Mint

Ye Qingzhou had a particularly beautiful pair of eyes.

Even the staff member, who had dealt with celebrities frequently lately, was momentarily dazzled.

"If it's too much trouble..."

Before Ye Qingzhou could finish, the staff member interrupted him. "No trouble at all, no trouble. What flavor of candy would you like?"

As she spoke, she headed toward the place where the production team kept the candy.

"Mint."

Ye Qingzhou remembered clearly that the candy wrapper pressed against his lips earlier had carried a strong mint scent.

"No problem."

The staff member made an "OK" gesture.

The production team had a limited budget, with one staff member assigned to each task station. As the staff member moved farther and farther away, Ye Qingzhou bent down and picked up the candy wrapper from the floor.

That was right.

His supposed "low blood sugar" was merely an excuse Ye Qingzhou had made up on the spot. He had returned not to ask the staff member for candy, but to retrieve the candy wrapper left on the floor.

Ye Qingzhou's long fingers slowly stroked the blue candy wrapper, as though a trace of warmth from the corner of Chu Ci's lips still lingered on it.

Tsk, thirty seconds was still too short.

He had barely felt the warmth at the corner of his master's lips before the production team announced that the game was over.

Only when he saw the staff member get the candy and begin to turn around did Ye Qingzhou carefully put the candy wrapper away.

"Here you go, Mr. Ye."

The staff member had specifically picked out a dozen or so mint candies.

"Thank you."

Ye Qingzhou accepted the mints and thanked her. He was about to push the door open and leave when he noticed that something seemed off outside...

Chu Ci seemed to have been ganged up on.

"Ganged up on" did not seem quite appropriate, since there were only Chu Ci, Zhou Jin, and Li Muting, and Zhou Jin and Li Muting were already a team, so it could hardly be called "ganging up on" him.

The three stood at an impasse, none of them moving.

Just as Ye Qingzhou was about to push the door open and go help Chu Ci, Chu Ci seemed to notice his gaze. He looked toward Ye Qingzhou, then gave a slight shake of his head.

Ye Qingzhou instantly understood what Chu Ci meant.

Smiling, he made an "OK" gesture at Chu Ci.

He held the mints the staff member had given him. With nothing else to do, Ye Qingzhou simply unwrapped one. The mint flavor spread through his mouth as he lowered his eyes to the wrapper in his palm, but his thoughts were on the lips he had touched through a candy wrapper earlier.

Tsk.

If only that pesky candy wrapper hadn't been there.

Ye Qingzhou temporarily suppressed the jumble of thoughts in his head, then turned his attention back to what was happening outside.

"What? Are you trying to steal my money?"

Chu Ci raised an eyebrow as he watched Zhou Jin draw closer and closer.

"Stop hesitating."

Li Muting cautiously surveyed their surroundings, her tone carrying a measure of gravity. "If we don't act now, Ye Qingzhou will be back."

As luck would have it, after Zhou Jin and Li Muting finished their task and came out, they spotted Chu Ci alone nearby. Chu Ci kept glancing down at the time on his screen. Unless something unexpected was going on, he was waiting for Ye Qingzhou.

Zhou Jin and Li Muting exchanged a look.

The most important thing about participating in a variety show was "seizing the moment," and finding Chu Ci alone was a rare opportunity. He already had the hundred yuan he had won from the game, and there was a task station right behind him, so he had probably just completed a task... From this, Li Muting surmised that Chu Ci should have 150 or 200 yuan on him now.

The production team awarded different amounts of money for completing tasks of different difficulty levels. The task Li Muting and Zhou Jin had drawn was-"Look into each other's eyes for ten seconds without laughing aloud." It was relatively simple, and they had received fifty yuan.

Her and Zhou Jin's target for the day was two hundred yuan. As long as they could take Chu Ci's money for themselves, it would mean they had won.

Winning and finishing filming in such a short time... Especially winning on a variety show featuring Ye Qingzhou. Li Muting could already imagine how many trending searches on Weibo they would appear in after their victory.

[Are Zhou Jin and Li Muting planning a sneak attack?]

[Don't make it sound so nasty. There's no such thing as a "sneak attack" on a variety show. If anyone's to blame, it's Chu Ci for having bad luck. What did Ye Qingzhou go to get, anyway? Why hasn't he come out yet?]

[...Wait, doesn't Chu Ci have two hundred yuan on him now? If Zhou Jin and Li Muting actually take Chu Ci's hat off, wouldn't that mean they've finished their task ahead of time?]

[Did the director say what counts as winning? Is earning two hundred yuan enough, or do they have to hand the money over to the production team?]

[They probably have to hand the two hundred yuan over to the production team, and have the team buy the ingredients needed for the menu before it counts as a win, right?]

[Chu Ci looks so slim. Can he really dodge a pincer attack from Zhou Jin and Li Muting?]

[Ye Qingzhou, someone's bullying your wife.]

Hearing Li Muting's words, Zhou Jin also realized that he could not drag this out any longer. He cautiously approached Chu Ci.

"Let's talk this out..."

As Zhou Jin drew closer and closer, Chu Ci raised his hands in surrender, his thin, beautiful lips curving into a gentle smile. "Whatever you want, I'll give it to you."

Despite how gentle Chu Ci's smile was, Zhou Jin inexplicably felt a chill. He instinctively turned to look behind him. Only after finding no sign of Ye Qingzhou anywhere nearby did he breathe a sigh of relief. "Then how about a duel between men?"

Zhou Jin did not want to outnumber him.

"Sure."

Chu Ci agreed readily.

Seeing this, Li Muting could only respect Zhou Jin's decision.

This was not because Li Muting was particularly noble. It was simply that Chu Ci had a slender build, his slim wrists small enough to encircle with one hand, while Zhou Jin practically lived at the gym and had very obvious muscles. In a duel between them, Zhou Jin had the better chance of winning no matter how she looked at it.

If Ye Qingzhou had been the one "dueling" Zhou Jin, Li Muting might have looked for an opening to launch a sneak attack. But with Chu Ci instead...

There was no need.

Li Muting stepped back a little, leaving the open space to the two of them. She cautiously watched their surroundings, remaining on guard against Ye Qingzhou at all times.

"Come on."

Chu Ci raised an eyebrow and crooked a finger at Zhou Jin in front of him.

He had made the same gesture at Ye Qingzhou ten minutes earlier, but the two gestures gave entirely different impressions. When he had crooked his finger at Ye Qingzhou, his phoenix eyes had brimmed with mirth, which was why the viewers had been so utterly intoxicated by shipping them.