Substitute Lover [Entertainment Industry] - Chapter 57

Dots of light twinkled in the night sky.
Sparse figures swayed slightly with the gentle breeze, overlapping.

A person, wrapped in a large coat, walked slowly along the long path, coming to the filming site.

When the staff saw the director coming, they quickly bowed slightly, moved aside the partition, and invited him inside the cordoned-off area.

During the day, other members of the director’s team had been following the filming, but the head director had something to do and didn’t come. He had only instructed the others to help watch over things. Now that it was late, he finally had some free time and came over to supervise.

The director’s team was generally responsible for arranging game tasks, contacting venues, and leading the program’s hundred or so people in location changes and handling emergencies, as well as adjusting the content. The rules of reality shows were not fixed, and sometimes, in order to achieve better results, the plan would be constantly modified and adjusted during filming.

Standing among the director’s team, he greeted everyone and began to observe with a scrutinizing eye.

“What does this word mean?”

Song Yuan propped herself up on the corner of the table, reached out, and pointed to the place where the pointer on the spinning wheel had stopped.

“The literal meaning. Don’t ask any more, just draw a card.”

The female host smiled slightly, not in a hurry to explain the task, but took a stack of black room cards, shuffled them randomly, and extended her hand. There were eight cards in total, each with a golden corner label in the upper left corner, representing the room number of each guest.

Song Yuan casually drew two cards.

She lowered her head and read aloud, “1101.”

Jiang Cha’s long eyelashes trembled slightly, and she was slightly startled.

That was her room number.

Song Yuan moved the first room card away and looked at the remaining one, softly reading, “1105.”

Song Baiwei raised her eyes and smiled lightly, “That’s mine.”

Her expression remained calm, with a slight smile on her lips. Her long, light brown hair cascaded down to her waist, and her white chiffon dress made her look very outstanding against the night, like a white gardenia.

Song Yuan chuckled and looked at her aunt.

Although her expression didn’t reveal much, Song Baiwei had always been like that, never overjoyed or angry, her facial expression was always very calm. But as her niece for so many years, Song Yuan felt that she was in a good mood now.

Song Yuan raised her eyes, her eyes shining as she looked at the host.

“What does the word ‘kiss’ mean? Does it mean my aunt and Sister Jiang have to kiss?”

Jiang Cha was startled and inexplicably had a bad feeling.

She couldn’t help but glance at Ji Fan.

She was just standing quietly in the moonlight, dressed all in black, blending into the night with a somewhat lonely and cold air. Except for her face, which was slightly pale and cold due to the silver chain and sparkling white diamonds at her earlobe, she couldn’t see anything else.

Jiang Cha came back to her senses.

Feeling a little regretful, she lowered her eyes and calmed down.

The host looked at Song Yuan in confusion.

After a long while, she seemed to not understand and said, “Why draw two cards at once? Do you want to kiss two people at once?”

Song Yuan looked confused, “?”

“Here, give me these two cards,” the host extended their hand.

Song Yuan obediently handed them over.

The host turned away, shuffled the cards, and turned back to her with a smile in their eyes, “Draw one more time.”

Song Yuan drew the bottom card and flipped it over to look.

Under the moonlight, the slightly sunken gold cursive room number read: 1101.

“Sister Jiang’s room.”

Song Yuan looked up, suddenly feeling nervous, “What does this mean?”

“Don’t you understand?” The host chuckled, “You have to kiss the guest who stays in this room. No cheating, there are so many cameras filming. And it has to be a French kiss.”

Song Yuan trembled, as if struck by lightning.

“Me? And…”

Song Yuan was about to point at Jiang Cha when she caught a glimpse of Ji Fan standing in the crowd.

Ji Fan’s gaze first glanced at Jiang Cha, then casually looked away, looking to the side as if embarrassed.

“Um,” Song Yuan said awkwardly to the host, “Would Ms. Ji mind?”

“Every guest who participates in this program has signed a contract, and since Ms. Ji has signed, it means she doesn’t mind. You can rest assured about that.”

Song Yuan had no choice.

She walked step by step, very restrained.

She had never been in a relationship before, and her first kiss was about to be lost so inexplicably. But since the other person was such a beautiful girl, it didn’t seem like a loss.

The surrounding crowd started to cheer:

“Hurry up, Xiao Song!”

“Just go for it, what are you afraid of?”

“Hey, Xiao Song is shy.”

Song Yuan still felt a little apprehensive.

She looked sideways and saw Ji Fan from a distance.

Ji Fan was propping her forehead with one hand, her eyebrows slightly furrowed, looking tired, as if she was trying to endure something.

Then she slowly bent down and lowered her head, her red lips slightly parted, breathing lightly.

Earlier when she was telling fortunes, she heard her aunt say that Ms. Ji was suffering from an illness and would only have a year left to live.

At that time, Ji Fan had smiled and denied it, saying that she was very healthy and had just caught a cold recently. She also said that her aunt was just a half-baked fortune teller and that her predictions were like curses. She said she would definitely live a long life and live longer than anyone else.

At that time, her aunt had only casually looked at Ji Fan’s palm, and logically speaking, it wasn’t very accurate.

It was all superstition.

But the way she looked now, she didn’t seem normal.

Maybe she had a cold or caught a chill from the night wind, and that’s why she had a headache?

It was possible.

Song Yuan, seeing that Jiang Cha wasn’t reacting much, boldly approached her slowly.

In an instant, her nose was filled with a faint floral fragrance. She didn’t know what kind of perfume it was, like jasmine, like the small white flowers that dotted the apple tree during the day, sweet and light.

Her mind was momentarily dazed.

She leaned close to Jiang Cha’s ear and whispered, “Are we really going to kiss?”

Jiang Cha replied softly, “Let’s just pretend.”

“I don’t know how,” Song Yuan pleaded. “Why don’t you do it? You have more acting experience, you should know how to make it look real.”

Jiang Cha cupped the back of her head and tilted her head slightly, her lips inching closer.

From a distance, it was a very ambiguous pose. Her snow-white cheeks seemed to be slightly flushed, and both of them seemed to be shy.

Song Yuan held her breath.

Jiang Cha’s long eyelashes fluttered one by one, delicate and charming, filled with a shallow moonlight, wet and dark.

She was almost there.

Just then, a hand suddenly pulled Jiang Cha back from behind, and a voice behind her said indifferently, “I don’t agree.”

The diamond on Ji Fan’s earlobe flashed, and her expression was extremely cold. She didn’t look at Jiang Cha, she was angry.

In an instant, almost everyone could feel the palpable low pressure, the air was cold, as if it had been frozen in an instant, capable of freezing people.

She turned to the host and said word by word:

“The rules didn’t say that coins couldn’t be traded privately.”

“I’ll give mine to Song Yuan.”

Jiang Cha turned around.

There was a moment of astonishment on her face.

The host was embarrassed, she didn’t know how to handle this situation either, so she didn’t reply immediately but looked towards the director’s team for help.

The director didn’t want to offend such a big shot as Ji Fan. When Song Yuan drew Jiang Cha’s card, he had a bad feeling: Although this segment was interesting, it might offend people. He didn’t want to offend important guests, especially since Ji Fan was also an investor. Regardless of other relationships, just looking at that investment, he couldn’t really do anything.

From another perspective, adding a scene of someone snatching someone else’s mid-way might make the broadcast even more exciting.

The director smiled and gave the host an OK sign.

“Ms. Ji is right.”

The host followed suit and smiled slightly, “This operation doesn’t violate the rules.”

Everyone was dumbfounded.

Ji Fan gave her earned coins to Song Yuan, and Song Yuan, who had clearly done nothing during the day, ended up getting first place out of nowhere.

She was too lucky.

••••

The night was slightly cool, and the wind was very gentle, gently blowing Ji Fan’s long, curly hair.

The curls were soft and smooth, like a waterfall of ink, but her face was as white as snow, and her lips were red, making her look excessively striking from a distance.

The two of them were close, but they said nothing to each other.

Jiang Cha turned her eyes to the side, not wanting to look at her.

She felt a warm touch on her waist.

Tentatively, it tightened slightly.

The distance was so close that it made one instinctively want to retreat.

But Ji Fan’s gaze followed her.

Her eyes were beautiful, clear and clean, like a small stream in the forest. But those dark eyes were exceptionally calm and bright, and when she looked at someone, her eyes never blinked. She stared at her for a long time, not appearing presumptuous, but inexplicably deep.

Jiang Cha was thin-skinned, and after being stared at for so long, her fair ears turned slightly red, and a faint blush appeared. Ji Fan wrapped her arm around her slender waist, lowered her head, and leaned over slightly, about to kiss her.

Her cool nose touched her cheek.

A cold fragrance, mixed with warm breath.

Just then.

The host, wearing a headset, dutifully said, “Wait! Ms. Ji, you have to spin again! That was Song Yuan’s draw just now, it doesn’t count!”

Ji Fan paused and glanced at her sideways.

As soon as the host finished speaking, she almost bit her tongue.