Don’t Be a Kept Man

ten to the core? Your grandfather, your father, who doesn’t smoke? Celebrities are human too ]

[ He’s going to give a bad image to kids ……. ]

[ Give fucking what.
When I was just born, my dad was right next to me, smoking the hell away.
If the kid turns out bad, that’s not the fault of the celebrities.
That’s the fault of their family upbringing ]

[ No matter what, public figures should take notice of themselves.
But whatever, Chen Yi has so much shit on him, what does it matter if he smokes ]

[ Idols need to give his fans a good image though ]

[ Chen Yi has no fans.
They’re all antis.
When I go rag on him, who fights me back? To be honest, even if he puts himself as a saint, you all will just think he’s pretending.
So what’s the point ]

[ None of you have ever helped him, nor have any of you supported him before, so why put him on such a high pedestal? What do you have that allows you to point and wiggle your fingers at him? There was another outdoor variety program that had a few award winning male actors smoking in a pile, and all of you said that it was interesting.
Here you say Chen Yi is a bad role model for kids.
Not to say that he didn’t smoke yet, even if he did, how is that any of your fucking business ]

[ What, on what grounds does he, Chen Yi, have to be compared to those award winning actors? Who is he? ]

[ Chen Yi’s at least better than you.
Who are you? ]

Twilight was fast approaching and Chen Yi’s eyes were sharp.
He could very clearly see that instead of going to the washrooms as she had proclaimed, Li Su Li was talking with her manager by the small trail in the forest.
The two of them seemed to be in a heated argument with Li Su Li’s face full of impatience and her manager chatting her ears off.
And only after a long while did her manager let her leave.

Zhou Ming, that clingy annoyance, seemed to also want to speak privately with Chen Yi, but Chen Yi pretended he didn’t even see him, whistling away.
Looking up and down, never looking at him, making Zhou Ming angry enough to blow his head off.

It did not take long for Fu Xiu Nian to come back with many different flavours of instant noodles in his arms.
Ah Qi was extremely excited, so much so that he jumped up from his chair, 

“Bless your soul! You’re too smart!”

The few of them were so garbage at cooking that even eating instant noodles was heaven.
Zhao Ke Yi came closer to help him hold some, and she was also excited to the point of screaming, 

 

“There’s my favourite spicy flavour with my favourite pepper! AHHHHHHHHHHH! Fu Xiu Nian I love you to death!!!”

Fu Xiu Nian also slipped out some ham sausages and jerky3 out of his pockets, 

“We can add this into the noodles after.”

It was at this time that Li Su Li walked over and looked at the table.
Evidently, she had no interest and said, 

“I’m already sick of eating instant noodles.
Are there no snacks? Fu Xiu Nian, did you bring back some chips or shrimp fries?”

Chen Yi walked closer and elongated his syllables saying, 

“Yes, there is.
You can be the winner next time and you will be able to have your pick.
Whatever you want to eat you can take whatever.”

And then randomly picked a bag of instant noodles and threw it at Fu Xiu Nian, matter of factly saying, 

“I’m hungry.
Cook me up a bowl.”

 

Fu Xiu Nian clumsily caught it, and he was not only not angry, but he was also very happy, smiling like a Maneki-neko,4

“Ok, wait a bit ok? I’ll go make you a bowl right now.”

And then headed straight to the kitchen to boil some water.

Li Su Li looked at Chen Yi, hiding some hostility in her eyes.
She crossed her arms as she said, 

 

“It’s your turn to cook tomorrow.
You wouldn’t be thinking of pushing that on to Fu Xiu Nian, would you?”

Chen Yi was like a dead pig who was not scared of boiling hot water5, unabashedly and mockingly said, 

“I can’t cook.”

Li Su Li sneered out, saying some words that made Zhao Ke Yi and the others frown, 

“It’s said that children from poor families mature at a young age, so how can you not know how to cook?”

A human needs their dignity, their “face”, as like a tree has their bark.
Being like this in front of the cameras, opening up the conversation on Chen Yi’s family status, it was too hurtful to one’s self-esteem.
Not only did it make Zhao Ye Ki and Ah Qi furrow their eyebrows, it made even Fu Xiu Nian in the kitchen pause in his movements.

The air was turning frosty and the atmosphere had a weird tension.
Ah Qi was also a bit afraid that Chen Yi would turn his embarrassment or shame into anger, and he was even prepared to have to break up a fight when……

“Oh, because we were so poor we didn’t have anything to eat.”

So poor they didn’t have anything to eat, so he naturally would not know how to cook.
Do you understand now?

Zhao Ke Yi was just drinking water and did not expect Chen Yi to answer back like this.
So when he said that, she spit out her water in shock, and then started to laugh until she choked.
Ah Qi also shook his head, lost in his own laughter, and the viewers themselves were also choking up in laughter.

[ HAHAHAHAHA, Sorry how could Chen Yi be so funny.
What a guy, what a guy ]

[ PUH HAHAHAHAHAHAHA my face mask is almost torn apart from how much I laughed.
What a comeback he gave.
What is this? I almost want to turn into his fan ]

[ I almost dropped and broke my phone from my sudden laughter.
The people on the metro must think I am crazy hahahahaha ]

[ What a piece of mouth that Li Su Li has on her.
What’s wrong with being poor? She’s not a princess with a golden spoon herself, having come into the entertainment industry as an unknown lowly model ]

[ My stomach’s gonna split from my laughter.
This guy is so bad, so dirty, so shitty, I love him ]

When Chen Yi and Li Su Li were fighting each other, there would basically be no comments on the screen yelling at him.
Fu Xiu Nian finished cooking the noodles and came out of the kitchen holding a bowl.
He calmly said, 

“My family’s poor too, but I also don’t know how to cook.”

Chen Yi took the bowl from his hands, 

“Are you quite proud that you can’t cook?”

He mixed his noodles and found that there were two marinated eggs hidden in the bottom of the bowl.
Chen Yi paused in his movements, but he did not say anything.
He just started to eat and kept to his space.
Seeing the others head into the kitchen to cook their own bowl of noodles, Fu Xiu Nian crouched by Chen Yi to whisper, 

“There were some packs of cigarettes inside, but I didn’t take any.”

Chen Yi lifted his eyes, 

“You dare to say that to me, right to my face, when you didn’t bring any back.
Are you looking to get scolded?”

Fu Xiu Nian smiled with his eyes curved up and shook his head.
He then took out two handfuls of lollipops out of his pant pockets and with some rustling, he held them in his hands like a bouquet of multicolored flowers, 

“But I brought back a lot of candy for you.
There’s orange flavoured, lemon, strawberry, grape, whatever kind you want I have.”

The night was descending and there was a slight cold breeze wafting by.
Fu Xiu Nian’s eyes were like the quiet night, twinkling.
Chen Yi gave him a glance but he didn’t know what to say, and so he continued to eat his bowl of noodles.

Fu Xiu Nian was not hungry and moved a small chair to sit in the courtyard with him.

 

“The Yi in your name, Chen Yi, is it the Yi from memory?”

“No, it’s Yi from a billion million of wealth.”6

 

Click here to bypass all the footnotes!

Notes:

*1 Sanpaku eyes: a term from (chinese) physiognomy where there’s more sclera than the pupil as the pupil is leaning more towards the top or the bottom, said to look very cold hearted and no emotions in their heart.
This is more specifically on the chinese side, as I’m not too sure about if there are differences between japan and china (even though I am taking the japanese term as what it’s more known as), but there are a lot of different “sanpaku”, separating into upper or lower, “one word”, “triangle”, “round shaped”, “faint sleepy”, and so forth.
Here are some examples from anime to show  But you can search “三白眼明星” (tagging just celebrities at the end of sanpaku there) for real life examples!

 

*2 Handsome means he doesn’t need a good personality: Here they are pointing at “a good personality” to mean three things, of which are more philosophical based (kind of like how they view themselves, things and the world.
And based on that philosophical thinking, the individual themselves form a basis of their own sense of reality, of common sense, of their baseline, of what they perceive to be right or wrong, of how they would perceive different situations, assess how they see people, etc.
Like your mentality to everything but also how you react to your mentality (or your actions based on your mentality).
As a very very brief overview as it is quite philosophical and encompasses a lot more theory, but in this particular phrasing, “a good personality” is pointed at or what it would constitute is separated into 3 categories:

1) towards humans or others: for example, would you be happy for a friend who got promoted? Or would you be jealous or demean that promotion as not even good enough?

2) towards the world: do you see a glass half full or half empty? Do you think that a woman always needs to be a housewife and takes care of the children (or need to have children)? Or on the opposite side of that, do you think a man always needs to work, and be the breadwinner of the household?

3) of the value towards everything: What do you see in the value of jewelry? Of handmade knits? And do you think one is better than the other? Something more expensive is better? Or handmade is better? Do you think that a vegetable is better because it looks great or because it has a great price tag behind it? Onto less monetary value, do you think someone who is dressed up with very little clothes is slutty? Do you think someone who dressed up, never showing a bit of skin is a bit uppity tighty?

 

And from these three categories, you form your “personality” to say, in who you are and how you react to things.
Having a good personality means then to have a good mentality in the way you view the world and the others and of value (and how you act on it)

*3 Marinated jerky is a bit different than your normal western experience.
It’s usually a bit more soft than your normal pepporoni jerky and more square like the picture below on the left, and has a lot more flavours that can be explored, such as salt and pepper, teriyaki, sweet bqq, etc.
etc (but usually more savory than salty and brine-y as of western jerky I find).
Some are usually packaged in strips or like rectangles/squares, which makes it a very easy snack and you can find them in separated packaging or in one big bag.

Ham sausages are basically what you think they are, but they are packaged in little tubes, sold in packs that are about the size of your hand, just wrapped around with tape, like the one on the right, not usually refrigerated, and they have those annoying metal things at the end… Sometimes I have heard it referred to as a pack of thin slices too.

 

jerky/鹵肉乾 (left) & ham sausage/火腿腸 (right)

 

*4 Maneki-neko: So apparently, there are two originating points according to baidu, one from china and one, as most of you may have thought, japan.
But they are basically cats with their paws raised (which has quick a few interpretations for if the left or right paw is raised such as right as for money/happiness, left for customers/luck) for superstitious beliefs.
There are multiple faces you may have seen on maneki-neko, but Fu Xiu Nian is likely to be showing ones below:

 

*5 dead pig who was not scared of boiling hot water: This is a saying that is like the proverb, a dead mouse feels no cold, where no matter what happens, no matter what difficulty you may encounter, you are either strong enough to endure it and not affect you or you just don’t care enough, like whatever happens, whatever happens.
It’s usually said mockingly and is directed to another or to one’s self (scoffing others or self-deprecating).

*6 billion million of wealth: Fu Xiu Nian is mentioning “yi” as in memories/recollections “回憶” whereas Chen Yi is saying no it means money/wealth, the “yi” is “憶”, for money/billion, and the phrase he uses can be translated as billionaire or just someone with lots of money.