A cacophony of gloating glee over their misfortune exploded all over the bullet screen of the main live broadcast as soon as the words passed the director's lips.
"Hahaha! They're driving them to their end, eh!"
"Phew, I'm going to split my sides laughing. I mean, sure, Songsong is real talented with his crafting talent and all but they're not even going to let them use their influence? Did he find out about the time our Chu Rong used his good looks to get some eggs for Songsong?"
"Ouch. It's the end. This rubbish production crew! They're totally gonna die now."
Comments flashed excitedly across the bullet screen, and it was no less chaotic on Song Yucheng's end. The youngsters had all gathered around the directors to condemn them and try to bargain with them.
"This is too much! Our Brother Yucheng is just so talented that he has a super money earning buff — How is that considered a shortcut?"
"Yeah! You're not even letting us use our influence or good looks. What, you mean we have to cover our faces when we go out now?"
One of the girls pulled no punches with her words, and she gave everyone a brief summary of all the unreasonable things the directors had done from the start of the broadcast to their present time.
Li Zhao waved his hand and said with finality, "No more! Filming is over! Let's all go home."
The youngsters all chucked at that. They were not at a loss now, not like they had been the previous two times they had received their tasks. They had gone through a lot after all, and they had matured quite a bit. They were not going to be immediately stupefied by setbacks now. Most importantly, they had Song Yucheng at the core of their group now; they felt like they could do anything.
"Our Brother Yucheng can do anything!" Li Zhao looked rather smugly at the directors, then turned around and went straight to grovelling. He went up to Song Yucheng and acted all cutesy. "What do we do now, Brother Yucheng?"
What else could they do? Song Yucheng looked helplessly at Li Zhao. He felt like knocking this contemptible little guy on the head — every family had that one dumbass nephew.
What that thought in mind, Song Yucheng could not be bothered to take notice of him. He turned around to walk back to the room. "I have no clue. If you think it's no problem, then go ahead and magick 10,000 out of thin air for me. I'm tired. I'm going to lie down for a bit."
R, Rejected… (T.T)
Li Zhao stood dejectedly in the middle of the courtyard; his glass heart had been shattered. The others in his group had no sympathy, however, and even laughed teasingly at him. Chu Rong finally had enough of their chatter and signalled them to be quieter before he went into the building himself to look for Song Yucheng.
Chu Rong entered the room to find that Song Yucheng was doing just as he'd said — sitting up in bed with his eyes shut, recuperating. He was leaning casually against the bed but it was not rude at all; his posture gave one the impression of leisure and comfort.
As soon as Chu Rong saw that, he picked up the blanket from the side, and gently covered Song Yucheng with it as he lowered the bamboo curtain over the window.
It was summer right now, but the winds were still chilly. As for the problem of the task of earning money… It was obviously not the time to be mulling over that now. The corners of Chu Rong's lips couldn't help but curl up in a smile as he watched Song Yucheng sleep comfortably, and there was even a smile of delight in his eyes. The atmosphere in the room turned warm right away.
The bullet screen of the main live broadcast immediately exploded with comments.
"Aaaaah! What a VIEW! Lil' Chu Rong definitely has a brother complex! Look how happy he is watching Songsong sleep!"
"They are throwing out sugar N times a day. Man, I'm gonna die of diabetes. As a fan of this coupling though, I wanna say that this is great! Please continue!"
"A 10,000-word description of their sweet daily life popped up in my brain in an instant. My motherboard tells me that there's going to be new fanart soon."
Many people were excited by this scene, and comment after comment flashed past on the bullet screen. Fortunately, these fans of the coupling were more rational than others and they soon stopped with their bullet screen barrage after the burst of excitement wore off.
Right then, Song Yucheng reached out to Chu Rong and pulled his arm. "That's enough. You're not sleepy even though you were sleepless in the morning? Stop working. Sit and rest."
"Mm." Chu Rong sat obediently. Right after sitting, however, he seemed to find the sunlight too bright, and he shifted to block it so that Song Yucheng would not be hit directly by it and be able to sleep better.
It should be illegal for him to be such a good boy. Song Yucheng sighed helplessly when he sensed Chu Rong's small movement. He opened his eyes only to find himself meeting the trusting gaze of Chu Rong.
"Getting 10,000 yuan is actually going to be quite difficult. We have just 20 days left." Song Yucheng couldn't keep his hopes up, so he very honestly told Chu Rong the truth. What Song Yucheng did not say was that he had an idea, but he was not sure if it would work.
However, Chu Rong seemed to pick up on his thought, and he said quietly, "We can try if you think it's possible."
"What if it fails?"
"It doesn't matter. I will do my best to shoulder it and I won't let you suffer for the failure." Chu Rong was earnest as he said it, and he casually took out the money which they had earned the past two days by working for the villagers. He put the money in Song Yucheng's hand. His sincere earnesty was like that of a little hound anxious to please its owner, and his gaze was focused on Song Yucheng.
It was no wonder that even scum like Xu Muzhi would not stop thinking about him. This dedication of his… even a celestial being would be hard-pressed to avoid being enticed. Song Yucheng's heart softened with him looking at him like that. After a long pause, he asked with feeling, "You trust me so much? Aren't you afraid that something would go wrong?"
"I'm not. You won't lie to me." The gazes of youths of 17 or 18 had the most intense purity. Plus, Chu Rong was so warm, so beautiful… it was so difficult to say no to him.
Daaaaaamn… Song Yucheng subconsciously moved his hand to cover his eyes. Chu Rong was no joke. In a few years when he's all grown up, he'd probably be able to melt rocks with a few gentle sweet nothings.
However, his subconscious act of avoidance gave Chu Rong some secret joy. He was also quietly hoping that Song Yucheng would waver and eventually forget about that scummy Xu Muzhi completely; let him replace him.
——————————————————————————————————————————-
Song Yucheng and Chu Rong's conversation was short. Time was limited after all, so after a short while, Song Yucheng got Chu Rong to call the others over and give them a rough outline of his idea.
The youngsters were excited by this. As for the directors, they were shocked beyond words when they heard Song Yucheng's plan. They started to have doubts — was this something an inexperienced teenager of 17 had the guts to do?
A guesthouse.
That's right. In this challenge to prove themselves as entrepreneurs, Song Yucheng was actually going to develop a guesthouse. They were going to welcome travellers from far and wide who were seeking a taste of simple village life.
The questions soon followed. Sure, they could open up a guesthouse, but where would the rooms be? What was their capital for this? They only had less than 1,500 yuan left on them!
Song Yucheng had answers for the directors' question straight away. "How do we not have rooms? This pension lodging we're in now is very suitable for our needs!"
"…"
Everyone, not just the directors, but Li Zhao and the others too, stared at Song Yucheng, gobsmacked. They couldn't seem to believe their ears.
The pension lodging they were in now, a guesthouse? It looked like a house of danger from the outside, and they only had straw beds on the inside. They had such bare offerings… a guesthouse? With this? Was this some sort of new compendium of jokes?
The netizens watching the live broadcast were all stunned by Song Yucheng's "visionary aspirations".
"OMG, is Songsong trying to scare me to death? They only have over 1,000 yuan in startup capital — that's not even enough to redecorate the house!"
"There isn't time for it either. My home is in the countryside, and the cost of building a house here is not as horrendous as in the city but it's definitely not something that can be done in just one or two days. They'll need a month, at least."
"Oh, my heart is weary. I really want to go over there and shake sense into Song Yucheng. Stop dreaming! Think of something more realistic!"
Everyone felt that something like this was surely impossible. What they never expected was that Chu Rong and the others actually all chose to support the idea after they got over their initial shock.
To them, Song Yucheng was a person who had managed to earn the money to support all of them in a few hours. If he said that he wanted to open up a guesthouse, then he definitely will be able to do it!
They did not even want to waste a minute more. A plan was made, and they got busy.
Song Yucheng really did take them to buy the materials needed to renovate the building, and he even hired some of the housewives of the village. They took two little girls with them, and they practiced weaving and making fabric flowers. The boys changed their clothes and painted the walls according to what Song Yucheng had planned, and sawed wood while they were at it.
The first day passed just like that. There were not many changes other than a whitening of the walls.
On the second day, additional simple wooden shelves appeared in the yard. Li Zhao had made these with great effort, following what Song Yucheng had drawn on paper. The shelves were steady enough, but they were tragically ugly.
Pits of varying depths appeared in the courtyard on the third day. The folk they had agreements with brought over the flowers, plants and vegetables they needed.
Even so, there was still nothing particularly noteworthy to be seen on the outside. It was at least clean before they'd started on renovating.
"Sigh. I did say that it was impossible. It's a small village but they only have over 1,000 yuan. I mean, just think about it. Anyone would know that nothing can be done."
"It's the difference between expectation and reality. Song Yucheng & Co. are still so young anyway. It's expected that they'd be impulsive sometimes."
"But they've thrown all their money away. What are they going to do later?"
Quite a few people were feeling anxious for them. On the fifth day, when they stopped work for the night, everyone thought that they were surely not going to be able hang on any longer. These young masters and ladies who had been toiling for almost a week were also so tired they could collapse.
At 10 o'clock in the evening, the two girls were ushered off to sleep by Song Yucheng. Next, the youngest was working, working, working when he plopped headfirst into the pile of sabai grass. The only ones who were still up and working were Li Zhao, fighting a battle with his closing eyelids, and Chu Rong and Song Yucheng.
"Brother Yucheng, does this look okay to you…" asked Li Zhao with his head tilted to one side. He was so sleepy that he was seeing double, and he had lost his liveliness from the daytime.
He made Song Yucheng smile, and he patted his head. "It's good. I'll finish up the rest of it. You go sleep."
"No." Li Zhao was stubborn. "I'll go wash my face. I'm not too tired."
"No, you won't." Song Yucheng could tell that he was already at his limit, and he pulled him to a halt and said gently, "Be good. Take our younger brother and go to bed."
"Mm…" Li Zhao was not very willing to leave when he still had work left to do. However, he was just too sleepy, so he led the youngest by the hand to the room, and they both went to sleep.
Just Song Yucheng and Chu Rong were left working in the courtyard now. For some reason though, Chu Rong, who had been working hard earlier, was now distracted. His eyes kept going to Song Yucheng's hand.
What's up? Song Yucheng didn't understand at first. After he'd cajolled Li Zhao into going to bed, he understood. Chu Rong was jealous. He had only behaved that way to Chu Rong in the past after all.
How could he be so cute!
Song Yucheng was a bit of a meanie, and there was no one else around, so he couldn't help teasing Chu Rong. "Don't worry, we'll be able to finish it. Come, give me a smile."
"I'm not worried." Chu Rong could tell that Song Yucheng was teasing him, and he turned his head away while giving him a grumpy answer. He then put his head down and continued working on what he had in his hands. He was not the calm and gentle young man in front of cameras during the day anymore — he was a little kitten who wanted cuddles but wasn't getting it.
He was really really grumpy, but he was quite attractive like that too.
Song Yucheng melted a little at his adorableness. He put down his work, and pulled Chu Rong into his arms from behind. "What, are you jealous because I was nice to Li Zhao?"
Chu Rong said nothing, but he did not refuse him. His ears were all red, and it was not clear if it was because Song Yucheng was so close, if he was too nervous, or if it was because he was ashamed at having his thoughts uncovered.
"How are you going to find a wife later when you're so pure and innocent? You won't even be able to open your mouth to confess." Song Yucheng couldn't help pinching Chu Rong's cheek as he teased him. His skin felt good under his fingers, and he couldn't bear to move his hand away.
Chu Rong had only just adapted to being in Song Yucheng's embrace when the caress came. His body trembled; it was beyond his control.
"Ruffled, eh?" Song Yucheng couldn't help it; a soft chuckle escaped his lips.
Chu Rong's face got even redder. He stood up, breaking out of the embrace, and turned around to envelop Song Yucheng in his arms instead. He buried his head on his shoulder, as if hinting to Song Yucheng that "my hair feels much better than Li Zhao's".
So he WAS jealous, huh?
Song Yucheng was put in a good mood by Chu Rong's cuteness, and he touched his hair ever more gently. "Geeze, you're so soft. Be careful, or you'll get bullied by your wife in the future."
Chu Rong, with his head on his shoulder, smiled a small smile. It was fine if he got bullied!
——————————————————————————————————————————-
There was still a lot of work to be done, so Chu Rong and Song Yucheng soon returned to their work after their short intimate interlude. Come four in the morning, the others awoke too and came to help with the work.
These were likely the most difficult days for them. When they finally put together all of the things they had been working on the past few days, piece by piece, all of them, including Song Yucheng, felt a little on the verge of collapse.
It was six in the morning then, and the dawn came as expected. The directors came over at eight in the morning and they were stunned by what they saw before them when they pushed open the door to the courtyard. The netizens who had been waiting to watch the live broadcast were all flabbergasted. They could not even dare to believe what they were seeing.