Chapter 14
Lu Xiao, whose gaze had never left Meng Xueyuan, naturally witnessed everything.
Helping the champion pair avoid a wave of public humiliation—Meng Xueyuan was truly kind… no, wait, what did his wife just pick up?
Meng Xueyuan actually picked up someone else’s… with that icy expression and a bodhisattva’s soft heart.
Lu Xiao even had the illusion that as long as he asked, Meng Xueyuan would help him too.
Thoughts raced, but on the surface everyone calmly took out their phones, opened the game, added friends, and matched.
After the morning passed, Li Fei and Ouyang Lai’s biological clocks hit their most excited state, as if it were effortless to carry even Lu Xiao and Meng Xueyuan to the top.
No wonder these two champions couldn’t wake up in the mornings—it turned out they’d slept together the night before.
CP fans guessed every day that those two slept together, never realizing that Lu Xiao was the one being force-fed someone else’s sweetness.
After a round ended, Meng Xueyuan said sincerely, “You guys are amazing.”
Lu Xiao grew darkly jealous. He, a racing world champion retired for three years, was ultimately no match for esports champions. Meng Xueyuan played games with such relish, yet the sports car Lu Xiao had given him—its body even fitted with parts taken from Lu Xiao’s award-winning race car—was something Meng Xueyuan never liked to drive.
Every time, it was only after his manager reminded him that he’d take it out, drive along the river to take some photos. Once he’d checked off all the photo spots in Nancheng, he never touched it again—left to gather dust in the garage.
Why play racing games when gaming was cheaper?
Lu Xiao thought of the hype from Ouyang Lai’s fans—“Play one game with Ouyang and you’ll fall for him; he gives you a sense of security in every way”—and his fingers paused as he pressed the exit button.
Meng Xueyuan said, “Oh.” He put away his phone. Friends could be made anytime; Lu Xiao had been head chef all morning and must be exhausted—he needed to rest.
Lu Xiao said, “Today’s filming didn’t follow the director’s plan. There might be extra segments tonight. Let’s go back and take a nap first.”
Ouyang Lai gently but firmly confiscated Li Fei’s phone. “That makes sense. Catch up on sleep first—games can be played anytime.”
Li Fei said, “Alright.”
Lu Xiao opened the door first and stood sideways at the doorway, looking at Meng Xueyuan.
Under Lu Xiao’s gaze, Meng Xueyuan put on his shoes and stood up. “See you this afternoon.” His hands were in his pockets, pinching a thin little piece of packaging. He’d picked it up without thinking, subconsciously assuming it was a condom. Could it actually have been a glove used by Li Fei and Ouyang Lai for a late-night snack last night?
He lagged a step behind, pulled out a corner to confirm, then patted his pocket—hiding the “tool of the crime”—and followed Lu Xiao.
They changed into pajamas. Just half an hour after lying down, the production team suddenly knocked on the door and called Lu Xiao away.
“The director has new arrangements.”
Lu Xiao asked, “What about Meng Xueyuan?” He was worried that if he left, the production team might give Meng Xueyuan a hard task too. If he ran into Yao Quan again, someone thin-skinned would suffer.
The staff member said, “Teacher Meng can keep sleeping. It’s a solo segment.”
Couples variety shows had emotional one-on-one interview segments—every episode did.
Lu Xiao was still uneasy. He reminded Meng Xueyuan, “Did you hear me? Keep sleeping. If I’m not back, don’t talk to anyone.”
Staff: “The way you’re talking, it’s like we’re the Big Bad Wolf pretending to be Grandma.”
Meng Xueyuan: “Alright. You don’t work yourself too hard either. If it’s some kind of competition, just coast a bit.”
Lu Xiao: “You too. If I’m not around, don’t act alone. If you run into Yao Quan, call me immediately.”
The staff member wondered if there was a three-year-old child here—otherwise why would an adult need ten minutes of instructions just to step out?
Seeing how serious he sounded, Meng Xueyuan pursed his lips noncommittally.
Lu Xiao frowned. “What does that mean?”
The staff member said faintly, “Teacher Lu, the fact that you don’t like answering your phone is known throughout the entire entertainment industry.”
And you’re telling your wife to call you—at least pick up when he does.
Lu Xiao stared at the staff member for a second, then said to Meng Xueyuan, “I’ll change.”
Wasn’t the reason he was lazy about answering calls simply because he knew Meng Xueyuan would never call? Other people’s calls weren’t important anyway.
As soon as Lu Xiao left, Meng Xueyuan immediately took out the condom he had picked up earlier. He originally planned to toss it into a compartment of Lu Xiao’s suitcase, but worried that Lu Xiao might be too careless to notice it.
The sink would be more eye-catching.
Taking a breath, Meng Xueyuan quickly tidied the room—swept the floor, took out the trash—then sat down at the desk, pulled out a sticky note, and wrote in black pen: [Free to use].
Not appropriate.
He twirled the pen and rewrote it in a different handwriting.
That way, when Lu Xiao came back, he could say the cleaning staff hired by the production team had come in; the condom was provided by the cleaner and had nothing to do with him.
Seeing a condom, Lu Xiao would probably get curious and want to try it, right? After all, once his hands got dirty, he’d have to wash them properly.
Meng Xueyuan stuck the note on the bathroom wall.
Being this smart—how had he still not exchanged genes with him?
Meng Xueyuan lifted the corners of his lips. Back when he was studying, he’d been the top student among his clan; the queen bee’s college entrance exam ranking had been the highest since anyone in the clan had ever gone to university.
When he was in high school, even though the country as a whole had bumper summer and autumn harvests, the Meng clan’s farms were the exception—two consecutive years of total losses.
The clanspeople complained: “As soon as it’s flowering season, it rains nonstop; as soon as it’s grain-filling time, there’s months of drought. What cursed weather.”
Growing up immersed in the elders’ concern about weather, Meng Xueyuan resolutely chose meteorology when filling out his application.
When they learned he’d been admitted to the best meteorology program, the clanspeople were overjoyed, as if they could already see a future of favorable winds and timely rains. “The queen bee is the best.”
In the past two years, their hopes had shifted again: “The queen bee’s baby will definitely be exceptionally smart.”
A child… In fact, even if a queen bee’s nuptial flight is successful, there’s a high chance she still won’t get pregnant. The previous queen bee never had children.
At most, it would be a false pregnancy.
When a queen bee carrying spiritual energy mates, stimulation from foreign sperm can cause the reproductive system to send incorrect signals. Other organs mistake it for pregnancy and begin a series of changes, producing symptoms similar to pregnancy—this is false pregnancy.
Once the other organs realize they’ve been fooled, the symptoms disappear; how long that takes varies from person to person.
Some people’s reproductive systems are better liars—the first false pregnancy lasts longer. The second time, it’s harder to deceive; immunity develops.
Unlike rabbits, which can enter false pregnancy just from being stimulated, human false pregnancy requires the real thing—there must be sperm stimulation.
At four in the afternoon, the production team knocked on the door.
After brooding for an hour, the director finally revised the show’s format, deciding to split the groups up. Tearing each other apart made for great drama, but variety shows ultimately had to follow a positive path. The entertainment industry was chaotic enough, and with recent strict crackdowns, taking the wrong road could mean this episode airs but there’s no next one.
Meng Xueyuan took the clue card. “So you mean Lu Xiao is now in a confidential location, and I have to follow the clues he left to find him? He won’t get to eat until I do?”
Director: “That’s right. They’re all in different places. You don’t need to compare clues—each clue is a special code your partner left just for you.”
“Let me give an example. If you go straight down this road, you’ll encounter three different modes of transportation leading to different destinations. The first clue Lu Xiao left for Yuanyuan is [chorus]. Teacher Meng, do you have any ideas?”
Meng Xueyuan thought for a moment. “The location where we filmed the MV for our first chorus together was on an island. I should take a boat?”
Director: “That should be it!”
Film queen Jiang Weina said enviously, “This game is really not hard for Yuanyuan at all. I have no idea what Wang Dalin means by [rabbit].”
Meng Xueyuan asked, “What was the first scene where you saw a rabbit together?”
Film queen: “We’ve never seen one together.” Rabbit, two—someone who couldn’t do this kind of nostalgic romance at all was definitely telling her to take the second mode of transportation she encountered.
The director wouldn’t let them spell it out like that, but couldn’t stop Wang Dalin from exploiting loopholes.
Young couples really were full of love—any clue would be associated with words like “together” or “first time,” limiting it to a beautiful shared moment.
The game really wasn’t difficult for Meng Xueyuan. He just had to understand how Lu Xiao thought.
He took a boat to the island and came to a second fork in the road: one path went uphill, the other downhill.
Lu Xiao’s clue was “kissing scene.”
Meng Xueyuan’s ears tinged slightly red.
The skinny cameraman immediately caught the change and, following the director’s instructions, prompted him: “Teacher Meng, does ‘kissing scene’ have some special meaning?”
Meng Xueyuan’s eyes shifted. Lu Xiao might very well be using this opportunity to promote their film—it was time to tell the audience what the movie had added. He said, “Teacher Lu and I are filming a movie together, and we have a… kissing scene. It takes place on a high slope, so we should go uphill.”
The cameraman reacted dramatically. “Was there a camera trick?”
Meng Xueyuan: “No.”
After that, Lu Xiao seemed to have found a shortcut—everything was “kissing scene,” a single key that let Meng Xueyuan clear every level.
Meng Xueyuan could only rely on his own understanding. If he had to choose 1, 2, or 3, the kissing scene only worked on the second try—so he chose 2.
If he had to choose a color, it snowed on the day they kissed—so he chose white.
He was forced to replay the entire kissing process from beginning to end in his mind; by the end, his legs were weak.
The skinny cameraman: “Is Teacher Lu teasing you?”
“Unlikely.” Meng Xueyuan shook his head firmly. “He’s just taking the easy way out.”
Skinny cameraman: What’s going on—why does that pure-love vibe feel like it’s back again?
Meng Xueyuan wasn’t infallible in his interpretations. He took the wrong path twice, and it was past six o’clock by the time he finally found Lu Xiao.
Lu Xiao was at a small earth-god shrine on the mountaintop, waiting for his “little mountain god” to return to his post.
Meng Xueyuan handed him the food from his bag. “Eat.”
By the time they came back down the mountain to their lodging, it was already after eight.
Each group returned at different times, so the production team didn’t arrange a group dinner and told them to go to the cafeteria to get food on their own.
Lu Xiao said, “I’ll go get the food. You shower first.”
Meng Xueyuan: “Okay.”
While showering, Meng Xueyuan saw the sticky note he’d put on the wall. The steam made his face flush, and several times he had the urge to tear it down.
He finished showering with forced composure. Lu Xiao happened to return just then, food in hand.
Lu Xiao behaved like an honest, upright man. “You eat first. I’ll go shower.”
Meng Xueyuan instantly held his breath. Through the glass door, he saw Lu Xiao pause for a moment by the sink, then turn on the shower.
He saw it, didn’t he?
Of course Lu Xiao saw it.
Such a cute bee-shaped sticky note—one glance and you could tell it was Meng Xueyuan’s.
His first reaction: Was what I did last night discovered?
How was it discovered? He clearly hadn’t made any noise or woken Meng Xueyuan. Wait… could it be the smell?
Meng Xueyuan had an extremely keen sense of smell—he could detect floral scents from far away and even distinguish different kinds of flowers.
Had his wife felt offended, so he was telling him to use protection? Not to scatter pollen into the air at will?
“‘Free to use,’ too? That’s such a roundabout way of putting it.” Lu Xiao pondered, then suddenly thought of how Meng Xueyuan had followed the “kissing scene” clues he’d deliberately left just two hours ago.
They always managed to read each other perfectly.
For the first time, Lu Xiao wished they weren’t so in sync—so much so that even his right to handle things himself had been taken away.
Before sleep, Meng Xueyuan kept quietly observing Lu Xiao.
Lu Xiao kept his eyes on his nose, his nose on his heart, exerting all his willpower to restrain himself—so much restraint that he felt he was about to rebound, and if he didn’t, he might actually cause a problem. Thankfully, filming would end tomorrow.
Meng Xueyuan thought, Alright then. No one can be impulsive every single day.
