A Sudden Proposal
Ji Ziyi glanced awkwardly at the camera and said softly, “He hung up.”
His cheeks were faintly flushed, and his clear black-and-white eyes glistened. When he turned his head and glanced over like that, he looked almost pitiful, even though he wasn’t actually that upset.
Before coming, the young cameraman had heard about the person they’d be filming today. Rumor had it that his personality was truly terrible, and he’d mentally prepared himself. But now he truly couldn’t take it. His hand trembled, and all the gossip flew out of his head as he roared inwardly:
Why did you hang up on him!!!
The director had been about to ask him to call again and keep the show entertaining.
But when he turned around, why were all the young men and women on the crew staring at him with reproachful, wounded looks?
As though he were some kind of villain.
So he didn’t press the matter, and instead tried to smooth things over. “Maybe he’s busy right now.”
“Mm.” Ji Ziyi secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
The director continued, “There’s a little one at home, right? How come we haven’t seen him?” The camera panned around the living room of the villa.
At the mention of the little one at home, who was in his final year of kindergarten, Fu Li’s adopted son, Fu Yanchi, Ji Ziyi couldn’t help smiling. “He’s at kindergarten. Summer vacation starts next week.”
According to the contract, he was supposed to bring the little one on the show.
He had only just transmigrated here and had managed to see the little pup only from afar. But the boy seemed quite afraid of him and didn’t want to get close.
Ji Ziyi actually loved children. The little pup had big, round, dark eyes and was incredibly cute. He really wanted to hold him.
“Point the camera over there,” the director hissed at the young man carrying it.
The young man was his nephew, a high school student who couldn’t sit still over summer vacation and had insisted on coming along to earn some pocket money. He was tall, strong, and could run around carrying heavy things, so the director had put him in charge of the camera.
So why was the brat only filming Ji Ziyi? The camera was practically glued to his face!
At the director’s words, the young man blushed and pretended nothing was wrong as he turned the camera toward Ji Ziyi’s side. But out of the corner of his eye, he kept sneaking glances at the man with the faint smile.
“There’s a chair over there,” Ji Ziyi said quietly, seeing how young he was. His gaze met the cameraman’s. In an instant, the boy’s face turned as red as a sunset, and he hurriedly said, “No, no, no, I’m fine…”
Ji Ziyi wasn’t quite sure what the right distance was between them. After all, he’d been an ordinary person before, with no cameras around, let alone any sort of hierarchy.
With that thought, he excused himself to the director and went to the kitchen freezer. He brought out a whole case of chilled fruit drinks for the crew. On a scorching summer day, one bottle of fresh, cold juice was enough to silence even those who’d been badmouthing Ji Ziyi in their heads.
Ji Ziyi sat back down in front of the camera. Since they hadn’t started filming yet, he asked the cameraman, “Is that heavy?”
He suddenly leaned close. His skin was warm, and a pleasant, fresh scent mingled with the faint sweetness of his breath. The young man swallowed and stammered, “N-no, it’s not!”
Ji Ziyi was genuinely curious. He’d only ever seen this kind of thing on TV. He looked at the camera, then at the young man. “Can I try it?”
The pure-hearted high school boy was young and hot-blooded. With Ji Ziyi looking up at him from so close, he was instantly dizzy.
“Y-yeah!” He lifted the camera and let Ji Ziyi try holding it, but tensed every muscle and kept most of the weight on himself.
Ji Ziyi thought it was pretty heavy. If he put it right on his shoulder, he’d probably end up bruised.
“I won’t move while I’m answering questions. You can sit down,” he said.
The young man clenched his jaw and unconsciously straightened his back, insisting again and again, “It’s not heavy, it’s not heavy.” The director, exasperated at his lack of backbone, ordered, “Drag that chair over and sit down.”
The director fumed inwardly: Carrying the camera wasn’t tiring at all, but after saying two words to him, look how badly your hands are shaking! Get a grip!
After finishing the answers for the preview, Ji Ziyi’s heart finally settled. He let out a small breath.
The director told him that the first episode would be filmed live next week, and reminded him to make sure Fu Li and the little one showed up on time. Ji Ziyi promised he’d do his best, but in truth, he had no confidence at all.
As the crew was leaving, Ji Ziyi gave each staff member another bottle of chilled fruit juice to take along for the road. He’d squeezed it fresh at home that day, using real fruit and no additives.
As they left, everyone huddled together, chattering away.
Ji Ziyi called the high schooler carrying the camera over and handed him a small bottle of safflower oil.
The boy looked so young, and this was hard work. Ji Ziyi was an only child, but he got along wonderfully with all his younger cousins, so he couldn’t help looking at the boy with the fond concern one might have for a younger relative.
“You’re so young and already working. Take care of yourself,” Ji Ziyi said, looking at him.
The high schooler took the ointment he offered, lowered his head, and stood there with his ears red enough to drip blood, unable to speak for a long moment.
“P-please…”
“What?” Ji Ziyi couldn’t quite hear him, so he leaned a little closer.
Looking at that beautiful face right in front of him, the pure-hearted high school boy felt a rush of blood to his head and shouted, “P-please marry me!!!”
Ji Ziyi: ?
* * *
On the day Apple TV Station’s variety show Heart-Knot Silk Robe released its preview, every one of the top ten trending topics on Weibo was related to it, and more than half were marked #爆.
There was only one reason: the director was really good at stirring things up.
The show had four couples in all: two married couples, one couple who were dating, and one pair in the ambiguous stage.
The dating couple were two men. Same-sex marriage was legal in this world, so that alone wasn’t anything unusual. What was unusual was their twenty-year age gap!
One was a well-known veteran actor, 45 years old, while the other was a 25-year-old singer whose career was on the rise.
When the two were first exposed, they dominated the trending topics for an entire day, leaving the whole internet stunned! Now they’d been invited onto a variety show and were about to appear online, showing everyone their daily lives. How could people not be curious?
The comments were full of people exclaiming over the pairing.
[Uh, uh, the real-life version of the pear blossoms pressing down on the crabapple? …]
[I mean, sure… but isn’t he just riding the other guy’s coattails? Who even knew that little singer before? After they were exposed, he released an album right away…]
[This is hard to judge. All I can say is… hurry up and air it!!!]
The second pair were a heterosexual couple from the entertainment industry who’d been married for years. They were even more of a spectacle. Two years ago, each had been exposed for cheating with a young male star or an actress. Just when everyone was reeling and waiting for them to divorce, the two had stubbornly refused to split and let the scandal die down.
[Sharing a bed but dreaming separate dreams. I’m just going to say it: juicy!!!]
[Anyone with eyes can see they’ve been doing their own thing for ages. Aren’t they afraid of getting exposed by going on the show?]
[Holy crap, this director’s got something up his sleeve…]
The third pair were assigned to the true-love group. They were two young male non-celebrities who’d recently become popular on short-video apps. They were supposedly friends and had a sizeable following. To make the show more entertaining, the production team had arranged for them to look after a little kid.
[Damn, non-celebs are faking chemistry on TV now. Impressive…]
[I-I-I love this pair! I’m betting on them, trust me, their videos are so sweet!!]
[To the person above, don’t get so emotionally invested. It’s all acting, okay? Straight guys have been faking chemistry forever. You know how it is…]
The fourth pair were the grand finale. All anyone could say was that the public was watching with bated breath.
One was an eighteenth-tier flop with scandals everywhere, who’d schemed his way into a wealthy family. The other was a young, mysterious film emperor from a prominent family, immensely talented, who had already swept every major acting award so young and had a limitless future ahead of him.
Who wouldn’t love this kind of drama, where someone had supposedly married into a wealthy family and gone from sparrow to phoenix, only to be treated like an unwanted outsider? The fights were bound to be good.
[I’m a sucker for this stuff. I love melodramatic rich-family drama!!! Let them fight!!!]
[Hah, how could Ji Ziyi, a flop who’d do anything to stay relevant, possibly deserve a place? If he’s on it, I’m definitely not watching! The production team did this on purpose, didn’t they? They’re just in it for the drama.]
[That guy couldn’t even carry Film Emperor Fu’s shoes. I heard he’s from a collateral branch of the Ji family’s collateral branch, a nobody. There’s no way he should’ve been the one to marry into that family. Just imagine what he had to pull to make it happen.]
[…Um, I’m just a casual viewer, but is the person in the preview the one you’re talking about? He doesn’t seem like it to me. He seems pretty gentle… (quietly)]
[Same here, I don’t know the details, but in the preview he looks like he has a soft-focus filter on compared to everyone else. Did anyone else notice how much more softly the crew spoke to him?]
[I used to be a casual viewer, now an anti, but why does he look different from the guy in those airport videos where he acted like a huge diva? (Whispering, he’s really beautiful, the kind who takes your breath away at first glance. So pure and lovely…)]
[There are subtle differences, for sure. He got plastic surgery. That’s all I’m saying…]
[I have to admit, he’s got a good eye for plastic surgery. Just talking about his face, okay? He really is beautiful in the preview. His skin is unreal…]
[The person above, that’s Ji Ziyi. He’s a terrible person. Just looking at his face makes me want to puke. Bet he’ll show his true colors in the first episode and make the audience sick. What? You don’t know what he’s like? Here’s the airport diva video (link).]
…
All four couples came with their own built-in buzz, each one stoking the audience’s intense curiosity and desire to pry.
And with all that attention behind it, the first episode of Heart-Knot Silk Robe went live.