Help! My Fanservice Partner is Looking at Me Differently Lately - Chapter 11

“I am just average, the third best in the world,” Gao Yuan said without any shyness. “Besides, I would not call that a compliment. I am merely stating an objective fact.”

“That is enough; let us stop there,” Chi Li said, waving his hands hurriedly. “Do not flatter me to death.”

While he could calmly accept praise for his appearance, he was not someone who became complacent because of it. More importantly, he did not want the audience to label him as someone who only had a handsome face.

Gao Yuan gave a foolish laugh. “Hehe. Let us talk about something else then. Who is your favorite singer?”

At the dining table, Chi Li and Gao Yuan slowly chatted about their shared musical interests. On the other end, the usual three-way drama was unfolding. Jiang Lele, sitting in the middle section, spotted a gap and signaled to Shen Xunye, who was sitting opposite him.

“Shen Xunye, you are an actor. Can we find your works online?”

Shen Xunye glanced at Chi Li, who was chatting enthusiastically with someone else and had completely forgotten the main mission of fanservice. He sighed inwardly and decided to find something to do to pass the boredom.

“My only work is this variety show.”

Wei Xuan, sitting to his right, exited his role as a spectator of the love triangle and immediately joined the conversation. “Why do you not go into acting? Does no one want you?”

“How could no one want him?” Jiang Lele was very dissatisfied with Wei Xuan’s interruption. He stretched out his leg, found his mark, and kicked Wei Xuan before continuing. “Coming here is just to be seen by more people and to get more and better opportunities.”

Wei Xuan nearly jumped out of his chair from the pain of that kick. Jiang Lele had not held back at all. Wei Xuan thought to himself that this person was far too sycophantic toward Shen Xunye and deserved a big dose of contempt. In that moment, he completely forgot that he was usually just as sycophantic toward Xie Weishui.

“That is indeed correct,” Shen Xunye admitted without blinking.

“Actually, I really want to try acting too,” Jiang Lele said, encouraged by the response. He immediately followed up. “When you have time, can I ask you for some acting tips?”

Shen Xunye raised an eyebrow slightly. “I should be the one asking you for tips.”

“Oh?” Jiang Lele asked with innocent confusion. “Asking us for knowledge about music?”

“Asking for acting tips,” Shen Xunye corrected.

Jiang Lele was puzzled. “But none of us are actors.”

Wei Xuan’s expression darkened instantly. He quickly kicked Jiang Lele and spoke up to stop him. “Stop asking.”

Shen Xunye’s hint was obvious enough. If he kept asking, they would only end up embarrassed.

[I did not think much of it at first, but Wei Xuan’s reminder!]

[So he is hinting that everyone in this house is an actor! Hahaha.]

[I will tell you what; the people who come out of Growth House definitely do not have bad acting skills.]

[To gain fans, it is only natural to fake it. As long as you can keep faking it, it really does not matter.]

[But it is still quite embarrassing to be called out, is it not?]

[Neither of these two new members is an easy target!]

Jiang Lele was deeply immersed in the conversation and had not received Wei Xuan’s signal to be quiet. He frowned with displeasure. “Why are you stopping me from asking?”

“Because I am about to say something unpleasant,” Shen Xunye explained kindly on behalf of Wei Xuan.

Jiang Lele froze and instinctively asked, “What unpleasant thing?”

Wei Xuan was speechless. He was still asking! Did he want to hear something unpleasant that badly? Was he a masochist?

“Well,” Shen Xunye said, suddenly feeling as though he were bullying a fool. He tilted his head toward Wei Xuan. “He knows. He will tell you later.”

“Oh,” Jiang Lele said, looking somewhat disappointed.

Soon, everyone at the table slowly put down their chopsticks. Xie Weishui noticed this and raised his voice before Shen Xunye could get up to leave. “Everyone has finished eating. Let us play some icebreaker games.”

No one at the table raised an objection, including Shen Xunye.

A satisfied smile appeared on Xie Weishui’s face. “Then we will play a simple game of Number Bomb. The person who gets bombed will need to take a drink of alcohol as punishment.”

Number Bomb is a game where the dealer chooses a number between 1 and 100 and shows it to the audience. The others take turns guessing. The dealer narrows the range based on the guesses until someone hits the exact number.

To ensure fairness, they decided to play one full round so that each of the eight people would act as the dealer once. The first dealer was Xie Weishui. He typed the number on his phone and showed it to the nearest camera.

“Well then, let us go clockwise. Fang Jin, you start guessing,” he said, looking at the person sitting opposite him with a beaming smile.

Fang Jin had no objection. “23.”

“I thought you would pick a middle number,” Xie Weishui said, blinking slowly. “The range is between 0 and 23.”

“Uh, this is looking a bit bad,” Wei Xuan said, getting nervous at the rapidly shrinking range. “Then I will pick a middle one. 11.”

Xie Weishui said, “The range is between 0 and 11.”

Shen Xunye did not think and guessed randomly, “6.”

“The range is between 0 and 6,” Xie Weishui said with a light laugh. “You are very lucky.”

Next, it was Chi Li’s turn.

“That is so cruel. You did not leave any space for those of us at the end,” Chi Li said with a fake sigh. “I will not guess from the middle then. I guess 5.”

Xie Weishui’s expression remained unchanged. “The range is between 0 and 5.”

Gao Yuan cast a grateful glance at Chi Li and then ruthlessly guessed a middle number. “3.”

Xie Weishui said, “The range is between 0 and 3.”

“My God! The first person already narrowed the range so much, yet I did not expect it to last this many rounds,” Wei Xuan exclaimed. He looked at the two people opposite him with schadenfreude. “One of you two is destined to suffer.”

Jiang Lele suddenly started laughing. “I think the one to suffer will definitely be Zhou Yang. I pick 2.”

“Your feeling is correct,” Xie Weishui said, looking quite surprised himself. “The next range is between 0 and 2.”

Zhou Yang was stunned. How was it that by the time it reached him, he did not even have a fifty-fifty chance?

Jiang Lele brought his juice to his lips to hide the slightly disdainful smile at the corner of his mouth. When playing this kind of game, Xie Weishui loved picking numbers with special meanings, such as 99 or 52 when he was doing fanservice with Fang Jin, or their birth months and dates. This number one was very likely a psychological hint to himself that he was the first and the only one.

“Alright, Junior,” Xie Weishui said, actively pouring wine for Zhou Yang. “Drink up. Do not think about cheating.”

“I was not thinking about cheating,” Zhou Yang said aggrievedly. “Senior is too biased. If you had let me guess first, the one drinking might have been Senior Fang.”

Fang Jin cooperated by curling his lips upward.

“Oh, you talk too much,” Xie Weishui said playfully. “Just drink.”

Zhou Yang flirted back and drank the wine under slight pressure. As he put down the empty glass, he suddenly locked eyes with Chi Li from across the room. In the past, Chi Li would worry that he would feel unwell if he got drunk and would never let him touch alcohol.

Is he feeling sorry for me now? Or is his heart aching because he saw my interaction with Xie Weishui?