Chapter 110
Running into the entire Lin family on the set of the show really had been outside Lin Zhiqiao’s expectations.
But he adjusted his mindset very quickly.
—After all, weren’t Baby Ran, Baby Xia, and Song Fengshi still here!
Lin Zhiqiao took things quite openly. He did not want to deal with the Lin family, and among those people, aside from Lin Mubai with his fake, hypocritical “concern,” the others clearly did not want to run into him either.
Since that was the case, they might as well continue maintaining this kind of “tacit understanding.” You’re fine, I’m fine, everyone’s fine.
That was what Lin Zhiqiao told himself, and he directly chose to selectively ignore Father Lin and the others.
After getting out of the car, Song Fengshi walked straight over to Lin Zhiqiao’s side.
Ji Ran, who had been about to charge toward Lin Zhiqiao, came to an abrupt halt and executed an extremely dangerous emergency brake.
Cheng Xia behaved more steadily than he did, but even he hesitated a little before moving forward.
Only after Lin Zhiqiao waved at them did the two finally walk over.
“President Song.” Ji Ran greeted somewhat stiffly, then lowered his voice and asked, “We’re not interrupting anything, right?”
It was hard to tell whether he was asking Lin Zhiqiao or Song Fengshi—or both.
Lin Zhiqiao knew exactly what he was hinting at, and quietly nudged his friend with an elbow.
A smile appeared in Song Fengshi’s eyes as he replied softly, “You’re not interrupting.”
Three more figures, two adults and one child, slowly stepped down from the van Song Fengshi had arrived in.
Madam Song held Song Xinqiu with one hand and linked arms with Mr. Song with the other. Her tone carried a hint of teasing. “The moment you saw him, you got right out of the car. Didn’t even wait for your father and mother.”
On Song Fengshi’s face—normally so cold and severe—there actually appeared a rare trace of embarrassment.
Ji Ran snickered at the side.
Lin Zhiqiao, however, suddenly felt inexplicably nervous.
[Ahhh, we’re not even together yet and I’m already meeting the parents? What kind of normal relationship goes in this order!!!]
Madam Song lifted a hand to cover the smile on her lips. When she exchanged a look with Mr. Song, both of them saw the exact same emotion in each other’s eyes—
Steady win!
She gave a light cough, waved her hand, and said, “Don’t mind us. You young people go enjoy yourselves. We adults have our own adult conversations to have.”
As she spoke, she tugged her husband along toward Father Ji and Mother Ji and greeted them with easy familiarity.
The Lin family, standing some distance away, all looked rather unhappy at the sight.
The Lin family counted as wealthy, but not truly as high-level elite. Everyone in the family knew very well that the reason they could join this variety show was, in all likelihood, mostly thanks to Lin Mubai’s fame in the entertainment circle.
Father Lin and Mother Lin had agreed to join the show in the first place with the intention of meeting more people from the upper class.
But now, the Ji family had already developed bad blood with Lin Chen because of Ji Ran, and as for the Song family… the relationship between the head of the Song family and Lin Zhiqiao looked a little too intimate.
Lin Chen’s gaze darkened as he thought of all the noise online about President Song pursuing Lin Zhiqiao.
—Could those rumors possibly be true?
Lin Mubai’s mood was bad too, though for a different reason than the others.
Things had not been going very well for him on set lately. Ever since that earlier “bad state,” Director Tang’s favorability toward him had started dropping sharply, and there were no signs of it rising again anytime soon.
To maintain his image as a good actor, Lin Mubai had no choice but to spend expensive favorability points whenever he acted, exchanging them for temporary acting buffs.
But he knew very well that this could only solve things for the moment. It was not something he could keep doing long-term. The favorability points he had borrowed from his other buffs were almost burned through.
This variety show was an opportunity.
It could help him stay visible to the audience before the new drama aired, recover some favorability points, or even let him make one or two new ‘friends’ through the show to patch up the losses in his various buffs.
If he got lucky and ran into an acquaintance on the program, that would be even better.
Lin Mubai had planned things quite nicely—but reality did not go his way. The familiar faces he encountered were not the ones he had hoped to see.
There was no need to mention Lin Zhiqiao. Song Fengshi was a man doomed to die soon anyway, and even the Ji family…
Wait.
Lin Mubai vaguely remembered that the Ji family’s young master, Ji Ran, had always had fairly high favorability toward him. He even seemed to be one of his fans.
Even though Ji Ran and Lin Zhiqiao were on good terms now, it was not as though there was no opening to exploit.
Lin Mubai immediately had the Heartthrob System check Ji Ran’s favorability toward him.
The Heartthrob System replied: [At present… it’s only thirteen points.]
Lin Mubai froze and blurted out, [Why is it so low?]
Could it be because of Lin Zhiqiao…
He asked again, [Can you check when the favorability started dropping?]
[Recently—around the days when you trended online because of Young Master Tian.] The Heartthrob System paused, then added, [Young Master Ji and Young Master Jing are friends.]
Lin Mubai took a deep breath.
He did not know if it was just his imagination, but he increasingly felt that… at some point, he did not know when, the world had started going against him. Nothing had been going smoothly.
*
All the guests arrived very quickly.
There were three special guest participants. Besides Lin Zhiqiao, there were also two young men around his age, both lukewarm, not particularly famous actors.
One of them, a young man named Qi Jue, had only just arrived when he began repeatedly looking toward Lin Mubai, the longing in his eyes completely undisguised.
The other one, Guan Ming, also had shining eyes—but the person he was looking at was Lin Zhiqiao. He was so excited that he even blurted out, “Gossip King!”
Lin Zhiqiao: “……”
He actually quite liked the title, but being called that straight to his face in real life was genuinely social-death-level embarrassing!!!
He was so awkward his toes were nearly digging into the ground, yet he still had to force a smile and respond.
Once everyone had arrived, the livestream for the program officially began.
Director Sun Ming said, “Each special guest participant may choose one family to follow and experience their family atmosphere during this episode.”
The moment those words fell, Lin Zhiqiao immediately felt two families’ enthusiastic gazes land on him.
Madam Song reacted very quickly. The moment she moved as if to head toward Lin Zhiqiao, someone beat her to it.
Song Fengshi had been standing at Lin Zhiqiao’s side the whole time, and the second he heard the rules, he spoke at once: “Zhiqiao, would you like to stay with us?”
The sincerity and hope in his eyes were practically overflowing. Lin Zhiqiao simply could not refuse a gaze that earnest.
On the other side, Mother Ji also looked toward Lin Zhiqiao. “Xiao—”
Before she could finish, her own son clamped a hand firmly over her mouth.
Ji Ran flailed in panic. “Mom! No, don’t— let Xiao Qiao go with President Song and them. We need to…”
He swept his gaze around. Qi Jue was already standing beside Lin Mubai, so Ji Ran waved at Guan Ming and called out, “Come here, come here!”
Round-faced Guan Ming trotted right over.
Mother Ji pushed her son’s hand away and asked, “What is it?”
Ji Ran shook his head mysteriously. “Mom, you really shouldn’t fight President Song for him.”
Mother Ji instantly showed an expression of understanding.
Guan Ming let out a loud gasp, then immediately lowered his voice and asked, “Teacher Ji, does that mean… it’s true?”
He pointed at Song Fengshi and Lin Zhiqiao, his whole face blazing with the excitement of someone eating gossip in real time.
Ji Ran gave him a look that clearly said, you understand without me needing to say it.
Climbing a mountain was exhausting physical work. The group walked and rested, walked and rested, and around noon they finally reached a rest station halfway up the mountain.
Lin Zhiqiao plopped himself down inside the shady shelter and could not help rubbing the muscles in his calves, which were beginning to ache.
A shadow suddenly fell in front of him.
Lin Zhiqiao had only just looked up when the person in front of him suddenly bent one knee and crouched down.
It was Song Fengshi.
Lin Zhiqiao lowered his gaze toward him. “What are you—”
Before he could finish, his right leg was suddenly lifted by Song Fengshi and laid across Song Fengshi’s own thigh.
Lin Zhiqiao’s eyes widened at once, and a flush rushed up to his ears. “Wh-what are you doing?”
