddenly plucked away by the person beside him.

He reflexively reached out to snatch it back, but it was already too late. The moment Zhou Chenyu heard the sound coming through the earbud, he immediately revealed a shameless grin. “Confess honestly. Have you already been conquered by gege’s charm and fallen hopelessly in love with me?”

“…The system recommended it automatically,” Yan Chao said. “I think you’re the one who’s pretty hopeless.”

As he spoke, he reached again for the earbud hanging from Zhou Chenyu’s ear, only to be stopped by the other man once more.

Pouting, Zhou Chenyu said, “Fine, maybe you don’t love me, but can’t you at least let me be narcissistic for a little while?”

Yan Chao: “…As long as you’re happy.”

Since Zhou Chenyu would not let him switch the track, Yan Chao could only continue enduring his voice drilling into his ears by force. And the result was that he accidentally got amused again. It was downright humiliating.

What was not normal at all was that Zhou Chenyu did not tease him for it. Just as Yan Chao was about to turn and look at him, he suddenly felt a weight sink onto his shoulder.

He had only gone a few minutes without speaking, and he had fallen asleep just like that?

…So this guy listened to xiangsheng as a sleep aid?

Seeing Zhou Chenyu’s head drooping heavily forward, about to start bobbing like a chick pecking at rice the next second, Yan Chao sighed helplessly and reached out to steady his head against his own shoulder. Then he shifted a little toward Zhou Chenyu’s side so he could lean more securely.

Zhou Chenyu slept like a dead pig, yet the corners of his lips still curved in a faint smile, and he even rubbed twice into the hollow of Yan Chao’s shoulder in obvious comfort.

Yan Chao lowered his eyes to look at him and could not help thinking gloomily that, with this Little Ancestor by his side, his days ahead probably were not going to be easy at all.

Footnotes:

[1] Lunli gen : A kind of xiangsheng joke built around family-role or generational-role relationships, often involving “father-son,” “grandson,” “ancestor,” “husband-wife,” and similar role inversions or hierarchy-based teasing. “Using other people as targets for gags” in this context refers to joking at someone else’s expense as part of performance banter.