Dating My Drama Queen Girlfriend On A Slow-Paced Variety Show - Chapter 5

Q: Does Li Yue want to go on Late Village as a guest performer?
A: “Yes.”

Li Yue didn’t hesitate for even a second. She asked straight out, “When do we go?”

Yu Bilan, who was so excited she was practically vibrating, stared into Li Yue’s bright eyes and froze for a moment. Even hitting the trending searches, standing on a viral stage, and seeing her fan count explode hadn’t made Teacher Li Yue so much as blink. And now, just the chance to be a guest on a variety show had made her stand up from her seat.

She stood up!

Could it be that Teacher Li Yue also knew that the Late Village production team had a big budget and paid well?

Though that suspicion flashed through her mind, Yu Bilan immediately landed on what felt like the most accurate explanation: Li Yue was a fan of Luo Mingzi. Luo Mingzi was a fixed guest on Late Village. Li Yue was going on Late Village. Li Yue would meet Luo Mingzi. Dream of stanning successfully fulfilled!

Oh my god! Li Yue really, truly liked Luo Mingzi! Her sapphic identity stood firm! Of course, hardly anyone disliked Luo Mingzi’s face anyway. In this age of information overload, Luo Mingzi was a woman who had earned Huaguan an entire office building through poster and photobook sales alone.

Thinking of this, Yu Bilan felt immense pressure. She took a breath, pressed her hands downward to calm herself, and said to Li Yue, “You’re on a huge upswing right now. A lot of shows have sent invitations. Late Village has invited you too, but the details still need to be negotiated. They’ve already recorded up to episode four. Even if we secure it, we don’t know which episode you’ll appear in.”

Li Yue nodded, looking at Yu Bilan the way one might look at the most trustworthy comrade in the world. She gently opened her mouth and said sincerely, in that heavenly, one in a million voice that countless people had praised, “I’ll leave it to you, Sister Lan.”

She called me Sister Lan!

Yu Bilan’s mind exploded with a loud boom. She wanted nothing more than to dash into the hallway, pace back and forth wildly, snatch the braided girl’s banana, peel it, shove it fiercely into her own mouth, then hoist the braided girl up and toss her into a trash can. Her entire being spelled out deranged in capital letters.

“Done!” Yu Bilan slapped her chest so hard it went pa pa, guaranteeing to Li Yue, “With me here, don’t worry! I’ll go negotiate right now! We’re so hot right now, we can get you on whichever episode we want!”

So this was what it felt like after becoming famous. Li Yue smiled modestly and said gently, “Then let’s aim for the latest episode.”

She truly, really, desperately couldn’t wait.

Yu Bilan rushed out.

Li Yue didn’t see her again all day. When she clocked out in the afternoon, she picked up her canvas bag with one hand and lifted a red plastic bag from her desk with the other.

The bag was full of fruit bananas, tangerines, apples, all given to her by the “owls” wandering the hallways during the day. Though the braided girl’s term for it was “filial offering.”

She really couldn’t accept any more tomorrow. She couldn’t finish it all.

Li Yue was a little troubled. Why were owls so energetic during the day? As soon as she stepped out, she ran into the braided girl holding half a watermelon.

The watermelon had a spoon stuck in it, and a scoop was missing from the sweetest part in the middle.

The braided girl was startled too, holding out the watermelon toward Li Yue. “Li…Li Shen, you…”

Li Yue didn’t even think. “No!”

She really couldn’t take any more. And she couldn’t eat any more either!

“Oh… okay then…” The braided girl looked a little disappointed, staring blankly at Li Yue.

Having long been “filially offered to” having long felt the harmonious and loving camaraderie among her coworkers, Li Yue asked, “Getting off work?”

Hehe, Li Shen is asking me if I’m getting off work. Li Shen’s voice sounds so good.

Blushing, the braided girl said dreamily, “No, I just got to the company to start work.”

Li Yue: “……”

No wonder they’d been wandering around more and more when they came to offer…uh, to show coworkerly affection with deep dark circles under their eyes. Then this watermelon…

Li Yue glanced at the big watermelon.

Breakfast?

She pressed her lips together, smiled lightly, and asked the braided girl, “Did you all sign together as a band?”

The braided girl blushed even harder and nodded vigorously.

“I was in a band in college too,” Li Yue said. “I can play guitar and bass. If there’s time, we can exchange ideas.”

Her voice grew even gentler, as if afraid of startling the owls lying in ambush.

She’d actually wanted to say this for a long time, but the owls in Huaguan’s music department were just too easily startled. When they came to offer…uh, give gifts, they tended to throw them.

Fortunately, Li Yue exercised often, did housework, and was quite agile.

As soon as her words fell, gasps sounded from the corner, followed by shrill cries of “Ho ho ho!” and “Waaah oooh!” as a crowd jostled and scattered into the distance.

The braided girl sucked in a breath too, hugging the watermelon tightly. “Li Shen, you played before too? Are you really good?”

“…I was once a member of a band,” Li Yue corrected her wording.

The watermelon in the braided girl’s arms cracked open with a loud pa-cha under the enthusiasm of a human hug. Completely unfazed, she opened her mouth wide at Li Yue. “Wow!”

Li Yue cooperated. “Oh~”

The conversation ended there, but the braided girl was still standing in front of Li Yue, staring at her. Silently, Li Yue shifted the plastic bag to her other hand and glanced at her watch.

No rush. The last bus in Nanhai City was at ten.

Just as the two were staring at each other, the sound of high heels tap.. tap.. tap came from around the corner, each step urgent and rhythmic. The braided girl’s eyes lit up. She said to Li Yue, “Li Shen, I once wrote a song called The Drumbeat of Yu Bilan’s High Heels.”

Li Yue: “…Oh!”

The real life version of Yu Bilan’s High Heels Drumbeat screeched to a stop nearby. The agent, dressed sharply in a white shirt and casual pants, rolled up her sleeves and charged forward, grabbing the braided girl by the collar.

“What are you doing, huh? What are you doing?! You….what are you doing? Blocking our Teacher Li Yue from getting off work? Our Teacher Li Yue works very hard! She doesn’t have time to babysit kids here!” Yu Bilan shook the braided girl back and forth.

The braided girl burst into tears. “I didn’t! I’m innocent!”

“Go, go, go! Scram, now! Everyone else is waiting for you!” Yu Bilan chased her off mercilessly. Hugging the watermelon and crying, the braided girl left, turning back every few steps with lingering reluctance.

Yu Bilan kept staring at her back until she saw her enter a room with a sign reading “Little Black Room.” Only then did she relax. When she looked up, she realized Li Yue had been staring at her the whole time.

“?”

What was wrong?

Yu Bilan looked alert and intense, very much in her “hawk-headed orchid” mode.

Li Yue pointed at her own mouth.

Yu Bilan reached up and touched her lips, finding red juice on her fingertip, watermelon juice.

“Pretty sweet, right?” Li Yue raised an eyebrow.

You scooped out the sweetest part of someone else’s watermelon and were still that fierce.

Yu Bilan guiltily licked the corner of her mouth, cleared her throat, and changed the subject. “That expression just now wasn’t very Li Yue of you. Don’t tell me you have two faces too? Excellent. I hope you fully display that on Late Village!”

Li Yue was surprised. She put on her usual gentle expression and smiled. “Did you get it? Which episode?”

Yu Bilan held up a hand, then burst into cheers. “Episode seven!! Hahaha, we’re about to get even more popular!!”

Voice Because of You had exploded in popularity. People in Late Village had gone viral with its first episode, but the follow-ups were fairly ordinary. Yet the gap between the popularity of Voice Because of You and the lukewarm response to People in Late Village was still enormous.

Among the four fixed guests, just Luo Mingzi’s fanbase alone could support the show’s viewership. Add in You Yang, a currently hot idol, plus two veteran powerhouse actors, any artist who got on this show was either there after being “gold-plated,” or hoping to be gold-plated.

Even though Li Yue was riding high on buzz, there was still a huge gap between her and the fixed guests or previous guest performers.

Fortunately, the People in Late Village production team wanted more than just word of mouth, they wanted positive buzz. They had invited the hottest artists, the best guests, and had an already polished, mature production team. Yet the broadcast response still fell far short of expectations.

They wanted to make a slow life variety show, not a sleeping show! And they didn’t want to rely on screenshots pretty enough to be wallpapers in a geography magazine! A slow variety show was still, at its core, a variety show!

So they kept adjusting their guest lineup, inviting all kinds of guests, tracking online buzz and that was how Li Yue got this opportunity.

“But I heard from upper management that aside from Voice Because of You blowing up, Sister Su recommended you this time!” Yu Bilan danced excitedly, twisting and hopping, and asked Li Yue, “You don’t know who Sister Su is, right? She’s Teacher Luo’s agent! See? Having someone in the court makes things easier. With a big tree at your back, you can enjoy the shade! When we meet Sister Su, you absolutely have to kowtow to her!”

Li Yue smiled too.

Sister Su…she knew her.

Knew her very well.

“Episode seven records in June and airs in July. Students will be on summer vacation by then. It’s a very rare opportunity, we have to seize it!” Yu Bilan clenched her fist.

Li Yue clenched hers too.

Seize it!

Yu Bilan’s wild “ga-ga” laughter echoed down the hallway. Perhaps tomorrow, the company’s Twelve Floors Music Department Crazy Rumor Log would gain another entry.

But neither the people involved nor the owls cared.

Back in her quiet dorm, Li Yue set the fruit on the table and opened her calendar.

The recording date for episode seven was June 15. Li Yue circled the 15th, stared at it for a while, and curved her lips into a smile.

Even one day earlier would be better.

“But I need to start preparing right away, what to bring.” She put down her diary and walked around the living room, a list forming in her mind.

“And I need to buy chickens. That place’s chickens are hard to reserve, should I buy two first and keep them on the balcony?” Li Yue turned her head, looked at her reflection in the window, and smiled at herself.

So happy.