Salted Fish Room Assignment

Chapter Twenty-Three

"You can insult me, but you can't insult my painting!" Tang Jingran shot back without courtesy.

He picked up his painting and pointed at the vividly drawn little turtle, his face full of indignation. "Doesn't it look alike?! Such a perfect turtle, how dare you say it doesn't?"

In truth, the turtle was rather twisted too, carrying an unfathomable air about it.

Still unconvinced, Tang Jingran snatched the painting from Zhao Shiyao's hands, held his own high for comparison, and said, "I refuse to believe it..."

"..."

"..."

"Pfft, hahahahaha—" Everyone's merciless laughter surged over him like crashing waves, leaving young Tang da Vinci Qi Baishi Jingran no chance to escape reality.

"I..." Tang Jingran tried to defend himself.

Zhao Shiyao was nearly angry enough to cry beside him. Amid the laughter, even her noble soul seemed about to ascend to heaven.

Li Wenchuan felt thoroughly vindicated. This was far more outrageous than his own, so he patted Tang Jingran on the shoulder and said, "Art can be down-to-earth, but it can't be down in the underworld."

The moment he said that, even Su Mingwei, who had been keeping a straight face until then, couldn't help snorting with laughter.

Everyone burst into laughter again, and even Xiao Yi couldn't hold it in. "Down in the underworld, hahaha! That's way too accurate."

The production crew had never expected this episode's guests to bring such a huge surprise. They deliberately gave them several close-up shots. Tang Jingran looked as if he were questioning his entire life, seeming ready to accuse Zhao Shiyao of deceiving him.

But judging from Zhao Shiyao's own painting, although it was not very good, at least one could tell it was a girl.

Zhao Shiyao knew the second-class room was definitely out of reach now. She glared at Tang Jingran. "It's all your fault! It's all because you drew a turtle girl!" She considered herself an ageless fairy, so how could she possibly stay in a third-class room? Whenever she traveled before, she would stay nowhere less than five-star accommodations.

Tang Jingran had nothing to say. He could only awkwardly fold up his painting, as though hiding it would make the problem disappear.

"It can't be that bad, right?"

That was until he saw the room. "Director! Tell me, it's already the twenty-first century—where did you find a house like this?!"

The roof tiles were covered in moss. The old-fashioned paper-covered windows were somewhat damaged, and the owner had simply patched them up. The wooden door in the main hall looked as though it might collapse at any moment. When the wind blew, it let out an eerie creak, and when it closed slowly, it sounded like an old woman grinding her teeth.

There was no cement flooring inside either, only packed yellow earth, with weeds growing wildly in the corners.

Zhao Shiyao paced miserably at the doorway. When she saw a huge black shadow dart past, she immediately screamed. Then a yellow-and-white figure followed close behind, and she screamed again.

Her constant shrieking made Tang Jingran, who was already feeling creeped out, cry out as well. He immediately grabbed onto Li Wenchuan, who stood beside him, and hid behind him for protection.

Under the camera's pursuit, an orange-and-white kitten strolled over leisurely, carrying a giant Haozi nearly as large as itself in its mouth.

The scene was utterly bizarre. Were Chinese rural kitten cubs really this powerful already? Adults were brought to tears.

Its amber eyes swept disdainfully over everyone present, as if it were saying: I'm not targeting anyone. I just mean everyone here is trash :).

"I feel like I was looked down on by a cat," Tang Jingran muttered as he watched the little orange kitten skip away.

"Be more confident. Remove 'feel like,'" Li Wenchuan added.

Tang Jingran: That really hurt QAQ.

"It's okay. Ahuang comes to catch mice every day, so you don't need to be afraid." An elderly voice came from nearby. The old grandmother, dressed in the local ethnic group's traditional clothing, stood at the courtyard gate and smiled.

"Ahuang, come here."

The kitten obediently poked its head out from hiding, padded over on tiny paws, and affectionately rubbed against the old grandmother's pant leg.

"See? Like that. Whenever you see a mouse, just call it," the old grandmother said, stroking the cat's head. "Our Ahuang is the best."

Tang Jingran said, "Why do I suddenly feel like I'm worse than a cat?"

Seeing Tang Jingran's hand still gripping his clothes tightly, Li Wenchuan wholeheartedly agreed. "You really are worse than Ahuang."

"..."

Tang Jingran: I was only being modest. I wanted you to praise me, not agree with me.

After chatting for a while, they learned that the old grandmother was the owner of the house. After agreeing to rent it to the production crew, she had grown curious and came by during her post-dinner walk to see who exactly would be staying there.

"Grandma, isn't it... inconvenient for you to live in a house like this?" Tang Jingran was deeply puzzled. The place was so old and shabby—why had her children not taken the elderly woman away?

The old grandmother smiled knowingly. She understood what the young man wanted to ask. Though he was fair and clean-looking, that did not stop her from delivering another blow. "No, I haven't lived here for years. I only come back occasionally to rest when I pass by while working."

She pointed toward the distance. "I'm not used to city life, so my son had no choice but to build me a new house in the village. It's over there."

Everyone instinctively looked in the direction she pointed—there stood an exquisite little Western-style villa with a duplex layout, and delicate carvings could even be vaguely seen on the balcony railings.

The evening breeze blew open the old house's door—creak, creak creak creak... It was the merciless laughter of money.

Tang Jingran abruptly put on a solemn expression. Everyone thought his mindset had become unbalanced and that he was about to say something reckless.

Instead, they heard him say, "Grandma, do you need a grandson? I can move in with you today."

Director: "No!"

No matter how unwilling Tang Jingran and Zhao Shiyao were, they could only move into the house. Though it did not look like much, it was at least clean, and Ahuang gave people more of a sense of security than Tang Jingran, who was afraid of mice.

Xiao Yi and Su Mingwei naturally received the best house. It was a little Western-style building like the old grandmother's, with four whole floors. The owners lived on the third floor, while the second floor was left vacant for them. There were plenty of guest rooms and lots of space, so having two more people would not be a problem.

What was more, the hostess knew Xiao Yi. When she saw the True Person, she did not react at first.

"Is it really you? When I went south to work years ago, all the girls in my dorm loved listening to your songs. I can still sing them now." As she spoke, she sang one of them a cappella. Unexpectedly, she sounded quite good, with even more of a folk-song flavor to it.

It left Xiao Yi both pleasantly surprised and embarrassed. He could only sigh that after all these years, his fans had all started families and careers.

The hostess happily asked for an autograph and a photo together, then immediately posted them on her Moments to show off: Xiao Yi came to join a show and is staying at my house. I'm so lucky.

Seeing Su Mingwei beside him, the hostess smiled. "Is this your daughter? She's all grown up." They followed celebrities but did not pay attention to other people's private lives. They had only occasionally heard that Xiao Yi had a daughter.

Su Mingwei froze. "No, I..."

"Oh my, she's so pretty." The two of them really did look too much like father and daughter.

"You misunderstood," Xiao Yi said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "She's here for the show too. Her name is Su Mingwei."

The hostess did not recognize her, but her daughter did. "Mom, I know this big sister. You watched one of her dramas recently too."

Looking at that face and recalling the similar face from the recent television drama, the hostess clapped her hands. "Oh my, you look so different from how you do on television that I didn't recognize you."

She was so young, yet she had not expected her acting to be this good.

Su Mingwei politely responded with a few words, then subtly turned her head. Her gaze fell in the direction Li Wenchuan and Jiang Hansheng had left.