Chapter 38
The moment that inner voice rang out, strange noises erupted everywhere.
Shu Lin was peeling a cucumber. At those words, his hand instantly trembled, and with a crisp crack, the cucumber in his hand snapped cleanly into two pieces.
Qin Ye, who was frying eggs, lost control of his strength for a second and nearly flung the perfectly formed egg pancake right out of the pan.
Standing beside him, Zhou Zenian’s arm jerked, and his spatula knocked against the edge of the iron wok with a clear metallic clang.
The others all wore different expressions too, but in every pair of eyes there was unmistakable excitement and gossip-hunger.
Almost everyone’s expression changed, if only slightly.
Only Xu Mo showed no reaction at all.
Ji Yuan couldn’t help giving Xu Mo another look, realizing that he probably couldn’t hear Lin Zhiqiao’s inner thoughts.
“So what? A one-night stand?? So while I wasn’t looking, Director Shu and Brother Qin were actually playing this trendy?!”
“I was wrong. I always thought Director Shu and Brother Qin were pure romance. I truly, truly never expected this… [dog side-eye.jpg]”
Lin Zhiqiao failed to hold onto the vegetable in his hands, and the round purple eggplant dropped into the bucket with a thud, sending water splashing all over his face.
He lifted a hand and silently wiped the droplets off.
[Let me see, let me see—]
[It happened on the night of Black Sparrow’s opening banquet. As the director, Shu Lin, and as the leading actor, Qin Ye, were the two main targets of everyone at the banquet, so naturally they ended up being plied with alcohol. ]
[After the banquet ended, Shu Lin and Qin Ye supported each other back to the room. And then the accident happened. By the time they woke up and the alcohol had worn off, all that remained in the room was utter chaos—]
Lin Zhiqiao’s almond-shaped eyes widened.
[An accident? Only little kids would believe this was an accident!! What era are we in now? The whole “drunken loss of control” thing was debunked ages ago. Who still doesn’t know that when someone is truly drunk, they can’t even get it up?!]
[There’s no such thing as getting drunk and accidentally falling into bed. There’s only using alcohol to let feelings spill over. What “one accidental night”? It was obviously desire reaching its peak, impossible to restrain, and then both sides just went with the flow! ]
[If both sides wanted it, then wasn’t this just a two-way rush toward each other? How could anyone not ship this!!!]
Lin Zhiqiao’s tone was utterly firm, practically impassioned. He was so excited that even his cheeks had gone slightly red.
Everyone else was just as excited: oh oh oh oh oh!!!
“Shocking! Is this really something I’m allowed to hear without paying for VIP?”
“I declare this is love. I’ve already moved the civil affairs bureau here. Harp CP, please get back together on the spot, get your marriage certificate on the spot, and consummate the marriage on the spot, thank you thank you thank you.”
The gentle smile on Zhou Zenian’s face faded, replaced by a hint of seriousness.
At the side, Qin Ye’s ears were faintly red. Pulled along by Lin Zhiqiao’s inner voice, his memories drifted back to that night—full of ambiguity, heat, impulsiveness, and yet also deep satisfaction.
Lin Zhiqiao wasn’t wrong. That bit of alcohol hadn’t been nearly enough to make him so drunk that he had no idea who he was sharing a bed with.
He believed Shu Lin had been the same.
Qin Ye instinctively glanced at Shu Lin. The other man was sitting on a low stool, one half of a cucumber in each hand. His hair covered part of his profile, but the line of his jaw carried a faint, stiff coldness.
That chill pierced straight through like a blade. Qin Ye immediately sobered by half, and the cyber dog tail behind him seemed to droop right down to the ground again with a pathetic flop.
Lin Zhiqiao kept going.
[So that’s how it was. So their love contract was signed after this.]
[After that one night, Qin Ye took the initiative and said he’d take responsibility, but Shu Lin felt they were both adults—sleeping together once didn’t mean they had to wave around some big banner of responsibility.]
[After a lot of pushing and pulling, Shu Lin finally relented, but made it clear he would only accept a contractual relationship. Once the contract ended, so would the romance. Then they’d break up peacefully, part on good terms, and that would be the end of it—]
Lin Zhiqiao fell into dazed confusion, his whole civet self dealt a massive emotional blow.
He looked at the pair who had already broken up yet were still obviously tangled up with each other and couldn’t cleanly sever things, and inwardly shed humble tears.
[No! Absolutely impossible! There’s no way this was just some simple contract relationship! I don’t believe it!]
“Holy crap, so Harp CP was fake from the very beginning? [I’m crying my eyes out.jpg]”
“No way. Feelings can’t be faked! Even if there really was a piece of paper involved, there’s no way Harp CP didn’t catch real feelings!!!”
Lin Zhiqiao refused to accept it, but the current gossip had already fully loaded. So he opened several more blind boxes in a row, trying to squeeze out more information—
[What?! Shu Lin actually always had someone he liked! He even confessed to that person once, only to have his love letter torn to pieces and be brutally rejected!!!]
[Holy crap, that’s way too ruthless, isn’t it?! They even tore up the love letter! Even someone as outstanding as Director Shu got coldly rejected—what kind of legendary figure was the other person?! ]
Writing a love letter and confessing—just hearing that made it sound youthful and inexperienced. Shu Lin must have been very young at the time, maybe even still in school.
Adolescence was already a sensitive period. Suffering such a blow back then… perhaps it really was understandable that Shu Lin now didn’t dare step easily into a stable, intimate, long-term relationship.
At last Shu Lin couldn’t help speaking up. “Lin Zhiqiao.”
Lin Zhiqiao looked up. “Ah? What is it?”
Shu Lin paused, sighed inwardly, and said, “Could you help me get a vegetable basket?”
He gestured toward the peeled cucumber in his hands.
Standing by the stove, Qin Ye turned off the fire and reached Shu Lin first, taking the cucumber from his hands.
“Give it to me,” he said, his dark eyes staring straight at the other man.
Shu Lin’s fingertips tightened slightly. Avoiding his gaze, he let go.
Qin Ye’s lips moved a few times, as though he wanted to say something, but in the end, nothing came out.
He knew that Shu Lin had once liked someone. More than that—he had kept that person in his heart until now and still couldn’t let them go.
Though Shu Lin had never once mentioned directly who that person was in front of him, Qin Ye had accidentally noticed before that sometimes, when Shu Lin looked at him, there would be a trace of something like nostalgia in his eyes.
As though he was looking through him… at someone else.
He knew it. He had even known it very clearly. Shu Lin seemed to… only be treating him as someone else’s substitute.
Qin Ye had tried indirect probing, and he had also tried confronting Shu Lin head-on, but Shu Lin had never once given him an answer. He always chose not to mention it, or to avoid it entirely.
Could it be that the person Shu Lin had been unable to forget for so long was the same person who had torn up his love letter?
—Was that person really so exceptional? Exceptional enough that even after rejecting him so cruelly, even after all this time had passed, Shu Lin still couldn’t forget him?
Qin Ye felt so jealous he was almost losing his mind, yet there was nowhere for that blazing jealousy to go.
Because he didn’t even know what sort of person he was jealous of. He didn’t know who they were, let alone where they were now.
Once, Qin Ye had thought that as long as Shu Lin stayed with him, even if it was only contractual love, he believed his own sincerity would move the other man sooner or later.
But that torn-up love contract had slapped him viciously across the face.
Holding the cucumber, Qin Ye was suddenly overwhelmed by helplessness and grievance, drowning out the brief flicker of warmth that had just risen in him.
Half-lost in a daze, he walked back to the prep counter. The knife rose and fell, and the flat of it slammed hard into the cucumber, as if he were venting something.
From the side, Zhou Zenian reminded him, “Wasn’t it supposed to be stir-fried cucumber? If you smash it that badly, how are you going to fry it?”
Qin Ye turned around and shot him a vicious glare. “I changed my mind. Can’t I make smashed cucumber instead?”
Taking in the undercurrents swirling among the three of them, Lin Zhiqiao let out a long sigh inwardly.
Shu Lin’s reaction was strange.
The instincts of a true gossip civet told him that the situation between Qin Ye and Shu Lin definitely wasn’t that simple. There had to be missing pieces.
Lin Zhiqiao opened several more blind boxes in a row, but still failed to pull out anything important, so for the time being he had no choice but to give up.
Before the sky turned completely dark, Zhou Zenian and Qin Ye finally got ten portions of dinner ready.
To the program team’s credit, the ingredients they’d left for them on the first day were still fairly plentiful.
Zhou Zenian and Qin Ye seemed to have entered some kind of competition. All the dishes had been made in matched pairs.
There were two versions of pork ribs, one braised and one sweet-and-sour. Two pots of soup, one a clear fish broth and one a spicy-sour vegetarian mixed stew. Even the porridge came in two types too, one savory seafood congee and one sweet red bean and lotus seed porridge.
The aroma was incredible—even more tempting than the luxurious food they’d had earlier on the cruise ship.
Looking at the full table of dishes, Lin Zhiqiao’s pathetic tears nearly dripped from the corners of his mouth.
But no one at the table picked up their chopsticks right away. Everyone’s gaze, openly or subtly, drifted toward Shu Lin.
They all wanted to know which dish Shu Lin would choose first.
Qin Ye looked at Shu Lin with eager, anxious eyes. Zhou Zenian, meanwhile, found a few empty bowls, ladled out several portions of fish soup, and passed them around to everyone. One bowl just happened to land in front of Shu Lin.
Shu Lin paused, then said in a low voice, “Thank you.”
“What’s there to thank me for? Hurry and try it while it’s hot.” Zhou Zenian said with a smile. “My cooking has improved a lot these past few years overseas. The taste shouldn’t be bad.”
Qin Ye: “……”
What a scheming man!
Following suit, he ladled out several bowls of red bean and lotus seed porridge. Just as he was preparing to place one in front of Shu Lin, Shu Lin had already lifted the fish soup and taken a sip.
Zhou Zenian watched him expectantly. “How is it? Does it suit your taste?”
Shu Lin’s brow tightened, almost imperceptibly. “…Mm. It’s good.”
Zhou Zenian didn’t notice anything wrong. He immediately placed a piece of braised pork rib into Shu Lin’s bowl. “Try this too. It’s one of my specialties.”
Shu Lin picked up the rib and tried a bite. “It’s good.”
Then came Zhou Zenian’s seafood porridge.
Qin Ye stood nearby, unable to even get a word in. He could only hold the lotus-seed porridge in his hands like an idiot, staring at them, glaring at Zhou Zenian so hard his eyes nearly spat flames.
But this time, Shu Lin finally couldn’t take it.
The seafood porridge was indeed deliciously fresh, but the sweet, briny aroma hit his nose and immediately made his stomach churn violently.
He set the bowl down and covered his mouth, brows tightly drawn together. Turning his head aside, he took several deep breaths before barely suppressing the urge to retch.
Zhou Zenian’s face changed at once. “What’s wrong? Does it not suit your taste?”
Shu Lin waved a hand. “No, it’s not that. It’s my own problem.” He took a breath. “I was probably a little seasick earlier. I’m still not feeling too great.”
At last Qin Ye found a chance to speak. “Not feeling well? Is it bad? I’ll go get a doctor—”
“No need,” Shu Lin said. “It’s not that bad.”
Qin Ye let out a quiet “oh,” then seized the opportunity to push the refreshing smashed cucumber dish toward him. “Can you eat this?”
This time Shu Lin didn’t argue with his own body.
He tried a few bites, found it didn’t make him uncomfortable, and put some into his bowl. “That’s enough for me. Move it over for the others.”
Qin Ye took the smashed cucumber away, then tried offering Shu Lin a sweet-and-sour rib, then some spicy-sour mixed vegetable soup, then the red bean and lotus seed porridge…
Unexpectedly, those dishes all seemed to suit Shu Lin’s stomach fairly well.
Though he still didn’t eat much, at least he no longer showed signs of discomfort.
As for the rest of the feast, it all went into the hands—and stomachs—of the crowd of gossip-watchers around them.
It had to be said, Zhou Zenian and Qin Ye really were both excellent cooks. Lin Zhiqiao ate to his heart’s content.
By the time dinner ended, the island sky had already gone completely dark.
The program team didn’t release any new tasks. Before bedtime, the guests were given a short stretch of free time.
Since Shu Lin still wasn’t feeling well, he went back to the tent early to rest.
Neither Zhou Zenian nor Qin Ye felt at ease leaving him alone, so both of them followed him back.
Xu Mo, meanwhile, never joined the melon-eating squad in the first place. He invited one of the female guests and seemed intent on going through the kind of steps romance show guests were normally supposed to go through.
For example, going together to feel the night wind by the sea.
Lin Zhiqiao remembered that female guest. Earlier she’d been wearing a little deer head. Her real name was Yao Wan.
Yao Wan looked once toward the quiet tent over on the male guests’ side, as if she struggled for a moment between gossip and professional variety-show duty. In the end, she accepted Xu Mo’s invitation.
Among all the guests present, Xu Mo might have been the only one who still remembered he was actually on a dating show.
The temperature difference between day and night on the island was huge. During the day it was so hot that people sweated nonstop, but at night even with an extra layer on, the air still felt chilly.
Ji Yuan and the others managed to get a small bonfire going, and the rest of them sat around it, warming themselves and chatting late into the night.
Lin Zhiqiao was there too.
Wen Li quietly poked him. “Aren’t you going back to the tent?”
The unspoken meaning was obvious: weren’t they worried about missing any sudden new developments that might happen in the tent at any moment?
Lin Zhiqiao said, “No rush. I’ll go back later.”
888 was currently helping him keep an eye on what was happening in the tent.
Shu Lin really was feeling genuinely unwell and had gone straight to sleep after returning to the tent. Zhou Zenian and Qin Ye refused to speak to each other, and the two of them were lying stiffly on the beds like corpses.
If Lin Zhiqiao went back now, there would only be one more boring civet lying flat and doing nothing in there.
Wen Li knew he had a few mysterious little abilities, and guessed Lin Zhiqiao must have some way of keeping tabs on that side. So she didn’t bring it up again.
Of the five people around the bonfire, four of them already knew each other.
The only one left was another female guest, who had previously worn a thrush head. Her name was Jiang Yang.
At some point, she too had slipped into the melon-eating squad, and every so often her gaze would drift toward Lin Zhiqiao with an unreadable, meaningful look.
As they were about to disperse, Ji Yuan seemed to think of something.
“If anything happens, remember to contact us immediately.” Ji Yuan said in a solemn tone, gesturing toward the communicator phone the program team had given every guest. “No matter the time or place, I’ll come the moment you call.”
The other three echoed, “Same here.”
After all, the melon-eating squad had to stay together in neat formation.
“Okay, definitely!” Lin Zhiqiao nodded resolutely. “If we survive by eating gossip, let’s never forget each other!”
The nearby program crew who overheard this: “……”
No!
Who told you that the communicators were supposed to be used like this?!!!
“Please include me too, thanks.”
“So can the show set up some kind of special alert for us? Like an alarm that goes off whenever something happens? I’m worried I’ll fall asleep and miss the exciting scenes [starting to feel anxious.jpg]”
The first night on the island was a peaceful one.
Early the next morning, the program team released a new task.
“The ingredients are hidden all over the island. Complete the tasks and you’ll receive clues.” The director handed everyone a task card.
All of the tasks required pairs.
Zhou Zenian beat Qin Ye to the punch and invited Shu Lin first. Shu Lin hesitated for a moment, but didn’t refuse.
Watching the two of them walk off side by side, Qin Ye’s eyes reddened with anger. Without thinking at all, he randomly dragged someone off with him and chased after Shu Lin.
The randomly selected lucky victim was Lin Zhiqiao.
Lin Zhiqiao was perfectly willing. [Sure, works for me. Live gossip on site—no loss here, only profit.]
Shu Lin glanced back at them once, but said nothing.
Zhou Zenian led him into the little forest by the shore. Their task seemed to be collecting fallen leaves.
Qin Ye followed them from a distance, not daring to get too close.
While they were walking, Lin Zhiqiao suddenly heard a soft sound behind him.
He turned around.
At some point, a whole string of people had started trailing behind them.
At the front, Ji Yuan smiled faintly at him and lowered her voice. “What a coincidence. Is your task in the forest too?”
Lin Zhiqiao glanced at the task strip in his hand: they needed to gather three different kinds of wild fruit.
So he nodded. “Yeah. What a coincidence.”
In the distance, the atmosphere between Shu Lin and Zhou Zenian seemed unexpectedly pleasant. The two of them searched for the fallen leaves while chatting on and off.
Qin Ye, meanwhile, was uselessly and violently jealous.
Lin Zhiqiao’s fingers itched. [888, open a gossip box and specify Zhou Zenian.]
888 answered cheerfully, [Got it! ]
Lin Zhiqiao rubbed his hands together in nervous excitement—
[Whoa! So Shu Lin and Zhou Zenian have actually known each other for seven years! That’s so long!!!]
Qin Ye had just casually picked a fruit. Hearing that, his hand clenched, and crimson juice splattered everywhere.
[Shu Lin and Zhou Zenian attended the same university. Zhou Zenian was two years above Shu Lin and was his senior. He took very good care of Shu Lin all through college. And most importantly—]
Lin Zhiqiao paused, then let out a wow in his heart.
Everyone pricked up their ears, their eyes fixed on his back so intently it felt as if they could burn a hole right through him.
[Zhou Zenian actually confessed to Shu Lin before!!!]
With a wet squish, Qin Ye crushed another fruit barehanded.
Lin Zhiqiao secretly grew more excited. [Zhou Zenian fell in love with his junior Shu Lin at first sight, but he was patient enough to spend two whole years by his side as a friend first. It wasn’t until graduation, right before he was about to go abroad, that he finally found a chance to confess.]
[But he didn’t ask Shu Lin to answer him on the spot. Instead, he said he wanted Shu Lin to think carefully about it, and then give him the answer after he came back from overseas.]
[Oh wow! Zhou Zenian really, really knows what he’s doing! Using a confession in place of a farewell—if you pull that move, wouldn’t Shu Lin remember you for years?! ]
“This ship is getting kind of good, what is happening. Sorry Brother Qin, let me defect just a tiny little bit [sneaking around.jpg]”
“Count me in too. I’m only taking one bite, just one little bite! [slurp.jpg]”
Qin Ye was grinding his teeth in secret.
Studying abroad was at least three to five years. How the hell did Zhou Zenian have the nerve to ask Shu Lin to wait that long?!
But at that thought, Qin Ye suddenly froze.
His love contract with Shu Lin had only just ended not long ago, and then Zhou Zenian came back—and so coincidentally ended up on the same dating show—
Was that really just a coincidence?
Could it be… could it be the person Shu Lin had actually never been able to forget wasn’t the bastard who tore up his love letter, but Zhou Zenian, who had confessed and then gone abroad?!
And that was why, before Zhou Zenian returned, Shu Lin had rushed to completely cut himself off from Qin Ye?
At that thought, Qin Ye’s gaze at Zhou Zenian turned even sharper, as if it could pierce straight through him.
What were they talking about right now?
Were they talking about beautiful memories from university?
That unanswered confession?
Or—or…
Could A-Lin have already accepted Zhou Zenian’s confession?!
Qin Ye was so anxious he was practically spinning in circles like an ant on a hot pan.
But over on the other side, the atmosphere between Shu Lin and Zhou Zenian wasn’t quite what the melon-eating squad behind them had imagined.
They really did bring up that old confession.
“It’s been five years.” Zhou Zenian said with a sigh. “Xiao Shu, I’m really glad you still haven’t forgotten that.”
“It would be hard to forget.” Shu Lin smiled slightly. “But… I’m sorry, Senior.”
Zhou Zenian fell silent for a moment, then let out a sigh.
Truthfully, he wasn’t all that surprised. Back when they were still in university, Zhou Zenian had already vaguely sensed that Shu Lin was deliberately keeping a certain distance between them.
He knew that Shu Lin had someone he liked in his heart.
That person had left an indelible mark on him. The quiet and ordinary two years of university life simply hadn’t been enough to erase it.
That was why Zhou Zenian had chosen to gamble one last time.
Unfortunately, the answer he received in the end hadn’t changed a thing.
Zhou Zenian turned back and glanced at Qin Ye trailing behind them at a distance, then quickly withdrew his gaze.
“Is it him?” he asked.
Shu Lin said nothing, which made it feel even more like a silent admission.
Unwilling to accept it, Zhou Zenian pressed on. “If it really is him, then why, after finally getting together, were you still the one who brought up breaking up?”
Shu Lin was silent for a moment, then shook his head. “It’s too complicated.”
Too complicated—so complicated that he didn’t even know where to begin.
Shu Lin’s thoughts drifted back to that year in high school.
When he was being bullied at school, there had been one person who descended from the sky and pulled him out of that bitter abyss.
Shu Lin would never forget the hand that person extended toward him against the light.
But it was also that same hand that tore apart the letter carrying all the feelings of his youth.
—That letter could hardly even count as a love letter, but Shu Lin believed that the moment Qin Ye saw it, he would definitely have recognized that it was written by him.
And yet the final fate of that letter had simply been to become torn scraps and drift away with the river.
Shu Lin had thought that his connection with Qin Ye would end there for the rest of his life.
Who could have expected fate to turn and twist and bring him face to face with him again?
The main character of Black Sparrow had almost been modeled after Qin Ye in his high school years. Shu Lin had never imagined Qin Ye would show up to audition.
And even less had he imagined that the two of them would end up sharing such an absurd night together.
Unlike in high school, the adult Qin Ye didn’t seem to be doing that well.
Before landing the lead role in Black Sparrow, Qin Ye had apparently offended someone and had run into obstacles everywhere in his acting career. He couldn’t land a suitable role, his talent had nowhere to be used, and he’d been living in poverty.
The roles and identities between the two of them seemed to have completely flipped compared to high school.
This time, the one extending a hand had become Shu Lin.
That ridiculous night—Shu Lin had assumed Qin Ye had no way out, and so had resorted to such desperate measures.
At the time, Shu Lin had thought: rather than let Qin Ye go find someone else, it might as well be him.
He would treat it as repaying the debt of gratitude from when Qin Ye had once helped him, and also as giving that youthful old crush of his one final remembrance and one final ending.
Shu Lin knew very clearly that Qin Ye didn’t truly like him.
Whether it was this so-called responsibility, or whether Qin Ye had genuinely been cornered with nowhere to go—none of that mattered.
This had been an incorrect relationship from the very beginning, one he himself had started, and therefore it ought to be him who ended it too.
Black Sparrow had made him, and it had also made Qin Ye.
Shu Lin knew that Qin Ye was no longer poor, no longer cornered, and that he himself had also obtained the so-called full stop he needed.
This relationship, which had been filled with insincerity from the very beginning, had reached the point where it should end.
Shu Lin kept his eyes lowered. The reflection in his lenses hid the many complicated emotions beneath them.
Zhou Zenian could sense his low mood, but didn’t know how to comfort him.
The next second, a sharp cry suddenly exploded in everyone’s ears—
[Holy crap, holy crap?! Wasn’t Qin Ye supposed to be a poor-boy character? How on earth could he… be the heir to the Qin family?!]
