Chapter 26: Twenty-Six Fires

Yan Duo’s flight was at 2:30 in the afternoon. After finishing her meal, Yan Duo went upstairs to change clothes and get ready to leave.

Ten minutes later, Yan Duo came downstairs with her slightly curled long hair draped over her shoulders, wearing a short lace-up tank top paired with straight-leg jeans. Seeing Ji Ran glance at her a few times, Yan Duo looked herself over and found nothing wrong with her outfit. If anything might be an issue, it would be the jeans—she had hesitated a bit about them earlier, but in the end she chose health over sexiness.

“The airplane’s air conditioning is too strong; wear long pants to keep warm.”

Yan Duo explained to Ji Ran, hoping he wouldn’t think she was a fool for wearing long pants out at noon in the height of summer.

Ji Ran withdrew his gaze and gave a short “hm,” saying nothing more, then headed out first.

Yan Duo watched his back and hurriedly grabbed her small bag to chase after him.

In the car, after Yan Duo and Qi Sixian agreed on the meeting place, she turned and noticed Ji Ran’s phone vibrating again, and he showed no intention of answering — he ended the call once more.

“Am I getting in the way of your work?”

Yan Duo had just glanced at the caller ID showing the name “Li Qiao,” and since Li Qiao, as his agent, always called him, it must be something urgent.

Ji Ran said casually, “It’s nothing. Driving makes it inconvenient to pick him up; I’ll call him back in a bit.”

Yan Duo somewhat regretted agreeing to let him give her a ride. If she hadn’t agreed, he wouldn’t be in a position now where he couldn’t even pick up the phone. Given how things stood, she could only hope that whatever was going on with Brother Li wasn’t something very important.

After driving for half an hour, still some distance from the airport, Yan Duo had Ji Ran pull over to the side of the road. She refused his offer to help with her luggage, carried it herself, and waved goodbye to him.

Ji Ran sat in the car watching Yan Duo dragging her small suitcase as she hurried toward the airport. In the sunlight, her fair skin seemed to glow; though her hair reached her waist, her slim waist still showed through the way she walked.

When he remembered that first time seeing her come downstairs in that outfit and wanting to persuade her to go back and change into something longer but being misunderstood by her, Ji Ran chuckled. Well, even if he didn’t want others to see it, she liked it, so he let her be.

At that moment, the phone rang again. After swiping it open, Ji Ran said directly to the person on the other end, “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

Ji Ran finally answered the phone. Li Qiao heaved a sigh of relief and, not daring to hurry him, only said, “Okay, I’ll wait for you here.”

Thirty-five minutes until the audition recording Zhong, move a little faster, it should be fine.

Speaking of which, this interview show, like the previous cameo, wasn’t part of Ji Ran’s planned work; Ji Ran had long ago said he’d rest during this period. But some favors can’t be refused, so Li Qiao had to grit his teeth and call him. Fortunately Ji Ran didn’t turn him down.

By the time Yan Duo met up with Qi Sixian and Fang Fang, she was drenched in sweat. She had her sunglasses perched on her hair and stuck her tongue out from the heat.

“Can you please put your tongue away? You’re a named artist after all—what if someone catches you like this?” Qi Sixian said disdainfully as he fanned her with a small fan.

As Yan Duo’s variety show debut, Qi Sixian wasn’t at ease. He pushed off work he could hand to others and postponed what he could, only then freeing up time to accompany Yan Duo to S City.

Hearing that, Yan Duo could only bite back her words. She wanted to say she’s just a minor artist now and nobody would pay attention, but before she could speak she saw the ever-watchful Qi Sixian grab a bespectacled girl and laugh, “Miss, my Duo Duo is so ugly—when you finish filming, just keep it to yourself and don’t post it online, okay?”

The girl he grabbed smiled and handed her phone to Qi Sixian, “No, Yan Duo is very cute. Look.”

Qi Sixian didn’t bother being polite. He swiped through a few photos on her phone, reviewed all the shots, and said, “Hmm, they’re not bad—peculiarly ugly. If you want to post them, go ahead.”

The exquisitely ugly Yanduo:……

After the girls left, Qi Sixian sat down next to Yanduo again and said to her, “That photo makes you look like a little puppy, pretty cute.”

Being called ugly was one thing, but now being compared to a dog—Yanduo turned her head away, not wanting to say a word to Qi Sixian, while Fang Fang beside them laughed so hard she almost split.

After the plane took off, the milk tea had placated Yanduo and she was reconciled with Qi Sixian as before.

“Big sis, can I really speak freely during the ‘Speak Your Mind’ segment?” Yan Duo asked Qi Sixian, sipping her milk tea as she looked at the tablet.

Tomorrow Yan Duo was scheduled to appear on a show called “Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet,” a variety entertainment program that included a segment called “Speak Your Mind.” Each guest would be asked by the host to comment on one other guest or host present, and for the sake of the show they were only allowed to say negative things. The other guests appearing with Yan Duo tomorrow were all key creatives from a certain production; Yan Duo had only been the nth supporting role and had stayed with them for just a few days, so she barely knew any of them. She’d been invited because the director noticed she had gained a bit of attention from “The Power Game.”

Qi Sixian gave her a light look. “Then just wait to suffer.”

Yan Duo chewed on the coconut bits in her milk tea, looking aggrieved. “But I don’t know them.”

If they’re close, you can mention a few of the other person’s flaws in moderation, but if it’s someone you’ve barely met, are you expecting her to dredge up all sorts of “interesting” things from gossip columns and blurt them out? That would be offending people!

Qi Sixian shot Yan Duo a glare, about to call her stubborn and say she could just spout a few lines, but then thought that not knowing anything about the guest would make rambling awkward. Netizens today have eyes like a hawk; if your expression isn’t right and your words are perfunctory, who knows how they’ll tear you apart.

“I’ll talk to them and ask them to go easy on you. By the way, you’re probably pretty familiar with the hosts, right?”

Yan Duo pointed at the shortest of the four hosts on the tablet and said, “This is my high school classmate—should count as an acquaintance, I guess.”

The male host Yan Duo pointed out was called Chengxu; he was one of the hosts of “Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet” and had been classmates with Yan Duo for three years.

Qi Sixian decided with one final word, “Alright, then you can judge him when the time comes.”

A classmate exists to be tricked—if not them, then who else?

Yan Duo saw how confident Qi Sixian was about persuading the production team, so she stopped worrying about it. She thought it would be enough to give her old classmate a heads-up about the reunion tomorrow. The classmate was a decent person and got along well with her; after all, saying a few bad things about him for the sake of the show wouldn’t be a big deal.

The three of them went to the TV station’s reserved hotel after arriving in S City. Each had a room, and it was fairly clean. After putting down her luggage, Yan Duo went to find Qi Sixian so they could go out to eat together.

The next morning, Qi Sixian took Yan Duo to the television station. The deputy director personally came to pick them up, then smilingly escorted them to the show’s production team on the tenth floor.

After everyone left, Yan Duo whispered to Qi Sixian, “Sister, you seem to be on good terms with the deputy director, huh. duoxiaoshuo.com”

Qi Sixian tossed her hair, smiled mysteriously, and said nothing.

Yan Duo put on an innocent look that made Fang Fang smile. After Qi Sixian left the dressing room, Fang Fang pulled Yan Duo aside and whispered, “The deputy director went to the hotel to see Sister Qi last night and only left this morning.”

“Ah?”

Yan Duo finally understood the relationship between Qi Sixian and the deputy director. Ah well, food, drink, and matters of the heart — neither of them had partners, so it didn’t matter.

Probably because of Qi Sixian’s connection with the deputy director, the four hosts who came later were all very polite to Yan Duo and the others. During the “speak freely” segment, nobody had any objections to Qi Sixian’s requests. Host Xunge even told Yan Duo to say whatever she wanted, truly allowing her to speak freely, which made Chenggao, who had quite a bit of dirt on him, put on a frightened expression and bow to Yan Duo, begging her to go easy on him.

Just as they finished discussing things over here, the crew arrived on the other side. Director Wang from the crew was fairly familiar with Qi Sixian; after exchanging greetings they chatted for a few minutes.

After that, the hosts explained the show’s schedule and it was time for lunch. The official recording began after lunch.

In the first half of the show, Yan Duo didn’t stand out much. As a supporting character with pitifully few lines, even if there was some connection, the host couldn’t keep cueing her, and Yan Duo remained calm, just sitting onstage against the backdrop. That quietly beautiful, solitary presence made the cameraman very fond of her, repeatedly capturing her on camera.

In the second half, during the free-talk segment, after the director and lead actors had played their games, host Xinguo began interacting with Yan Duo.

“So, Duo Duo was classmates with someone here. Guess who it is?”

The co-host onstage playfully blurted out guesses with a grin, then pretended to be very curious when announcing the result, exclaiming dramatically for a while. Yan Duo felt embarrassed, thinking everyone up there was at Oscar-winning level.

“Duoduo, since you’ve known Chengxu for years, why don’t you talk about his flaws? Embarrassing stories are fine too.”

Yan Duo glanced at Chengxu and winked on purpose. “Can I say them?”

Chengxu snorted. “I’d advise you to stay rational—after all, I have dirt on you too, hmph hmph.”

Yan Duo patted her chest and said to the host Xunge, “Xunge, if I get retaliated against, can the show take full responsibility for my medical bills? Otherwise I won’t dare to speak!”

Xun ge smiled and promised, “Say whatever you want, we’ll take responsibility for the consequences.”

Yan Duo took a deep breath. “Then I won’t be polite.”

Then she began to speak with a straight face: “In sophomore year during PE, while practicing kicking the ball, he was accidentally kicked in the knee by a classmate, it hurt so much he lay on the ground unable to get up. In the end six boys puffing and panting carried him on a stretcher to the infirmary. The doctor took X-rays, tapped with a little hammer, checked for half an hour, and then very seriously told him, ‘Knees are fine, but do you want treatment for your smelly feet?'”

After Yan Duo finished speaking, both the guests on stage and the audience in the seats burst into laughter; one host even laughed so hard he fell over on the stage.

Although the comedian-programmer pretended to be angry on the surface, he wasn’t upset at all. In his view, as long as no one joked about his height, he could take anything else in stride. Yan Duo, just like in high school, still kept her distance and never easily tested other people’s limits.

After the “speak freely” segment ended with Yan Duo’s joke, they moved on to the rapid-fire Q&A. To avenge Yan Duo’s “one-arrow grudge,” the program specially assigned Brother Xun the task of questioning her.

Rapid-fire questions are usually very simple, but you must answer within one second to score.

Yan Duo pouted and said to Xun ge, “You promised to protect me, remember? Are you just going to let the program bully me like this?”

Brother Xun laughed heartily, handing the easiest problem he had to the programmer and saying, “Don’t worry, it’s absolutely very easy.”

Yan Duo sighed, “Alright, as long as you don’t ask me awkward questions like whether my feet smell, that’s fine.”

When he finished speaking, the audience in the hall laughed again.

But the program secretly took the questions Xun-ge had prepared and replaced them with a few questions it had composed itself.

Next, the quiz time begins.

“May I ask how old you are?”

“22.”

“Your zodiac sign?”

“Scorpio.”

“Favorite color?”

“Black, white, gray.”

“Did you have a crush in high school?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have someone you like in college?”

“Yes.”

“Is it just one person?”

“Yes.”

“Who is it?”

“Ji Ran.”

……

After answering, there was a second of silence in the room. Yan Duo immediately realized what she’d said and hurried to amend it: “Ahem, of course, this is all just a fan’s admiration for their idol.”

Those present weren’t overly surprised; after all, Ji Ran has millions of fans, so another Yan Duo wasn’t strange.

Yan Duo saw everyone acting normally and didn’t think much of it, secretly letting out a sigh of relief.

On the other side, in less than five minutes, Ji Ran’s phone received a video. After watching it, Ji Ran turned to the show’s director in a good mood and said, “I think it would be better to add some questions about emotions to the program. What do you think?”

Author’s note: I’m late again, facing the wall in contemplation~~~

ps: Duoduo, someone is casting a wide net, did you know?