Chapter 31

The other teams were all discussing which props to buy first, while Zhao Yu and Shen Junyi stood several meters apart, staring at each other. After a moment of frustrated silence, Zhao Yu turned and went to check the props on her own.

A little while later, she caught a whiff of that soft, floral shampoo scent again. Turning around, she saw Shen Junyi had crept up behind her at some point, shuffling around restlessly, his golden head tilted up with a hint of arrogance.

She couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at her lips—but it vanished in an instant, replaced by an aloof expression.

Nearby, Xia Yuan was saying to his teammate Ruan Fengdi, “Sis, let’s buy a song first—that’s the most important thing. What style do you want? Maybe a pure vocal track?”

Zhao Yu turned to look at the song list.

There were five songs in total, each priced differently. The cheapest was only 20 yuan, and the most expensive was 80—the cheapest items in the prop store, affordable with their starting cash.

The most expensive song was Shen Junyi’s So Busy.

Back when she’d been a trainee at Muyi, advancing from the beginner class to the intermediate class, that was the song she’d performed for her evaluation.

What had she been thinking back then?

That she’d use his award-winning song to carry herself all the way up.

Staring at the song list, she felt herself transported back to that sweat-soaked practice room, seeing her younger self charging forward with nothing but passion. How naive and silly she’d been.

Shen Junyi’s voice cut through her reverie. He pointed at So Busy on the list and declared, “I want this one!”

The store staff member smiled politely. “Certainly. This song costs 80 yuan. Please pay first.”

Shen Junyi said, with absolute conviction, “This is my song. I have to buy my own song? Then before you put my song up for sale here, did you pay me the royalties?”

Staff member: “…………”

He was tall and long-armed. He jumped up, grabbed the song list, tore off the So Busy name card, and stuck it on his own shirt. Patting it with satisfaction, he said, “There. Returned to its rightful owner.”

Staff member: “Director!!! He’s stealing props!!!”

Director’s team: “…………”

From outside came the director’s exasperated voice over the megaphone: “Shen Junyi! Money first, goods second—no grabbing!”

Shen Junyi turned and sauntered out the door. “How is taking my own stuff stealing?” Halfway out, he paused, turned, and crooked his finger at Zhao Yu. “Coming?”

Zhao Yu was absolutely stunned by his shamelessness.

What had happened in all these years???

Why had the gentle, refreshing, mint-sweet boy in her memories turned into this???

Was this a fake Shen Junyi???

Had to be fake!!!???

Unaware that his image was crumbling by the second, Shen Junyi saw her still standing frozen inside, so he came back and tugged at her sleeve. “Come on, come on—or they’ll take it back.”

Zhao Yu let him pull her along for a few steps before snapping out of it. She looked at the upright back in front of her, at a complete loss for words, and clutched her heart in pain.

Luckily, the director’s team didn’t chase them. Only their personal cameramen followed, panting behind them.

Shen Junyi glanced back, then finally stopped. He looked at the song name stuck to his shirt, then at her, and raised an eyebrow with a grin—as if to say: I’m amazing, right?

Zhao Yu: “…………”

Yeah. Absolutely amazing.

Back in the prop store, the other guests were baffled by Shen Junyi’s move. Sun Yan was the first to recover. “He can do that?! The most expensive song just got snatched! Director, are you even running this show?!”

Her teammate Wei Chi tried to calm her down, laughing helplessly. “Forget it, that song is super hard—dance and vocals combined. Only he can pull it off anyway. It’d be useless for us.”

Xia Yuan looked worried. “But what about my goddess? We have to do missions for two days, and only one day to rehearse—can she learn it in time?”

Ruan Fengdi patted his head with a laugh. “You should worry about your own teammate—I’m tone-deaf, you know.”

The extras in the film studio had already taken their positions.

The production team wouldn’t just let the guests wander around cluelessly; clues for various money-making tasks were scattered everywhere, waiting to be discovered.

The morning film studio gradually grew lively.

Zhao Yu still hadn’t recovered from the “devastating blow” earlier. Watching the energetic figure dashing around ahead, she racked her brain but still couldn’t figure out why that gentle boy had turned into this.

Shen Junyi had already done a loop around the market. He turned, saw Zhao Yu still trailing far behind, and trotted back to scold her. “Can you keep up? Why are you so far away?”

Just looking at him now made her heart ache. She gritted her teeth. “Don’t you know what ‘avoiding suspicion’ means?”

Shen Junyi stared at her. “You get more screen time sticking with me. Don’t you want to be famous?”

Zhao Yu recalled Jiang Yu’s warnings and said righteously, “I can get famous without you! Give me the money!”

Shen Junyi immediately clutched his little wallet—which held only a hundred yuan—like a miser. “What for?”

Zhao Yu pointed. “There—tea bags, one yuan each. Over there—milk, three yuan a box. Behind you—a kettle rental, one yuan per use.”

Shen Junyi: “So?”

Zhao Yu: “So, we can buy ten tea bags and ten cartons of milk to make milk tea. Cost per cup: five yuan. I saw they’re selling milk tea here for eight yuan a cup. There’s a school up ahead—we’ll make it there and sell it. If we sell out, we’ll make thirty yuan.”

Shen Junyi: “Only thirty?!”

Zhao Yu held out her hand. “Too little? Then give me fifty and we split up.”

Shen Junyi, perhaps realizing that with his brains he might not even make thirty, grinned and clutched his little wallet. “Hey, many hands make light work. Let’s stick together. Milk tea, right? Let’s go, let’s go.”

Zhao Yu: “…………”

In the end, with their cooperation, they successfully sold ten cups of milk tea. Seeing that the milk tea market was promising, Zhao Yu reinvested their capital to make more. Shen Junyi handled production, she handled sales. Their starting capital quickly grew from 100 yuan to 220.

Zheng Wanyi’s team, having scouted around without finding any opportunities, followed suit and started selling milk tea too. Shen Junyi was not having it. “The milk tea market is already ours! If you want to join, you have to pay a franchise fee!”

Zhao Yu, exasperated, pulled him back. “The milk tea market’s pretty saturated. Let’s switch to something bigger.”

And so the fuming golden retriever was dragged away.

By noon, their capital had grown to five hundred yuan.

The guests had a half-hour break. Though the show’s premise was that they had to use their earnings to buy food and water, the production team wouldn’t actually starve them—they were big names, after all.

They were given half an hour to eat and drink, though viewers wouldn’t see that in the final broadcast.

Both Zhao Yu and Shen Junyi had great stamina—they weren’t tired after running around all morning. As they headed back to their respective rest areas, Shen Junyi invited her, “Wanna come eat at my spot?”

Zhao Yu remembered seeing his stern agent earlier and declined with a smile.

Lin Zhinan had already prepared lunch. To maintain her figure, Zhao Yu ate light—no carbs, just low-calorie veggies and chicken.

Seeing her sitting quietly with her lunch box, Lin Zhinan leaned in and whispered, “What’s wrong? Tired?”

Zhao Yu shook her head, chewed and swallowed a piece of chicken breast, then paused and muttered, “It’s so hard.”

Lin Zhinan asked, “What’s hard?”

Zhao Yu listlessly poked at the broccoli in her bowl.

Hiding her feelings for him completely—not letting it show—was so hard.

People always said you can’t hide liking someone. Even if you don’t say it, it shows in your eyes. She’d already used up all her energy just controlling her gaze. On top of that, she had to brace herself against his sudden closeness and his unconscious visual attacks. Aside from snapping at him to back off, she had no idea what else to do.

Seeing she wouldn’t answer, Lin Zhinan didn’t push. Instead, she switched to a gossipy topic: “How does it feel being up close with Shen Junyi? Does it feel like your life is complete?”

Zhao Yu glanced toward his rest area. “Not really. He’s not how I remembered him.”

Lin Zhinan snorted with laughter. “How you remembered him? You never really interacted with him before—what’s different?”

Zhao Yu mumbled, “You know… gentle, refined, handsome… that kind of thing!”

Lin Zhinan stared at her in disbelief. “Isn’t your fan filter a little too thick? When was Shen Junyi ever gentle and refined? He’s always been like this.”

Zhao Yu: “?”

Lin Zhinan doubled over laughing. “Haven’t you watched his videos? Even his fans say he’s a king on stage and a goofball in life. He’s always been super unreliable. I gotta ask—what exactly have you been a fan of all these years?”

Zhao Yu: “???”

Had her filter really been that thick? She’d only watched his stage videos—all she’d seen was the handsomeness! She wasn’t a real fan, so she’d never dug into every interview and variety appearance like actual fans did.

Her impression of him was still stuck at the year she graduated from middle school—when she told him she’d gotten into high school, and that gentle boy smiled, reached out, patted her head, and told her she’d done great.

Zhao Yu grabbed her head in anguish and shook it violently.

The half-hour break passed quickly. Filming resumed.

With five hundred yuan in capital, Red Team decided to go for a big business deal. Small profits were too slow. To afford a full set of stage props, they needed a big score.

The other teams naturally had the same idea, so the afternoon’s merchant competition grew even fiercer.

Zhao Yu dove headfirst into money-making, which meant less mental energy to spare on Shen Junyi. The girl who’d always been bad at academics discovered she had a hidden talent for business—she was on a winning streak, losing not a single cent. By sunset, their capital had reached two thousand.

At this rate, if they kept at it tomorrow, hitting five thousand wasn’t impossible.

Shen Junyi basically coasted the whole time, carried along for the ride.

Zhao Yu soaked up his admiring glances, feeling pretty pleased with herself.

I’m amazing, right? Praise me!

But after his moment of admiration, Shen Junyi turned and said, “I remember you used to be bad at math, though? Didn’t you always fail and ask me to explain problems to you?”

Zhao Yu’s smug smile froze on her face. Two small flames of humiliation and anger ignited in her eyes.

Shen Junyi cautiously stepped back. “What! I’m not lying—I did all your summer homework math problems for you!”

Zhao Yu finally snapped. “Shen Junyi, if you mention summer homework one more time, I swear I’ll rip your head off!”

Shen Junyi: “…………”

He slowly stuffed the counted two-thousand-yuan bills back into his wallet, muttering very quietly, “Fine, I won’t mention it… why so fierce…”

Zhao Yu: “!!!”

Aaaaaaaaaah—it’s shattered!!!

Her filter was completely shattered!!!