In fact, major TV stations and video websites have been producing similar programs one after another, and Gu Kaiyang has some understanding of them.
Even if she didn't actually find love, participating in the show would at least allow her to meet some elites. Besides, it was something May agreed to, so it wouldn't interfere with her work too much and wouldn't do her any harm. That's why she actually went in the end.
Recently, she has been working normally during the day, and only needs to return to the villa at night to live with the other non-celebrity participants in the recording. She has gotten used to it and it is quite good.
Jiang Chun asked the most crucial question: "Is there anyone you've taken a liking to?"
Gu Kaiyang: [No.]
Gu Kaiyang: [However, an old acquaintance, number four, moved in today.]
Jiang Chun: [Who?]
Gu Kaiyang: [Zhou Jiaheng.]
Ji Mingshu: [? ? ? ? ]
When Cen Sen returned home that evening, Ji Mingshu launched a barrage of questions at him, like asking a million questions.
"Zhou Jiaheng went to participate in a dating show. He seems to have a lot of free time."
"You didn't arrange this on purpose, did you? Do you know that Gu Kaiyang is participating in that program?"
Cen Sen replied irrelevantly: "Gu Kaiyang? She should indeed worry about her own relationship issues, instead of being a single person and constantly instilling strange theories that she herself has never practiced into married people, thus disrupting the harmony of other people's marriages."
Chapter 77
Very good, excellent.
Ji Mingshu felt that his understanding of Cen Shisen had reached a new level.
Although Cen Shisen did not admit it directly, his indirect meaning can be translated to be: Yes, I know that your best friend is participating in the show, and I arranged for Zhou Jiaheng to go there. I hope that your best friend can focus on her own family in the future and stop stirring up trouble between our husbands and wives.
Ji Mingshu: "Are you crazy?"
Is he not busy enough with work? He even has the leisure to arrange for his assistant to seduce his wife's best friend!
Cen Sen stared at her for a while, then nodded. "You actually believed it."
He loosened his tie and suddenly chuckled.
Ji Mingshu: "..."
Whether it was because she saw the splits or something else, Cen Sen's smile was inexplicably doting, as if he were saying, "Oh darling, I love how stupid you are, believing everything you say without any intelligence."
She got goosebumps, stood on tiptoe, pinched Cen Sen's cheeks, and pulled them apart. "Don't laugh!"
Okay, I won't laugh.
Cen Sen pressed his forehead against hers, placed a kiss on her lips, and whispered, "Want to take a shower together?"
Ji Mingshu: "You scoundrel!"
Leaving aside the details of the indecent behavior, during this process, Cen Sen was still pestered by Ji Mingshu to explain the matter of Zhou Jiaheng appearing on the show.
Actually, this was quite a coincidence.
Zhou Jiaheng's family has been urging him to find a partner for the past few years, but he always uses work as an excuse to put it off. His family had no choice but to come up with a bad idea: they secretly sent him his resume to a dating show.
With his resume, he easily passed both the preliminary and final rounds. He didn't even know about it until the production team notified him to attend an interview.
Zhou Jiaheng didn't actually want to go, and Cen Sen hadn't planned for him to go either. But after learning that Gu Kaiyang was also participating in the show, he granted Zhou Jiaheng leave and suggested that if he was interested, he could try to develop a relationship with Gu Kaiyang. If not, he could also help Gu Kaiyang develop relationships with other male guests.
Although Cen Sen's explanation was quite reasonable, Ji Mingshu still wanted to remind Gu Kaiyang that Zhou Jiaheng's motives were impure and he was no good. However, Gu Kaiyang seemed quite satisfied with Zhou Jiaheng joining the show midway and becoming the fourth male contestant, and his words were full of praise.
Gu Kaiyang: [I always thought Zhou Jiaheng was the kind of assistant who acted like a mother hen, but his official title at Junyi is actually Vice President of Greater China, can you believe it?]
Gu Kaiyang: [Moreover, he graduated from Tsinghua University with a bachelor's degree and from the University of Southern California with a master's degree. His academic background is quite impressive. I used to have a very deep prejudice against him...]
It's no wonder that Gu Kaiyang's opinion of Zhou Jiaheng changed drastically; there's no difference without comparison.
On the third day after they checked into the villa, the production team allowed everyone to reveal their age, education, and occupation.
The arrogant attitude of the guests in the first three days made Gu Kaiyang mistakenly believe that they were all elite professionals who graduated from Harvard and Cambridge and earned millions of yuan a year in various industries, so much so that she felt particularly stressed when she returned to the villa those days.
Unexpectedly, when the job postings were actually revealed, the experts instantly turned into bronze-level players. The educational backgrounds and jobs they reported sounded impressive, but if you squeezed out the exaggeration, it would be enough to drown a cow. Gu Kaiyang sat there and unconsciously straightened her back.
Not to mention Zhou Jiaheng, whose qualifications are so outstanding among this group of so-called elites that he has no friends.
Anyway, just look at the female guests' genuine reactions. Before, one female guest and a male guest had developed a pretty mutual and obvious relationship, but these past few days, as soon as Zhou Jiaheng arrived, the female guest started looking for opportunities to be alone with Zhou Jiaheng.
Hearing Gu Kaiyang praise them so much, Ji Mingshu couldn't very well pour cold water on their relationship, since they were still in the process of getting to know each other better and hadn't really developed anything yet.
But Ji Mingshu was still worried. After finishing the hotel design draft, she used the excuse of caring about Cen Sen's health to make a special trip to Junyi during the daytime when Zhou Jiaheng was at work.
Inside the CEO's office—
Ji Mingshu sat in his office chair, feigning authority, and, mimicking Cen Sen's usual inscrutable demeanor, asked casually, "Assistant Zhou, your actual position at Junyi is Vice President of Greater China?"
Zhou Jiaheng humbly replied, "It's just a nominal position."
"When was your name added to the credits? It wasn't someone who added it to your credits at the last minute before you participated in the show, was it?"
She glanced meaningfully at Cen Sen, who had been sent to the reception area to drink soup.
Zhou Jiaheng: "No, I've been in this position ever since I came back from Australia."
Ji Mingshu nodded and then asked, "Zhou Zhu, you don't seem to be from the capital. Is it very difficult for you to get into Tsinghua University?"
Zhou Jiaheng remained humble, saying, "Fortunately, I ranked third in the province in the college entrance examination that year, so getting into Tsinghua or Peking University wasn't too difficult."
"..."
Ji Mingshu remained silent for a long time.
Whether Cen Sen couldn't stand it anymore or not, he suddenly gestured for Zhou Jiaheng to go out and urge someone to prepare a document.
After everyone left, he asked Ji Mingshu, "Do you think Zhou Jiaheng is bad?"
“It’s not that it’s bad,” Ji Mingshu said, resting her chin on her hand and thinking for a long time. “It’s just that I feel that Gu Kaiyang is my best friend, and if her boyfriend is my husband’s assistant… it seems a bit strange.”
Cen Sen said gently, "Zhou Jiaheng's annual salary should be enough to buy three apartments in Gu Kaiyang's company. He also holds shares in the group. Besides, being an assistant is just a training experience for him. He won't be an assistant forever. You're worrying too much."
Ji Mingshu retorted, "That's my best friend, of course I'm worried!"
Without even thinking, Cen Sen said, "That's your best friend who wants to date, not you. It's just that she's participating in a show, and if she feels it's not a good match, then naturally things won't develop between them."
All you have is a mouth!
All you do is talk nonsense!
Ji Mingshu's death gaze was fixed on him.
Seeing that he was still drinking soup without realizing it, Ji Mingshu stepped forward angrily, covered the soup bowl in front of him, and said irritably, "Why can't I fall in love? I married you directly without experiencing the process of falling in love, and you don't feel guilty at all, but you even say it so confidently. I really see through you!"
Cen Sen: "..."
The change of attitude came so quickly, like a tornado. It wasn't until he heard the office door slammed shut with a deafening bang that Cen Sen managed to piece together Ji Mingshu's sudden accusations.
He rubbed his brow bone and suddenly understood what a sweet burden meant.
Outside the office, Zhou Jiaheng, who had just retrieved the documents, bumped into Ji Mingshu again.
Before he could even greet him, Ji Mingshu launched into a tirade against him like a firecracker, basically saying that if he hadn't taken good care of Gu Kaiyang during the show recording and dared to play with Gu Kaiyang's feelings, he would be dead.
Zhou Jiaheng felt more wronged than Dou E. How could he dare to toy with Gu Kaiyang's feelings? Did he think he had too much time on his hands?
He now returns to that villa every night, and his relationship with Gu Kaiyang is merely that of relatively familiar friends, nothing more.
Ji Mingshu listened to his sincere explanation, and then inquired about the pairings of the men and women in the villa.
She understood that Zhou Jiaheng meant that Gu Kaiyang didn't have any male guests interested in her at the moment, nor did any male guests have any interest in her.
It's normal that Gu Kaiyang didn't have any male guests who were interested in her, but how could no male guests be interested in her?
No, that's too undignified.
She suddenly changed the subject and explicitly told Zhou Jiaheng to be more attentive to Gu Kaiyang, at least in places where there were cameras. She also taught him various methods for creating romantic surprises when pursuing girls.
Whether Zhou Jiaheng used these methods to give Gu Kaiyang face remains to be seen until the show airs. In any case, after Ji Mingshu left, Zhou Jiaheng relayed these methods to his boss word for word.
Cen Sen took a look.
Ordering flowers every day makes her colleagues and other female guests envious—this obviously doesn't apply to Ji Mingshu, as she has no colleagues, and the flowers are just for her to enjoy quietly at home.
Giving gifts—this also doesn't apply to Ji Mingshu, because he would give Ji Mingshu gifts every now and then.
He suddenly asked, "How do people usually date these days?"
Before Zhou Jiaheng could answer, he continued, "I shouldn't have asked you; you have no experience."
Zhou Jiaheng kept his eyes down, silently thinking to himself: "You talk like you have a lot of experience."
Cen Sen paused for a moment. Actually, to be honest, he did have experience.
However, that experience is now just a blank in his mind; there seems to be nothing worth remembering or reminiscing about.
He took off his glasses, rested his forehead on them, and thought for a long time.
Finally, he picked up his phone and slowly typed out a line of text.
"Baby, do you have time for a date tonight?"
He stared at the words for a while, and it took him a long time to overcome his discomfort with the cheesy tone before clicking send.
Chapter 78
Inside the luxurious and spacious walk-in closet, Ji Mingshu held up her phone, taking pictures as she asked, "What do you think of this outfit? Is it too formal?"
She was trying on a burgundy satin cocktail dress without a petticoat, featuring an off-the-shoulder design and a delicate, sparkly diamond-studded belt at the waist.
This little dress is extremely demanding on body shape, but she has a small frame and fair skin. The dress fits her perfectly, not too tight or too loose, and makes her look even more beautiful and charming.
Jiang Chun on the other end of the video seemed to be so captivated by the beauty that she didn't blink for several seconds. It wasn't until Ji Mingshu called her twice that she snapped out of her daze. "Oh, it is a bit formal, but it's fine if we're going to a Western restaurant or a play or concert. By the way, where are you going tonight?"
"I just didn't know where to go. He only asked me if I was free for a date, and then said he would come back to pick me up after get off work."
When she said the first part of her sentence, Ji Mingshu frowned slightly, seemingly a little annoyed. But the more she spoke, the more her lips curled up, an uncontrollable smile.
And every affected, coy little expression seems to be frantically implying: "That's right, I'm currently a little canary baby immersed in love!"