Chapter 74

Everyone headed for the dining hall together. Without making it too obvious, Huo Cheng moved up beside Zhai Xingchen and asked, ‘You cold, Xingchen?’

Zhai Xingchen turned to look at him. ‘A little.’

Huo Cheng’s intention in squeezing in beside him was way too obvious.

‘It’s so cold. Wonder what it’s like over at the theater,’ Lin Qingning said.

‘There are more people over there, and more equipment and lights. It should be a lot better,’ Duan Yihua said.

‘Yan-ge, aren’t you cold dressed like that?’ Hu Ying suddenly asked Yan Zhi.

Yan Zhi had a turtleneck on underneath, but over it he was wearing a long wool coat.

‘It’s a little cold outside, but in here it’s fine,’ Yan Zhi said.

He was also wearing a pair of black Gloves.

‘What’ve you got in your bag?’ Hu Ying asked again.

Yan Zhi said, ‘Stuff for the Magic trick.’

The second he said that, everyone got interested. Lin Qingning smiled and said, ‘You vanished all afternoon just to get your props ready?’

‘Yan-ge’s really doing Magic.’ Hu Ying said, ‘Now I’m seriously looking forward to it.’

At that, Huo Cheng glanced at the tote bag in Yan Zhi’s hand.

He had the same bag himself. A classic men’s style, and it cost over forty grand. Honestly, luxury goods really did suit Yan Zhi. His whole body gave off that refined, high-end air. In that coat, carrying that designer bag, he looked like he’d stepped right out of a magazine spread.

Then he looked at the rest of them. Every single one had on a Down Jacket. Sure, they were all tall, and they all looked good in one, but put them next to Yan Zhi and they instantly turned into rough dudes.

Yan Zhi was polished, but not in the same way Hu Ying was polished. Yan Zhi had a lot more masculine edge to it.

He’d been feeling a little guilty toward Yan Zhi ever since Yan Zhi picked his Magic idea. Everyone else’s Performance, whether it was instruments or dancing, was eye-catching at the very least. Magic alone was just hard to make stand out.

Like him, for example. The Magic he’d prepared before was all little stuff. Playing cards, unbreakable matches, Coin-and-glass tricks, things like that. Their prep time was limited, and so were the conditions, so something jaw-dropping like making a whole person vanish was obviously impossible. But little tricks like these were not only easy to expose on camera, they could also go dead cold in a theater with a live audience watching.

Yan Zhi was his romantic rival, sure, but Huo Cheng still had a conscience. He didn’t want Yan Zhi to embarrass himself because of him.

But now, for no clear reason, he suddenly felt like Yan Zhi might smash every expectation they had. He might actually be amazing.

Just look at how calm he was.

And those black Gloves looked ridiculously good too. They matched his coat perfectly. Made him look even more Asceticism.

Huo Cheng decided he ought to buy himself a pair of Gloves too.

When it came to clothes and styling, he really still had a lot to learn.

Learning from your rival’s strengths counted as strategy too.

He wondered which kind of man Zhai Xingchen liked more: a man with his style, or one like Yan Zhi. Two completely different vibes.

Felt like a toss-up.

He felt Yan Zhi had his own weaknesses. He was too polished. And that didn’t just mean his clothes. It was his family background, his career, his celebrity status, and his serious cleanliness issues too. He was like some gorgeous, high-maintenance work of art. The kind that made people afraid to get too close.

Compared to Yan Zhi, he was way more grounded. He’d been to the Zhai Residence, and he felt like he was better suited to be the Zhai family’s son-in-law.

In every way, he was the most suitable one. He wasn’t like Wen Nu, who was basically just an ordinary person, and he wasn’t like the other six, whose family backgrounds were way too far from Zhai Xingchen’s. He was the only one who struck a balance between being well-matched and being successful enough.

Thinking that, Huo Cheng glanced at Zhai Xingchen again.

The way Huo Cheng looked at him made Zhai Xingchen’s scalp prickle.

‘If you’re cold, wear something thicker for the Performance later. Honestly, you’re handsome, so you’d look good even in just some random Down Jacket. But this one’s a little big on you. Wear the one I gave you instead. White suits you too,’ he said to Zhai Xingchen.

If Huo Cheng hadn’t brought it up, fine. But the second he did, Zhai Xingchen remembered that the Down Jacket he was wearing was still Pei Xu’s.

And in his pocket, he still had the Bugs Bunny hat Pei Xu had given him.

The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to scream. Dear god, how had he never noticed all these little signs before?

He’d thought they were all just kind, decent people treating him like a good friend. He’d even been moved, thinking these rich guys were surprisingly easygoing and took such good care of him.

But now, oh my god, they’d actually wanted to sleep with him.

Zhai Xingchen couldn’t help feeling a cold chill in his chest.

Their group reached the dining hall and grabbed trays to get food. Hu Ying called out to him, ‘Xingchen, they actually have your favorite crawfish here!’

Zhai Xingchen let out an ‘oh’ and carried his tray over.

He took some crawfish, then added a little rice. He was only twenty, the youngest out of all of them. He wasn’t especially big, but he ate the most. He exercised a lot, and he was young, so his metabolism was fast. Every meal, he was the one who ate the most. But today was special. He didn’t want to sit down too early, so he even added an extra bowl of soup on top of that.

Hu Ying stayed glued to his side and said, ‘Aren’t you getting too much food?’

‘It’s too cold. I need to eat more so I’ve got enough heat,’ Zhai Xingchen said.

Hearing that, Hu Ying added a bowl of sweet corn soup too.

Zhai Xingchen thought, Hu Ying really was close with him. Wherever he went, Hu Ying wanted to follow.

He remembered back in South City, when he’d won the right to ask someone out and had chosen to invite Hu Ying. Back then, the two of them had been honest with each other. Neither of them was any threat or source of conflict to the other, so they’d completely formed an alliance, helping each other out like besties.

But now, Yan Zhi had fallen for him.

He himself was innocent and confused as hell, but if you looked at it from Hu Ying’s angle, he was basically that scheming little homewrecker.

Dear god, what was he supposed to do now?

He had a feeling there was no way he’d finish everything he’d taken. He had no appetite at all.

Because Zhai Xingchen had moved slower this time, Huo Cheng had already sat down with his tray.

The dining tables over there were all long rectangles, with long bench seats. One table fit exactly eight people. Huo Cheng picked a seat in the middle. He’d taken crawfish too. Later, he was planning to peel them for Zhai Xingchen. If he sat in the middle, then no matter where Zhai Xingchen sat, he’d be able to reach him.

After he sat down, Yan Zhi took the seat right across from him.

Without his glasses, Yan Zhi looked even more handsome. Huo Cheng glanced at him and realized he hadn’t taken any crawfish.

Huo Cheng was surprised.

He couldn’t help looking at Yan Zhi a couple more times, and then he noticed there was a bandage wrapped around his right index finger.

‘You got hurt?’ he asked Yan Zhi.

Yan Zhi gave a little ‘mm’ and said, ‘Just a small cut.’

‘How’d it happen?’ Huo Cheng asked right away, clearly concerned.

A rival was a rival, but his concern was still real.

Duan Yihua, Wen Nu, and the others took their seats one after another. Hearing the conversation, they all looked over at Yan Zhi.

‘You got hurt?’ Lin Qingning asked in surprise. ‘How did your hand get injured?’

At that point, the left side already had Yan Zhi, Lin Qingning, and Duan Yihua sitting there. Wen Nu and Huo Cheng were on the right side. Wen Nu was all the way at the end, with one person between him and Huo Cheng.

Pei Xu sat down right next to Yan Zhi and turned to look at his hand.

‘Your hands are too precious. How’d you end up injured?’ Lin Qingning asked.

‘I accidentally cut myself this afternoon while getting the Magic ready,’ Yan Zhi said. ‘Just a surface wound. It’s not serious.’

But an esports player’s hands were important to begin with, and Yan Zhi’s even more so. His hands were so good-looking they’d trended before. Countless fans adored those hands.

Before long, Hu Ying and Zhai Xingchen came back with their trays too. At that point, the only seats left were the one across from Pei Xu and the one across from Duan Yihua.

When Hu Ying saw there was no way he could sit with Zhai Xingchen, he took the seat across from Duan Yihua on his own.

So Zhai Xingchen had no choice but to sit across from Pei Xu.

Once they sat down, they heard about Yan Zhi’s injured finger.

‘Did you go do Ice Sculpting?’ Hu Ying asked.

Yan Zhi gave a quiet ‘mm.’

‘What Ice Sculpting?’ Duan Yihua asked.

So Hu Ying told them about how he and Yan Zhi had gone to Snow World together, and how Yan Zhi had learned Ice Sculpting.

‘Your Magic has something to do with Ice Sculpting?’ Huo Cheng asked, stunned.

Holy shit. Yan Zhi really knew what he was doing.

He really had underestimated Yan Zhi’s romantic game. Compared to that, all he himself knew was stuff like card tricks.

‘Magic and Ice Sculpting?’ Even Wen Nu and the others were drawn in now.

The second those two things got linked together, the whole thing instantly turned romantic and mysterious.

‘I’ll keep that under wraps for now.’ Yan Zhi smiled. ‘Let’s preserve a little mystery. Don’t talk about this anymore just yet.’

As he said that, he pressed his hands together and smiled at everyone. So humble, so gentle, so handsome. Zhai Xingchen glanced at his finger. His right index finger was wrapped in white bandage, and there was even a faint trace of blood seeping through it.

Huo Cheng felt that with Yan Zhi trying this hard and being this good at romance, he couldn’t afford to back down either. He wasn’t good at romance, but he could at least do something practical.

So he started peeling crawfish.

Pei Xu watched Huo Cheng peel crawfish with a flat expression.

Yan Zhi watched Huo Cheng peel crawfish with the same calm expression.

Zhai Xingchen ate quietly by himself, and then suddenly noticed that Pei Xu, sitting across from him, had been watching him the whole time.

Pei Xu was watching Zhai Xingchen because he’d noticed how unusually quiet he was being.

Just sitting there, eating seriously, not saying a single word.

Under normal circumstances, in a setting like this, Hu Ying, Zhai Xingchen, and Huo Cheng were the three best at keeping the mood lively. They were also the ones who talked the most.

Zhai Xingchen nudged his crawfish off to the side. Peeling them would get his hands covered in oil, so he planned to eat them last.

Then he heard Hu Ying suddenly ask with a grin, ‘Huo-ge, you’ve peeled so many crawfish. Why aren’t you eating them?’

Along with everyone else, Zhai Xingchen turned to look at Huo Cheng. Huo Cheng stiffened for a second, then said, ‘I’ll eat them all at once later.’

‘I thought you were peeling them for one of us,’ Hu Ying said with a laugh.

Huo Cheng shot Hu Ying a look, then smiled and said in a forceful but joking tone, ‘Eat your food.’

Right then, Zhai Xingchen felt like his eyes had turned into the cameras on a Love Variety Show. He could catch every tiny expression and spot secrets he’d never noticed before.

He saw Yan Zhi suddenly smile a little when he heard that.

Hu Ying, meanwhile, reached for his sweet corn soup and took a sip. The look on his face was incredibly subtle, with something like thirty percent provocation and twenty percent hostility at the corners of his eyes and brows.

Across from him, Lin Qingning suddenly lowered his head, and a smile that looked barely restrained tugged at the corner of his mouth.

And Duan Yihua, sitting next to Lin Qingning, suddenly glanced at him too, as if he wanted to see what his reaction would be.

All those little details made the hair on Zhai Xingchen’s body stand up.

Wasn’t this exactly the kind of micro-expression-packed chaos from a Love Variety Show he’d been imagining every time they gathered around the table after entering The Red and Blue Signal?

But...

Why had Hu Ying just taken a jab at Huo Cheng?

He had no reason to jab at Huo Cheng. The one he liked was Yan Zhi. Who Huo Cheng liked shouldn’t have anything to do with him.

Zhai Xingchen felt like Sherlock Holmes had possessed him on the spot.

The more he thought about it, the more it felt like Hu Ying’s behavior had been aimed at a romantic rival. Jealous. Soft on the surface, sharp underneath. And Huo Cheng’s response had seemed to carry a trace of hostility too.

If the person Huo Cheng liked was him, and Huo Cheng and Hu Ying were love rivals...

Holy shit.

Could Hu Ying like him too?!

The second that thought popped up, Zhai Xingchen immediately looked up.

His gaze swept over everyone there. The aloof Pei Xu. The gentle Yan Zhi. The mature Duan Yihua. The overbearing Huo Cheng. The fiery Hu Ying...

For one brief moment, he felt like he was surrounded by a pack of wolves.

The thought sounded a little absurd. A little too narcissistic. But...

Could it be that the Blue Team Member liked him, and the Red Team Guests liked him too?!

Was the Ten Thousand Admirers he’d been looking for this whole time actually himself?!

Dear god!