The filming location did not allow van-style limousines, managers, or assistants to enter.
Carrying only his small suitcase and under Sister Hong’s slightly apprehensive gaze, Chu Minghe rendezvoused with the staff member sent by the production crew.
The show’s massive popularity was well-deserved. Even though Chu Minghe’s past controversies had caused a tremendous uproar within the entertainment industry, the young assistant dispatched by the production crew treated him with zero condescension or snark.
However, casting one’s gaze outward, the surroundings consisted entirely of overgrown dirt fields.
“The paved concrete road is a short walk ahead. Once we hit the concrete road, filming officially begins. You and your beloved…”
“…”
Chu Minghe smiled, looking a bit apologetic. “He’ll be arriving a bit later. I’ll wait for him for a moment.”
The young assistant had never encountered a guest arriving completely solo. Forget whether their partner was coming or not; normally, guests would at least bring a pair of assistants along.
She had originally been sent here to help the guests “lighten their load,” but as luck would have it, she ran into someone who hadn’t even brought his spouse.
Still, that wasn’t her place to pry. “It’s fine, you can head on in first.”
So it turned out that arriving as a pair wasn’t a strict prerequisite for entering the camera’s frame. After a brief hesitation, Chu Minghe lifted his foot and followed along.
He figured that Zhao Xingjian probably didn’t want to walk in together with him, either.
The assistant had come out alone, without a cameraman. Before stepping onto the concrete road, she glanced up at the utility poles lining the path.
Several cameras had been installed on them. Once past the recording threshold, the assistant turned back to wait for the arrival of the other guests.
The production crew hadn’t arranged for tricycles to pick them up, so Chu Minghe walked the fifteen-minute stretch of road leading to their destination, finding the trek quite manageable.
Besides, the latter half of the route was paved with concrete and flanked by grassy fields.
Throughout this segment, the live-stream bullet comments (danmu) scrolled by at lightning speed:
【They’re here, they’re here! Does anyone recognize this fan-favorite familiar face?】 【Coming in all alone—did this married couple have a fight on the way?】 【Starting the broadcast with a dead engine; little Er has successfully captured my attention.】 【Can’t see his face clearly. Isn’t there an aerial drone with a close-up shot?】 【Looks like my bias, the rising top-tier star.】 【? That top-tier star? More like his anti-fan, I bet.】 【Is really no fan claiming him? He looks familiar though.】 【The more I look, the more he looks like my bias.】 【Stop talking about your bias; he’s cut from the exact same cloth as that old rotten vase.】 【Why are you cursing while we’re having a nice conversation?】 【Let me catch a word: who’s the rotten vase?】 【Chu Minghe. Ten years have passed, and somehow I almost miss the days of dragging him through the dirt.】 … 【I came back after catching up on old clips, and honestly, anyone eating genuine sugar from little Er’s household usually doesn’t have pica (appetite for non-food items).】
Chu Minghe remained completely oblivious to the commentary rolling across the live-stream.
Upon reaching the address provided by the production crew, he found that the conditions weren’t half bad it was a small, aged villa with a lengthy history.
His sharp eyes even caught sight of chickens, ducks, and little piglets being raised in the villa’s backyard, right next to a vegetable patch. By this point, he already had a pretty good idea of what their primary tasks for the week would be.
Frankly speaking, this was miles better than the first season’s trial of starting fires with friction (drill-to-make-fire).
Fortunately, he had handled every kind of chore imaginable in the orphanage before turning eighteen, and after retiring from the industry, frying youtiao had honed his practical skills to a tee. Nothing here could possibly stump him.
The only one suffering would be Zhao Xingjian. As a pampered, pampered corporate mogul, who knew how many days he’d be able to endure?
With that thought, Chu Minghe pushed open the small villa’s red-wood front gate.
His striking, expressive face instantly popped up inside the live-stream broadcast.
【? Who’s this?】 【? Can someone tell me what year of the common era this is?】 【? To the person who just mentioned Chu Minghe, how much more do you know?】 【? Why won’t he just give up? Finished ruining TV dramas, now he’s coming to ruin reality shows?】 【Music fans, get ready to welcome this supreme deity; your idol won’t have to worry about anti-fans attacking him for a while.】 … 【Is the production budget running low?】 【How much did Chu Minghe pay you?】 【Even the last pure land is getting polluted.】 【No nonsense from me, I only have one demand: Chu Minghe, get the hell out of the entertainment industry!】
Utterly unware of the backlash, Chu Minghe smiled toward the camera lens directly facing the doorway.
“Turns out I’m the first one here.”
Dragging his suitcase into the courtyard, he found himself right in the middle of autumn leaf-shedding season. The ground was blanketed in deep green leaves that crunched satisfyingly underfoot into crisp, dry sounds after baking in the afternoon sun.
He appraised the folk-style small villa: it stood two stories tall, boasting a spacious footprint and plenty of rooms.
Four separate signs had been affixed to the four corners of the two-story building, indicating that this season would feature a total of four pairs of husbands.
He left his luggage by the small stone table beneath the tree. Instead of picking a room right away, he inspected the surroundings and very naturally picked up a broom leaning against the wall.
【No way, what is he doing?】 【Observing out of curiosity to see how many days he can keep up the act.】 【By the way, who’s his husband? Did he come alone?】 【Though I hate to admit it, he really is quite good-looking.】 …
Sweeping fallen leaves was nothing new to him. Back at the orphanage every autumn, they swept daily in groups.
As he grew older, that responsibility turned into herading a bunch of younger kids along sweeping while collecting pretty leaves. To them, it wasn’t work; it was a game.
Besides, this courtyard wasn’t even a quarter of the size of the old orphanage grounds, making the sweeping motion second nature to him. He polished off the job in five flat minutes.
Glancing at the camera lens, Chu Minghe familiarly interacted with the bullet comments, fully aware they were likely hurling abuses.
He looked down at the pile of withered leaves collected at his feet and pointed at them.
“Burning crop straw carries a five-hundred-yuan fine.”
【……】 【You think you’re being humorous?】 【That was chillingly unfunny.】
Just as Chu Minghe finished uttering that sentence, the villa’s front gate was pushed open once more.
A head poked in from outside, eyes lighting up the moment they landed on Chu Minghe.
【Identification complete: seeing Chu Minghe this happy means this little cutie isn’t an industry insider.】
Chu Minghe, however, was momentarily taken aback because he didn’t recall the original book containing any description of such a character.
If this character was absent even after reading the novel three times over, then he genuinely didn’t exist in the original text.
Certain elements had already shifted, tweaked in some unknown detail because of his own actions diverging from the original owner’s behavioral patterns.
Still, this realization also signaled that the trajectory of the novel’s world wasn set in stone; he was completely free to turn all of this into his own life.
“You’re so pretty! My name is Lin Dingshi, and this is my husband, Zheng Yuan.”
“Are you an actor? Your skin is so white and tender! And your eyes are so pretty too!”
His sunny, outgoing personality immediately won Chu Minghe over.
With a smile, Chu Minghe replied, “I’m not an actor right now… I’m Chu Minghe.”
The man standing behind Lin Dingshi pulled him back slightly, offering an apologetic explanation to Chu Minghe: “Sorry, he gets a bit hyper when he’s excited.”
Even so, anyone could tell at a glance that the bond between the two of them was exceptionally sweet.
Lin Dingshi bounced around like an energetic rabbit: “Did you sweep all this? How hardworking! But where’s your husband? How could he let you do this by yourself!”
Chu Minghe paused, feeling a momentary sense of awkwardness toward the term of address.
【Yeah, where’s your husband?】 【Go ahead and show off that sweet romance hard, blind Chu Minghe!】 【Watching him sweep those leaves so smoothly did he marry out into the countryside or something?】 【What’s wrong with the countryside? Countryside living builds character, alright? Otherwise, the person you’d be seeing right now would be Chu Minghe baring his fangs and brandishing his claws.】 【He actually has fans standing up for him?】 【Neither a fan nor a hater, first time seeing him, getting ready to deep-dive his history.】 【Am I the only one who noticed he said “I’m not an actor right now”?】 【Me too +1】
While they were chatting, another arrival pushed through the entrance.
Only, this newcomer arrived carrying a temper sharpened by a rough journey. Striding across the threshold, he snapped at the man trailing behind him: “I told you not to come, I told you not to come! Look at this mess now eating dust the entire way here.”
“My fault?! Who was the one whining at home that staying in was boring and insisting on running outside?”
“I wanted to run outside, but I didn’t say I wanted to come to a place like this! And living with so many strangers on top of that don’t you know I hate this kind of environment?”
“…”
【The production crew has an interesting eye for casting guests.】 【Suddenly feeling the urge to watch a cat-fight between ten-years-ago Chu Minghe and Zhang Qing.】
Ever since Zhang Qing and Zhang Congsheng walked through the door, the atmosphere inside the villa plummeted to freezing point.
Chu Minghe had no intention of stepping in to mediate; this grumpy couple warranted a bit more observation before anything else.
Half an hour later, a fresh face finally arrived to rescue the stifled atmosphere within the villa.
Hearing the front gate creak open, Chu Minghe put down his broom and turned around, locking eyes with Zhao Xingjian’s chilly gaze.
Because he was attending a recording, he had dressed simply and casually, radiating a more youthful energy than when encased in his usual business suits.
Yet, that youthful air was purely superficial; the look he directed toward Chu Minghe remained ice-cold and seemingly displeased.
Surely he wasn’t upset because he found the accommodations lacking compared to home, developing the same sort of aversion as Zhang Qing and company?
That would spell disaster an absolute taboo for reality show production.
Pacing slowly over to Zhao Xingjian’s side, Chu Minghe muttered in a soft, low voice, “Husband.”
“…”
That single word of address instantly neutralized half of Zhao Xingjian’s lingering anger over feeling abandoned. Granted, it wasn’t because his heart skipped a beat; rather, he simply felt awkward, drawing half of his mental focus away.
Then again, recalling how he drove over to pick Chu Minghe up in the afternoon, only to find out upon reaching the gate that the villa’s access code had been changed behind his back without his knowledge, his irritation flared anew.
A cocktail of mounting frustrations condensed into a minor surge of anger. Still, keeping the instructions Chu Minghe had given him last night in mind, he forced it down and uttered a low, “Mhm.”
Fearing that overacting might invite Zhao Xingjian’s disgust, yet worried that underacting might give away the glaring truth that the two of them looked like a married couple on the surface while remaining completely oblivious to each other’s heights, weights, and preferences Chu Minghe treaded carefully.
Such a catastrophic public-execution scene would undoubtedly generate plenty of hot search topics for the production crew, but it spelled bad news for him personally, especially since his public standing hadn’t been fully rehabilitated yet.
Since he had never been in a romantic relationship himself, he had no benchmark for what counted as a normal couple dynamic.
During the interim wait, he had closely observed the interaction patterns of the other two pairs of husbands, and borrowed the word “husband” straight from Lin Dingshi’s vocabulary.
They also engaged in plenty of physical contact. Glancing sideways at Zhao Xingjian’s less-than-stellar complexion, however, Chu Minghe decided to put those intimate gestures on hold for the time being.
The Zhang couple by the stone table finally reined in their tempers and exchanged polite greetings with the others.
【These pairs are all such eye candy, and each has a completely different style. The production crew knows what they’re doing.】 【I hope next time the production crew searches for guests, they actually do some background research first. This is infuriating to watch.】 【Is this Chu Minghe’s husband? Did he buy him with money?】 【Why does he look kind of familiar?】 【Wait, where’s the last pair?】
After chatting for another half an hour until darkness fell completely, the director finally stepped through the small wooden side gate.
“The last pair has a temporary scheduling conflict, so the remaining three couples will kick off the recording first.”
“Your activity zone for now is restricted to this villa and the backyard. No extra explanations needed—as per usual past practice, we will not provide any assistance with your daily living needs unless strictly necessary.”
The moment those words dropped, Zhang Qing let out a couple of complaints, though they didn’t alter much.
Chu Minghe cast a sideways glance at Zhao Xingjian, noting that his mood seemed relatively stable, which eased his worries slightly.
Producing a small whiteboard, the director turned it around to display it to them.
Inscribed upon it were their names, with only Chu Minghe’s name accompanied by the number 1.
Zhao Xingjian harbored an acute sensitivity toward such metrics; his expression instantly locked up, and he nearly blurted out, “You guessed wrong.”
Fortunately, the director provided an explanation right on cue.
“Based on the performance just now, Mingqiu swept the fallen leaves, earning one accumulated point.”
Bewildered, Chu Minghe asked, “Doing chores earns you a point?”
“No.”
Everyone exhaled in collective relief, since none of them had any intention of doing housework.
“Nor will we give you explicit hints explaining what actions yield points. Everything depends entirely on everyone’s intuition and perception.”
【Hhh, little Er provides guests with a different kind of headache every season.】 【Only when watching little Er do I not have to worry about these rules being rigged behind the scenes at the end.】 【A point system, huh? Blind guess: there will be rewards at the finish line.】 【Why did Chu Minghe get a point just for sweeping the floor?】 【Anyone who arrived first would sweep it. It’s just luck.】 【Haven’t seen him in years, and he’s already acting up again.】 【Lmao, that pupil-dilation shock on his husband’s face when he saw that little whiteboard was hilarious.】
Observing the baffled expressions on the guests’ faces, the director elaborated: “This ‘1’ is merely a demonstration to introduce the rules. However, since it’s already added, and to reward Mingqiu for his hard work sweeping, we’ll count it as a bonus effort point for now.”
Chu Minghe smiled and offered a well-behaved expression of gratitude.
Zhao Xingjian turned his head sideways to shoot him a sidelong look: If that counts as a 1, I’d shut down my company tomorrow and become a human lightning rod instead.
【Lmao, what a resentful look.】 【Did I hear that right? Chu Minghe is a 1?】 【Director Zhang really understands internet hot-button topics.】 【Chu Minghe, get out of the entertainment industry!】 【Sister, you really are persistent. Has he actually committed any grave offenses so far?】 【Shocking! My roommate says Chu Minghe’s husband is her direct boss! A genuine, authentic wealthy corporate mogul!】 【Holy cow!】
Having finished his briefing, the director took his leave.
Though he hadn’t revealed much of practical value, anyone who had watched the first two seasons knew things wouldn’t be this simple all appearances were deceptive.
Still, having spent hours traveling on the road today, everyone was exhausted. Pushing those concerns aside for now, they turned their attention to the room assignments.
Their luggage remained scattered out in the courtyard, unpacked.
Chu Minghe glanced at Zhao Xingjian, wondering how they were supposed to sleep tonight since the villa didn’t divide rooms into master suites and guest rooms.