Beachside love cottage.
Shen Jinyue, with her hands on her hips, laughed for a while before finally choosing You Zijun, who was comparatively normal, to have dinner with.
Both of them were not exactly normal, it can only be said that their mental state was much more stable than Xu Qingyan's.
The wealthy and elegant heiress Song Enya chose Bai Jinze, and Nian Shuyu hesitated for a long time before finally picking the mature fitness coach Liu Renzhi.
Chen Feiyu stood there dumbfounded, looking up at the sky with slightly reddened eyes, sighing repeatedly. One couldn't help but want to say, "Don't cry, please take a seat."
Such a dramatic scene naturally satisfied the audience's craving for drama—reality shows need to be bloody to be interesting!
Click!
Xu Qingyan was watching with great interest from the side, even finding an apple on the dinner table to munch on while enjoying the show. Candlelight dinners can be had anytime, but plays won't wait for anyone.
Most of the time, it was Pei Muchan interacting with the live-stream comments, and occasionally, when things got hectic, the guy beside her would cheekily swoop in and muddle through.
Pei Muchan was an honest child, answering whatever the comments asked, and skipped over those she couldn't answer.
However, Xu Qingyan was different, he was all about making nonsensical remarks.
The comments asked, "Xu seems to lack manners; he looks quite uneducated—doesn't he have just a kindergarten diploma?"
"Correct, I have indeed spent a few years in prison but I am still a rapper."
The comments asked again, "How does Xu deserve to have dinner with Sister Pei? I graduated with a master's degree in 1998, a local from Magic City, with five houses and six cars. If I had known, I would have come."
"Hello, hello, do you play Round God too?"
With every question from the comments, Xu Qingyan joyfully countered each one. The more intense the barrage of comments, the more excited he became, almost unable to resist using the Dust Escape technique.
When he got tired of bantering, he turned his head away, ignoring the comments, and continued to eat his fruit and watch the drama unfold.
Before long, the three pairs of dating guests had already risen from their tables and left the restaurant, ready to head to their chosen dating spots. Chen Feiyu, his head down, went off to rest.
His lonely departing figure seemed like Sun Wukong leaving in the movie "A Chinese Odyssey." Goddesses' rejections are all the same; the brother's clown act is unique.
Xu Qingyan and Pei Muchan were the last to leave. When the staff asked where they would like to have their dinner, the comments were already buzzing with anticipation, and he suddenly asked a question.
"Where is Bai Jinze's group having their meal?"
The staff member clearly paused, "Their chosen scene is... the rooftop."
"Can we set up a table next to them?" he asked tentatively, completely baffling the staff member, who repeated a question back to him.
Pei Muchan turned to look at him, slightly surprised by his maneuver.
Backstage, in the director's booth, Chen Fufeng was staring at the screen. Without waiting for the staff to ask again, he spoke up first.
"Sure."
The stunned staff member repeated the instruction before dashing off-camera to change into the props team's clothes, biting on his work badge and beginning to carry tables up the stairs.
Annoyed to the skies!
Taking advantage of the props team's setup time, Pei Muchan pulled him aside and asked softly.
"Do you really want to join them?"
Xu Qingyan turned his head to look at her, with cool eyelids drooping into a double-fold, "Hmm, the more the merrier."
This was her first time in six months proactively stepping into the public eye. She was not accustomed to being around too many people. Rather than having dinner with two pairs of guests, she preferred dates in private spaces.
Seeing his insistence, Pei Muchan didn't say anything more.
The two of them slowly climbed up, and upon reaching the second floor, they suddenly saw the person in front halt. Standing on a lower step of the staircase, she could only see his broad and flat back.
"What's wrong?"
"The seaside is often windy at night. Go back to your room and get a jacket." He turned around at a leisurely pace, standing right at the entrance to the second-floor corridor, stepping aside to make room.
"Okay." Pei Muchan paused for an instant, then nodded in agreement.
As she ascended step by step, she thought that without the camera following him, he seemed quite cold. Like a comedian who had dropped his performance, his eyes looked somewhat tired.
Suddenly thinking that he never directly addressed her as "Sister Pei," her mind couldn't help but wander, and in a blink, she had reached the stair's corner.
Xu Qingyan was standing there, half-leaning against the wall with his eyelids half-closed. Perhaps too lazy to move, his gaze remained fixed on her face, the pupils sharp against the white.
She felt he was looking with a bit too much intensity and became tense. Passing by, she caught a whiff of a distinctive scent.
Like the smell of quilts sunned on the balcony when she was a child. The scent of lavender that had been completely sun-bathed, with a hint of light aftertone.
The space he left for her was narrow, so Pei Muchan could only sidle through, her chest line mere half a finger's breadth away from Xu Qingyan. As they sidestepped each other, they glanced at one another as if it were nothing.
Pei Muchan was the first to look away, as if her heart had been singed.
She didn't know if he did it on purpose, but she didn't dislike it, perhaps because Xu Qingyan was very good-looking. He had broad shoulders and a straight back, exuding a stubborn youthful air.
When they were alone, she struggled to control her breathing.
She had never been in love, but she had seen what it looked like - drawing close, kissing, whispering sweet nothings.
She didn't look back, turning her head away with a blush.
Now, those useless memories began to assault her again. Her eyes unintentionally kept drilling into his collar, making her feel ridiculous, desperately trying to shake the thought from her mind.
Lost in thought, she suddenly stopped walking, and they ended up standing face to face. Her mind was in disarray, like the muddled feeling just before a fever sets in.
Xu Qingyan, taller than her, found it odd that she had stopped.
"What's wrong?"
When Pei Muchan realized she hadn't completed the act of passing by and had stopped in the middle, her entire face flushed red with embarrassment!
"Ah!" She exclaimed.
"Are you stuck?" Xu Qingyan also looked down, noticing the large expanse of fabric rising at her chest. It hadn't touched, and he looked again at Pei Muchan, whose face was beet red.
"No! Not at all!" Pei Muchan's face and neck turned crimson as she quickly made her way to her room, "I'm going to get my jacket!"
The crisp sound of high heels tapping the floor was hurried and chaotic, like the climax of a symphony, pulling on a chain that kept stretching further inside.
Xu Qingyan felt somewhat baffled until he heard the distant click of a door chain being hit by a door. Only then did he belatedly savor a hint of the situation's flavor.
Standing not far from the door, he blinked, suddenly feeling an indescribable sensation washing over his heart. His heart beat slowly, and then suddenly missed a beat.
Behind the door, Pei Muchan was clutching her chest, her heart pounding fiercely.
She dared not look in the mirror, her face unexpectedly hot, just grateful that the filming crew had not followed them. Had that moment been captured, she truly would have been too ashamed to face anyone.