When all eyes in the room turned toward her, Chu Duxiu knew it was too late to jump out the window and flee.
There weren’t many tables by the window, so her seat was especially easy to spot. The moment Scallion finished speaking, everyone turned to look at her, waiting for her response.
Under their scrutiny, Chu Duxiu hesitated. She had never been one to join in such antics, and upon hearing Scallion’s invitation, she wanted to wave her hand and politely decline. But when she caught the look in his eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse.
Scallion, seeing her frozen in place, clutched the microphone tightly, not even daring to breathe. Beads of nervous sweat dotted his forehead, and despite the black-framed glasses he wore, they couldn’t hide the forced calm—and silent plea—in his gaze. It was as if he already sensed Waterloo looming, yet he was still struggling desperately to avoid it.
When Chu Duxiu saw his pitiful expression, she inexplicably felt like she was looking in a mirror, reminded of her own miserable and unlucky day.
In the corner, Nie Feng noticed Xie Shenci stand up and quickly asked, “Where are you going?”
Xie Shenci replied, “I’m going up to interact. If no one responds, the atmosphere will only get worse.”
Scallion had already failed to rally the audience, and if his repeated invitations were rejected again, he’d probably lose his composure. Nie Feng, as the boss, couldn’t pretend to be a spectator—someone had to step in and save the situation.
Nie Feng said, “Wait, someone’s going up.”
Xie Shenci paused and looked over, only to see the girl by the window stand up. The bar was a bit crowded, and she moved slowly, carefully avoiding others like a tiny boat against the current, struggling her way toward the stage.
Scallion finally let out a long sigh of relief as he watched her approach.
The bar’s stage was small, but the lights were glaringly bright, like a scorching sun that threatened to blind anyone under them.
Chu Duxiu wasn’t even sure why she had agreed to come up—maybe the craft beer had gone to her head, or maybe Scallion’s floundering performance had stirred a sense of sympathy in her, making it impossible to just sit back and watch. Despite her heart pounding like a drum, she still stepped onto the stage.
At least she had seen Scallion’s act before and knew the general flow of his routine. All she had to do was follow along as the designated audience plant.
But as it turned out, things never went smoothly—nothing ever went as planned.
Scallion said, “Why don’t you introduce yourself first—”
Right at that moment, the microphone screeched with a deafening burst of feedback, followed by a prolonged, ear-piercing whine. Scallion, startled, fumbled with the mic, trying to adjust it, but the unruly equipment refused to cooperate.
The shrill noise tortured everyone’s eardrums, occasionally punctuated by sharp bursts of static, quickly souring the audience’s mood.
Chu Duxiu was just as stunned.
What kind of day is this?*
Even a stage malfunction had to happen right when I’m up here!
Nie Feng, the bar owner, couldn’t stay seated either. He rushed over to help troubleshoot, apologizing, “Sorry about this, just give us a moment—the mic’s acting up…”
Scallion hurried offstage to fix the equipment, while Nie Feng went to fetch a backup microphone, leaving Chu Duxiu alone onstage, waiting awkwardly.
The scene descended into chaos, the audience murmuring restlessly among themselves.
Chu Duxiu had never anticipated such a situation—being forced to face the entire audience alone. The stage lights warmed her cheeks, and combined with the alcohol coursing through her veins, she felt dizzy, almost feverish, as if she were floating on clouds.
Standing there by herself, meeting the gazes of countless indifferent faces below, she suddenly understood why Scallion had been so tense during his performance. The weight of their scrutiny was unbearable; the audience’s apathy burned like scorching flames. Less than a minute in, she already felt parched, as if her very essence were being baked dry, leaving her wishing she could crumble into withered wood and charred earth.
I have to do something, or I’ll die of embarrassment.
The murmurs in the crowd continued—until a voice cut through.
“It’s fine. Leaky roofs always get the heaviest rain, and lag spikes hit right when you’re about to rank up—that’s just how life goes. No need to rush. Let’s give the performers some time… and give me some time too.”
The words were clear, the tone calm. Though not amplified by a microphone, the delivery was measured and deliberate, effortlessly reaching every ear in the room.
The audience, previously listless and bored, turned their attention toward Chu Duxiu onstage.
“Because even though I’m standing up here, my soul is still back in the audience seats. I need a moment to figure out—why me?” Facing the crowd’s gaze, Chu Duxiu forced her voice to stay steady and shrugged helplessly. “At least you’re lucky—being randomly picked to share the awkwardness but not actually called up. Unlike me, right?”
Good-natured laughter rippled through the room.
The audience, imagining themselves in her shoes, found the situation instantly amusing. The tension in the air eased slightly.
Encouraged by the reaction, Chu Duxiu’s nerves began to settle.
“I swear, when he pointed at me just now, every single one of you let out a sigh of relief—look at this guy, suddenly crossing his legs like he’s off the hook…” She waved an arm in the air, mimicking Scallion selecting a victim. “If they fix that mic too fast, who’s to say he won’t finish with me and yell, ‘Hands up!’ again? Drag another poor soul onstage—sound familiar? Like a classic cop movie scene?”
“I’m that unlucky bystander, plucked from the crowd and held hostage. This is what I call ‘hostage-style stand-up’—if you don’t laugh, you get kidnapped onto the stage. They won’t let you go until the open mic’s over.”
Patting her chest with exaggerated bravado, she added, “So don’t rush them, folks. Stay patient. Stand-up comedy might be the art of offense—but tonight, it’s the art of crime. Who knows? You might be the next one ‘kidnapped,’ stuck up here with no way down.”
The room erupted in laughter.
No one expected Chu Duxiu to start roasting the situation—let alone that her deadpan expression could be so unintentionally hilarious.
Xie Shenci paused mid-step, no longer heading toward Nie Feng. Instead, he turned to study the girl onstage.
With delicate features and fair skin, her fine, soft hair gleamed chestnut under the lights. She spoke at an unhurried pace, her expression slightly stiff—clearly out of her comfort zone. Yet that very awkwardness, paired with her “trapped-onstage” predicament, somehow amplified the comedy.
“Sorry, really sorry—” Scallion, having heard her complaints, hurried over with a barstool. “Here, take a seat first!”
As Nie Feng called for him, Scallion bolted offstage to fetch the microphone.
With the stool now onstage, Chu Duxiu sat down.
The front-row guy she’d called out earlier uncrossed his legs and quipped, “Just take over. You’re funnier than him.”
“Damn, bro, do you really dislike him that much?” Chu Duxiu shot the man a baffled look. “When he asked about your job earlier, you refused to answer, and now you’re hitting him where it hurts.”
The guy nodded shamelessly. “Yep.”
“Come on, cut him some slack—if you won’t eat scallions in real life, at least let him bring some ‘scallion energy’ onstage. I mean, people rant about stomping all the cilantro in the world, but you don’t see them actually trashing a comedian named Cilantro, do you?”
Maybe it was the audience loosening up, no longer as guarded as before the show, but her off-the-cuff jokes landed another round of laughter.
Over by the bar, the female owner stared at Chu Duxiu’s effortless composure and muttered, “Holy shit, is this all improvised?”
Everyone knew open mics were for workshopping material—most comedians came prepared with scripts, some even clutching their phones onstage if they hadn’t memorized their lines. But Chu Duxiu had brought nothing, yet she seemed unnervingly polished.
Xie Shenci fell into thought, unable to tell if this was a performer’s masterful crowd control or just casual audience banter. The way she delivered punchlines with such ease, her back-and-forth flowing seamlessly—it all blurred the line entirely.
The bar buzzed with energy as someone from the back row shouted, “Do a set—!”
Mistaking her for a performer, the crowd grew curious and egged her on to go first.
Chu Duxiu blinked in disbelief. “Me? What should I even talk about?”
“Anything!”
“Introduce yourself!”
The intimate space amplified every voice—even without a microphone, the chatter rang clear.
Whether it was the alcohol or not, Chu Duxiu felt a surge of adrenaline, her cheeks warm and her courage uncharacteristically bold. With nothing better to do, she actually considered it, sifting through potential material under their encouragement.
After a pause, she began:
“Honestly, I dread audience interactions in stand-up—especially those warm-up questions before the show. You know, like ‘What do you do for work?’, ‘Are you two here together?’, ‘What’s your relationship?’” She mimed a mic grab, feigning distress. “As a jobless, single college student, it’s brutal. I always worry the comic’s judging how boring my life is—like I’m actively ruining their comedy.”
“It’s exactly like when I went for a job interview. The manager asked me during the day, ‘How much money can you make for the company?’ and at night, the stand-up comedian asks, ‘How many punchlines can you provide for the show?’ I’m almost scared their reactions will be the same after I answer.”
Chu Duxiu’s tone turned bewildered, “I said, ‘I’m just an audience member here to have fun—it’s not my job to provide laughs, that’s your job.’ And then he flew into a rage, stood up, and started yelling at me…”
The audience was hooked—until Chu Duxiu suddenly leapt off the stool. She planted her hands on her hips, puffing up in exaggerated fury, perfectly mimicking “GM Wang” down to his frenzied speech tempo:
“What is an open mic?! It’s a place to create laughter! But you’re an audience—you don’t know anything, so how are you going to deliver punchlines for us?! If you can’t deliver punchline, even if I do make you laugh, would you even dare to laugh out loud?!”
“At your stage, you shouldn’t be worrying about whether it’s funny—you should be thinking about what you can learn from stand-up! Do you know how many people would kill for this opportunity?! And here you are, arrogant and short-sighted, obsessing over whether it’s funny?!”
Then, just as abruptly, she dropped the act, shrugging calmly, “At this point, you’ve probably guessed—my daytime ‘performance’ was way funnier than tonight’s.”
She drawled, “Because sometimes, what managers say is far more ridiculous than any stand-up routine.”
The crowd froze for a beat—then erupted.
Her pitch-perfect delivery, razor-sharp mimicry, and effortless comic timing sent waves of laughter crashing through the bar, the uproar threatening to blow the roof off.
Finally venting her interview trauma, Chu Duxiu relished the crowd’s unrestrained laughter. The bitterness in her chest melted away—replaced by pure, unfiltered catharsis.
Down in the audience, Scallion clutched his newly fixed microphone, staring dumbfounded. “Do I… still need to go back up there?”
Nie Feng, equally engrossed in the impromptu performance onstage, snorted. “Why bother? To get completely upstaged by the audience member you picked?”
“……”
Scallion could only lament life’s cruel irony. When the stage was his, his equipment failed him. Now that his equipment worked perfectly, the stage was no longer his.
Fueled by the crowd’s infectious energy, someone shouted for Chu Duxiu to keep going. Feeding off their laughter, she felt an unexpected surge of confidence and raised her voice.
“Maybe it’s because I’ve been job hunting after graduation, but I’m so desperate to shed my student identity lately. Because as a student, you can never win—if you speak up, people dismiss you with ‘That’s such student thinking, you wouldn’t understand.’ But if you stay quiet…”
She suddenly crossed her arms and shot the audience a sideways glare, delivering a perfect eye-roll before sneering, “‘And this one’s supposed to be a college student?'”
The front-row crowd burst out laughing, grins permanently glued to their faces.
“Seriously, I can’t win. Universities spend years drilling into us about reason and principles. Then society smacks you in the face on day one with the harsh truth: life doesn’t play by logic.”
Chu Duxiu sighed dramatically. “The moment you enter the real world, everyone becomes your life coach. Cashiers, strangers on the subway—suddenly they’re all qualified to lecture you.” She paused. “Meanwhile, actual tenured professors? They can’t even be bothered to teach their required courses—half the time they just tell you to self-study. Never once have I seen a PhD chase after students to give unsolicited life advice…”
With a dramatic wave of her hand, she declared in mock despair, “So if you really want to ‘guide’ us college students, why not follow our professors’ teaching philosophy? Give us space—ignore us all semester, then cram everything into one frantic finals-week review session!”
The crowd roared with laughter, some doubling over in their seats.
Student audience members, still clutching their stomachs from laughing, burst into applause—wholeheartedly endorsing her take and sending the energy skyrocketing.
A whirlwind of joy swept through the bar, obliterating the earlier awkwardness like a gust of fresh air.
