Chapter 559: Seeing Li Qingshan Again

Seeing this face, Chen Ling showed rare astonishment.

"Li Qingshan??"

Face-changing had always been Chen Ling’s specialty. He had seen countless people shocked by this smooth "tear-off transformation," but he hadn't expected to be the one shocked today. With similar skills and the same technique, Chen Ling suddenly felt like he was looking in a mirror.

"Brother Lin, you really don't hold back..." Li Qingshan said helplessly, feeling the pressure from the pitch-black gun barrel.

"Why are you here? No... how did you recognize me?"

Chen Ling suddenly remembered that when he met Li Qingshan before, he was using "Chen Ling’s" face, and now he had changed to "Lin Yan." Logically speaking, even if Li Qingshan were here, he shouldn't have been able to recognize him, and he felt a bit vigilant.

"I didn't recognize you at first. But when we were in Liu Town, I noticed a small blue flower on the hem of your opera robe," Li Qingshan said truthfully. "I basically make my own opera robes, and I’ve used this method to repair them when they were torn before, so I remember these details very clearly... Although your face didn't match the previous one, the opera robe was definitely yours, so I figured you had probably changed your face...

However, before I could find you to confirm, you turned around and pointed a gun at my head."

Li Qingshan wiped the sweat from his forehead, seemingly quite frightened by Chen Ling.

"Brother Lin, your counter-reconnaissance ability is truly a bit abnormal."

Chen Ling was stunned for a long time before accepting the fact that the person in front of him was indeed Li Qingshan.

"Is it really you?" Chen Ling put down the gun in his hand and asked in surprise, "But... but how are you here?"

"That’s a long story," Li Qingshan said, leaning against the wall, a look of recollection appearing in his eyes.

"The last time we met was in Liu Town, right? Yes, I remember getting an invitation from the nameless actor and going to listen to a song, 'Picking the Slide Cart.' But as I listened, I seemed to feel a vermilion star calling to me, and then I didn't remember anything at all...

After I woke up, the stage was gone, the chairs were gone, and I was sitting on a stone pier, seemingly for a long time... Later, I wanted to find you, but I searched the whole of Liu Town and couldn't find you, so I figured you must have left."

Chen Ling also recalled the scene where his senior brothers had emptied the stage while Li Qingshan was unconscious, leaving him alone in the wilderness, and his expression turned somewhat awkward.

"So in the end, you successfully stepped onto the Opera God Path?"

"Hmm... I saw a Divine Path extending from the vermilion star to my feet, so I stepped onto it, and then I learned some things." Li Qingshan pointed to his face and smiled slightly,

"Brother Lin, now I can do the same things as you."

Chen Ling’s brows arched. "...That’s not necessarily true."

"Anyway, later I kept looking for you, and then the Huadu Consortium contacted me to sign a contract to send me to the main city for development."

Chen Ling remembered. Li Qingshan had told him about this at the time. After he had disrupted the Huadu Consortium’s first "audition," Zong Wen had specifically sent a special selection team from the main city. Both Li Qingshan and Liu Qingyan had passed, but when he entered the Huadu Consortium as the Gold Society Special Envoy, he had only seen Liu Qingyan and hadn't found any trace of Li Qingshan.

"And then?"

"Then I signed... You know, I’ve always wanted to enter the main city to learn opera and sing, otherwise I wouldn't have participated in the selection for so many years." Li Qingshan’s expression grew complex. "I had always heard that a hundred flowers bloomed in the main city and that several famous senior actors were here. But after I arrived, I found that things weren't as I had imagined...

Most of those seniors no longer take apprentices, and even if I wanted to learn, the Huadu Consortium’s contract kept restricting me, scheduling countless performances for me every day. At that time, I had to sing seven or eight hours a day, from morning till night, until my throat was hoarse. I felt like I had completely become a tool for them to make money.

Moreover, fewer and fewer people in the main city like to listen to opera. No matter how much I sing, I can't earn much money, and what’s more, that money ended up in the Huadu Consortium’s pockets. In the end, I couldn't even afford to eat."

Chen Ling had witnessed the Huadu Consortium’s methods of exploitation and could imagine how miserable Li Qingshan’s life had been at the time...

Although Liu Qingyan was also bound by a contract, her appearance and dancing could be accepted by the public in the Red Dust main city, forming a trend. But Li Qingshan didn't have this advantage. If Liu Qingyan represented the top tier of Red Dust entertainment at the time, Li Qingshan was undoubtedly at the bottom—nameless and penniless, he could only become a performance tool ruthlessly exploited by capital.

"It wasn't just me who was exploited. Seventy or eighty percent of the artists under the Huadu Consortium were in the same situation as me... I also met a few friends inside, and we mostly supported each other through those difficult times.

Later, the Huadu Consortium collapsed, and I was lucky enough to be spotted by the Huang Consortium. I signed a new contract with them, and life finally got a little better.

But most of my friends were deceived by the Beidou Consortium and signed away. This Beidou Consortium is even more outrageous. Before signing, they said all the right things, like high profit-sharing, but after going there, the profit-sharing ratio was indeed high, but they also set targets. You only get a share if you earn enough, and if you don't earn enough, according to the contract, you end up owing the consortium money...

In the past half year, not only have they not earned any money, but their debts have grown, and they’ve even been forced to sell their ancestral homes in their hometowns. Some of them have appealed to the relevant departments, but the people in those departments have long been in cahoots with Mu Chunsheng and don't care about their lives at all."

A rare flash of anger climbed into Li Qingshan’s eyes, and he said in a deep voice,

"Although this has nothing to do with me, I really can't bear to see them suffer like this... Like me, they just love opera or performance. They came to realize their dreams and shouldn't be treated this way...

So, I want to do something for them."

Hearing this, Chen Ling understood the cause and effect of the matter.

Li Qingshan was warm-hearted and had his own set of principles. When Chen Ling had lost all his skills and fainted in the mountains, Li Qingshan, who had never met him before, had rescued him without hesitation, taken him home, cooked for him, and made room for him to stay... Such a person, if placed in ancient times, would definitely be worthy of the word "gentleman."

With his friends in dire straits, Li Qingshan had ultimately chosen to take the risk himself, looking for a possibility to help them escape.

"Then you sneaking into the Beidou Consortium..."

Li Qingshan opened his mouth, his tone lowering involuntarily, seemingly a bit embarrassed,

"I... I know it’s not very good to do this, but I want to find those contracts of the Beidou Consortium and burn them all to the ground."