CH 17

The room pricing in Odense was slightly cheaper than in Copenhagen. With this amount of money, the guests finally freed themselves from the miserable circumstance of sleeping on the streets and booked two suites, one for the males, one for the females.

After being around each other for so many days, everyone was already familiar with each other. Once Qi Xingchen entered, he made a beeline for the bathroom, then spread-eagled1 to block the doorway: “I’ll bathe first!”

“Sure sure sure,” Zhang Yunfei did not mind at all, “Bathe quicker. After getting bumped and shoved in the car for an entire day, my body already smells.”

“Alright!” Qi Xingchen darted inside.

Fortunately, there was a mirror inside the moment he stepped in, and he took off his top and turned around.

From the mirror, there were more than 10 purple bruises scattered across his back, all from lying on the floor earlier in the performance and being jabbed by pebbles.

To keep the balance, his mind had to concentrate when tossing the umbrella, hence he didn’t feel the pain until they were counting the money. He had laid down for too long; the indentations caused by the press of the stones were very deep. They did not hurt, but he could imagine that his sleep would be in no way comfortable.

He rushed under the sprinkler and efficiently2 finished a quick shower3. After pulling on his pants, his arm reached around to his back, intending to massage away the bruises.

“Knock knock knock,” The bathroom door sounded all of a sudden.

“Yunfei-ge? I still need a while longer.”

“No,” a low magnetic male voice rang out, “It’s me, Bo Ye.”

The male protagonist? What on earth did he want? The hotel bathroom separated the wet and dry areas, so if he wanted to use the toilet he could do it outside. Unless he was in a hurry to wash his face?

“……Please wait for a moment, I haven’t finished yet.”

Based on his voice, Bo Ye guessed that he had finished bathing and should have been clothed.

Hence he did not intend to be long-winded, saying straightforwardly: “I’m coming in.”

Right after saying that, the door handle made a metallic sound of being twisted. As if Qi Xingchen’s nerves were twisted along with it, in his haste, he hurriedly picked up his jacket and held it over his chest!

Bo Ye who entered:”……”

The cool white light in the bathroom set off the boy’s snow-white, almost transparent skin. His slim jawline curved gracefully; beneath the dripping wet and slender neck, the contours of his collarbones were in full view.

The exposed fore and upper arms were extremely slender, but they were not of the slenderness of general firewood sticks. The muscle contours were smoothly defined, so it was clear that he usually would focus a lot on working out.

Seeing him enter at this moment, a crimson flush clearly visible to the naked eye rose to the boy’s cheeks, and it was on its course to spread gradually down his neck.

“…… Whatever you want to do, do4 it quickly,” Qi Xingchen took a step backwards, “I haven’t even dried my hair yet!”

Bo Ye raised an eyebrow: “Weren’t you not bothered about others looking?”

When Bo Ye had helped him to pull down his shirt, he had said “It’s alright, boys aren’t bothered by others looking”. He did not expect this person to actually hold this grudge, and Qi Xingchen ground his teeth in regret.

Seeing him forced to admit defeat, the smile on Bo Ye’s lips deepened as he finally let him off, then asked, “Are the injuries on your back serious?”

“…… How did you know?”

“That’s not important,” Bo Ye released his arms from their crossed position and shook the small bottle in his hand, “What’s important is that you can’t apply the medicine on by yourself.”

Qi Xingchen cast a glance at it. He had seen the small bottle before, it was the medicinal oil that Bo Ye had bought together with the other pharmaceutical products yesterday night. Last night, Bo Ye was not sure whether he had a cut or a sprain and had bought two bottles of every type of medication.

“Turn around,” said Bo Ye, “I’ll apply it for you.”

Qi Xingchen’s ears were almost on fire, “Thank you, but there’s no need, I’ll do it myself bah.”

“Didn’t you not want to delay Yunfei-ge’s bath?”

Qi Xingchen: “……En.”

“Then just do as I say.” Bo Ye said.

There was no way around it, it was indeed not a good thing for the two of them to be in a deadlock here. And Bo Ye was right, the bruises were all on his back and he couldn’t massage them himself.

Hence, Qi Xingchen pressed his clothes onto himself with one hand, braced himself on the edge of the sink with the other, and turned around in mortification.

Bo Ye achieved a milestone victory, he then poured the medicinal oil onto his palm, rubbed his hands together for a while, then slapped his palms onto Qi Xingchen’s shoulder with a “smack”.

Qi Xingchen: “……”

Has this young master ever rubbed in medicine for anyone else?

Bo Ye’s mother was a businesswoman and his father was a politician, so he has always had a nursemaid to look after him since he was a child.

Debuting at the age of 17, he won the Best Newcomer Award with just his singular debut song. A new star that became extremely successful5 in one leap; which of his managers, assistants, and bodyguards wouldn’t worship him like a Buddha?

Forget about rubbing in medicine for other people, even his own injuries would be treated by other people, he did not even have a bit of experience in this aspect.

However, he could sense that he was going about it the wrong way and eased up on his strength, kneading and rubbing slowly. The bumps on the boy’s spine were like musical notes leaping out from a curve, full of a rhythmic sense of beauty.

Bo Ye eased up on his strength even further and finally finished massaging after more than ten minutes.

.

He had to admit that the medicinal oil was very efficacious; by bedtime, his back did not even have a tinge of pain.

Qi Xingchen laid in bed tossing and turning, unable to sleep. It was as if there was a stone weighing his heart down, and he felt that he should say something to Bo Ye.

Yet he did not know how to start the conversation; words of gratitude had already been said and there was not much point in saying them again.

He fished his phone out from under his pillow and pondered while facing Bo Ye’s profile picture for a long time. He typed a line, deleted it, typed another line, deleted it.

After finalizing the next itinerary with his manager on WeChat, Bo Ye wanted to remind his little fan not to put pressure on his back as much as possible while sleeping. Opening the chatbox, what he saw was 【The other party is typing……】

Three minutes passed by: 【The other party is typing……】

Eight minutes passed by: 【The other party is typing……】

“……” Bo Ye was speechless. This person couldn’t be writing him a letter of commendation, could he?

In that case, it was better to not let him. Bo Ye forthrightly1 typed out a word: 【Speak.】

Xingxing: 【……Oh】

Xingxing: 【I just wanted to, you know2, thank you. 】

Bo: 【You’re welcome.】

Xingxing: 【Okay, then I won’t disturb your rest, goodnight】

Bo Ye read the word “goodnight”, felt his mood relax a lot, and was just prepared to lock his screen to go to sleep.

Xingxing: 【Wait!】

Bo: 【?】

Xingxing: 【May I ask, why do you treat me this well?】

Why?

Images of the boy biting his lower lip while insisting on not stretching out his arm, his pupils that contained sparks while performing acrobatics, as well as the waistline that was unintentionally exposed as he stooped down flashed before Bo Ye’s eyes.

Tsk, it was really white.

【No reason,】

Bo Ye replied, 【I dote on fans.】

.

With the money Qi Xingchen earned, the three days remaining were not great for everyone, but they were not hard-pressed for money either. Every day they would roam about in happiness and harmony.

On the last day of the trip, when it was time to buy gifts for the fans, Zhang Yunfei said, “Xingxing, take your pick first.”

The number of forwards of the lucky draw gift would directly determine whether there would be an individual reward for the gifter during the next trip. The money used to buy the gifts was all earned by Qi Xingchen, so Zhang Yunfei letting him pick first was understandable, and everyone agreed as well.

Qi Xingchen, however, shook his head, “I’m not going to buy anything, I’m planning to give the umbrella and plates I used for my performances to the fans …… Don’t you laugh, Qiuman-jie, those are the tools I make a living with!”

“Fine, fine, I won’t laugh anymore.” Hearing that Qi Xingchen wanted to give the discounted umbrella and the broken-edged plate to his fans, Luo Qiuman could not stop laughing, guessing that not many fans would want this.

In truth, Qi Xingchen knew that this gift was shabby, but he had his own considerations.

If he took the money and was the first to pick a gift, other than it being not so respectful towards his seniors, in the case where the number of forwards of his gift really made it into the top three, his actions would seem too showy.

He did want to be popular in a short amount of time, but being in the limelight enough in the first episode, he had to let others experience some benefits. If by any chance, he had caused the other guests to bear a grudge against him and thus find water troops to secretly find materials to vilify him, he did not have enough power to clear his name.

So when it’s time to let go, let go; and when it’s time to hold back, hold back. This was what he had summed up from experience after being schemed against many times.

Seeing that he was determined not to buy a gift, everyone stopped trying to persuade him and rushed to the shopping centre together to choose.

There wasn’t much money left, each person had about a hundred kroner at their disposal, so it was all up to whose gift was more creative and thoughtful.

While everyone was choosing, Qi Xingchen was not idle either. Yesterday Qi Yuji had called and acted like a spoiled child saying that she wanted a Danish speciality.

Actually, which speciality did she not have? She just wanted “a speciality bought by her younger brother”, that’s all.

Qi Xingchen bought Qi Yuji a small decoration, which was a painting. In the end, he felt that it was not practical enough and bought her a bag of the latest fashion from a niche brand as an addition.

Still unassured, Qi Yuji called him, “Xingxing, you didn’t forget your jiejie‘s present, did you?”

AD

“No, I just finished shopping for it.”

“What did you say, Yuji?” Through the phone, Dad Qi’s voice came through.

Qi Yuji covered the microphone, “Xingxing bought me presents HAHAHAHA, Dad you don’t have any oh!!”

Qi Yuji was so pleased with herself that her voice could not help but be louder than usual, and all of it entered Qi Xingchen’s ears. He suddenly remembered how Dad Qi had lied in order to see him off before he left, and turned back resignedly, picking out a tie for Dad Qi and a pair of shirt cufflinks for Qi Yunxiao.

After doing all this, Qi Xingchen, who had no manager to help with maintaining interpersonal relationships, chose a gift for everyone in the crew. The director’s gift was the most expensive, followed by the assistant director, the camera-crew chief, and so on; even the small production assistants who did odd jobs were not left out.

Trinkets with local features were bought for the female guests, while oil painting albums were bought for Zhang Yunfei. When it came to Bo Ye, he was placed in an awkward position.

In Bo Ye’s heart, he was his fan and thus had to be treated differently from others. In his heart, he now owed Bo Ye two favours, and it would be inexcusable to buy something without thought.

He walked round the place twice and a shop that made hand-painted goods finally caught his gaze. He took out his AirPods case and walked in.

The author has something to say:

Xingxing: “Whatever you want to do, do it quickly!”

Bo Ye: “Oh, I can’t do it any faster.”3

…… My text is not going to get locked if I cause some disturbance in the author’s notes, will I? Begging the auditor da ge to let me get away with this.