The director turned off the lights.
Chi Zong and An Zhizhi were at each other's throats again.
Ji Nanxian hurriedly dodged Shen Yunzhi.
Relying on her memory from moments earlier, Jiang Yunli made her way toward Shen Yunzhi in the dark.
Then she reached out and shoved her.
Next came-
Sure enough, she heard Shen Yunzhi cry, "Ow, fuck!"
Then came a whole series of crashes and clatters.
It sounded as though Shen Yunzhi had knocked something over.
Jiang Yunli heard a very faint grunt from Xiao Yao.
Delight filled Jiang Yunli's heart.
She really had crashed into him.
The director wasn't so quick to turn the lights on this time.
The entire living room remained pitch-black.
Shen Yunzhi had no idea whose sneaky hands had shoved her forward.
She fell flat on her face.
Grunting and groaning, she also knocked over a whole pile of things.
Finally, something-she couldn't tell whether it was a tablecloth or a curtain-fell over her.
Shen Yunzhi struggled to pull away whatever was covering her.
But no matter how she tugged, it wouldn't come off. As she waved her hands around, she touched something soft.
It felt nice.
She gave it a squeeze.
It was a little warm, too.
She squeezed it again.
Why was it beating?
"Huh?" Shen Yunzhi said.
What was going on?
Suddenly, Xiao Yao's voice came from directly beneath her, laughing in exasperation.
Shen Yunzhi immediately realized what she was touching.
"..." Shen Yunzhi even demanded self-righteously, "Why is it you?"
Xiao Yao said, "Weren't you the one who crashed into me?"
"I was pushed!" Shen Yunzhi explained indignantly.
She hadn't realized she was sitting across Xiao Yao's waist and abdomen, or how dangerous that position was.
And her figure happened to have a distinctly defined waist and backside.
Whatever it was-a curtain or a tablecloth-it covered the two of them completely.
The ends of Shen Yunzhi's hair brushed back and forth over his brows and eyes, bringing an indescribable tickle.
Xiao Yao could even smell the fragrance of the shampoo Shen Yunzhi had used last night.
Logically, with Shen Yunzhi's looks, one glance should have given the impression of a daughter from a distinguished family.
But Shen Yunzhi was so unhinged that she made him want to laugh.
She had absolutely none of a beauty's self-awareness.
Xiao Yao kept holding himself back with Shen Yunzhi still straddling him. "Take your hand off my chest."
Furious, Shen Yunzhi punched Xiao Yao again.
There was a thump.
Accompanied by Xiao Yao's sharp intake of breath.
Shen Yunzhi said, "Move your fucking hand off my ass first!"
Xiao Yao's other eye socket started hurting, too.
He was seriously about to surrender to this woman who threw punches at the slightest disagreement.
Xiao Yao sucked in a breath. "You're sitting on it."
Shen Yunzhi said, "..."
Shen Yunzhi said, "Sowwy."
Suddenly-
Click.
The director turned on the lights.
Light filtered through the fabric covering them.
Only then did Shen Yunzhi discover that it was a tablecloth.
Jiang Yunli's blatantly affected voice came from outside.
"Oh my God, Shen Yunzhi, what are you doing to Xiao Yao?"
Shen Yunzhi's haters went wild in the livestream chat.
[I knew she wanted to get close to Xiao Yao and was deliberately making opportunities, but I didn't know she'd stoop this low!]
[Shameless!]
[Can the production team do something about this??]
[She realized she couldn't get anywhere sucking up to Ji Nanxian, so now she's targeting Xiao Yao instead, huh?]
[She should wash her face and look in the mirror. Take a good look at what she is. Would Xiao Yao ever want her?]
In the livestream.
Jiang Yunli had just finished putting together her next line. "Shen Yunzhi, you've gone too far. No matter how much you like someone, you can't harass them in the middle of a show!"
Then Xiao Yao abruptly yanked away the tablecloth.
He appeared before everyone, expressionless, sporting two symmetrical black eyes.
The earlier one had only faded a little and hadn't fully healed, and now he had a new one.
Xiao Yao's face was dark. "She punched me as soon as the lights went out. If that counts as harassment, I have nothing to say."
Jiang Yunli choked. "..."
Everyone else present: "..."
The viewers: ...
[Apologize!]
[Apologize to our Teacher Shen!!]
[Punching Xiao Yao and kicking Ji Nanxian. Our Teacher Shen is just that perfect little boxer.]
This time, Xiao Yao really had suffered an undeserved disaster.
Shen Yunzhi pulled away the tablecloth and stood up to apologize. "Sorry, you slave dri—President Xiao. Dinner's on me."
Xiao Yao immediately took advantage and rattled off a long list of state-banquet dishes:
"Then I want eight-treasure gourd chicken, cabbage in clear broth, Buddha jumps over the wall, squirrel-shaped mandarin fish, and dragon's beard candy."
His flippant manner was positively asking for a beating.
Shen Yunzhi said, "?"
Now he was really pushing his luck.
Shen Yunzhi smiled. "All right, you're no longer President Xiao. You're Mr. Ass."
Xiao Yao said, "?"
In the livestream chat, Shen Fans were also locked in a fierce argument with Jiang Yunli's fans to defend her.
[What was Jiang Yunli doing just now? I hadn't even counted who was missing, but the moment the director turned on the lights, Jiang Yunli immediately knew it was Shen Yunzhi and Xiao Yao under the tablecloth?]
[Exactly. She didn't even know what happened, but the first thing out of her mouth was an accusation that Shen Yunzhi was harassing Xiao Yao.]
[Our Teacher Shen is so pretty! Why didn't she suspect Xiao Yao of harassing Shen Yunzhi?]
[Jiang Yunli is always calling her her little sister, but does she actually protect her like one? Accusing her in public of harassing a male guest-is that something family would do?]
[I thought Jiang Yunli's gentle, intellectual big-sister persona was fake from the start. If that's really her personality, I'll eat shit.]
Jiang Yunli's fans fired back below.
[Just filled a whole basin. Dig in.]
[You're amazing. You can reach straight through the internet into our Yunli's heart and know exactly what kind of person she is.]
[If you're that incredible, why don't you become a fortune-teller?]
[You know what Shen Yunzhi is normally like, and you're still defending her? Who's more likely to harass whom?]
[Shen Yunzhi spends all day pestering Young Master Ji, and now that she's on a show, she keeps hovering around Xiao Yao like she's never seen a man before.]
Shen Yunzhi's fans:
[Who's the one who's never seen a man? There are so many men in the world, but she just had to pick one who's engaged.]
[If Teacher Shen and Ji Nanxian weren't engaged, we'd have nothing to say. You lapdogs sure are quick to defend a homewrecker.]
The one thing Jiang Yunli's fans could never tolerate was anyone saying, "Jiang Yunli is a homewrecker."
The moment it came up-
It was as though someone had hit their G-spot.
They jumped up and down in outrage.
Jiang Fans: [Who are you calling a homewrecker?!]
Shen Fans: [Jiang Yunli, Jiang Yunli, Jiang Yunli, Jiang Yunli, Jiang Yunli, Jiang Yunli. If you still can't see it, carve it on your gravestone.]
The two sides started fighting again.
This little icebreaker game hadn't broken any ice at all.
Instead, it had only raised everyone's hatred another notch.
The casual viewers were practically dying of laughter.
Shen Yunzhi was the only one of the six guests who could cook.
But she wouldn't volunteer to cook even if it killed her.
Today's promise was a separate matter.
Shen Yunzhi casually threw together a few dishes for Xiao Yao.
After going hungry all day, Xiao Yao finally had hot food to eat.
Even Shen Yunzhi, who had punched him twice in two days, started looking more agreeable.
Shen Yunzhi said, "There's rice. Serve yourself, and wash all the cookware and dishes yourself."
Shen Yunzhi dusted off her hands and prepared to return to her room.
Xiao Yao took a bite. It tasted pretty good.
Xiao Yao mused, "It's actually not some culinary abomination."
Shen Yunzhi rolled her eyes. "Right, right. I spat in your food. You'd better not eat it."
Xiao Yao sat with his legs crossed, one hand resting on the back of his chair and the other holding his chopsticks, spearing a meatball, while he swung his slipper-clad foot, looking utterly unserious.
He said to Shen Yunzhi, "Why are you always so hostile toward me? It's not like we have a grudge. I'm just curious how a pampered heiress like you can actually cook."
"Haven't you heard of me?" Shen Yunzhi had thought the original owner's name was already known far and wide. "I lived in the village for fifteen years before they said Jiang Yunli and I had been mixed up and raised by the wrong families. I was poor in the village, so I worked all kinds of part-time jobs. I know a little of everything."
Shen Yunzhi wasn't lying about that last part.
She had been poor in the real world, too.
She had started working part-time in her teens.
Xiao Yao, who lived in Capital City, finally connected the person in front of him with the incident he had heard about years ago.
Xiao Yao wanted to say something more to Shen Yunzhi.
But then he saw Shen Yunzhi head upstairs.
It seemed she wasn't very interested in chatting with him.
On the surface, she seemed carefree, but in reality, she had very firm boundaries.
There was a sense that she didn't fit in with this bunch of rich people.
Watching Shen Yunzhi's retreating figure, Xiao Yao slowly swallowed the meatball.
Hmm.
It really did taste pretty good.
Shen Yunzhi had spoken quite openly just now.
Many viewers in the livestream had mixed feelings.
After all, online rumors had always painted Shen Yunzhi as someone who despised the poor and fawned over the rich.
Her social media account, with its constant displays of wealth, seemed to show as much.
Everyone had thought she was ashamed of those fifteen years in the village.
They had assumed Shen Yunzhi would distance herself from those fifteen years of feeding chickens and raising pigs in the village.
After all, given Shen Yunzhi's personality, as the Biological Daughter, that should have been what she despised most.
Who knew she would speak about it so openly?
[I feel like Shen Yunzhi doesn't seem nearly as awful on this livestream show as people online make her out to be.]
Before you continue