Mr. Zhou Doesn’t Want to Work Hard Anymore!

This year, Zhou Chenxi is twenty-three years old. He believed that he was not that old enough to talk about marriage like Zhou Mingxuan put it. However, Zhou Mingxuan was different since he was the eldest son of the Zhou family, so he should get married first before him!

But it seems that both in his previous life and in this life’s time, Zhou Mingxuan has always been unimpressed by beauty. It was rare to see a person of the opposite sex close to him,even for a little. Not even his secretary, the two of them were all strictly business-like, without any unnecessary superfluous words.

Two days later Zhou’s parents returned, but they didn’t plan to stay long, as it was said that they had booked a flight to another island country.

Mother Zhou’s attitude towards Zhou Chenxi was not good, but it wasn’t that bad either. At least on the surface she spoke in a colder tone, but she didn’t really pick up a broom and kick him out of the house.

Zhou Chenxi had been like this in his previous life, thinking that just because his parents had told him not to come back, they really didn’t want him to come back, which led him to never come home.

After two days of looking at photos at home, Zhou Chenxi felt like he was getting face blindness disease (prosopagnosia). Although all the young ladies were pretty, they all had the same nose and two eyes. If he had to pick a favourite, he really couldn’t.

[Prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, means you cannot recognise people’s faces.]

It’s not like Donald Duck or SpongeBob SquarePants,so how could he fall in love at the first sight just from merely one photo?

Fortunately, he was saved by a phone call from Zhi Qi. He told him that the cast of《The Journey Record to Immortality》has been tentatively decided. The cast and the production team had arranged for him to try out for the makeup in the next two days.

[In case, if you confused, The previous translation used《The Journey to Fairyland》but I thought 《The Journey Record to Immortality》/《仙游记》= Xian Youji is more suitable]

In the next three days, Zhou Chenxi will be off to another location to shoot《红鲤鱼与绿鲤鱼》’Red Carp and Green Carp’. Since he might not have time, his make-up trial has been brought forward.

Zhou Chenxi quietly breathed a sigh of relief, so that he would have an excuse not to go on a matchmaking.

After all, his brother had agreed that he could continue to work in the entertainment circle (showbiz), so it was unlikely that he would go back on his own word.

At home, Zhou Chenxi looked through the relevant public websites and wei bo, he found out that the choice of person who was rumored to be the “Xian Liu Jun” was indeed Gong Rui. However, there were also rumors that Luo Xinghe had also taken the opportunity to contact Director Qin privately, saying that he was willing to drop some of his schedules to play the role of “Xian Liu Jun”.

[For your information: the previous translation for Xian Liu Jun is ‘Immortal Monarch Liu’]

At first, Director Qin did intend to cast Luo Xinghe in the role of “Xian Liu Jun”. However, since he had decided to cast Gong Rui and their contracts had almost been negotiated, Qin Chuan naturally would not consider changing his choice.

After all, Gong Rui had already passed a few auditions. In the beginning, Qin Chuan only sought out Luo Xinghe because he thought he looked more in line with his idea of “Xian Liu Jun”. But now he had a suitable candidate so there was no point in wasting time trying out for someone else.

After reading the gossip, Zhou Chenxi contacted Zhi Qi again to make sure that Gong Rui was the right person for the role of “Xian Liu Jun”. Only then, Zhou Chenxi went together with Zhi Qi to the location arranged by the cast and crew for the make-up trial with ease in mind.

The company still hasn’t given Zhou Chenxi an assistant yet. However, after the announcement of the guest of honour for ‘Red Carp and Green Carp’, Zhou Chenxi’s popularity index rose a bit, specifically in the number of people asking “Who is Zhou Chenxi?” on the internet. Therefore,when Zhi Qi looked at his Wei bo main account, he found out that he had gained a few real fans.

This is the tendency to be better, Zhi Qi pondered over it, when the cast of ‘The Journey Record to Immortality’ is officially announced, he was able to ask the company to assign Zhou Chenxi an assistant.After all, he should be treated better now that he’s in the limelight.

Zhi Qi thought bitterly, ‘It’s too difficult’.He came in the wind and went out in the rain, finally he managed to get two good deals for the kid by personally working as his assistant.

Zhi Qi was comforted by his old man’s heart with the sad feeling of “Finally, the boy has made it!” He thought that when Zhou Chenxi became popular, Tian Wang would have a pillar of support, then it wouldn’t be as stingy as before, right?

[Tian Wang is the agency name]

When they arrived for the make-up fitting, everyone was busy. As soon as Zhou Chenxi entered, a girl called out to him, “You’re Zhou Chenxi, right?”

Zhou Chenxi nodded.

“Come here!” the girl smiled, “There’s a spot in the public dressing room over here, I’ll do your make-up first.”

Zhou Chenxi followed her over. The girl opened her make-up case while saying to him, “You really have good skin, I’ve seen you in《I’m a Real Actor》before, I thought you were good-looking and acted quite well. Why did you withdraw from the competition?”

[Previous translation used《I Am an Acting School》but I changed it into《I am a Real Actor》.From google I saw there is really a variety show named Real Actor]

“Because something happened, so I withdrew from the competition.” Zhou Chenxi smiled shyly.

“It was such a pity…”The make-up artist comforted him and said, “It’s all right!

You could just fall again from the place where you tumble over. People always have to fight to their best to know how helpless oneself is.”

A familiar smell of poison assaults his nostrils.Zhou Chenxi sympathized with her and gave the girl a heartfelt thumbs up.

“I am also the same, at first I thought I couldn’t do the makeup well and have a strange aesthetic, then later after a few years on the set, I finally realized that there was really a wide gap between me and the experts. Now I’m at peace with myself. I can do what I like on the set and occasionally take private work outside. It seem like not bad either.”

Zhou Chenxi thought that she was cheerful and also quite skilled in make-up. She seems to have been in the crew for a long time. Her skills were not much worse than others, so he reassured her and said, “As long as you don’t give up, you can always gain more failures than others, this is also considered to be one kind of accumulation!”

The two leaders of the poisonous chicken soup religion were talking in a very clear and logical way. They were clearly encouraging each other but they sounded like they were trying to persuade each other to give up.

[鸡汤 literally it mean chicken soup / but figuratively it related to ‘the chicken soup for the soul’ aka the feel-good motivational words/stories (often used disparagingly because the stories don’t really affect change in people’s lives)]

For a moment, they were so happy chatting and so regretful for not having met earlier. After they started to chat, they lost track of time. Soon the make-up was ready. The girl looked at him and complimented him, saying, “You look really great! If you change into the full outfit prepared by the stylists, I think you’ll look even better!”

With the help of the stylist, Zhou Chenxi put on a wig and changed into the ancient costume that was exclusively designed for “Liuli”. All of a sudden his temperament (aura as Liuli) came out.

The fashion stylist made changes to the relevant details and parts according to Zhou Chenxi’s personality and temperament. Since the prototype of Liuli is the nine-coloured white deer, the stylist chose to attach most importance to clothes that were mainly in white to match the gradient ripples on the sleeves.That little lady make-up artist saw that he got on well with her so she specially put some glitter on Zhou Chenxi’s face.From a distance, it looked like the whole person was decorated with a layer of starlight.

For the costume design of Liuli, there are two types of it, one with antlers and one without it. Zhou Chenxi took pictures of both types.

Without antlers, Zhou Chenxi has an immortal-like appearance, holding a double edged sword like an immortal who has descended to the earth.

With antlers, Zhou Chenxi’s eyes are bright. There is a hint of ignorance in his eyes, it seems to be full of freshness and curiosity about the world.

Zhou Chenxi’s expression control was completely well done, successfully performing the two states of Liu Li’s ascension from a little deer that hadn’t yet completed its transformation to an immortal that had been recaptured as a mount by the ‘Xian Liu Jun’.Later, Qin Chuan made a special trip to the scene to inspect and accept Zhou Chenxi’s make-up photos and straightforwardly praised it as being good, just the way he wanted it to be.

After the job was done satisfiedly, all were ready to go back.This was the first time Zhou Chenxi’s work went so well so he added the make-up artist xiao jie jie’s WeChat before leaving.

[ Xiao Jie jie = little older sister]

Xiao jie jie sent him a few photos that she secretly took of him during the make-up session and instructed him not to circulate the photos.

“Jia You!” Xiao jie jie made a fist  gesture as she said, “The road to success may not have an end, but it’s not crowded at all because there really aren’t many who can insisted on it.”

[Jia You = Cheer up! The same term with Japanese words ‘Ganbatte!’]

Zhou Chenxi also made a clenched fist  at her, “Jia you!”

As if they were connected as the underground party, after they finished talking,the two smiled at each other with a tacit mutual understanding. Then they parted ways with one hundred percent enthusiasm.

The next day, the first batch of the official makeup trial photos of the cast of “The Journey Record to Immortality” were released. Strictly speaking, since Liuli was the third male lead in the drama, his scene play (his payment) was about the same level as the second male lead. Neither the male lead and the female lead nor the second male lead had their makeup trials yet, so Zhou Chenxi’s photo was placed first by them.

Zhou Chenxi was preinstalled with the transparent buff’s body constitution so he didn’t expect to get much attention before the drama aired but to his surprise, by the end of the night, this photo of him was all of sudden liked and re-posted by many people. Before then, it went viral.

The reason for this was a doujinshi artist who had just read a fairy tale called ‘The Nine-Coloured Deer’, so she searched the internet for this and found this picture. She didn’t know who Zhou Chenxi was, but she thought it fitted her imagination of the ‘Nine Coloured Deer’, so she drew a picture of him, a non commercial fan art one.

That night, the original blog post with the picture was reposted more than 2,000 times.Zhou Chenxi was so happy that he used his main account and gave the artist a big like.

Just as he was about to scroll down through the comments to see what the netizens had to say about him, his phone rang and it was his brother who sent him a message: [Heh, I saw the picture, it’s nice! [smile]]

Zhou Chenxi: “……”

Why was this mocking tone so familiar?

For a moment, Zhou Chenxi couldn’t tell if his brother was really complimenting him or laughing at him.

Zhou Mingxuan quickly sent the next one over: [[picture][thumbs up]]

Zhou Chenxi clicked on that picture and looked at it. He found that it was the same picture that the artist had drawn.

The dialogue box showed that Zhou Mingxuan was “typing”. After a while, a new notification popped up next to his avatar.

Zhou Mingxuan: [thumbs up][thumbs down][cheers] Both the picture and the image are very nice!

[Zhou Mingxuan: [Eternal Praise.jpg]]

Zhou Chenxi looked at the sticker of ‘a middle-aged man with a fiery red rose’ at the end; he was about to blink his eyes out. Finally, he was certain that his brother was indeed not mocking him.