Defeated By Love

Translated by Fairy_Dust

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Fang Wencheng hadn’t been living well recently.

After Xie Ruhe left to work behind the scenes and concentrate on writing, most artists would just go look for him or record companies would present themselves at his doorstep. Fang Wencheng would usually just help him deal with copyright matters. Those kinds of things, he hadn’t done for a long time.

Xie Ruhe said to “randomly find one” in a not demanding manner.

However, Fang Wencheng didn’t dare to regard it as a trivial matter. After some careful thought, he recommended a few female singers who had recently become popular too but they were all rejected by Xie Ruhe.

In the end, Xie Ruhe got annoyed and mocked him: “Well, aren’t you obedient? You call this randomly finding one?”

Fang Wencheng’s suffering was endless.

Although Fang Wencheng didn’t understand but he earnestly thought about it after Ji Xinghuai had allowed him to let Xie Ruhe meet Shu Nian more. He had never done anything similar before and it was quite a difficult task too so he did some serious planning.

Shu Nian was a voice actor.

Fang Wencheng had a general understanding of her work schedule. She would go to the studio at noon and leave the studio at midnight every day. Eating and drinking would be solved either in the studio or at home. There were almost no other leisure activities outside of work.

Her days were boring and regular.

That was something in common with Xie Ruhe’s career.

Both holed themselves up in the studios. They would spend most of their time in the recording studio.

Coming to that conclusion, Fang Wencheng was excited and felt that he could use that to create opportunities for them to meet by chance. It would seem natural instead of awkward.

However, after planning for a few days, Fang Wencheng suddenly found out that it was useless.

Since the audition, Xie Ruhe had not gone out again after returning from the recording studio in the north. Fang Wencheng couldn’t think of any reason to get him to go out either because he had a private recording studio at home.

Rehabilitation was done at home and work was also done at home. Even the occasional check-ups at the hospital were cancelled. The meaning was obvious.

He didn’t want to go out.

Fang Wencheng decided to give up and took the initiative to call Ji Xinghuai. He reported Xie Ruhe’s current state and admitted his incompetence with great shame.

Ji Xinghuai thought for a moment and asked: “How did Ah He meet Shu Nian before?”

Fang Wencheng said: “Huajing wanted to choose a voice actor for the second female lead and organised an audition. Young master wants the theme song to be sung by the voice actor of the second female lead so that’s why he went.”

Ji Xinghuai very straightforwardly answered: “Then just let Shu Nian sing the song.”

Fang Wencheng was shocked and he stumbled over what he was saying: “That is not quite suitable. Miss Shu’s voice… She doesn’t sing well.”

" "

“Isn’t this better?” Ji Xinghuai said: “Just let Ah He teach her step by step.”

Fang Wencheng strongly advised him: “Young master also thinks that Miss Shu is not suitable and she doesn’t like singing either. He doesn’t intend on choosing her.”

“This child…” Ji Xinghuai sighed. “I thought he had forgotten about that child named Shu Nian but now it seems that he had remembered her till this day. He’s not young anymore, why is he considering so many things before acting?”

“…”

“You can find a singer and if Shu Nian really won’t work out then you can swap then.” Ji Xinghuai said: “I’m already seventy years old and I’ll probably not live much longer. If he loses his temper, you can just put the blame on me.”

“Mr. Ji, Mr. Ji…”

“I still want to see…” Ji Xinghuai interrupted him and muttered. “How my grandson’s life will look once he gets better.”

…

Shu Nian had no hope for that audition. Obviously, just judging from the singing part, she could be instantly eliminated. What’s more, after she gave it a try, Xie Ruhe seemed to be completely unable to listen any further and left the recording studio.

Thinking back to the phrase “you sang pretty well”, Shu Nian could now imagine his sarcasm from then.

Her mood had become very bad because of that.

Shu Nian wanted to tell Xie Ruhe that he was not the only one who was unhappy.

Since their reunion, his attitude had been very temperamental. One moment he would be good to her and the next he’d be cold.

If getting along with her was so hard then it’d be better if they pretended to not know each other.

Shu Nian wanted to forget about that matter but she would always recall what that person in the control room looked like when they mimicked her. Their mouth opened and closed. They looked very innocent but were actually openly humiliating her.

Shu Nian felt very embarrassed.

She became like a different person. She began to listen to the song on repeat.

Originally, her room which was kept quiet like a small prison cell suddenly had very vibrant children’s songs playing at night. In addition to vocal practices, if Shu Nian had any free time she would also practice her singing skills.

She would set aside half an hour every day to practice the same song. Going over one word at a time.

After recording, she would compare it with the original soundtrack.

And just like that, a week had almost passed.

The day before, Shu Nian didn’t get home until the early hours of the morning. After washing up, it was already 2AM by the time she was laying in bed. She had never been able to sleep well and often lived with her night and day patterns mixed up. She always had to lie in bed for a long time before falling asleep.

At 10 o’clock the next morning, Shu Nian received a phone call from Li Qing.

Shu Nian was still not awake then. She was half awake and didn’t even look at the caller ID before picking up. She answered in a daze and her voice was a little hoarse: “Hello.”

“Shu Nian, it’s Li Qing.” Li Qing told her the good news: “The results of the audition came out and you passed. Remember to arrange your schedule to fit the recording sessions. It begins on the 20th of January.”

“…” Shu Nian thought she had heard it wrong. “Ah?”

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