Chapter 63

You’re not showing me the sunrise, you’re trying to harvest my kidneys.

“Hello everyone, I’m Gu Yi. It’s been a long time since I got into Ounce’s open mic. It’s so hard to get in, competing with all you people who have the privilege of being Ounce regulars. But recently, I have a stronger title that none of you probably have: I’m now the first person in China banned from global performances.”

“Two months ago, due to my desire for quick success, I signed with a stand-up comedy company. So now I have an agency, and I’m a proper artist. But after signing the contract and getting the so-called prestigious status, I realized that being an artist means you personally lay out the floor paper, design the brochures, and do the promotional materials. The floors at the performance venues are laid by me and other actors, and my boss saw the brochure and said it was prettier than the magazine pages I’ve done—how do they say it? Skilled people are daring. Anyway, besides jokes, my other skills have soared, and now I’m an artist with calloused hands.”

“Let me get back on track. The global performance ban happened because I was in the middle of a contract termination dispute. They promised me they’d make me a leading female figure in Chinese stand-up, and we practiced our jokes in a setting where there were less than five audience members. Every time we performed, we sat in a circle around the audience, afraid they’d run away. We were so enthusiastic that we’d even buy perfume samples and hand cream out of our own pockets, hoping to attract some younger people, but more often than not, we ended up with middle-aged women. Later, the company finally arranged a commercial performance for us—52 actors in the group, competing for one spot at a restaurant in Qibao. Can you imagine that? Even in such a small agency, they’ve adopted a ‘wolf culture.’ Some actors fought over this spot, and in the end, only three got to go. Each of them made 66 yuan.”

“What finally made me decide to terminate my contract? I got a commercial gig at a western restaurant in Jing’an Temple, the performance fee was 300 yuan. I decided to keep that money for myself. But the company didn’t agree, threatening to ban me from performing globally. I was puzzled for a moment—did I miss a ‘million’ when we talked? Why are they making such a big fuss over a few hundred yuan? This is Shanghai, an international modern metropolis! Then I received the global performance ban letter, and it hit me that I was still in Shanghai. As a small-time actor, I couldn’t even find a spot two meters under the entertainment industry’s pyramid, yet I received a global performance ban. International superstars don’t even get this kind of treatment! I suddenly felt like I was more important than Taylor Swift.”

“This morning, I was still in arbitration, and the other party refused to terminate the contract. They were shocked because my boss said: ‘Is this really one of our company’s artists?’ The speech about becoming the leading figure in the industry wasn’t just said to me. When I questioned the lack of commercial performances, they thought having one a month was reasonable. They also wanted to introduce their own opportunities to the platform and take a cut. After all, they’re entertainment agents, managing resources for the actors. My only request was termination, because the trust was gone. But they said: ‘No, Gu Yi, we still trust you.’ Yeah, where else could you find a stand-up comedian who will make posters, lay down floor paper, and even give out free gifts to clients? You guys not only trust me, you want me to be your father.”

“Stand-up comedy is precious, at least it’s our corner of the soul. Although most of the time we hate ourselves and our own material, I’m really telling you from the heart—be careful when signing contracts, or you’ll end up like me, stuck in a ‘divorce’ I can’t escape, tormented by a deadbeat company.”

The crowd went wild. Gu Yi thought, even during a breakup, she had never received such loud applause. Full house applause is definitely something you earn through hardships. While returning the microphone, an audience member suddenly shouted: “Why does a woman have to stand up and talk about lawsuits?” Gu Yi immediately recognized the typical male chauvinist tone, the same kind of person Liang Daiwen had encountered before and almost got hit with a bottle. This time, she wasn’t going to let it slide: “Just so I don’t have to deal with idiots like you who try to lecture me from above.”

It was full of offense, but everyone laughed. Stand-up comedy had ultimately become a hit, but there was no need to follow the audience; expressing oneself was the true way to go, and to hell with misunderstanding. She suddenly had an epiphany. She couldn’t continue living meekly, and she couldn’t always cry. There were always things in this world that could easily hurt people, but the best armor to protect oneself was to become stronger. As she walked off the stage, someone approached her: “Miss Gu, hello, I’m...”

Gu Yi was no longer fooled: “No signing, no talking, no cooperation.”

She said that and walked off with a charismatic exit.

She was in a hurry to leave because there was something important waiting for her—Liang Daiwen had taken the initiative to say he would take her to watch the sunrise, and apparently, he had borrowed a sports car. Arbitration in the morning, work in the afternoon, an open-mic talk in the evening—what a full day. In a small town, she could stretch it into a month; yet, Liang Daiwen was more eager than she was, sending urgent requests, ten times more invested than she had been back in the day. When the message came, it was for a white car with the license plate number 3298. She almost lost her footing when she rushed downstairs, excited at the thought that one day her boyfriend would take her for a joyride in a white sports car—how impressive. She lifted her chin and tossed her hair, ready to see Liang Daiwen waiting by the road with flowers and a sports car. But when she got to the street, there was no car in sight.

Her phone rang: “Meet on Julu Road, no parking on Xiangyang North Road.”

“...Huh?”

“I’ve been circling around here for a few minutes. I’ll be there in two minutes. Wait by the road, get in the car and let’s go.”

“Why don’t you just leave the door open so I can hop in directly?”

“I did think about it—my driving skills aren’t that great.”

Gu Yi looked at the white Jetta approaching. Sure enough, the car was crooked and swerving—she couldn’t tell if it was the car falling apart or if it was poor driving skills. She was stunned by the dilapidated car interior. As expected, the car was at least twenty years old. She asked Liang Daiwen, “Didn’t you borrow a sports car?”

“No, it’s an old car—guess I added an extra ‘a.’“

“Huh?”

“Yeah, a 2000 Jetta. It’s a friend’s collection, and it’s been restored. He doesn’t lend it out easily.”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“To give you material. Originally, I asked my friend if I could borrow his BMW, but then I thought, with your constitution, sweet romantic life and steady happiness will backfire, and the next moment you’ll be in trouble, so why let you be comfortable?”

“Liang Daiwen, are you human?”

The expressionless man smirked. “You’re welcome. It’s what I should do. Once you break the contract, with a boyfriend like me, you won’t have any more material for your routines—buckle up.”

He shifted gears and stepped hard on the gas. The car roared twice and jerked, but the speed barely changed. Nearby, a BMW, a Mercedes, and a BYD passed easily, leaving Gu Yi staring at their car’s rear end. She thought to herself, what sin have I committed to end up with a man like this?

With no Bluetooth, the only sound in the car was the roar of the engine. The car traveled at 60 mph toward the suburbs. Gu Yi rummaged through her bag and pulled out a small speaker. “Life is truly full of foreshadowing. JBL sent me this the other day. I was planning to take it home, but now I might as well use it here.”

She played some R&B. Strangely, with the music on, the view outside the car window was the same. She didn’t care about the car anymore, especially since the interior was particularly clean and the gasoline smell wasn’t as strong. The car smoothly passed over a bridge. Gu Yi said, “A while ago, I rode an electric bike over the Nanpu Bridge.”

“Hmm?”

“I was a bit lost after a breakup, so I just followed the road and ended up on Lujiahbang Road. After a few laps, the traffic police stopped me, and I ended up in a police car.”

Liang Daiwen reached out and pinched Gu Yi’s face. “Sorry for making you go through such suffering.”

“It’s fine. As long as you’re here with me… I’ve always felt like I’m wet laundry hanging on a clothesline, not knowing when I’ll dry or when I’ll be taken down, swaying in the night wind. But now, I’ve landed, and actually, it doesn’t feel like anything.”

“I’m not good enough.”

“A while ago, you were too enthusiastic, and it felt like you came back from America, but now it’s not what I expected.” Gu Yi smiled, “If you had been more restrained when you came back, and distant, I would have thought you were the same person.”

“Then I would never have been able to catch you. At that time, I was on antidepressants, and I felt so much more. I often woke up in the middle of the night with a dry mouth. If I hadn’t caught you, I felt like I’d go crazy. But I really… am not a patient. It’s just part of my personality.”

“Okay.” Gu Yi got goosebumps from the cheesy remarks. At that moment, the old car felt like the happiest car in the world. She had initially felt a bit warm, but when she saw the air conditioning blowing out white cold air, her nostrils flared as wide as her eyes: “What kind of car is this you borrowed? The air conditioning is broken!”

“It seems a bit cold.”

“A bit cold? This is practically frost on the first gear, frostbite on the second, and the Northern Lights on the third. Liang Daiwen, you’re not taking me to watch the sunrise, you’re trying to harvest my organs!”

“You’re crazy...”

“See! You swore again! I knew it. When I first met you, you didn’t even react when the football hit the wire fence. Turns out you’re a ruthless, cold-blooded machine. Now your true nature is revealed—you’re planning to take me to the suburbs to dismember me. All your preparations were for something big. No wonder you asked how much my head weighs!”

“With your intelligence, I should pay you,” Liang Daiwen, shedding his enthusiastic youth, finally showed his true colors—serious and unwilling to let anyone tease him into laughing.

They finally arrived at the forest park. Liang Daiwen parked the car, took out a bag from the trunk, and began setting up a tent without needing Gu Yi’s help.

“I can help, I’m not doing anything anyway.”

“Your help would double the time.”

“Why are you looking down on me?” Gu Yi grabbed a corner of the tent and joined Liang Daiwen in setting it up. She went east as he went west; she lifted her hand as he squatted down. Their coordination was so bad that they twisted the tent fabric into a knot. After being kicked out of the activity area by Liang Daiwen, Gu Yi couldn’t understand why he would come up with such a weird date idea. If his brain wasn’t malfunctioning, he must have been planning to gather material for her future stand-up routines. Looking at the 10 pegs and support poles on the ground, Gu Yi said, “Liang Daiwen, this isn’t a tent, it’s a yurt!”

“The wind by the sea is strong, it’s definitely going to blow away.” Liang Daiwen was also wearing gloves: “A simple tent connected directly to the person and it will be taken by the sea.”

The arbitration process was too complicated, and it had already been a late night after driving three hours. Gu Yi couldn’t keep her eyes open. She was about to fall asleep in the car when Liang Daiwen knocked on the window, signaling her to come out and look at the finished product. Under the night sky, inside the white tent, there was a small mattress and two thick blankets, a colorful crocheted rug beside them, and a wooden folding chair. A large diamond-shaped canopy was stretched outside the tent, with wind ropes wrapped with fairy lights that blinked on and off. Next to the picnic blanket was a portable Marshall speaker... It looked a bit dreamy. Gu Yi’s heart was pounding; a man with such good taste thought of details far beyond what she had imagined.

“I also wanted to take you to a hotel, but as long as it’s a four-star or above, I can’t stop myself from checking out the hotel’s accessibility features. And when I take you out, I have to think of something fun,” Liang Daiwen said, placing his hand on top of Gu Yi’s head. “Don’t get so moved that you start crying.”

Gu Yi said, “I am really touched, but really—every time you don’t give me a chance to prepare. If I had known it would be this romantic, I would have at least brought a matching set of underwear, a lace nightgown, and some perfume. But now I’ve only got a T-shirt and pajama pants.”

“It’s fine, I’m used to it.” Liang Daiwen responded, as if it were expected: “Anyway, you look best when you’re naked.”

After saying this, he quickly ran off. After rummaging through the back of the car for a while, he grabbed a bottle of wine, sat under the canopy, and called Gu Yi over to sit with him. They talked about contracts and arbitration, and Gu Yi was still upset: “For this performance, I had the antelope record a video for me, and I want to pin it on Weibo. The arbitration process is really slow, and they said the contract termination would be processed within thirty working days, but they’ll definitely drag it out to the last day.”

“Just find more opportunities for open mics, isn’t practicing a routine most comfortable at an open mic?”

“Yeah. I also drew a comic and posted it on ‘Bypass.’ This time after finishing the comic, my public account is definitely going to be exposed. I even drew the contract issue from when we were at the Bulgari Hotel, and Jacqueline asked me if I was the one who drew it. Whatever, let it be exposed; it’s been so long since the matter happened.”

Liang Daiwen was the perfect listener, only drinking quietly during serious discussions. The topic inevitably shifted to their separation. Gu Yi tentatively asked, “How’s your dad… doing?”

“He’s doing fine. They caught it early, and when he got to the hospital, they immediately performed surgery. By the time I landed in Dalian, he was out of danger, but I didn’t have a chance to tell you. After my mom passed away, he didn’t remarry, but after I was abroad for the third year, he called me. He was seeing a woman around his age, who came from a small town and ran a language school for teenagers studying abroad. Her son went to the same school I did in Dalian, then moved to Canada. They got married five years ago, and they were still doing IVF to try for a daughter. But when my dad had this stroke, they gave up on it. My dad isn’t very talkative, but after coming back from the brink of death, he said a lot of things to me. The woman went home to get her clothes for the night, and he told me… he missed my mom. People are really strange creatures.”

Gu Yi just quietly looked at him. Liang Daiwen’s fingers were clean and slender, holding the wine glass as he asked her, “What about you, do you have any unfulfilled wishes?”

“Actually, I don’t have any big ambitions. I stay in Shanghai because I can’t go home. I do stand-up comedy for the fun of it. The reason I worked hard on ‘One Week’ was purely because I couldn’t stand Pony, and I always wanted Jacqueline to appreciate me... I never knew when she started recognizing me.”

“You have a lot of good qualities. You’re not a workaholic, and you’re not overly cautious, but your ideas are indeed novel, and your actions are very strong. You always say you’re someone who chases stars, but you don’t realize that you shine as well.”

“Really…?”

“The first time I saw you, the curtain was blown open by the wind. The hollow part of the bookshelf just happened to reveal your face. You were talking to someone, and your eyes were shining from the backstage lights. At that moment, I had just heard the ad for ounce, ‘one ounce in your body, controlling all emotions.’ I didn’t feel much back then, but I was still moved by that instant.”

Gu Yi looked at him intently, and Liang Daiwen suddenly got shy. “Let’s not talk about it.”

“Hey, Liang Daiwen, what’s going on? You were chasing me so hard before, and now you just shy away like this?”

Liang Daiwen pointed to the distance. “It’s past one o’clock. Let’s go shower and sleep.”

The camping park’s facilities were more convenient than expected. The May night was a little chilly, and the two of them snuggled into the blankets. Gu Yi sneezed, and Liang Daiwen pressed his hand to her forehead, checking for warmth. Gu Yi gazed at him, and he suddenly shyly turned over. Gu Yi found it genuinely strange—just a while ago, he had been so passionate, and now it felt like they were back to square one.

But... so cute. I want to tease him.

A loud noise came from the distance, and Gu Yi immediately cuddled up to Liang Daiwen, pressing her back against him in fear. “Is it thunder? Hug me, I’m scared! I’m scared…”

Liang Daiwen gently wrapped his hand around her back and spoke in a low, seductive voice, “Stop pretending.”