The evening meal was very rich, laid out across a long table.
Chu Zhuo chewed with his small mouth pouting, a few grains of rice inadvertently sticking to the corner of his mouth.
“Older brother,” he said after swallowing the food in his mouth, pointing to the steamed fish on the dining table and showing off to Wang Zhiyu, who was sitting next to him, “the fish was found by our team.”
“You guys are really amazing,” Wang Zhiyu said without dampening the mood, placing a piece of fish meat into his mouth and giving a thumbs-up in praise, “It’s really delicious!”
Watching eagerly, Chu Zhuo drooled down onto his bib.
“Do you want to eat some?” Wang Zhiyu placed another piece of fish meat into Chu Zhuo’s bowl.
Seeing the ice-cream-tempting fish meat, Chu Zhuo leaned toward the edge of his bowl greedily, using his spoon to shovel the fish meat straight into his mouth.
This action almost scared Chu Kai out of his wits.
Fortunately, Wang Zhiling saw it in time and pressed down on Chu Zhuo’s spoon across from Wang Zhiyu, reminding him nervously, “Good child, this fish has bones. If you eat it like this, you’ll choke.”
Yan Chi, who was peeling shrimp nearby, slowly raised his head, lingering between Chu Zhuo’s aggrieved expression and the bone-free-looking fish meat.
He didn’t know how to pick out fish bones at all.
“Does this fish have bones?” Yan Chi asked, his face full of confusion and a hint of perplexity in his tone, “Brother Wang, how can you tell how to pick them out?”
Wang Zhiling smiled and pulled Chu Zhuo’s bowl toward himself, saying, “I’ll do it.”
Wang Zhiyu looked completely stunned, then proudly said to Chu Zhuo, “My dad is amazing. Let him help you pick out the bones, and you’ll get to eat fragrant fish meat without getting hurt.”
Chu Zhuo probably didn’t understand, swallowed his saliva, squinted his eyes, and smiled happily as he shouted, “Yay! Fragrant fish. Older brother eat too. Yan Dad eat too. Uncle Wang eat too.”
In two days, Chu Zhuo had completely integrated, and after dinner, he was very open-ended when playing games.
Playing radish squat with the children, he named himself “Fragrant Radish.” He repeated “Fragrant Radish” for a long time without squatting, and in the very first round, he “fragrantly” squatted himself out of the game, shyly hiding behind Yan Chi.
Wang Zhiyu, who won first place, distributed the lollipop prizes to the children.
Chu Zhuo was overjoyed. When returning to House Number 3, he sat on Yan Chi’s shoulders, holding a lollipop in one hand and licking it with relish, while tightly hugging the precious golden pear with the other.
Tonight Chu Zhuo was still very well-behaved. After taking a bath and changing into his pajamas, he hugged the pear and obediently waited for Yan Chi to continue telling him a bedtime story.
Yan Chi continued his “lessons,” and Chu Zhuo fell asleep shortly after.
Yan Chi gently pulled the blanket upward over Chu Zhuo, accidentally touching the harmonica necklace hanging around Chu Zhuo’s neck.
Chu Zhuo almost never parted with this necklace, and after taking a bath, he would immediately ask Yan Chi to put it back on him.
Yan Chi carefully pulled out the necklace and scrutinized it in the palm of his hand for a moment.
Back then, that silly Beta said he sang well and traded a water chestnut for a second-hand harmonica.
He wouldn’t use a harmonica stained with someone else’s saliva.
A Beta who held someone else in his heart was not worthy of being remembered by him.
He put the necklace back in place and turned off the bedside lamp.
The night grew deeper, and the moonlight streamed through the window, spilling precisely across those sharp-contoured facial features.
Yan Chi’s tightly closed brows and eyes could never relax. When the rooster crowed at two in the morning, he also got up with faint dark circles under his eyes.
Today’s breakfast had to be collected from the village chief’s courtyard.
When he arrived, he was informed by the night-watch staff that it was only a little past two in the morning.
As a result, he simply sat in the courtyard and waited.
The calmer the night, the more restless human hearts became.
Yan Chi lit a cigarette, walking from the village chief’s house to House Number 3, and then from House Number 3 back to the village chief’s house.
Fearing that this King of Hell might run into trouble, the staff only dared to follow behind, not even daring to turn on the cameras.
At 5:50 in the morning, Chu Kai was responsible for helping make breakfast today.
He yawned, his vision blurry as he headed toward the village chief’s courtyard.
Even more hazy than his vision was Yan Chi, who stubbed out his cigarette butt and suddenly ran toward the entrance of the village chief’s house.
“Where is the person?” He scanned left and right at the entrance of the village chief’s house, yet could no longer find the figure he had just glimpsed in his daze.
“Nobody,” the accompanying cameraman shivered and hurriedly said, “there’s nobody.”
Yan Chi supported his forehead, rubbed his temples, and said in a deep voice, “Phone.”
Zhao Zhi, the accompanying cameraman, broke out in cold sweat holding the camera, “Brother Yan, your phone was already collected earlier.”
Yan Chi let out an irritated breath, only then remembering that his backup phone had been discovered by Little Lingjiao and handed straight over to the production team.
“Sorry,” Yan Chi’s expression was frighteningly gloomy, “I mistook you for my assistant.”
Zhao Zhi was so scared his soul almost flew away, hesitating for a moment before following Yan Chi into the village chief’s courtyard.
Breakfast was divided into three tiers:
The first two families to arrive enjoyed a high-end breakfast, featuring both Chinese and Western dishes.
The middle two families had a normal breakfast, including sweet potatoes, eggs, and porridge.
While the last two families could only enjoy the all-you-can-eat set meal consisting of steamed buns and porridge.
Chu Kai finished dividing the breakfast and raised his eyes to look out the window, just in time to see Yan Chi lowering his gaze as he lay on a lounge chair. That stern and cold facial features were as soul-stirring and terrifying as a King of Hell judging ghosts, making one shudder.
He hurriedly turned around, remembering that he woke up too early today, so his tear mole wasn’t covered, and he had forgotten his mask and hat.
The chef had already started using the earthen stove to cook the large pots of food for the staff, so Chu Kai quickly sat down in front of the stove opening and began making a fire.
By the time all six families finished collecting their breakfast and Chu Kai delivered the meals to the monitoring room, he finally returned to the dormitory to tidy up.
Zhang Zijun, the Beta following Bei Yan, also returned to the dormitory at some point and suddenly appeared behind Chu Kai.
Chu Kai lived on the top bunk at the very back.
Standing by the wall near the bed, when he covered his tear mole and saw a smiling face suddenly appear in the mirror, he almost dropped the mirror.
He turned around, hid the mirror and cushion behind his back, and asked somewhat nervously, “Brother Zhang, why are you back?”
Zhang Zijun stared at Chu Kai with a smile and said nothing, strolling leisurely over to his own bed and picking up his work badge as he said, “I forgot my work badge.”
His gaze seemed to carry a hint of playfulness and probing.
Chu Kai responded with a smile, stuffing the mirror and cushion back under his pillow.
Out of nowhere, right before leaving with his work badge, Zhang Zijun suddenly dropped a line: “I didn’t expect a male Beta like you to wear makeup. No wonder.”
His voice trailed off abruptly with the closing of the door, yet it left Chu Kai with an indescribable sense of unease.
Chu Kai was stunned for a moment, his mind somewhat blank as he moved the mirror, cushion, and concealer from under the pillow to the right side of the pillow.
Returning to the village chief’s courtyard, on the way with Liao Zhenzhen rushing to the home of Jing Yuanwei and Jing Sichen, Chu Kai’s expression was very strange.
Feeling the change in Chu Kai’s emotions, Liao Zhenzhen bumped her shoulder against Chu Kai’s and said, “Zhu Kai, what’s wrong?”
Coming back to his senses, Chu Kai forced a wry smile, “It’s nothing, just feeling a bit reluctant to part.”
“No way?” Liao Zhenzhen looked at Chu Kai in disbelief, “This is only the first episode, what is there to be reluctant about.”
“Don’t be so sentimental, we’ll see each other again next week,” Liao Zhenzhen took an egg out of her pocket and gave it to Chu Kai, “Seeing that you didn’t eat breakfast, I saved an egg for you.”
“Thank you, Zhenzhen.” Chu Kai accepted the egg, his brows and eyes softening again.
He truly felt a bit reluctant to part, yet he didn’t even know what he was reluctant about.