After Chu Minghe finished singing, Lin Dingshi wanted to drag them into another round. In the end, all six skewers ended up in Zhang Qing’s hands again, leaving only Chu Minghe to take the penalty and sing.
Zhao Xingjian didn’t know much about Chu Minghe, only that he had been heavily reviled online in the past. But hearing him sing now, he couldn’t help feeling that perhaps Chu Minghe had simply chosen the wrong path before, and that it was still early enough to correct it.
They kept playing until 1:00 AM, continuing even after the live streams had been turned off. The production team eventually came over to forcefully confiscate the equipment and barbecue gear, and the group finally meandered back to their room.
The suburban wind was slightly chilly. While they were still outside in the courtyard, they could manage to keep themselves together, but once the bedroom door closed, exhaustion completely overwhelmed them.
Enduring a heavy wave of sleepiness, Chu Minghe finished washing up as soon as he entered the room and collapsed onto the bed. In his groggy state, his thoughts drifted back to the past. Yet those past nights, spent drinking with various investors or business partners, had never brought this kind of relaxed feeling it was completely different.
In fact, his most relaxed moments had been the period when he was frying dough sticks. If not for that street hooligan, he probably would be doing pretty well right now. Perhaps he would have paid off his debts, perhaps he would have rented a slightly bigger place, or perhaps he would have already found a romantic partner they could mutually rely on…
His thoughts drifted further and further away. In a daze, he could even hear the sizzling sound of hot oil—it must have been his husband frying dough sticks.
Lowering his head, he rubbed against the quilt beneath him, immersing himself in the exceptionally realistic fantasy.
…
Before he slipped completely into sleep, the sharp click of the bathroom door snapping open yanked his reason back to reality.
No one was frying dough sticks. There was only a freshly showered Zhao Xingjian.
Chu Minghe lay sprawled on the bed, watching him for a moment, feeling a momentary sense of regret over the shattered illusion.
Zhao Xingjian even furrowed his brow and asked, “Are you awake?”
“…Awake.”
He was awake. And he knew full well that he didn’t have a romantic partner to share a bed with only an arranged-marriage husband he was about to divorce soon. Furthermore, tonight it was this limited-edition husband’s turn to sleep on the bed.
He flipped over, climbed up, lowered his eyes, and began rolling up the duvet. With a sleepy, murmuring voice, he muttered, “I’ve already slept on the duvet, so you take the bed. The blanket is yours, and I’ll sleep on the sofa.”
Watching Chu Minghe’s slow, lethargic, and feeble movements as he rolled up the quilt, Zhao Xingjian simply turned off the light, walked over in the dark, and lay down on the sofa.
“Aren’t you going to sleep?” Chu Minghe paused, trying hard to discern Zhao Xingjian’s figure in the darkness.
“Not sleeping on the bed doesn’t mean I’m not sleeping.”
“Then are you going to work all night? I can leave the light on for you to sleep.”
Zhao Xingjian replied, “I’m not sleeping on the bed, not staying awake.”
Chu Minghe let out an “oh,” hugged the quilt, and lay back down. After a long moment, he mumbled another sentence: “Then I’ll let you sleep on it tomorrow.”
“…”
Zhao Xingjian couldn’t tell if he was drunk. Judging by his physical state, he didn’t look like it, but hearing his fuzzy, muddled tone made it seem like he was. So, without realizing it, he ended up paying a bit more attention to the side of the bed.
Chu Minghe himself didn’t notice it at all. In fact, he felt exceptionally clear-headed so clear-headed that he had zero sleepiness, as if waiting for Zhao Xingjian to finish his shower had somehow recharged his mental battery.
After lying quietly for a long while, he finally lost the battle against his fatigue, shrunk back under the covers with his phone, and turned on the screen.
The moment he unlocked it, a message popped up from Sister Hong.
The plan has changed. We’ll issue the statement after the show finishes airing.
Chu Minghe pressed his lips together. He had almost forgotten about the statement he and Sister Hong had planned to repost yesterday. But since Sister Hong said the plan had changed, it must be because his performance tonight had earned them another wave of traffic.
Chu Minghe sent back an “Okay.”
Sister Hong was busy and only replied a while later, telling him to go to sleep early and remember to put on a sheet mask.
Chu Minghe obediently replied with an okay again, then stared blankly at his phone.
He felt a slight urge to check out the rebroadcast of his performance tonight, but Sister Hong advised against it. Still, after wrestling with himself for a moment, he honestly and fumbling-wise groped his way into the CP super-topic forum for himself and Zhao Xingjian.
He had browsed through it last night, and stepping in now, he found that there were over a hundred new posts. Most of them were uploaded videos and screenshots.
Scrolling downward, he picked out a video from the evening barbecue session amidst a sea of morning pomegranate-picking clips.
The video seemed to have been edited and ran for less than ten minutes. Chu Minghe muted his phone and tapped play.
The video content was completely innocent just a collection of interactions between him and Zhao Xingjian. However, when paired with the scrolling bullet-screen comments floating across the top, the more he watched, the weirder it felt.
-[Cry] What quiet talk are you two having, let us hear it too!
-Wife is so talkative, hahaha.
-President Zhao is displeased again, is he jealous wuwu? Everyone else gets to feed their wife except him.
-Why is President Zhao so clumsy at peeling potatoes, he needs his wife to teach him.
-Wife’s hands are so pretty.
-President Zhao touched wife’s hands!
Huh?
Chu Minghe zoomed in on that specific screenshot, inspecting it closely, only to discover that it was captured the moment he accidentally brushed against Zhao Xingjian’s hand while teaching him how to peel potatoes. Neither of them had noticed it at the time.
There were plenty of similar comments. After reading too many of them, Chu Minghe even started doubting his own sanity. It was the exact same state of mind as last night knowing full well that this wasn’t normal, he quickly clicked out of it, aimlessly flipped around for a while, and only snapped back to reality when he finally scrolled to the video of himself singing.
Though criticisms of him still existed, a clear trend of turning the tide could already be seen underneath this particular video.
Although some people were still bringing up his scandals from back then, apart from the “buying your way into a show with capital” issue which still required Sister Hong to issue a statement for clarification, the only remaining labels were “vase” and “married.” His entire purpose in joining this variety show was precisely to successfully wash away the impressions those two points had left on the audience, and it was clear now that it was starting to work.
Chu Minghe breathed a sigh of relief. The images of himself and Zhao Xingjian in his head were successfully driven away, and only then did he put down his phone and finally drift off to sleep. He had no idea that he had missed a small concluding snippet at the very end.
Over on the sofa, Zhao Xingjian had been keeping his eyes fixed on the sliver of light leaking from the bedside lamp. It wasn’t until that light vanished, followed by the rustling sounds of Chu Minghe putting his phone away and falling silent, that he finally closed his eyes.
Right before drifting off to sleep, he thought: Why is Chu Minghe still so addicted to the internet?
Early the next morning, before Zhao Xingjian had even opened his eyes, he felt as though a breathing creature was hovering right above his head, neither speaking nor moving.
The moment he opened his eyes, he saw Chu Minghe standing right beside the bed, staring down at him in deep contemplation.
“What are you looking at?”
Chu Minghe straightened up. “I wanted to wake you up just now, but your eyeballs were moving. Aren’t they saying that eye movement during sleep means you’re dreaming?”
Zhao Xingjian let out an “Mn,” sat up, and rubbed his stiff neck.
He had indeed been dreaming, but the moment he opened his eyes and saw Chu Minghe, he forgot what the dream was about.
“What did you dream about?” Chu Minghe asked.
“Forgot.”
That was the absolute truth.
Chu Minghe simply looked at him for a while, staring so hard that Zhao Xingjian started muttering to himself, wondering if perhaps he had talked in his sleep and Chu Minghe had heard it. But he didn’t have that bad habit, and he couldn’t figure it out. Right as he was about to furrow his brows and ask, Chu Minghe stepped aside right on cue to let Zhao Xingjian change his clothes.
Zhao Xingjian was left speechless for a moment, suspecting that Chu Minghe’s alcohol still hadn’t worn off.
Today, they only needed to milk the cows for half an hour. Going early meant coming back early, so after washing up without eating breakfast, the six of them headed straight to the old man’s place.
To prevent the production team from handing down another penalty, everyone put their backs into working hard. Unfortunately, the results handed over to the old man at the end were pretty much the same as yesterday’s.
Walking back, Lin Dingshi stirred the eggs and pondered aloud, “Minghe-ge, what do you think last night’s penalty is going to be?”
Chu Minghe thought about it and couldn’t guess. “Cleaning the villa? Or chopping firewood and kneading noodles? Otherwise, killing chickens and selling pigs.”
“Ah,” Lin Dingshi gasped in shock. “That won’t do. Brother Zhao doesn’t know how either; relying entirely on you alone is going to be too hard.”
As he said this, Chu Minghe glanced at Zhao Xingjian and noticed he was peeling potatoes and doing it even more skillfully than the night before. He had no idea why Zhao Xingjian liked peeling potatoes so much, but it seemed he hadn’t heard what Lin Dingshi had just said.
He softly replied, “It’s fine. Once I teach him, he’ll get the hang of it. He learns fast.”
Lin Dingshi pouted. “Otherwise, let me ask the production team! If they allow helpers, I’ll bring Zheng Yuan along to help you out.”
Chu Minghe smiled and said, “Okay.”
Unfortunately, the production team wasn’t that easy to talk to. The penalty arrived right after breakfast.
That basket of pomegranates looked terribly familiar. The same assistant stood there pointing at the fruit and declared, “Yesterday’s penalty is very simple. There’s a village market today, and this basket of pomegranates can be priced at six to eight yuan per catty. The money earned from selling them will belong to you, and you can freely allocate it to buy rice or meat.”
In reality, they were using a penalty as an excuse to deliver benefits. It sounded quite appealing.
Lin Dingshi looked over and asked excitedly, “Can we help?”
Assistant: “No, otherwise the penalty doubles.”
How heartless.
Chu Minghe dragged the basket it was quite heavy, though dragging it along the ground made it manageable.
“Where’s the car? Let’s go right now to grab a good spot.”
The assistant looked at him with a smile and simply refused to speak.
Chu Minghe choked, hesitating as he asked, “No car?”
“No car.”
“…”
The assistant walked away, leaving the six of them standing by the basket staring blankly.
Lin Dingshi hesitated. “Do you guys think if we call a car, it’ll come over?”
Zhang Qing: “The cabbage would already be cold by then.”
He wasn’t wrong. Calling a car from the surrounding towns would take at least an hour’s drive, not to mention whether anyone would even accept the ride.
Since they couldn’t call one from the outside, they had to borrow one from nearby households. However, after checking house by house, everyone only accepted cash, and the moment they heard about it, they knew it was the production team’s handiwork.
Thus, they returned empty-handed. However, while passing by the old man’s house, they spotted a small van parked at the entrance and rushed over, holding onto their last shred of hope to ask:
“Can we rent this car? Five hundred for an hour.”
The driver frowned, sized up their group, and finally shook his head. “Not renting. I collect milk.”
The very last shred of hope that hadn’t been tainted by the production team flew away as well.
Zhang Qing figured it out: “The price you offered was too high; he probably thought we were up to some illegal shady business.”
Lin Dingshi got annoyed the moment he heard that. “Why didn’t you say so earlier!”
“I only just figured it out now.”
Whether they figured it out or not, they had no way of even setting off right now. Surely the production team wouldn’t make the two of them shoulder-carry pomegranates for five kilometers all the way to the town market to sell them, would they?
The group looked at each other in dismay. Chu Minghe glanced at Zhao Xingjian and asked hesitantly, “The car you came here in… can we use it?”