Apocalyptic Forecast - Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Happy Mommy
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Name?”
“Huai Shi.”
“Age?”
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen?”
The interviewer raised a brow and looked at the young man in front of the table. The skinny young man carrying a heavy instrument case hurriedly put on a toady smile.
He wore a slightly faded tux, and his face was pale, as though he had not seen sunlight for quite some time. His hair was a little messy, but his pitch-black pupils looked like they were lit by wax candles. They were terrifyingly bright.
“A goth, huh? That’s rare. Lots of people are into that right now…”
The interviewer murmured to himself randomly. As he scrutinized the boy, his tone turned stern. “Lil Huai, you should know that our club is taking the elite approach. Not any Tom, Dick, and Harry can get in here.”
“Elite, right? I got it!”
Huai Shi straightened his little body and nodded forcefully, looking absolutely servile. “Old Yang told me everything before I came here. I know that you have strict requirements, but don’t worry, I’m very experienced!”
With that, he even plastered on a fawning smile.
The requirements may be stringent, but the salary was considerable too!
The economy was hitting a crazy low recently, and loads of people in New Ocean were losing their jobs. It was nearly impossible for a broke student to find a part-time gig playing music, and Huai Shi was almost dying of poverty now. When the agent Old Yang told Huai Shi he had found the boy a lucrative new job, Huai Shi was beside himself with joy.
If he really let this gig slip from between his fingers, the heavens themselves would punish him!
Old Yang had mentioned that this was an exclusive club that catered to the wealthy, and even the waiters serving the dishes here could get tips that amounted to thousands. If he could play his music here, there was no doubt he would be able to earn some money.
The interviewer paused, as though surprised by his strange sincerity. Nevertheless, the man nodded. “Alright, your resume says that you play the cello, too. Perform a piece for me, but put some effort into it.”
“Don’t you worry about that!”
Huai Shi opened his cello case with complete confidence. Holding his cello under his arm and picking up his bow with his other hand, he gave it a moment’s thought. Soon, the uniquely low melody of the cello rose from the strings.
He may face other things with fear, but he had never once failed when it came to the cello. Since he was young, he had been winning an endless stream of prizes with his cello. If he were not too poor to hire a good teacher, he might have long since made a name for himself in international competitions by now.
This was the Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C that he had practiced more times than he could count, and even a professional judge would not be able to point out a single flaw in his performance. Once he started playing, his emotions would immediately settle down. Right now, he was performing even better than he usually did, and the heavy melancholy amidst the lively notes was almost physically palpable.
A few short minutes later, though, the interviewer waved his hand rather impatiently. “Alright, that’s enough.”
“Huh?”
Huai Shi raised his head, stunned. He had no idea where he had gone wrong, so he hastily began to flip through the contents of his bag. “I have a professional certificate too, ABRSM Grade 8. If that isn’t enough, I’m going to take the first professional test next month…”
“That’s enough. Don’t bother with the fancy-schmancy nonsense.”
The interviewer shook his head crossly. “We don’t prioritize your certificates here. You just have to look decent with the cello. The most important part is still your skills…”
With that, he bent down and took a few items out of his drawer, lining them up in a row and pointing at them. “Which ones do you know how to use?”
“Huh?”
Huai Shi was stumped. As he looked at the items on the table, he had no idea what he was seeing.
“What… instruments are these?”
“Sigh, are you really so clueless or are you just pretending? Didn’t you say you were really experienced?”
The interviewer pointed at the table and introduced the items. “The happy mommy ball1, or the happy mommy flame2… which ones do you know how to use?”
“…”
Huai Shi mused over it for a long time, eventually looking at the cello he was holding and saying with one last ray of hope, “The happy mommy… cello?”
Boss, could you let me use my hacks here?
“So you mean you don’t know anything, huh?”
The interviewer was furious, pointing at Huai Shi’s nose and scolding his head off. “Do you have any idea how busy I am? Why’d you come here and try to be a gigolo if you don’t know anything? I declined a ton of meetings so I could be here to interview you. Are you just wasting my time?”
“…Aren’t you from a restaurant looking to hire a musician?”
It was only now that a stunned Huai Shi realized he had been fooled by that idiot of an agent again… Huh? What did he mean by ‘again’?
“Wait a sec!”
He held up a hand sternly. “Sir, I sell my art, not my body!”
Bam!
The office door slammed shut behind him.
Having been chased out of the office, Huai Shi sat on a chair in the corridor, still shaking from that close call. He felt as though he had been half a step away from losing the virginity he had maintained for half of his life. When he looked at how much money he had left in his accounts, though, he had the urge to take that step again…
He had been selling his art for so many years now, so what difference did it make if he sold his body too?
After all, it was all the same once the lights were off. In the end, he would still… Getting some money from it might make it feel even better. Maybe this was not so unacceptable, on second thoughts.
While he held his chin and thought it over, he suddenly remembered that ‘happy mommy series’ he saw earlier. All of a sudden, he shuddered all over.
In that instant, Huai Shi had a deep epiphany: in this world, happiness was being conservative.
Forget it, just put it out of mind…
With tears in his eyes, he rejected the temptation of money, striding out of the club as quickly as he could. When he saw the stone lions covered with gold leaf standing at the door, he could not help the urge to go back in again.
“Wait!”
Suddenly, someone yelled at him from behind. It was a man in a suit with a handsome but cold face, who looked at Huai Shi with a stern gaze. “Hey, you! Stand right there!”
“Me?”
Huai Shi panicked slightly, and he could not help but shirk backward under the man’s glare.
“You’re the newbie who came in today, right? How could you leave without even greeting the club’s First Brother? Don’t you know the rules?” The man walked up to Huai Shi and stood on a step, looking down at him from above. Eventually, he nodded. “You look decent, but you’d better keep your hands to yourself. After all, you’re not as beautiful as I am.”
With that, he sultrily combed the few strands of his long hair that had been fluttering in the wind. The sight made Huai Shi’s stomach turn, and he said angrily, “Sorry, First Brother, but I’m not gonna be a gigolo!”
“Oh yeah, they call us escorts now, but it’s the same underneath.”
‘First Brother’ nodded knowingly and gave Huai Shi a gracious wave. “It’s alright. Since you called me First Brother, I’ll watch over you from now on.”
As he said that, he took a bottle out of his bag and shoved it at Huai Shi’s chest. Patting the latter’s shoulder, he said solemnly, “You have to be professional, even if you’re a gigolo. Go home and get that oil off your face. Your skin is way too coarse, what’s up with your skincare routine? What a waste of a pretty little face… Don’t use too much of it at once, though. This is some high-class stuff from Europe.”
With those words, he lifted his chin, turned around and left without even waiting for Huai Shi’s ‘humble gratitude’.
“…”
Huai Shi stood at the door, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. He looked at the make-up in his hands and did not know if he should smash the bottle at the doorstep and yell something like, “All tides will turn eventually, don’t bully me cuz I’m young and broke”.
After a long while, he looked at the intricate little bottle in his hand and put it into his pocket, grimacing.
Whatever. He was already here anyway, and it looked quite pricey, so it would be a waste to toss it… It was not even open yet, so he could give it to Old Yang to sell later.
Poverty was making me meek.
He had such a cheat code, so why was he still so broke?!
Huai Shi took that notebook out of his bag and flipped through the entire thing for a bit before sighing deeply and stuffing it back inside.
When he thought of Old Yang, he gritted his teeth in anger. Taking out his phone, he dialed a number and immediately yelled, “Are you freaking nuts, Old Yang? Why the heck did you introduce me to a gigolo club? Have you lost your mind trying to earn your agent fees?”
“Sigh, I just didn’t ask them carefully enough. They wanted someone young, experienced, good-looking, and talented in the arts… I was just thinking of how broke you are. I wanted to do you good, see? Don’t be mad, why don’t I treat you to a meal day after tomorrow? We can celebrate your sis-in-law getting out of the hospital. Remember to bring over some chives…”
“I’ll bring my *ss, you wanna eat it?”
Huai Shi hung up crossly. That b*stard definitely did that on purpose. He was asking for his agent’s fee after Huai Shi got caught in his sneaky schemes.
Still, when Huai Shi remembered what Old Yang’s family was like, he could not bring himself to hate the man.
The jerk was throwing his life away to earn enough money for his wife’s medical fees. If it were not for that, he would not bother with something as petty as Huai Shi’s part-time jobs. All he would get was a small commission of a few dozen bucks… Besides, aside from the fact that he would not give any discounts for his fee, the guy was pretty honest and steadfast. At least he did not make up any excuses to rob Huai Shi of more money.
They were comrades in crisis.
Whatever, forget it…
Huai Shi sighed, and then he heard the thunder.
Pitch-black clouds had drifted over from the distance and were hanging in the dreary sky. Thanks to the illumination of the dim sunlight, he could vaguely see the corals growing between the clouds. He even saw the shadows of the swimming fish…
The blue-tinged ocean swayed gently, casting a sea of blue light on the ground below.
It was going to rain soon.
Apparently, these coral clouds were not that common seventy or eighty years ago. Back then, they were still in the oceans, but now they were wandering through the sky all over the world.
Many scientists said it was because they discovered some rare element, or that it was because the atmosphere was polluted, but no one really believed them.
At first, everyone panicked and thought the apocalypse was upon them, but decades passed, and there was no sign of any zombies or other classic apocalyptic creatures.
After some time, everyone became used to it.
It was just some extra stuff floating about in the sky, and all that happened was that they received a little more rain. Once the planes changed their flight routes, they continued flying as usual, did they not?
Everyone still had to earn money and repay their debts. Life went on.
After a few days of chaos, everything returned to normal.
It seemed as though nothing had changed from before.
The thunder clapped again and again.
Huai Shi did not bring an umbrella, so he did not dare to waste any time. Turning around, he ran home with all his might. In his mad dash, however, he heard another huge crash from the distance.
This time, the thunder was especially clear and obvious. Even the ground began to shudder.
He looked up in the direction of the sound and saw a cloud of fog and sparks rising from the port in the distance. It seemed like something had exploded.
The passersby on the street exchanged confused glances, and some people excitedly took out their phone to take videos of the whole thing. Others even approached it excitedly, trying to get in on the action.
If it was any other day, Huai Shi might join in the curiosity too, but right now it felt like the pressures of life and gigolohood were threatening to snap his back in two. He would just pass on the curiosity for now…
He sighed and turned left into a small alley ahead, quickening his steps.
Bam!
At the end of the alleyway, a bottle was kicked into a wall, shattering into pieces all over the floor. Immediately afterward, a leather boot stomped those pieces into the ground.
Someone rushed out from the corner next to Huai Shi, his steps unstable, as though he was drunk. He did not even slow down, brushing past Huai Shi and plastering himself against the wall with a smack.
Huai Shi was stunned.
Who was this fine gentleman?
To his surprise, the ‘gentleman’ stumbled backward from the momentum of the crash, and when he saw Huai Shi, he suddenly pounced at the boy.
Huai Shi did not even have the time to dodge. The stranger grabbed his arm, and then he felt a heavy box crashing into his chest.
“What’s this?”
He froze on the spot and instinctively tried to pull back, but he felt something moist on his hands. A sticky red fluid was flowing from that man’s sleeve.
It was blood.
It was only then that the intensely thick odor of blood assaulted his nostrils.
All of a sudden, Huai Shi’s head hurt and span violently. He bent over and could not help but retch a mouthful of saliva.
When he looked up, he finally saw that man’s vicious expression and contorted features. The man stared at Huai Shi blankly, as though he wanted to say something, but all that came out of his mouth was a ton of blood.
The entire scene was peculiar enough, but Huai Shi still accidentally saw something in the pool of blood he vomited… a small goldfish?
It was not even all that big. It was exactly the type that most people would keep in an aquarium for decorative purposes back home, looking round and fat and especially cute.
“You sure have intense tastes, brother. Is this even edible? It’s still raw!”
Huai Shi’s eyes were wide as saucers. “Is this a really bad case of food poisoning?”
Immediately after that, though, he saw the goldfish splashing around in the pool of blood rapidly shrink and dry up. Eventually, it became something like a cloud of dust, melting into the pool of blood.
As the goldfish died, that man looked like he had been drained of all his energy as well. He collapsed onto the floor and stopped breathing. All that remained was that thick color of blood seeping out from underneath his coat.
Amidst the silence, Huai Shi was the only one who remained in the alley.
He and the box that had been stuffed into his hands…
The box looked just a little larger than a regular Rubix cube, but it was heavy to hold. When he shook it, something sloshed around inside it, like a liquid.
It was cold to the touch, as though it was made of steel or copper. There were some extravagant carvings that Huai Shi had never seen before on its surface too, but the carvings were covered by that man’s blood, so Huai Shi could not see them clearly. Even so, they seemed to hold a strange magic.
Huai Shi gulped.
He felt thirsty.
Just holding it in his hands gave him the urge to open it up, as though there was something inside that tempted him immensely. He really wanted to own it, to claim it for himself…
He took a deep breath.
What should he do under these circumstances? Did he even need to think about it?
Huai Shi took out his phone without hesitation.
“Hello? 1101?”