After a D-List Celebrity and Their A-List Ex-Partner Join a Travel Reality Show - Chapter 18

The bedroom bed still held lingering warmth, and He Lan was sleeping soundly, hugging a pillow, when a crisp sound of shattering glass suddenly rang out from outside the room.

He Lan walked out barefoot. Just as he opened the door, he saw Shen Shiqin crouching by the bar counter. Water had already spread across the floor, soaking the snow socks on his feet.

Seeing that it was nothing serious, He Lan let out a sigh of relief. He walked over and asked, “What happened, Teacher Shen?”

Hearing the sudden movement behind him, Shen Shiqin turned his phone screen, which was still lit up on the counter, to black. He maintained his posture of picking up the shards for the trash can and turned his head. Seeing He Lan approach, he turned back to continue picking up the shards: “It is nothing. I dropped my water glass.”

He Lan looked down at the shards on the floor and noticed the only remaining glass on the counter. He laughed: “Well, there goes one more survival supply in the little red house.”

Confirming that everything else was intact and the person was fine, He Lan turned back to the bedroom, intending to continue the half-dream he had been interrupted from. He went into the room, lay on the bed, and closed his eyes to recall where he had been in his dream.

The feeling of having a dream interrupted halfway through is unpleasant, and he was determined to get back to it.

However, before he could meet the God of Dreams, the bedroom door was pushed open gently.

The dream was now completely destroyed. He Lan could not remember anything about it at all. He opened his eyes, stared at the ceiling for a while, and decided to have a showdown with Shen Shiqin.

But just as he looked toward the door, he saw it opened just a sliver. Shen Shiqin was standing half-outside the door, with only his head visible.

Seeing He Lan look at him, he asked, “Do you have any band-aids?”

“…”

The anger that had just been brewing dissipated at that flat, emotionless tone. He Lan got out of bed, knitted his brows, walked to the door, and said in a low voice, “Move aside.”

“Oh,” Shen Shiqin responded, holding up his finger and shifting his body to make way. As He Lan passed him, he said very softly, “Thank you.”

Hearing this seemingly sincere expression of gratitude, He Lan remained silent. With a dark face, he took the first-aid kit out of the cabinet and placed it on the coffee table. He sat down, opened the kit, and laid out the band-aids, iodine, and cotton swabs on the table.

After doing all this, he looked up, just about to say something, when the person who had been standing at the bedroom door walked over, sat on the carpet beside him, reached out, grabbed a cotton swab dipped in iodine, and pressed it onto the wound without even blinking.

He Lan winced as he watched. He subconsciously pinched his own fingertip, feeling as if his own finger was hurting in sympathy.

Sensing the gaze beside him, Shen Shiqin’s fingers paused slightly. He pursed his lips, thought for a moment, then looked up at He Lan, his tone tinged with hesitation: “Is there anything else?”

Coming back to his senses, He Lan turned his head away, no longer watching Shen Shiqin’s slightly crude method of treatment. Making conversation just for the sake of it, he asked, “Nothing. By the way, do you have a film crew livestream this afternoon?”

Shen Shiqin looked down and wrapped the band-aid on, saying, “No, the time was changed to twelve o’clock.”

He Lan checked the time; it was already nearly eleven. No wonder Shen Shiqin was awake at this hour.

Remembering the production team’s schedule, he asked, “The show’s staff arranged for the guests to livestream at one o’clock. Will you have enough time?”

“It will be a little late. You go online first, and I will join later.”

When Shen Shiqin woke up this morning and turned on his phone, he was bombarded by ninety-nine plus notifications; trending topics, work messages, and livestream scripts flooded in.

It was bad enough that he woke up sick to find himself all over the trending list, but when he opened the rankings, everything was about him and He Lan. This sight was definitely not conducive to his recovery, so he immediately selectively filtered out anything related to the trends and lay in bed replying to work messages one by one.

After finishing his messages, he only opened the trending list to check while drinking water at the bar counter. By then, the trending topic had become #HeLanClarification.

He did not quite understand what had happened, so he looked through the news organized by netizens one by one. A screenshot of a post He Lan had “liked” caught his eye. Opening it to see the words “Begging for Reconciliation” displayed right there, Shen Shiqin’s hand shook, and he lost his grip on the glass, which fell to the floor and shattered.

And then He Lan had come over.

The production team sent a message:

[Attention, teachers: The one o’clock livestream will be divided into three groups. Group one: Shen Shiqin and He Lan; Group two: Yu An and Ke Tongtong; Group three: Duan Nan, Zuo Jiaxi, and Yuan Kuanglun.]

[The content of the livestream is for the teachers to decide themselves. You may take the netizens out to explore the snowy landscape of Norway, or you can choose to stay indoors, curl up on the sofa to enjoy a moment of comfort, or make a warm lunch together.]

“What shall we do?” Shen Shiqin put away his phone and asked.

Considering Shen Shiqin’s currently rather fragile physical state, He Lan said, “Indoors. After all, Teacher Shen needs to prioritize his health.”

“If you have another mishap, your fans will fly over here and eat me alive.”

Shen Shiqin objected, “Most are polite.”

Vaguely recalling the combat effectiveness of Shen Shiqin’s fans during their breakup, He Lan gave Shen Shiqin a brief, intense stare.

Sensing the resentment in that gaze, Shen Shiqin covered his mouth and coughed, then agreed, “Fine, indoors it is.”

The guesthouse where He Lan and the others were staying was very small. Since the two livestreams were close in time, after some discussion to avoid overlapping, they finally found two locations for the broadcast.

One was in the living room, which was spacious and versatile; the other was in the bedroom, which had a very low small table where they could sit directly on the floor.

Shen Shiqin looked He Lan up and down and delivered the final verdict: “I will be in the bedroom.”

“On what grounds!” He Lan blurted out.

Shen Shiqin glanced at him: “You are big and move around too much.”

“…” He Lan gave up.

Who was big? Could you call that big? He was one meter eighty-seven, and his weight was standard. Plus, he had broad shoulders, a narrow waist, defined muscles, and long legs; he could dazzle anyone in minutes.

And “moving around too much,” where was he? Well, he was admittedly a bit more lively and energetic.

Actually, he had not originally wanted to livestream in the bedroom; he understood the reasoning; it was just that it felt annoying to be ordered around by Shen Shiqin.

After Shen Shiqin finished speaking, he got up and returned to the bedroom to prepare for his online livestream with the film crew. He Lan stayed in the living room, waiting for the one o’clock broadcast.

With nearly two hours left until the livestream, He Lan was bored, so he started a game.

As soon as he logged in, he habitually checked to see who was online, intending to pull them in to play together. Looking through his list, the only familiar ones online were Meng Yichun and Ji Wenchen.

He Lan invited the two to form a team. Just as the microphone connected, he heard Meng Yichun say, “He Lan! Your skills are as sharp as ever!”

From across the room, He Lan gave the empty air a roll of his eyes. He could tell Meng Yichun was talking about his heroic feat of battling anti-fans for three hundred rounds last night.

But he accepted the compliment gracefully: “When has your Brother He ever lost?”

Meng Yichun said while controlling his game character, “Yes, yes, my Brother He never loses anywhere except for stumbling over Brother Shen. Hey! Ji Wenchen! Why are you chasing Cheng Yaojin?”

He Lan heard a gentle voice come from the other end: “All right, I understand.”

He let out a scoff and said, “Do not you have your own microphone? Why are you two using one?”

Meng Yichun laughed twice and said, “Ji Wenchen said that if we open two mics, the audio on your end will be unclear. Since we are together anyway, we will just use one.”

Ji Wenchen: “Yeah.”

He Lan suddenly lost the interest to play. He thought to himself that while Meng Yichun was not stupid when it came to work, he was a total blockhead otherwise. Listening to the dead atmosphere between the two, he said gloomily, “Idiots.”

“?” Meng Yichun was inexplicably insulted and retorted, “You are the idiot!”

He remembered He Lan’s clarification post and asked, “By the way, what is that photo in your clarification? Horse to success?”

He Lan sighed, mysterious and unfathomable: “Sigh, none of you understand me. Come here, Assistant Director Ji, tell him what that horse represents!”

After a long pause, he heard Ji Wenchen’s slightly hesitant voice come through Meng Yichun’s microphone: “A fine steed.”

Hearing this answer, He Lan almost laughed out loud. He glanced toward the bedroom door and replied in a low voice, “Our Old Ji truly understands me.”

Meng Yichun was lost: “What? What kind of encrypted communication are you guys doing?”

He Lan: “You do not need to know. Come on, let us keep playing.”

However, with the two of them constantly discussing tactics in his ears, He Lan muted his mic and logged off after one round.

He put his phone aside and wandered to the window in boredom to look at the snowy scenery. Fine snow had begun to fall, quiet and peaceful. In the distance, a few children were building a snowman in the snow.

Watching the snowman take shape, He Lan’s brows began to furrow. Was that a snowman those kids were building? Why were the head and shoulders the same width?

Quite creative.

He Lan left the window, deciding to give up on appreciating art.

He crouched by the fireplace, feeling that the fire was a bit small, so he picked up some wood from the side to feed it. As he fed the fire, he found the feeling of being sent to his grandmother’s countryside home as a child to burn firewood.

Then, the phrase “to be successful, you must be flexible; to keep a fire burning, you must keep the airflow clear” began to spin in his head.

He Lan stood up after getting the fire roaring and shook his head to clear the phrase from his mind.

Pacing over to the bar counter, he remembered the water stains on the floor earlier and looked up at the tightly shut bedroom door.

The soundproofing in the house was not very good; he could vaguely hear Shen Shiqin’s voice occasionally drifting out.

He Lan softened his steps and walked to the bedroom door to listen. There was no sound inside now; the livestream had probably ended.

There had been quite a bit of water on the floor earlier, and Shen Shiqin had only been wearing his snow socks.

To prevent Shen Shiqin from catching another fever and affecting the upcoming filming, He Lan pondered for a few seconds, opened the door, faced the wall, and said quickly, “Your socks must have gotten wet earlier too. You should change them, so you do not feel uncomfortable and end up with a fever again.”

The tone was extremely fast. Before Shen Shiqin could react, He Lan had closed the door.

At that moment, the livestream screen in front of Shen Shiqin was silent.

In the dead silence, Shen Shiqin spoke quietly, “Where were we? Director, please continue with the process.”

The lead actors and the director connected on the screen lowered their heads in perfect unison.

A second later, the screen was instantly filled with scrolling comments.

[Can you elaborate on how the socks got wet?]

[Mom, is this the outside world? It is so exciting.]

[What are you all overthinking? I am the only one concerned about whether Baby Shen has a fever! Oh, speaking of fevers, how did he get one? By the way, speaking of fevers, what kind of socks were they?]

[Who was that person just now? Why do not I recognize them?]

The comments were becoming increasingly outrageous. To pull the topic back, Shen Shiqin chose a few he could answer and explained patiently, “Just regular snow socks.”

“How did they get wet? There was water on the floor; I did not notice and stepped in it.”

“Who was that speaking just now?” Shen Shiqin frowned slightly. “Roommate.”