Jian Xingzhi was stunned, letting out a silly “Ah?” and unable to utter anything else.
Ji Xingzhu began counting on her fingers, painting a picture for him. “Let me tell you, I’m planning to start a company, currently intending to develop in the entertainment industry. If you agree to sign, you’ll be our company’s first artist, the undisputed top star. From now on, any good resources will be prioritized for you. How about it?”
Jian Xingzhi’s eyes flickered, clearly somewhat tempted, but he soon shook his head dejectedly. “Sorry, Miss Ji, I already have an agency.”
Ji Xingzhu let out a disdainful snort. “That so-called company you’re signed with now is garbage. You’re a Best Actor winner, and now that you’re making a comeback, instead of getting you a couple of good scripts, they’re stuffing you into a dating show? Aren’t they just wasting your talent?!”
Lu Xuguang: “…”
Are you serious?! What’s wrong with our dating show?! QAQ
Hearing this, Jian Xingzhi smiled bitterly and shook his head. “Miss Ji, I really appreciate your recognition, but I’m… currently having some financial difficulties. I can’t afford the penalty fee. You should find someone else.”
Ji Xingzhu waved her hand dismissively. “Isn’t it just a penalty fee? I’ll pay it for you!”
Jian Xingzhi’s expression shifted, looking at her in disbelief.
“Of course, you’ll have to pay me back.” Ji Xingzhu said with a smile. “I’ll pay your penalty fee, you sign with my company, and then you’ll work hard, earning money for me while paying off your debt.”
“I can guarantee that the resources that come to you won’t be bad, and they won’t waste your acting talent.” Ji Xingzhu’s eyes narrowed slightly, and she said seriously, word by word. “But you also have to guarantee that you won’t let my investment in you go down the drain. I want to see enough returns.”
“So, how about it? Want to work with me?”
After this conversation, Jian Xingzhi was clearly tempted. If Ji Xingzhu was serious, this would be the biggest turning point in his life.
If he continued with his current agency, Jian Xingzhi could already foresee his future—exhausted by countless variety shows and promotional events, yet struggling to get good scripts.
If he went with Ji Xingzhu, it would be completely different… Not to mention anything else, the weight of the prestigious Ji family alone was reassuring enough.
Jian Xingzhi took a deep breath, his usually calm face rarely showing excitement. He looked seriously at Ji Xingzhu and promised, word by word, “Miss Ji, thank you very much for your help. I am willing to work for you, and I will not let you down.”
Ji Xingzhu smiled in satisfaction and shook hands with Jian Xingzhi. “Then it’s settled.”
Jian Xingzhi’s face was slightly flushed from residual excitement. After calming down, he couldn’t help but ask for more details. “Miss Ji, what’s our company called?”
“Haven’t named it yet.” Ji Xingzhu leisurely ate some dessert. “You’re the top star, why don’t you come up with a name?”
Jian Xingzhi: “…You haven’t even named it yet?”
Ji Xingzhu smiled slightly. “Not only is the name not decided, but we haven’t hired any staff either. I told you, it’s just an idea for now.”
Jian Xingzhi: “…”
He suddenly felt like he had boarded a pirate ship.
Ji Xingzhu was just thinking of spinning a tale to comfort her new employee when 999’s voice suddenly rang out in her mind. “Host! Urgent matter!”
“What’s wrong?” Ji Xingzhu asked back.
“The male lead is summoning you!” 999 said anxiously. “He’s been thinking about you constantly. Shouldn’t you go online and take a look?”
Ji Xingzhu’s face instantly darkened. “Didn’t I not tell him how to summon me? How does he know?”
“Maybe he stumbled upon it by accident?”
Ji Xingzhu said impatiently, “Not going, not going. Can’t you see I’m on a date?”
The cannon fodder system said timidly, “But, according to our system’s employee handbook, once the host summons us, we must appear, otherwise our performance review will be affected…”
Ji Xingzhu: “…”
Ji Xingzhu took a deep breath, forcing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Dog male lead… he better have something important to talk to me about!”
Ji Xingzhu stood up reluctantly and said perfunctorily to Jian Xingzhi, “I’m going to make a phone call. You hang out here for a while.”
Jian Xingzhi was startled for a moment, then quickly nodded. “Okay, go ahead. Don’t worry about me.”
Ji Xingzhu turned and left, completely ignoring Lu Xuguang’s devastated expression.
They were still recording the show! A dating show! It was bad enough that Ji Xingzhu was discussing business cooperation with the male guest, but now she was just leaving? Was this acceptable?! Lu Xuguang muttered resentfully, but could only obediently wait on the spot, praying Ji Xingzhu would return soon.
Ji Xingzhu went straight into the café’s restroom and locked herself in a stall. Once everything was ready, the scenery before her eyes instantly changed.
Ji Xingzhu didn’t speak immediately, instead first observing her surroundings. It was dark all around, but ahead was a brightly lit stage where some actors were performing.
Song Qingchi was sitting upright in the audience, his back straight, elegant and composed, looking quite steady. However, in his mind, he was urgently summoning her like a death knell.
Ji Xingzhu glared at him resentfully, then turned her gaze to Cen Xuan beside him. Cen Xuan was currently watching the stage performance with rapt attention, seemingly having completely forgotten about Song Qingchi beside her.
This pair of male and female guests simply watched the play in silence, with no interaction between them, let alone any hint of budding romance.
Ji Xingzhu felt nothing but frustration at his lack of initiative. Such a rare opportunity, and the dog male lead didn’t even know how to seize it?! She spoke irritably, “What do you want?”
Without waiting for his reply, she immediately launched into a tirade of complaints. “Didn’t I tell you earlier to work on building a connection with Cen Xuan? Look at you, sitting there like a wooden block, not having a clue how to win a girl’s favor!”
From the moment he heard her voice, Song Qingchi’s expression subtly changed. Gone was his calm, unruffled demeanor while watching the play. His eyes brightened slightly, and a smile played on his lips. “Why don’t you teach me how to win a girl’s favor?”
Ji Xingzhu rolled her eyes in exasperation, completely unwilling to entertain his question. She directly demanded, “Didn’t I tell you not to look for me usually? Why are you summoning me?”
Song Qingchi’s smile faded slightly. “It’s nothing much…”
Before Ji Xingzhu could explode, Song Qingchi casually asked, as if it were nothing: “I just wanted to ask, how did my fiancée Ji Xingzhu’s date go today?”
Ji Xingzhu really couldn’t understand his thought process and perfunctorily replied, “Of course it went smoothly.”
She had already negotiated a partnership with actor Jian Xingzhi—how could it not go smoothly?
Song Qingchi’s gaze darkened slightly, and he let out an ambiguous snort: “How smoothly? Could it be that Ji Xingzhu has already taken a liking to that male guest?”
Ji Xingzhu retorted irritably, “What’s it to you? You should worry about yourself first!”
Song Qingchi was silent for a long time, then sighed inaudibly. He rubbed his brow with a headache, momentarily feeling lost.
He didn’t know what was wrong with him. Whenever he thought of Ji Xingzhu currently dating another male guest, he felt an inexplicable sense of unease.
And he had even childishly forcibly summoned Ji Xingzhu over… Was it because he didn’t want her to spend time with another man?
Song Qingchi couldn’t figure it out either, but since things had come this far, he decided to just chat with Ji Xingzhu a bit longer, stalling for as much time as possible.
“Don’t be angry.” Song Qingchi soothed with a smile. “I just suddenly had a question I wanted to ask you.”
“What question?” Ji Xingzhu asked patiently.
Song Qingchi pondered for a moment, then said, “Do you have a name?”
Ji Xingzhu: “…Huh?”
Song Qingchi smiled and said, “As a system, do you have a name… or a code name?”
As far as he knew, the cannon fodder system that Ji Xingzhu was bound to had the code name 999. Did Ji Xingzhu have another name when she did this part-time job?
Ji Xingzhu suppressed her anger: “You summoned me here urgently just to ask that?”
“That’s right.” Song Qingchi showed no guilt for disturbing her.
Ji Xingzhu gave a cold laugh and said frostily, “I have a code name. It’s 5418.”
Before Song Qingchi could react, 999 cried out in surprise, “Host, when did you get a code name? How come I don’t know?”
Ji Xingzhu: “I just made it up.”
The cannon fodder system mused: “Then why 5418… Does it have any meaning?”
Ji Xingzhu sneered: “It means… I’m your dad! I’m so annoyed with this dog male lead, it’s not too much to take advantage of him, right?”
Song Qingchi: “…”
Song Qingchi’s mouth twitched imperceptibly, and for a moment he was speechless.
Ji Xingzhu still didn’t know that Song Qingchi had overheard her disrespectful rant. She was still forcing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, fooling him: “Host, why don’t you just call me 88 from now on? So intimate~”
Song Qingchi rubbed his brow helplessly. He wasn’t that dense, was he?
Instead of getting angry, he chuckled lightly and said, “I’ll call you Xiao Ba from now on.”
“Get lost!” Ji Xingzhu refused to acknowledge this childish nickname. She finally issued a serious warning, “I don’t have time to chat with you. I’m logging off now. Don’t summon me again!”
With that, she logged off decisively.
Feeling the suddenly silent mind-space, the smile on Song Qingchi’s face slowly faded. He stared fixedly at the people performing earnestly on stage, but his eyes were somewhat hollow, lost in thought.
Before they knew it, today’s date session had ended. Lu Xuguang looked at the recorded footage from each group and felt like crying but had no tears.
Ji Xingzhu and Jian Xingzhi were the most peculiar pair. The two were in such a lively and romantic place as an amusement park, yet they hadn’t played a single game. They spent the entire time in a café discussing business, almost finalizing a contract;
Song Qingchi and Cen Xuan’s pair was also hard to describe. Song Qingchi’s demeanor with other female guests was completely different from his mode of interaction with Ji Xingzhu. Polite, courteous, without any overstepping, let alone any so-called chemistry or romantic tension;
The other two pairs of guests were earnestly filming the dating show, but there were no highlights.
Lu Xuguang was so worried he felt his hair might fall out. Finally, he decided to make one last effort to salvage today’s recording content.
In the evening, Lu Xuguang announced: “The recording of our first episode will end tomorrow. Tonight, everyone will gather together to chat and get to know each other better.”
The guests would gather to play a small game. The winner could ask one question to a guest they were interested in. Lu Xuguang hoped the guests would get to know each other through mutual questioning, and of course, he also hoped to dig up some explosive topics through the questions.
After several rounds of the game, everyone was quite polite. The winners only asked safe topics like “hobbies” or “ideals.” The atmosphere was harmonious, but unfortunately, there were no so-called explosive moments.
Ji Xingzhu found the game a bit boring, but since it was her own investment in the variety show, she was willing to cooperate with the recording.
Shao Rui was also bored. Shao Rui came from a privileged background, had a quirky personality, and had dated many girlfriends. The reason he participated in this dating show was, one, due to vanity—he wanted the audience’s adoration and envy; and two, because he knew actresses would also participate, and he wanted to smoothly pick up an actress for fun.
Unexpectedly, his usual tactics that worked effortlessly on women were repeatedly thwarted on this show.
Cen Xuan and Bai Zhiyi both ignored him. Wen Yajun was quite gentle with him, but Shao Rui could see that this woman was just trying to hook him and couldn’t be bothered to expend the effort.
What angered him most was Ji Xingzhu’s presence—even more arrogant and domineering than him, and she had humiliated him right from their first meeting.
The key point was that the Ji family was truly wealthy, and he really couldn’t do anything to her.
Shao Rui’s gaze involuntarily fell on Ji Xingzhu across from him. She was genuinely beautiful, more striking than any woman he had ever seen, but her personality was just too formidable…
Looking at Ji Xingzhu’s stunningly cold face and her peach-blossom eyes full of pride and arrogance, Shao Rui’s heart itched uncontrollably.
As it happened, Shao Rui won this round of the game. His gaze fell directly on Ji Xingzhu, his eyes carrying an obvious sense of aggression that made people very uncomfortable.
He unconsciously licked his lips, revealing what he thought was a charming smile, and asked: “Miss Ji, I want to know… where are you sensitive?”
As soon as these words were spoken, the atmosphere on site froze instantly.
Song Qingchi’s expression turned cold in an instant, his dark and deep eyes flashing with a cold light.