I Won Over My Best Friend’s Idol - Chapter 10

Kong Yinmeng was clearly panicking. While changing her clothes, she accidentally hit the hang-up button. By the time Lu Fangcao called back, Yinmeng still hadn’t come up with a single excuse.

“Ahem, Fangcao… things are not at all what people are saying. I can explain.” She was genuinely terrified that Lu Fangcao might covertly assassinate her. After all, having your best friend suddenly get tangled up with the idol you’d loved for years was a lot to process.

To her surprise, there was no explosive reaction from the other end of the line. A few minutes passed in complete normalcy. “Fangcao? You still there? Make a sound, please! Don’t go doing anything reckless!”

“Screw you, you’re the one who’s going to do something reckless! I’m perfectly fine. Right now, I’m just figuring out how to leverage this for some perks through you. We’ve been sisters for years…if you and Zheng Yi actually become a thing, does that mean I get to see him all the time now?!”

This reaction caught her completely off guard. Never in a million years did she expect Lu Fangcao’s focus to be so bizarre. Wasn’t this the exact same woman who claimed every day that she wanted to bear Zheng Yi’s children? Was her own memory glitching?

Before Yinmeng could even process it, something seemed to happen on Fangcao’s end, and she hung up abruptly, leaving a utterly baffled Yinmeng alone to agonize over whether she should even step out of her room.

Judging from the photos online, the paparazzi hadn’t caught her face clearly. The problem was, she was terrified! What if people were still out there waiting to ambush her?

Ultimately, her inner coward won. Her original grand plan to explore the local food scene morphed into a staycation. She decided to lie low for today; the paparazzi couldn’t possibly stake her out for two days straight, right?

With her Weibo comment section blowing up, she started replying to fans out of sheer boredom. After knocking out over twenty replies, a fan asked if she had some good news to share, making her realize she was interacting a bit too much.

Around noon, the user who had suddenly vanished earlier that morning proactively messaged her again.

[Li]: Have you eaten lunch yet?

[Mengmeng]: Nope, still figuring out what to have. I’m a free agent so I can eat whenever, unlike you, Mr. Busy Bee.

[Li]: …

Zheng Yi looked back at their chat history. Earlier, because Xiao Huang had suddenly burst in, he hadn’t been able to continue the conversation and had been occupied ever since.

[Li]: My work is indeed a bit hectic. Sorry about that, vanishing without letting you know. I’ll definitely make sure to give you a heads-up next time.

[Mengmeng]: I’m really curious who you actually are. Do you know me?

Since he managed to add her through her phone number, he had to know her. The problem was, she didn’t know him and that felt a bit unsettling.

Lying on the sofa, Zheng Yi let out a soft chuckle. Xiao Huang, who was bringing him a cup of coffee, looked incredibly gloomy. He was ninety percent sure that Brother Zheng had found someone he fancied.

Remembering his manager’s strict instructions to keep a close eye on Zheng Yi’s movements, Xiao Huang felt a massive surge of responsibility. He absolutely could not let some wicked woman from the outside world ruin Brother Zheng.

“Xiao Huang, I don’t have any schedules tonight, right?” He recalled that after the endorsement shoot this afternoon, his schedule was clear.

Sensing imminent disaster, Xiao Huang immediately tried to cook up an excuse to keep him close so he wouldn’t wander off. If Zheng Yi got snapped by the paparazzi again, none of them would have a good time.

“Brother Zheng, you’ve been working hard all day. You should really rest tonight! Let me book you a masseuse to help loosen up your muscles!”

Zheng Yi glanced at him sideways with an unbothered look, casually typing out a reply on WeChat.

[Li]: You’ll find out when the time comes. For now, just think of me as one of your fans.

Yinmeng scoffed at her screen. “For now?” Talk about putting on airs for a fan; this guy acted more like the celebrity than the actual celebrity.

This time, she was the one who ignored him. After waiting half an hour without a response, Zheng Yi finished his coffee and headed to makeup. His afternoon shoot was about to begin.

Doing absolutely nothing in a hotel room all afternoon was an entirely alien concept to Kong Yinmeng. Was she really going to write a travel blog about spending half a month inside a hotel room when she got back?

She rolled over on the bed once more and finally resolved to go out for dinner. She couldn’t just waste her youth like this.

But right as her feet were about to touch the floor, a knock echoed at the door. Startled, she flinched and crept toward the entrance with her heart in her throat. Peering through the peephole, she could only see the top of a cap; the person outside was looking down.

As Yinmeng hesitated over whether to open it, the person outside grew impatient and knocked again.

“Who is it?” She had just arrived today and didn’t know a soul. Why would someone be knocking?

Helpless, Zheng Yi looked up. The moment his face appeared in the peephole, Yinmeng threw the door open, grabbed him, and hauled him inside with lightning speed.

“What is wrong with you?! Didn’t you see the trending topics this morning? And here you are again! If the paparazzi catch us this time, I am literally going to die!”

As she spoke, her nose twitched. Her eyes darted to the bag in his hand; a distinct aroma was wafting from it. “Stinky tofu, durian, and… fish?”

Zheng Yi arched an eyebrow. He hadn’t expected her nose to be quite that sharp. He had bought four items, and she had nailed three…though, admittedly, those three had such strong scents that it would be hard for anyone to miss them.

Walking past her, he began unpacking the items from the food bag one by one. The remaining item was a fresh fruit box.

“You bought all of these yourself?” Yinmeng asked, slightly incredulous. Given his level of fame, if he had gone to multiple places to buy food, he would have been swarmed by fans long before he could ever make it to her hotel.

“I had Xiao Huang buy them.” Zheng Yi recalled the look on Xiao Huang’s face when he took the food and hailed a cab…it was a profoundly tragic expression, looking exactly like a loyal subordinate watching a unfaithful man sneak out to see another woman.

Yinmeng patted her stomach, realizing she was indeed famished. Because she had eaten a late breakfast and originally planned to stay in, she had skipped lunch entirely.

Just as she reached for the stinky tofu, Zheng Yi’s hand intercepted hers. “Read this first. It won’t be too late to eat after you’ve looked it up.”

A variety show proposal booklet was thrust into her hands. Confused, she took it and skimmed through the pages. To be honest, she had never dealt with anything like this before.

By the time she finished reading, she was thoroughly perplexed. It was one of those situations where she recognized every individual word, but put together, they made absolutely no sense to her.

“What is this supposed to mean? Why are you showing me this?” An ominous feeling crept into her heart. She felt like things were veering into a direction she could neither predict nor control.

Logically speaking, she and Zheng Yi shouldn’t even have any overlapping circles. One was a free-spirited travel blogger, the other was a wildly popular singer who was busy around the clock. They were from two completely different worlds!

“I’m planning to accept this variety show, and I want to invite you to be my partner. We’ll be filming ten episodes one episode per day, so ten days in total. Even if there are unexpected delays, it will only take up twelve days at most. You should have time, right?”

Yinmeng smacked her own cheeks. It didn’t hurt. Was she dreaming? Had she actually never woken up since this morning and been stuck in a dream this entire time?

“Wake up, you’re not dreaming. It’s real. The only non-celebrity friend I could think of inviting is you.” Zheng Yi reached out and gently pinched her cheek. Considering their actual history, the gesture felt far too intimate.

Yinmeng took two steps back, instantly on guard. “Be honest with me what is your actual angle here? I never said we were friends. We’ve literally met three times.”

“To be precise, counting tonight, it’s four times. I just want to confirm something. Once you finish this show with me, I’ll probably be able to figure out my own feelings.”

Yinmeng’s heart skipped a beat. This was definitely not simple!

“I decline. Big bro, with your status, there are countless beautiful women practically throwing themselves at you. There’s really no need to waste your energy on an unambitious, ordinary person like me.”

Zheng Yi took two steps forward, forcing her to retreat another two steps. Perhaps it was fate, but right at that exact moment, Lu Fangcao’s FaceTime request started ringing. Yinmeng reached down, intending to reject it immediately.

Instead, Zheng Yi snatched the phone away. “This is the friend you mentioned who likes me, right? I recall the two of you are quite close…”

Before Yinmeng could grab it back, he tapped the accept button. The entire scene froze. Not just on their end even Lu Fangcao fell into an eerie, stunned silence the moment Zheng Yi’s face filled her screen.

“Excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom.” A second later, the sound of Fangcao sprinting echoed through the speaker, and when the camera stabilized, the background was indeed a bathroom stall.

“Ahhh!!! Are you with Mengmeng right now?! What is your relationship? Are you guys dating?! Are the trending rumors actually true?!”

She fired off a barrage of questions. Zheng Yi paused to formulate his words, glancing over at Yinmeng, who had already thrown herself onto the bed, looking utterly defeated.

“No, she and I are just friends right now. I wanted to invite her to join a travel-themed variety show with me since that’s her specialty, but she doesn’t really like being on camera, so she turned me down.”

How could a die-hard fan bear to see her beloved idol looking so disappointed? Fangcao instantly demanded that Zheng Yi hand the phone over to Yinmeng.

“Mengmeng! Just help Brother Zheng out this once! He has literally zero sense of direction. If he acts completely clueless on the show, he’s going to lose fans!”

Zheng Yi: “…” Well, there’s no need to be quite that brutally honest.

“Ha! So you know he’s clueless, yet you still like him? And if I remember correctly, he’s younger than both of us. ‘Brother Zheng’? How do you even say that with a straight face!”

Yinmeng tried one last desperate stand. She had wanted to cut off the call precisely because she knew Fangcao would get involved. A woman who so blatantly chose a handsome face over a faithful friend would never take her side.

“I don’t care! Either way, you have to help him! If you don’t… I’m never buying you food again! I’ll… I’ll literally get down on my knees right here, okay?!”

Seeing Yinmeng remain entirely unmoved, Fangcao resorted to shameless antics, making a show of looking for a spot to kneel on the bathroom floor.

“Alright, alright, I yield! Three hot pot meals, no, five buffet sessions. You better deliver the moment I get back, or you’ll see what happens! Now go talk to your idol; don’t let your betrayal of me go to waste.”

Tossing the phone back to Zheng Yi, she dove under the covers. But then a thought struck her…something wasn’t right. There was a table full of delicious food waiting. Why was she hiding under the blankets?

So, while Zheng Yi’s voice gently reassured her fanatical friend in the background, she sneaked over to the table and happily dug into the stinky tofu.

The fish turned out to be grilled fish with just the right amount of broth. The meat was incredibly tender and fresh; the chef clearly knew what they were doing. She ate with immense satisfaction, resolving to ask him later where Xiao Huang bought it so she could include it in her next travel guide.

“Alright, here’s your phone back. So… does this mean you’re officially agreeing to be my partner?”

“Brother Zheng, playing innocent like that is a bit of a low blow, you know? You haven’t eaten either, right? Sit down and eat before it gets cold.”

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