This world is one giant Tomato Novel

Xie Mi's sudden intrusion caught the backstage crew completely off guard.

For a moment, nobody cared what Liu Woxing's heart rate was. All they could think about was how to get Xie Mi out first.

Seizing the opportunity, Liu Woxing collected herself and tried to regulate her breathing, hoping to calm her racing heart.

But calming her heart rate clearly wasn't that easy. The man's scathing remarks kept echoing in her head, and she could distinctly hear her own heart pounding.

No, if this keeps up...

"Let me quiz you first!" A light, melodious voice interrupted her thoughts.

"'So annoying! The villains keep trying to steal my master!' Which literary classic is that?"

Xie Mi shamelessly helped herself to the cake on Liu Woxing's plate and raised an eyebrow at the man across from them.

The man froze, then quickly recovered. "That's not a literary classic at all!"

"Say that again? Have you never read Journey to the West?" Xie Mi shot back without mercy.

The man was dumbfounded.

The villains keep trying to steal my master... Journey to the West...

[She's actually not wrong, hahahaha.]

[Wait, that counts? Hahahahaha, I'm dying.]

"Next question. 'Overbearing! Addictive! Tigress's forced love!' Which literary classic is that?"

The man racked his brains but couldn't come up with anything. "...I don't know."

"Rickshaw Boy! Next question. What's 'The sickly young master and the handsome farmhand'?"

"I still don't know..."

"It's My Old Home's 'Young Runtu'! Next question. 'My senior is so unhinged, he tries to kill me every year'..."

[I know this one! It's Harry Potter!]

[Apparently any literary classic sounds absolutely wild once you give it a webnovel title.]

[If you ask me, this world is just one giant Tomato Novel.]

Xie Mi had completely derailed the live comments. The screen filled with laughter and viewers coming up with examples of their own.

The man had also become absorbed in Xie Mi's peculiar train of thought. He forgot his actual assignment and listened with keen interest.

"Interesting, interesting! How would you rename Romance of the Three Kingdoms?"

"Romance of the Three Kingdoms? That would be..."

A crew member angrily berated him through his earpiece. "She's already led you off track! Stop playing along!!"

"Pfft-"

Liu Woxing couldn't help lowering her head and laughing.

Her smile was like gentle ripples spreading across a still, deep pool, putting everyone who saw it at ease.

[Ahhh, I love Woxing so much. Even her smile is gorgeous.]

[I just realized she never got angry at any point. Her blind date said such awful things, but she really has such a good temper.]

[Now that's a true lady.]

In the end, Liu Woxing's public image held firm.

Unlike in the original story, she hadn't made a fool of herself when the bell rang and then been dragged on Weibo for ages for being "two-faced."

The mock blind dates ended, with the guests performing as follows:

Xie Mi turned the tables and made her date pass out from anger.

Qiu Chengye was driven mad with anger and burst out through the door on the spot.

Xiao Jingxi argued his case with his date. Though furious, he maintained his gentlemanly demeanor and avoided getting into a shouting match.

Xu Shuangrong was so angry that her eyes filled with tears, but she stubbornly stayed seated and tried to get her points across.

Liu Woxing's blind date was interrupted by Xie Mi.

Shen Yeqing's hearing trouble flared up again.

Yes, his hearing trouble flared up again.

His hard-of-hearing trait, which hadn't appeared since his conversation with Xu Shuangrong on the first day of filming, resurfaced today.

The scene had gone roughly like this:

Blind date: "Blah blah blah blah blah blah!"

Shen Yeqing: "Huh?"

Blind date: "Blah blah blah, yak yak yak!"

Shen Yeqing: "Huh?"

Blind date: "You ***! You ****! I ****!"

Shen Yeqing: "Huh?"

End of blind date.

The backstage crew wore indescribable expressions.

So Mr. Shen's hearing trouble came and went?

They took the production team's vehicle back to the villa again.

Xie Mi was already seated inside. The moment she saw Shen Yeqing get in, she covered her mouth and cursed eighteen generations of his ancestors in an extremely quiet voice.

Shen Yeqing promptly flicked her forehead. "What a filthy mouth."

"Wait, you could hear that?" Xie Mi rubbed her forehead resentfully. "Didn't they say you were hard of hearing?"

There's a traitor among us, feeding me false intel.

"I can be."

"What do you mean, you can be?"

"Being selectively hard of hearing cuts down on pointless socializing."

Shen Yeqing paused, seemingly remembering something, and a faint smile curved his lips. "Someone taught me that."

He said the last part very quietly, so Xie Mi only heard the first sentence.

She couldn't help marveling at his state of mind.

"Exactly like me."

"Mr. Shen."

Xu Shuangrong had boarded the vehicle at some point and seemed to have overheard their conversation. Her eyes were a little red. "Then when you spoke to me on the first day... did you consider that pointless socializing too?"

She looked like an abandoned little rabbit, her slender body swaying as though she might collapse.

Shen Yeqing replied leisurely, "It's a problem with my character. Don't take it personally."

"He means he's an asshole. It has nothing to do with you," Xie Mi translated.

Xu Shuangrong choked on her words.

That neatly cut off the speech she had prepared.

The others were about to board. Though Xu Shuangrong wanted to say more, she had no choice but to give up and move farther inside to take a seat in the back.

When Xiao Jingxi got in and saw Shen Yeqing sitting beside Xie Mi, he frowned.

He was about to sit behind Xie Mi, but someone beat him to it.

"Best Actor Xiao, I'm feeling a little carsick today. Could you let me sit here?" It was Liu Woxing.

The corner of Xiao Jingxi's mouth twitched. In the end, he had no choice but to sit in the back.

Nobody spoke for the entire ride.

The viewers, however, had already turned into Sherlock Holmes, analyzing every clue in the strange atmosphere.

[Xu Shuangrong cried during her blind date, and her eyes are still red. There's no way Xiao Jingxi doesn't know, right? But he's not comforting her at all. Are they really a couple?]

[It really doesn't look like a lovers' quarrel. Xiao Jingxi even tried to sit behind Xie Mi just now.]

[Is this ship really sunk?]

The shippers lost it again and immediately started arguing with the casual viewers, turning the live comments into a battlefield.

Their argument continued until the guests returned to the villa.

Xiao Jingxi walked up to Xu Shuangrong and said in a neutral tone, "Let's talk."

Xu Shuangrong froze for a moment. "...Okay."

[Here it comes, here it comes! Everyone stop arguing.]

[I have a feeling something big is going to happen in this conversation.]

[They're obviously going to make up!]

They went to the back garden.

Xiao Jingxi seemed unwilling to waste time and cut straight to the point.

"Our drama finished airing two months ago, right? We've done more than enough promotion."

"We can stop those interactions we were doing to promote the drama."