After Transmigrating As The Mother Of The Pitiful Female Supporting Character in a Campus Novel - Chapter 42.1

Xia Shibai and her group were the first to arrive at the airport. Because they had an ample budget, they headed straight for the VIP lounge.

Hardly had they sat down when the staff came over to inform them that they had to conduct interviews separately.

Xia Shibai glanced at the children, who were still full of energy, and decisively let Qin Zhijin go first. “You go do the interview first. It’ll be better if you take over once I’ve worn out these two energetic little rascals.”

Otherwise, those two would definitely stir up a lot of trouble.

“Alright,” Qin Zhijin replied without refusal.

Once she entered the room next door, she found four thick envelopes and a tablet placed in front of her.

“Before choosing an envelope, please answer the following three questions.” The staff member in front of her wore a mask and calmly looked at the question card in their hand. “Our program has a total of four families. The questions you answer now may affect the group assignments later, so we hope you answer after careful thought.”

“Okay,” Qin Zhijin nodded. She listened to the three questions intently and provided her answers.

She chose an envelope at random; upon opening it, she found a ball of cotton.

She paused for a moment, looked up at the staff, and then stuffed the cotton back into the envelope.

“Are you certain you don’t want to change any of the above answers?”

“Certain.”

“Then, who do you most want to be grouped with?”

Qin Zhijin squeezed the envelope and laughed. “Didn’t you say there were only three questions? This is already the fourth.”

“Who do I want to be grouped with most? It would definitely be Xiaobai. We are quite familiar with each other; she doesn’t get discouraged during tasks, she is organized, and she considers more things than I do. If I’m in a group with her, I should be able to ‘carry’ my way to the end without using my brain.”

Beyond this reason, the other truth Qin Zhijin didn’t mention was—if Xia Shibai and the other two weren’t here, she might not have come to this show at all.

After answering the questions, Qin Zhijin was led back to the original lounge by the staff. Sheng Liu had also arrived with her daughter, Sheng Huaixing. Aside from the initial greetings, she and Xia Shibai sat at opposite ends of the lounge, not interfering with each other.

Sheng Huaixing was of mixed heritage. Her hair was black with a reddish-brown tint, while her eyes and features leaned more toward East Asian. Looking closely, it wasn’t hard to see the resemblance between Sheng Huaixing and Sheng Liu.

Sheng Huaixing was adopted; this fact was known only to the Sheng family.

Sheng Huaixing sat in Sheng Liu’s lap flipping through a picture book. She was very quiet, only occasionally distracted by the rustling sounds of the other two children discussing cartoons. Like a crane in the water, she would suddenly look up in their direction, but a moment later, she would look back down at the book in her hands, turn a page, and remain silent.

Qin Zhijin returned with the envelope and walked up to Xia Shibai. Before she could speak, Xia Shibai reached out and gently squeezed the envelope.

Feeling the soft texture, the two looked at each other and smiled.

“I get it, I get it.”

“What do you get? I haven’t said anything.” Qin Zhijin pulled the sealed envelope out of Xia Shibai’s hand and tapped it lightly against her palm, making a muffled sound.

Xia Shibai blinked gently. “I didn’t say what I ‘got’ either.”

As soon as Xia Shibai sat down in the interview room with the staff, she heard the person in front of her repeat what they had just said to Qin Zhijin.

“What exactly is the impact of these three questions on our grouping? For example, will people with similar answers be grouped together, or those with completely different answers?” Xia Shibai looked at the three remaining envelopes on the table and pointed. “How about I pick the envelope first? You can ask the questions later.”

“The answers to the questions determine your initial ‘Chemistry Level,’ which can be converted into points for your use.”

“Can we continue to use them after we arrive at the destination?”

“No, the Chemistry Level only counts from the interview room until landing. Once we reach the destination, there will be a new point calculation rule.”

Xia Shibai nodded, but her request to pick the envelope first was denied. She had to settle down and listen to the staff read the three questions.

“What are your expectations for a teammate?”

“Smart and beautiful,” Xia Shibai said quickly. “Someone like Dr. Qin is just right. Because we are very familiar and understand each other well, our personalities get along. If she is my teammate, our win rate will be quite high.”

“A meadow covered in flowers or a forest full of fruit—which do you prefer?”

Xia Shibai bit her lip slightly. Long ago, she might have chosen the second one directly; after all, in a survival game, having fruit meant you could eat and drink. However, the information Xia Yaozhou brought back said that Qin Zhijin preferred flowers.

Flowers?

But Qin Zhijin didn’t seem particularly interested in flowers. If she really liked them, she should have shown she was very knowledgeable back when they first went to the flower and bird market.

This layer-by-layer analysis suddenly made Xia Shibai snap to alertness.

The information she had regarding Qin Zhijin seemed to come from the older “Qin Zhijin” in her dreams; it was never said by the person standing before her.

Qin Zhijin had asked her how she knew she looked good in a qipao? That indicated that qipaos weren’t her usual style. She had agreed to plant mint in the grass and couldn’t distinguish between the roses and multiflora roses she bought. This suggested that the current Qin Zhijin didn’t actually like flowers.

Xia Shibai was simply projecting the “Qin Zhijin” from over ten years later onto the framework of the person in front of her.

From start to finish, they weren’t exactly the same person.

The same applied to Xia Yaozhou. They were two people with similar experiences but separated by over a decade of time.

Having realized this, Xia Shibai felt she had found a path out of the fog—a faster path to finding Qin Zhijin as a teammate.

She chose the second answer without hesitation and, treating Qin Zhijin as her predetermined teammate, said: “If it’s me and Dr. Qin, we would definitely choose the second one. Since it’s a survival game, if we don’t have points to exchange for things, being able to eat fruit is a very good choice.”

“…” The staff member facing their boss was somewhat speechless.

From beginning to end, both Qin Zhijin and Xia Shibai had played their cards openly, projecting their teammate role onto each other without considering the other two people at all.

Although they had anticipated this happening before the show started, everyone couldn’t help but fall into a state of speechlessness during the actual recording.

May the world be free of ‘neighbor-brain’.

Both had chosen the same for the first two answers. The staff member glanced at the third question, sighed lightly, and asked: “Among the four families, who do you most want to be grouped with?”

“Qin Zhijin,” Xia Shibai answered without hesitation, the name blurted out instantly.

The staff member rubbed their temples with a headache and gestured for Xia Shibai to pick one of the three envelopes in front of her.

“Can I touch them to choose?”

“You can feel them, but the envelope cannot leave the table surface.”

Xia Shibai recalled the texture of the envelope she had felt earlier—it was soft. The fact that the envelope couldn’t leave the table didn’t stop her from feeling what was inside.

She pressed her hand on each envelope in turn; they were all soft.

Xia Shibai looked up and saw the staff member trying hard to suppress the corners of their mouth from curling up. She quickly understood why no staff had come to stop or dissuade them during their exchange in the lounge earlier.

Because this was a trap, just waiting for the two of them to jump in.

Xia Shibai wasn’t in a hurry.

She truly didn’t believe the program team could be so perverse as to keep the textures identical. She touched the surfaces of the envelopes back and forth, her expression darkening the more she felt them.

Xia Shibai bit her lip and laughed. “Isn’t your program team being a bit too ‘unfair’? The texture of these three envelopes is exactly the same. You didn’t choose things of the same weight and category but different types, did you?”

“I don’t know, President Xia. I wasn’t the one who arranged these props.” The staff member asking the questions tried their best to distance themselves from the issue; they didn’t want to offend the boss just for a show.

“…” Xia Shibai really couldn’t distinguish between the different types of “softness.” Abandoning herself to fate, she pulled one out of the remaining three. “This one.”

The staff member saw the envelope Xia Shibai pulled away and arched an eyebrow. It was unclear whether it was relief or a realization, but it made Xia Shibai very uneasy.

Xia Shibai’s eyes shifted, and she put the unopened envelope back. Under the staff member’s uncontrollable expression, she chose an envelope that made the staff’s face turn solemn. She said firmly, “I want this one.”

“Alright…”

Opening the envelope, Xia Shibai saw cotton inside, but she didn’t know if it was the same type as Qin Zhijin’s. It wasn’t ruled out that the staff member used their expressions to trick her. She took the envelope back; according to the order, it was Sheng Liu’s turn.

Sheng Huaixing waved her hand and sat obediently on the sofa. Sitting next to her were Jin Minxi and her sister.

Compared to the harmonious atmosphere of the other three families, Jin Minxi had a cold face throughout; her brow never unfurrowed. Facing Jin Minna, who had been arguing since they left the house, she only said one thing: “If you cry one more time, I’m going to hit you!”

However, this didn’t stop Jin Minna from crying. Instead, she got even more worked up, crying so sorrowfully that the audience in the live room began to feel irritated.

Seeing the threat was ineffective, Jin Minxi was truly too lazy to talk to the spoiled Jin Minna. She directly used her designer triangular silk scarf to tie Jin Minna’s hands, pulled a large piece of medical tape from her bag, tore it off to seal her mouth, then grabbed the back of Jin Minna’s collar, threw her directly onto the floor, put on her headphones, and started playing games.

The manager in front of the live camera almost fainted upon seeing this. They held their philtrum to revive themselves, beginning to regret picking such a variety show for this “little ancestor.”

It was like this right at the start. Once these two weeks of recording were over, the manager started worrying that the “little ancestor” would be flamed to death by netizens for “child abuse.”

Jin Minxi’s movements weren’t light, and the three children in the lounge all saw it.

Xia Yaozhou, who had been happily talking to Gu Mingyi earlier, reached out to cover her own mouth, not daring to say a word. After making eye contact with Gu Mingyi, the two slid down from the sofa at the same time to go find Qin Zhijin and Xia Shibai.

Xia Shibai, who had returned, didn’t sit in her original spot. Instead, she took the envelope to Qin Zhijin and said apologetically: “I don’t know if the two of us can be in the same group. I felt it, and the director is very cunning. The things they put inside probably aren’t any different from cotton; I couldn’t feel anything specific when I touched it.”

“It’s fine. How did you pick the one in your hand?”

“By reading their expressions.” Xia Shibai spoke righteously, handed the envelope to Qin Zhijin, and sat on the armrest of the sofa herself.

She wanted to say something more, but the two little ones scrambled into their laps from the side.

Xia Shibai quickly caught Xia Yaozhou, who was trying to fall into Qin Zhijin’s lap amid the chaos, and lifted her out. “How old are you? Still diving into an adult’s lap? Aren’t you embarrassed?”

“I’m still a child.” Xia Yaozhou struggled indignantly, spreading her arms toward Qin Zhijin, wanting Auntie Qin to rescue her from the “fire and water.” One adult and two children squeezed onto one sofa cushion.

Including Xia Shibai sitting on the armrest, there were four of them.

The audience in the live room expressed that they couldn’t understand. Was this sofa that comfortable to sit on? Or what kind of attraction did it have that four people were leaning on it?

“Friends, I feel like it’s not a problem with the sofa! QWQ”

“Yes, it feels like the person sitting in the center is like a magnet, attracting the three people around her.”

“Why does the staff call Xia Shibai ‘President Xia’?”

“The person above clearly hasn’t read the official introduction. It’s because Xia Shibai is the current person in power at Lan Sui. However, I heard she no longer works at the office; she works from home and occasionally returns for meetings. As for why the staff call her ‘Little President Xia’… naturally, it’s because Xingkong Pictures is Lan Sui’s own property. Besides Little President Xia, there’s also ‘President Sheng,’ which is Sheng Liu.”

“Lan Sui employee reporting in. The former Little President Xia was a workaholic. She basically spent five quarters out of a four-quarter year at the company working. She ate and slept at the company; the company was basically her home.”

“Waaaah, no, Qin Zhijin is really so good-looking! She calls Little President Xia ‘Xiaobai.’ Dying of laughter, it’s like she’s calling a puppy.”

“What’s wrong with a puppy? The puppy is currently fighting with children for a seat! With a neighbor like this, let alone working from home, I’d be willing even if I didn’t work. I’d live on the Northwest wind just for that beauty!”

“So sweet to ship. I have strong teeth for this. I’ve been shipping them since this morning!”

Qin Zhijin also felt helpless about four people squeezing onto one sofa, especially since children are naturally warm. Huddled together, it didn’t take long for her hands to start sweating and going numb.

Xia Shibai noticed her discomfort, lifted the two children out of Qin Zhijin’s arms, and put them on the floor, saying bluntly: “Go back to your original spots and play. This sofa only has this much space; how can it accommodate so many people?”

Xia Yaozhou glanced out of the corner of her eye at Jin Minxi, who was playing games with headphones on nearby. Afraid, she hugged Xia Shibai’s leg and muttered: “No, I want to stay with you guys.”

“And why can Mommy stay here while we have to sit over there? I won’t!”

“There are only a few sofas. Wouldn’t it be better for you two kids to go sit together over there?”

“Then why doesn’t Mommy go sit on that sofa? The two of us kids can squeeze in with Auntie Qin!” Xia Yaozhou stubbornly pointed at a sofa not far away and said, “Look, that sofa is big enough for Mommy to sit on alone.”

Xia Shibai: “…”

Xia Shibai was too lazy to waste words with the child. She directly picked up one in each arm and placed the two girls on the other sofa. “You two sit properly. We can take off in a little while.”

Having said that, she looked back every three steps. After confirming the children weren’t following, she sat back on the sofa to talk to Qin Zhijin with peace of mind.

Xia Yaozhou indignantly said to Gu Mingyi: “Why isn’t it ‘squeezed’ when those two adults sit together, but it is when we sit with Auntie Qin? What kind of logic is that!”

It was clearly bullying the kids. Did they think she had never sat on a sofa before?

Gu Mingyi patted Xia Yaozhou’s head and used the tablet in her hand to draw her attention away, no longer focusing on the two adults.

Sheng Liu returned quickly. After all, she came to this show alone and was worried something might happen to Sheng Huaixing. She finished answering the questions very fast and walked toward the lounge with her envelope.