Airing

Could it be– his artists had finally grown a conscience towards this tired, old assistant? To give him a holiday of his own free will?

Qin Mu left the trailer, as he wept tears of gratitude in his heart. But, if he only knew Luo Cheng did this only so he could get this annoying assistant off his back for the next few hours and make him too preoccupied with the idea of the upcoming holidays… don't know what kind of colorful expression he'd be showing on his face by now.

Once the sound of footsteps faded away into the distance, the person who had been obediently lying on the bed abruptly opened his eyes. His face was as inscrutable as usual, but if one looked carefully, a hint of mirth could be spotted within the pair of deep, dark eyes.

Waiting a few more minutes for good measure -in case Qin Mu returned- Luo cheng finally sighed and sat up before picking up the phone carelessly thrown aside. Before long, his finger could be seen hovering over Weibo's search interface, as his face showed an expression akin to hesitation for the first time today- hesitation?

'That little rabbit– did she really do that type of thing?'

In the end though, he still clicked on the search function before carefully typing his instruction and waited patiently for the results to arrive, his face recovering its usual blankness.

***

7th March 2032, 8.37 PM

Feng Xue stared at her laptop screen anxiously, hoping that time would pass at least a little bit quicker. Today was the first day the 'Mango' broadcasting platform would air the drama 'My forever spring'.

At first, she was quite surprised that any platform was willing to purchase the broadcasting rights for this type of low-quality drama, and this quickly too. In these few years that she worked in this industry, what hadn't she seen? For a web series having a quality of this caliber, it was not that easy to sell broadcasting rights, unless to a very new and equally low-quality platform.

But what Feng Xue found out after snooping around for a bit was that, though this Mango platform was no big name by any means, it had still broadcasted a few web series that had been received comparatively well by the audience.

So for this kind of platform to be willing to buy copyrights for this type of third-class work, were they threatened with their lives or something? However, after snooping around some more, what Feng Xue found out from the cameraman of the crew was that apparently, their crew's money father's older sister was good friends with the platform owner.

Sure enough, there is no such thing as a pie falling from the sky in real life. But, Feng Xue felt relieved. Since the platform already had a fixed fanbase of around twenty thousand or probably even more, there was no danger of the show getting only a few handfuls of viewers, or in the worst case, none at all.

'It's not increasing much, right?' She anxiously bit her nails and took a look at the time. It was already 8.56 PM. The forty-five-minute episode had been given access to at 7.30 PM and was just within the golden time slot for the television audience. It usually works well for web series as well.

Now, more than thirty minutes had passed after the first forty-five-minute airing time was over, and even so, the view count only showed as seventy-eight. This was notwithstanding the twenty or so fake views provided by the platform itself as well as the crew members who were probably watching it.

Don't tell her that this drama only got around forty or thirty-something views this whole time!?

Feng Xue anxiously picked up the glass of warm water and took a huge gulp, when a calm and unhurried voice sounded in her ears. "Big sister, stop worrying. The drama is already filmed and edited, so it won't change no matter how much you think"

Lifting her head, she was confronted with the nonchalant face of her little cousin and felt her mouth start to twitch and there seemed to be a fire stuck in her chest.

This kid– Feng Xue honestly doesn't know under what star she was born for her to be indifferent at times like this! No matter what personality trait changed after Feng Xi woke up from her coma, it looked like this annoying habit remained the same.

"I know there is no use worrying, but how can I not? This is your first acting work after months! If the audience doesn't take this well, do you know what would happen in the future? You might not be able to get roles in better work easily. It only has so few views and it's already more than an hour. What if this doesn't get at least a thousand views? I told you to promote it a bit more and look wh–"

"Waitwaitwait!!" Yang Jingshen laughed and interjected the constant barrage of words from his older cousin. How can this person be so anxious? Even her eyes had turned a little red. If someone heard this, they'd end up thinking that she wasn't an experienced agent, but a newbie in the industry!

"Listen… like you said, it's only an hour. What can really happen in an hour? Besides, this is a very low-quality drama. And the actors and actresses are not famous either. What big popularity could it possibly get? It would be a miracle if it gets 30,000 views before two weeks are up."

Feng Xue didn't say anything so Yang Jingshen continued. "I think that getting 10,000 views would be more than good enough."

"..."

"Ah– I'm just playing a villainess side character. What kind of big attention can I draw? Besides, I don't even appear in today's episode. Also, I already forwarded the drama post on Weibo and my company account…"

Yang Jingshen dragged on the last syllable, the sound coming out with just the tiniest hint of grievance. Then he surreptitiously peeked at his cousin, who had a stony look on her face and realizing the other caught him staring at her, put on the most pitiful puppy eyes that he could muster.

This was guaranteed to work. He had practiced this particularly adorable expression for hours in front of the mirror, all so he could deal with this cousin of his. After all, as he came to realize within the past few months, this seemingly gentle woman had an unpredictably ferocious temper and could blow up at unexpected moments.

Living with this type of person– it's never too much to prepare beforehand. And, the other thing he realized was that Feng Xue can't resist when her little cousin acted cute. So, in other words, all out meng(1) attack it is…

And if anybody asked Yang Jingshen if he wasn't embarrassed acting cute? After all, he always claims to be a totally straight and mature man full of male allure, so does he have any shame doing things like this? But, Yang Jingshen would be like, 'Oh? Who's embarrassed? What's shame? Can I eat it?'

Well, today too, our hero decided to use this special attack mode on his cousin and stared directly at the other with wide and pitiful-looking eyes. He even cutely pulled on the other's sleeve for added effect. But…

"What are you doing with your phone?"

Yang Jingshen gave a cursory glance at the screen before honestly replying. "It's a game."

"... A game?" Hmmmmm? Did Feng Xue's voice suddenly sound a tad bit dangerous?

"Yep yep. It's 'Bubble burst'. I found it a few days ago. It's pretty fun. Sister, do you wanna tr- Aaaaaiyooooooo!"

Yang Jingshen wailed out loud while clutching his painful head and looked up, only to see the older woman's fuming face. Didn't that acting cute tactic not work? Whyyyyyy? It worked so well before ah!

But, before he could ponder more on this matter, he got hit again, but this time on his shoulder, and unfortunately, it didn't stop at that.

"Argh! Argh! Stop hitting me stop– stoooooop!!!"

"Playing games? Aren't you carefree? Come here– Today, if I don't beat some sense into you, I won't be your older sister anymore!"

Within moments, sounds of wailing like a pig being slaughtered could be heard from the upper floor of the old house, prompting some late-night outgoers to steer clear.

It looks like some domestic abuse is going on. As good citizens, they should probably report to the police, but it sounded like a couple's trouble. Listen– that's a woman wailing, right?

They jump in the middle of this lover's quarrel and then what? Won't they be poking their noses where it doesn't belong to!?

Not good to interfere. Not good at all!

#####

Glossary:

01) Meng - In Chinese, meng can mean cute, adorable, lovely, etc. Take your pick!