Joining A Dating Show With Five Exes - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: I Am Your Dog

Watching those two figures approach each other without a care in the world, seemingly intending to deepen the kiss that had been unintentionally shared moments before.

A figure who had obediently waited in the art museum as per the production team’s arrangement could no longer restrain herself and quickly rushed towards them.

Wang Shu knew very well—

Since the death of her brother, Xia Ziran had been forced to take over the family responsibilities. Having returned to the finance major she once hated the most, she would never pick up a paintbrush again in this lifetime.

She would absolutely never step inside this art museum.

However.

The person on the date with Xia Ziran was Cheng Shiyuan, the woman Wang Shu had been waiting for for a long, long time.

Knowing it was presumptuous, she still rushed headlong into the intimate atmosphere between the two.

Her naturally cold, light-colored eyes stared intently at Cheng Shiyuan. In the Mandarin she had practiced for a long time to erase her accent, she made an active invitation:

“I’m Wang Shu, an intern docent at this art museum. Would you two give me the opportunity to give you a tour?”

Cheng Shiyuan subconsciously looked at Xia Ziran, knowing she would refuse.

Yet, the person who usually disliked strangers approaching her and seemed to have a severe allergy to anything art-related remained strangely silent.

Cheng Shiyuan then looked thoughtfully at the young girl before her, with her deep-set eyes, high nose bridge, and clear foreign lineage.

However, she never refused a beautiful woman and was happy to appreciate exotic charm: “Okay, thank you for your trouble.”

Wang Shu was greatly encouraged and led them into the exhibition hall.

“This is a series of masterpieces by the painter Marc Chagall, currently on display. His works are rich in color, very romantic, innocent, and full of poetry…”

“For example, this painting, Black Gloves. The wife in the wedding dress is at the center of a precarious world, enveloped by the only light. This represents that in his eyes, love is sacred and bright; the person he loves is the light in his chaotic world.”

As she spoke, she looked directly at Cheng Shiyuan. The deep contours of her eye sockets conveyed a profound sincerity.

It made one feel as if she were expressing her own feelings through the analysis of the painting.

However, the response she received was a sneer from Xia Ziran.

“Love is sacred and bright?”

Xia Ziran crossed her arms, examining the strangely colored Black Gloves, and pointed out slowly: “The fallen black glove, the houses about to collapse, and the ominous red bird all surround the bride in the painting.”

She glanced at Wang Shu, then looked at Cheng Shiyuan with deep meaning: “Only children fantasize about love being pure and beautiful. Only those in it know that it is dangerous, twisted, and full of unknown chaos.”

Cheng Shiyuan was the one addressed, but Wang Shu seemed far more indignant.

She was only nineteen, an age where thoughts couldn’t be hidden: “If it’s a dangerous, chaotic, and twisted relationship, it shouldn’t have started in the first place.”

Everyone in the family believed Xia Ziran transferred back home years ago due to the pressure of eventually taking over the domestic family business, moving her studies back to adapt to life.

But once, while getting up in the early morning, Wang Shu overheard a phone call between Xia Ziran and a friend on the balcony:

“I just want to see what kind of person killed my brother and caused me to suddenly become the successor everyone is counting on.”

“Speaking of which, she and my brother were engaged since childhood. I heard he went out in the heavy rain because she didn’t want to get engaged at this age, arguing and insisting on canceling that ridiculous contract.”

“Shouldn’t I go meet this ‘sister-in-law’ who single-handedly changed our family’s line of succession?”

Wang Shu was still young then. Hearing those words, her heart was gripped by a chill even colder than the night wind.

She couldn’t do anything back then.

Now, sensing the continuous, unending hatred that had flowed from years ago in Xia Ziran’s eyes, Wang Shu finally couldn’t help but step forward, placing herself in front of Cheng Shiyuan.

She looked at Xia Ziran with a firm tone and a strong sense of justice: “If feelings don’t stem from pure love, they will ultimately hurt others and themselves.”

“Some things that are wrong, let them stop here, okay?”

The tall figure stood like a solid shield against wind and rain.

Cheng Shiyuan looked at the girl in front of her, who seemed to possess infinite courage. Although they were indoors, she suddenly felt as if she were bathed in the scorching sun.

She couldn’t help but take a step closer to the sun.

But this dazzling sun couldn’t disperse Xia Ziran’s gloom.

Xia Ziran’s face darkened, and she chastised expressionlessly: “Since when has it been your place to teach me what to do, Wang Shu? Is this how you talk to your elders?”

She looked at Cheng Shiyuan, who was completely hidden by Wang Shu’s figure, as if deliberately cooperating and playing hide-and-seek behind a large teddy bear. Xia Ziran paused, then deliberately reminded her:

“You’re blocking your Little Aunt Cheng’s way. Move.”

Suddenly promoted to “Auntie,” Cheng Shiyuan: “…?”

Seeing Wang Shu completely speechless under Xia Ziran’s “super seniority” oppression, though nearly 1.9 meters tall, she looked like a harmless, frustrated large young animal.

It made one want to reach out, stroke the soft fluff on her head, and comfort her.

So Cheng Shiyuan showed a kind smile and opened her mouth sweetly: “Are you and Xia Ziran related? But no matter what your seniority is, it’s counted separately with me.”

“You can call me Cheng Shiyuan, or you can call me Cheng Cheng. In any case, I’m too young to be anyone’s aunt.”

Wang Shu, who had been dejected, seemed to receive some special permission upon hearing this.

Without looking back, she perfunctorily tossed a “Little Aunt” toward Xia Ziran.

Then her eyes sparkled with dazzling light, like staring at a bone, and she called out to Cheng Shiyuan with full voice: “Cheng Cheng!”

To practice the name, she repeated it enthusiastically: “Cheng Cheng, Cheng Cheng, do you want to see other paintings? The second floor of this museum has a painting studio. Shall I take you there to play?”

Like a large dog with a frisbee, enthusiastically inviting a passerby to play.

Who could refuse a Golden Retriever?

Cheng Shiyuan showed a hint of indulgence and smiled, reaching out to Xia Ziran, unusually generous and willing to co-parent the child.

But the moment Xia Ziran grabbed her wrist, she pulled her away from Wang Shu with a completely opposite force.

Previously, Xia Ziran had only come to the show at the request of her family to check on the younger generation. But now, realizing that Wang Shu’s eyes had been glued to Cheng Shiyuan since she appeared, what was there left for her not to understand?

Although she didn’t know when Cheng Shiyuan had gotten involved with Wang Shu, this familiar pattern involving her relatives immediately triggered a primal disgust in Xia Ziran’s eyes.

Ignoring the cameras recording nearby, she curled her lips with malice:

“You always seem to like provoking people from my family.”

“Do you have a special affinity for people in my family?”

First, it was her brother, then her, and now her niece.

Cheng Shiyuan didn’t need much thought to read the overwhelming malice in her words.

The grip on her wrist tightened continuously, and the slightly long fingernails were digging into her delicate skin. Although such contact was conducive to extending her life, amidst the increasing pain—

Cheng Shiyuan suddenly realized this was only drinking poison to quench her thirst.

Xia Ziran was a poisonous medicine. Even if she prolonged her life, she wouldn’t let her live comfortably, inflicting a different kind of pain on her every moment, every second.

And the life duration, slowly climbing from the barely twenty minutes left, trapped her in place, making the luxury of abandoning this terrible option unaffordable.

But she could let this pain spread to the other person as well.

Cheng Shiyuan raised her free hand, her fingertips tracing the lines of English displayed on the wall beside her, as if suddenly interested. She slowly translated the lines from A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

“Did I ever entice you? Did I ever speak sweet words to you?”

“Did I not plainly tell you that I did not love you, and could not love you?”

Leaving others aside, her relationship with Xia Ziran was never initiated by her.

Hadn’t Xia Ziran deliberately concealed her identity, actively transferred schools to approach her, and tried everything to get her attention?

Hadn’t she even delusions of making Cheng Shiyuan, the fiancé originally meant for her brother, her own wife while simultaneously inheriting the family business?

Xia Ziran’s face was ashen. The next two lines of the script flashed in her mind: “Even so, that only makes me love you all the more. I am your dog.”

Perhaps many people would be willing to be Cheng Shiyuan’s “dog” if she beckoned, but Xia Ziran never cared for such docile, foolishly loyal creatures.

She let go of Cheng Shiyuan’s hand with a fierce jerk without hesitation.

This angry, exposed breakdown was within Cheng Shiyuan’s expectations. She even retreated two steps calmly and stood firm.

But she hadn’t anticipated that this position was right in front of the stairs. A child, running down from the second-floor painting studio with a palette, crashed directly into her—child, palette, and all!

“Cheng Cheng!”

As cold water splashed onto her face, Cheng Shiyuan heard Wang Shu’s panic-stricken cry.

The sound of the palette hitting the ground, the child’s crying, and the whispers of surrounding onlookers who had gathered for the exhibition pushed this date, which had been fraught with ill omens from the start, into the abyss of utter disaster.

But at this point, Cheng Shiyuan unexpectedly calmed down.

Ignoring the yellow and blue streaks of paint water dripping from her eyelashes, she patiently squatted down, speaking softly and smilingly comforting the child who had been helped up after the fall.

Various colors of paint drops mixed together, running down her cheek and onto her white dress.

Wang Shu looked at the scene, which should have been embarrassing, but because the person at the center of the “painting” was too beautiful, she looked like a fairy born from an oil painting scroll.

The multi-colored dyes only added a strange, seductive beauty to her appearance.

She couldn’t help herself, like a mortal who had been enchanted, wanting to move forward to see more clearly.

But someone was faster than her.

Xia Ziran, at some point, had grabbed a clean towel dampened with warm water and handed it to Cheng Shiyuan.

After assessing her current appearance, her phoenix eyes showed very clear ridicule: “You look awful.”

Cheng Shiyuan had long known this treacherous, malicious nature of Xia Ziran. She took the towel and wiped her face, once again deciding that she must conceal the life extension system from this person—

But she was pulled back: “Don’t move.”

Xia Ziran seemed not to have had enough of her embarrassing state and pressed her in place, ignoring the water still dripping from her dress.

Wang Shu’s heart was in her throat. Thinking of the veiled insults exchanged between them earlier, she knew her Little Aunt had always been fiercely proud and vengeful.

She immediately stepped forward to persuade: “I’ll borrow a new set of clothes. Cheng Cheng, why don’t you wait for me in the restroom?”

But when she rushed back, finally begging a staff member to buy a new dress, she found that the two of them were still in the same spot.

The difference was that Cheng Shiyuan still stood calmly, while Xia Ziran had lowered her perpetually arrogant head, half-kneeling by the hem of her dress, holding a… paintbrush between her fingers?

Wang Shu’s eyes widened in shock.

Xia Ziran was oblivious to everything around her, her expression focused on a clump of ordinary plants in the flowerbed outside the museum, just stretching their green leaves.

A moment later, she lowered her head again, picked up the paintbrush, and dipped it into the half-dry paint scattered on the ground.

The hem of the dress became a canvas, and the wet colors were spread further by her hand—

With just a few strokes, she captured the vibrant life of the hydrangeas outside, blossoming brilliantly in the midsummer sun.

Blue, purple, pink, and white, the clusters of hydrangeas, blooming endlessly like fire under the summer sun, were all rendered on the wide skirt.

The originally plain dress, which relied solely on Cheng Shiyuan’s beauty for appeal, now, in turn, accentuated her beauty, making it even more breathtaking.

Watching this scene, Wang Shu seemed to vaguely understand the twisted relationship between the two.

Extreme love is only fully revealed under extreme danger.

Yet, she still felt that Cheng Shiyuan should have the chance to choose again, to choose a simpler, purer path.

For example, her—another member of the Xia family, unconnected to that karmic debt spanning life and death.

So, holding the other clean dress, she insisted: “Instead of trying to decorate a dress that’s already dirty to make it more beautiful, sometimes you can consider just trying a new one?”

Cheng Shiyuan felt a warning gaze lift up from below.

It reminded her that some types of King Snakes are called “little dog snakes” for their temporarily cute form, but their ferocity when they strike and bite is many times greater than a dog’s.

She had already, by accident, provoked one little dog snake.

She genuinely didn’t want to get involved with any other member of the Xia family.

So Cheng Shiyuan smiled and politely replied to the child: “Thank you for your hard work today, showing us around the art exhibition and helping me so enthusiastically—”

Politeness is sometimes a refusal.

Wang Shu understood her meaning, and a sharp pain quickly surfaced in her light-colored eyes. She couldn’t help but try to interrupt the hurtful words: “It’s what I should do.”

She said: “I’m not just a docent at the museum, I’m also a guest on this show.”

Wang Shu struggled to find a hint of familiarity directed at her in Cheng Shiyuan’s eyes, which seemed to flirt with everyone, but she searched for a long time and still didn’t find what she wanted.

So, she put on an encouraging smile, extended her hand to Cheng Shiyuan, and formally made her first introduction for the day:

“Hello, my name is Wang Shu. I’m also a guest on the Road to Love 2 program.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Saying “pleasure,” but her eyes looked like they were raining.

Cheng Shiyuan ultimately couldn’t bear to see those glass-like eyes shed tears, so she extended her hand as well.

The moment their palms touched, a familiar yet abrupt sound echoed in her mind once again:

Detected ‘Life Extension Value Target,’ please proceed to unlock, Host.