Part One
Character Introductions:
Lin Jian Yin (林劍尹):1 The male protagonist of this book. His profession is a singer, and he has a violent and hot-tempered personality. When he is angry, he doesn’t think before he speaks and is able say all kinds of unpleasant stuff.
Ye Meng Ling (葉夢凌): The main female lead of this book. She is the current manager of Lin Jian Yin. She dresses in an odd manner and has a timid personality.
Bai Xue Chen (白學辰): Lin Jian Yin’s best friend since they were young. He is also the one who recommended the antique shop to Lin Jian Yin and has had previous experience with the antique shop.
Yue Lan (月嵐): Said to be someone who walked out of a painting. She is Bai Xue Chen’s girlfriend.
Edward (艾德華): The prince of the game. He looks exactly the same as Lin Jian Yin, but is good-tempered and is very gentlemanly. He also has a gentle and considerate personality. He can be said to be the most perfect prince ever.
G.o.d Charity, Devil Chaos (神憐, 魔亂): The two mysterious owners of the antique shop.
Terrible, terrible, terrible! Lin Jian Yin has had terrible luck recently!
First of all, his girlfriend had been in a bad temper for some unknown reason. He had only stood her up a few times, but she actually slapped him on the spot. Lin Jian Yin would never raise his hand against a woman, so he only splashed her with a cup of water in retaliation.
No matter how he thought about it, being slapped is worse than being splashed with a cup of water, right? The red claw marks on his face had stayed there for three entire days before fading, causing his manager to look at him with teary eyes for many days, even cancelling all his jobs. In the end, that girlfriend actually ran off crying, never to be seen again. Just like that, his eighth girlfriend was declared missing.
Following that, he also didn’t know what the h.e.l.l his manager was doing! Instead of accepting the pa.s.sable advertis.e.m.e.nt job, she accepted a job for a movie. Didn’t she know that he was a singer, not a movie star? He had been condemned by movie critics saying that his acting was even worse than a three-year-old’s! And then the original advertis.e.m.e.nt job was given to a singer who just debuted, letting him easily reap the benefits. Heavens knew that so-called singer sang even worse than a three-year-old!
Lin Jian Yin’s handsome face was now tense and tight, his bad mood clearly visible on his face. However, Lin Jian Yin still tried to repress his emotions as much as he could. No matter what, the manager in front of him was the sixth one that the company had sent. If she were to run off again, even if it didn’t cause trouble for the company, he did not want to have to remember yet another manager’s name.
“What the h.e.l.l are you doing, giving me another script?! Don’t you know that I can’t act?”
Lin Jian Yin felt that he had already done his best to suppress his anger and soften his words. It was just that the manager in front of him was still trembling non-stop. No matter how he looked at her, that look of being scared to death was an eyesore. The slow burning anger in his heart was quickly becoming a raging fire.
Faced with Lin Jian Yin’s reprimand, which was much ”gentler” than ever before, the manager dared to open her mouth to explain for the first time, except she couldn’t help the quiver in her voice. “A-Although the movie reviews weren’t very good, the tickets to the movie sold pretty well. There are still many directors hoping to cast you in their movies.”
His mouth tightened. Only after he took in a few deep breaths did he manage to say, “Hand me the script to look through.”
Once the manager heard this after waiting for several minutes without getting a reply, she nearly started to thank the heavens. She thought that Lin Jian Yin would have promptly s.n.a.t.c.hed the script and ripped it to shreds, then thrown it in her face and told her to scram… Usually if things did not fall in line with his wishes, the result would end up as such.
This manager couldn’t help but feel that this big-shot in front of her was in a good mood today. She guessed around in her heart, but didn’t dare to neglect moving her hands. She presented a neat and tidy stack to him, the papers so smooth and flat that it was as though they had been ironed. The manager would never dare to forget about Lin Jian Yin’s mysophobia, for that was a lesson learned through countless episodes of blood and sweat.
Lin Jian Yin took the script and spent another five minutes holding in a belly full of rage before he was able to flip open the script.
Once the manager saw him start to frown, she felt her heart sink. Then, watching his face turn icier by the moment, and the corner of his mouth start to twitch non-stop as it did once he was angry, the manager knew that this time she was in for it. It was possibly even worse than ever before.
To think that at the start, she had rejoiced at her own good fortune. She had held incomparable hopes as she looked forward to seeing Lin Jian Yin, a singer said to possess a good voice that was rarely found, even in a hundred years. On top of being a skilled singer, he also had a handsome face and a lanky stature. He was a lady-killer, charming almost every female, from teenagers to those in their fifties. In the five years since he had debuted, his fame had risen accordingly, and now he was practically a household name.
She had rejoiced up until the first time they met, and then her dreams were shattered when Lin Jian Yin tore apart his job notice due to a stain on it and threw it into her face.
Lin Jian Yin never raised a hand against anyone, but he was extremely good at smashing things. He smashed anything and everything. For example, if the drink was too sweet, smash! If the microphone didn’t fit in his hand, smash! If he wasn’t satisfied with the costume, he tore it to pieces, then smash! It was extremely unfortunate that Lin Jian Yin not only had good fighting abilities, he was even a third level black belt in karate. If the springs in the sofa were sagging, he could lift the sofa up to smash it!
Smashing things wasn’t the worst part of it. At the very least, Lin Jian Yin still knew what could be smashed onto other people’s faces, and what was too hard and would hurt them, and hence could only be smashed onto the ground. To date, the manager had yet to get injured due to having something smashed against her. However, her heart had been injured quite a few times.
Lin Jian Yin’s poisonous tongue was not something that anyone would want to be on the receiving end of. No wonder when she had first started, the managing company had repeatedly told her to never ever accept talk shows and variety shows. In other words, other than conversations that had been pre-planned, never let Lin Jian Yin have any chance to express his views, or else the consequences would simply be unimaginable…
“Hmph, hmph!”
Lin Jian Yin gave two cold laughs, and then slowly tore the pages of the script one by one. What kind of a lousy drama is this? Although I’m inexperienced with acting, even I can tell how lousy this movie is. If you grab any random person off the street and ask them to spew some nonsense, they would still be able to compose a romance drama a hundred times better than this. This is basically yet another lousy director trying to leech off of my fame!
Once the manager heard that cold laughter, she was so frightened that tears rolled down her cheeks. Seeing the slow and terrifying motions of him ripping apart the script, her limbs involuntarily went weak. Her eyes darted to the half-closed door, just hoping for someone to come and save her. However, Lin Jian Yin’s rest area was a famous minefield. Other than the people who had no choice but to come and get caught in the explosions, it was generally deserted.
Lin Jian Yin tore the paper up slowly, the reason being that he wanted to completely vent his anger on this poor piece of paper. He thoroughly tore the script into a pile of paper sc.r.a.ps, each sc.r.a.p no bigger than the size of a fingernail. Only through this arduous process was he able to quench the flames of fury that filled his stomach.
After taking a few deep breaths, he finally managed to calm down and let his rage subside. He was even a little pleased with himself, thinking that he was, as expected, a big-hearted person, to be able to calm down after such an infuriating situation.
He turned his head, intending to discuss the problem regarding the job with the manager… But there was absolutely no one inside the room, only a gust of cold wind blowing in from the half-opened door.
Where is she? His eyes flared wide. He couldn’t quite believe that his manager had actually… run off yet “again”?
d.a.m.n it! The rare good mood of his was now completely gone, his teeth clenched so hard that one could hear them grinding. Without thinking, he swept his hand across the table, knocking all the job notices piled up on the table onto the floor. Even after that, Lin Jian Yin still felt that he didn’t have any way to vent the anger welling up inside of him. If he had known earlier that she would still run away, then he would have simply scolded her mercilessly without restraint! Then he wouldn’t have made himself this frustrated!
At this point, some sounds came from the door. Lin Jian Yin’s mouth was faster than his eyes. Without even seeing who was at the door, he was already scolding, “You still dare to come back? Let’s not even talk about you randomly accepting job offers as a manager. You lack confidence. Even the mice in my house have more guts than you do. Even if I repeated something ten times, you still wouldn’t understand. Even reminding you several hundred times is like playing a lute to a cow.2 But even cows will still go ‘moo’ a few times! How about you? You can’t even utter a single sound.”
“Say! Am I really that terrible?”
The half-opened door was slowly pushed open, and a man with a lazy aura stood by the door. In his hands he was even carrying two drinks and a plastic bag from which a fragrant smell wafted.
When Lin Jian Yin saw who had arrived, he was stunned. Then, a little weakly, he replied, “Oh it’s you, Bai Xue Chen. I thought it was that manager of mine.”
Bai Xue Chen shrugged. As he walked over, he emphasized, “You mean ‘ex’ manager. Just now, when I brushed shoulders with her, she was crying while she declared she was quitting.”
Once Lin Jian Yin heard that, his face turned dark. It looked like he would have to make the company find him another manager again. Bai Xue Chen put down the late night snack as he shook his head, smiling. “What number is she? The seventh or the eighth?”
“The sixth,” Lin Jian Yin emphasized, simultaneously opening the plastic bag to forage for food.
“I’m talking about your girlfriend.” Bai Xue Chen’s smile became even wider.
Hearing this, Lin Jian Yin lowered his head, pretending to concentrate on eating. Feeling a little uneasy, he questioned stiffly, “How did you know that I broke up with her?”
“I just happened to see her on the road, with her arms wrapped around someone else.” Bai Xue Chen replied indifferently. He too sat down and casually took his own portion of food. As he picked up food to eat at random, he couldn’t help but sigh at his good friend’s bad temper.
“You should really change this bad temper of yours. Otherwise, even if you have another hundred girlfriends, a hundred of them will be sent off in anger.”
As Lin Jian Yin engrossed himself in eating, he gave a snort from his nose. Just how is my temper bad? He had even managed to forcefully suppress it just now.
“You just have a sharp tongue, but you’re a softie at heart. Still, before people even see your soft heart, they are all scared away by your sharp tongue.” Bai Xue Chen shook his head helplessly. No matter how he advised him, Lin Jian Yin refused to change. Or perhaps one should say, he was unable to change.
Lin Jian Yin still had his head lowered, not speaking a word. He couldn’t help but feel a little tormented. A record of scaring off eight girlfriends and six managers was probably not something that anyone would like. However, he really couldn’t control that mouth of his. It was almost as though his mouth was controlled by the medulla part of his brain, just like his heart, instead of being governed by his cerebrum.
“Take this.”
Bai Xue Chen casually took out a business card. Lin Jian Yin looked at the business card that had a black base, white clouds lining the sides, and embossed gold characters. He took it, still a little doubtful. He frowned as he looked at the business card that only had three words.
“G.o.d ‘n Devil?”
“An antique store.” Bai Xue Chen spread out both his hands in a simple manner, implying that that was all there was to it.
“An antique store?”
Lin Jian Yin’s voice went up at the last syllable. What does my problem have to do with an antique store? What’s more… Lin Jian Yin turned the business card over, but other than the three words “G.o.d ‘n Devil,” he didn’t find anything else on it.
“You don’t think that…” Lin Jian Yin tried to give a reminder to the fellow who had given him the business card.
“Hey, anyway, if you don’t try, how will you know?” Bai Xue Chen hurriedly started advising him.
“But…”
“You’re already twenty-eight. Even if you’re not in a hurry to get married, your mother and father have always wanted grandchildren.” Bai Xue Chen didn’t even give Lin Jian Yin the chance to object, looking as though he was giving him earnest and well-meant advice.
“But…”
“Enough! Even if you don’t believe anyone, you should at least believe me, your best friend whom you have known since elementary school!” Bai Xue Chen had an expression that implied ‘If you dare, try and say that you don’t believe me!’.
“Bai. Xue. Chen.!” Lin Jian Yin ground out through clenched teeth.