Joining A Dating Show With Five Exes - Chapter 44

Chapter 44: Great Love

Shen Lingxi’s high fever lasted the entire night.

Early the next morning, because the fever was so aggressive, the production team, concerned for her health and safety, had to arrange for her staff to come and take her for treatment immediately.

At that moment, Cheng Shiyuan was wearing a beautiful floral wreath, made from ordinary wildflowers that Xie Zhiqing had picked during her morning run.

She sat on a rock, watching Shen Lingxi’s secretary and assistants anxiously crowd around the patient emerging from the tent.

Across the bustling crowd, she vaguely saw Shen Lingxi’s eyelids flutter. After a moment, she woke from her sleep with a startled look and gazed toward Cheng Shiyuan from a distance.

She seemed to struggle, trying to reach out to her.

A little while later, Shen Lingxi’s secretary walked over.

“…Miss Cheng.”

The secretary, slightly unpracticed, changed the word “Madam” on her lips to “Miss Cheng,” maintaining a consistently humble posture and speaking in a charmingly pleading manner:

“CEO Shen is currently in a delicate, sick period and needs constant care.”

“As you know, there are few elders left in the Shen family, and her relationship with them isn’t great… So, could you possibly—”

Cheng Shiyuan felt the nervous glances of the others nearby.

She even saw Xia Ziran preparing to interject and refute the secretary’s words for her.

She simply thought for a moment: “Mmm.”

She agreed.

As she stood up, she remembered to wave goodbye to the others and said lightly that she would return once Shen Lingxi’s fever broke and she was out of danger.

Wang Shu instinctively took two steps toward her.

She softly called out: “Cheng Cheng.”

But she had nothing more to say.

Or, perhaps, those words were impossible for her to voice.

Cheng Shiyuan smiled sweetly in response to her call, tossed her a cheeky air kiss, and then proactively left with the helicopter, like a heartless cad who pulls away after trifling with people’s emotions.

That evening.

The remaining guests also slowly moved from the deep mountains to a secluded small town.

Without Cheng Shiyuan as the core link, they reverted to the cold indifference of strangers.

Chen Chuxing holed up in her room, discussing her future schedule with her manager.

Xie Zhiqing, following her typical work schedule, found the spot with the best signal, holding her laptop to video call a business partner.

Even Xia Ziran and Wang Shu, who were supposed to have the closest relationship on the show due to their blood ties, spoke to each other rarely, as if they had grown apart.

Even when the production team forced them to cooperate to exchange for food.

They maintained a passive, “whatever works” attitude.

These CEOs and celebrities preferred to secretly pay someone to buy instant noodles rather than spend time with their rivals.

Early the next morning.

While running, Xie Zhiqing suddenly noticed a cameraman added by her side. Thinking of something, a slight smile appeared on her usually cool face.

She ran along the route she had scouted yesterday—

Until a vibrant splash of color appeared beneath a grove of trees lining the rice fields.

This spot was intentionally cultivated by local villagers as a tourist attraction, with flowers planted to attract visitors. They had even carved wooden tables and chairs suitable for rest.

As the flowers faded, scattered petals were beaten into the mud by yesterday’s relentless rain.

Dreamy pink and purple blended with the yellow dirt, making the figure asleep on the table between the branches and the mud look like an unconscious, shapeshifting spirit.

She stopped again.

She no longer felt the unpleasantness and suspicion she used to feel when seeing this figure in the garden during her morning runs, wondering if Cheng Shiyuan was setting some kind of trap for her.

Because.

She realized only now that being willing to set a trap for her was also a sign of profound care, wasn’t it?

As long as this person was still willing to appear in Xie Zhiqing’s life, it was already a surprise and a blessing.

Thinking this, Xie Zhiqing stood there for a long time, watching. As the sun grew brighter, the daylight tried to break through the blockade of the branches to kiss that beautiful face.

Only then did she slowly walk over.

She raised her hand, her palm perfectly shielding Cheng Shiyuan’s profile.

From this angle, Xie Zhiqing once again reflected that her face was genuinely small; it always felt like her palm could completely cover the beautiful face.

After shielding the sun for an unknown amount of time, she finally saw the woman’s eyelashes tremble slightly.

“…Why are you here?”

Cheng Shiyuan rubbed her eyes, pulled her hand down, and feeling the thin layer of sweat on her arm—unsure how long she had been standing there—pulled her to sit beside her.

Xie Zhiqing sat down beside her, offering almost no resistance.

“I should be asking you that. Why did you fall asleep by the roadside?”

The words of admonishment were right on the tip of her tongue—taking advantage of the filming and the presence of staff to be so reckless; if you form a bad habit and do this normally, how dangerous will that be?

But Xie Zhiqing forcefully swallowed them, as if she couldn’t help herself, and sighed.

Cheng Shiyuan, still sleepy, leaned into her bonelessly. She initially rested her head on Xie Zhiqing’s shoulder, but then unknowingly slid down, eventually settling like a liquid kitten on her lap.

“I just rushed back from the hospital, you know. It was cold there, and I couldn’t sleep well.”

Her mumbled voice was full of intimacy, like an instinctive, playful demand.

“I was dozing off in the car, and when I got here, I was captivated by the scenery. They happened to mention that you might choose this road for your morning run, so I took a gamble.”

“See? How lucky! I managed to wait for you again, didn’t I?”

Despite her lazy demeanor, barely bothering to open her lips wider to speak, her eyebrows fluttered with self-satisfaction.

Like a clever hunter who successfully used the “waiting by the tree to catch a rabbit” tactic.

Except this time.

The rabbit was Xie Zhiqing.

She looked down at the person in her arms. After a long pause, she gently raised her palm, placed it on her hair, and lightly stroked it.

Xie Zhiqing heard her own voice, filled with the same lightness and joy:

“Yes, you managed to wait for me again.”

Next time, the time after that, and countless times in the future, I want to be waited for by you.

Cheng Shiyuan seemed to sense the surging emotions in her simple actions, so she lifted her eyes and suddenly asked:

“Why don’t you ask me?”

Xie Zhiqing’s fingers threaded through her long hair, noticing that it felt smoother and more resilient than it had recently.

This was a sign of ample blood and good health.

She lowered her head and saw many tiny, soft, new baby hairs growing at Cheng Shiyuan’s temples and hairline.

She smiled, as if finally confirming something, and replied contentedly: “What do you want me to ask?”

Ask about the inexplicably refused blood test in the hospital? Ask why, after going to such lengths to win her back by joining a reality show, she ended up messily provoking one ex after another?

Ask why Shen Lingxi’s final bomb on the island turned into fireworks.

Or.

More recently, ask why she went to accompany Shen Lingxi yesterday, only to return today?

These many questions used to trouble Xie Zhiqing for a long time and would make her, the one who always felt hurt, cautiously retreat step by step.

But this time, she remained rooted in place, surrounded by so many mysteries.

She hadn’t retreated again; she always stood where Cheng Shiyuan could find her with a single glance back.

Cheng Shiyuan shifted her position in her lap, looking up at her chin, deliberately stirring trouble:

“Ask me who I’ll choose in the end—”

“Don’t you want to ask?”

She was as always, capable of driving someone into utter chaos with a single sentence.

Xie Zhiqing thought she was prepared, but when she actually heard Cheng Shiyuan pose the question, her heart inevitably skipped a beat.

She could only reply with a sigh of surrender: “If you’ve already made your choice, no one can stop you.”

Just like when she decided to marry Chen Chuxing before. A simple phone call, a self-initiated question, was enough to drive her mad for a whole night and leave her sleepless for days.

The next time she saw Chen Chuxing, Xie Zhiqing was determined to prevent that nightmare from happening at all costs.

But now, after everything, she had changed her mind again.

No matter how hard she tried, if Cheng Shiyuan was dead set on marrying Chen Chuxing, what could she do?

Become the second Shen Lingxi?

Find a scenic spot, lock her up, and forbid her from ever leaving for the rest of her life.

And then what?

She could lock up the body, but not the heart.

And there would always be people, rushing one after another, willing to fight her for Cheng Shiyuan’s freedom.

After all, she and people like Xia Ziran had been similarly confused and obsessed.

—At that point, the person standing on the cliff and falling into the sea alone would probably be her, wouldn’t it?

From the moment she rescued her, Xie Zhiqing had not stopped thinking for a moment, but perhaps she wasn’t smart enough. She could never figure out the best answer.

Seeing Cheng Shiyuan now, she suddenly understood.

Perhaps there would never be a single best answer between them.

However, Xie Zhiqing knew what kind of love she could offer.

“You can choose someone, or you can choose no one,” she heard herself answer clearly, almost solemnly, like a vow: “Just follow your heart and keep moving forward.”

“Don’t look back, and don’t worry about people like Shen Lingxi getting in your way.”

“As long as I’m around, you will always be free.”

This was what she, as her childhood friend and former lover, should give her the most, right?

Xie Zhiqing thought this.

However, Cheng Shiyuan, who had only been teasing her on a whim and didn’t even know what answer she wanted to hear, suddenly raised her arm and shielded her eyes.

How strange. The one who always cried between them was Xie Zhiqing…

But why? The one with moist eyes now was Cheng Shiyuan.

She seemed to finally understand why she was always so infatuated with this cool, bright moon. Because she was forever drawn to such pristine moonlight.

Bright moonlight that would never burn her.

She turned, burying her head in Xie Zhiqing’s waist, masking her emotional slip with an intimate complaint:

“What kind of sun shielding is that? It’s scorching me.”

Xie Zhiqing, who was usually so tolerant and doting, played a trick on her this time, bending down and tracing her cheek, mimicking how she used to tease her when they were kids:

“Are you crying? Are you really crying? Let me see?”

“Ah, ah, ah, I hate you, you bad Zhizhi, you cheapskate.”

A super, super petty cheapskate.

Xie Zhiqing laughed happily at her angry and embarrassed voice: “Am I bad? I haven’t even recorded it with my phone yet. How am I bad?”

Cheng Shiyuan glared at her fiercely with her still slightly moist eyes.

“I just heard that your cooperative mission yesterday was poorly executed—”

“The production team decided to punish you by making you buy breakfast for everyone today. I’ve decided not to go with you now.”

Xie Zhiqing suddenly remembered this matter and quickly changed her tune:

“I was wrong.”

Little CEO Xie, always independent and tenacious, wiped the wetness from her beloved’s lashes, softening her voice to plead:

“Please come with me. Without you, they’ll go hungry.”

She even actively squatted beside the round wooden stool, turning to look at Cheng Shiyuan: “I’ll carry you there, okay?”

When Cheng Shiyuan jumped onto her back, sulking, she found that Xie Zhiqing was as steady as ever.

Even walking on uneven roads, she didn’t let the person on her back feel any jolting.

Cheng Shiyuan almost fell asleep again later, as the extreme sense of security brought about extreme relaxation.

She always felt vaguely that this road was infinitely long, as if they could walk all the way to the end of her life.

The two of them strolled leisurely through the town market like ordinary villagers, each ordering a bowl of rice noodles in the open air.

Cheng Shiyuan got to taste two different flavors!

But she was extremely greedy. After bringing back fresh breakfast for the others, she didn’t forget to urge them:

“Hurry up, hurry up. I haven’t even tasted the ones I bought for you. Let me try.”

Wang Shu was the fastest to wash up. Hearing her words, she opened her chopsticks and obediently held out her portion to Cheng Shiyuan with an air more reverent than an offering.

As Cheng Shiyuan picked up a mouthful of the spicy rice noodles, she noticed that the color of Wang Shu’s eyes, across the rising steam, seemed a little lighter than before.

Like a sun whose energy had been drained and was about to dim.

It gave her an inexplicable feeling of having severely bullied a child—

After all, if she hadn’t, by chance, discovered that Wang Shu could also extend her life, Cheng Shiyuan would have pushed her far away the moment they met at the museum.

That mouthful of rice noodles, guided by an unseen force, ended up at Wang Shu’s lips.

The red oil stained her already full, sensual lips, like a fiery layer of lip gloss.

Cheng Shiyuan coaxed her: “Open up.”

Wang Shu instinctively obeyed her words, eating the rice noodles without tasting them. After a long while, fine beads of sweat broke out on her forehead.

So spicy!

Her light eyes widened in disbelief. She stared blankly at Cheng Shiyuan, unable to determine if the other woman had intentionally ordered this extra-spicy rice noodles to tease her, or if she simply couldn’t appreciate the deliciousness.

Seeing her stunned by the spice, Cheng Shiyuan couldn’t help but laugh.

The typically tall young woman seemed aware of the intimidation her height presented, so she was always squatting or sitting when near Cheng Shiyuan. It was the same now; Cheng Shiyuan was always the one looking down.

Leaning down to rub the child’s cheek, she was satisfied to see that Wang Shu’s beautiful face was fully healed.

There were none of the terrifying bruises and contusions that had remained before.

She couldn’t help but murmur: “Why are you always so easy to bully?”

Hearing her words, a small smile appeared on Wang Shu’s face.

As if she had finally found her unique advantage.

“If Cheng Cheng likes it, you can keep bullying me.”

Wang Shu didn’t have the many pages of shared history that others had etched into Cheng Shiyuan’s life.

Initially, she thought she gained her beloved’s favor because she was hardworking, but during her time on the dating show, she gradually realized.

It seemed she was just a little lucky.

And that bit of luck, which supported her in competing with her aunt and the other superior rivals who appeared in Cheng Shiyuan’s life, seemed to be fading now.

Wang Shu didn’t even know how to hold onto it.

She could only be perpetually within reach of Cheng Shiyuan whenever she smiled and approached, even if it was just to pass the time when she was bored, or simply because she enjoyed the feeling of kneading her—

Anything was fine.

Wang Shu thought that if, at some point in Cheng Shiyuan’s future life, she felt unaccustomed to her absence, or suddenly remembered her at a certain moment.

That would already be a success.

Cheng Shiyuan had never dated a former partner who was so humble and low-status from the start.

In the past, she always liked to look up, conquering powerful people in various fields. It wasn’t until she met Wang Shu that she realized she had absolutely no resistance to young, obedient, and humble puppies.

Too many people had left significant marks on her life before, one chapter after another.

But she never knew that someone cherished her for many years simply because of a small, utterly insincere act of kindness she had used to flirt and pass the time when she was bored.

They even seemed to have transformed themselves into a person wholly worthy of her affection.

Wang Shu came to her with her heart already full of love from the very beginning.

Because she had no bad past experiences, she held no hatred, no resentment, no unwillingness, and no bad memories of failure toward Cheng Shiyuan.

The love she offered Cheng Shiyuan was so pure.

Clean, clear, and lucid.

Perhaps this was also why, even though Cheng Shiyuan clearly knew the small puppy’s occasional true nature was not pure, she still happily fell for her tricks every time.

The action of kneading the model’s face suddenly stopped.

Cheng Shiyuan, thinking of something, spoke abruptly.

“You always want me to be happy; you’ll satisfy whatever unreasonable request I make.”

It was always like this.

When everyone else was vying to be the only one, only Wang Shu first told her that she was fine with being her lover or even her hidden mistress.

Cheng Shiyuan had heard too many exchanges and demands in her life, but she had never encountered love like Wang Shu’s.

She held the other woman’s cheeks, ensuring Wang Shu was looking directly at her, able to see the deepest truth in those light-colored eyes.

Then she slowly asked:

“So what do you want? You never seem to have told me.”

“I want to know what you desire most.”

The young person who constantly expressed love to her, who never stopped loving her for a moment, what could she possibly want in return at this moment?

Cheng Shiyuan adopted a gentle, coaxing demeanor; she knew no one could resist her now.

Wang Shu’s lips moved faintly, and the answer was on the verge of spilling out.

“A chance.”

Finally, she spoke the word softly.

Meeting Cheng Shiyuan’s gaze without reservation, as if to prove her sincerity at that moment, she spoke clearly, word by word:

“I just want one fair chance, like everyone else.”

If you don’t plan to choose anyone, Cheng Cheng, I’ll accept my fate.

But if someone else receives your love, can I please have a chance to prove myself too?

This was what Wang Shu felt most unbalanced about, most helpless about, and what she desired most.

She knew she was looking at something so dazzling, and just the thought that the other participants on the show had all briefly, completely possessed such beauty.

Wang Shu still couldn’t control the searing jealousy that bubbled up inside her.

How could they…

Gain it so easily and then lose it so carelessly?

However, Wang Shu quickly realized that her expression must look ugly because jealousy always makes a face appear twisted and dark.

She didn’t want Cheng Shiyuan to see this unattractive side of her.

So she struggled, trying to turn her head: “I-it doesn’t matter if I don’t get one… The rice noodles Cheng Cheng brought me seem to be getting cold. I should eat my breakfast first.”

But the hand holding her head didn’t loosen its grip—

Perhaps because Wang Shu could never bring herself to refuse anything Cheng Shiyuan offered, she always flailed about ineffectively, failing to hide the thing she most wanted to conceal.

“Don’t eat the spicy one if you don’t want to,” Cheng Shiyuan casually replied. “I bought other non-spicy ones. Try a new one.”

She had originally bought extra portions because she was unsure what everyone wanted for breakfast today.

It seemed like a very smart decision now.

Because Wang Shu, who could no longer find an excuse to hide, finally allowed her to see a side of her that was different from her usual demeanor.

Yet Cheng Shiyuan smiled.

She lightly leaned in and kissed Wang Shu’s cheek, just as she had done in the hospital on Pearl Islands, kissing this young person who was always self-conscious and wanted to shrink away because of the injury on her face.

“That’s right.”

She praised softly: “I like honesty and authenticity.”

How many things in the world are purely beautiful and unchanging?

Even love is not immune.

The reason pure affection was so rare, so difficult for her to collect—requiring her freedom and the unwavering devotion of those who loved her to finally trickle together—

Was because the human heart is always so complex.

No one can consistently, without any agenda, dedicate their affection.

Jealous love, habitual love, guilty love—these are the norm…

“I’m very happy to hear your honest thoughts.”

Cheng Shiyuan responded with equal sincerity: “Although I can’t give you an answer right away.”

However—

To receive such fierce, genuine love from Wang Shu.

Cheng Shiyuan thought that she might never forget the moment she was illuminated so fully by this little sun for the rest of her life.

And Wang Shu, hearing her words, was as always, the one who always responded to her and was the last to speak.

“Cheng Cheng deserves all the honesty and all the best things in the world.”

Like the sunflower that had already sprouted and grown in the little villa cabin.

Wang Shu, this small sunflower seed, was only able to bloom into such a dazzling golden color because she had received water and dew.