Chapter 45

I have the real person that I can hug, the only one in the entire world.

Pei Ying’s interactions with Ni Bai on Weibo comforted Ni Bai’s fans. At first, they’d been a bit disgruntled about her failing the audition, but seeing how gracious Ni Bai was, those fans couldn’t say anything more. And since Pei Ying’s attitude was very modest, Ni Bai’s fans looked at her in a positive light.

After seeing Pei Ying and Ni Bai’s exchange on Weibo, Li Sisi also sent her a congratulatory message. Pei Ying didn’t know if it was because she didn’t want everyone to think she was petty or for some other reason, but in any case, since she sent her congratulations, Pei Ying also responded with thanks.

For the next few days, Universe continued to release casting news for The Performer, posting news about one role each day. Some would call their actions a bit excessive, even. Since the film spent so much effort in procuring its main leads, they’d also have done a good job with the supporting roles. Of the cast reported so far, all were popular actors with a lot of fans, Yu Kaize among them.

As Universe’s prince, it was a surprise to no one that he would be in this film. Although his acting skills weren’t anything spectacular, at the least, he was very popular, with more than 20 million fans on Weibo.

In The Performer, he would be playing the role of a junior officer to the main character, Wu Yang. His role would be… to search out Wu Yang when he ran into difficulties.

During this period of time, The Performer could be said to be building momentum. The original author’s popularity, coupled with the spectacular cast, had fans eager for the movie’s release. Of course, there was no shortage of people bad-mouthing the film—but that’s existed ever since Xing Xin sold the rights for a movie.

Regardless of the storm elsewhere, Pei Ying stayed in at home to study her script.

Filming for the movie would start at the end of the month. Because she was the female lead, she had a lot of scenes. And a lot of them were with Mo Zhen as well, so she really had to prepare amply for it.

When Song Nanchuan returned home, Pei Ying was still sitting at the window, reading her script. Her posture looked nearly the same as when he’d left.

He took off his suit jacket and walked over to her. “Still reading the script? Were you reading it all day?”

Pei Ying was a bit startled, seemingly just realizing that someone had walked up to her. She turned to look at Song Nanchuan. After blinking her eyes slowly, “Oh, Teacher Xing Xin wrote the screenplay too. And even though I’ve read the original novel several times, the screenplay feels completely different. It’s so exciting to read.”

No wonder Teacher Xing Xin was Teacher Xing Xin. She had a feeling that when the movie hit theaters, all those people saying that the film would ruin the original novel would end up slapping themselves on the face.

Song Nanchuan pulled the script from her hands and saw that there were tons of annotations written on it. He pulled Pei Ying up from the sofa. “Don’t just sit still all day. You should move around and exercise a bit.”

Pei Ying pursed her lips. “You sit all day long in your office. Isn’t that the same?”

Song Nanchuan chuckled and nodded. “You’re right. It seems both of our exercising activities are severely lacking. I guess we can only make it up at night.”

Pei Ying, “….”

Don’t think that she’s so foolish that she doesn’t understand what exercising at night means.

She took back the script from Song Nanchuan. As she flipped through it, she asked him, “By the way, you studied abroad for college, right?”

“Mmh. What about it?”

“Then your English must be really good!” Pei Ying flipped through the script until she found a certain page. “There’s one scene where I need to speak English. And you know, my English is terrible. The director won’t let me pass when the time comes.”

Song Nanchuan’s curved up slightly. He took back the script and said, “Let me see.”

The scene was a conversation between Zhao Yue and an international reporter. There were only five lines, and while they weren’t terribly difficult, a few words were hard to pronounce. What made him smile though, was that written next to the words were the English pronunciations in red print. Pei Ying had probably looked the words up.

He couldn’t help patting Pei Ying’s head. He looked at her with a smile. “You’re so cute.”

“……” Pei Ying’s entire face turned red. She knew that to someone fluent in English, this type of pronunciation guide was akin to someone using pinyin, like a student. “What’s so funny?! Don’t laugh!”

Song Nanchuan’s smile grew larger. “I’m not laughing at you. I just think you’re studying hard.”

Pei Ying, “….”

Wasn’t he clearly making fun of her?!

“Go away! I don’t need your help!” Pei Ying put away her script and glared furiously at Song Nanchuan. He tried to get back on her good side by making an ‘I’m sorry’ gesture. Then he started to explain the pronunciation. “Actually, you just have to pay attention to a few things, and then your English will sound good. You should use the back of your mouth to produce the sound, instead of relying on your tongue and lips like with Chinese.”

“The back of your mouth?” Pei Ying tried to make an ‘ah’ sound. “Doesn’t seem very different.”

“Of course there’s a difference. It’s like with singing. A regular person and an opera singer sing differently, don’t they?”

“…I guess that makes sense.”

Song Nanchuan’s brows raised up proudly. “As long as you practice a lot, you’ll be able to master this. Vowel pronunciation is really important too. Long vowels have to be full, and short vowels have to be read quickly and a bit forcefully. You can usually skim over the letters T, D, K, G, and P when you read them.”

“Oh…” Pei Ying looked at him, seeming to understand but not quite understand what he’d said.

Song Nanchuan laughed and took the script from her. He read each line out loud for Pei Ying to hear. When he finished, she found herself clapping. “Chuan Chuan, your English sounds so nice. It sounds much better than our English teacher’s used to.”

Song Nanchuan gladly accepted her praise. He cleared his throat and said, “How about this. I’ll read one line, and then you repeat after me. Remember what I just told you. Speak from the back of your mouth.”

“Okay.”

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The two of them spoke one line at a time, and without realizing it, they’d gone over the lines four or five times. When Pei Ying tried to recite the lines on her own, she could tell that she’d already gotten a bit better. She excitedly looked at Song Nanchuan, “Chuan Chuan, you’re amazing! If you were my English teacher back then, I definitely would have passed the flight attendant test!”

Song Nanchuan considered the idea. Then he asked her, “Did your school have rules against teachers and students dating?”

“…Mmh.”

“Then it’s a good thing that I wasn’t your English teacher.”

Pei Ying, “….”

She really wanted to wave goodbye to him.

“Alright, let’s stop the practice here. The food I ordered will be here soon. Let’s wash our hands and get ready to eat.”

“Okay.” Pei Ying finally put down her script and happily went to wash her hands.

The food was delivered in a timely manner. And as before, Song Nanchuan took the food and plated it onto the table himself. Then he called Pei Ying over to eat. As Pei Ying ate her sweet and sour pork ribs, she suddenly turned to Song Nanchuan. “Chuan Chuan, why don’t I cook dinner tomorrow? Ordering out all the time isn’t a good habit.”

Song Nanchuan was serving the soup. He glanced over to her, “Why? You don’t like the food?” Although he ordered different things every day, if Pei Ying was tired of the food, he could change restaurants.

Pei Ying responded, “That’s not it. I just think it’s more convenient to cook ourselves. Like sweet and sour pork ribs, I can make that too.” Although it might not be as tasty as this. Pei Ying swallowed that last bit. Then she continued, “And didn’t you say that I don’t exercise enough? Well, fortunately, cooking requires some exercising and movement.”

These days, she was just going over the movie script, and she had time while she was waiting for filming to start. But even if she wanted to cook, there wasn’t a chance.

Song Nanchuan responded, “If you want to cook, then you can cook. I won’t order anything tomorrow. I hope that there will be food to eat when I get back.”

“…There will definitely be food, but I hope you’ll be able to eat it.”

Song Nanchuan smiled and said, “Don’t worry. As long as you made it, even if tears are flowing down my face, I’ll finish eating it.”

Pei Ying, “….”

Eat it or don’t, hmph!

She wrinkled her nose, and then she turned on the TV in the living room. She wasn’t waiting for a TV program, just the commercials.

Song Nanchuan glanced over to the screen and asked, “What are you doing?”

Pei Ying said, “I had a commercial for black pepper steak rice before. They start broadcasting it today! Today’s the first day that the meal is available in stores too! And I have lifetime rights to black pepper steak rice. I’ll treat you next time.”

Song Nanchuan smothered another smile. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Just as Pei Ying spoke, her commercial started showing on the TV. “Ah, ah, ah, it’s this one!”

Song Nanchuan put down his chopsticks and focused on the commercial until it ended.

“It was filmed well. You look more delicious than the black pepper steak rice.”

Pei Ying, “….”

“If you eat it now, you get an autographed photo too?”

“Mmh, it’s the character poster for Zhao Yue. But there aren’t a lot of them, so you have to be lucky.”

When Song Nanchuan heard this, he looked at her with a smile. “That means that my luck must be the best then. Because I have the real person that I can hug, the only one in the entire world.”

“….” That’s right. You must have saved the universe in your past life!

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After Pei Ying finished eating, she played around with the cats a bit. Then she grabbed Song Nanchuan’s tablet. Since it was the first day that the commercial was broadcast, her fans came to leave their impressions.

“Pei Pei, you’re eating meat again! (hngh!)”

“I thought I wouldn’t have to watch my Pei eating meat again after Season of Love finished airing. I must be too young and naive (bye)”

“Pei Pei, I ate some today too! It was pretty good (glutton), but I didn’t get a signed photo (sad)”

“Did Pei Pei eat some meat today yet? Yes. Did Pei Pei get fatter today yet? Yep. (smile)”

“Seeing my Pei eat so happily, I’m a bit hungry (tears)”

“You’re actually a spokesperson for meat. The advertisers really understand you (laughing to tears)”

After Song Nanchuan finished his shower, she was still reading through the comments with interest. He walked over and took away the tablet, and told her to take a shower. “Go shower. Then you can play some more.”

“Oh…” Pei Ying responded. Then she pulled out her phone and handed it to him. “Chuan Chuan, I just thought about it. Record those lines on my phone, and then I’ll be able to listen to it whenever I want.”

“Mmh.” Song Nanchuan accepted her phone and said, “I’ll record it. You, go and shower.”

“….” He was seriously obsessed with showering!

Pei Ying obediently went to shower, but when she came out from the bathroom, she didn’t see Song Nanchuan. She ran over to the study, and there he was, on the phone. When he saw Pei Ying pop her head inside, he gave her a nod as he continued listening to Xiao Zhang’s report.

Seeing him busy with work matters, Pei Ying didn’t want to disrupt, so she quietly retreated. Her phone was sitting on the headboard of the bed. She opened up her voice memos to check whether or not Song Nanchuan had recorded the lines.

“Ah, this one.” Pei Ying opened the new audio file. Song Nanchaun’s English flowed out elegantly and pleasantly.

Pei Ying followed along on her script, and then she realized that he’d recorded an extra line that wasn’t in the script.

“I love you, my angel.” (t/n: This line is originally in English.)