CH 15

Qi Xingchen stared at the chat interface for a short period, before reluctantly grabbing his jacket to put on and pulling the door open.

Bo Ye was standing right outside his door with a bag in hand. The spring nighttime wind was somewhat strong in Denmark; Qi Xingchen could feel traces of a slight chill remaining on his figure.

Qi Xingchen hid his phone behind his back. Then, using his body to block the gap in the door, he asked lazily: “Is something the matter?”

Bo Ye replied: “Is it convenient to let me in?1”

What this person said was an interrogative sentence, yet his tone was that of an affirmative sentence. Even if he said it was not convenient, would it be effective?

“……Come in ba.” Qi Xingchen resignedly took a step back, only hoping for the other to finish asking his questions earlier, and end this earlier.

Bo Ye stepped into the room and locked the door behind him. Qi Xingchen was baffled — If you want to ask, just ask, what are you locking the door for?

A shadow immediately shrouded him. Bo Ye walked up to him and said softly: “Stretch out your hand.”

Qi Xingchen had an ominous feeling, “Stretch out my hand? Stretch out what hand?”

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“The left hand,” Bo Ye paused, “The one you wounded.”

“……” Qi Xingchen fell silent.

Before the burglar managed to escape, he had shoved him with the hand holding onto the knife. He extended his arm to block it and accidentally got slashed by the knife tip, receiving a gash.

However, he did not wish to let others see his wound. He did not have that habit of doing so since young.

Acrobatics was an art full of hardships and pain; learning the basics was easy, but becoming proficient in it was onerous. While practising, impact injuries from falls or being hit by props happened all the time.

The first day he joined the acrobatics troupe, the leader told him right off the bat: “If you wish to become the top dog, you must then be able to endure all the trials and tribulations that come with it2. All of us here are allowed to cry, just don’t come to me crying, go cry by yourself. I won’t listen.”

Therefore, since then, he never disturbed anyone else unless he had such a serious fever to the point of losing consciousness.

Since the other party had already found out, he did not intend to continue hiding. Qi Xingchen licked his lips before trying to brush it off: “It’s fine.”

Bo Ye’s tone left no room for argument: “Stretch out your hand.”

“It’s really fine.”

“……Why are you so hard-mouthed?” Bo Ye sighed internally and softened his voice, “Stretch out your hand, Xingxing.”

Stretch out your hand, Xingxing.

This was the first time Bo Ye had called him by his nickname3. With his low and magnetic voice saying it aloud in such a soft tone, it was as if a feather fell gently on his heart, tickling it till it was tingling and itchy.

As if Qi Xingchen was possessed4, he stretched out his forearm.

Bo Ye smoothly pulled his wrist closer and pushed up the sleeve of his jacket. On his little fan’s snow-white and slim wrist, was a red scratch that hideously snaked upwards.

The wound was not deep, but it was long. The owner of the cut likely had dealt with it by rinsing it; it did not scab, nor was it oozing blood.

“Sit.” Bo Ye pointed to the bedside.

Qi Xingchen sat down as if he was possessed again and looked at Bo Ye taking out antiseptic and gauze.

He vaguely remembered that the programme team did not seem to have prepared any pharmaceutical products, hence while he curiously rummaged through the bag, he asked: “Where were these from?”

Bo Ye: “Got them from a neighbour.”

“Which family…… Is this a shopping receipt?”

“……” Bo Ye stopped talking.

If you bought it just say you bought it, you even went as far as to lie about it. Qi Xingchen now knew the source of the chill that remained on Bo Ye and stuffed the receipt back in. Not daring to lift his gaze, his line of sight drifted around, and finally landed on the arm that Bo Ye was helping to bandage for him.

After watching attentively for some time, he discovered something incredible — Bo Ye unexpectedly did not know how to bandage a wound!

That’s right, the impressive top-traffic celebrity, the owner of 80 million followers on Weibo, Bo Ye, the Great Emperor Bo, did not know how to bandage a wound!!!

There were three layers and another three layers5 of gauze, wrapping his arm into a mummy!!!

Qi Xingchen’s lips curled upwards as he stifled the desire to burst out laughing using great effort. Bo Ye seemed to have sensed something; maintaining his position of bandaging with his head bowed, his eyelids raised when he glanced indifferently at him.

Bo Ye had hooded and thin6 eyelids, with the tails of his eyes raising upwards slightly. The shape of his eye was extremely alluring when he looked at people from this angle, bringing a subtle sense of “blame”.

Qi Xingchen swiftly lowered his head, reaching his hand out to rub at his own ears.

Thus, Bo “mummy-production-worker” Ye finally stopped his warning look, tied a dead knot with the gauze, satisfactorily completing today’s work.

His concluding speech: “It’s too late into the night now, there probably aren’t any more doctors at the hospital. Get up earlier tomorrow to get a tetanus shot7.”

“……No need, it’s only a simple scratch.”

Bo Ye scoffed.

Hence Qi Xingchen rapidly changed his tune: “Okay.”

Bo Ye looked at the time displayed on his wristwatch. It was 1 am, he had ought to take his leave already. Just before stepping out of the door, he paused in his tracks, “Why are your ears so red? You’re not having a fever, right?”

“……No! I- I……was born with red ears, just like a monkey!”

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That night Qi Xingchen went to sleep very depressedly. He did not understand why his IQ would suddenly go offline; he was doing nicely as a human, but he just had to call himself8 a monkey.

When they got up in the morning, Zhang Yunfei, who guarded Liu Ziyu for a night, had dark circles under his eyes and was just standing in the living room with the director, speaking about something with two men dressed as police officers.

“Xingxing, you’re just in time,” Zhang Yunfei spoke in English, “Officer, he is the one who fought hand-to-hand directly with the burglar last night.”

“Wow!9” The police officer exclaimed in surprise, “You’re unexpectedly such a young lad. Handsome and brave, what a good kid.”

Qi Xingchen smiled as he thanked them, then cooperated with the police officers by recounting yesterday night’s incident.

After sending off the police officers, during breakfast, Director Zhao incessantly apologised to the guests. Especially towards Liu Ziyu who received a fright and Qi Xingchen who got injured last night, Director Zhao had carefully comforted them for a very long time.

Inadequate security measures by the programme team lead to a knife-wielding burglar breaking and entering. If this section was aired, they were afraid of being drowned by all the spittle from the fans1. Therefore, other than apologising, Director Zhao hinted that he hoped everyone would cover up this matter altogether.

Both Qi Xingchen and Liu Ziyu expressed their understanding, and could only express their understanding. If they insisted on holding the programme team accountable, the gains from it do not make up for the losses from offending MaimangTV.

Once everything was settled in Aunslev Village, it signified that the journey to the three villages had ended, and they should set out towards the next destination.

Everyone dragged their suitcases downstairs in succession. Qi Xingchen had fewer items, hence after he had carried his suitcase down, he had also helped to carry Luo Qiuman’s ones down.

Luo Qiuman did a headcount of everyone on the first floor, “We’re still missing Tao Tao, did Tao Tao not finish packing yet?”

“I’m not sure,” Liu Ziyu answered, “She said she couldn’t find something.”

“Then I’ll go help her—”

Once Luo Qiuman heard this, she was about to help Tao Tao search for it together. Mid-sentence, Tao Tao came out with a deathly pale face, interrupting Luo Qiuman.

“I’m sorry everyone, I’m really sorry……”

Luo Qiuman: “What happened?”

“Our money……” Two streams of teardrops slipped from Tao Tao’s eyes, as her voice trembled, “Our travel funds, they are all lost!”

.

Yesterday night when the burglar was escaping, he had taken something from the bedside cabinet in passing. The lights were off, and in addition, Qi Xingchen was shoved aside by the burglar, thus he did not get a good look at what the burglar took.

Now they knew, what he took with him was the coin purse containing the travel funds that Tao Tao was in charge of keeping.

The trip still had three days remaining, yet they had no more money. This was a major blow for the guests. The floor of the villa immediately sunk into silence, leaving only the sound of Tao Tao sobbing.

Qi Xingchen recalled that the original text did indeed have the plot of a burglar stealing the money, followed by the male protagonist’s consolation. But the female protagonist was not to blame for the money being stolen, and he went up the stairs to support Tao Tao: “Don’t cry, it wasn’t your fault.”

“It was me who did not fulfil my responsibility, I shouldn’t have left the travel funds outside, I should have carried it on myself for safekeeping!”

“You also wouldn’t know that a burglar would come in, right?” Qi Xingchen said in a gentle voice, “We can still think of another way if the money’s gone, but if you end up falling ill, we would have to stay at the hospital for three days, and our mission would be a failure.”

Hearing “mission failure”, Tao Tao gradually stopped crying. Luo Qiuman came up again to soothe her for a bit, saying that everyone did not blame her, Tao Tao then finally felt better2.

Without the travel funds, the programme still had to be recorded, the programme team was even more ecstatic by this turn of events3. They shot a supplementary part of them losing the money, forcibly bending “breaking in and burglary” into “stolen along the way”. They then left the comfortable Aunslev Village in high spirits.

When they reached the edge of the village, Qi Xingchen took out some change from his pocket, “I still have around 200 here, it was left over from last night’s purchase of ingredients. This should be enough for us to get to Odense4.”

Odense was the former place of residence of Anderson, and it was also one of the more popular tourist areas of Denmark. Luo Qiuman was surprised: “Xingxing, didn’t you bring this money out with you last night? How did you bring it back untouched?”

“Because there was Bo Ye…… ge.”

Once he mentioned the two words “Bo Ye”, that statement containing “Xingxing” abruptly rushed into his mind. He felt his earlobes heating up and his voice was muffled as he changed the address5.

“Bo Ye-ge used his charms to help us exchange for an entire basket of vegetables.”

“……I see, let’s first use this money to get to Odense,” Zhang Yunfei said, “When we get there, we can then take our time to reach a decision.”

Tao Tao nodded and took out her phone, prepared to call for a cab. At this moment, Bo Ye stopped them: “Wait a minute.”

“What’s wrong?”

Bo Ye turned towards Qi Xingchen, “You haven’t gotten the tetanus shot for your arm yet.”

All along, Qi Xingchen had not revealed that he got injured. The crowd only knew about it when Bo Ye had said it in the morning, and they all felt that the knife from the burglary crime might not be clean, thus he needed to get a tetanus shot.

Afterwards, when they realised that the money was lost, everyone was busy consoling Tao Tao, completely forgetting about6 this incident.

Now that Bo Ye had mentioned it, Zhang Yunfei patted his forehead: “Right, how did I forget about this? Let’s first bring Xingxing to get the injection ba.”

“Injection……” Tao Tao briefly displayed some hesitation.

Zhang Yunfei did not hear it clearly: “Taotao, what did you say?”

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Tao Tao bit her lower lip and did not answer.

Qi Xingchen sighed and knew what Tao Tao had meant — there were only slightly more than 200 kroner left. If they used it for the injection, following that, were they going to live on air7?

He took the initiative to say: “It’s alright, the wound has already formed a scab, I don’t need the injection.”

“No way.” Bo Ye shook his head.

“Getting the injection would delay us, I’m worried that we won’t be able to reach Odense today.”

Bo Ye cast a sidelong glance at him, the little fan had purposely not brought up the issue of money and made the excuse of being worried about affecting their itinerary in order to protect their teammate in front of the camera.

But it was indeed not good to draw on their final reserves right now. If they did, it would be easy to raise discord when the programme is broadcasted. He called Director Zhao to the side and spoke a few lines with him.

Not long later, the two of them returned. Director Zhao spoke earnestly to Qi Xingchen: “Xingxing, your injury was caused entirely by our lack of security. I’ll bring you to the hospital now for the injection, all of the transportation costs and medical fees will be covered by the programme team.”

Qi Xingchen gave an “En”, only realising then that Bo Ye had gone to find Director Zhao to negotiate with him.

The conditions of the medical treatment in Scandinavia was unlike back in their country, booking a doctor’s appointment for an injection could waste an entire morning. With limited time to shoot, Director Zhao definitely would be unwilling to do this.

Just that, if Bo Ye had requested it personally, they would not dare to disagree.

After the purchasing of medicine yesterday night, he owed the fake idol another favour. Qi Xingchen was not one to express his deep gratitude through words, nodding to give thanks.

Bo Ye had the same indifferent expression as before, clasping his arms while jutting his chin at him: “Get in the car, little monkey8.”