Jiang Li turned his face away, taking a long moment before forcing out, “Good thing you know how to appreciate this.”
Duan Zhihan didn’t miss the flush on Jiang Li’s ears, the corner of his pale lips curving up.
So this is what makes Jiang Li at this age happy, hearing nice things. Now he knew how to coax him.
Just then, the others came over at the noise.
Ruan Yan looked at the backpack full of food and asked, “Teacher Duan, did you find this?”
“Jiang Li found it.” Duan Zhihan spoke up for the boy.
Surprise flashed across Ruan Yan’s eyes.
He knew Jiang Li wasn’t a studious type, dropped out before finishing high school, got mixed up in the entertainment industry, didn’t even know who Su Shi was, and got heavily criticized by state media over it back then.
Someone like that could identify dozens of plant species in the wild?
If it weren’t for the fact that everything was livestreamed, he’d have suspected the production team was secretly helping.
Ruan Yan couldn’t help but ask, “How did you recognize all this?”
Jiang Li: “You wouldn’t get it even if I told you.”
Ruan Yan: “…”
“…”
“Delivering the most sarcastic line with the most serious face, truly Jiang Li’s signature move”
“He’s a professional at making enemies”
“Maybe this is another form of social confidence”
Getting shot down on camera, Ruan Yan’s face flushed through several shades.
Jiang Li, blind to how condescending he’d sounded, saw that Ruan Yan looked close to tears and patiently explained, “Just memorize The Illustrated Guide to Chinese Plants.”
“What book is that?”
“If it’s the one published by the Commercial Press in ’98, it has over ten thousand plant species listed, a full twenty thousand pages”
“Memorize it… seriously??”
“Judging from his tone, he might’ve actually memorized it, but who would memorize something like that!”
Where the comments had once looked down on Jiang Li, he now seemed mysterious and unfathomable in everyone’s eyes.
On the surface, an untalented pretty-boy celebrity, but secretly, someone who’d memorized a twenty-thousand-page plant encyclopedia.
An Zhiqing, standing nearby, was equally shocked, not because Jiang Li had found so much food, but because he was surprised Jiang Li had actively gone out to find food for everyone.
After all, the boy had a face that discouraged approach, his upturned cat eyes sharp and beautiful, he hadn’t even dared strike up a conversation with Jiang Li before.
He vaguely sensed Jiang Li wasn’t as cold as he seemed, and cautiously thanked the boy: “Thanks so much for this. I’ll take this and see how to cook it up, okay?”
The boy didn’t respond, and just as An Zhiqing was about to move past the moment, Jiang Li wiped the backpack clean before handing it over.
An Zhiqing was pleasantly surprised, feeling that Jiang Li might not be as hard to approach as he’d thought.
Ruan Yan reminded himself not to bother arguing with someone whose reputation was already bad.
Performance on variety shows mattered a lot, since he’d only contributed averagely during the food-finding segment, he needed to shine during the cooking.
The tricky part was there were no seasonings in the wild, so he could only focus on presentation, slicing the gathered fruit and arranging it neatly, making it look like an elegant afternoon tea spread.
“Ruan Yan really knows how to live well”
“Xu Jiawen really lost out divorcing him”
“I want a wife like that too”
Ruan Yan saw An Zhiqing grilling some cudweed cakes and brought over a wooden bowl of fruit. “Brother An, have some of this first.”
Cooking in the wild wasn’t easy—An Zhiqing was choking on smoke from the fire and had to keep flipping the cakes.
Touched by the fruit Ruan Yan brought over, he said thanks, Yan Yan, and reached out to take it.
But Ruan Yan spotted Duan Zhihan passing by and said apologetically to An Zhiqing, “I’ll bring this to Teacher Duan first.”
An Zhiqing awkwardly withdrew his hand. “It’s fine, it’s fine.”
He’d always been easygoing and didn’t take this small slight to heart, continuing to tend to the cudweed cakes.
Sitting on a large rock, Qi Hui furrowed her delicate brows slightly.
Although Ruan Yan had been proactive throughout the trip, she still didn’t quite like the man.
Too calculating.
As evening approached, wind picked up on the mountain, biting cold against the skin.
She felt some discomfort in her stomach, and not wanting to worry anyone, simply draped her shawl over her belly.
This human woman looked really weak.
As a robot, Jiang Li still couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.
He walked over to where the fire was and prepared to boil some ground-cherry soup, which could help soothe a human’s weak stomach.
Qi Hui stood up from the rock, planning to boil some hot water.
The movement worsened her discomfort, her face turning deathly pale.
Suddenly a bamboo tube of hot soup appeared before her.
The wrist holding out the bamboo tube was pale and slender. She looked up to see Jiang Li’s face, the boy looking like an expressionless robot.
Qi Hui wasn’t quite sure: “Is this… for me?”
The boy nodded. “Ground-cherry soup. It’ll make you feel better.”
“Only Jiang Li noticed Qi Hui was feeling unwell”
“An Zhiqing, stop flipping your cakes, come out here and take a beating”
“An Zhiqing is currently flipping his fourth cake”
“Decided not to curse Jiang Li out today”
“No cursing +1”
Qi Hui didn’t expect the outwardly cold and difficult Jiang Li to be this considerate.
Perhaps illness makes people more vulnerable, her eyes reddened slightly as she took the bamboo tube, drinking the soup with her head down.
She developed a fondness for this cold-on-the-outside, warm-on-the-inside boy. After finishing the hot soup, feeling much better, she put away the bamboo tube and asked, “I have a friend filming a historical drama, would you be interested?”
“Jiang Li’s fee is probably pretty high, right”
“But that friend of Qi Hui’s is Director Shen, so many top stars beg for a chance to even appear in his films and can’t get it”
“Qi Hui actually has this kind of connection!”
“She just doesn’t show it off, but her background is way deeper than a lot of celebrities, otherwise how could she come on a show at her age”
“Jiang Li, say yes already!”
Directors like Director Shen cared deeply about their reputation and never used celebrities with bad public images. Getting connected with Director Shen could be considered stepping straight into the circle of top directors.
The comments were practically dying to agree on Jiang Li’s behalf!
But the boy seemed indifferent: “Depends on my schedule.”
“What an answer”
“Non-fans are about to lose their minds”
“Support whatever brother decides”
“Fans really do take after their idol”
“Especially in terms of brains”
Qi Hui didn’t get angry hearing this answer, she’d seen plenty of fake, flattering people, and actually preferred someone who spoke their mind.
She smiled. “I’ll have him reach out to your manager.”
Jiang Li didn’t think much of the exchange either. Seeing that the human woman was fine now, he turned and left.
Unexpectedly, he turned right into Duan Zhihan.
Jiang Li didn’t want any contact with Duan Zhihan, ideally there’d be a transparent barrier between them.
He immediately walked in the opposite direction, not wanting to stay near the man for even a moment.
But soon he realized he’d been wrong.
What he needed wasn’t just a transparent barrier, but a soundproof one too, because Duan Zhihan followed and spoke up.
“Was making that soup because Ms. Qi was feeling unwell? How does our Jiang Li have such a caring heart, our little baby.”
“Not only is he gorgeous, he’s so thoughtful too, none of us even noticed Ms. Qi was unwell. What a gentle little sweetheart.”
Jiang Li hadn’t wanted to respond to Duan Zhihan at all, but the little robot found himself getting carried away by the praise, not bothering to argue about being called “baby” over and over, his face flushing slightly.
“It’s fine, I just gave her some soup.”
Meanwhile, the livestream viewers were losing their minds.
“Baby?! Has Teacher Duan lost it or did my ears break?”
“Calling him baby is way too much”
“I yelped out loud during my evening study session”
“No offense, but is everyone’s reaction really this big? Feels like a normal compliment to me, can’t you praise someone just because you’re divorced now?”
“Let me calm down, calm down”
Jiang Li had no idea about the storm brewing in the livestream chat, thoroughly absorbed in the man’s flattering words.
He’d already been quite pleased at first, but couldn’t withstand Duan Zhihan praising him throughout the meal, he’d whittled a small branch into chopsticks, and Duan Zhihan praised him for taking a great leap forward in human civilization.
He nearly snapped the chopsticks representing the pinnacle of human civilization in half.
“I almost thought Jiang Li invented chopsticks”
“Teacher Duan, have you been kidnapped? Blink twice if you have!”
“Bold guess here, Teacher Duan, are you possessed by a different soul?”
Although Jiang Li didn’t eat human food, to avoid exposing his robot identity, he’d still eat a little at mealtimes.
He picked up food with his chopsticks half-heartedly, and Duan Zhihan praised how steady his chopstick grip was.
While at it, he also praised Jiang Li’s food-finding efforts.
“We only got to eat dinner tonight because of Jiang Li. He found so much, or else I wouldn’t even know where we’d be starving right now.”
Having been thoroughly showered in flattery, the little robot finally couldn’t help but bury his head down low, wishing he could find a box to hide his flustered self inside.
An Zhiqing, busy promoting his own cakes, was confused hearing Duan Zhihan’s words. “Didn’t you just catch a wild rabbit with a trap? Tomorrow we can have roasted rabbit meat.”
The air went silent instantly.
Jiang Li’s head snapped up, suddenly wide awake.
He’d found rabbit meat himself and the man kept praising him for it anyway, clearly deliberately building him up, then mocking him for not finding any meat, and he’d actually thought it was a genuine compliment.
He coldly turned and left.
He would not exchange another word with Duan Zhihan on this show. He’d also keep a distance of two meters, no, three meters.
Qi Hui said irritably to An Zhiqing, “You just talk too much.”
An Zhiqing asked sheepishly, “So what should we do with the rabbit?”
“Kill it.” Duan Zhihan said mercilessly.
“Poor little bunny!”
“Why did the young rabbit get killed so unjustly on this show”
“Now this is the Teacher Duan I know! Who was that flattering guy from earlier”
Ruan Yan, knowing the audience loved small animals, didn’t bother to eat, specially going to the riverbank to gather grass for the rabbit.
But when he returned, all he found was the rabbit, gutted and dead.
Ruan Yan could only toss the grass aside and suggested to everyone, “It’s getting dark soon, let’s set up our tents.”
No one had any objections.
The guests opened their suitcases and pulled out the tents they’d brought.
Xu Jiawen, used to filming military dramas and himself a former soldier, quickly finished setting up his tent. Everyone else had mostly finished too, except Jiang Li, who hadn’t moved an inch.
He hadn’t even taken out a tent.
Xu Jiawen’s sense of soldierly duty made him walk over, and without waiting for Jiang Li to refuse, said, “I’ll help you set it up.”
“No need.”
Xu Jiawen thought Jiang Li was just being polite and went ahead to open Jiang Li’s suitcase for him. But once he opened it, he found no tent inside at all.
Baffled, he asked, “Didn’t the production team remind everyone to bring a tent? How did you forget?”
“I didn’t forget.”
The boy corrected him matter-of-factly: “I’ve seen how reality shows always confiscate things, so I just didn’t bring one.”
“Not bringing it so it can’t be confiscated, I really respect this logic”
“No wonder he looked so disappointed hearing that only phones were being confiscated”
“Is this what they call predicting the prediction?”
“Dumbass, well, not going to curse you out today”
“Clever little Jiang Li, how are you going to sleep tonight?”