Chapter 13: Socially Anxious Star 13
【Why does it start with Jiang Kong again? What bad luck】
【Ugh… isn’t this a bit fake? Jiang Kong has been debuted for so long, yet I’ve never heard him mention an older sister before】
【Setting up a persona sure is a handy thing, huh】
【Feels like she isn’t his real sister. Jiang Yi is super invisible on the show, she was probably just dragged along to play second fiddle for Jiang Kong】
【To those marketing accounts getting sued: if you want to lose your minds, can you go do it on Weibo? This isn’t Jiang Kong’s personal livestream room】
【Exactly, exactly】
With half a bowl of porridge per person, everyone finished eating quickly. Afterward, those who were still hungry continued cooking oatmeal or gnawing on bread, but the atmosphere was considerably better than before.
【What’s going on today?】
【What happened?】
【Yeah, why is everyone self-reliant all of a sudden?】
【Wild guess: breakfast is super expensive】
【HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA person above might have hit the truth】
Before breakfast was even over, the staff members appeared in the living room to introduce today’s task.
“Dear guests, after spending yesterday together, I believe everyone has gotten familiar with the environment. This villa is the ‘home’ where we will be living for the coming period.”
“In a few days, two new guests will arrive at our home as visitors. Would all guests please divide the work, cooperate, and make reasonable use of the remuneration earned yesterday, striving to give our guests a feeling of being ‘at home’~”
“Who are we hosting?”
Jiang Kong asked directly with a look of doubt.
The staff member gave a mysterious smile. “The guests’ identities cannot be disclosed for the time being, but we can reveal a tiny bit of information regarding their identities and preferences.”
“Would all guests please prepare based on the known identity details and preferences.”
Saying that, the staff member handed over two folded cards.
One pink, one blue.
The pink card read:
Heavenly Voice, Peerless Beauty, Youthful and Gorgeous.
Likes guitars and green; dislikes spicy food.
Two lines of words—one line introducing identity, the other introducing preferences.
The blue card read:
Muscular Hunk, 185 cm Tall, Contrast Charm.
Likes traveling and black; dislikes sour food.
The several guests exchanged bewildered glances with one another, utterly clueless. None of them managed to guess who these two referred to, so they simply stopped trying to guess altogether and moved straight to performing the task according to the production crew’s requirements.
Shen Ping set the cards aside, looked around the surroundings, and was the first to speak:
“Hosting guests requires tea, which this villa doesn’t have. Correspondingly, cups seem to be lacking as well.”
The villa only had cups provided for the main guests.
The others nodded in agreement. Luo Jiajin followed up, “Toothpaste, toothbrushes, towels, and the like—we also need to buy some as spares.”
“Feels like the incoming guests should be young people, so we can prepare some snacks or something as well.”
As they spoke, everyone seriously searched the entire villa, contemplating what else was missing.
Shen Xiangcheng walked over to the entrance. “Slippers are missing too.”
Pei Wusi opened a storage cabinet. “There isn’t a single umbrella—we need to stock a few.”
After speaking, he looked toward Chang Ximing. “Teacher Chang, while we search, you can be in charge of noting down the missing items first.”
Chang Ximing nodded repeatedly, put on his glasses, brought out paper and a pen from his room, and jotted down everything everyone mentioned one by one.
After taking a full lap around the villa, they found that the missing items were mostly miscellaneous, small odds and ends.
They were easy to overlook, but overall, they wouldn’t cost much money.
【The villa is actually pretty well-equipped】.
【Who on earth are the incoming guests? Has anyone guessed it?】
【No idea, can’t guess, it’s way too broad】
【Feels super complete, the production crew even prepared a first-aid kit, nothing major is missing】.
【It won’t be this simple, right? Feels like if everyone splits these costs, it won’t take much money at all】.
【Believing the production crew wouldn’t be this kind-hearted—it even wanted to confiscate everyone’s money last night】
“Is anything else missing?”
Pei Wusi inquired.
Everyone looked left and right, all shaking their heads.
“Probably nothing else?”
Luo Xia spoke up.
“We’ve practically searched both floors of the villa inside out.”
Jiang Yi stood behind Jiang Kong, half of her body hidden in the hallway shadow.
She turned her head to glance at an empty room that didn’t have a guest’s name labeled on it, extending her hand to press down on the door handle.
Click—
With an extremely faint sound of a lock unlatching, the door was quietly opened.
Jiang Yi hadn’t expected the door to actually open. She was startled briefly, then poked her head in to look inside the room, and her whole person instantly froze on the spot.
The room was practically empty.
Bare and stark—a bed with only a mattress; a desktop with nothing on it, without even a single stool.
Jiang Yi reached out to tug at Jiang Kong’s sleeve, pulling him gently to signal him to look inside the room.
Jiang Kong stole a glance and immediately turned around to tell the others:
“There’s more—the guest rooms are still empty.”
Hearing this, the few people downstairs immediately gathered over to take a look.
Sure enough, it was as he said.
The guests’ rooms all had individual keys.
Back when they finished picking their rooms, the production crew had given them the keys to their selected rooms. As for the remaining empty rooms, they were impossible to open.
“Then the rooms upstairs probably need to be furnished as well.”
Shen Ping knitted his brows, rapidly calling out the items missing from the room, while Teacher Chang Ximing noted them down quickly as well.
Meanwhile, Jiang Yi, who had discovered the room, quietly retreated toward the edge of the crowd. Listening to the voices chatting, her attention couldn’t help but wander off.
The romantic arc in Following the Wind didn’t seem quite so agonizing anymore—she suddenly had a burst of inspiration;
That short melody from this morning had unexpectedly turned exquisite, making her inner creative urge itch, eager to polish and complete it;
…
Jiang Yi let out a tiny sigh, unable to resist lighting up her phone screen to check her phone for the thirty-eighth time.
There should be a rest break at noon, right?
Now that they knew what items needed to be prepared, the next step was spending money to buy them.
The sun outside remained blazing hot. Jiang Kong stole a glance at his older sister, who had blended into the crowd all morning and was already looking utterly wilted. He took the initiative to say, “I’ll go buy them. Everyone take a rest.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Pei Wusi and Shen Xiangcheng spoke up almost simultaneously.
After the three finished speaking, they paused briefly. Jiang Kong noticed that Luo Xia seemed about to speak as well, so he hurriedly added, “Then the three of us will go. The sun outside is very harsh, everyone rest up.”
“If any issue comes up, we can ask everyone in the group chat.”
Saying that, Jiang Kong took over the list from Teacher Chang Ximing’s hand.
Luo Xia took a look at Jiang Yi, then took a look at Jiang Kong, swallowing her words back into her stomach.
She liked outdoor exploration, so this kind of sun didn’t bother her in the slightest.
However, seeing that someone was distressed for his sister, she wouldn’t push forward either, avoiding making things difficult for the young girl.
The others had no objections, so the matter was settled just like that.
Using the excuse of packing things up, Jiang Kong pulled his sister back into the room and turned off the camera in the room.
“I’ll bring you ice cream when I come back in a bit. What flavor do you want?”
Jiang Kong asked.
“Matcha?”
Jiang Yi hesitated.
“Will it be convenient then?”
“It should be fine. Do you want watermelon juice or half a watermelon?”
Jiang Kong nodded and asked again.
“Half a watermelon.”
Jiang Kong nodded once more. “Alright.”
“If there’s nothing urgent, you can drag it out for a bit and wait for me to come back and handle it.”
Jiang Yi nodded again, watching Jiang Kong leave.
Sitting on her soft cushion and picking up her pen, she felt the exhaustion permeating her from the inside out sweep away entirely.
With three people missing from the living room and another staying in her room without coming out, the popularity of the fixed main livestream room gradually declined.
After pondering for a while, the director negotiated with Shen Ping and had the remaining people watch the shopping livestream of Pei Wusi’s trio.
The moment this idea was implemented, the popularity of the livestream room warmed back up instantly.
As for Shen Ping and the others, having nothing to do, watching the livestream happened to let them understand the shopping situation of the other three.
“Don’t turn off the bullet comments.”
The staff member gave a final reminder.
Shen Ping nodded, feeling a bit displeased as he looked at the densely packed bullet comments.
Only after Luo Xia helped set up “filtered bullet comments” did his brows unknit.
Pei Wusi, Jiang Kong, and Shen Xiangcheng hadn’t reached the supermarket yet, chatting idly as they walked along the road.
At this moment, there wasn’t much to see.
Just as Shen Ping was about to set the tablet down, he saw a prominent bullet comment slide across the screen.
【Director Shen, what are you preparing to film for your next movie?】
“For the next movie, it hasn’t been finalized at present.”
“Estimated to start late this year or early next year.”
Shen Ping answered.
Realizing that Shen Ping would reply to bullet comments, the netizens asking questions instantly multiplied.
【What genre is it?】
“This is kept confidential for now.”
Shen Ping said.
The bullet comments began asking various other questions one after another, occasionally asking about Luo Jiajin and Chang Ximing as well.
Suddenly, several bullet comments carrying roughly the same meaning repeatedly appeared.
【Director Shen, what do you think of Jiang Kong?】
【Director Shen, how do you feel Jiang Kong is like?】
【Director Shen, do you like Jiang Kong?】
Shen Ping knitted his brows slightly, simply pretending not to see these bullet comments while picking other questions to answer.
However, these seemed to be just the beginning.
Following right after, Shen Ping could always spot a bullet comment related to Jiang Kong out of every ten comments. When there were many, three or four out of ten were about him.
Luo Jiajin stole a glance, knitted her brows slightly, and quickly smoothed them out again.
【Director Shen, regarding Jiang Kong letting his sister stay in a room alone last night while making you guys share rooms, what do you think of this behavior?】
Shen Ping’s brows knitted deeply. The moment he swept through the long sentence, he saw bullet comments making replies one after another:
【How else can anyone view it? Just selfish, plain and simple.】
【Jiang Kong disrespecting seniors isn’t a matter of just a day or two anyway.】
“I don’t think anything of it.”
Shen Ping finally couldn’t help speaking up.
“It’s money Jiang Kong earned himself—he can handle it however he pleases. How can you guys…”
Shen Ping got stuck briefly, feeling utterly bewildered by the netizens’ words and behavior.
Teacher Chang Ximing supplemented in a timely manner.
“Moral kidnapping.”
Shen Ping chimed in, “Right.”
“Isn’t this obvious moral kidnapping? To the netizen who said that: why don’t you take your own savings to buy me a house in Beicheng then? I just happen to not have a house in Beicheng.”
His brows were twisted so tight they could practically tie into a knot. “Regardless of what opinion I hold toward Jiang Kong, regarding the room matter last night, Jiang Kong had zero issues whatsoever. Can some netizens please stick to the facts and stop mindlessly smearing people?”
Luo Jiajin added calmly from the side, “Every single one of them is a reincarnated moral saint.”
The bullet comments froze in shock for a second, lagging briefly, and a few seconds later—
【AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Teacher Luo’s sarcasm is maxed out!!!!】
The livestream room—which originally didn’t have particularly prominent traffic—suddenly exploded, and within a short half hour, multiple related search terms rapidly climbed to the front ranks of trending topics.
#ShenPingMindlessSmearing#
#ShenPingSupportsJiangKong#
#LuoJiajinReincarnatedMoralSaint#
#JiangKongMoralKidnapping#
【HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA this is the happiest day I’ve had recently】
【Last night when Kongkong was getting smeared, I was already super confused】
【Shen Ping spoke the truth】
【Feels like Jiang Kong gets along pretty well with the show crew though. Which marketing account said earlier that everyone dislikes Jiang Kong?】
【Just a passerby, but regarding that room incident, I support Jiang Kong】
【The internet never lacks reincarnated moral busybodies, honestly】
【Kongkong keep it up! Charge!】
…
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