Chapter 99: A Sharp Retort to Luther

Qin Xueyang was stunned by Zhang Qiyang’s sharp rebuke. After a beat, she said, “Why are you being shy?”

Zhang Qiyang was at a loss.

It was true that in the past, when he drank himself into a state worse than death and threw up all over himself, Qin Xueyang would often strip him naked and help him bathe. She knew every inch of him by heart.

But now he was awake, and her barging into the bathroom like that was unbearably awkward.

“Get out, now!”

Annoyed, Zhang Qiyang waved her off.

Qin Xueyang felt deeply wronged by his attitude and had no choice but to turn and leave, muttering under her breath, “When I’m taking a shower, you come bursting in over the tiniest little thing and make me do things for you, and you act like it’s perfectly reasonable. But when I come in, suddenly that’s not okay? I’ve never seen anyone this domineering and unreasonable.”

“From now on, when you shower, I won’t barge in. And when I’m showering, you’re not allowed to come in either!” Zhang Qiyang called after her, setting the rules for both of them all over again.

Only after Qin Xueyang left did he finally rinse himself clean from head to toe in peace.

Wrapped in a bath towel, he came out of the bathroom and saw Qin Xueyang at the kitchen counter, boiling hot dogs and instant noodles.

“Hey! You’re still hungry?”

Zhang Qiyang stared at her in disbelief. This chubby girl had just eaten six bowls of noodles, twice as much as he had, and she could still keep going.

Qin Xueyang pouted. “I’m mad! I’m so mad! Why should those jerks get to sneer at you? If they’ve got the guts, let them go compete on The Singer themselves! If their singing is better than yours, I’ll eat this pot.”

“Careful. Put the pot down and don’t let it splash.”

Zhang Qiyang was smoothing moisturizing lotion over his face as he asked, “So what did that loudmouth Wang do this time to make you this angry?”

“Go look for yourself. That guy’s disgusting!”

Zhang Qiyang sat down on the living room sofa, crossed his bronze-colored legs, and used his phone to glance through Wang Dazhong’s microblog.

The post with the champagne photo didn’t really anger Zhang Qiyang. On the contrary, he thought Wang Dazhong’s mockery was so restrained it almost sounded like fear.

But the more than sixty thousand comments underneath it were enough to make Zhang Qiyang thoroughly irritated.

Those people were acting as if there were a holiday going on, hopping around with glee, mocking Zhang Qiyang for giving a “normal” performance on The Singer, and all of them wishing him a last-place finish next round and a quick exit.

The people flocking under Wang Dazhong’s post to celebrate were probably the sort of miserable failures who looked pathetic in real life.

In the real world, they couldn’t prove their own worth, so they had to flail around on the internet, where there were no barriers at all.

Calling them keyboard warriors would be overestimating them.

They were losers. Utter, complete losers.

What these people earned in ten lifetimes probably still wouldn’t amount to the interest the richest man’s family made in a single day.

And yet they still had the nerve to mock Zhang Qiyang. Just who had given them that kind of courage?

What had happened to this society?

Was it really sick, just as Chen Ke had said?

If so, then let it become terminal.

Break before you build.

Maybe once it had rotted to death, a fresh new world full of energy and life would be born from the ruins.

Zhang Qiyang decided to use the most vulgar, most shameless method possible to mock the losers who were mocking him.

Looking up at Qin Xueyang, who was wearing a loose plaid nightshirt, he asked, “Where’s your bra?”

“I don’t wear one at night. Didn’t I tell you that?”

Qin Xueyang shot him a vexed look, unable to understand why he had suddenly become so fixated on her bra lately.

“I know you don’t wear it. Bring it to me,” Zhang Qiyang said, getting to his feet.

Qin Xueyang stared at him blankly. “Why? You going to wear it?”

“Pah! I need it for something. Hurry up and bring me your most sexy one!”

“What do you want my bra for? You’re not that twisted, are you?”

Looking at Zhang Qiyang, who had nothing but a bath towel wrapped around his waist, Qin Xueyang’s face was full of utter disgust. She had clearly misunderstood him.

“Enough nonsense. Hurry up. Bring me your bra!”

Pressed by Zhang Qiyang, Qin Xueyang reluctantly went back inside and fetched him a giant black H-cup bra.

But Zhang Qiyang thought the style was too conservative. No lace, no cutouts, just a huge half-cup bra. It didn’t look sexy at all.

“Do you not have anything prettier?” he said, his tone full of disdain.

“This is already my prettiest one. You’re not big-busted, so you have no idea how hard it is for us big-breasted girls to buy bras. For busts this size, finding something suitable and attractive in this country is basically a fantasy! All you can get are ugly matronly styles and granny styles. There’s absolutely no chance of finding anything girlish. I bought this one when I was studying in England, and I’ve worn it for years. It’s already gotten too small for me now.”

Zhang Qiyang ignored Qin Xueyang’s endless grumbling, took the bra, and returned to his bedroom.

“What exactly are you trying to do? Don’t do anything too weird! I still need to wear that bra tomorrow!”

Qin Xueyang followed him all the way into his room.

There, Zhang Qiyang placed the black giant bra on the king-size bed and even arranged it at a deliberately seductive angle.

Then he adjusted the light on the bedside lamp so it would fall across the bra, casting a dim, sultry silhouette.

Click, click, click.

Facing the bra and the bed, Zhang Qiyang took several photos in a row.

“You’re going to… post those?” Qin Xueyang finally caught on.

“I want those losers who keep trashing me to know that while they’re busy mocking me, I’m over here rolling around in bed with a big-busted girl! That’ll piss them off to death!”

“You’re way too twisted! But honestly, that is a great way to get under their skin. Haha, those haters are definitely going to be furious when they see it.”

She only laughed once before her smile faded. “Still, I think you should probably not post it. It’s too likely to cause trouble. Pictures like that could hurt your image.”

“My image? Please. What image do I even have left?” Zhang Qiyang asked. “Did you finish your noodles?”

“Oh no, you hadn’t said anything and I’d completely forgotten. I still had them boiling!”

Qin Xueyang slapped her thigh and hurried back to the fancy kitchen that was open to the living room to turn off the heat.

In his bedroom, Zhang Qiyang changed into a comfortable black T-shirt and pajama pants, then came out to the living room with a guitar in his arms.

He said to Qin Xueyang, who was stuffing noodles and hot dogs into her mouth, “You eat. I’ll sing a song, and you listen and learn it. This one’s very simple. Later, you can help me record a female version. I’m going to post it together with the photos and crush those losers flat.”

“What song is it?”

“One I just wrote. It’s called A Lifetime of Wanking.”

Pffft!

Qin Xueyang sprayed noodles and chewed-up hot dog all over the table.

“The lyrics are pretty crude and ridiculous, but the melody is really moving. You’ll understand once you hear it.”

Without another word, Zhang Qiyang picked up his guitar and, with a voice that was lonely yet wryly charming, sang the absurdly shameless song A Lifetime of Wanking:

“…I think you’ll keep on wanking, alone for this entire life. I think you’ll keep on wanking, wanking your way through a lifetime…”

The melody was borrowed from A Lifetime of Solitude by Rene Liu, warm and desolate in tone, and once twisted into A Lifetime of Wanking, it took on a flavor all its own.

The song absolutely needed to be sung by a woman to have its full effect.

Zhang Qiyang planned to use Qin Xueyang’s big bra and Qin Xueyang’s voice to mock the losers who were mocking him, and to do it with brutal force.

What he never could have imagined was that this foolishly adorable chubby girl in front of him, when she sang, would sound and feel ninety percent like Adele, the famously overweight powerhouse vocalist from another world.

Just like Adele, Qin Xueyang had been deeply wounded, carrying scars in her heart that would not heal.

And Qin Xueyang, this chubby girl, was actually the Adele of this world.

Most tragic of all, the first publicly released song of this future superstar, one who would one day sing the whole world to tears, would be the spoof track A Lifetime of Wanking.