Chapter 5: Don’t I Look Like Friends with Shang Que?

However, no one believed it. In fact, a trending topic quickly emerged on social media: #Lin Jinyi Liked the QueShiKeYi Fanfiction#. Clicking into it, CP (couple pairing) fans were already having a feast.

【It’s official! The main character has endorsed it!】
【Miss Lin is truly Shang Que’s biggest supporter—first confessing, now liking posts. She’s so in love!】
【But why does it feel like Lin Jinyi is the only one being proactive? Shang Que hasn’t responded at all—she doesn’t even follow Lin Jinyi on Weibo.】
【Yeah, Shang Que was just interacting with Ning Sheng. She must have seen the trending topic.】
【What?! Is Lin Jinyi in a one-sided love?!】

One-sided love?! She didn’t even follow Shang Que, okay?!

After scrolling through Weibo, Lin Jinyi was so furious that she didn’t sleep the whole night. The same went for Ji Jingchuan—except, in his case, it was because he was too hungry to sleep.

So much so that, at the break of dawn, before the sky had fully brightened, Ji Jingchuan appeared downstairs in the living room.

The livestream chat, which had been filled with scattered comments like “Anyone awake?” and “Bro, I haven’t slept yet”, suddenly exploded.

【Holy crap, I knew staying up late was bad—I’m seeing hallucinations now.】
【Is this my life flashing before my eyes? Why am I seeing Ji Jingchuan? Have I been hating on him for so long that I actually developed feelings?】
【It really is Ji Jingchuan! How is he up this early? I remember during a past variety show, the filming was about to start, and his teammates had to drag him out of bed.】

To enhance audience interaction, the show had set up an electronic screen in the living room to display filtered real-time chat messages at certain intervals.

Seeing everyone’s shocked reactions, Ji Jingchuan raised an eyebrow smugly and said, “Is waking up early really that hard? Self-discipline is just one of the many insignificant strengths of a genius.”

【Don’t listen to his nonsense—he’s just hungry and couldn’t sleep.】
【LOL, I can confirm—Ji Jingchuan was asking in his fan group chat in the middle of the night if the succulent plant in his room was edible. His fans started sending him pictures of food to help him ‘curb his hunger by looking at photos,’ but he got mad and left the group chat. The moderators have been trying to coax him back ever since.】
【Sounds ridiculous, but if it’s Ji Jingchuan, I can totally believe it.】
【So… is that succulent plant actually edible?】

Ji Jingchuan clicked his tongue and lazily drawled, “Who’s slandering me? Shang Que, get on your main account and say something.”

The chat blew up again.

【Turn around.】
【Bro, just look behind you.】

Ji Jingchuan remained indifferent. “Trying to scare me? Even if Shang Que were right behind me, I would—”

A voice suddenly spoke up behind him.

“You would what?”

Ji Jingchuan jumped. He turned around to see Shang Que standing there with her arms crossed, watching him with a dangerous expression.

Quickly, he stepped in front of the screen, as if nothing had happened. Changing the subject, he asked, “Why are you up so early?”

When Shang Que didn’t respond, he nodded to himself and continued, “Good. Anyone who wakes up at this hour is the backbone of our nation.”

【What about those of us who haven’t slept yet?】
【They are the kings of all-nighters.】

Shang Que rolled her eyes and headed toward the kitchen.

Ji Jingchuan paused, then naturally followed after her. “What are you doing?”

“You seem like you have a brain disease, so I’m making you some rat poison to see if it helps.” She waved him aside like shooing a fly. “Move. Don’t get in the way of me making breakfast.”

However, in the very next second, Ji Jingchuan grabbed her wrist and, with a look of disdain, said, “You, a person who has no survival skills whatsoever, cooking? You’ll blow up the kitchen.”

Without giving her a chance to resist, he pushed her out, locked the kitchen door from the inside, and moved swiftly to start cooking.

The livestream audience immediately analyzed the situation.

【Strong safety awareness. Afraid Shang Que will storm in and hit him, so he locked the door from inside. [Like]】
【Ji Jingchuan’s daily routine: wake up and piss off Shang Que.】
【Whoever said these two would make up and be friends—look, I told you they’d end up fighting.】

Shang Que frowned for a moment but didn’t say anything. Instead, she walked to the coffee table and grabbed a peach.

She didn’t have high expectations for food—she just needed to have three meals a day. The specifics of the meal didn’t matter much. When she was a kid living abroad, her mother, who couldn’t cook, would feed her salads, crackers, and ham slices, insisting, “This is how foreigners eat. We have to blend in with the culture.”

She had believed this and eaten that way for over ten years. It wasn’t until she returned to China that she realized people here called that kind of meal “food that makes you too weak to even tie a noose after eating”.

…”Well, food is food,” she thought. She had woken up early precisely to avoid letting anyone see her seriously attempt to make a bowl of something inedible.

But not being able to cook didn’t really bother her. Shang Que bit into the peach indifferently.

The chat, however, wasn’t about to let Ji Jingchuan off the hook.

【Shang Que, are you just gonna let this slide? If he dares to lock the door today, tomorrow he’ll dare to strangle you!】
【Exactly. If he’s this snarky now, one day he’ll be dancing on your grave.】
【Shang Que, Ji Jingchuan was just badmouthing you! He said you were using sock-puppet accounts to slander him!】
【He said you hired all of us as bots to spread fake news about him.】
【Ji Jingchuan claimed you have eight million marketing accounts spreading dirt on him.】

The rumors in the chat grew more and more outrageous. By the latest version, Shang Que was apparently running for president just to destroy Ji Jingchuan’s career on an international level.

Just as Shang Que was enjoying the spectacle, the screen suddenly went black. She blinked, looking up to see Ji Jingchuan holding a bowl in one hand while the other had just yanked the power cord out.

He frowned and shot her a glare. “You’re really enjoying this whole slander session, huh?”

Shang Que raised an eyebrow. “Our relationship… does it even need outside interference to be ruined?”

For a brief moment, Ji Jingchuan’s expression stiffened. Then he scoffed and slammed the bowl onto the table. “Eat.”

Inside was a bowl of seafood noodles. Around the edges, neatly arranged lobster pieces sat alongside succulent, shelled crab meat, placed delicately over the noodles. In the center was a golden, runny egg yolk, making the entire dish look incredibly appetizing.

Shang Que asked in slight surprise, “Did you make this?”

“Who else? Is there anyone else in the kitchen besides me?”

Now, it was the viewers’ turn to be shocked.

[OMG, the sky is falling! Ji Jingchuan can actually cook???]

[This has to be fake. It must be the production team trying to build his image!]

[I don’t want to believe it either, but there are cameras in the kitchen. He really did make it himself.]

[It actually looks pretty good… Watching this early in the morning is making me hungry.]

[Well, I guess that explains why he’s such a picky eater. People who cook well usually can’t stand bad food from outside.]

Ji Jingchuan frowned when he saw her hesitating. “Eat. What are you thinking about?”

Shang Que was wondering when he had learned to cook. But hearing his impatient tone, she curled her lips, took a bite of her peach, and deliberately contradicted him. “No. What if you poisoned it?”

“You’re so ungrateful.” Ji Jingchuan shot her a glare and turned away angrily. Not long after, he returned from the kitchen with another bowl of seafood noodles.

It was almost identical to Shang Que’s, except the egg in the center was poorly cooked.

Ji Jingchuan grabbed a chopstick-full of noodles from her bowl and ate it along with his own food in two quick bites. Then, still fuming, he asked, “Happy now?”

The aroma intensified as the food was stirred. Shang Que pretended to reluctantly sit down. “Fine.”

As soon as she took a bite, the familiar taste made her pause slightly. Her eyelashes lowered as a warm mist swirled in her vision.

“How is it? So delicious that you’re speechless?” Ji Jingchuan’s smug voice rang out. “Admit it, the great me makes better food than you!”

Shang Que pressed her lips together. “Say one more word, and I won’t eat.”

Ji Jingchuan immediately shut up, mumbling under his breath, “Sore loser.” After a while, he couldn’t help but speak again. “By the way, where did the seafood in the fridge come from? I used that to make the noodles.”

“It was leftovers from yesterday. I was going to save it for the puppy.”

“Oh, well, now you’ve eaten it too. That makes you a puppy as well.” Ji Jingchuan lifted the corners of his peach-blossom eyes and emphasized, “If I’m a puppy, then you’re a puppy too.”

Shang Que didn’t catch his underlying meaning and just looked at him in disgust. “You’re insane.”

Ji Jingchuan immediately shot back, “Then you’re insane too!”

[OMG, this is literally elementary school-level bickering.]

[Now that I think about it, even though Shang Que and Ji Jingchuan always argue online, they never actually cut ties completely.]

[Even on this show, they fight one second and get along the next. There doesn’t seem to be any real resentment between them.]

[This reminds me of my younger brother. Last night, he told me he was cutting ties with me, and this morning, he woke up saying, ‘Big sis, you’re the best sister in the world.’]

[If you look closely, Shang Que and Ji Jingchuan actually look a bit alike! They both have peach-blossom eyes, high noses, and sharp features.]

[Someone even did a face overlay of them before! But everyone joked that they started looking alike because they’ve insulted each other so much.]

[The funniest part is their personalities are similar too. No way the same mom could give birth to two such explosive firecrackers.]

[If I start thinking of them as siblings, they suddenly seem kind of cute.]

[No, thanks. Who would want a moody little brother like Ji Jingchuan? I feel bad for Shang Que already.]

[Exactly. Is this some new attempt to rehabilitate his image?]

[Instead of shipping them as siblings, I’d rather ship Shang Que with Jiang Yizhe. Little Jiang is way more well-behaved than a certain someone.]

More and more people flooded into the livestream, burying the arguments under a wave of new comments. Soon, the other cast members woke up one after another, and after breakfast, the show’s official recording began.

“The first game is called ‘Who’s Really Friends with Who?’” The director looked at the group seated around the dining table and slowly introduced the topic. “The word ‘friend’ is used very broadly in life. Some people barely know each other but still say, ‘We’re all friends.’ Some have already gone beyond friendship, just shy of confessing their feelings, but if asked, they’ll still say, ‘We’re just friends.’”

[LOL, the director totally understands the internet’s inside jokes.]

[The show is openly referencing the Xu Xu and Ning Sheng drama.]

[‘Don’t misunderstand, even though I broke my own rule and acted in a romance drama with her, never denied dating rumors, and sued people who spread false rumors about her—seriously, we’re just friends.’]

The atmosphere in the room instantly warmed up. The director continued, “Then there are ‘plastic friends,’ ‘surface-level friends,’ and the classic ‘Can exes still be friends?’ In short, the word ‘friend’ can be used in many ways, but whether it’s genuine or not isn’t just about what’s said on the surface.”

“So, we’ve designed a set of friendship tests. In each round, the team that best meets the challenge will earn a point. At the end, the team with the highest score will be crowned ‘Best Friends’ and can choose one person to drink a glass of bitter melon juice.”

A staff member brought two trays to the center of the table. When the lids were lifted, the glasses of bitter melon juice were bigger than the nearby flower vase.

Lin Jinyi gasped instinctively. “I don’t even drink this much water in a day!”

Jiang Yizhe was full of determination. “Then we have to win!”

“You and me?” Lin Jinyi looked at him doubtfully and then reassured herself, “It’s fine. There are people who look even less like friends than us.”

It was obvious who she meant. Shang Que reminded her, “It’s not a punishment for last place. The first-place team gets to choose who drinks it.”

“Then there’s no way you two will win.”

“Why not?” Ji Jingchuan was displeased. “Shang Que and I don’t look like friends?”

Shang Que answered flatly, “No.”

[LOL, one sentence and she shut down the whole competition.]

[Shang Que: I wouldn’t dare to claim what he just said.]

[Ji Jingchuan, where do you get the confidence that you’ll always succeed?]