APCF -Chapter 19 (2)

The following shot assistant thought to himself, it was the programme team who requested the personnel receiving them to casually set them down anywhere. If they were received into a villager’s home, wouldn’t they be indirectly saving their travel funds? Then it would not be in accordance with the programme’s content!

However, Zeng Er, who was not aware of the inside story, wrinkled his old face as he sunk into contemplation.

“Oh! I got it!”

A moment later, Zeng Er slapped his thigh hard and gnashed his teeth, “What a village chief he is, he’s thinking of letting you all go to his house once he is done with his business, so that he can make his house into some renown farmhouse, and earn this portion of money!”

“Ai ai ai Uncle Zeng, quiet down a bit, calm down,” Qi Xingchen smiled enigmatically and blinked his eyes, “That was what you said, not what I said haha, I didn’t say anything.”

Zeng Er nodded, panting heavily in anger. He had not expected that old dog village chief to be so traitorous; once a good thing appeared, he would actually take it upon himself!

He patted Qi Xingchen on the shoulder, “Little Xingxing, don’t worry. You’ve been so good to Uncle, Uncle also would not give you away! You all can stay with Uncle over here, stay for as many days as you want, Uncle will kill a pig for you to eat every day!”

“No need, no need. All of us celebrities are on diets and don’t eat much meat,” After lying to Zeng Er, Qi Xingchen was a bit ashamed. How would he dare to eat someone else’s pigs? “You can just make more organically farmed dishes for us!”

“That will not do, if not, you all can eat chicken or fish, Uncle’s house has a fish pond!”

“Fine, fine, fine. In any case, you mustn’t be too generous hah!”

Seeing the two of them with their arms around each other’s shoulders, echoing each other, just like a kindred uncle and nephew, the staff present really wanted to laugh.
However, taking into account their professionalism, they forcibly suppressed it, each of them turning red in the face from suppressing.

The director and assistant director in the monitoring room were looking at each other in dismay, wanting to laugh, yet wanting to cry even more.

“Assistant Director Li,” Director Zhao gripped his hair in anger, “this kid was sent by the heavens to torment me, right? He actually knew how to use the tactic of driving a wedge between people!”

Assistant Director Li looked as if he had nothing left to live for, “Awesome, really f*cking awesome, this old man ate no more salt than this kid ate rice, how could he be tricked so easily?! Still thinking he was doing the Zeng family a favour, he even wanted to kill pigs and give them fish to eat. This f*cking- isn’t this the f*cking equivalent of letting someone sell you, and still helping them to count the money?”

“Ai…… Blame it on the fact that I didn’t give prior notice that they cannot stay at somebody’s place for free.”

“I don’t blame you, who would f*cking know that the monkey demon would come up with this……”

…

During the directors’ deep self-criticism, Zeng Er had already energetically tidied up the rooms on the west and north parts of his house.

The crowd was prepared to tidy up the rooms properly. While the girls were sent to wash the kitchen utensils, Zhang Yunfei was sweeping the floor in the house as he wondered: “Xingxing, how did you manage to wangle Uncle Zeng?”

“I did something wrong,” Qi Xingchen turned to the camera and confessed in front of the audience, “I did it in consideration of the show’s effect, you all mustn’t follow my example of tricking the villagers ah! When this stop has ended, I’ll properly explain to the village chief to apologise, then compensate them and ask for their forgiveness.”

As he was talking, his eyes kept shifting around guiltily, inadvertently landing on Bo Ye.

Bo Ye was in charge of making the beds and was currently emptying the cabinet of the beddings. His arm in contact with the quilts was tense, and his brows were furrowed imperceptibly.

Qi Xingchen sighed discretely — these two rooms of Zeng Er’s house had been left unused for too long, and the bedding was probably already moist.

This fake idol of his had the same sensitive skin as the real idol, one cannot say if he would develop rashes when he sleeps.

Qi Xingchen threw down the cleaning rag and slipped out, tiptoeing. The cameraman’s butt just started to become warm from sitting; he had no other choice but to get up again and catch up with him in tears.

Zhou Yu, who was sweeping the yard, saw him and directly ran over to him, “Xingxing, where are you going?”

“I’m going out for a stroll.”

Just now, Qi Xingchen took care of the matter of accommodation by himself; this time, he might want to do something again and claim credit for it. One cannot let him do all the good things by himself. Zhou Yu’s mind considered rapidly, then smiled and said: “Then I’ll accompany you, I also wish to take a look at the local conditions and customs.”

Qi Xingchen looked at Zhou Yu and smiled as he said “Alright”. He had to find a way to get rid of this scourge, but he had not thought of a strategy yet, so he could only wait for now.

The two of them walked onto the main street of the village. Because if one lives near a mountain, one lives off the mountain, the villagers here had wood ear, mushrooms and other goods from the mountain sun-drying in their yards. Qi Xingchen looked at them as they walked, seemingly looking for something. Zhou Yu snickered in his heart: Heh, as expected, the motive was not pure.

Until they reached the eastern end of the village, Qi Xingchen paused in his steps and turned to enter the last courtyard.

It was visible that this yard was very clean, with the farm equipment arranged neat and tidy. A long clothesline was pulled out from the left to the right of the yard; several duvets, duvet covers, and bed sheets fluttered around in the wind, washed till they were considerably radiant.

Qi Xingchen went over and felt it, it had already dried under the sun, and called out towards the house: “Hello, is anyone there?”

Not long after, a woman approximately in her fifties came out holding a wok spatula, “Who are you all looking for?”

“Hello Auntie, we are the guests who came over to record a programme,” seeing that the woman was in the middle of cooking, Qi Xingchen did not waste her time and got straight to the point, “May I ask if you are selling this bedding?”

It suddenly dawned on Zhou Yu, it turned out that Qi Xingchen found the bedding at Zeng Er’s house distasteful and had come out to look for a quilt!

“Xingxing,” Zhou Yu finally seized something on him and hurriedly spoke up, “why do you suddenly want to buy a quilt? Do you feel that the one at Uncle Zeng’s house is dirty?”

“……No,” said Qi Xingchen, “the bedding at Uncle Zeng’s house has been left there for too long, it’s too moist.”

“It’s normal for it to be a bit damp in the south, why is a grown man like you so delicate? Look at me, I grew up here since childhood, and I’m still alive and well. A set of bedding is expensive, our travel fund is only so much, let’s try to reduce unnecessary expenses bah.”

Qi Xingchen was then placed in an awkward position. Zhou Yu was now acting as if he was thinking of the team; if he insisted on buying the quilt, he would surely be beaten black and blue by antis.