20. Fight

Qi Le An had felt Mr. Li’s attitude towards him had changed after they were back in Hai City. Mr. Li was neither friendly nor aloof towards Qi Le An, everything just felt lukewarm. But Mr. Li had attached great importance to Yan Lang, he didn’t mention a word about Yan Lang’s imperfections in the performance to the other trainees, he told everyone that Yan Lang had been working hard and has set a good example for them.

People in show business were the most snobbish bunch, so were the young trainees. They all had sensed Qi Le An had been out of favor with Mr. Li, so they had ganged up and bullied Qi Le An in a flagrant way for they were all jealous of Qi Le An for shooting To Perish Demons.

Little things like ruining his outfits or knocking his desk over, it was a shame that Qi Le An couldn’t teach them a lesson using the system because he had no idea who did that. To make is worse, Mr. Li chose to turn a blind eye to that, leaving those rascals more unscrupulous.

Qi Le An thought about using the system to remind Mr. Li, but he gave up the idea because he didn’t want to indulge himself with negative energies.

Half a month had passed, the crew of To Perish Demons hit promotion tours. Qi Le An paid close attention to the show in his last life, he had even studied why the show became such a hit, it had everything to do with the promotion.

Back in 2011, there were no restrictions about the maximum number of TV stations that could cooperate with a drama, so it seemed like every channel on TV started to promote the drama and play trailers overnight.

Meanwhile, the crew had travelled over thirty cities in a road show tour to communicate with the fans, that was the first time that a TV drama had adopt road show promotion in China. There were numerous posts about the show online as well, the crew surely had created enough marketing buzz.

To Qi Le An’s surprise, he was informed that he needed to travel to 25 cities to promote the show. Stupefied, he pointed at the schedule sheet and asked Mr. Li, “Is there some miscommunication? How come I need to travel to so many cities, I’m just an unknown trainee.”

Mr. Li smiled, “This is a good opportunity for you, our company worked hard to get you to travel to so many cities, don’t let us down.”

25 cities within 20 days. Qi Le An frowned and clenched his fists, that was no healthy promotions means, that was exploiting.

But there was nothing Qi Le An could do, like Mr. Li said, that was an opportunity for him. Qi Le An told himself that he would overcome the formidable obstacles and shine.

With that in mind, Qi Le An started packing. The crew would kick off the tour in Hai City the day after by holding a press conference, Hu Bin, Lin Xue and other actors would travel to different cities for the road show tour, poor Qi Le An needed to travel to the most cities.

Mr. Li asked Qi Le An to come meet him after he was done packing, Mr. Li smiled, “An, have you taken a good look at the schedule sheet?”

“Yes, Mr. Li.”

Mr. Li nodded, “How do you think of it? Can you do it?”

‘What is that supposed to mean? You want to reschedule it and take a few cities out of the sheet?’ thought Qi Le An.

“It’s a lot, right? The management cares for your health, you don’t need to attend the press conference tomorrow, just start your tour the day after tomorrow.”

Qi Le An stood transfixed, obviously the press conference was the most featured promotion means, the whole crew would show up and do interviews, including Wei Chang Feng. Qi Le An found it absurd that Mr. Li was asking him not to attend it.

“The management decides to let Yan Lang attend it for you, it’s the result of great deliberation. An, I need to tell you, there are certain things in the world that you have to just accept.”

Yan Lang! It was Yan Lang again!

“Here is the thing, Yan Lang’s family has just funded a new dormitory building for Glory, I hope you can understand it, An, don’t get upset, you are a talented star.”

Qi Le An couldn’t think straight, he was simmering with anger.

‘Why! Yan Lang, why can’t you just let me go! All right, I can’t attend the press conference, but I won’t just hand it over without teaching you a lesson!’ thought Qi Le An.

Qi Le An smiled at Yan Lang who was looking at him like a proud rooster, he smiled at Yan Lang despite himself.

Yan Lang was quite astonished, he asked watchfully, “What do you want!”

“Can I see you outside for a second?”

The other trainees all looked at them like spectators who were waiting for a show, Yan Lang didn’t want to appear as a coward, he rose to his feet and said, “Sure, I ain’t afraid of you!”

The spectators gazed speechless at each other, they dared not to follow Yan Lang and Qi Le An.

Qi Le An took Yan Lang to the hallway, Yan Lang looked around and asked, “What do you want?”

Qi Le An turned around and said provokingly, “I want a fight.”

Yan Lang looked at Qi Le An with disgust, “You lunatic!”

“Coward.” Qi Le An gnashed his teeth.

“What did you say?” Yan Lang glared at Qi Le An.

Qi Le An’s strategy worked. He glared back and kept walking, Yan Lang followed him promptly.

Any fight was prohibited in Glory, the violator would be expelled. The trainees would usually play it dirty and fight in the stairwell where there were blind spots.

Yan Lang was offended by Qi Le An’s language, he followed Qi Le An all the way to the stairwell. Qi Le An shot out his right arm and threw a punch at Yan Lang as soon as they entered a blind spot, Yan Lang was caught off guard by that fast punch. Then Qi Le An landed one more punch at Yan Lang’s belly, Yan Lang grimaced and crouched. Qi Le An was not done, he follow up a victory with hot pursuit by adding a few kicks.

Qi Le An was a decent fighter thanks to the the action choreographers that he had worked with in both lives.

Yan Lang was not a push-over, he started to fight back soon. He landed a punch on Qi Le An’s chest, and Qi Le An almost lost his balance for Yan Lang was much stronger than him. But Qi Le An dodged Yan Lang’s following attacks, then he had successfully attacked Yan Lang’s forehead and grabbed a lock of Yan Lang’s hair.

With that Qi Le An took a few steps back and put the hair into his pocket, then he coughed and cried for help in a playful tone. The security rushed in, “You two! What’s going on!”

“We are just fooling around.” Qi Le An smiled.

Qi Le An had been clever about those punches, there were no bruises on Yan Lang’s face, plus the CCTV didn’t catch them fighting, so Yan Lang had also forced a smile, “Haha, we are just roommates, we were just playing around.”

The security guy looked at them and said, “Go back to your dorm now, it’s lunch break time, no more fooling around!”

Qi Le An walked out of the stairwell, “Look at you, Yan Lang, this is all your fault, I said let’s practise after we get back to the dorm, but you wouldn’t listen to me! The security guard almost has misunderstood us!”

Yan Lang glared at Qi Le An, but he couldn’t talk back in the security guy’s presence.

Yan Lang didn’t follow Qi Le An to the dorm, it looked like he was still living somewhere else. Qi Le An rubbed his chest in pain, but he knew Yan Lang now must be in greater pain, plus he had got Yan Lang’s hair! Qi Le An curled his lips on thinking about that.

Yan Lang didn’t show up after the lunch break. Qi Le An was delighted to see Yan Lang’s empty seat, ‘Yan Lang, you think that’s painful, wait till tonight!’

Mr. Li didn’t say anything about this fight as Qi Le An had expected, Mr. Li had even told Qi Le An to rest well for the following road show when the class was over.

Qi Le An rushed back to the dorm at night, he put Yan Lang’s hair under his pillow, waiting to fall asleep and enter the system.

Qi Le An was glad that the system hadn’t gone all Frankenstein on him, because the system once told him that the host would suffer if the host chose to not use the system for a long time.

“Welcome to the Nightmare System.”

Qi Le An beamed with smiles as he heard that.

“Please noted that the system will upgrade after this dream.”

Qi Le An was surprised to hear that, he wondered what kind of upgrade could it be.

“Please noted, the host will be able to fabricate dreams with different kinds of emotions.”

‘Ah, it looks like I’ve been feeding the system with enough negative energies, but will it hurt me to upgrade it?’ thought Qi Le An.

“Host cannot use the system while the system upgrade is in progress. And please stay in sleep state while the system upgrade is in progress.”

“If the host is awake, the upgrade will double the energy consumption.”

‘What energy of mine? How long does take to upgrade the system?’ Qi Le An wondered.

But the system didn’t make any explanation.

Confused, Qi Le An fell asleep and started to fabricate dreams for Yan Lang.