Exclusive Rights to An Online Voice Actor

unedited

Before taking a seat, Tan Zixian raised his wrist to take a look at his watch. “Thirty minutes should be enough.”

If the conversation went on for too long, it could easily become tense and reach a deadlock. But if it was too short it would be no good as well, as it would mean that they either didn’t get through with everything or already started throwing fists. Tan Zixian felt that returning after thirty minutes would give them just enough time—even if they really got into a fight, it would leave them enough time to vent their frustrations before they caused each other serious harm.

He found himself a seat, then calmly knocked at the wooden bar counter to get the barman’s attention, seemingly quite used to the bar setting. “Let them discuss their own matters, we will drink our drinks in the meanwhile. Take a look, what would you like to order?”

When he didn’t hear a reply from Qi Jing for a while, he glanced to the side, only to see him looking in the direction they came from with a heavy expression, seemingly worried for the development of that conversation.

Tan Zixian snapped his fingers before him, making him snap back into reality with a start. Qi Jing smiled, embarrassed, “I’m sorry, what did you just ask me?”

Tan Zixian’s lips curled up slightly, receiving the cocktail menu brought by the barman—but he didn’t pass it to Qi Jing, usurping the right to choose, “Too late, you didn’t answer so I will decide for you. Spacing out even though you came with me to accompany me for a drink—since it came to this, I will order you the most expensive one, just wait and feel the pain when you see the bill.”

“Haha,” This time, Qi Jing chuckled for real, sitting on the seat beside him and saying generously, “Go ahead, go ahead, order your one along the way as well. It’s on me, as an apology.”

Tan Zixian ordered two of this establishment’s special recommendations—for Qi Jing, one made of white rum and brandy as the base with a golden hue showing through, while for himself, a milky-white drink made with absinthe and champagne. Both were rather on the strong side, but the former was a bit weaker than the latter.

When he finished listening to the barman’s explanation, Qi Jing even nudged Tan Zixian slightly as he placed the order, “You still have to record tomorrow, will you really be fine drinking such a strong drink?”

Tan Zixian smiled slightly, “Don’t worry, I often have drinks like this, so I’m used to it, and I can handle my alcohol either way. How about you?”

Qi Jing laughed, “I have a strong tolerance too. I usually have to drink with the higher-ups during the social outings, so I built it up with time.”

At that time, he suddenly thought of the night he drank with Shen Yan. That rainy night, Shen Yan held his hand dazedly, letting Qi Jing lead him the way like a lost child, even hugging him out of nowhere by the door and begging him to not go in a small voice... In the end, among the pitter-pattering of the rain behind the windows, they had their first kiss on that bed, then had the first taste of falling asleep in the warmth of each other’s arms.

With the memories of the past flashing before his eyes like a movie, his gaze grew warmer with tenderness that he couldn’t contain.

“His tolerance is really bad,” Qi Jing didn’t specify whom he was referring to, but anyone could guess from his doting tone who he was talking about, “He can even get drunk with a single glass of red wine... Although he’s so adorable when that happens.”

“Mn, that guy’s tolerance is bad as well.” Tan Zixian’s next words were like a droplet of ink falling into the water—quiet, but rapidly spreading below the surface, just like that tremor in Qi Jing’s heart. “This probably runs in the family—”

Qi Jing was instantly stunned, unable to say for a moment.

He blinked a few times while looking at Tan Zixian in shock, and it took a while before he was able to think and speak again.

“You’re saying that...”

“I’m saying that it runs in the family.” The man beside him repeated one more time, his expression unchanging as he held the drink to taste it, “Either way you would get to know it sooner or later.”

Qi Jing heard himself gasp, covering his mouth instinctively.

It was as if his heart jumped all the way to his head to beat there, his blood pressure jumping so high that he got a bit dizzy.

“How... But that guy, his surname clearly isn’t Shen...” It was because of too much of a shock that he muttered, denying it instinctively.

At that time, Tan Zixian continued.

“Yes, but his mother is surnamed Shen—”

‘Shen’.

This surname and those associated with it should be the most awkward and unsuitable topic for them. Nevertheless, Shen Yan still chose to bring it up first.

Hearing the other taking the initiative to speak, Qiu Tianyang was stupefied, but let out a dejected chuckle and lowered his gaze.

Suddenly, it wasn’t as awkward. Rather than calling it awkward, it would be more precise to say that it left behind a bitter taste.

“Uncle&#k2026; is doing fine,” He clasped his hands together on his knees and rubbed his thumbs mechanically to calm himself down, trying to make his posture seem as natural as possible, “He’s no longer in Beijing, you can rest at ease. You won’t bump into him here.”

The room fell silent.

For a long time, Shen Yan remained silent, leaving Qiu Tianyang unsure whether he refrained from asking for further details—such as the whereabouts of his father.

Shen Yan didn’t continue talking, but Qiu Tianyang himself started to slowly speak more, “Uncle had already retired and settled down abroad. He’s in Canada now, because...”

Saying this, he paused for a moment, lowering his voice and speaking with a cautious tone.

“Because, your little sister... got accepted as a graduate student in Toronto university, and moved there to pursue her studies, so...”

The person sitting there still remained silent, watching him with an indifferent expression and without showing any reaction. But ‘no reaction’ was actually better for Qiu Tianyang.

At least compared to that look full of deep pain and hatred in the past... This was much better...

“You, seem like you don’t have as big of a reaction to mentioning the uncle and his family as before.” With the thought appearing in his mind, he instinctively said it out loud.

When he realised he said this, Qiu Tianyang shook, frightened, quickly shutting his mouth and regretting that he didn’t bite his tongue in time. Meanwhile Shen Yan just kept sitting there silently, not reacting even to those words at all, as if he was made of clay.

“I know, uncle wronged you then,” After a long time, Qiu Tianyang finally brought this topic up, “Me to, I also—”

“That’s enough.” At that time, Shen Yan suddenly cut into his words, apparently interested in hearing more, but Qiu Tianyang was insistent.

“Can you listen me out this one time? I’ve never had a single chance to talk to you face to face—one time is enough, so please, listen to what I have to tell you.”

Shen Yan didn’t answer, but he also didn’t refuse him.

Qiu Tianyang took a deep breath, his clasped hands now covered in a sheen of cold and wet sweat, even though the start of his story was so bright with colours, the homes and families full of festive spirit—

“When I was young, uncle’s family would always visit us on New Years. We would eat together, chat together... The way I saw it, uncle was a steady man who always thought about his family, taking care of them. Their family of three had always appeared happy and harmonious to me. At that time, my dad was away for business talks almost every day, and mom was busy with work too, so we didn’t have many chances to gather together. That’s why I envied how exemplary my uncle’s family was.”

That’s right, exemplary.

The man appeared strict on the outside, scanting his words and smiles, but he would often show the gentle side to his close ones.

The man’s wife was dignified and graceful, with a very respectable family background.

The man’s daughter was clever and sweet.

No matter if it was the man himself or his family, to Qiu Tianyang, they were all a perfect template, one he wished he could use to create his own life with.

“Until that day... When I finally realised I was wrong.” f𝘳𝒆𝑒𝓌𝒆𝗯n𝗼𝘷ℯl. 𝑐𝚘𝘮

He narrated word after word, and the originally warm and gentle tone slowly peeled down like the layers of wrapping paper, finally revealing that box full of darkness beneath.

“That day, I heard auntie crying to my mom about uncle having a woman outside, that the son this woman bore for my uncle was already in his twenties, that he was actually brought up in secret by the Shen family with uncle’s silent approval...”

His breathing stopped for a moment, some kind of pain audible in his voice.

“I... The belief I held for almost twenty years got ruined in a single night—that feeling of getting betrayed, can you understand it?”

Shen Yan didn’t say anything, his lips pursed from start to finish—only his eyes were slightly lower than before.

Qiu Tianyang continued numbly.

“I can only speak for myself as I say it... But auntie was really good for me. From when I was young until I grew up, she would always bring me delicious food and toys when visiting us, and her smile would always be so kind. When I heard that uncle did something outside that hurt her this much, I instantly got so furious I started shaking.”

Saying this, he laughed bitterly.

“And I also realised that I actually knew you—that’s right, I realised that it wasn’t a coincidence that I knew you, but because uncle’s dad... That is, your grandpa, worked toward it with his own hands.”

—【Tianyang, can I trust you to take care of a certain boy for me?】

The old man, whom he hadn’t seen in a long time, unexpectedly appeared at his daughter’s doorstep. After quietly entering the house, he didn’t say much. He simply reached out and gently held his grandson’s hand, engaging in small talk about recent events. Then, when they mentioned his involvement in online voice acting with a few of his friends, he suddenly uttered the following sentence.

Take care of someone?

It’s not like there’s anything difficult about it.

At that time they only had five people, and the online voice acting had also just begun developing—there wasn’t even any “voice acting circle” to speak of yet and the audience was few and far between. The voice actors were even more scarce, so a new person would just perfectly add to the fun. Especially since the old man gave a very peculiar reason for it,【This child has a speech disorder, so I hope that he can slowly overcome it. And perhaps you will become friends too?】

And so, without giving it much thought, he readily agreed.

Although his mother, who was sitting nearby, had a slightly evasive and concerned look in her eyes, he didn’t delve deeper into it, getting that person’s contact information from the old man.

Online relationships have two differences from real-life ones.

First, there was no need for face-to-face meetings.

Second, there was no need to know each other’s real names.

“Grandpa intentionally kept your name and identity a secret, hoping that we could get familiar without knowing each other, that we would gradually get closer, and thus recover your relationship with other members of the Shen family in our generation.” Qiu Tianyang said in a small voice, lowering his head to look at the floor as he spoke.

The traces of water he just spilt on the floor fell right between him and Shen Yan, painting a mottled divide to keep them apart.

But the water traces are bound to dry out as the time passes, and so the divide between them would also disappear with time.

“He always thought that... You have Shens’ blood in your veins, so a day would come when you would return to us, becoming one of our family.”

Sadly, the secret got out—before a month even passed, the man’s wife got to know about this plan and came looking for his mom, full of indignation and sadness as she cried and made a scene.

“I pretended not to see for so many years that your Shen family raised him in secret, and since he didn’t make any moves, I put up with it. But now you want to openly bring this illegitimate child back to the family? You’re his sister, if you turn a blind eye to this, then what would that make of me and my daughter of the Shen family?” Abandoning his mother who didn’t know what to say and so chose to remain silent, the woman turned to grab his sleeve with tears streaming down her face, as if clutching onto a piece of driftwood, “Tianyang! Tianyang! Did you not know who you were associating with!?”

He didn’t know, it was only at that point when he finally understood. Understood who this ‘Six’, whom he introduced into their voice acting group as their sixth member, was.

And as he understood, an overwhelming fury instantly overcame his heart—

“At that time, my only thought was,” He said in a detached tone, word by word, “And that was... How to teach you, a bastard born from a mistress, a lesson so harsh that you would never pull yourself back together.”

Back in those days, whether from the perspective of traditional morality or the public opinion, everyone held a strong prejudice against third parties in a marriage, and even greater disdain for children born out of wedlock.

“They must be upset with me only giving birth to a daughter, so they chose to protect the son your uncle had with some other woman, to ensure the continuation of Shen family name and the inheritance! And what about us, your uncle’s real wife with his legitimately born child? Where is the justice in this for us?” The woman said so, her voice miserable.

Even though those were all just the reasons she imagined herself, without knowing the truth behind those events, he believed them all wholeheartedly.

—That’s right, what else should he do if not to fight for the legitimate wife, was he supposed to support that mistress?

—Isn’t that something everyone would do?

“Hah...” After he finished talking for such a long time, Qiu Tianyang’s throat got a bit hoarse from dehydration, his words getting more disjointed the longer he spoke and finally breaking off at that point. He rubbed his temples wearily, a few strands of hair falling lightly—a reflection of his current mood.

He suddenly took a deep breath, uncorking the bottle of wine standing before him and pouring himself half a glass. Then, he downed it in one go.

At that time, Shen Yan raised his eyes at him, but he only watched quietly as the wine disappeared, not saying a single word.

Qiu Tianyang finished drinking with a frown, finally putting the glass down on the table, finally uttering the words he didn’t want to say the most with the help of the alcohol.

“At that time, I was still far too full of myself, especially since entering the voice acting circle—after getting fans of my own, I got so insolent. After I decided to teach you a good lesson, on the surface I still continued saying that I would help you deal with your speech disorder, but in reality, I was only waiting for you to make a fool out of yourself.”

“But I didn’t expect you to be so serious about it. You were so diligent when voice acting with everyone and they all liked you, which in turn made me realise my own shortcomings. At that time... I was so similar to that Bronze Sparrow Terrace now. I knew that my voice was my advantage, so I jumped onto it to coast through with it in the circle, and the abundance of praises from my fans made me so arrogant that I didn’t even put my heart into the acting. So when I saw how conscientious you were during the practice and run-throughs, it just... made me want to crush you even more.”

He paused, his voice shaky. Admitting to this part of his past was so much harder than he imagined, so much more disgraceful.

Only when he said it out loud did he realise how disgusting his behaviour was at the time—

“I never gave you any chance to play a main character, every time I would only toss the most insignificant, the most undesirable roles to you, even finding some... some scripts with plots involving illegitimate children for you to play. Hearing how you kept making mistakes on those Skype calls, I would be so happy with myself behind the screen.”

At that time, he reached his hand out, wanting to pour himself the second glass.

Suddenly, Shen Yan grabbed Qiu Tianyang’s glass, not letting him touch it.

“That’s enough.” This was the second time Shen Yan said this that night, still as insipidly, but this time with more authority.

Qiu Tianyang stared blankly at Shen Yan’s hand blocking him, his gaze fluctuating and unfocusing. His attention was not on the hand itself, but revolving instead around dazedly in lights reflected on the wine glass. Even his words were somewhat scattered.

“When I found out that you were gay... I even ran happily to tell auntie about this, saying that you definitely won’t claim your sister’s right to the inheritance, because you couldn’t pass down the Shen family name.”

“I, actually didn’t have any prejudice against homosexuality, since there’s a lot of gays among voice actors... At that time, I told her that with a hope to dispel her worries, but I didn’t expect that... I didn’t think she would make this public before uncle’s family to humiliate you.”

Shen Yan moved his lips, his tone like a blank sheet of paper unstained by any emotion, “I’m just me. No matter if she said this or not, I can only be myself.”

Just as the last year of his highschool, when that woman first found out about his existence and made a scene so big in his school that everyone got to know that he was an illegitimate child—at that time, he also didn’t refute.

Because truth is truth.

Who says it, when they say it, or even to whom they do it... Nothing will change those objective facts.

“I’m the same me now as I was before. I don’t need dad to acknowledge me, I don’t need him to interfere with my life choices, I don’t need any of his property...” He looked straight at Qiu Tianyang, his breath a bit heavy from how hard he tried to control his emotions. Hoarse, he said word by word, “But there’s one thing that I will never give up on.”

Qiu Tianyang stared at him, lost.

A moment passed before he gave him a pale, unsightly smile.

“Are you talking about the apartment you grew up in?” He asked, gripping his fingers together with all of his strength. But despite doing so, he still couldn’t conceal his distress, “That apartment... The one I heard about during grandpa’s hospitalisation and almost followed with auntie’s suggestion to drive you out of?”

At that time, Shen Yan suddenly stood up, grabbing him by the collar with both hands and yanking him up from the sofa!

“That’s the only thing you can’t take away from me, the memories grandpa left me behind—”

His hands were shaking, clutching the shirt below Qiu Tianyang’s tie knot.

His voice was trembling as well. Who knows what caused it—the sadness when remembering the old man’s passing, or the despair and fury he felt when he got prevented by the Shen family people from entering the hospital room, fighting and struggling on the icy cold floor to catch the last glimpse of him. Who knows memory caused it, but suddenly tears welled up in his eyes despite his effort, rolling down his cheeks.

A/N:

I feel like after this chapter is out, Five will get a solid beating from everyone... (go ahead and beat him ← hey!)

I saw before that many of the readers in the comments thought ‘driving out’ as ‘driving out of the voice acting circle’. In reality, those fellows were mostly voice acting for fun back in the day, the only one who actually dabbled in the circle seriously was Five, even Two didn’t really go out of his way to get the roles in audio dramas (that’s why no one really knew him). What he meant by ‘driving out’ should be pretty obvious after this chapter.

...Though I think that this will only get him a worse beating...

Lastly, Five is a couple years older than Kitty’s Papa, but back then, he really wasn’t as sensible... (lights a candle). And although they’re not brothers, everyone’s assumptions were close enough!

P.S.: I wanted to specially reply to some commenters under the previous chapter who said that 2Yan was being too ‘girly’. To be honest, when I wrote that part I didn’t feel this way at all, I only thought that he showed a bit of his childish side. I don’t know what people’s understanding of ‘acting girly’ is—being innocent? Romantic? Lively? Sweet? Or maybe playing dramatic? Affected? Chuunibyou? Princess syndrome? Even if it’s any of those I mentioned here, then I feel that if it’s a couple in love having a date doing so, then there’s nothing improper about this.

And if we think about it from the point of being realistic or not, then I know a guy in real life, a big and strong fellow over 180cm, from his look to his voice you would say that he’s certainly a top, but in fact he’s a bottom. The way this guy acted before me and our friends is also quite top-like, a very responsible and with strong opinions, but once he’s with his boyfriend, he would turn to acting cute and spoiled. I reckon that seeing this you would also think him ‘girly’? But this is clearly just the way they like it within their own relationship? Wouldn’t that be too tiring if even with your lover you couldn’t relax and just act spoiled every now and then...

If we’re just speaking of the last chapter, then before that, 2Yan also said that he would help pay for Kitty’s Papa tuition and work to provide for their family. I always thought that ‘I will provide for you’ is one of the most manly things to say... But despite it being in the same chapter, why didn’t see anyone being called manly under that chapter?

All of the above is just me feeling that the 2Yan got a bit unfair treatment in the comments. You can say that I’m being oversensitive or that I don’t accept other people’s opinions, I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s opinion, I’m just voicing my thoughts, that’s all. (Speaking of which, Kitty’s Papa really doesn’t have luck for birthdays, last year on his birthday was the days of fighting after their first smut scene and the competition... _(:3」∠)_ I hope that this time everyone will just read what I have to say and forget it, don’t mind it too much).