Faced with this question, Lu Xingliang showed no sign of hesitation, looking ready to answer right away. However, the director suddenly chimed in to stop him: “This can’t be revealed until Episode 6.”
Hearing this, Qi Xiao couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed. He was actually quite curious about who Lu Xingliang had given his ring to. But since the director stepped in, it meant Lu Xingliang must have given it in private. If it had been given publicly, everyone would find out once this Friday’s episode aired anyway.
Previously, he had speculated that Lu Xingliang was the one who sent the sunflower bouquet and the ring, but that assumption was based on the premise that Lu Xingliang was a Liar. Now, Qi Xiao wasn’t so sure anymore.
Perhaps because the disappointment on Qi Xiao’s face was too obvious, Lu Xingliang’s glance drifted over lightly. Yet he said nothing, quickly averting his eyes before asking: “Is there anything else you’d like to ask?”
A bit annoyed at being cut off mid-way by the director, Lin Zhiyao pouted slightly. “Fine, I’ll switch to a different question then.”
“What type of person do you like?”
Qi Xiao noticed she didn’t use “girl” or “guy,” but instead used “person”. Hmm, a rather interesting choice of words.
One would think this question would be much easier to answer than the previous one, yet Lu Xingliang fell silent for a moment before replying, “Someone who is pleasant to look at.”
Lin Zhiyao gasped upon hearing his answer. “I didn’t realize! You make it sound like there are almost no restrictions, but in reality, that’s the most restrictive condition of all!”
Qi Xiao didn’t see it that way, though. In fact, he felt Lu Xingliang’s standard was, to some extent, very similar to his own.
Next came the second round. This time, Zhou Chongyu drew the lowest card, while Song Mei became the questioner.
Song Mei wore a calm, unreadable expression. After taking a few seconds to think, she asked, “Do you currently have a guest you’re interested in?”
Zhou Chongyu answered without a second thought: “Yes.”
Qi Xiao figured Zhou Chongyu must be lying. If he genuinely had someone he was interested in, how could he agree to fake a romantic pairing with him? Though lying wasn’t great, Shen Ye hadn’t specified that everyone had to answer truthfully.
Besides, wasn’t Song Mei actually asking this question on Liang Yi’s behalf? Given Zhou Chongyu’s current attitude, his ring definitely hadn’t gone to Liang Yi. By giving this answer now, he was clearly signaling that his heart lay elsewhere, indirectly giving Liang Yi an answer. It seemed Song Mei was quite attentive toward Liang Yi.
Third round.
Right off the bat, Qi Xiao drew an Ace, so it came as no surprise when he was chosen to answer a question.
Shen Ye pondered for a moment before asking, “How many times have you been in love?”
“Once.”
Shen Ye immediately began gossiping: “Ooh, I couldn’t tell! Here I thought you were a good little boy. When was it? In college? Or high school?”
Qi Xiao shook his head repeatedly. “How many questions are you asking? You only get one!”
Left with no choice, Shen Ye had to give up, though he couldn’t resist marveling aloud: “I’d really love to know what your first love was like. Must’ve been an absolute beauty, right?”
Unsure if it was just his imagination, Qi Xiao felt several gazes land on him simultaneously in an instant. Everyone sure loves gossiping, he thought.
Truth be told, while he claimed to have been in love once, strictly speaking, it had only lasted for two days.
Back when Qi Xiao had just entered his freshman year of high school, a senior upperclassman suddenly confessed to him after class one day. At the time, Qi Xiao was deeply brainwashed by edgy internet sayings like “a life without youth romance is incomplete.” Seeing that the senior was quite handsome, he casually agreed. Only later did he find out the guy had only confessed to him because he lost a bet.
Upon learning the truth, Qi Xiao made things clear and broke up with him the very next day. To his surprise, the senior refused to accept it. Not only did he nag relentlessly, but he even secretly followed Qi Xiao home after school, shouting his name under his bedroom window late at night—only to be beaten up horribly by Yu Ye.
When Yu Ye found out the whole story, he was furious. With a dark face, he demanded to know why Qi Xiao had agreed to date that guy in the first place.
Qi Xiao had blinked innocently back then and said, “Because he’s handsome.”
From that day on, Yu Ye kept an exceptionally close eye on Qi Xiao’s love life, terrified that his brother might get tricked by someone again someday.
Qi Xiao, however, felt his brother’s worries were overly dramatic. He wasn’t someone who could be tricked by just anyone—if the person wasn’t handsome enough, he wouldn’t even say yes in the first place.
Soon, the break came to an end, and Shen Ye resumed teaching the magic class. Building on the foundation laid earlier, everyone performed much better for the rest of the afternoon, and time flew by in a flash.
Though this first class had plenty of unexpected twists, it ended on a satisfying note. Shen Ye bowed on stage: “Thank you all for your cooperation today!”
After class, the director reminded Shen Ye: “Please pick the guest you feel performed best in today’s class. You may extend an invitation for a private date to them.”
Shen Ye seemed to have already decided on his choice and asked, “Can I say it now?”
“Just post it in the group chat tonight,” the director added. “The invited guest reserves the right to decline, so choose carefully.”
“Ah, man! Why didn’t you guys say so earlier?” Hearing this, Shen Ye put on a tearful expression. “Looks like I can only wish myself good luck.”
A wave of laughter burst out among the guests below.
As soon as class concluded, the staff brought back the same draw box from last week: “Now, let’s draw lots to decide who next week’s teaching instructor will be.”
Instantly, several guests felt a surge of nervousness. Some wanted to teach sooner, while others preferred to push it off as long as possible—take Qi Xiao, for instance. To be honest, he still had no idea what he was going to teach when his turn came.
The staff member unfolded the drawn slip of paper and slowly announced: “The teacher for next week will be—”
“Zhou Chongyu.”
Hearing his name, Zhou Chongyu showed no surprise, looking as though he had prepared for it all along.
Qi Xiao stared at the box used for the draw for a moment, suddenly wondering if the order was actually rigged by the production crew.
After all, no one had inspected that box beforehand, nor was the process as transparent as a typical draw. Right now, he was supposed to fake a romantic pairing with Zhou Chongyu, making it perfect timing to feature Zhou Chongyu as the teacher for the upcoming week.
Looking at it from another perspective, having the production team decide who would teach the next episode based on audience feedback was actually a safe and steady approach that gave them better control over the show. For instance, if a guest polled exceptionally high in the Liar votes, the crew could arrange for them to host a class right before their elimination was announced, ensuring the audience wouldn’t be left with regrets.
With that, the filming routine for this session came to a temporary close. Tomorrow would focus on shooting Shen Ye’s date, meaning all other guests except his chosen partner didn’t need to participate in filming.
Qi Xiao immediately felt a wave of relief, realizing he could get a nice rest tomorrow. Since Shen Ye was definitely not going to pick him anyway, he was actually quite curious: Will Shen Ye continue choosing Jiang Fei, or will there be a massive plot twist?
Inside his car, Lu Xingliang was scrolling through Weibo.
Over the past few days, the production crew had released quite a few teaser trailers, mostly editing together moments of interaction between various guests to help viewers choose their favorite dynamic ahead of time. Among them, teasers centered around Qi Xiao and Zhou Chongyu made up the largest portion.
Anyone with sharp eyes could tell the production crew was pushing their pairing heavily. Netizens on Weibo were buying into it eagerly as well—even before the episode aired, the popularity of their dynamic surged rapidly, rocketing into the top fifteen on the CP Super Topic leaderboard.
Lu Xingliang randomly clicked into a Weibo post. Sure enough, the comment section was filled with fans squealing over the pairing. However, interspersed among them were several toxic comments targeted at Qi Xiao, mostly mocking him for clinging onto Zhou Chongyu for clout and leeching off his popularity.
During the previous live stream, Lu Xingliang had already felt something was off. No matter how he looked at it, the level of malice these netizens harbored toward Qi Xiao seemed way too intense.
To put it bluntly, very few young actors in the entertainment industry nowadays relied strictly on acting talent to make a living; most built their careers on marketing hype and media manipulation. Even if terrible acting was a legitimate flaw, Qi Xiao didn’t have any actively airing dramas right now. Under normal circumstances, there was no reason for so many netizens to spend their free time bashing him.
Evidently, a coordinated group of people was deliberately driving the narrative—most likely fans of Qi Xiao’s rival, or someone he had offended in the past.
With that thought in mind, Lu Xingliang casually asked his assistant sitting beside him.
A moment later.
Lu Xingliang put away his phone, leaning back against the seat in deep thought.
It turned out that most of those online trolls belonged to Qi Xiao’s industry rival—fans of Cai Siyuan.
Calling them rivals was actually a stretch, as the two didn’t have much personal interaction. It was just that Qi Xiao’s debut drama, Autumn Frost, involved Cai Siyuan to some degree.
Autumn Frost was adapted from the famous fantasy novel Autumn Frost Cleaves the Jade Sword, where Qi Xiao played the male lead, Qiu Yinyu.
In the original novel, Qiu Yinyu was written as a seventeen-year-old youth. Before filming began, rumors circulated that Cai Siyuan would join the cast. Although Cai Siyuan was already twenty-six at the time, his baby face allowed him to pass for a teenager. Consequently, as soon as the news broke, numerous press releases online speculated that he would take on the role of the male lead, Qiu Yinyu.
Yet when filming officially commenced, the male lead role went to the completely unknown Qi Xiao instead.
Although Cai Siyuan wasn’t a top-tier star, he had been acting for seven or eight years and possessed a sizeable fan base. His fans immediately rallied to voice their outrage. To make matters worse, Cai Siyuan revealed in an interview that the director of Autumn Frost had indeed approached him for the role of Qiu Yinyu. When asked why the role was eventually recast, he gave a vague answer, claiming it was inconvenient to disclose details.
Hearing him say that, his fans naturally grew even more incensed, convinced that Cai Siyuan’s role had been stolen by someone and that he was forced to stay silent.
When Autumn Frost aired and Qi Xiao faced widespread backlash for his awful acting, Cai Siyuan’s fans seized the moment to steer public opinion, claiming Qi Xiao had brought investment to the set right before shooting to shove aside the actor who truly fit the role. Uninformed bystanders joined in, trampling on Qi Xiao’s reputation along with them.
Never in a million years did anyone expect that despite all this, Qi Xiao would still explode in popularity through the role of Qiu Yinyu. Conversely, Cai Siyuan’s career remained lukewarm over the years, which undoubtedly fueled his deep-seated resentment toward Qi Xiao.
As the saying goes, fans resemble their idols. Even now, almost a year after the drama finished airing, those fans still hadn’t quieted down.
Lu Xingliang didn’t blindly believe everything online. He knew all too well how rumors were created—sometimes, the truth was world apart from what circulated on the internet.
Moreover, he was already somewhat familiar with the original novel Autumn Frost. It was undeniably a major IP, but a feature film adaptation had already been released several years prior. That film not only smashed the box office to become the highest-grossing release of the year, but it was also universally praised, from its flawless casting to its tight screenplay. Because the film had set such a high bar, industry insiders had remained lukewarm about a TV adaptation—after all, it was a tough act to follow.
Just a moment ago, his assistant had mentioned that internal turmoil at the production company holding the copyright had left the IP shelved for a long time. They had only rushed into production at the eleventh hour because the rights were on the brink of expiring, resulting in a tangled web of competing interests behind the scenes.
Lu Xingliang unlocked his phone again and sent a text to Song Shishuang: Look into the casting change for the TV version of Autumn Frost for me.
Right after sending the message, moved by some inexplicable impulse, he tapped open his chat with Qi Xiao.
He stared at the blank text box for a long while. In the end, he didn’t type a word. Instead, he casually switched over to his feed—only to notice Qi Xiao’s avatar popping up in the top-right corner.
Almost on instinct, Lu Xingliang tapped on it.
Ever since he had added Qi Xiao that day, he hadn’t seen him post a single update.
When he finally saw what Qi Xiao had posted, Lu Xingliang fell silent.
It was a promotional post from a bakery: gather 88 likes to redeem a limited-edition mini cake.
Lu Xingliang scanned the list of people who had liked the post. Aside from a few guests and crew members from Sweet Trap, there were surprisingly quite a few familiar faces from his own circle. Even though the post had only been up for ten minutes, Qi Xiao had already left a comment below: “Thanks, everyone! That’s plenty.”
He seemed to be quite popular.
Staring at the screen for a moment, Lu Xingliang bent his thumb and tapped the heart icon, too.
Predictably, even after a long while, there was no reaction from the other end.
He put his phone away.