The Nutrition is Too Good - Chap 13.2
Rong Mian stared at the phone screen for a while, his reaction sluggish, before finally raising his eyes in a daze.
He met Zhong Yi’s gaze, then let out a burp.
“I didn’t intentionally overhear your conversation with someone else.”
Zhong Yi took a deep breath. “I just want to confirm with you a certain word you mentioned earlier. I suspect I may have misheard. Did you say Czech, or Jack, or…?”
“It’s ‘Guest’1.”
Rong Mian replied.
Rong Mian’s reaction was slower than usual. He tilted his head and stared at Zhong Yi for a while before repeating in a clear and steady voice, “I just told Uncle Yun that I don’t want to entertain guests.”
Zhong Yi felt that his blood was almost as cold as the ice beneath the sashimi.
Everything was a mess.
He thought in horror, the world has truly gone mad.
The alcohol wasn’t particularly strong, yet the boy sitting across from him had a slightly flushed cheek and a hazy look in his eyes, clearly appearing intoxicated.
That’s why, without any guard, he blurted out his secret in front of himself.
Zhong Yi knew he shouldn’t continue probing, but he couldn’t control himself and spoke again, his voice even trembling a bit, “What… do you mean by ‘guest’?”
Rong Mian felt his vision becoming a little blurry.
His vision has always been good, but now the things in his line of sight seemed to be covered with a hazy halo. He furrowed his brows and rubbed his eyes.
“There are a few female guests who haven’t seen me in a long time, they are… regulars.”
Rong Mian turned his face away and said intermittently, “They really want to see me, and if they can’t see me for too long… it will be troublesome, so I… I have to go back and entertain them this weekend…”
Zhong Yi felt his heart sink.
He was well aware of how dirty the entertainment industry could be, especially since this kid’s company was an unknown, small company. Usually, there were contracts that forced them to do all sorts of things.
Based on Rong Mian’s tone on the phone just now, it seemed like he had been forced to go along with many people.
Zhong Yi realized that the situation might be more serious than he had imagined.
He stood up and walked directly to Rong Mian’s side, crouching down and gripping his shoulders, asking in a somewhat cold and firm tone, “The person who called you just now, was it your manager? Or the company’s boss?”
The word “company” seemed to confuse Rong Mian for a moment. After thinking for a while, he vaguely replied, “Probably… the boss, I guess…”
Zhong Yi asked again, “How long have you been receiving guests?”
Rong Mian said dazedly, “For a long time… many years…”
Zhong Yi felt his heart skip a beat.
“It’s tiring to serve guests, and sometimes some guests can be very unreasonable…”
Rong Mian yawned and said drowsily, “So…so I don’t want to serve guests.”
“—How long is your contract with your company?”
Zhong Yi asked coldly.
The word “contract” seemed a bit difficult for Rong Mian to understand at this moment. After pondering for a moment, he hesitated and said, “Uncle Yun is my benefactor, so I…I should…I should work for him for the rest of my life.”
Zhong Yi remembered that this kid had mentioned before that he had no parents. The more young children with problematic family backgrounds like him, the more easier they were to being brainwashed and deceived by unscrupulous talent agencies, signing contracts that hid various traps.
Things were getting bad.
Zhong Yi took a painful breath.
Perhaps Zhong Yi’s complexion was too bad, but Rong Mian looked at him blankly for a while and added, “Actually, some guests are also very nice and gentle, and…and some regular guests would give me very—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Zhong Yi interrupted him with a displeased expression on his face.
“What do you usually do when you accompany guests?” he asked.
Rong Mian hesitated for a moment, as if he had thought of something unpleasant.
He frowned and turned his head away, his gaze drifting as he began to mutter to himself, “I feel uncomfortable, I want to drink water…”
Zhong Yi wasn’t in the mood to drag this out any longer. He looked at the boy in front of him, who seemed restless and unable to sit still, and reached out to grasp the back of his neck, forcing him to look into his eyes.
As if triggering some invisible switch, the moment Zhong Yi’s palm touched the back of Rong Mian’s neck, Zhong Yi noticed that he seemed to shrink slightly, and then strangely quieted down.
The boy’s eyes widened, his eyelashes trembling slightly, as he stared blankly at Zhong Yi.
“…I just accompany them, they would…hug me and kiss me. Actually, if I endure it for a while, I can just sleep it off,” Rong Mian obediently said, “But sometimes, some guests can’t control their emotions, they get too excited, and it…it hurts me. I don’t like it.”
Zhong Yi stiffened for a moment.
“My…my neck hurts.”
Rong Mian struggled slightly, with minimal movement, “Let go of me…”
The contours of Rong Mian’s ears were unusually red, and he seemed to be in great discomfort. Even his eyes were filled with misty tears. Zhong Yi paused for a moment and instinctively let go of his hand.
Rong Mian covered the back of his neck and fell silent.
Zhong Yi took a deep breath.
He suddenly realized that everything seemed to make sense now, which had seemed irrational before.
Why would someone so young behave so frivolously? Why did he look so clueless when undoing someone’s pants zipper? Perhaps he had been deceived and used by the company from a very young age, becoming numb to it.
Zhong Yi felt nothing but sorrow and heartache.
But Rong Mian had no idea what Zhong Yi was thinking, because he was extremely tired.
When Zhong Yi snapped out of his thoughts, he saw the boy in front of him swaying his head slowly. His mumbled words were unclear, and the next moment, he fell straight forward.
Seeing the person about to hit the table and give himself a big salute, Zhong Yi hurriedly reached out his hand, catching Rong Mian’s face in his palm.
The boy’s profile rested against his hand, with his black hair partially covering his brows and eyes. His cheeks had a slight blush, contrasting against his fair skin, and his lips were beautifully shaped.
His consciousness had started to become hazy. Sensing the slightly warmer temperature in Zhong Yi’s palm, Rong Mian half-awakened and slightly opened his eyes, meeting Zhong Yi’s gaze.
Then Zhong Yi watched as his eyelashes trembled for a moment, and without delay, he affectionately, with a subtle movement, rubbed his face against Zhong Yi’s palm.
Author’s Note:
The bitterness of working hard.
Footnotes
‘Guest’ in here is actually just regular customers in cat cafe. But Zhong Yi misunderstood it as prostitutions.