Chapter 5

Perhaps because the original body had spent so long weighed down by worry, it had lost much of its appetite. And after arriving that afternoon, Jing Shan had immediately been thrown into farm work. Now, he was absolutely starving. He couldn’t care less what the protagonist was thinking. He picked up his chopsticks, grabbed a piece of braised pork, and popped it into his mouth. So good! Jing Shan’s eyes lit up. He hadn’t expected Xie Yichen’s cooking to be this good! He hurriedly shoveled a couple of mouthfuls of rice into his mouth. The soft, fragrant rice paired with the rich braised pork was a match made in heaven. Seeing Jing Shan’s expression, Xie Yichen curved his lips into a smile and placed another piece of his fried shrimp into Jing Shan’s bowl. “Jing Shan, try some of the shrimp I made too.” He’d already peeled the shrimp before frying them, and he’d seasoned the coating with a little salt and pepper. Jing Shan took one bite and immediately fell in love. “It’s really good.” He looked at Xie Yichen and said it with complete sincerity. The other two dishes Xie Yichen had made were excellent as well. Jing Shan was thoroughly satisfied and ate with particular enthusiasm. As for Bai Xiaoxu and Meng Letian, who were staring at him with such longing... Sorry. When a true foodie was eating, there was only food in his eyes. Even so, Jing Shan didn’t look particularly undignified while eating. He was simply fast, the kind of speed that somehow made everyone watching feel even hungrier. Of course, he didn’t forget his most important dining companion either. He kept urging Xie Yichen to eat as well. Seeing how satisfied Jing Shan looked, Xie Yichen’s eyes curved into a smile. Just a little good food is enough to make him this happy. So cute. Xie Yichen picked up his chopsticks and began eating slowly, his praise flowing as freely as the food. “Jing Shan, this is the best stewed chicken I’ve ever had. Even the broth is so fresh!” “Jing Shan, this cold vegetable dish is so refreshing, and the flavor is really unique. Is this some kind of secret recipe? It’s delicious!” “Jing Shan, you’re such a good cook. I’m so lucky I got paired with you.” Xie Yichen praised him while eating, describing every flavor in painstaking detail. The viewers watching the livestream began to feel as though they were watching a food show. But, big brother... weren’t you supposed to be the cold and aloof type? How did you suddenly become so talkative? Xie Yichen praised him so much that Jing Shan actually became a little embarrassed. He lowered his head and ate even faster. His expression remained perfectly calm. Only the faint redness creeping up his ears betrayed how he was really feeling. Unfortunately, some people were simply gifted at ruining a good atmosphere. Seeing the two of them completely ignore him made Bai Xiaoxu, who had always been doted on and fussed over, feel increasingly uncomfortable. He couldn’t help addressing Jing Shan directly. “Brother Jing, you have so many dishes. Can you really finish all that?” Jing Shan heard this and gained an entirely new understanding of Bai Xiaoxu’s shamelessness. As he spoke, Bai Xiaoxu deliberately fiddled with the watch on his wrist. Only then did Jing Shan remember. That watch had originally belonged to him. The original Jing Shan had once been the spokesperson for the brand. Because the endorsement campaign had performed exceptionally well, the company had given him a limited-edition watch worth several million yuan as a gift. The original Jing Shan liked the design quite a lot and occasionally wore it. Bai Xiaoxu had seen it and kept praising how beautiful it was, so the original Jing Shan had wanted to give it to him. But Bai Xiaoxu liked putting on an act. He insisted that he didn’t want the watch as a gift and merely wanted to borrow it. Except that over the years, he had borrowed plenty of cars, jewelry, and watches from Jing Shan. Jing Shan had yet to see a single one of them return. He could more or less figure out what Bai Xiaoxu was trying to do. Wasn’t he deliberately showing off the fact that he was still wearing something Jing Shan had given him, implying that he still had Jing Shan in his heart and subtly flirting with him? And the male lead was sitting right beside him. He was literally eating what was in one bowl while eyeing what was in another. What an ugly appetite. The whole display made Jing Shan feel vaguely disgusted. Even the food in front of him suddenly didn’t taste quite as good as it had a moment ago. He simply put down his chopsticks, stood up, and went into the kitchen. A moment later, he returned carrying several more plates and bowls. Then he began portioning some of the meat and vegetables from his own dishes onto them. Seeing what Jing Shan was doing, Bai Xiaoxu smiled smugly. I knew he still had feelings for me. So he really was just throwing a tantrum before. All I had to do was show him a little affection, and he immediately went back to being the same as before. He’s so easy to manipulate. So when Jing Shan finished dividing up the food, Bai Xiaoxu naturally stood up and reached out to take the plate. But the plate made a smooth turn right in front of him. And landed in front of Cheng Zimeng. “For you,” Jing Shan said. Cheng Zimeng stared at the food in front of him, absolutely delighted. Their team had come in second-to-last today and hadn’t received a single meat dish. The vegetables they’d been given had been stewed into a huge pot, and there was a decent amount of food. But the problem was that Meng Letian was basically a human food disposal unit. However you looked at it, there probably wouldn’t be enough. Cheng Zimeng had certainly been tempted when he saw the delicious food on everyone else’s tables. But he was too shy to ask for any. He never would have imagined that Jing Shan would voluntarily share his food with him. And the meat on this plate looked delicious. My favorite actor really is the best! All those ridiculous things people had said about Jing Shan online must have been made up. Hadn’t he spent the entire day ignoring Bai Xiaoxu? Where exactly was the so-called hopeless simp? “Thank you, Brother Jing! You’re so nice!” Cheng Zimeng said gratefully. “It’s nothing. You two didn’t get much food, and you’re a boy, so you probably need to eat a little better.” Jing Shan answered casually. There was plenty of food on their table anyway. Even after sharing some, they would still have more than enough. The conversation between the two of them was perfectly pleasant. Meanwhile, Bai Xiaoxu was left standing there with his hand outstretched, awkwardness written all over his face. But he still wasn’t willing to give up. “Brother Jing.” Then— Xie Yichen, who had been silent this whole time, glanced coldly at him. “What? Are you a boy too?” The mocking look in Xie Yichen’s eyes infuriated Bai Xiaoxu. He had already been jealous of Xie Yichen’s appearance. Now, seeing Xie Yichen look at him as though he weren’t even worth his attention, the anger shot straight to his head. He immediately lost control of his words. “I was talking to Brother Jing! No matter who you are, you’re still just a newcomer in the industry. Interrupting a senior like that is extremely rude!” Xie Yichen hadn’t even reacted yet when Jing Shan became displeased. Who among the people here wasn’t more experienced than Bai Xiaoxu? And yet this guy had the nerve to act like some big shot in front of a kid who had only just entered the industry. So Jing Shan, who hadn’t originally intended to do anything else, glanced at Bai Xiaoxu’s watch. “Your watch...” Bai Xiaoxu’s heart immediately leaped with joy. He assumed Jing Shan simply hadn’t noticed the watch properly before and had failed to pick up on the signal he was sending. Before Jing Shan could finish, Bai Xiaoxu immediately put on a gentle smile. “This watch was given to me by someone very close to me. I really love it, so I’ve always kept it with me.” He deliberately kept his wording vague, emphasizing how close he was to the person who had given it to him. He had already thought about what he would say if Shen Tianzong asked afterward. He would simply claim that a female cousin had given it to him. But then Jing Shan frowned and gave him a strange look. “I was going to say, isn’t that the watch I lent you?” “It’s a limited-edition watch from L. There are fewer than ten of them in the entire world.” “We were working on the same production back then. You saw me wearing it and said you really liked it, so you asked to borrow it for a few days.” “I remember you never said you wanted me to give it to you.” “I was just going to ask—since you’ve had it for such a long time now, could you return it to me?” Bai Xiaoxu had never imagined Jing Shan would say something like that. His mind went completely blank. For a moment, he couldn’t even think of a response. Because everything Jing Shan had said was true. Although Jing Shan had once mentioned that he wanted to give him the watch, Bai Xiaoxu had deliberately acted as though he wasn’t interested in money and said that he merely liked the design and wanted to borrow it for a few days. He had done the same thing countless times before. And he had never returned anything. Hadn’t all those things—including this watch—basically become his by default? So why was Jing Shan publicly asking him to return them now?! Just as Bai Xiaoxu was frantically thinking, Jing Shan continued. “Oh, right. There’s also the diamond brooch from F that you borrowed before, the bracelet from M, the sapphire cufflinks from C...” ــــــــــــــــــــــﮩ٨ـ ❤︎ 【Oh my god! Seriously?! He just casually lent out watches worth millions?!】 【Forget the watch. Do you guys know how much that diamond brooch from F costs? You can’t even buy one just by having money! Bai Xiaoxu borrowed all those expensive pieces of jewelry and never returned them? That’s way too much!】 【What are you talking about? Jing, the simp, was perfectly willing to give them to our Xu-Xu! He only wants them back because he couldn’t win him over. How pathetic!】 【Didn’t you hear? Bai the White Lotus borrowed them. If they were gifts, why doesn’t he just say so? Borrowing things and refusing to return them—isn’t that basically no different from stealing?】 ــــــــــــــــــــــﮩ٨ـ ❤︎ Jing Shan rattled off more than a dozen items. With every item he mentioned, Bai Xiaoxu’s face grew redder. By the time Jing Shan finished, Bai Xiaoxu looked as though his face might turn purple from holding everything in. He looked like he might faint at any second. But Jing Shan didn’t care. He even gave the matter a neat little conclusion. “So, all these things you borrowed have been with you for quite a while now. Could you return them to me?” ــــــــــــــــــــــﮩ٨ـ ❤︎ 【HAHAHAHA, I’m dying. Weren’t some of those brain-dead fans always bragging about how amazing their idol was? Today he’s wearing a limited-edition watch, tomorrow he’s wearing some royal-family-style brooch from another country. Turns out they were all borrowed.】 【Okay, maybe I’m being a conspiracy theorist here, but you know how Jing Shan and Bai Xiaoxu have been photographed together so many times? What if Jing Shan was actually going to collect his stuff?】 【Wait, you might actually have a point. Maybe he really was trying to get back the things Bai Xiaoxu borrowed, but Bai Xiaoxu kept refusing to return them, so Jing Shan had no choice but to bring it up on a livestream. And all this time people were calling him a simp. Jing Shan is kind of the victim here!】 ــــــــــــــــــــــﮩ٨ـ ❤︎ Everyone present was shocked to hear Jing Shan personally list all those items. They all turned to look at Bai Xiaoxu. Even Meng Letian, who had previously sided with Bai Xiaoxu against Jing Shan, was now looking at him strangely. Bai Xiaoxu was sweating bullets. Forget what the internet was going to say. Right now, he didn’t even dare turn around and look at Shen Tianzong. Shen Tianzong cared about his reputation more than anything. In the past, Bai Xiaoxu had always told him that Jing Shan was the one who kept pestering him and that he couldn’t shake him off. But now, he had undeniably been taking Jing Shan’s things. Even if he wanted to deny it, he couldn’t. His vanity had led him to deliberately wear those watches and pieces of jewelry in front of cameras at various events. He’d been photographed with them countless times. There was simply no way to explain them away. “Hmph!” Shen Tianzong gave a cold snort, stood up, and walked toward the guest rooms. Bai Xiaoxu’s heart clenched when he saw him leave. But they were still livestreaming, and everyone around him was staring. He could only force out an apology. “I’m sorry. My memory isn’t very good, so I kept forgetting to return them. I’m really sorry. I’ll return everything to you as soon as I get back!” As he spoke, he took the watch off his wrist and placed it on the table. Then he turned around and ran away without looking back. Jing Shan didn’t hesitate. He picked up the watch and slipped it into his pocket. It’s been worn by the protagonist. Just thinking about that made him feel a little uncomfortable. He probably wouldn’t wear it again. But limited-edition watches from this brand only went up in value. He could probably make a small profit by selling it secondhand. With so many people there as witnesses—and countless viewers watching the livestream—he wasn’t worried that Bai Xiaoxu would refuse to return the rest. He’d gotten his property back. The eyesore was gone. With those thoughts in mind, Jing Shan sat back down and continued eating. Suddenly, the food tasted delicious again. Not bad. Today turned out to be a profitable day after all!