For star-chasing girls, there is probably no word more frightening than "collapse". Although Sheng Yingying is still very confident in the character of her idol, the person who is about to have her idol's reputation collapsed is not someone else, but his brother!
You know, his brother would never frame others without reason, not to mention that his brother used to be Jiang Zhixia's teammate, so he must know a lot of inside information than others. So Sheng Yingying didn't doubt the credibility of his brother's prediction at all, and directly thought of the worst result.
"He, did he evade taxes or slept with her secretly?" Sheng Yingying's voice was trembling when she asked this question, and her heart was already filled with tears - what's wrong with these men, they just can't control themselves, her husband, oh.
Xia Zhike had no idea how heartbroken her sister was at the moment and couldn't help laughing out loud.
"You actually still have the heart to laugh! What on earth did my idol do?" Sheng Yingying was heartbroken, but her mind was still clear. "And why did you say that it would happen soon? If it's going to collapse, then it's going to collapse. Why is there a preview? It's like a marketing account."
Xia Zhi smiled slightly, without explaining anything, but said meaningfully: "You will know in two months."
"You might as well just kill me with a knife." Sheng Yingying asked with a sob, "Do you know any inside information? Tell me first, is my idol morally corrupt or has he committed a crime? Do you want to go in and operate the sewing machine?"
"Anyway, just be prepared to change your address." Xia Zhi had a sly smile on his face, his expression calm - he was right, the address would indeed have to be changed when the time comes.
Xia Zhi satisfied his own evil taste, without caring at all about his sister who was already heartbroken, and hung up the phone in a happy mood.
Soon it was the day when Uncle Hua was going to have surgery, and the five of them went there together early in the morning. Three days ago, Uncle Hua's nephew heard the news and rushed over from City Y. The nephew had a good relationship with the couple, so he took a special annual leave and planned to stay in City A until Uncle Hua was discharged from the hospital. After the nephew came, Uncle Hua and Aunt Hua were visibly happy.
Xia Zhi and the others also felt a lot more at ease. Although they had done their best to take care of the couple in everything, there were some things that outsiders could never compare to family members.
Uncle Hua's surgery went very smoothly, and if he recovered well, he would be discharged from the hospital in a week. Only then did the heavy stone weighing on everyone's heart finally fall.
On the day of the operation, Xia Zhi stayed in the hospital all day and didn't leave until the visiting hours were over. It was almost ten o'clock when she got home.
As soon as he entered the door, Jiang Zhixia's phone rang at the right time.
Xia Zhi gave a slightly tired smile and picked up the phone.
"Are you done with work?"
"Yeah." Jiang Zhixia's tired voice didn't sound much better than his. "Did the operation go well?"
"It went very smoothly. If nothing goes wrong, I'll be discharged in another week." Xia Zhi sat on the sofa and stretched out his hand to pinch his sore calf muscles. He had been standing all day today and had no chance to sit down and rest. His calf muscles were a little stiff after standing for a long time.
"You've worked hard. Go to bed early today and have a good rest."
"Yeah," Xia Zhi curled his lips, "You too."
"good."
"By the way, has the production team contacted you?" Xia Zhi took the initiative to bring up the topic, "I heard that they are preparing to shoot the remaining two episodes."
"I contacted him yesterday," Jiang Zhixia said again, "I will try my best to make time."
"If you really can't spare the time, don't force yourself." Xia Zhi is more protective of his shortcomings. Since he has determined that Jiang Zhixia will naturally be biased towards him, "Originally, you only agreed to record this program to help Chuanxing. With your current status, no one can blame you even if you don't come. You have appeared in five episodes, which is already more than enough."
"Actually, I wanted to see you."
Xia Zhi pursed her lips, a smile appearing at the corner of her mouth.
For a moment, it was like a tiny electric current passed through the body, and a slight numbing sensation spread from the limbs all the way to the heart, and the heartbeat uncontrollably quickened.
Jiang Zhixia's love words are actually quite plain and unoriginal in the entire world of love words, but Xia Zhi was still moved by them.
When they first started dating, perhaps because they were still too young and shy, they were too embarrassed to say many sweet words. In addition, they were secretly dating without telling the company and their teammates, so they would deliberately restrain themselves from many intimate actions. The most intimate interaction between the two was just an awkward and clumsy kiss when they were alone at night.
Looking back now, their relationship at that time was indeed very similar to that of normal lovers. It's just that being together with this person as a lover was already a happy and satisfying thing. They didn't care about it and made up for all the regrets with their passionate love for each other.
This time, I don’t know if it’s because they are no longer constrained by the environment, or because the passage of time has changed the state of mind of both people, but they are much more frank than they were nine years ago.
Jiang Zhixia used to be the worst at saying sweet words, but now he can say them easily. Although they are all the most basic sweet words, Xia Zhi is always moved by the sincerity in them. Although he has not agreed to get back together, Xia Zhi often has the illusion that they are already in love. Thousands of miles apart, he always thinks of him unconsciously, thinking about what he is doing now, whether he has eaten well; the joy when receiving the other party's call; the corners of his mouth unconsciously raised when he hears the other party's voice. Xia Zhi feels like a teenager who is just beginning to fall in love.
After ending the call with Jiang Zhixia, Xia Zhi hung up and opened the calendar on her phone. She moved the month forward two digits and then found "16" in the date.
September 16th.
It's a two-month period.
He created an itinerary under this date - my reply.
After recording his itinerary, he turned back to the current month and frowned unconsciously when looking at the date on his phone.
Today is July 24th, and half of his vacation has passed. He won't have so much free time after he goes back to work. After thinking about it, he turned to September again, deleted the schedule on the 16th, and turned the month forward one place, writing a new one in the schedule column for August 15th - the day to get rid of singleness.
U of T will start school in September, so they should go on a few dates before school starts. After all, their jobs are so busy that they don’t even have time to sleep.
Xia Zhi curled the corners of his mouth, took one last look at the itinerary for August 15th, and put away his phone with satisfaction.
The filming of the remaining two episodes could no longer be delayed. Once Uncle Hua successfully completed the surgery, the program team put the filming plan back on the agenda.
This time, unlike last time, everyone was free and had plenty of time. Now that Jiang Zhixia had joined the crew, she didn't have that much free time. She had to ask for leave from the crew before going out to record the show. Sang Luo's situation wasn't much better. He was tied up by the company's business and the man at home. He couldn't go to the countryside for half a month like last time.
So the production team discussed and decided not to return to Jingwu Village to film the last two episodes. Recently, more and more viewers have complained that the content of the first few episodes is a bit boring, and the voices of dissatisfaction on the Internet are getting louder and louder. It is no exaggeration to say that the program can still maintain a relatively good data so far, all thanks to the five guests.
Therefore, in the past half month, the program team held frequent meetings and discussions, and widely listened to the suggestions of the majority of netizens. After careful consideration, they finally decided to make a major reform. The program content changed from the original free play to a theme for each episode. The theme of the current episode was selected from the suggestions of netizens, just like a guest ordering food in a restaurant.
After the reform, they no longer shoot a whole season at once like before, but shoot once every two weeks, and each shoot only takes two to three days. This shooting mode is much more convenient for Xia Zhi and Sang Luo who have regular work schedules, or for Jiang Zhixia who can't take too long leave.
So no one commented on this adjustment.
As early as the day when Jiang Zhixia joined the crew, some paparazzi with sharper noses than dogs posted the news online, so netizens who follow Jiang Zhixia know that he is currently filming on the set. So under the Weibo post where the program team solicited opinions from netizens, someone asked if it was possible for the members to visit Jiang Zhixia on set in one episode.
The program team thought this was a good idea, so they contacted the "Widow" crew overnight and got permission to shoot smoothly. On the day of the official shooting, the director team planned to start shooting from home. Sang Luo, Cheng Yunan and Xiao Han had already shot once before, so they had no objections. Only Xia Zhi seemed a little embarrassed.
Sang Luo asked him: "What are you going to do? Should we have someone come to your house to take the photos or should we stay in a hotel for one night?"
Xia Zhi thought for a moment and said, "I'll stay in a hotel for one night. It's not appropriate to bring people directly to my house to take pictures. After all, it's not my own home."
"Why do you have to be so clear about it?" Sang Luo said with a mischievous smile, "It will be yours sooner or later."
Xia Zhi glared at him helplessly.
Ever since they talked on the phone that day, Sang Luo has been teasing him whenever he has the chance. It would be fine if he just teased him in private, but it would be funny if he accidentally let it slip on the show.
"Keep your mouth shut!" Xia Zhi narrowed his eyes and warned him, "If you let anything slip, I'll expose our chat history online!"
"!!!" Sang Luo's face suddenly changed, and he raised his hand seriously to assure, "I won't say a word! Don't worry!" Don't ever think of getting the chat history!
It is said that the chat records between besties are so private that you would format your phone even if you were about to die after a car accident. But in fact, the chat records between Xiao0 are no less private. For Sang Luo, Xia Zhi is his "best friend", so she has confided many shameful secrets to him over the years. If these chat records were exposed, it would be so embarrassing that she would have to flee the solar system overnight.
At night, Xia Zhi had a bedtime call with Jiang Zhixia as usual. Jiang Zhixia had filmed three night scenes in a row a few days ago, so he had fewer scenes these days and more private time. Therefore, Jiang Zhixia would call him every night recently.
The content of their calls was very fixed. They would first ask about each other's recent situation, then talk about what they had done today, and then fall into a short silence, letting the silent ambiguous atmosphere flow freely on the phone, and then chat about some random things, and finally end the whole conversation with a good night. Occasionally, Jiang Zhixia would add a subtle little love word after saying good night, and Xia Zhi rarely responded, and directly said goodbye, but every time she hung up the phone, the corners of her mouth were curved.
Today's call did not escape the fixed process, but the content was much richer than in the previous few days.
Xia Zhi asked on the phone: "Are you late?"
Jiang Zhixia answered on the phone: "Yes, I arrived this morning."
Jiang Chi's father has almost recovered, and Xia Zhixia will start filming soon. He will move out of Jiang Zhixia's house at that time. In this way, Jiang Chi will not have to run over to cook for him every day. So he resumed work and took the high-speed rail to City C to meet up with Jiang Zhixia this morning.
Xia Zhi's tutoring of Jiang Chi officially ended yesterday, but out of teacher instinct, she still asked Jiang Zhixia to pass on the message: "You should ask Jiang Chi to review well. His professional course grades are good, but his English is relatively weak, especially his lack of vocabulary. Let him read more foreign language books when he has time."
"Yeah." Jiang Zhixia's tone was quite strange, sounding a little perfunctory, "You're quite nice to him." The next time he spoke, his tone was sour.
Xia Zhi laughed: "This kid is ambitious, shouldn't I be nicer to him?"
"…" Jiang Zhixia changed the subject abruptly: "When will you come over?"
"The flight is tomorrow afternoon." Xia Zhi turned on the speaker of her phone and placed it on the coffee table. She answered him while packing her luggage. "I have to record in City A in the morning. I plan to stay in a hotel tonight. I'm packing my luggage now."
"We still need to go to the hotel? It's already late." The disapproval in Jiang Zhixia's words could be heard through the phone, "How are you going to get there?"
"Take a taxi." Xia Zhi said, "I searched on the ticket booking app and found a hotel nearby. It only takes ten minutes to get there by taxi."
"Don't bother," Jiang Zhixia said, "Just have the staff come to our house to shoot tomorrow."
Xia Zhi stopped what he was doing and leaned closer to his phone: "Send the staff to take the photo here?"
"Um."
Xia Zhi was tired of squatting and sat down on the sofa carpet, bent one leg casually, held up the phone and asked hesitantly: "Is it suitable?"
"What's inappropriate about that?" Jiang Zhixia disagreed.
"Then if they ask me whose house this is, how will I explain it?"
"To be honest, I don't mind."
"Is this okay? Will they think too much?"
"What are you thinking about?" Jiang Zhixia asked.
Xia Zhi looked up and did not answer.
"I hope they would think more about it." Jiang Zhixia muttered to himself on the phone, obviously intending to let Xia Zhi hear it.
Xia Zhi continued to remain silent.
"I feel like I've dug a hole for myself." After a brief silence, Jiang Zhixia suddenly said this without any context.
Xia Zhi finally responded to him: "What pit are you digging?"
"This is the first time I realized how impatient I am," Jiang Zhixia's somewhat low voice came from the phone, "I called you several times these days to ask if you had made up your mind, but I promised to give you two months to think about it, and I was afraid that if I urged you too much, you would get annoyed, so I could only wait patiently while being anxious."
"Well, you said it yourself, give me two months to think about it." Xia Zhi curled his lips and said slowly, "So don't rush me. If you urge me too much, I might really get annoyed. At that time, my emotions might influence my choice."
"…" Jiang Zhixia said hurriedly, "It's okay, take your time to think about it, I won't rush you."
Xia Zhi hugged her knees, bent her beautiful eyes, and said without any context, "August 15th is coming soon."
Although Jiang Zhixia was puzzled, she still responded: "Well, there are still eleven days left. Is it a special day?"
"Yes," Xia Zhi nodded seriously, "254 years ago on August 15, Napoleon was born."
(End of this chapter)