MDWWHA Chapter 23

Mr. Zhou Doesn’t Want to Work Hard Anymore

Chapter 23

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In the past, when Zhou Chenxi learnt to draw, his brother would tease him even though he was supportive.

 

When Zhou Chenxi drew a tree, he said it was a matchstick. When Zhou Chenxi drew a bird, he said it was a caterpillar.

 

Later, when Zhou Chenxi was crying because he couldn’t help but get angry, his brother no longer dared to tease him anymore. Instead, he changed into an encouraging type to educate him, saying that he was a great painter and that each of his painting was worth framing and treasuring.

 

But Zhou Chenxi had been nurtured with a strange lack of confidence, feeling that he was the best painter in the world while at the same time feeling that he could not look at his own paintings.

 

Luckily he didn’t take painting as his way of life later, or he might have been torn to death by himself.

 

The meeting place was at the city centre. After the whole team arrived, Zhuang Jingle began to announce the rules of today’s game: ” Everyone, today’s game’s mission is to stroll and eat the snack street. The clues for the show’s next mission are hidden in the middle of the long snack street. The more you eat, the more chances for you to get the clues. Everyone can choose to form a team as you like or choose to fight alone. At the end, points will be awarded according to individual performance.”

 

“In other words, this time even if you form a team, you don’t need to share a point together?” Shao Yunyi asked.

 

Zhuang Jingle: “Yes.”

 

Ren Qian immediately said, “Then will we all work together?”

 

“Pay attention,” Zhuang Jingle reminded, “The next mission is a two-player cooperation game, so it’s best to work in pairs for the first mission so that clues can be shared together.”

 

Shao Yunyi hesistantly gave Ren Qian a glance.

 

She actually still wanted to team up with Ren Qian, but she was too embarrassed to say so, she was a small flower and it was easy to spread gossip (love scandal) when she was tied up with one person for too long. At first, her manager was worried about her and Lu Ji having any in-depth interaction on the show and being caught on camera by the media. Her manager had prepared a PR script accordingly early in the morning, but in the end, they didn’t even need to use it. Now she and Zhuang Jingle had teamed up for three episodes in a row, she was afraid that the unscrupulous media would change direction and said that she was going to have a relationship¹(The original word actually use 姐弟戀: a relationship between an older woman with a younger man.) with him.

 

 

Ren Qian quickly received her meaningful glance : “I’ll team up with Yunyi.”

 

Shao Yunyi’s heart relieved at the moment.

 

The audience would get bored if seeing the same old combination. Everyone was about to regroup themselves when they heard Lu Ji quickly said: “I’ll team up with Zhou Chenxi.”

 

Everyone: “….”

 

The changes in Luo Xinghe’s expression could clearly be seen with the naked eyes.

 

There were four of them left, if they wanted to shuffle all of them, between Zhou Chenxi and Lu Ji, one of them had to be in a group with Luo Xinghe so there was no way Zhou Chenxi could be on the same team with Lu Ji again. It seemed that Lu Ji was saying that he didn’t want to be in the same group with Luo Xinghe either.

 

He thought he had been secretive last time, unless Zhou Chenxi had a big mouth. Could it be that Zhou Chenxi had said something to Lu Ji?

 

Luo Xinghe was about to defend himself when the(film) director came over and reminded them, “Lu Zong, why don’t you team up with someone else?”

 

Luo Xinghe immediately changed into a harmless expression.

 

He was good at disguising himself; he thought that Lu Ji would accept this behavior of him. Moreover, when he looked at Zhou Chenxi’s usual appearance, he also put on a face of playing dumb on his face and Lu Ji probably liked this kind of character.

 

But to his surprise, Lu Ji only glanced at him indifferently: “It’s better not!”

 

Luo Xinghe: “….”

 

Lu Ji added: “Jingle, you’re on our team.”

 

Luo Xinghe: “….??”

 

“Can we have a group of three?” Lu Ji turned around and asked the director.

 

The director was stunned for a moment, “Of course.” As the rules had already been stated earlier.

 

Zhuang Jingle didn’t know what actually had happened, baffled on the side, and suggested, “Why don’t I team up with Luo Xinghe?” He was still a bit scared of Lu Ji.

 

“You’ll be in our team,” Lu Ji said, “Before we get to the bottom of what happened last time, a certain person better behave himself! If you are found to continue to make moves on other guests during the recording of the show, Lu Group has the right to request the crew to terminate the contract in the name of the titleholder. Any damage caused by the artist’s fault, naturally the artist has to bear the responsibility as well.”

 

As soon as the words were spoken, the faces of all present changed.

 

What does it mean?

 

Zhuang Jingle did not understand.

 

He vaguely felt that Lu Ji was talking about Zhou Chenxi’s slip and fall during the previous recording of the show, but didn’t Zhou Chenxi fall on his own at that time?

 

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Ren Qian came over, feeling that the atmosphere was tense²[Tense here, the original words use this idiom 劍拔弩張 literally it mean : the sword was drawn out, and the bows bent; fig. a state of mutual hostility / at daggers drawn.

 

 

 

“It’s nothing.” Lu Ji glanced at Luo Xinghe.

 

He had actually said that on purpose.

 

Because there was no evidence, but according to Zhou Chenxi’s bad luck level, he initially thought that Zhou Chenxi had fallen on his own.

 

It wasn’t until later when he asked someone to ask the cameraman to retrieve the footage from that day. The other party told him that Luo Xinghe had also mentioned the same request to the program crew.

 

The reason he gave was that his make-up was not well done that day so he needed to maintain his image and wanted to look at the video footage from that day in advance to see what needed to be deleted.

 

It happened all the time. Usually artists, for the sake of their image, would often negotiate with the post-production. However, the program crew usually asked the artist to send someone to look at the show after it had been recorded.In the end, of course, they didn’t agree to it.

 

Later on, Luo Xinghe managed to get someone from within the program team to look at a few glances on the recorded show for him.

 

The time for those few glances was the time when Zhou Chenxi tripped and fell.

 

Lu Ji is the big boss, so he naturally has the right to access the footage at any time, but Luo Xinghe was different. The timing of the footage they requested to see was so coincidental that the assistant in charge of the matter came back and mentioned it to Lu Ji.

 

Lu Ji actually harbored suspicions toward Luo Xinghe, so he looked at the source more closely, but still found no clues.

 

If it weren’t for him clearly knowing Luo Xinghe’s constitution and his scheming, Lu Ji might have been fooled by him.

 

The reason why Lu Ji had been always unable to get hold of Luo Xinghe was because of his miraculous koi constitution, as well as his effortless victory that could kill (a person) without bloodshed plus his invisible scheming mind.

 

He had already tried desperately to avoid the bad luck brought to him by Luo Xinghe in his two previous lifetimes, but in the end, he still ended up failing.

 

This made Lu Ji feel like a traveller trapped in the shackles of time. No matter how much he struggled, he could only end up towards a predetermined ending.

 

This time, could there be any change?

 

Lu Ji looked at Zhou Chenxi beside him.

 

Luo Xinghe was beside him, his face changing again and again.

 

Could it be that Lu Ji had already found out what he had done to Zhou Chenxi on that day?

 

Impossible! If the camera had really caught it, the crew wouldn’t be so calm now.

 

[The original one used this idiom: 风平浪静(fēng píng làng jìng) :lit. breeze is still, waves are quiet ]

 

Moreover Luo Xinghe was confident that there would be no traces left in front of the camera.

 

So how did Lu Ji know?

 

Has his filter on himself shattered? Whatever, the plan for this life needed to be changed. Since Lu Ji couldn’t be used by him, he had to destroy him first to prevent him from biting back at himself after he ‘blackened’.

 

[“黑” means “black,” and “化” means to “become.” This term, frequently used by animation and comic fans and gamers, refers to the drastic turn seen in a fictional character from a hero into a villain. Blackened usually refers to someone who has suffered serious mental damage and thus maintains a disgusting and irritable attitude towards everything. ]

 

Apart from Lu Ji and Ren Qian, Luo Xinghe has another harem in the book, his foster brother Luo Xingzhou, the two grew up together in an orphanage and have an extraordinary bond.

 

After Luo Xinghe became an adult, he deliberately changed his name to be just one character away from Luo Xingzhou, making Luo Xingzhou dead set on him ever since.

 

Luo Xingzhou was also a very strong capable individual who came out of the orphanage, went through challenging experiences and made his way to the upper class by his own effort.

 

Unlike Lu Ji and Zhou Ming Xuan, the two rich second generation youngsters, Luo Xingzhou used to be poor and suffered a lot. He started from nothing, in order to maintain his position, the way he handled things was more extreme and he treated his competitors more ruthlessly.

 

Without Luo Xingzhou’s help, Luo Xinghe might not have been able to take over Zhou Xin and Lu Group so smoothly.

 

Oh, I almost forgot.

 

Zhou Chenxi seems to be the little brother of Zhou Mingxuan?

 

There were so few words about Zhou Chenxi in the book that Luo Xinghe forgot the connection between the unlucky Zhou Chenxi and Zhou Xin for a while.

 

This is also good, wait until he destroys Lu Group first and then he would catch everything in the one net and wipe out the unlucky little man together with Zhou Xin.

 

[一网打尽 /yī wǎng dǎ jìn: lit. to catch everything in the one net (idiom) / fig. to scoop up the whole lot / to capture them all in one go]

 

He would still be able to achieve his ultimate goal.

 

The show continued to be recorded.

 

When Zhuang Jingle walked down to the street with Zhou Chenxi and Lu Ji, he felt like a light bulb.

 

[ Light bulb (slang): unwanted third guest]

 

Zhou Chenxi originally didn’t want to ask, but he was so curious that he couldn’t help but open his mouth vaguely, “Lu Zong, how did you know what happened that day was umm hn en?”

 

The second half of his sentence was autonomously muted, sounding whiny and humming like a little kitten mewing.

 

Lu Ji: “Talk properly and don’t act cute!”

 

Zhou Chenxi: “？？”

 

Zhuang Jingle: “….” It’s over, Hurry up, give me an invisibility cloak to let me disappear!

 

Lu Ji didn’t care about the other people. He didn’t even care that he still had a microphone on him and straightforwardly said: “If you don’t want people to know, you’d better not do it.From now on, you stay away from him.”

 

[若要人不知，除非己莫為 /ruò yào rén bù zhī , chú fēi jǐ mò wéi : If you don’t want anyone to know, don’t do it (idiom). fig. If you do something bad, people will inevitably hear about it.]

Tl notes : Lu Ji is talking about Luo Xinghe when he said this idiom. 

 

——Geez, of course I know that!

 

Zhou Chenxi touched his nose: “You don’t think this is a misunderstanding?” Such as, due to a filter that was eight feet thick on Luo Xinghe.

 

Lu Ji’s expression was heavy: “You think this is a misunderstanding?”

 

Something was up!

 

Zhuang Jingle hurriedly pricked up his ears.

 

“No, no,” Zhou Chenxi struggled for a moment, as if there were ghosts and gods supporting him, he unconsciously did what he didn’t expect to do and asked in a different way, “I mean …. if one day Luo Xinghe and I fell into the sea at the same time together, who would you save?”

 

Zhuang Jingle was shocked: F*ck! I witnessed this one big drama!

 

Zhou Chenxi felt that by asking such a question, he was really out of his mind, but he didn’t expect Lu Ji to give him a look that was difficult to understand and said, “Do you still need to ask this?”

 

“Of course, I’ll save that salted fish who is unwilling to go into the water and likes to dry himself out in the sun.”

 

Zhou Chenxi’s face was instantly blushed. Zhuang Jingle was dumbfounded for the time being as he was still puzzled over the secret conversation between Lu Ji and Zhou Chenxi. After hearing their conversation about “the drying salted fish” and understanding what happened, the chief director of the program team who had stood in a circle and watched the entire gossip, get flustered and picked up the walkie-talkie and said to the cameraman: “Remember to delete that part just now!”

 

What a joke, Lu Zong openly confessed his love to another guest on the show, can this even be broadcast?

 

This matter mustn’t go to Lu Zong’s mother since there is still no explanation for the fact that Lu Ji and Shao Yunyi have zero interaction in the show, and now there is Zhou Chenxi disrupting the situation!

 

That won’t do! That definitely won’t do!

 

At least get Lu Zong’s mother to agree first!

 

However Zhou Chenxi didn’t know what the (film) director was thinking about, he was next to him, secretly and happily thinking about something.

 

Oh.

 

So this time Lu Zong is on my side.

 

(Lu Zong can be translated as Mr. Lu or Director Lu/President Lu/C.E.O Lu, because I couldn’t choose one, I will use Lu Zong then)

 

——-

 

The author has something to say:

 

Don’t need to wait, I agree to this marriage!

 

 

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• 1
  (The original word actually use 姐弟戀: a relationship between an older woman with a younger man.)
• 2
  [Tense here, the original words use this idiom 劍拔弩張 literally it mean : the sword was drawn out, and the bows bent; fig. a state of mutual hostility / at daggers drawn