CH 14

The chat interface only had that lone line; Bo Ye did not say anything after accepting the request.

Meanwhile, Qi Yuji who received the photo exploded in excitement1 and called Qi Yunxiao directly.

“Da ge, you saw Xingxing’s photo, right?!”

“En,” Qi Yunxiao asked, “Why?”

“Those lousy house furniture are all from the 90s, can Xingxing get used to living there?!!”

Qi Yunxiao sighed, “If he’s not used to it, he has to adapt as much as he can. Boys would always need to venture out into the world and suffer a bit. If not, what is he going to do if something happens to him in the future?”

Qi Yuji pursed her lips; what Qi Yunxiao said was reasonable, she could not possibly keep protecting her younger brother and not let go of his hand.

But she still felt distressed and spoke after some thought: “Let’s invest some money in Maimang ba, such that Xingxing’s suffering would not be in vain, let Maimang give him more screen time when they edit the recording.”

“You didn’t need to remind me,” Qi Yunxiao’s voice was indifferent, “I’ve already done it. What did you think was my purpose when I bought the fourth place on the hot search list?”

Qi Yuji pondered for a bit, then it swiftly dawned on her: “Oh…… I know! With Xingxing’s current level of fame, getting to fourth place is definitely because of someone pushing from behind. Once Maimang is conscious of this, they would offer preferential treatment to Xingxing. Perhaps, in order to make us buy more hot searches, they would also release more clips of Xingxing!”

The corners of Qi Yunxiao’s lips curled: “That’s right, since Xingxing didn’t let us help him behind his back, we can only think of other ways.”

.

As predicted by Qi Yunxiao, the director and producers were all wily old birds2 after mixing in the entertainment circle for so many years. After some consulting, they could guess that Qi Xingchen had a backer, and their attitude towards him improved a lot.

With the huge pit that Qi Xingchen dug for the director, the guests passed three days in contentment. During the day, they strolled around the village, chatting or showing off3; at night, they went to the farmers’ house next door to buy ingredients to cook in order to save money.

Amongst these few people, only Luo Qiuman and Tao Tao knew how to cook. Zhang Yunfei debuted and rose to fame early, thus he always had assistants waiting on him.

Liu Ziyu led a pampered life4, while Bo Ye was even more so, with his father in politics and mother in business, he was basically a young master who never did a day of manual labour5.

Seeing Luo Qiuman cook for two days in a row, Qi Xingchen felt bad about it and volunteered himself: “Qiuman-jie, let me make dinner today ba.”

“You’re so young, yet you can cook?” Luo Qiuman didn’t believe him.

Qi Xingchen grinned: “The food is not delicious, but it is edible.”

After saying that, Qi Xingchen picked up the bags to head outside. Bo Ye just so happened to come in from outside and saw him dragging a few bags by himself, “Where are you going?”

Qi Xingchen: “To buy ingredients.”

“Can you do it yourself?”

“…… I can’t,” Qi Xingchen’s eyes moved rapidly6, then said pitifully, “Accompany me then, Senior Bo.”

Qi Xingchen had been watching the male and female protagonist attentively throughout these two days, to the point where it could be said that wherever Bo Ye was, would be wherever he was. The comforting thing was that the male protagonist did not seem to have developed obvious feelings towards the female protagonist, or perhaps the male protagonist was already attracted, just that he did not show it.

Therefore, now that he was going out, he also had to haul Bo Ye along. What should he do in case the male and female protagonist suddenly ignite sparks of love while he was not around?

Bo Ye was not surprised by Qi Xingchen’s request and took all the bags from his hands, taking the lead to head out.

Walking up to a farmer’s house, Qi Xingchen called out to him: “Senior.”

Bo Ye felt that this term of address was a bit strange and gave an “En”.

“This family has good carrots, let’s go in and have a look.”

The farmer and his wife were just sitting under a tree, leaning against it while chatting. Qi Xingchen greeted them in Danish, then asked in English: “How much are your7 carrots?”

The farmer responded with a line in Danish.

Qi Xingchen only understood simple Danish words and could not make out the meaning of those words. He asked Bo Ye in a whisper: “What did he say?”

“Their carrots were grown for their own consumption, not for sale.”

“Oh,” Qi Xingchen said, “Tell him that we only want a few, ask him to help us by giving us some.”

Bo Ye: “……”

Bo Ye was stony-faced for a moment, then translated according to what Qi Xingchen had said.

The farmer and his wife looked at each other and didn’t say anything. All these years, they had grown their own vegetables for themselves to eat and had never sold them before.

Qi Xingchen could see their hesitation and put both of his palms together to ingratiate them: “Just that your8 garden’s carrots are the cutest and the freshest; if you’re9 willing to sell me a few of them……”

He pointed at Bo Ye: “I’ll make him sing a song for you both. He is a big star in China, especially famous!”

Bo Ye froze. He did not expect to undergo a change in hands, as if he was a melon laying in a basket, currently being sold by his fan.

Qi Xingchen was completely unaware of this, and continued to advertise his wares10: “You can see that he has a good figure with a beautiful face11, so if you’re not satisfied, have him perform a dance for you too.”

“……” Bo Ye spoke in a low voice, “Why aren’t you the one dancing?”

“Because I’m obscure!” Qi Xingchen declared with force and conviction.

The cameraman and following shot assistant released a “pfft” in laughter. It was the first time the farmer couple had heard someone use “cute12” to describe carrots, thus they were also amused by Qi Xingchen and chortled.

The wife took a shovel and dug out more than ten carrots, threw them into a basket and handed it to Qi Xingchen, “For you.”

With his goal accomplished, Qi Xingchen was overjoyed: “How much are they?”

“Free of charge, as a gift for you,” the farmer said, “Since he’s so beautiful, he would match these cute13 carrots just right.”

Naturally, the “he” referred to Bo Ye, and Qi Xingchen gave a satisfied sigh. After thanking the farmer couple, he carried the basket while humming as they set out to the next house.

As they were walking, he was still boasting towards the camera: “I was really wise to pull out14 Senior Bo! Otherwise, how were we able to exchange for so many free carrots?”

Bo Ye: “……”

So in his fan’s heart, he’s only worth a basket of very cute15 carrots?

.

Relying on Melon Bo, Qi Xingchen successfully received a lot of small vegetables through swindling.

Luo Qiuman initially wanted to stay in the kitchen to assist, but Qi Xingchen pushed her out: “Qiuman-jie, you’ve worked hard for two days, just try my cooking for today.”

“Alright then, can you handle it by yourself?”

“Don’t worry, no problem.”

There were close to twenty people in the acrobatics troupe, including their leader. When acrobatics had declined, everyone would take turns to cook every day to save on unnecessary expenditures.

At 8 or 9 years old when one had yet to fully memorise the Three Hundred Tang Poems1, he had already learnt to peel and slice two potatoes within five minutes.

The blade of his knife swirled about, and it didn’t take him long to handle all of the vegetables. An hour later, four dishes and one soup that were enough for six people to eat were served to the table.

The guests clicked their tongues in delight and exclaimed in admiration, except for Bo Ye who looked at the table, not saying anything.

He was so young, yet he knew how to make so many dishes, this little fan…… What exactly had he been through?

The dishes Qi Xingchen made were only home-cooking, but they were considered pretty good under these conditions.

Everyone talked while eating, and once they had eaten and drunk to their heart’s content, they went back to their respective rooms. When the room sank into tranquillity, Qi Xingchen recalled Bo Ye’s display picture.

His sleepiness vanished completely. Afraid that his constant tossing and turning would disturb Zhang Yunfei, he threw on some clothes, preparing to head to the yard to look at the stars.

In the process of walking towards the stairs, he heard rustling from Tao Tao’s and Liu Ziyu’s room, as if someone was rummaging for something.

It was so late already, could it be that they haven’t slept yet?

Qi Xingchen didn’t understand females and moved to continue walking. Not even before he took his first step—

“AH!—”

A shriek of terror suddenly rang from the room.

It was Liu Ziyu’s voice!

At that instant Qi Xingchen did not think twice2, immediately turned around, and kicked the door of Liu Ziyu’s room open with one foot.

The entire room was pitch black, while the window was wide open. Borrowing the moonlight, Liu Ziyu was kneeling on the bed and desperately trying to crawl towards the direction of the door!

Behind her, at the bedside cabinet, stood a masked person. From the build of the person, they should be an adult male.

It dawned on Qi Xingchen in a flash: they were met with a burglary!

“H-HELP!! SAVE ME!!”

Seeing an ally enter, Liu Ziyu started to shout for help. The burglar had originally planned to steal something and beat it, however, he was startled when he heard the noise, in a moment of desperation he grabbed onto Liu Ziyu’s hair and dragged her backwards.

In the midst of all this panic, he drew out something from his pocket. A glint of moonlight was reflected, revealing a cold harsh silver gleam.

……That’s a knife!

“Save me wu wu, I don’t want to die!”

Liu Ziyu, who felt excruciating pain from being dragged backwards by the hair and dread from not knowing what was going to happen next, was so frightened that her legs kept trembling and raised her head to scream and shout towards the door.

Almost immediately after that, seeing that the person who came was actually Qi Xingchen, her heart did a flip. There was only one thought remaining — she was done for.

The one rushing in at this time, no matter which male, would have been fine, as long as it was not Qi Xingchen. Because she had offended Qi Xingchen to the core in these two days.

The two female stars were sleeping, and they certainly covered the camera before sleeping. Qi Xingchen would surely use this chance to take revenge on her, by pretending to not react in time and look on unfeelingly as she gets injured by the malefactor.

Then she would really be done for.

Liu Ziyu was scared and regretful. She clenched her teeth, preparing to express goodwill to Qi Xingchen first; after all her small life was the most important.

However, before she could open her mouth, Qi Xingchen took a sudden big stride forward, rushing towards them!

His leg flew up, the kick landing on the burglar’s arm that was grabbing onto Liu Ziyu!

“Hiss—” In pain, the burglar released his grip as his mouth was drawn back in a snarl.

Escaping his clutches, she tumbled off the bed in her frantic crawling and rolling3.

These series of events looked complicated, but in reality, from the time Qi Xingchen rushed in to save Liu Ziyu, less than two minutes had passed. Tao Tao who was in the same room quickly took hold of Liu Ziyu; Zhang Yunfei who was on the second floor and Bo Ye who was on the first had also finally reached the site at this moment.

“Fxxk!4”

With this many allies, the burglar naturally did not dare to stay for long, cursed at Qi Xingchen in English and shoved him aside. He then took something in passing from the bedside cabinet and leapt out of the window to depart in a hurry.

All that remained were the curtains fluttering in the wind.

“Xingxing!” Zhang Yunfei flipped the light switch on, then extended his head out of the window to see not a soul in sight in the yard, “Are you alright?”

“I’m alright.” Qi Xingchen covered his forearm as he shook his head.

Zhang Yunfei replied: “Then you should rest for a bit. Bo Ye, help pour some water for Liu Ziyu and Tao Tao to take the edge off the shock. I’ll go next door to inform Director Liu to report this to the police.”

The director had also rented a villa next door as a temporary place to work and rest. The two yards were more or less ten meters apart, hence Zhang Yunfei chose to run over and at the same time checked if the burglar left any traces along the way.

Following what Zhang Yunfei said, Bo Ye went to the kitchen on the first floor to pour three cups of warm water. When he had returned carrying5 the water, he found that Qi Xingchen was not in the room.

“Where did he go?” Bo Ye inquired.

Tao Tao soothed Liu Ziyu as she replied: “He went back to his room.”

Bo Ye knitted his brow, the scene of Qi Xingchen covering his forearm flashing past his eyes.

Zhang Yunfei came back not long after. Seeing that the two girls had returned to normal, Bo Ye handed them over to Zhang Yunfei and pickup up his jacket to leave.

40 minutes later, Qi Xingchen who had taken his second bath of the night and was struggling to put on his T-shirt with one hand, heard his phone vibrate twice.

It was a WeChat message.

Bo:【Slept yet?】

The hand that was struggling with his clothes stopped in place — Why was Bo Ye asking him if he had slept already?

Unless he wanted to inquire about the situation at the time of the incident?

Except that, Bo Ye did not seem to be such a nosy person?

Qi Xingchen’s arm was throbbing, and in addition to that, he was exhausted after taking a shower. He replied: 【Already lying down.】

This line was extremely obvious in conveying the meaning of “laozi wants to sleep, we’ll talk tomorrow”.

Bo Ye shouldn’t continue interrogating ba.

In the end, the other instantly responded: 【Open the door.】

The author has something to say:

An early warning for the high sugar content in the next chapter.