Kong Yinmeng stared blankly at Niu Niuniu, who was practically burning a hole through her with an angry glare. What on earth did I do this time to offend this little girl? she wondered.
“Did I do something wrong?” Yinmeng asked, completely oblivious to the fact that she had just accidentally hijacked Niuniu’s hard-earned chance to get up close and personal with her idol.
Zheng Yi, on the other hand, had a pretty good idea of what was going on.
But with the cameras still rolling, it wasn’t the time or place to spell it out. Instead, he smoothly guided the conversation back to the task at hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Come on, let’s hurry up and build this. Brother Liang and his team’s sand sculpture is already taking shape.”
Following his gaze, Yinmeng saw that their rivals’ sand fortress was indeed coming together beautifully. She immediately brushed off Niuniu’s attitude…she didn’t have time to worry about why the girl was throwing a tantrum anyway. Teenagers are just bundles of unpredictable mood swings, she reasoned. Must be a bad case of puberty.
Meanwhile, Xiao Wu, the show’s director, noticed the teams were just quietly focusing on their own work. Deciding the segment lacked drama, he cooked up a devious little twist on the fly and grabbed his megaphone.
“Attention everyone! We are now entering the ‘Sabotage Phase.’ You have five minutes to disrupt the opposing team’s progress. Go!”
The second the rule was announced, Zheng Yi turned to Niuniu. “Go mess up their build. We’ll stay here and keep stacking.”
Niuniu wasn’t thrilled about leaving Zheng Yi’s side, but she wasn’t about to disobey her idol. Fuelled by a stomach full of pent-up frustration, she marched over to the rival team. To counter her, the other team sent out Miao Ke.
Dressed in their clunky inflatable suits, the two girls quickly collided and tumbled onto the sand. Miao Ke didn’t feel a thing thanks to the built-in cushioning, but Niuniu accidentally twisted her ankle. Stubbornly refusing to show weakness, Niuniu swallowed the pain and continued to wrestle with Miao Ke…eventually resorting to using her teeth.
Caught off guard, Miao Ke gasped as Niuniu bit her hand, leaving a distinct, clear teeth mark right in front of the cameras. By the time the five minutes were up, it looked like Miao Ke had taken the brunt of the damage, but in reality, it was Niuniu who took the real hit…to her public reputation.
She had come across as far too aggressive and feral. Watching the playback on the monitor, Xiao Wu shook his head with a faint sigh. He pulled out his phone and made a quick call to check on the progress of their backup guest.
Back at the end of day one, Xiao Hong had already reached out to the guest who was originally supposed to fill this slot…her close friend, a 25-year-old high-end male beauty influencer.
When it came to skincare and makeup, this guy knew more than most women, and his massive fanbase absolutely adored him. Unlike Kong Yinmeng, who kept a low profile, he had already teased his followers that he would be participating in a travel reality show to boost his mainstream exposure.
When Niuniu had snatched his spot at the last minute, he had been understandably furious. After posting an apology to his fans, he had been looking into other shows.
So when Xiao Hong reached out again and explained that Niuniu was being dropped for being a terrible fit, he happily…though politely…accepted the invitation.
From there, the production crew took over the logistics. Because it was an emergency backup situation, Xiao Wu had to bleed money, booking the fastest flight possible and covering all of his travel expenses.
Xiao Wu silently added these extra costs to Niuniu’s tab. Since Xiao Hong had already hinted that she wasn’t close with this particular niece, the director saw no reason to play nice.
As the day progressed, the game grew more chaotic. Every ten minutes, a five-minute sabotage round would trigger…first between the contestants, and later involving the crew members deliberately messing with the builds. The sandcastles grew at a painfully slow crawl.
At noon, they cut the cameras for a quick, unceremonious lunch, took a brief breather, and went right back to filming.
By afternoon, word had leaked that a celebrity reality show was filming on the beach, drawing a massive crowd of spectators. The director selected fifty onlookers to act as a live jury.
Once the sandcastles were finally finished, the spectators voted by physically standing behind the team they preferred. Liang Sihan’s team edged out Zheng Yi’s team by a mere three votes, marking their very first victory on day three.
“Well, look at that! I never thought I’d see the day you actually lost,” Liang Sihan joked, walking over to wrap Zheng Yi in a friendly hug.
Zheng Yi didn’t mind at all. It was just a television show, and as long as it made for good entertainment, winning or losing didn’t really matter. “Everyone loses eventually, Brother Liang. Winning all the time isn’t necessarily a good thing.”
People who never lose often don’t know how to handle defeat when it inevitably happens. It was good to aim for victory, but it was just as important not to lose heart when things didn’t go your way.
Liang Sihan nodded in deep agreement. Having spent years in the entertainment industry, he had enjoyed his own brief brushes with stardom and had worked alongside countless talented young actors. Many of them had brilliant skills but ultimately faded into obscurity just like him…sometimes due to bad luck, but often because they lacked the mental resilience to survive failure. You can’t welcome the dawn if you break under the darkness.
The beach at night was even more breathtaking than Yinmeng had imagined. Having traveled extensively, she was no stranger to coastlines, but during the daytime games, she had scouted out a secluded, hidden cove. It was isolated and quiet…the perfect spot to enjoy the night view in peace.
After dinner, she slipped away unnoticed, lying back on the soft sand to gaze up at the starry sky. The past few days had felt entirely surreal, almost like a dream.
But once the dream ended, she would have to return to her real life, turning back into “Mengmeng the solo traveler,” and her path would likely never cross with Zheng Yi’s again.
Tomorrow was day four. The clock was ticking down to their inevitable goodbye, and to her surprise, she felt a sharp, unexpected pang of reluctance.
Splash…
The sudden sound of breaking water startled her, and she bolted upright. Through the moonlight, a figure emerged from the ocean, stepping out of the surf and walking toward her with a faint, untamed smile playing on his lips.
She stared at him, entirely mesmerized, snapping out of her trance only when he walked over to a specific patch of sand, dug up a hidden bag, and pulled out a towel to dry himself off.
“Are you insane?!” she scolded, her voice laced with panic. “Swimming in the ocean in the middle of the night? Setting aside the fact that you could catch a cold, what if something happened to you? Does Xiao Huang know you’re out here? Why isn’t he with you?”
She had checked the area thoroughly; there was no one else around. And since his belongings had been buried under the sand, she never would have guessed anyone was out here.
“I sneaked out,” he admitted, walking over with the towel wrapped around his shoulders and sitting down right next to her without an invitation. “If he knew, his reaction would be way more dramatic than yours.”
He paused, looking up. “Were you watching the stars? The sky really is beautiful here.”
Fresh out of the ocean, a distinct scent of sea salt and crisp night air clung to his skin despite the quick towel-dry. It wasn’t unpleasant. If anything… it was intoxicatingly masculine.
Flustered, Yinmeng scrambled to her feet. She snatched his bag, pulled out a dry shirt, and tossed it right at him. “Put your clothes on, right now! If anyone walks by, you won’t even have time to run.”
When he gave her a thoroughly uncooperative look, Yinmeng took matters into her own hands. She aggressively pulled the shirt over his head, forcing his arms through the sleeves, and then grabbed the towel to vigorously scrub his wet hair.
His neatly styled hair was instantly reduced to a chaotic, messy bird’s nest, looking as though it had just survived a category-ten hurricane.
“You know, this isn’t the first time you’ve messed with my hair,” Zheng Yi murmured.
With a sudden, swift tug of his arm, he pulled her down. Yinmeng stumbled forward, crashing directly against his chest. Separated only by a thin layer of a towel, the atmosphere between them instantly shifted, turning thick and heavy with tension.
Yinmeng’s heart hammered against her ribs. She was utterly terrified by how intensely she was reacting to him. Before meeting him in person, she had always scoffed at the glossy photos her friend Lu Fangcao flaunted. To her, celebrities were just two-dimensional optical illusions…unreachable and intangible.
But now that the illusion was a flesh-and-blood man holding her close, she realized… her defenses were completely crumbling.
“So what if I touched it? It’s just hair,” she muttered defensively. Lowering her head, she shoved the crown of her hair toward him. “If it bothers you so much, you can just mess mine up too.”
Zheng Yi didn’t hesitate. He reached out, gently burying his fingers into her soft hair. “When you touch a man’s hair like that, you have to take responsibility for him, Mengmeng. You need to take responsibility for me.”
Yinmeng froze. …Did I just hear him correctly?
Startled, she snapped her head up. But she wasn’t as lucky as last time, when she had merely bumped against his chin. This time, her lips collided squarely with his.
Her eyes widened in sheer shock. But before she could even think of pulling back, the hand that had been resting in her hair slid to the back of her head, locking her in place with a firm, inescapable grip.
She completely lost all track of time as the kiss deepened. By the time her brain managed to register what was happening, she was lying flat on the sand, the towel that had been between them completely forgotten somewhere out of sight.
Zheng Yi hovered over her, supporting his weight on one arm, looking down into her eyes with an intensity so profound it took her breath away.
In a moment like this, any normal woman would have said yes.
Yinmeng’s head spun, and she opened her mouth, the words of acceptance hovering on the tip of her tongue. But right before she could speak, the distant sound of loud laughter and playful shouting echoed from down the beach. Judging by the noise, a large group of people was heading their way.
The sudden intrusion snapped her back to reality. Her fleeting logic returned in a rush. Panicking, she shoved Zheng Yi away, scrambled to her feet, and bolted into the darkness without looking back. Her mind was a total blank; she simply didn’t know how to handle this.
She couldn’t bring herself to reject him, but she wasn’t ready to fully accept him either. So, she chose the only option she knew: flight.
Because she was wearing loose flip-flops, one of them flew off into the sand as she sprinted away. When she had to turn back to awkwardly scoop up her rogue shoe, she didn’t even dare lift her eyes to see the expression on his face.
Left alone on the sand, Zheng Yi felt a wave of rejection wash over him, assuming he had just been turned down. But as he watched her frantic, clumsy retreat…running so fast she literally ran out of her shoes…a soft, amused smile broke through his disappointment.
A blinking light on his phone drew his attention to the bag beside him. Sitting cross-legged on the sand, he pulled out the device and saw a message from Lan Xiao.
[Lan Xiao]: You’ve been trending on Weibo a lot lately, and none of it is good news. Is a rival agency trying to sabotage you?
[Li]: I’ve got Xiao Huang looking into it, and Manager Chen is handling the damage control. More importantly, have you signed with Sprout Media yet? Do you need me to pull some strings?
Lan Xiao clutched his phone tightly. Zheng Yi had just renewed his contract with their old agency; Lan Xiao couldn’t risk causing a rift between his friend and the company.
[Lan Xiao]: Not yet, I can handle it on my own. Go ahead and get back to whatever you’re doing, I’m heading to bed.
Zheng Yi glanced at the time in the top corner of his screen. It was barely past 9:30 PM. Lan Xiao had been suffering from severe anxiety-induced insomnia lately; given his current stressful situation with Sprout Media, there was no way he was falling asleep this early.
[Li]: Even though our boyband dissolved, I’m still your older brother. If you’re facing trouble, just tell me. Actually, I have a question for you.
[Li]: I confessed to a non-celebrity girl I really like, but she completely rejected me. Why do you think that is?
Lan Xiao, usually the epitome of calm and collected, nearly dropped his phone. Zheng Yi was not only harboring a secret crush, but he had actually confessed and been shot down? The fact that Zheng Yi was willing to drop a bombshell like this meant he truly viewed Lan Xiao as family.