Chapter 57

The show’s vehicle drove leisurely ahead, balancing between clearing the way and filming tasks, while Ye Chen rode the small tricycle behind. The wind blew his bangs backward, fully revealing his delicate facial features—dark, thick eyebrows and eyes, with a bright and spirited expression. His posture was impeccably erect, almost dignified. If you cropped out the bright pink tricycle beneath, he could easily pass for a young prince riding a horse in some foreign country…

“… ” The cameraman blinked, momentarily feeling like he was shooting a drama scene.

The group rushed to the market in high spirits.

Although the show prohibited blatant self-promotion, the trailing camera crew was filming openly, and with the tricycle laden with popular stars, not to mention Shen Mofeng, a celebrity even non-entertainment insiders recognized, it was impossible to reduce the star effect to zero.

“So, shall we start selling?” Zhou Yu assumed that passersby would buy out of courtesy. He picked up a bucket of fish and walked a few steps away, blocking an auntie who was watching the excitement. Politely, he said, “Hello, auntie, would you like to buy some fish?”

The auntie just smiled and waved her hand.

Zhou Yu moved on, stopping an elderly man. He pulled out a fish from the bucket and politely asked, “Hello, sir, would you like to buy some fish?”

The elderly man also smiled and dodged the camera.

“… No one’s buying.” Zhou Yu looked around with a puzzled heart and turned to Ye Chen for help. “Xiao Yezi, did we come to a fake market or something?”

The show’s planner: “… Perfect, keep making mistakes, don’t stop!”

“Don’t worry, Bronze ^[1]In terms of ranking in games. Bronze is a low rank,” Ye Chen reassured calmly. “Ge will take you to fly ^[2]Carry someone to win effortlessly.”

Shen Mofeng remained silent, observing quietly beside them with a look of curiosity and gentleness.

“Let’s set up our stall first.” Ye Chen rolled up his sleeves to his elbows, swiftly unloading the buckets from the tricycle. He then set up the electronic scale, cutting board, fish hook, and fish knife that the show had prepared but didn’t expect them to use. He looked every bit the handsome fishmonger.

With the seafood stall set up, Ye Chen fetched a copper basin and rolling pin he had used for a quiz earlier. He held the basin in his hand and tapped it twice like a gong.

Gu Youyou couldn’t contain her laughter. “Wow, you’re serious! Are you really going to shout like this?”

Ye Chen grinned mischievously, recalling the fish-selling rhetoric he had practiced during the early morning markets and deploying the thick-skinned confidence he had honed over months of selling vegetables. With a loud and practiced voice, he began shouting, “Fish for sale! Freshly caught crucian carp and grass carp! Fresh and lively! Seven yuan per jin, twelve yuan for two jins, we handle the slaughtering and cleaning! Fish for sale!”

Devilish Planner: “…”

What kind of devil was this Little Fresh Meat Ye?!

Shen Mofeng lowered his head, shoulders shaking with laughter.

Since the reality show started recording yesterday, Ye Chen had constantly been reshaping Shen Mofeng’s previous impression of him, becoming more grounded and adopting a unique style. Perhaps because it’s not often a pure-hearted virgin has his heart moved, the romantic filter was as thick as ten meters. Nevertheless, Shen Mofeng didn’t feel disillusioned as Ye Chen had feared. Instead, he saw Ye Chen not just as a well-behaved and pretty porcelain doll but as someone more real, more flesh and blood… and also more adorable.

After Ye Chen’s rounds of shouting, Gu Youyou was utterly shocked. “How are you so skilled even at selling vegetables? Don’t tell me you’ve sold vegetables in your backyard!”

Ye Chen cleared his throat and said, “I used to do extra work before.”

Gu Youyou exclaimed, “Extra work?”

“Yes,” Ye Chen casually crafted a dedicated persona, his tone deep, “I observed markets to play a vegetable seller.”

Gu Youyou gasped, “Oh my…”

Zhou Yu and the other little fresh meat found it hard to accept this down-to-earth fish-selling style. They blushed and awkwardly faced the gazes from all directions. Gu Youyou, relatively adaptable, after some awkwardness, began imitating Ye Chen’s shouts.

After shouting for a while, Ye Chen’s created a lively atmosphere at his stall, infecting the onlookers with a sense of market vitality. Gradually, they paid less attention to the cameras, and bravely approached to inquire about and pick fish.

“A crucian carp—!” Ye Chen shouted loudly, creating an impression of bustling business at his small stall. He grabbed the fish tail, swung it out of the water bucket, and slammed it onto the scale, knocking it unconscious. “There you go, weighed out for you. Four jin and one liang, that’ll be twenty-four… Would you like it cleaned?”

“Don’t worry, no need for that. Don’t cut yourself again,” the auntie buying fish chuckled, “My daughter really likes you.”

Seeing someone successfully buying fish from the celebrity stall, others became more willing to try. The area around the fish stall quickly became crowded.

Some people just came to buy fish for the chance to get close to the stars. They bought fish but didn’t know how to prepare them. Ye Chen, being down-to-earth, taught them how to cook fish with gestures on the fish: “After you get home, cut the fish at this angle with a flying knife. It’s delicious both braised and steamed after marinating.”

Zhou Yu and his group were not as nimble as Ye Chen, and they couldn’t shed their idol baggage. They clumsily scrambled to handle transactions, find change, and manage money. Shen Mofeng observed coldly for a while, then took the stick from Ye Chen when he was about to stun a crucian carp. He cleared his throat lightly and said, “Let me.”

“Don’t move!” Ye Chen immediately warned the struggling crucian carp with a gesture, afraid that Shen might be bullied by the fish again.

“…Splash!” The crucian carp turned belly up, lying flat and submissive.

“…It was already stunned, wasn’t it?” Shen Mofeng lightly tapped the fish’s head as if playing around, then lifted it onto the scale. Squatting beside the scale, he looked up at the young man buying fish, and calmly announced, “2.3 kilograms, 27.6 yuan.”

“O-Okay…” The young man, probably around the same age as Ye Chen, looked like a college student with a handsome face. He blushed intensely under Shen Mofeng’s gaze, almost frozen in place.

Ye Chen leaned over and translated, “Twenty-seven kuai ^[3]Classifier for money and currency units six , we’ll take twenty seven.”

“Oh, okay.” The young man snapped back to reality, lowered his head to dig into his wallet, and confessed to Shen Mofeng quietly, “Me and a few classmates really, really admire you…”

“Thank you.” Shen Mofeng smiled faintly, extraordinarily handsome.

The young man nearly exploded on the spot, “Ahhh—!”

Ye Chen, holding the fish-killing knife, interjected, “Xiao Gege, do you want us to gut the fish for you?”

“Um, no, thank you.” The young man hesitated for a moment, then asked Shen Mofeng in a low voice, hoping for a stroke of luck, “Uhh, may I ask if it’s convenient to get your WeChat…?”

Ye Chen looked sincere, “If not the guts, how about the scales?”

The young man stuttered several times, repeatedly interrupted, his mind in a daze. “What scales? N-no need.”

Shen Mofeng suppressed a smile. “Sorry, not convenient.” Pausing for a moment, he recited in a business-like tone the words Ye Chen had said to other customers, “Cut the fish at an angle with a flying knife, it’s delicious both braised and steamed.”

Blushing furiously, the young man walked away with his fish.

As he left, silence suddenly fell over the stall for a few seconds.

“Shopkeeper,” Shen Mofeng called out to Ye Chen, a smile playing at his lips.

Ye Chen looked innocent. “What’s up, Shen Ge?”

“Earlier, were you…” Shen Mofeng glanced at the camera, leaving the rest unsaid, speaking vaguely, “Hmm? Were you?”

Ye Chen’s ears suddenly felt hot. “No.”

Shen Mofeng chuckled mischievously. “Not, but you know what I’m asking.”

Rubbing his ear, Ye Chen replied, “I don’t know what you’re asking… You need to weigh a larger crucian carp.”

“Huh? What’s going on?” Gu Youyou’s eyes sparkled. “Are you guys playing dumb charades?”

“No, no,” Ye Chen quickly changed the subject.

Next, Ye Chen was responsible for attracting customers and tallying up bills, while Shen Mofeng handled fishing, stunning, weighing, and measuring the fish. From initial awkwardness, his movements gradually became skilled. When the two were together, they looked like a handsome fish-selling couple.

…

The car full of fish was quickly emptied by the crowd. Several people used their fish money to buy ingredients for four dishes and returned home laden with goods.

With ingredients gathered, the nine guests were divided into four groups to cook the dishes. Ye Chen volunteered to take on what appeared to be the more challenging dish, Huadiao chicken, partnering with Shen Mofeng. Gu Youyou, meanwhile, ran off to make Double Skin Milk. For program effect, Ye Chen secretly swapped out the ordinary chicken bought from the market for the spiritual chicken prepared earlier by Zhou Buchu, handing it over to Shen Mofeng after the switch.

Having never cooked Huadiao Chicken before, Ye Chen meticulously followed the recipe step by step. While there were no particularly outstanding highlights, his deft and skillful operation at the stove instantly turned the group of greenhouse flowers that he had not even grasped a kitchen knife into dregs.

…

A curtain of darkness fell in four directions ^[4]East, West, North, South. Basically saying everything was enveloped in darkness.

A group of artists bustled about and successfully completed the four dishes required by the task.

The guests hadn’t eaten anything since noon, and the four dishes clearly weren’t enough. Besides making Huadiao chicken, Ye Chen also gathered the extra vegetables he deliberately bought earlier at the market, hiding them in corners the cameras couldn’t see. When Shen Mofeng wasn’t paying attention, he discreetly instructed his invisible fox cub to secretly transport batches of these vegetables home and replace them with an equivalent amount of spiritual plants.

Using these home-grown spiritual plants, Ye Chen made several simple home-cooked dishes. When dinner was served, alongside the task dish Huadiao chicken, he brought out a few additional dishes.

One of them was “Di San Xian,” with its three main ingredients all produced from spiritual energy. The potatoes and eggplant chunks were quickly stir-fried in hot oil, crisply fried with a touch of spiciness. The eggplant’s skin was fried to a crisp, cracking softly when bitten into, while the interior remained tender and slightly sweet, complemented perfectly by the savory and soft potatoes, making it an excellent appetizer.

There was also tomato-braised beef brisket, using tomatoes personally planted by Ye Chen and beef brisket bought from the market. Several spiritual tomatoes were stewed until tender over low heat, their every strand and shred melding into the thick, rich red soup. The beef brisket, with just the right balance of fat and lean, was cooked until tender, cut into neat square pieces. Each fiber and crevice soaked up the sweet and tangy tomato soup, making it irresistible.

As for the Huadiao chicken, the result of their task, it didn’t disappoint either. The spiritual chicken meat absorbed the essence of Huadiao wine, fragrant yet not greasy. The savory taste of the meat blended perfectly with the mellow richness of the wine, creating a surprisingly sweet and smooth texture. These three main dishes, along with the corn cakes made from spiritual corn and the stir-fried greens cooked with sweet potato leaves, were enough to overwhelm even the refined palate of Shen Mofeng, who had grown accustomed to such flavors. The other seven guests, who had never eaten spiritual plants before, were moved to tears.

“Oh my goodness, Ye Chen, can you be any more versatile?!”

“He cooks like a celestial being, a celestial being.”

“This tomato soup is so delicious, and the Huadiao chicken is superb. Even the corn cakes are so tasty! Oh no, just thinking about not being able to eat the meal cooked by Ye Chen after the show makes me want to cry now…”

An idol from a boy band wailed, “I want to cry +1.”

“+2.”

“+3.”

The four members of the boy band were incredibly in sync, just like their appearance.

“…Third bowl!” Jiang Xiyue delicately held a bowl of rice, her face small and delicate, creasing with emotion as she returned from the rice cooker to the table. “Today, my carefully crafted image for many years has collapsed because of this, Ye Chen, you owe me! I’ll have to come over to your place for dinner!” With that, she picked up a piece of “Di San Xian,” tears streaming down her face. “Oh… so delicious.”

Playing along with her joke, Ye Chen feigned sadness, “I wanted you to compensate for my previous Xiao Jiejie image, now it’s all ruined.”

“You guys don’t understand,” Gu Youyou also stood up to serve rice, “We girls usually eat less just because the food isn’t good. When we encounter something delicious, we grow a second stomach.”

Ye Chen laughed, “Got it, got it.”

Gu Youyou smiled charmingly, “So, don’t look for a girlfriend in the future, or you might go bankrupt from feeding her!”

Shen Mofeng quickly picked up the conversation, “Boys eat less, so find a boyfriend.”

The group of guests, fearing nothing, burst into laughter immediately — “Hahaha, right, right!” “There’s actually some truth to that.”

Amidst the laughter, Shen Mofeng turned his head slightly to look at Ye Chen and smiled as he introduced himself, “I’m a boy.”

“…” Ye Chen’s expression briefly lost control for a second, his cheeks turning red.

Ye Chen’s dishes were so delicious and plentiful that the other seven guests hardly touched the three dishes they had worked so hard to make, even finding them distasteful. It was evident that Ye Chen’s cooking was genuinely popular, without any pretense. The cameras faithfully captured the scene of the guests being impressed by Ye Chen’s culinary skills, transforming into Chen blowing ^[5]Brag fans one after another.

This was simply a case of a cunning pretty boy manipulating the situation…

A glimpse into the darkness of the entertainment industry!

After recording for the day ended, Ye Chen finished washing up and returned to his room. As soon as he entered, Shen Mofeng, who had been waiting behind the door, grabbed him and pressed him against the door.

Intentionally or not, Shen Mofeng hadn’t properly fastened his pajama buttons — there were only four, and he hadn’t fastened two of them. As Ye Chen glanced over, he unexpectedly caught sight of two well-developed pectoral muscles, making his face flush. They were quickly approaching, teasingly pressing against him through the thin fabric of his pajamas. He could faintly feel the firm and elastic touch, paired with Shen Mofeng’s face…

That deadly hormone could sway even a saint.

Gulp. Embarrassed, Ye Chen swallowed hard and quickly averted his gaze.

— Liking big chests, the stereotype of a straight guy obsessed with steel and iron.

Just as he looked away for a second, entirely driven by lower body instincts, he quickly glanced back.

Ye Chen: “…”

Shen Mofeng: “…”

“What are you looking at?” Shen Mofeng pinched Ye Chen’s waist.

Ye Chen wished he could poke his own eyes out, “N-Nothing.”

Shen Mofeng chuckled softly, “Little kid, you’re quite lecherous.”

Ye Chen mumbled vaguely, “What do you have that I don’t…”

Shen Mofeng raised his hand and gave his chest a squeeze, shaking his head confidently, “You don’t have this.”

“…” Ye Chen was on fire.

“Come on,” Shen Mofeng lifted his chin, casually interrogating, “Are you jealous today? …Don’t lie, or I’ll kiss you to death.”

Ye Chen: “…” As if not lying would save him from being kissed to death.

The author has something to say:

Ye Qiongqiong: “Take one more look, being harrassed for half a lifetime. :）”