Chapter 92

On Sunday morning at eight o’clock, the second live broadcast episode began recording.

Jiang Sisi had read the script all night the previous day and was thoroughly familiar with the day’s program flow.

She got up a little after seven to prepare and appeared early in the living room. The main live camera from the camera crew faced her, its dark lens recording everything.

The director team gave Jiang Sisi an OK hand gesture, and she caught on immediately, greeting the camera.

“Good morning, everyone. Have you had breakfast?”

The live viewership stabilized around thirty million at eight in the morning. When Jiang Sisi appeared, the barrage of comments flooded in, greeting her enthusiastically.

“I’ve eaten!! Finished breakfast first thing and waited!! Am I super obedient? Praise me!!”

“Sisi!! I finally get to see you again!! Waaah, I missed you so much!”

“Friend upstairs, didn’t Sisi just finish a WTS live stream the day before yesterday?”

“A day apart feels like three years of autumn. By that math, it’s been three years since I last saw Sisi!”

Jiang Sisi smiled faintly. “Welcome back to the Love Cottage. It’s been a week since the last live broadcast. Let’s see what progress the male and female guests have made in their interactions so far.”

“First, let’s check out today’s first task.”

Jiang Sisi opened the task card envelope and read aloud: “The female guests are responsible for waking up the male guests and having breakfast.”

Jiang Sisi said, “In the first episode, the male guests went to pick up the female guests at their homes. In the second, the female guests wake up the male guests. Tit for tat.”

The barrage erupted in a wave of hahahahas.

Jiang Sisi swung the camera toward the kitchen first.

Inside the kitchen, Lu Rui and Xu Xingche were preparing breakfast. This director-approved CP pair followed the script perfectly, performing whatever the directors wanted, so their screen time was always plentiful.

At that moment, Lu Rui was skillfully steaming egg custard while Xu Xingche boiled water nearby to cook dumplings.

Jiang Sisi said, “Alright, let’s check out the handsome guy and pretty girl making breakfast. Come on, say hi to the audience.”

Lu Rui wore a pink apron, holding a dainty pink egg whisk. She had her hair in a cute ponytail tied with a pink hairband—everything about her was pink.

Lu Rui smiled sweetly. “Good morning, everyone.”

Leaning against the dining table, Jiang Sisi asked, “What are you preparing for breakfast?”

Lu Rui smiled even sweeter. “Bai Rou likes dumplings, Brother Xingche likes egg custard, Sister Leng Xiang wants noodles, Brothers Yi Jing and Qin Yang said anything goes, and Sisi-jie’s porridge.”

She recited the lines from the script word-for-word.

The barrage slowly started flooding with praise for Lu Rui.

“Lu Rui is so thoughtful and cute!”

“Cute! All pink!”

“She’s just the sweetest girl. I’m in love!”

Jiang Sisi nodded with a smile. “Good luck, then.”

She left the living room and headed upstairs.

The barrage instantly moved on from Lu Rui, exploding into more hahahahas.

“Hahahahaha, what possessed Jiang Sisi?”

“That super official promotional smile—giving it a ten out of ten, no ego boost needed.”

“Hahahahahaha!!”

“‘Good luck then’… oh!”

“Hahahaha, Jiang Sisi’s fakeness is so real!!”

Jiang Sisi went to the second floor and woke up Bai Rou, then took her to the third floor to wake up Leng Xiang.

Jiang Sisi knocked on Leng Xiang’s door and called out, “Xiangxiang, are you up?”

In her earpiece, the director team curated and summarized the barrage comments for her.

But in that instant, the voice in her earpiece fell silent. It didn’t resume until a long pause later.

Jiang Sisi felt something was off, but there was no time to dwell on it. The room door opened.

Leng Xiang scratched her messy hair as she opened the door for Jiang Sisi. Her shoulder slipped halfway down her pajama top, her voice still groggy. “Time for breakfast?”

Jiang Sisi discreetly tugged her pajama back up, blocking the camera behind her. “Not yet. The directors sent me to wake you up.”

Leng Xiang mumbled an acknowledgment and turned back into the room. “Wait for me a sec.”

They had discussed it while reviewing the script the night before.

Before they were officially together, it didn’t matter what the audience saw—they were still in that ambiguous phase, not really a couple yet. Let them watch if they wanted.

But now that they were together, they had to be more careful in many ways.

Like reining in little gestures on camera, or else their natural intimacy might slip out one day and the audience would notice. Plus, both were in the rising phase of their careers, especially Leng Xiang, who had just regained popularity and was landing good opportunities. Everything was just starting—they absolutely couldn’t let netizens discover it now.

While waiting for Leng Xiang to freshen up, Jiang Sisi’s earpiece went silent for a full minute.

The directors usually paused when relaying barrage info, but never for this long.

Jiang Sisi frowned. Nothing to say?

Or something they couldn’t say?

She sensed the director team was hiding something from her.

Five minutes later, Leng Xiang emerged, cleaned up.

She and Jiang Sisi exchanged a glance, then quickly looked away.

In front of everyone, it felt just like sneaking around.

The three of them descended from the third floor to the second.

Jiang Sisi stood aside. “Now it’s time for the female guests to wake the male guests. Let’s see what methods our ladies will use!”

Jiang Sisi held the boys’ room keycard, showed it to the camera, swiped it on the door—”beep”—and it opened.

She entered first, followed closely by Bai Rou and Leng Xiang. They looked inside and instantly gasped.

The room was a bit larger than the girls’ double, with three beds. Two were empty.

On Yi Jing’s bed, two people lay there.

The narrow single bed couldn’t fit two men side by side. Yi Jing was against the wall inside, Qin Yang beside him. They sprawled openly in their pajamas.

At least they wore pajamas.

Yi Jing apparently found the bed too small, rolled over, and squeezed toward Qin Yang. In his sleep, Qin Yang instinctively shifted aside.

A massive “thud” echoed through the room.

Qin Yang’s long legs flailed, and he tumbled straight off the bed onto the carpet between the beds.

He lay there, dazedly opening his eyes.

Jiang Sisi: “…”

Leng Xiang: “…”

Bai Rou: “…”

The noise woke Yi Jing. He opened his eyes, a bit confused.

He glanced around and saw three women in his room. He snapped awake, frantically piling blankets over himself.

Yi Jing said, “Hey, hey, what are you doing here? No knocking?”

Jiang Sisi said coolly, “You think the directors would let us knock?”

She eyed Yi Jing disdainfully—even in pajamas, his first instinct was to cover up with the blanket. “Give it a rest. You’re not wearing the emperor’s new clothes. What’s there to hide? It’s late—get up already.”

The barrage exploded with more hahahahas.

“Now this isn’t fake-business Jiang Sisi!!”

“I love watching Jiang Sisi roast Yi Jing. So fun!!”

“Hahahaha, real Sisi is back!!”

Qin Yang climbed up from the carpet, ruffled his messy hair, sat back on Yi Jing’s bed, and rummaged for his phone. “Where’s my phone?”

Yi Jing pawed around the bed for his too, finally finding both in the corner. He handed Qin Yang’s over.

The live viewers’ barrage brimmed with anticipation, words on the tip of their tongues.

“Folks, I’ve got a question I really wanna ask.”

“Me too.”

“Looks like we’re all thinking the same thing.”

Bai Rou suddenly spoke up. “Why are you two sleeping in the same bed?”

Yi Jing grabbed his phone and tapped the screen a few times. “Xu Xingche got up this morning and woke us. Couldn’t sleep with him around, so we played a round of Honor of Kings.”

“Then we got sleepy after and crashed again.”

Jiang Sisi let out a deeply disappointed “oh.”

Yi Jing said, “What else could it be with him?!”

Jiang Sisi shot back, “Oh, it could be plenty.”

The barrage went wild laughing.

“Hahahahaha, I really love Jiang Sisi and Yi Jing’s banter!!”

“So fun!!”

“They seem to get along great.”

“Frankly, I haven’t seen anyone who doesn’t get along with Jiang Sisi.”

Ten minutes later, Yi Jing and Qin Yang got ready and came downstairs for breakfast.

In the kitchen, Xu Xingche and Bai Rou had finished cooking and set everything on the table.

Noodles, egg custard, porridge, dumplings—all lined up on the small dining table.

As Jiang Sisi ate, she pondered. She kept feeling something was off.

She glanced at Leng Xiang sitting across from her. Leng Xiang looked up at her, then quickly looked down.

A curve tugged at Jiang Sisi’s lips, and her mood suddenly brightened.

They had to avoid suspicion in front of the live audience, so they couldn’t sit together, which felt a bit regrettable.

If they sat side by side now, maybe they could hold hands under the table, touch waists, or get bolder and stroke thighs.

After all, they’d stayed up late reviewing the script last night, knowing they had to record early, so nothing happened.

Sharing a room, and nothing happened.

Such a shame.

Jiang Sisi ate her breakfast distractedly, her mind wandering back to the odd barrage summaries from the directors that morning.

Suddenly, she got it—why the summaries felt strange.

From start to finish, the director-provided barrage info hadn’t mentioned Leng Xiang at all.

That wasn’t right.