CH 9

The first place they travelled to was Denmark, located in Northern Europe. Right after they got off the plane, they saw the other two guests.

One of them was a previous Golden Horse film empress, Luo Qiuman who was already 52 years old this year. The other was an A-lister youth, Zhang Yunfei who was nominated for drama emperor1 for two years in a row.

Once everyone had greeted each other, Lu Qiuman did a headcount: “1, 2, 3, 4, 5…… Are we missing someone?”

“Ziyu’s flight is a little late,” said the assistant director, “It’ll land in about half an hour.”

“Then let’s wait a bit longer,” Tao Tao was very understanding, “Qiuman-jie, are you2 tired?”

“If you’re tired, I have a neck massager here.” Qi Xingchen said.

When he said this, he felt a cold gust of wind coming from his side. He glanced to the side; although Bo Ye was wearing sunglasses and his expression could not be seen, he inexplicably gave others the feeling that he was annoyed.

Qi Xingchen asked tentatively: “Do-do you want to use the neck massager?”

Bo Ye: “……”

When Qi Xingchen said he was his fan the other day, half of Bo Ye believed it, the other doubted it. He believed it, because he had a large fanbase, with fans everywhere. In real life, many of the trainees in the company were his fans.

He doubted it because he had just entered this world. He could not discern if Qi Xingchen was telling the truth, or if he had ulterior motives while trying to approach him.

He was not familiar with this world and had to keep his guard up against anyone.

It was only when the sisheng car chase occurred, and when he heard those words from Qi Xingchen, then he believed that Qi Xingchen was really his fan.

Then today…… He started to act like this?

Don’t even mention the lack of coffee; everyone took an entire day’s flight to reach here, shouldn’t his fan care about him first?

What kind of plastic fan3 is this?

The plastic fan still looked at him cautiously, his single eyelids drooping downwards slightly, like a big innocent dog.

“……” Bo Ye was speechless for a moment, “No need, you can keep it for yourself to use.”

Having gotten Bo Ye’s answer, Qi Xingchen very smoothly put away the massage device.

Bo Ye: “……” Okay.

During the boring wait for Liu Ziyu, while everyone was chatting, they reported their ages. The oldest among them was definitely Luo Qiuman, followed by Zhang Yunfei, who was 28 years old this year.

Bo Ye and Tao Tao were the same, both 24 years old. When it came to Qi Xingchen, Qi Xingchen said: “I was born in 99’, December.”

“Then you’re the youngest here. I’m more familiar with Ziyu, Ziyu is older than Tao Tao by one year,” Zhang Yunfei lamented, “What do kids eat nowadays while growing up? Can’t believe how they grow to be so good looking.”

“Xingxing is indeed good looking, but you’re also good looking ah, Yunfei-ge.” Tao Tao smiled sweetly.

Qi Xingchen’s heart skipped a beat — It’s all over, this female protagonist was going to exude her charm, and open the script of charming ten of thousands of people4!

Sure enough, when Zhang Yunfei saw Tao Tao’s smile, he was briefly disoriented, before taking out his phone to inquire if he could add Tao Tao’s WeChat.

In the original text, at this instant, Bo Ye was a little unhappy. Qi Xingchen quietly observed Bo Ye’s facial expression.

His elbows were resting against his luggage cart while swiping through his phone, not caring about those two’s situation.

Qi Xingchen: “?”

Tao Tao agreed to Zhang Yunfei’s request. After adding each other’s WeChat, both of them opened Weibo to follow each other.

Not long after, they heard Zhang Yunfei burst into laughter: “HAHAHAHA Xingxing, you are way too amusing!”

Qi Xingchen did not understand: “What?”

“Your commentary interview ah,” Zhang Yunfei shook the phone in his hands, “As to how real you are. If I were your agent, I predict that I would already be frothing at the mouth5 HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

It turned out that before setting off, the programme released the commentary interviews of the guests in order to maintain the heat.

Following the ascending order of their popularity, which was also the ascending order of the fan’s anticipation level, the first one released was Qi Xingchen’s video clip.

How in the world did the programme team cut and edit his interview? Qi Xingchen opened Weibo and his phone chimed with countless notifications of increasing new followers.

Switching to the main page, holy sh*t, the number of followers actually surpassed the 200 thousand milestone!

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He hurriedly opened 《Budget Travel》’s official Weibo and played his video clip. The programme team did not cut too much of it, only that when he revealed his true height, they edited6 a helmet special effect onto his head to indicate that he was very iron-headed.

When he said that he could not date and still needed to work, they edited a set of factory overalls onto him again, which made him look miserable and hilarious.

Under the video, the netizens have already been falling over with laughter.

—【LOL7 this little brother is too cute. Is he not afraid of being beaten for being too straightforward?】

The last query was the third most liked by fans, and some even made their way to his main page to ask him.

After Zhang Yunfei was done laughing, he asked the same question: “Xingxing, tell us, who is your idol?”

Qi Xingchen shook his head.

“Then what special qualities does he have? This can be said, right?”

“This……” Qi Xingchen hesitated for a moment, then cleared his throat.

Was he finally going to say it? Everyone looked at him. The director felt that this could be made into a discussion point, signalling for the cameraman to cut to a close-up shot.

The cameraman made the cut switch accordingly. Qi XIngchen’s flawless face instantly appeared on the director’s monitor.

Only to see him blink his eyes and say with exceptional sincerity: “My idol is a magician.”

“……What does that mean?”

“If beauty could be converted into magic,” Qi Xingchen paused, “Then my idol can save all the lives of the common people in this world single-handedly.”

The entire crowd fell silent for three seconds.

“HAHAHAHAHAcough1—” Loud laughter then erupted.

“I cannot do this anymore, Xingxing,” the assistant director held his stomach while laughing till his tears almost came out, “Where did you learn how to rainbow fart2 like this?”

Qi Xingchen felt wronged: “That’s not rainbow farting, I’m speaking the truth!”

“Okay okay okay, it’s the truth. If I were your idol, I reckon I would be happy beyond words3 now HAHAHAHA!”

“That’s right, that’s right. When can I also have such a fan who can brag4 so well? I’m really envious, oohHAHAHAHA!”

……Would he be happy?

Qi Xingchen’s face was smiling along with them, while his eyes drifted towards Bo Ye’s side.

In actual fact, he had deliberately said that — If he could brag about the male protagonist until he was happy, maybe the male protagonist would go easier on him later.

In addition, Tao Tao’s protagonist’s halo was way too powerful, so powerful to the point where as long as he was beside Tao Tao, he would always be haunted by a sense of crisis.

He had no other choice but to grab onto the male protagonist and get acquainted with him to stay beside the male and female protagonists and constantly monitor their relationship development.

The easiest way to get acquainted with someone is to flatter them.

Nobody disliked being rainbow farted at, if there was, it just meant he did not do it brilliantly or good enough.

Bo Ye remained looking down at his phone. Qi Xingchen secretly stared at his unmoving5 face profile for quite a long while, then came to a conclusion: he really did not do it brilliantly enough.

Only when he felt the line of sight that fell on him move away, did the corner of Bo Ye’s eyes under the sunglasses gradually diffuse a light smile.

.

The crowd waited for a full hour before Liu Ziyu cat-walked over in her high heels.

She was wearing a crop top and hot pants while carrying a small electric fan in her hands, complaining non-stop: “Why is it so hot here? Even my makeup is all smudged. Lily6, bring me my powder foundation.”

The assistant handed her the powder foundation, and she looked in her mirror to fix her makeup while speaking: “Aiyah, Director Zhang, you’re all here already. I didn’t look good in that part just now, cut it out and don’t broadcast it, okay?”

As a hot7 A-lister little flower8, Liu Ziyu could be said to be the model of becoming popular from being hated9. The number of topics 10about her was more than the number of her works, the number of people cursing at her was more than the number of people who liked her.

But this type of casting was exactly what variety shows liked because she could bring the heat from debates.

“Alright, I won’t broadcast that part.”

The director, Director Zhao, agreed to her request. Liu Ziyu happily kept her powder foundation, then turned and sidled up to Bo Ye.

“Bo Ye, I never dreamed that I could actually be on the same show as you. I really love your music, I would be starring in a television drama as the lead airing on satellite next month. Can I invite you to make a soundtrack for it?”

“These days, I don’t have any inspiration to write songs for the time being,” Bo Ye refused outright, “Sorry.”

Li Ziyu did not actually mind and did not care if Bo Ye accepted it or not; she had already achieved her aim of promoting her new drama just now.

She pouted, indicating that she still hoped to have an opportunity to work with him. At this movement, seeing that everybody was here, Director Zhao took out a megaphone, “Everyone, quiet down.”

The crowd quietened down and gathered in a circle in front of the director.

The director continued: “Welcome to all the guests on 《Let’s Budget Travel!》. The rules of the programme have been explained to each of you beforehand, so I will not repeat them. Next, representing the programme team, I would start our first mission.”

“What mission?”

“This trip to Denmark will last 7 days, and the programme team will provide a set amount of travel funds. Our requirements are that you all visit a new attraction every day, as well as for each one of you to pick a gift for the audience after this trip to be used as lucky draw prizes on Weibo11.”

“The givers of top 3 most popular gifts will then receive a personal travel prize from the programme team in the next stop, which can be distributed at will.”

“Is everyone clear?”

“Clear,” Zhang Yunfei said, “Then how much is our travel funds?”

Director Zhao: “8000 kroner12.”

“8000 kroner……” The original owner had travelled to Denmark before, thus Qi Xingchen had some impression of it, “The krone and yuan are almost equivalent13, if each person has 8000+, 6 people would have 50 000. We should have enough for 7 days.”

“Who said it was 8000 kroner per person?” Director Zhao threw a “you are too naive” look, “All of you, in total, 8000 kroner.”

Qi Xingchen: “……”

He had just started work and already got his first blow.

The other guests also felt it was somewhat difficult to accept, remaining silent.

Liu Ziyu was obviously not too pleased and muttered something.

The reason why she had become popular from being hated was that she had the guts to blabber about anything. No one knew if it was the persona her company had set for her, or if she was just like that.

The following shot assistant ran over to ask: “Ziyu, do you have questions?”

“8000 kroner for 6 people to play for 7 days, and we still have to buy gifts…… Is this not forcing us into a corner14?”

The following shot assistant explained: “The programme team had calculated this in detail before. As long as all of you are thrifty, living here definitely would not be a problem.”

“But we would also have to see what the quality of life is like, right?” Liu Ziyu huffed, “From the looks of it now, I might as well have joined X-Change15.”

Just as she remarked this, she seemed to think of something and tossed her hair, “If we are participating in X-Change, I could just be arranged to swap places with Xingxing.”

She was standing on the leftmost side, and these words were not heard by Qi Xingchen who was standing on the right. Instead, they all fell into the ears of Bo Ye who was standing next to her.

Bo Ye’s hand that was pushing the luggage cart paused, then took off the sunglasses.

The author has something to say:

Qi Xingxing: My idol is a magician, I’m going to brag about him for my whole life!!

Bo Ye: ……How come I do not see it???