"The person you're looking for should be me. What did my sister ask you to deliver? Just give it to me."
The fat boss led the blond away. The employee who had just been fired drew a breath, turned to Jiang Mingxi, and spoke with an obviously forced smile.
Jiang Mingxi handed him the rain poncho.
The young man took it and said glumly, "Thanks."
Once they were outside the shop, Zhao Jiayuan felt uneasy. "We were livestreaming just now, and we caught him getting fired. Will that affect him? What a mess..."
Zhao Jiayuan was frustrated to death.
He had a fiery temper and a straightforward personality. If someone rubbed him the wrong way, he would open his mouth and snap at them.
But he was terrible at handling situations like this.
"Did we cause trouble for him? That blond was clearly a thug. Will he take revenge on him?"
Zhao Jiayuan looked thoroughly agitated. Chen Chong rolled down the car window and asked, "What happened?"
Zhao Jiayuan pulled open the rear door, plopped down inside, and recounted what had just happened.
While he was talking,
Dabao came out of the shop.
With his auto repair shop uniform off and his own jeans and short-sleeved shirt on, he suddenly looked less mature.
He looked like a student who had just left school.
Jiang Mingxi turned back and walked up to Dabao. "Are you heading home?"
Dabao paused. Holding the poncho, he looked at Jiang Mingxi, then at the cameraman beside him with the camera on his shoulder.
Jiang Mingxi smiled. "The camera's off. Sorry about-"
Dabao said, "Sorry. I hope I didn't affect your show?"
The apology on his face was sincere.
Jiang Mingxi smiled. "We were worried that showing up out of nowhere with a camera and filming might have affected you."
Dabao shrugged. "It didn't. He's been making trouble for me for years. Wherever I've worked these past few years, he's gone there to cause trouble. I'm used to it. Are you filming in town?"
Dabao changed the subject, saying nothing more about the blond or his own troubles.
So Jiang Mingxi did not ask any further.
He simply smiled. "We wanted to ask you about something. If it's convenient, would you get in our car? I'll let the cameraman know not to film you."
Dabao glanced at the car behind Jiang Mingxi.
Zhao Jiayuan immediately smiled and waved at him.
Chen Chong nodded too.
Dabao gripped the poncho and thought for a moment. "Sure."
Zhao Jiayuan moved to the front passenger seat, and Chen Chong started the car.
Leaning over his seat, Zhao Jiayuan turned back toward Dabao. "Let me introduce myself. I'm Zhao Jiayuan. I sing and perform to make a living."
Dabao smiled. "I really love your songs. I can sing almost every one of them. And I've watched your TV dramas too, Mr. Chen Chong."
They hardly needed to introduce themselves.
Big stars had come to the village to film a show. He had long since heard about something that major.
Yesterday, he had even seen them carrying corn from a distance.
Then he turned to Jiang Mingxi and said, "But when other people were trashing you, I didn't join in."
"Hahahahaha!" Zhao Jiayuan instantly roared with laughter.
All right, then.
The awkward atmosphere in the car vanished in an instant.
Jiang Mingxi did not know whether to laugh or cry. "You really didn't have to single that out. You make it sound like I don't have any work to my name."
There was no need for much small talk. Jiang Mingxi got straight to the point.
"Does Bridgehead Village have any plans to develop tourism?
"As you know, our show is a survival challenge, and the production team wants us to support ourselves.
"The three of us were thinking that if the village has any tourist attractions, we could work as guides for visitors and earn some living expenses."
Dabao thought for a moment, then said, "At the beginning of this year, I heard people in town saying the government was going to develop tourism here. A lot of people jumped on the bandwagon and opened guesthouses and things.
"But then, for some reason, nothing more happened.
"Those guesthouses and things all fell through too.
"But there really are lots of fun things to do up on our mountain.
"There are lots of fish in the river, so you can catch fish. There's a little waterfall, an observation deck where you can watch the sunrise, and you can pick mushrooms and stuff. The scenery's pretty nice too."
Jiang Mingxi immediately exchanged a look with Zhao Jiayuan.
Then he asked Dabao, "Do you know your way around the mountain?"
Dabao nodded. "Pretty well."
Jiang Mingxi immediately followed up. "Then, if we manage to find some tourists later, could you help guide us this once?"
Zhao Jiayuan quickly added, "Not for free. We can pay you a fee for coming along."
Dabao was still a little dazed.
He had not quite caught up.
But almost reflexively, he waved his hands. "No, no, I won't take any money."
Chen Chong drove straight to the busiest part of town.
Beside a small public square.
Since Dabao was an ordinary person rather than a celebrity, he stayed in the car for the time being without appearing on camera.
Facing the cameras, Jiang Mingxi, Zhao Jiayuan, and Chen Chong began the day's-
Rounding people up!
Zhao Jiayuan had never cared about maintaining an idol image.
He planted himself in the square and immediately launched into a routine that was by turns sultry, cool, and outrageously badass-
A runway walk.
As he strutted, he sang, "Today is a good day~~~"
The array of cameras set up there had already drawn quite a few onlookers.
The moment he pulled this outrageous stunt, the crowd instantly multiplied.
After Zhao Jiayuan finished three circuits of his runway walk, Chen Chong stepped out with a borrowed wooden staff.
"I am Chen Chong. Allow me to demonstrate a Shaolin staff routine!"
He cupped his fist in salute on the spot.
Salute completed,
He swung the wooden staff in his hands and launched into a fluid, breathtakingly cool routine.
The onlookers crowded around, several rows deep, shouting, "Bravo! So cool! Give us another!"
Chen Chong, the epitome of cool, finished his Shaolin staff routine and stepped back.
Jiang Mingxi made his entrance with more than a dozen consecutive backflips.
As he landed his final backflip, Jiang Mingxi used the motion of rising out of it to launch into a street dance.
The onlookers roared and applauded.
[Holy shit, Jiang Mingxi's street dancing is insane! He's such a good dancer, oh my god! My scalp's tingling!]
[Chen Chong's staff work was great too. People said before that he never used stunt doubles for fight scenes, and I didn't believe it. Now I have nothing but RESPECT!]
[Zhao Jiayuan's runway walk is still looping uncontrollably in my head, hahahahaha!]
[What are these three doing? Begging in the street?]
[Seriously, I'm speechless. Lele and Song Lan are both working hard to earn money, while these three are using their celebrity status to ask for handouts?]
[Disgusting. Sure enough, anything involving that clout-chasing bitch stinks like shit!]
At the very instant that bullet comment drifted past,
Jiang Mingxi finished his final dance move, then did three consecutive backflips, flipping straight up onto the roof of the production team's car.
Gasps immediately erupted from the crowd.
[Holy shit! That was so cool I jumped out of my seat!]
[His core strength is incredible! And that last move-he leaped straight off the ground onto the roof. Fuck! Not even special effects are that insane!]
Standing on the roof, Jiang Mingxi spread his arms and shouted, "The sky is vast, the plains stretch far-who wants a ham sausage!"