Chapter 11
The styling for the guests’ initial appearances matched their promotional photos, designated by the production team according to each person’s professional image.
After confirming there were no oversights, Liang Yuxuan got out of the car, wheeled her suitcase across the wooden bridge over the artificial pond, and stepped into the villa’s entryway.
To avoid putting pressure on the ordinary participants who weren’t used to cameras, no camera crews were arranged for the interior scenes; everything was captured by hidden cameras. At this moment, there were only three guestsâtwo men and one womanâin the living room, and the atmosphere was somewhat quiet.
Liang Yuxuan was the second female guest to arrive, designated as “Female Guest No. 2.”
Hearing the noise of the suitcase wheels, the three people on the sofa turned their heads simultaneously.
“Hello, everyone.” Liang Yuxuan bowed slightly, greeting the three of them.
However, she did not receive an immediate response.
Three gazes stared straight at Liang Yuxuan. The girl in the pinafore dress had an especially exaggerated expression, her mouth forming a “wow” shape as she muttered under her breath, “Where did they find such a beautiful ordinary participant?”
Liang Yuxuan didn’t catch what she said and looked down at herself hesitantly.
The man in the gray suit was the first to snap back to reality. Standing up, he buttoned his suit jacket with one hand while stepping forward, offering Liang Yuxuan a warm smile: “Hello.”
The other two also stood up hurriedly: “Hello, hello…”
Liang Yuxuan nodded to the three of them, bending down to unbuckle her sandals. Just as she was searching around for slippers, a hand wearing a silver business watch opened the shoe cabinet for her.
“Right here.”
Liang Yuxuan lifted her head, meeting a pair of soft eyes.
It was the man who had greeted her first. He wore a pair of thin silver-framed glasses on the bridge of his nose; his business attire exuded a refined, scholarly aura.
“Thank you.”
Having changed into slippers, Liang Yuxuan was about to grasp the handle of her suitcase, but the bag had already wound up in the hands of another man wearing a hooded sweatshirt.
“Let me do it.” The sweatshirt-wearing man smiled as he lifted her suitcase and walked inside.
Liang Yuxuan offered a polite and proper thank you. Because she hadn’t interacted with men other than Bian Xu for a long time, she was a bit unaccustomed to it at the moment, so she deliberately chose a seat next to the girl upon reaching the sofa area.
But on a romance variety show designed to “go straight into the ambiguity phase at first sight,” one obviously couldn’t escape the advances of the opposite sex just like that.
The moment Liang Yuxuan sat up straight, a cup of warm water and a bottle of mineral water appeared before her eyes.
The two men had extended an olive branch to her at the exact same time.
Liang Yuxuan’s raised hand froze mid-air.
The girl in the pinafore dress beside her darted her eyes around excitedly.
“I forgot,” it was that gentle male voice from the beginning again. “The water that just boiled might be a bit hot. You should drink his mineral water instead.”
Within three minutes of entering the house, this man had defused her awkwardness three times.
Relieved, Liang Yuxuan accepted the mineral water from the sweatshirt-wearing man.
“Let me introduce myself,” Shen Ji said as he pulled back the cup of warm water, which wasn’t actually hot. “My name is Shen Ji. ‘Shen’ as in the surname, and ‘Ji’ as in ‘the sky clearing up after rain’ (yu hou chu ji).”
His name truly suited the person, Liang Yuxuan thought.
“Shen Ji? That Shen Ji from the Risk Control Department of Linsen Capital?” Inside the passenger cabin of an airplane soaring ten thousand meters in the air, a startled male voice rang out abruptly. “Isn’t he hailed as Linsen’s savior? Leaving a gold rice bowl behind, did he have nothing better to do than to join a romance variety show to entertain the public?”
“Ordinary people succeed because they use the time others spend drinking coffee to work. As for geniuses, they have time to both drink coffee and work. How does recording a variety show for just over a month smash any rice bowl? Besides, he’s closely related to the boss of Linsen,” another male voice answered.
The conversation between the two rose and fell intermittently in the first-class cabin, compressed into muffled syllables that drifted into the ears of Bian Xu, who was sitting in the front row.
Even headphones with a noise-canceling depth of 30dB couldn’t block out this racket. Closing his eyes, Bian Xu frowned once, and then frowned again.
By the third time he frowned, Lu Yuan, who was sitting next to him, summoned the flight attendant, asking her to kindly remind the two gentlemen in the back row.
To their surprise, half a minute later, that person actually walked up: “What a coincidence, Brother Xu? You’re going to Nanhuai too?”
Bian Xu lifted his eyelids, tilted his head, and removed his headphones.
Guo Hao pointed to the tip of his own nose: “It’s me, Brother. Guo Hao from Huining Technology in Beicheng. You don’t recognize me anymore?”
Bian Xuâs face showed a look of realization. “So it’s Hao (bright), not Zao (noisy).”
“…” Guo Hao scratched his scalp. “Sorry about that, Brother. I got excited and didn’t control my volume. I was just discussing an investment with someone.”
Bian Xu turned on the reading light and lowered his head to flip open a magazine at his side.
Guo Hao held onto the back of the massage chair and leaned down: “Hey, Brother, I happen to have a question I want to ask our Elder Brother. Since it’s such a coincidence to run into you…”
“I don’t get involved in business matters,” Bian Xu raised his hand to interrupt him.
The “Elder Brother” in Guo Haoâs mouth referred to the eldest son of the Bian familyâBian Xuâs biological older brother.
As a renowned wealthy family in the Beicheng business circle, the Bian family’s current generation had two sons. The eldest son entered business with their father, while the second son pursued art with their grandfather. The two brothers had clear aspirations and fulfilled one another.
While ordinary wealthy families were filled with overt and covert infighting and grievances, the Bian family was a picture of perfect harmony.
“Well, since we can’t see Elder Brother right now, you take a look for me first, Brother,” Guo Hao pulled out a tablet. “Just this romance variety show, evaluate its investment value…”
Bian Xu glanced at the promotional slogan on the investment materials: Heavy investment to create a simultaneous recording and broadcasting real-time couple-shipping mode, the most thrilling in history…
“Sensationalist clap-trap.” Before even reading the whole thing, Bian Xu indifferently shifted his eyes away.
“I thought so too at first, but the Risk Control Director of Linsen Capital actually participated, so there must be something to it!” Guo Hao swiped the screen a few times. “I just saw the guest lineup, and it really is striking. The looks of this female guest are practically a dimensionality reduction strike against the world of ordinary participants. Wow, Brother, look at the aura in this photo, she’s even a ballet dancer…”
“No thanks,” Bian Xu waved two fingers together. “Don’t show me anyone who dances ballet.”
Guo Hao blankly withdrew the tablet, exchanging a glance with Lu Yuan next door: Why the professional discrimination? What’s going on here?
Lu Yuan, of course, knew the inside story.
A little over a month ago, the beautiful and dignified ballet dancer Miss Liang Yuxuan had used a single phraseâ”shut up”âto make their boss’s face stay dark for three full days.
During those three days, Bian Xu, who never allowed miscellaneous items into the recording studio, broke all precedents by carrying his phone with him everywhere. He was probably planning to see when Liang Yuxuan would come to “bow her head.”
