A Milky Orange-Flavored Omega Becomes Famous Through a Dating Show [Entertainment Circle] - Chapter 21

“When you’re like this, you really are asking for humiliation. It makes me feel very…”

Pei Yi’s words stopped abruptly.

Out of humanitarianism, she had helped Zhong Lin. Also out of humanitarianism… she could not keep provoking Zhong Lin. Tonight, Zhong Lin had already suffered many blows.

Although she was only in her early twenties, Pei Yi’s tone and expression were unusually mature, repressed and low, as if many emotions were hidden deep inside.

Countless doubts filled her heart. Zhong Lin had so coincidentally entered the same variety show as her, so coincidentally had pheromone disorder, and so coincidentally had compatibility with her.

Were all of these truly coincidences, or had someone deliberately arranged them?

“I…” Zhong Lin lowered her head. Her panicked gaze swept over the ground, and for a moment, she did not know what to do. Hadn’t Pei Yi just said on Weibo that Zhong Lin was her friend?

Did she really hate her that much? QAQ~

The girl shakily raised one tightly clenched little hand. Her slender fingers slowly opened, revealing a small kumquat hidden in her palm. She handed it toward Pei Yi.

It was a small kumquat the nurse doing rounds had placed on her bedside cabinet.

The night wind was strong. The hem of the blue-and-white striped shirt was lifted by the wind, and the shirt slid to one side, revealing a section of her narrow, thin waist. Zhong Lin’s figure was slender, and the hospital gown looked slightly oversized on her.

“I only came here because I wanted to treat you to this.” The girl’s voice sounded timid and a little wronged. “Thank you for yesterday.”

“I caused you trouble again. I’m really sorry…” Zhong Lin held the little kumquat in both hands, her movements somewhat trembling, like a little hamster offering up a pine nut it had treasured.

The little kumquat in her palm was taken by someone. Perhaps because Pei Yi had been standing in the night wind, her cool fingertips brushed across Zhong Lin’s palm, tickling it slightly.

Pei Yi withdrew the hand braced against the wall and moved one step to the side.

The pressure belonging to an Alpha disappeared, and Zhong Lin instantly let out a breath of relief.

Pei Yi pinched the little kumquat in her hand, tossed it into the air, and caught it steadily again. She coldly glanced at Zhong Lin. “Say it. How much money did the other side give you?”

“I’ll give you double.”

The tone of Little Best Actress Pei had quite the flavor of an overbearing CEO.

The road back to the industry was long. At this moment, Pei Yi was very suspicious—

Was Zhong Lin, this “magical creature,” a spy sent by the opposing side to infiltrate her from within?

After all, capital-made stars followed a fixed conservation of total traffic. If someone who had been silent for three years made a comeback, whose cake would she take a slice from? It would be normal for someone to secretly make trouble.

“What money?” Zhong Lin was dazed for a moment, unclear on what the other person was talking about. Her announcement fee had not been settled yet, so where would anyone give her money?

“2,333 yuan?” She raised a hand and scratched her forehead. Remembering the number she had found after searching through all her accounts earlier, she answered tentatively.

The corner of Pei Yi’s mouth twitched, and her expression almost broke. “You… which company are you from exactly?”

“Company?” Zhong Lin froze slightly. She really had not paid attention to this question when reading the original novel and had not thought to remember it. She had not expected Pei Yi to ask her this.

“Wait a moment. I’ll call and ask.” Zhong Lin remembered that there was an option labeled “manager” in her phone contacts. She turned sideways and pressed her finger on the “manager” option.

Zhong Lin stood sideways. The two silly hairs on top of her head had been pressed into curls and trembled in the wind.

Pei Yi: “…”

Pei Yi raised her eyes and looked at that tuft of silly hair dancing in the wind on top of the girl’s head. She could not help letting out a soft laugh. If an opposing company had really sent someone to cause trouble, then that company’s boss was either too smart or too stupid.

They had found such a natural airhead… one who did not even know the name of her own company?

After several beeps, the call did not connect.

Zhong Lin persisted. After making several calls in a row—

The other side: “…”

“Hello,” Zhong Lin asked directly. “Sorry, may I ask, our company…”

“Is this Zhong Lin?” The female voice on the other end sounded somewhat troubled.

Zhong Lin: “It’s me.”

The other side began politely circling around the matter. “It’s like this. Your previous contract expired. You know that, right? Our company hasn’t been able to keep operating recently and has to lay off staff, so before you entered the production team, we didn’t have you renew your contract…”

Zhong Lin: “Mm, I can renew it after I finish recording the show.” (:з)∠)

The other side: “…”

“No. Your contract has no renewal authorization. In other words, your contract was automatically terminated.” The other party directly stated this cruel fact.

Holding the phone, Zhong Lin seemed to want to argue. “I want to ask…”

She was still trying to salvage the situation. If she did not have a company, she would not have food to eat, TAT~

“Beep, beep—” The call was hung up.

Zhong Lin rubbed her index finger and thumb together. After being forcefully hung up on, she felt a little embarrassed. “I seem to have been… terminated.”

Having accidentally overheard the contents of Zhong Lin’s call, Pei Yi lowered her head. Her finger swiped across a certain news page, and her gaze stopped on one article—

“Tianxi Entertainment suspected of collapse. Its official website has recently been inaccessible. Legal representative Zhang Heng allegedly diverted funds for other uses. Tianxing Entertainment owes payments to a logistics company, causing music albums to be unable to ship, and has already been reported by multiple fans…”

“Tianxi Entertainment?” Pei Yi raised her eyes and looked at her, a teasing smile spreading at the corners of her eyes.

Tianxi Entertainment? That name sounded so familiar. She seemed to have seen it in the original novel.

“I think so,” Zhong Lin nodded lightly.

“Very good.” Pei Yi let out a soft laugh. At this moment, all her previous suspicions were completely cleared. Her tense nerves relaxed instantly. The dormant lion-tiger lowered its guard and transformed into an obedient big cat.

She raised her phone and shook the screen in Zhong Lin’s direction.

Zhong Lin stared at the screen for a while. The meaning of this news was probably, maybe, possibly—

Her boss had run away carrying the money and the train.

The pitiful Bai Ze cub was about to face the predicament of having no money and no human food, QAQ~

Zhong Lin lightly pressed her lips together, her eyes somewhat hesitant. “What you said just now… about giving me double whatever the other party paid me.”

“Does that still count? Is it paid monthly? Does it include social insurance and housing fund contributions?”

Pei Yi never expected that the little drama queen seemed to have turned into a little money slave??

“I paid your medical bills,” Pei Yi reminded her aloud, asking tentatively, “Are you… very short on money right now?”

Zhong Lin froze on the spot.

Oh no. She had completely forgotten… Not only did she have no money, she had also gained a debt.

She could already imagine the scene after the final announcement ended, where the ash-covered Bai Ze cub leaned on a small stick and held a broken bowl to beg for food.

“I was joking.” Zhong Lin smiled bitterly. She really wanted to hug this golden thigh, QAQ.

“We’re friends… aren’t we?” Zhong Lin asked softly.

“No,” Pei Yi answered faintly, looking at her with interest.

Zhong Lin: …Didn’t you just say we were friends?? TAT

“I’ll pay back the medical bills after this announcement ends,” Zhong Lin said weakly. “I won’t be like before anymore. I won’t deliberately leech off your popularity. Really.”

“Before, the company was forcing me… I didn’t want to leech off your popularity either.” Zhong Lin’s voice grew lower and lower, seemingly filled with endless apology.

“Teacher Pei,” Zhong Lin deliberately called Pei Yi “Teacher Pei” for the first time, her voice sticky and soft. “I was wrong…”

She looked weak, pitiful, and helpless. Zhong Lin truly looked like a poor little thing who had once been ruthlessly exploited by her former company.

So pitiful.

And she was pretending again.

Good grief. She directly took the chance to throw all the original owner’s blame onto the already-bankrupt company. Wonderful, wonderful~

Pei Yi stuffed the kumquat in her palm into her pocket. She raised a hand toward the top of the person beside her head. While Zhong Lin was not paying attention, she rubbed the messy silly hair on top of her head once, then turned and walked toward the door.

The kumquat was both sour and astringent.

But the person was fun.

This little girl really was interesting.

“Click—” The rooftop door was pushed open.

Zhong Lin, whose hair had been ruffled, came back to her senses and turned her head to see Pei Yi’s back. “Where are you going?”

Pei Yi had just stepped down one stair when her figure paused. “Back to sleep.”

“We don’t have to go back to record the show until the day after tomorrow, right?” Zhong Lin glanced at her phone and realized it was already almost one in the morning. “It’s already so late…”

—It’s already so late. Be careful on the road.

Zhong Lin had not yet finished speaking.

Pei Yi suddenly asked, “You… want me to stay and sleep?”

Those dark brown eyes dimmed. The taut skin at her neck shifted. Pei Yi realized that what she had just said seemed to carry quite a bit of deeper meaning.

Zhong Lin: Huh?

Zhong Lin swallowed the second half of the sentence that had been about to slip out. Since Pei Yi had already said that, if she then said, “It’s already so late. Be careful on the road,” it would sound like she was chasing Pei Yi away.

That seemed a little impolite?

Did Pei Yi want to…

Hospitals often had people staying over to accompany patients, and extra beds could be added at any time.

Besides, Zhong Lin’s heat period triggered by secondary differentiation was already close to ending. If someone truly wanted to stay and accompany her, the hospital would not stop them.

“You want to sleep here?” Zhong Lin walked forward a little. The wind on the rooftop blew fiercely, and the silly hair sticking up on top of her head trembled lightly. “With me?”

Those light brown eyes looked quietly at Pei Yi through the rooftop door, clear and without the slightest impure thought.

But when the two sentences were connected, they gained a somewhat ambiguous meaning—

You want to stay and sleep with me?

“I’ll sleep.” Pei Yi walked back up one step and pushed the door open for her with one hand. The fingers of her hand hanging at her side curled slightly.

It was probably because their pheromones were too compatible. Even blocked by the scent-blocking patch, she could still smell that faint, sweet fragrance.

Truly seductive.

So seductive that Pei Yi wanted to stay.

Every breath was intoxicating. The night wind carried her scent.

She smelled so good.

After taking off her high heels and changing into disposable slippers, Pei Yi, now washed up, sat on a single folding bed. Between her and Zhong Lin’s isolation ward, there was only a fully transparent glass door.

Pei Yi also wanted to know what exactly was wrong with her tonight…

She was so strange today.

At home, she had a soft, wide bed over two meters across, yet she had stayed to sleep on this small iron bed less than one meter wide.

Her brain must have gone muddled just now.

Pei Yi kicked off her slippers and sat on the folding bed with her legs curled. She turned her face slightly and saw the scene inside the ward through the glass door.

At this time, the ward lights had already been turned off. Streetlight shone in through the window, coating the girl’s silhouette in a faint rim of light.

Zhong Lin was wearing the blue-and-white striped hospital gown, her head slightly lowered. The lines of her neck and shoulders were smooth. Her loose hair trailed along her neck and fell over the delicate curves of the girl’s chest, rising and falling with her breathing.

Beside the bed was a plastic basin filled with hot water.

A small foot stretched into it, the heel lightly touching the water. A soft gasp from the girl sounded beside Pei Yi’s ear, and that foot quickly withdrew again.

Pei Yi thought the water was probably too hot.

At that exact moment, Zhong Lin seemed to sense someone watching her. She raised her eyes and looked toward the door.

Through the glass door, their gazes collided.

Zhong Lin felt a little confused. Hadn’t Pei Yi washed up first? Why was she looking at her?

Zhong Lin smiled at her. Her pale pink lips parted slightly, revealing a few small white teeth. She looked innocent and charming, with a young girl’s silly sweetness.

“Good night.” Zhong Lin’s voice was soft. Through the glass door, only the movement of her lips could be seen clearly.

Pei Yi looked away in panic. Her heart tingled faintly, and threads of itchiness spread.

The hospital corridor was very quiet, quiet enough that she could hear her own heartbeat.

Pei Yi reached out and pulled open the white bedding below her, then lay down. She turned over under the covers, completely facing away from Zhong Lin’s direction.

She really must be crazy.

As if a ghost had bewitched her heart.

Pei Yi pressed her lips together. The tip of her nose smelled the faint disinfectant scent on the bedding. She should not have agreed to Zhong Lin’s request to stay and accompany her just now!

Maybe it was only out of sympathy, because she found this little fool a little pitiful?

First, her Weibo had been overrun by malicious rumors. Now even her boss and manager had run away.

Zhong Lin, it turned out, was not some overly clever “clout-chasing demon” full of schemes. She was only an ordinary, silly, delicate little girl?

Even… a little cute?

A cute little pitiful thing.

Pei Yi’s mood was very complicated. She slept very poorly. The mattress beneath her was too thin, and the bed board was hard. She had never slept on such a narrow bed before; even turning over was troublesome.

Yet she could hear the iron bed in the ward creaking and squeaking. Pei Yi could practically count how many times Zhong Lin turned over that night.

It felt… so close.

Separated only by a glass door, the girl inside the room lay sprawled out in all directions, sleeping like a big “大” character. Zhong Lin’s eyes were closed, her pale pink lips lightly pressed together. She slept very soundly, like a carefree little animal.

Pei Yi slowly turned over. The iron bed shook slightly, still making a faint “creak” sound that was somewhat piercing.

Tonight was destined to be short on sleep.