Their Trump Card

They had dinner up in the mountains, beside a reservoir.

Some people got so absorbed in fishing that they didn't leave even after dark. Others were carrying lamps, ready to fish through the night.

Tang Zhi Chu and Zhou Yun had originally sat outside the restaurant. The view was great: they could see people fishing from inside, and the neon lights of the mountain city in the distance.

But less than three minutes after sitting down, they went inside. There were too many mosquitoes.

Tang Zhi Chu had noticed several people looking eager to approach Zhou Yun. They were probably hoping to strike up a conversation, but held back because he was there as her male companion.

Someone even offered him a cigarette, but Tang Zhi Chu politely declined.

"You must be good at singing, right?" Zhou Yun suddenly asked.

She was still dwelling on Tang Zhi Chu's DY followers. He had over nine hundred thousand, so he must have something that attracted them. If it was his singing, just how good was he?

Tang Zhi Chu shook his head. "I can't sing. I only know a little."

"Then sing something."

"I really can't."

"Stingy."

The food arrived: one fish prepared three ways—fish head and tofu soup, boiled fish slices, and fried fish slices—along with a plate of stir-fried wild greens.

The two of them chatted a little about their personal lives. It seemed like ordinary conversation, but also felt like they were sounding each other out.

Zhou Yun had been in e-commerce since college. She'd started with clothing, then opened a gym after saving up some money.

Tang Zhi Chu said he'd taken over the family business after graduating from college—in other words, that shop.

To Zhou Yun, that was downright insincere.

Tang Zhi Chu smiled, then suddenly asked, "Can you dance?"

Zhou Yun leaned back in her chair. She'd finished eating, and shook her head. "I can't either."

"You have at least five dance videos on your DY account."

Zhou Yun stood up, rested her elbows on the table, and cupped her face in her hands as she looked at Tang Zhi Chu. "Why are you asking?"

"Why don't you try dancing more?"

A smile appeared on Zhou Yun's face. Was Tang Zhi Chu saying she looked good dancing? She knew he was bringing up her DY account.

"I know what you're getting at. X is actually my third DY account. The first one was just for singing. I got 130,000 followers, then stopped growing. I tried covering old songs people used to love, and I tried finding new songs to sing, but I couldn't break through. And not only that—the copyright holder for one of the old songs I covered tracked me down. That account ended up getting banned."

"After that, I started a dance account. It wasn't just me; I brought in some of the girls from my gym, too. We got to around 200,000 followers, but then I ran out of motivation. The choreography was just too hard. We had to put out a new dance every three days, and it took so much effort. The results were only so-so. The comments were all about who looked better. And then I made the account you're seeing now."

"I didn't put much effort into this account. I just posted whatever I felt like, without any particular niche. It ended up being my best account, with over 200,000 followers and a decent number of likes and comments."

Tang Zhi Chu nodded, thinking that Zhou Yun had apparently been aiming to become an influencer all along.

He'd thought she wanted to get into show business. She'd gone to so much trouble.

Tang Zhi Chu didn't underestimate her 200,000 followers. DY had a far smaller user base in this world than it had in his previous life, because there'd been no pandemic to drive its growth.

Getting 200,000 followers here was about as impressive as getting a million in his previous life.

Why did he have 900,000? Other factors were at play: DY had boosted his traffic, and music videos were the platform's mainstay.

"You can choreograph?" Tang Zhi Chu asked again.

Zhou Yun nodded slightly. "Simple dances, sure. See how sincere I am? You ask, I answer."

Tang Zhi Chu ignored her jab and continued, "If I give you a simple BGM, can you choreograph a short dance to it?"

Zhou Yun frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Think of it as a small job. If you don't have time, you can ask someone else from your gym to give it a try."

"Will you pay?"

"I can."

"Fine. Send it to me."

Tang Zhi Chu opened his phone and tapped into a music-production app. It held the things he'd been working on lately.

He found the file he wanted, exported it, and sent it to Zhou Yun.

Zhou Yun opened the file in her player and held it to her ear.

It was a roughly twenty-second clip, driven by bass and drums, with a strong beat.

She tried to work out the rhythm, then said, "Not bad. It won't be hard."

"Okay. Take it home and work on it."

"So you're good at arranging and music production?"

Zhou Yun still wasn't ready to give up. Given that Tang Zhi Chu could tune by ear, if his singing was just average, then was he some kind of music-production genius?

Zhou Yun knew a little about music production. As far as she knew, there wasn't a producer named Tang Zhi Chu, unless he was one of the unknown ones.

Tang Zhi Chu stood up, stretched, and sidestepped the question.

"How are we getting back? We're not walking down the mountain, are we?"

Zhou Yun tilted her head at him, thinking he was so stingy, then stood up to pay the bill.

Tang Zhi Chu didn't insist on paying. Zhou Yun had arranged their date, so it was only right that she paid.

Even now, Tang Zhi Chu's legs were still sore.

Why had he said he couldn't sing?

Tang Zhi Chu just felt it was like playing cards. What cards you held and when to play them—there was an art to it.

He thought Zhou Yun should understand that. She hadn't let on that she could sing during the first couple of days, and that was exactly the point: you played your cards at the right moment.

If they hadn't gone on this date, Tang Zhi Chu wouldn't have known that Zhou Yun's hand included dancing, either.

They rode a sightseeing shuttle down the mountain, weaving through the woods.

Insects chirped and frogs croaked. Tree after tree slipped behind them, all looking much the same in the darkness.

The wind rushed through the woods with a steady whoosh.

Tang Zhi Chu suddenly shivered. It was a little cold.

"Here."

Zhou Yun held her small bag and pulled out a jacket the same color as Tang Zhi Chu's tracksuit.

Tang Zhi Chu took it. "You wait until I'm freezing to give it to me. You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

Zhou Yun hugged her bag and looked outside without answering.

She came here often. How could she not know how cold the mountain got at night this time of year?

That was why she'd brought a jacket. She hadn't given it to him at first because she'd wanted him to climb properly. She'd even carried the bag herself. Later, she'd simply forgotten.

The mountain road wound back and forth, but it was smooth.

Zhou Yun felt a little disappointed. They'd finally come all this way, but she hadn't gotten to ride a bike.

She used to come often when she was focused on running the gym, but she'd visited less since then.

Just as Tang Zhi Chu had guessed, dancing was Zhou Yun's last card. She knew there'd be a group outing later in the Dating Show.

She'd planned to bring out her dancing skills at that event. Chen Si Yang could dance, too. Zhou Yun didn't have to outshine her; she just had to hold her own.

Zhou Yun didn't believe Tang Zhi Chu could dance, too—much less beat her at it.

But because of Tang Zhi Chu, Zhou Yun had changed her strategy.

Was today's date revenge on Tang Zhi Chu?

That was only the first layer.

From the moment Tang Zhi Chu arrived, another contest had already begun between her and Chen Si Yang.

Fighting a female celebrity for her boyfriend!