rsvt_03

"Ever heard of 'Scum Media'?"

In the break room at KG Music, Yu Xiaochong was making himself coffee when he asked the person who'd just walked in.

"Never heard of it," the young woman replied with a laugh. "Who on earth would name their company that? You must have misheard."

"Isn't Mu Qi from Scum Media?" Yu Xiaochong asked, puzzled. "Wasn't that how she was introduced at that Japan fashion show before? I heard it clear as day—'Scum,' Mu Qi." As he said it, he burst out laughing.

The woman grabbed a tea bag, about to make herself some tea. Hearing this, she couldn't help laughing too.

"What 'Scum*'? It's called Bailei."

*t/n; 敗類 / bàilèi. If you say it fast, "百磊 / bǎi lěi" will sound like "敗類 / bàilèi".

"Ohh, that makes sense. I knew it, who'd ever name their own company 'Scum.'" Yu Xiaochong took a sip of his coffee.

"Why bring up Bailei out of nowhere?" the woman asked.

"The PD from "Zero Distance With You" contacted me, said they need to move up filming. So I asked who else was going to be on it. He wouldn't say anyone else's name, just mentioned that Scum—er, that someone from Bailei company was joining. Aside from Mu Qi, who's got a bit of a following, I've never heard of any of their other talent."

"Then it's got to be Mu Qi, no doubt about it. She's fairly well-known in the influencer world, and she counts as a half-model too," the woman said. "Hey, how come you're so relaxed, just sitting here having coffee? Have you already dealt with that one back there?"

At that, Yu Xiaochong's face fell. "Isn't this me mentally preparing myself?"

That particular young master still had no idea he'd been signed up for a dating variety show. Yu Xiaochong had originally planned to work out how to phrase it carefully over the next few days, but the show's PD had just told him filming was being moved up, so now he'd have to lay it all out at once, right away.

"Well, that's what you get for deciding on your own without asking his opinion first. Good luck with that. I'm heading back to work." The woman patted his shoulder and left the break room, tea cup in hand.

That left Yu Xiaochong alone in the break room, sighing.

He composed himself, finished his coffee, and headed toward Di Jing's recording studio.

Di Jing's recording studio doubled as his composing room and lounge, with a massive sofa outside the recording booth. Through the clear glass panel on the door, Yu Xiaochong looked in and saw the black-haired young man sitting alone on the sofa. Dressed casually, hood pulled up over his head, cradling a guitar in his arms, he looked utterly relaxed and laid-back, every bit like an ordinary college student.

Yet somehow, this sight filled Yu Xiaochong with a strange sense of dread.

The person sitting so leisurely on that sofa was none other than Di Jing, the currently popular singer, KG Music's living signboard.

The moment had finally arrived. He mentally psyched himself up and pushed open the door.

But the instant he stepped through the door—

He changed his mind.

"Filming on Monday, sure, that works. Just need to get my luggage packed early." Di Jing was tuning his guitar, and without even looking up at the sound of Yu Xiaochong's voice, he replied absentmindedly.

"Uh..." Yu Xiaochong wiped the sweat off the tip of his nose.

"Where's the travel destination? Going abroad? How many days and nights?" Di Jing asked.

After waiting a moment and not hearing a response from Yu Xiaochong, he stopped what he was doing and looked up at him.

"What's wrong?"

"I need to tell you something. Don't get angry, okay?" Yu Xiaochong took a few steps back.

"This travel variety show... it's a little unusual."

"Unusual how?" Di Jing continued fiddling with his guitar, head still down.

Yu Xiaochong tested the waters cautiously: "It's just that you'll be living together with three male guests and four female guests for a month."

"Why so long?" Di Jing didn't seem to catch anything strange about it. "That's a lot of guests too. Is it one person per room?"

"Should be..." Yu Xiaochong replied vaguely.

"Then that's fine. A month sounds perfect for me to relax a bit," Di Jing said. "It's that long because we're going abroad?"

"It's in Haicheng." A coastal city in the south.

"A month in Haicheng?" Di Jing sounded a bit doubtful.

He'd performed in Haicheng before and had already visited all the popular tourist spots during his downtime there. "What show is this?"

" 'Traveling Together With You'."

" 'Traveling Together With You'?" Di Jing picked up his phone and started searching. "There's no such show."

"Of course you can't find it, this show has really strict confidentiality. The first episode won't air until a while after it starts filming," Yu Xiaochong said with an awkward laugh.

Di Jing glanced at Yu Xiaochong, who was backing up another few steps until he was practically pressed against the door. "Why are you so nervous?"

"Do I seem nervous? Haha, ha ha ha." Yu Xiaochong forced out a laugh.

"You're acting weird today. You just said not to get angry earlier..." Di Jing set his phone aside. "Are you hiding something from me?"

"Of course not, Brother Di. It's just, since the location this time is Haicheng, I was worried you'd be upset about it. You've already been there so many times, I was afraid it wouldn't feel fresh to you," Yu Xiaochong quickly said.

Di Jing patted the empty spot on the sofa next to him. "You think I'd get angry over something that small? Come sit down."

Di Jing had been in a bad mood lately. He wanted to transition into being a singer-songwriter, but he simply hadn't had any inspiration, and he wasn't satisfied with any of the tunes he'd composed. As his manager, watching him grow increasingly dispirited over this, Yu Xiaochong had suggested he go on a variety show to relax a bit and meet some new people.

Di Jing hadn't thought much of it and agreed. He'd assumed Yu Xiaochong would sign him up for something like an overseas travel show, or a slow-paced show about experiencing rural life. Little did he know, Yu Xiaochong had secretly signed him up for a dating variety show instead.

Yu Xiaochong's reasoning for taking on this show was the same as Mu Qi's.

It all came down to how much buzz it had. Even before airing, it had already trended on Weibo for several days straight—once it actually aired, the level of buzz was easy to imagine.

This year, Di Jing had only sung the OST for one hit drama, and aside from that, he'd had zero public exposure. On top of that, he himself was fixated on this transition, burying himself in his composing room day after day, rarely coming out to make public appearances. He'd even turned down the company's plan to release a new album for him—no one knew what had gotten into him this year, but he was determined to put out an album where he wrote both the lyrics and the music himself, insisting on calling himself a 'singer-songwriter'.

June was almost over, and Di Jing still hadn't composed a single song. Every singing-competition variety show Yu Xiaochong had tried to line up for him, he'd turned down. Watching Di Jing grow more and more obsessed by the day, and watching how competitive the new generation of artists was getting, Yu Xiaochong had grown anxious.

So when "Zero Distance With You" had reached out to him, he'd agreed without a second thought, and had even guaranteed that Di Jing would definitely appear on the show, leaving Di Jing no way to back out even if he tried.

"Brother Di, let me ask you something." Yu Xiaochong sat down next to Di Jing. "Have you ever thought about dating someone?"

"No," Di Jing answered immediately. "Why ask that? It's way too early for that."

"If you dated someone, you might get some inspiration..." Yu Xiaochong's voice trailed off weaker and weaker, as Di Jing's smile slowly began to fade.

"Looking to get smacked?"

Yu Xiaochong began silently thanking his lucky stars he hadn't laid everything out at once, otherwise he'd probably be getting beaten up right about now.

"Is there anyone I know on that show?"

"It's got really tight confidentiality, so I don't know exactly who's on it. But there's one thing I do know for sure, remember that fashion show in Japan I dragged you to see the year before last? There was a girl named Mu Qi, remember her? The really fair-skinned one."

"I remember. From Scum Media. Hard to forget a name like that."

"It's not Scum Media, it's Bailei. Don't go teasing her about it when you meet her."

"Am I really that mean?" Di Jing set his guitar down on the carpet and sprawled out on the sofa. "It's obvious the host just mispronounced it. Only an idiot would actually believe a company would name itself 'Scum'."

Yu Xiaochong: "......"

"That girl looked pretty small, but she seemed to work really hard."

"Look at you, actually paying attention to her," Yu Xiaochong teased.

"Is there a show script or anything? What's there even to do in Haicheng for a whole month, I'm kind of curious." Di Jing changed the subject, pulling his hood down further to cover his eyes.

"Nope, don't worry, just go and enjoy yourself," Yu Xiaochong said.

"So how come it says I'm joining "Zero Distance With You"?" Di Jing had apparently started scrolling through his phone at some point, and what he said next nearly made Yu Xiaochong's heart skip a beat.

"I keep telling you to stop looking at Weibo and that stuff." Yu Xiaochong hastily snatched Di Jing's phone away, guilt written all over his face, and set it down on the table. "That's all just netizens randomly guessing, none of it's accurate. Go take a good nap, I'll handle getting everything else ready for you. The only thing you need to worry about is not oversleeping on Monday and missing your flight."

"So thoughtful of you. Having you around is my good fortune," Di Jing said, propping his chin up with a smile.

"Oh, please." Yu Xiaochong grabbed the baseball cap off the table and dropped it right over Di Jing's face.

His hand trembled ever so slightly.

Di Jing frowned and kicked at Yu Xiaochong. "If you're not feeling well today you can head back, you've been acting so weird this whole time."

"Alright then, go ahead and sleep." Yu Xiaochong got up and left the recording studio.

Di Jing would be heading to Haicheng next Monday anyway, and the two of them wouldn't see each other for a whole month after that. Even if Di Jing wanted to storm back and confront him, there'd be no way to do it. Everything could wait until a month from now—by then, maybe he'd have had a change of heart too...

"Hello, Xiao Yu, is it confirmed? Did Di Jing agree to the earlier filming date?" Liu Mei's call came in right at that moment.

"He agreed," Yu Xiaochong said, lowering his voice as he quietly closed the recording studio door.

"Excellent!"

After hanging up on Liu Mei, Yu Xiaochong silently said a prayer in his heart for his future self, one month from now.

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