u/PianoDull7274

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Enjoy ~ (This is VERY NSFW!!! You've been warned.)

Original Post

Translation below (Machine Translated with minor fixes)

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Chapter 25: Return of Spring

Both of their trousers were about to burst at the seams. In frantic haste they yanked off each other’s pants, tossed their tops aside carelessly. Didn't matter where. Changyang scooped up Qinglang and threw him onto the bed. This scene had happened before; back then Qinglang had been utterly enchanted, and in his extreme narcissism had taken a photo and posted it on Weibo. Ji Zong Jun must have seen that photo, and this time wanted to watch it live, hence the reenactment.

Qinglang hadn't changed his hairstyle, as if commemorating his life with him and Molie. He kept his shoulder-length wavy hair, loose and just as it was back then, wild to the edge of the hills.

He lay on the bed looking at that man, who stood on the floor looking back at him.

No one called "action." They couldn't get enough of each other. The photographer's frequent set call "ROLLING" flashed wittily through Qinglang's mind, an actor's conditioned reflex kicking in. He had one pair of boxers left, pulled halfway down; he stretched out his leg for the other man to help him take them off.

Changyang pressed his body down on him. Qinglang slipped his hand into Changyang's underwear, widening the waistband before sliding it down. Judging by the size, this one had truly been lonely for too long, and it also proved, by extension, that the man was clean.

Their bodies rubbed together up and down. Qinglang's undulating rhythm was like waves on the sea, moving from light kisses to deep kisses with Changyang. Changyang held both of their forbidden parts, wanting their first simultaneous release of the night.

Qinglang caught his intention and cooperated, teasing and stoking the fire with every part of his body. Before long, they mingled their desires together and surrendered them to each other at the same time.

When you've been hungry too long, you tend to eat greedily. Changyang didn't enter him, also afraid of hurting him. A starving beast will devour a man. Changyang knew that all too well.

The two lay flat on the bed, panting heavily. The cannon had fired its first salvo; now it was the machine gun's turn.

Changyang held Qinglang's hand and only then thought to ask, "From morning to night, how much time each day do you spend thinking of me?"

Qinglang smiled and began to count seriously.

"What's your math score? Can you even calculate it properly?" Changyang was asking for a beating, and Qinglang gave his hand a vicious pinch in return.

Their arms wrestled, and the tussle grew. Qinglang gave a sudden bounce and straddled Changyang, one hand still held in Changyang's grip, the other pressing against his chest. He looked fierce, but his fingers were flirtatiously teasing.

Back to the previous question: how much time did he spend thinking of the other man?

Qinglang didn’t pass the Gao Kao math exam. He wouldn’t have an accurate answer for this question.

"Every moment, without exception," Qinglang said the first half. Even more deserving of a beating.

Changyang grabbed his waist and lifted him up, positioned him, and let him sink down. Qinglang's brows knitted together with a grunt, his upper body sinking heavily onto Changyang as he whispered the second half in his ear:

"Not at all."

Put together: "Every moment, without exception, not not thinking of you."

The cheeky bastard with the dramatic pause deserved his punishment. Without preparation, entering was like kicking the door open without a room card. The door would certainly be badly hurt.

Changyang told himself not to be too rough, to protect him, but desire still overpowered reason, raising the banner of beastly instinct and first crushing human civilization. Whatever came out of the jungle wasn't human. Qinglang felt as if he were dying on top of him, his hair whipping about with the passion of a conductor.

On stage or in film, he'd sacrifice for art; tonight, he was sacrificing in bed for the man he'd been thinking of all along.

The second surge lasted nearly an hour. Even after two position changes, it kept climbing like a bull market. Qinglang almost suspected the moon had strayed into satellite orbit, too close to Earth, hence the unrelenting tide. He didn't realize it was Changyang who had grown skillful. With just a bit of control, he far surpassed ordinary men.

Changyang flipped him over onto his stomach. In this position, Qinglang felt a terror of being pierced through by a long spear. He told him to stop, but it was useless. Against a man possessed by beastly lust, shouting was futile.

Qinglang had never accepted this position with anyone else. Any other partner would have made him explode and walk out. But with Changyang, he was truly tolerant, allowing him to do whatever he wanted with his body. Perhaps it was an instinctive trust.

The fear of completely exposing his back came from a deep meditation experience. His mother, Shen Mingyue, had gone to a friend's retreat center for a fifteen-day closed retreat. Qinglang was at a low point then. No good films to shoot, and he refused to take crappy roles, so he went along. Finding the teacher's talks interesting, he applied to stay in a small cabin for a few days.

It was a completely sealed, lightless room, less than ten square meters, with only a single bed. The toilet was inside, and there was a flashlight. Each day someone delivered vegetable juice through a small hatch like a prison cell. For fifteen days he ate only liquids, with no exit. But outside there was a guardian watching over the retreatants' states at all times. If he reached his limit and couldn't bear it, he could call for help.

Before going in, Qinglang didn't think much of it. Frankly, he didn't take it seriously. Pretentious mysticism was the most accurate phrase he could think of to describe it.

When the retreat began, he ate and slept, slept and ate every day. The first few days he sat in meditation, but later he just lay flat. An inexplicable lethargy enveloped his whole body, like poisonous gas eroding his will. By the seventh day, Qinglang thought it was time to pull himself together.

Success-culture makes modern people ashamed of laziness.

Qinglang got up and resumed sitting in meditation. Whether his eyes were open or closed seemed unimportant. Everything was black anyway. He chanted a couple of sutras, but they didn't help much with entering samadhi. Suddenly he remembered the line from his very first film, written for all the audience, “In your world, you are the best.” Qinglang recited it like a mantra, repeating it faster and faster.

At that moment, whether before his eyes or in his mind, a blaze suddenly burst forth, spreading at great speed, followed by the roaring of flames and then human wails, scream. The cries of torture filled the entire world. Qinglang's soul seemed to be dragged into that world, standing in the middle of the fire. He tried to run, but the flames morphed into vines climbing over his body. His hands and feet were bound; he couldn't break free. His cries were swallowed by the surrounding noise. Like a fox caught in a trap, he could only stand there, his head able to turn only a hundred and eighty degrees. His back was the area he couldn't see.

Extreme fear was forced out from within. He felt someone behind him, holding a fire-heated knife, scraping it down his back slice by slice. He couldn't be sure whether there was actually anyone there, and that uncertainty made the sensation of the knife even more real. The pain, nearly stopping his heart, traveled along the knife wounds on his back to every nerve in his body, blood and sweat seeping even from his fingernails.

He was rescued by others. In reality, his screams had been as horrifying as murder. Carried to a normal room, his heart continued to pound violently for nearly an hour before he could catch his breath.

Since childhood, he had been extremely sensitive to being suddenly touched on the back. After this retreat experience, that sensitivity increased tenfold.

If Changyang were to penetrate him from behind, Qinglang's fear would shoot straight to his skull, and the sweat soaked a small patch of the bed. He could have forced a stop, but behind the fear, a faint voice emerged: "Breaking through from fear" is a lesson everyone must complete.

Like running. Eight hundred meters is the limit of exhaustion; once you push past it, even ten kilometers doesn't feel tiring. Perhaps breaking through one's own threshold of fear would mean fearing nothing afterward, as Fang Jialin often said, "At worst, you die." Not even fearing death. What else is there to fear?

Qinglang's shift in thought was like a sudden gust of wind in a valley, dispersing the fog, revealing the mountain's shape, the wildflowers and grasses, the towering trees. It turned out to be such a wonderful fairyland.

Pleasure came right then with that shift in mindset. Changyang quickened his pace inside him, and Qinglang arched his hips to meet him, striking the most perfect posture. His ass rose like a mound held in Changyang's hands, shifting from third gear to fourth. As the car sped onto the highway, they collided head-on, and two streams of long-stored turbid fluid shot out simultaneously.

The stored grain had been consumed; time to replenish the stock.

END OF CHAPTER 25

The following is a transcript of an audio livestream from Kuma where he talked about how he was cast as Qinglang:

I went straight to an audition for a variety show. And at that variety show audition, here's what happened – I met Xiao Hu first, Hu Yichen. So I ran into Hu Yichen. That's Xiao Hu – my "little brother." The one who plays my brother in the show. He plays the character Qingtian – right. So I met him. And then he said to me, he said, uh... At the audition, the two of us were placed in the same group. We were put in the same group.

And Xiao Hu and I also had that kind of natural, you know, that easy, instant rapport kind of feeling. Right, so... and then, and then it started with Xiao Hu. Xiao Hu asked me, he said, "Do you – do you take acting roles?" And I said, "Yeah, I do." Then he asked me, he said, "Do you take all types of roles? Not picky?" I said, "Not picky."

Then he added me on WeChat. After adding me, he probably – he went to find the director. Because at that time, the director was casting for the role of Qinglang. Right – the director was casting for Qinglang.

"That's such a roundabout way of asking" (reading a comment on screen). I know, right? Because he asked if I take all roles. At the time I thought – yeah, I take any character. Then the director – then Xiao Hu went to the director and said, uh... "I found him." "I found the male lead for you." Something like that.

And then, that's basically how it happened. Then he found the director – and later the director was introduced to me. At that time, I actually didn't know yet – I wasn't really familiar with it.

Right – so the director started talking to me. After chatting for a while, the director said – she talked to me about the situation, and then she probably – went online and watched some of my videos and stuff – and then we talked a lot. About philosophical questions.

Probably because – she was thinking that the character Qinglang is really too complex – she wanted to uh... how should I put it... Qinglang is just too layered and complicated. And then she asked me some questions to see if I could understand – whether someone my age could understand. And in the end, it turned out that my age and the character's age in the show – Qinglang – were exactly the same.

"Elaborate on the philosophy" (reading comment on screen). Mm – watch the show. Right – and then, with the character in the show, our ages are the same. “He's a bit of a crazy, artsy guy.” (comment on screen) Not – not exactly. You'll see – because his life, you could say, is like walking on thin ice.

That's all I can say – so this character, well – at first, I was I was afraid that if I played him, he wouldn't be well-liked.

"Did you hesitate over the genre?" (comment on screen). Because I think – I think the genre doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter, as long as what they want to make is something good – if they're serious about their work, then I think it's fine.

"Were you shocked when you found out it was BL?" (reading comment). Not really – because I've had other BL projects approach me before. So I wasn't shocked at all.

Because I think ultimately, it comes down to the work itself. I also went and watched Litchi Island. And after I watched it, I felt that a lot of the shots were really beautifully done. And I sensed a lot of things from it. There would be –

"A lot of people wouldn't dare to answer that." (comment on screen)

Dare to answer what? I don't think there's any question I can't answer. Is this really that serious of a question? If I say anything that's not great, or if I offend anyone – then, um... Sorry.

Okay.

Because honestly, I don't really care about the label. I just feel that if the work is something they're making seriously, then I think it's fine.

END OF TRANSCRIPT

(I came across a recording of the livestream on Chinese social media. I'm unsure of the exact date of the livestream, but it appears to be early in the release as the livestream had about 150 live viewers.)

Kuma's "walking on thin ice" comment reminds me of the moment in Episode >!7 when Changyang tells him not to hide (and that iconic "the memory of hiding you away shouldn't be a part of our story"), Qinglang isn't entirely comfortable with not hiding. He seems a little too quiet. This also echoes to what Qingtian says in Episode 6 that as long as Qinglang is still in the entertainment charts, "his body doesn't belong to his soul." With his profession and status, Qinglang is 身不由己 — he has to obey a will that is not his own.!<