Chu Duxiu was taken aback when she heard that—she hadn’t expected his reaction.
Based on what she knew of Xie Shenci, he would usually give a straightforward “yes” or “no.” For him to suddenly ask, “What’s in it for me?” was truly unexpected.
Xie Shenci fixed his gaze on her without betraying any emotion. His expression was as calm as ever, his tone even. His brows seemed faintly furrowed, yet on closer look they were utterly composed. As always, he carried that stoic, poker-faced air—though for some reason there was a hint of resentment in it.
Chu Duxiu seemed to catch on. She pressed her lips together, suppressing a laugh, and lowered her head as if to steady herself. “I’ll ask Wang Nali, see what she thinks—how much she figures the autograph is worth.”
Watching her type a message on her phone, Xie Shenci was momentarily startled. “She’s a fan of Qi Yunhan?”
Chu Duxiu admitted frankly, “I don’t know. Not sure, no idea. Maybe just heard of him, maybe a casual fan.”
After all, Wang Nali had only mentioned it offhand and never said what kind of fan she was.
Hearing this, Xie Shenci slowly loosened his crossed arms, letting them drop naturally to his sides, standing tall and upright.
Catching his small movement out of the corner of her eye, Chu Duxiu suddenly teased, “Mr. Xie, if someone asked you for your autograph, would they also have to offer you a benefit?”
Xie Shenci: “?”
She playfully pulled out paper and pen, blinking earnestly. “Could you do me a favor? Sign your name for me.”
“…”
When Xie Shenci caught the amusement in her eyes, how could he not realize she was teasing him? He glanced at her several times, the lines of his face tightening. First, he understood that he had misunderstood at the beginning; then, recalling what she had just said, an inexplicable flush of embarrassment welled up in him. He wasn’t even sure what exactly he was feeling awkward about.
Slowly, he averted his gaze, no longer meeting her eyes, and changed the subject in an even tone. “If Qi Yunhan’s company has no objections, I can help ask around for you. But I can’t guarantee anything.”
“Alright, thank you.” Chu Duxiu could tell he was dodging the point. Seeing that he still wouldn’t take the paper and pen, she curiously pressed on, “But does your autograph also need Shanle’s approval?”
Xie Shenci shot her a glare, oddly showing a flash of shame and irritation, as if warning her off with his eyes.
“I should get going—don’t want to keep them waiting.”
Being teased by her like some male celebrity was more than he could handle; he simply fled the scene in defeat.
Watching him hurry away, Chu Duxiu could barely keep from laughing. She hadn’t expected Mr. Xie to be flustered by something like this, too embarrassed to handle such comments.
Thinking back carefully, when they first met, Xie Shenci had carried himself with composure and spoke with ease. Back then, their relationship wasn’t as close as it was now. Yet even then, when she’d joked, “So what you mean is that you’re too handsome, and it makes you unapproachable?”—he’d been completely thrown off. It seemed he simply had no defenses against any talk that touched on his looks.
That evening, a knock on the hotel room door interrupted the two of them as they were revising the draft.
Wang Nali leapt off her chair and ran barefoot to open it. She spoke briefly with someone outside, then soon returned carrying two small baskets.
“Wow, my wish came true! A little gift from Qi Yunhan’s studio—they said it’s for the Top Twelve contestants.” Wang Nali exclaimed with delight. “I wonder if he’s going to be a guest for the semifinals or the finals. Our show’s really something!”
She handed one of the baskets to Chu Duxiu. Its contents were much the same as those given to Luo Qin and Su Xinyi: products endorsed by Qi Yunhan, along with a finely printed autographed photo.
Seeing the basket, Chu Duxiu was momentarily stunned—she hadn’t expected Mr. Xie to go about getting an autograph this way.
No wonder he had said he couldn’t guarantee it. She had simply wanted a signed photo, but instead it had come as a gift directly from Qi Yunhan.
That was just as well—it saved her a lot of trouble. Otherwise she would have had to explain where the autograph had come from. Now everyone had one, all evenly distributed.
Chu Duxiu also sent a WeChat message to Mr. Xie to thank him, while teasingly urging him to keep up the good work:
[They only gave me one. Where’s your autograph?]
Mr. Xie 10.9: [angry black cat glare.jpg]
That expression was clearly a protest—yet she still took it as an opportunity to joke around with him.
[You’re acting like a diva.]
[I already gave you one.]
Staring at the text, Chu Duxiu blinked in confusion: “?”
Then it dawned on her.
[That one in the book wasn’t your full name, and it wasn’t a signed photo.]
Mr. Xie 10.9: [I don’t have photos.]
[I can sign on one of your memes.]
[?]
Chu Duxiu pulled out The New Comedy Bible from her bag, snapped a quick photo of the page where he had written the single character “Xie,” then opened an editing app to turn it into a meme. She sent it back to the book’s original owner.
Seeing his own handwriting turned into a meme, Xie Shenci practically wanted to reply with a whole string of question marks.
Chu Duxiu could already picture him at a loss for words, and couldn’t help thinking how delightful it was to chat with him—it almost felt like sparring with Chu Lan all over again.
Semifinals. The studio was packed with people; the audience had grown, though the number of laughing representatives remained the same.
The Top Twelve contestants entered one after another. Guided by the directors, they waved at the camera by the entrance, then dashed inside and quickly took their seats in the waiting area, ready for the group performances.
Seeing so many performers, the live audience couldn’t help but cheer, loudly calling out the names of their favorite contestants.
As The Stand-up King gained popularity, more and more people had signed up to take part in the recordings. Compared with the breakout rounds—when the cheers were mostly for the celebrity guests—by the time of the semifinals, most of the audience had come for the contestants themselves, gradually remembering their names and distinct traits.
Luo Qin laughed. “Everyone’s so enthusiastic.”
Su Xinyi nodded. “The wheel of fortune has turned—now we’re basking in the contestants’ glow.”
The hall erupted with laughter and noise.
From the audience, some people also shouted the names of Luo Qin, Su Xinyi, and other guest stars, helping ease the tense atmosphere of the competition with a touch of cheer.
In the contestants’ section, many of the performers smiled at the sound, but soon their faces tightened again, weighed down by nerves about the semifinal results.
“What’s with everyone, huh? What’s with the long faces?” Bei He said with a grin. “Why’s it so gloomy today?”
Scallion said, “I’m so anxious—it’s like I’ve been thrown into a pan of hot oil. Any second now I’ll turn into scallion-oil noodles.”
The Top Twelve to Top Eight round was a crucial match, deciding who could step into the finals. The final stage would be eight to four, then four to one—so the semifinals were the real threshold. Crossing it was almost like touching the finish line.
That day, the girls’ group sat together. They were among the few contestants who remained calm, carrying themselves with the same composure as always, even able to joke around freely.
“If I get eliminated, can I still come to the finals as an audience member?” Wang Nali said regretfully. “I want to be there in person—and I could still vote for you guys.”
Chu Duxiu couldn’t stand hearing her put herself down. She made an exaggerated face and said, “Here it is, here it comes—this is a pro at work, laying down a reverse flag!”
Lu Fan gently chimed in, “Makes sense. What if she suddenly knocks the two of us out instead?”
Wang Nali found it funny. “Wow, you two really flatter me—making me sound like a big shot.”
The three of them laughed and teased each other until, at last, it was time for their performance.
The order of performance for each group was decided by drawing lots: Lu Fan, Wang Nali, and then Chu Duxiu. Once all three had finished, their votes would be announced together, and the eliminated contestant revealed.
From the stage came the host’s voice: “Please welcome our next contestant—Lu Fan!”
Hearing this, Chu Duxiu and Wang Nali both grew excited, cheering her on. “Good luck, Ms. Lu!”
“Alright,” Lu Fan rose to her feet, loosening her body with a few stretches, and said softly, “Let me go first, test out today’s crowd. Then I’ll watch my lovely students perform.”
Listening in, Nie Feng whispered in admiration, “Their group has the best vibe today.”
While other contestants were so nervous they could’ve thrown up, these three were still able to laugh and joke around.
Upbeat entrance music began to play. Lu Fan walked onto the stage at an unhurried pace. She wore a soft knitted sweater paired with a simple, plain-colored long skirt, giving her a gentle, elegant air—someone well-read and composed.
Wang Nali murmured, “Hopefully Ms. Lu sets a good tone with the opening. That way, the pressure on us later won’t be so heavy.”
If Lu Fan’s opener flopped, their whole group would look weaker, and the audience’s enthusiasm would drop.
Chu Duxiu nodded in agreement.
On stage, Lu Fan picked up the microphone. After the applause subsided, she officially began her set.
Her diction was clear, her delivery smooth, with a natural grace that drew the audience in:
“Hello everyone, I’m Lu Fan. Many of you may know that I’m a teacher. I used to teach English, and now I teach stand-up comedy, overseeing the Shanle training camp program.”
“Teaching, passing on knowledge, answering questions—I’ve been a teacher long enough to realize one thing: as a teacher, you absolutely can’t be too honest and well-behaved.”
“When I was a student, I used to imagine that if I ever became a teacher, I’d be gentle, patient, and reasonable. I wouldn’t be the fierce, terrifying type, shouting in the hallways every day, raising hell over the smallest thing. After graduation, when I started working at a middle school teaching English to several classes, I actually lived up to that promise.”
She looked seriously at the audience, straight-faced:
“I never shouted three or four times. I always shouted five, six, seven, eight—because you quickly realize, yelling only three or four times just isn’t enough to keep your students in line.”
Laughter rippled through the crowd.
Bei He was both exasperated and amused. “So that’s why she yells at me every day—she treats me like one of her students!”
Scallion, who had been clapping, froze at that, looking baffled. “Uh… but Ms. Lu has never yelled at me…”
Wang Nali chimed in, “She’s never yelled at me either.”
Chu Duxiu looked hesitant. “…Maybe she only yells at middle schoolers?”
Bei He shot her a sidelong glance, smiling through gritted teeth. “Rookie Queen, watch yourself—who exactly are you implying here?”
Lu Fan sighed helplessly. “Kids these days are just too clever. They can read your expression in an instant and tell whether you’re easy to push around.”
“I still remember a class I once taught—discipline was terrible, nobody could sit still. Before every lesson, one girl would stand up and yell at the whole class, ‘Be quiet!’”
“And immediately, the room would fall silent. She managed to do what I couldn’t, and then I could finally start teaching.”
“Every time she came to me during the break with questions, she’d shake her head at me again and again and say, ‘Ms. Lu, what would you do without me?’”
Holding the mic, Lu Fan imitated the girl shaking her head. Just that simple gesture was enough to draw another round of laughter from the audience.
Su Xinyi covered her mouth, smiling. “Sounds kind of adorable.”
“She was the class monitor, and later became my class rep. Her grades in every subject were good, she was proactive in her studies, and as my English rep, she was especially responsible.”
“By the second semester, even the way she kept order had changed. She switched to shouting ‘Shut up!’ in English”
“And when she came to me during the break, she’d still shake her head—but this time she’d ask in English, ‘Ms. Lu, what would you do without me?’” Lu Fan said calmly, “Such a strong sense of responsibility.”
The audience roared with laughter, the atmosphere warming up as the crowd gradually loosened into the show.
Nie Feng marveled, “She’s really good—no wonder she was last season’s runner-up.”
Lu Fan didn’t rely much on physical comedy; instead, she entertained the audience through storytelling, using words to draw laughter.
“Of course, that student soon graduated, and I no longer taught that class. By then I had more experience—and I’d also learned how to yell at people.”
“But there’s still one regret. Today, I’d like to use this stage to tell that girl: back then, your teacher’s knowledge was too shallow. Those questions you asked me between classes—I finally have an answer now.”
Lu Fan enunciated every word: “After you were gone, Ms. Lu became just like you.”
“And I even turned into the version of myself I hated most as a child—always scowling, always scaring people. Then one day I realized: the brat I disliked so much back then… was actually me.”
The whole hall burst into laughter.
Luo Qin slapped the one-light button hard, and the sound effect from the stage rang out, thrilling to the ears.
Lu Fan continued, “When I first started teaching, I was very honest in grading assignments. Sometimes students wouldn’t know how to answer, but they wouldn’t leave it blank either. They’d try to get away with messy scribbles, hoping I wouldn’t understand, and thus slip through unnoticed.”
“I once spent more than ten minutes trying to decipher a student essay. Beautiful, ornate handwriting—flourishes all over the page. That kind of script looked impressive yet unreadable, as if the student’s English skills must be incredibly advanced.”
“The student was having the time of their life writing it, while the grader was going crazy—I couldn’t make out a thing. I even went online to search for that font, carefully comparing letter by letter. I was terrified I’d be careless, misread a character, and mark it wrong.”
She slowly lowered her head, despairing: “And in the end, I discovered—the little rascal had written it in pinyin.” [1]
On stage, the second approval light suddenly lit up, while the laughter reps couldn’t stop clapping!
Lu Fan went on, “Everyone should know the famous junior high essay character, Li Mei. One moment she wants you to help her write a letter to her pen pal, the next she wants you to apply for a summer camp, then she needs you to draft a greeting card for her parents. You can’t help but wonder—are you being tested on English?”
“All you feel is that you’re basically managing Li Mei’s daily trivial chores. Li Mei can’t function without you.”
“My students would see Li Mei in an exam and instantly know: trouble’s coming. They’d break down right there in the exam hall.”
“But the thing is, they only have to deal with one Li Mei. My job is facing countless Li Meis. Every time I saw the results after an exam, I’d break down too. I’d start wondering—am I even teaching English?”
“And then you get these compositions where they’re writing sentences in pinyin. They don’t even make sense when you read them!” She said in puzzlement, “If Li Mei really lived the life my students wrote about, stuck dealing with all these endless trivial chores, she’d probably collapse pretty fast. So how is it she manages to show up in every single exam?”
Chu Duxiu was torn between laughing and crying, and muttered under her breath, “Looks like Ms. Lu carried a lot of resentment back then.”
Bei He said, “If she’d lived a happy life, how else would she have ended up doing comedy?”
“Plenty of students also hold stereotypes about English teachers—especially female ones. It’s as if only by being labeled ‘pretty,’ ‘wearing new clothes every day,’ and ‘marrying a wealthy man’ could they prove how excellent their English level was.”
Lu Fan let out a long sigh:
“The scariest thing is, it’d be one thing if outsiders thought that way—but some English teachers actually thought that way themselves. Every day in the office they’d be comparing with each other. Back then, I was naïve, even a bit self-righteous. I thought, Is this what being a teacher has come down to?”
“And since I didn’t get along with the school leaders either—always felt they judged people instead of matters—I started considering a change of environment.” She went on:
“One time, something happened with a student, and the leader got it wrong. He stormed up to me and demanded, ‘Lu Fan, you’re the homeroom teacher, how can you just teach class and not deal with students fighting!?’”
“I was completely innocent, so I answered, ‘But I’m not the homeroom teacher, and I wasn’t even there—I really couldn’t do anything about it.’”
“Only then did he realize he’d mixed me up with another teacher. But he still wouldn’t back down, saying, ‘Even if you’re not the homeroom teacher, you should still keep an eye on them. Watch if the students are getting along—don’t just wait until something happens!’”
Lu Fan widened her eyes. “I was even more aggrieved, so I said, ‘But Chu Duxiu and Wang Nali usually get along just fine—I have no idea why they suddenly started fighting!’”
Thunderous laughter burst out, and the third light lit up as well—Su Xinyi couldn’t resist slapping the button.
Su Xinyi covered her face. “I didn’t mean to buzz in for an inside joke, but this one was just too funny.”
Luo Qin nodded in deep agreement. “Especially coming from this group, right!”
Lu Fan softened her tone, “Just kidding—if it were on the show, the leader wouldn’t say that. The director would just say: ‘Lu Fan, how can you just teach class and not deal with students fighting!?’”
“You should join in—fight alongside them! That way you’ll be closer to the students!”
This time, the whole contestants’ area exploded with laughter.
Chu Duxiu and Wang Nali immediately became the focus of everyone’s gaze. They clung to each other, deliberately acting out a show of “drawing closer.”
In front of the monitor, Shang Xiaomei’s heart gave a little jolt when she heard that. The corners of her lips curved slightly as she lowered her head guiltily.
“Why does it feel like she’s peeking into my thoughts?”
Director Shang truly felt: Good fight—make it louder next time.
Lu Fan continued, “Later on, I resigned from the school and went out to work as an English teacher, mainly focusing on overseas study training. That way I did manage to escape the stereotype of being just a regular school English teacher.”
“But I quickly discovered that labels don’t appear out of thin air, nor do they vanish into thin air.”
“They only get transferred—from one object to another. In my case, they got transferred onto my training students.”
“Especially those at the bottom of the class. It’s as if only by slapping on the labels of being lazy, wearing designer clothes every day, and coming from wealthy families, could they properly showcase how not excellent their English was.”
“I was extremely anxious, and I would try to persuade them earnestly: ‘Your parents spent so much money for you to study—are you really here just to waste time? Don’t you want to get into university quickly and do something valuable for society?’”
“But they would calmly reply: ‘Ms., it’s not that much money. Even if I keep paying until I’m a hundred years old, it should be fine. So I’m really not in a hurry.’”
“…” Lu Fan paused for a few seconds. She looked around, then let out a long, frustrated hiss. “What else can I say?”
“All I could say was: ‘Great. I think you’re actually creating jobs for teachers. By not letting us be unemployed at thirty-five, you’re already doing something valuable for society.’”
“I wish you a long life, so that your teacher can keep teaching right up until retirement is postponed.”
Laughter surged one after another, waves rolling into a roaring sea, as if it might burst everyone’s eardrums.
Luo Qin and the others wanted to hit their buzzers again, only to realize they had already done so long ago, and could only regretfully pull their hands back.
Bei He exclaimed in admiration, “This one’s pure, no gimmicks at all—she really gave it her all for the students!”
Lu Fan could have held this set back and saved it for the finals, but instead, for the sake of the girls’ team, she brought it out early. As a seasoned veteran of the show, she didn’t try to sandbag or play any matchup tricks, but had shown full respect.
“Now, I don’t teach English anymore—I teach stand-up comedy. My past troubles are gone, and so are the old vanities,” Lu Fan said.
“My students are finally all poorer than me, so situations like before basically don’t happen anymore.”
“But we’re all very happy. My students and I are both pretty straightforward people, and when honest people communicate with honest people, at least you don’t end up mentally exhausted.”
“Teach the books that need teaching, guide the people that need guiding. Perhaps that’s all a teacher really needs—to live with a clear conscience.”
“So from here on: teach well, live well, and happily watch my students fight.”
“Thank you, everyone. I’m Lu Fan.”
Lu Fan bowed deeply, then exited the stage unhurriedly.
Translator’s Note:
[1] Pinyin: the official Romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese, using the Latin alphabet to represent pronunciation.
