As soon as Duan Xingge said this, not to mention the livestream audience, even the professional host on-site showed a slightly surprised expression, let alone the other guests.
Ming Jiao’s eyes widened, revealing an expression of utter shock and disbelief, while the only person on the scene who didn’t show shock was, surprisingly, Yun Qi.
As the person currently focusing all the attention, he couldn’t understand at all why the developments in this lifetime had deviated from his previous one.
However, he couldn’t show his confusion; he could only grit his teeth in his heart and curse Duan Xingge to hell, while on the surface, he remained expressionless and said: “…Can I refuse?”
Duan Xingge raised a rather happy smile, so wide that his dimples appeared, but the words he spoke were completely contrary to his smile in their firmness: “No.”
Yun Qi knew well that the more he said, the more mistakes he would make. No matter how much he cursed in his heart, he kept a cold face and said nothing more, looking as if he had accepted the fact without much struggle.
In reality, that was indeed the case.
If the person who had drawn the double room hadn’t been Duan Xingge, Yun Qi would have had ten thousand ways to refuse, but he simply didn’t want to admit it.
Duan Xingge was clearly aware of this, and his smile became even somewhat unrestrained.
In the end, the remaining six people drew lots again to decide the locations of their respective single rooms.
It wasn’t until everyone finished drawing that the viewers in the livestream finally came to their senses. This time, the bullet comments tried to make excuses, but combined with the recent “couple ring” incident, it was the first time since the broadcast began that the CP fans of Ming Jiao found themselves unable to control the screen:
“So it’s roommates with a love rival right from the start?! I suspect the next step is for the room door to be locked, and then they can’t get out unless they ‘do’ it.”
“!! Stop reading novels from the neighboring city!!”
“…Damn, I’m just a passerby, attracted by the Xing-Jiao pair, but now I feel like Xing-Yun is the real deal. It’s so good to ship; are the Xing-Jiao or Yun-Jiao ships really not just in your imaginations?”
“What’s so good about it? Xing-Xing intentionally chose President Yun just to ensure his love rival wouldn’t have a chance, right? He didn’t want to make Jiao-bao feel awkward, but he also restricted the love rival. You kid are quite calculating.”
“Disgusting love rival, right? President Yun’s face is already dark; you kid really have some tricks.”
“Um… couple rings plus living together that can’t be explained away by just ‘disgusting love rival,’ can it? Are some of the amateur’s fans being a bit too confident?”
“The clown’s powerless rage is genuinely quite funny.”
Seeing the bullet comments gradually becoming more volatile, viewers who had previously been reluctant to speak out due to the large number of Ming Jiao’s fans began to appear like bamboo shoots after a rain.
Although the bullet comments were still within a controllable range, the atmosphere of an impending storm had already been stirred up.
However, these things temporarily couldn’t affect the guests under the camera.
After the rooms were assigned, the guests took their luggage back to their respective rooms to rest for an hour. One hour later, they would have lunch together in the restaurant. As for what the activities would be on the first afternoon, the production team kept it a secret.
The others carried their luggage and started walking toward their respective rooms, except for Ming Jiao, who, clutching his room card, absentmindedly watched the pair of Xing-Yun.
Yun Qi didn’t seem to be in a good mood; he expressionlessly carried his luggage and walked forward without giving him a single glance.
Duan Xingge’s mood, however, was quite good. Upon sensing Ming Jiao’s gaze, he gave him a wide, bright smile.
However, before Ming Jiao could feel much comfort, Duan Xingge switched hands, using his left hand to carry his luggage as he followed Yun Qi’s retreating figure, turning and disappearing around the corner of the cruise ship.
Naturally, it was impossible to install surveillance cameras inside the guests’ rooms, which was the only place the viewers couldn’t see.
This meant that the next hour was not only a rest time for the guests but also a rest time for the netizens.
The sea in the livestream was calm and peaceful, but the netizens who flooded out of the livestream went directly to other entertainment platforms and turned them upside down.
Only one hour into the broadcast, three or four trending topics related to “A Promise of Mountains and Seas” had appeared. Initially, the one that reached the top was naturally “Expectations for the Shura Field in Phase Two,” but it didn’t take long for that trending topic bought by the production team to be completely blown away by “Couple Rings.”
When the accommodation results were finally announced, the entire internet exploded into a mess.
Before the dating show began, the countless people who had been shouting to see a “Shura Field” (rivalry) were slapped in the face by undeniable facts. No matter what excuses they made, the netizens who had previously been suppressed by them were no longer buying it.
But all of this was unknown to the two people who had returned to their room with their luggage.
Yun Qi, with a cold face, carried his luggage into the room first, intending to slam the door and lock the madman out, but a hand wearing a diamond ring squeezed in and forcefully blocked the door frame.
Yun Qi got angry just seeing the ring; he grasped the door frame wanting to apply force, but suddenly remembered the injury on Duan Xingge’s left wrist, and his movement paused.
Yet, it was this one-in-a-million-second moment of softness that allowed someone to take advantage.
The distinct, bony fingers pressed against the side of the door, his forearm was visibly tense and exerting force, the superior muscle lines making one envious; not a trace of injury could be seen.
But as Duan Xingge pushed the door open and entered, the first thing he did after putting the luggage on the floor was to hypocritically rub his wrist and complain: “President Yun, you’re so angry, you shook my wrist until it hurts.”
Yun Qi recalled how he had deliberately used his left hand to carry the luggage just to show off the diamond ring, and immediately sneered: “You deserve it.”
Duan Xingge was not only not angry but even laughed; he brought his wrist forward and said something shocking: “How about President Yun rubs it for me?”
Yun Qi was just about to pack his luggage, but when he heard this, he paused and turned his head to look at him incredulously: “Is President Duan’s face made of city walls?”
“You flatter me, you flatter me,” Duan Xingge said, taking it as a compliment rather than a shame.
Yun Qi said coldly: “You know best what your fans want to see. You might be happy today, but when the market opens tomorrow, the share price of Xing-Yun will likely look unusually ‘good’.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Duan Xingge shrugged, looking nothing like his usual elite and responsible self, but rather like a profligate son. “Anyway, Xing-Yun is my one-man show. If the stock price falls, it falls. If there’s really no other way, at worst, I’ll just go jump into the sea and end it all.”
The outside world had previously mocked Xing-Yun Jewelry as a small workshop run by Duan Xingge, where he held absolute power over the board of directors. Don’t look at how he could still trick so many sponsors with his face now; when he was past his prime and old in the future, the entire Xing-Yun would have to be buried with him.
At that time, either the entire Xing-Yun would fall apart, or Duan Xingge would have to sacrifice himself to barely preserve a foundation.
Duan Xingge casually said this, following the words of those jealous people, but as soon as the words “jump into the sea” came out, it was as if he had stepped on a tiger’s tail. Yun Qi’s face instantly went cold, and he suddenly, without warning, slapped Duan Xingge’s wrist.
Duan Xingge was caught off guard and his face changed color from the pain, but after recovering, he forgot the pain as the wound healed: “That doesn’t count as rubbing; you have to take off your gloves to rub it.”
“Do you need me to help you rub your brain along with it?” Yun Qi squeezed out through his teeth, “I think you’re tired of living.”
Yun Qi was so angry that he looked like he wished he could snap his wrist again.
But Duan Xingge was not afraid at all, and instead laughed: “I can bear the shares of Xing-Yun by myself, but if the outside world knew that this diamond ring was personally designed by President Yun, and a director has collusion with a rival group, guess how the stock price of Yue-Yun will perform tomorrow when the market opens…?”
The room instantly fell into an unprecedented silence.
Yun Qi looked up at Duan Xingge in disbelief, seemingly never having expected that this person could be so shameless.
After a moment, Yun Qi gritted his teeth and evaluated the other person using the most vicious words in his vocabulary: “…Bastard.”
However, to Duan Xingge, who had heard foul language since childhood, these words were just a minor itch; he instead laughed wantonly and said: “Thank you for the compliment.”
The spacious double room suddenly seemed a bit claustrophobic at this moment.
The sea outside the window was calm and peaceful, a picture of harmony, but inside the half-drawn curtains, it was filled with a sticky sense of ambiguity.
Duan Xingge leaned against the door, raising his hand leisurely, his eyes naked like a wolf staring at its prey. He stared unblinkingly at the person in front of him, afraid of missing any of the other’s movements.
Yun Qi was trembling with anger. Initially, he was just simply taking off his gloves, but at this moment, it felt as shameful as undressing in front of Duan Xingge.
The silk fabric slowly faded away, revealing his translucent, slender hands hidden beneath it.
His fair fingertips then rested on the pulse of the person in front of him. The slightly cool and soft touch came from the point of contact. The slightly curled fingers looked like they wanted to strangle the person in front of him directly, but in the end, the owner of the fingers gritted his teeth with suppressed anger and began to press and rub gently.
By the time Yun Qi finally emerged from the room, the entire internet had been in an uproar for a full hour over what had just happened, and the atmosphere in the livestream room had become quite bizarre.
Yun Qi didn’t know about this, and when he arrived at the restaurant, the others had already taken their seats. The atmosphere between them was as harmonious as ever, so he didn’t notice anything.
Yun Qi was the second to last to arrive, but Duan Xingge, who should have appeared with him, was late for some reason.
Ming Jiao had already collected his emotions and returned to his previous state. Seeing this, he blinked his large eyes and spoke in a “magnanimous” manner: “A-Yun, why didn’t Brother Xing come with you?”
“I don’t know.” Yun Qi pulled out his chair and sat down, saying with a cold face, “Perhaps he threw himself into the river and died.”
Ming Jiao still wanted to say something, but he was choked by his words, not knowing how to speak, and for once, he looked at a loss.
He bit the tip of his chopsticks somewhat nervously, the soft flesh on his cheeks slightly protruding, which made the bullet comments ache for him:
“My baby has been wronged, qaq.”
“What are you doing? Can you stop involving my wife if you are jealous or angry? What did my wife do wrong?”
“…Speechless. How can there be a love rival when there are couple rings and living together? The production team’s script is a bit disgusting. My baby is understanding, but do you really think we are easy to bully?”
“If there isn’t a ‘crematorium’ reversal later, director, remember to protect your head.”
But after an hour of fermentation, the bullet comments were clearly no longer the exclusive territory of Ming Jiao’s fans. As soon as they spoke, other bullet comments followed:
“Is it possible that this is a dating show, not your baby’s harem?”
“Don’t mention it, don’t mention it; those who want to watch the fun are becoming a bit rebellious. The more you jump around, the more I look forward to seeing Xing-Yun become real.”
“Hahahaha, the powerless rage of some person’s fans is really funny.”
“They are a talented and beautiful couple; is it your turn, a group of monsters, to object?”
“Support removing the bad filling from the sandwich cookie, no middleman taking a cut.”
The dining table was rectangular, without a lazy Susan. Ming Jiao sat some distance away from Yun Qi. After pouting with his chopsticks for a while, he said softly: “I want to eat durian pastry.”
The pile of durian pastries happened to be placed in front of Yun Qi, but Yun Qi showed no intention of acting when he heard this, instead appearing somewhat distracted.
The reason was none other than that Duan Xingge also liked to eat durian pastries when he was a child, and Yun Ai also liked to eat them, but both of them insisted on eating the ones in Yun Qi’s hands, not even glancing at the ones on the plate. Moreover, in order to compete for favor, they both clamored for Yun Qi to feed them.
Yun Qi was tired of it, and finally, to discipline them, he gritted his teeth and ignored everyone.
In the end, Yun Ai was the first to give up, and the little girl ran to the kitchen to secretly eat pizza in a pitiful manner.
Only Duan Xingge was different; from then on, he showed an inhuman craziness.
If Yun Qi ignored him, he would just starve himself, starving to the point where he almost caused an accident, which scared Yun Qi into calling a doctor directly.
But the doctor said that he was just starving himself; Yun Qi really couldn’t do anything about Duan Xingge, and in the end, he could only compromise with disappointment. However, after the compromise, once Duan Xingge was full, he would face the rare anger of Yun Qi.
Seeing Yun Qi distracted and showing no intention of giving him durian pastry, Ming Jiao’s eyes flashed with a hint of grievance, and then he said, appearing concerned but actually urging: “What is A-Yun thinking about?”
As soon as he finished speaking, Duan Xingge pushed the door and entered. With new hatred and old resentment surging into his heart, Yun Qi sneered with anger: “Nothing, just remembering how someone didn’t even know how to eat and had to be fed by others when he was a child.”
Duan Xingge’s hands were a bit wet, as if he had just washed them. He was scolded as soon as he arrived, but he wasn’t angry; instead, he laughed after a pause upon hearing this.
Yun Qi had originally vented his anger in front of the camera, thinking he had won back a point, but after seeing the familiar smile on Duan Xingge’s face, his heart suddenly skipped a beat, and that ominous premonition emerged suddenly.
Facts proved that as long as it involved Duan Xingge, Yun Qi’s premonition was always absurdly accurate.
Duan Xingge walked past Ming Jiao, who was preparing to greet him, put his hand with water droplets on the back of Yun Qi’s chair, and said in a relaxed tone: “I didn’t expect that you still remember things from childhood so clearly, President Yun?”
Yun Qi cautiously didn’t answer, but Duan Xingge didn’t care; he just continued on his own: “Then I also remember one thing…”
Under the shocked gaze of the whole internet, he leaned over while holding the back of the chair an incredibly intimate action but Yun Qi had no time to worry about it, because Duan Xingge deliberately lowered his voice and whispered with a smile in his ear:
“When we were little, my brother seemed to have promised to marry me when I grew up… Is it still valid now?”
Follow-up question: Would you like to proceed with the next chapter, or is there a specific interaction or plot detail you would like to analyze?