CH 10

The programme team passed the 8000 kroner to the guests. After the guests discussed among themselves, they finally decided to let Tao Tao manage the money and record their expenses.

It was easy to solve the problem of transportation as there were taxis they could flag down right outside the airport. The crowd then met their first challenge: accommodations.

While travelling, other than transportation fees, the biggest expense would be accommodations. Liu Ziyu ruffled her hair: “All of us are public figures, it would not be befitting if we stay outside. How embarrassing, if our fans recognise us. Let’s stay in a hotel ba.”

“But……” Tao Tao hesitated, “Staying at a hotel is too costly. I had a look just now, the better hotels around here already cost 2000 kroner for a night, while a motel would only need one or two hundred.”

“What about normal hotels? No need for any star ratings, as long as it is clean it’s fine.” Zhang Yunfei asked.

“Around 500 to 1000 kroner.”

“I filmed here once,” Luo Qiuman who was silent all along finally opened her mouth, “It’s very cheap if we go down to the countryside to rent a cottage, the environment is not bad either.”

Liu Ziyu: “But look at the time now, are we going to spend the night in a car?”

Liu Ziyu was not wrong, it was already late at night in Denmark. If they were to head towards the countryside now, they would indeed have to spend the night travelling by car.

It was nothing much for a large group of men like them, but they still have the older Luo Qiuman and female celebrities. Qi Xingchen thought for a bit then said: “Why not just stay at the hotel for a night, since going to a small motel or finding someone to put us up for the night is not convenient for the ladies? If we wait till tomorrow before heading down to the countryside, we might even pass by a tourist location on the way.”

“You’re right,” Zhang Yunfei said, “Taotao1, make a room booking.”

Tao Tao: “How many rooms are we booking?”

The crowd fell into a dilemma again.

There were a total of six guests and by estimation, there was definitely not enough to book six rooms. If they allocated two people to a room, as there were three men and three women, a man and a woman must room together.

In truth, this was the programme team’s careful scheming. They had deliberately chosen an odd number while selecting guests, such that the journey was bound to have a segment with a man and woman living together.

By then, whether both parties agreed beforehand to play up the CP2 or if it was one-sided pestering3 to rub off the popularity of the CP, 《Budget Travel》would have a hundred benefits and zero detriments.

“How about we book a standard room and a suite?” Zhang Yunfei suggested.

Qi Xingchen calculated: “Two girls will stay in the standard room, while the suite can accommodate four people. It saves more money than booking three standard rooms like this.”

“Let’s book it like this then,” Liu Ziyu said caustically, “Xingxing you really do know how to calculate.”

Qi Xingchen joined the acrobatics troupe at 5 years old, and afterwards, he attended school while learning acrobatics. The small acrobatics troupe was the epitome of a small society, therefore you could say that he had already entered society as early as when he was sensible.

He was all too familiar with Liu Ziyu’s tone.

It was obviously mocking him for being poor and obscure4.

Before the recording of the programme, Liu Ziyu’s team did a background check on everyone and easily learned that Qi Xingchen was a child of a working family.

One must always find someone to quarrel with during a programme and design some harmless little friction, if not, the camera lens would never focus on you.

Quietly recording a programme would only result in being marginalised, one needed to think of ways to make events happen to gain attention. This was the truth of the route of popularity from being hated5.

And among these guests, if she went to provoke someone else, their fans would unlikely spare her.

Qi Xingchen was different, with only a few ten thousand…… 200 thousand fans as of now, his fans’ combat power was not comparable to her 7 million fans.

He was the best soft persimmon to pinch6.

Hence, she grabbed every opportunity to pinch Qi Xingchen.

Nonetheless, Qi Xingchen did not care too much about it. He had heard even more unpleasant words in the past, and he merely pretended not to hear it by turning his head to stare at Tao Tao booking the rooms.

“Can you guys understand what you’re reading?” As she said this, Liu Ziyu also stretched her neck over.

On the surface, it looked as if she was concerned about the state of Tao Tao’s room booking, but in reality, she was sidling up in front of Bo Ye.

As the peak of the traffic of the entertainment circle, Bo Ye was the most ideal target of female celebrities to rub off popularity from. Liu Ziyu’s team had long thought of it, just that Bo Ye had always been cautious and cherished7 his reputation, hardly accepting private invitations to meet from female stars. He also rarely appeared on other entertainment programmes outside of the music category.

No one thought that he would actually come to 《Budget Travel》, if she did not cause some scandal, it would be wasting the rare opportunity8 of both of them being in the same frame.

“Bo Ye, do you speak Danish?”

Bo Ye did not look at her and said something in Danish.

Liu Ziyu: “……Wah, that’s awesome. What does this phrase mean?”

“Weren’t you feeling hot?” Bo Ye nodded his chin towards the direction of the washrooms, “There’s air conditioning over there.”

There were cameras from all four directions, hence Bo Ye’s words could not be too harsh, and he changed his method of expression.

But Liu Ziyu understood him, his meaning was: Weren’t you feeling hot? Why are you sticking so close to laozi9?

The corners of Liu Ziyu’s smile immediately froze, relying on that poor bit of acting skills to return to normal.

She had heard things about Bo Ye’s character, but she never thought he would really not give her any face.

At this moment Tao Tao had finished booking the rooms, cheering: “It’s done, all of us can sleep now!”

“That’s great,” Luo Qiuman laughed as she made fun of herself, “Hurry up and head over ba, this old person here stood till she almost fell asleep.”

Not only Luo Qiuman, but all of the guests who sat in a plane for most of the day were also very tired. Zhang Yunfei had an extremely good sense to take over Luo Qiuman’s luggage and led the way towards the exit.

Qi Xingchen naturally would not give the male and female protagonists a chance to interact. With a sudden bright idea, he directly grabbed Tao Tao’s luggage cart.

Tao Tao: “……No need, no need. My luggage is not heavy, I can push it by myself.”

“It’s okay, Tao Tao-jie. You’re so skinny, it’s better for me to do it ba.” With a big wave of his hand, Qi Xingchen behaved like a gentleman.

After saying that, in order not to give Tao Tao a chance to back out, he started walking1 and left her behind.

As he walked, there was a burst of footsteps getting closer and closer. He had thought it was Tao Tao catching up to him and did not think much of it.

However, in the next second, a piece of clothing was flung exactly onto his arm that was pushing the cart.

He lowered his head to take a look. It was Bo Ye’s dark blue denim jacket.

The footsteps continued to get closer, eventually slowing down beside him. Keeping his eyes forward, Bo Ye said at a volume only the both of them could hear: “There was too much luggage, I couldn’t carry them all.”

QI Xingchen: “……”

Didn’t you only bring a single suitcase?!

.

When they reached the hotel, they met another challenge.

A usual suite had 3 rooms: a living room and two bedrooms. Qi Xingchen’s original plan was to let the extra woman live in one bedroom, the other two men live in the other bedroom, and he would sleep on the living room sofa.

Who knew that this hotel’s suite was different? There was no living room, only two bedrooms with one bigger than the other. The smaller bedroom had a double bed, while the bigger bedroom had twin beds.

There was a sofa as well, but it was very small. Even if two of them were placed together, a grown person would not be able to sleep on it, that kind of small.

Tao Tao said: “Can we switch rooms?”

The six of them came over in two separate cars. Zhang Yunfei who arrived first shook his head: “I just asked the front desk, all of the suites have already been booked out.”

“Maybe cancel the suite and book two other standard rooms?”

“We can cancel rooms, but we need to pay half the price as commission.”

The price of the suite was 10002 kroner, with half of it as the commissioning fee, 500 kroner would just be gone like that.

“How about we get another standard room?” Luo Qiuman yawned.

“One standard room costs 400, and we just spent 150 for the taxi,” Tao Tao winced slightly, “If we book another room, we would have spent almost 2000 today when added up……”

She did not continue her words, but everyone at the scene had an inkling of what it was.

The total amount of travel funds was 8000. It was not even the first day and they had spent 2000.

What about the seven days of the official trip?

If they wanted to save their resources3, they could only inconvenience a female guest to stay with the men in the suite now.

“Why not……” As the female protagonist of this novel, Tao Tao shouldered the responsibility at this critical moment, “Since Qiuman-jie’s sleep quality is poor, Ziyu has a lot of activities recently, they both need a good rest. I’m a heavy sleeper, let me go over ba.”

Lu Qiuman said: “Won’t it be inconvenient?”

“It’s alright, Qiuman-jie,” Tao Tao held onto Luo Qiuman’s arm, “Later on I’ll just shower and remove my makeup at your side, then head over!”

Seeing that Tao Tao’s expression did not seem forced4, plus the fact that this was the best solution, the crowd praised Tao Tao and headed back to their own rooms.

While all the guests were unpacking their bags, the director’s assistant created a group chat to facilitate the notification of events or deployment of the artistes.

Tao Tao was definitely going to stay in the bigger bedroom with twin beds, but they have yet to decide who was going to take the other bed. Qi Xingchen threw himself onto the sofa and scrolled through his phone.

“Eh, Yunfei-ge,” He looked at the members of the group chat and said with surprise, “Why are there so many people in the group?”

Zhang Yunfei was taking his clothes out from his suitcase, “There’s the directing team, as well as the guest’s agents and assistants, of course there are so many.”

“Assistant…… Your assistant would be following you all the time?”

“Of course,” Zhang Yunfei chose his clothes and made a phone call to his assistant, “If not, who would take care of the clothing for tomorrow’s filming?”

Pausing for a bit, he seemed to have recalled something: “Xingxing, I saw that you came here alone. Did you not bring an assistant?”

“I don’t have one for now.”

Zhang Yunfei came over at this moment to pat his shoulder without saying anything, then brought his clothes to find his assistant to iron them.

Qi Xingchen looked at Bo Ye who was currently hand washing his T-shirt in the restroom.

An A-lister star like Zhang Yunfei had no shortage of money nor people to support him and was long used to a life of others serving him.

Liu Ziyu was even more extreme, directly bringing four assistants over today. Since she was staying in this hotel, her agent booked a few more rooms next door, not caring at all about the expense.

Only this top-traffic celebrity, with the highest position in the entertainment circle, who was often rumoured to throw his weight around, was unpacking his luggage and taking care of his clothes by himself.

…… Oh god, was his idol really not an angel???

Qi Xingchen blinked with his cheeks resting on his hands, then found Bo Ye’s WeChat “Bo”5 from the group chat’s member list.

With a sudden move as fierce as a tiger6,【Your7 friend request has been sent, please wait for the other party to accept.】