QKYJ - 38

Her body felt like it had turned into a red cloud.

She felt like she was floating in mid-air. When she opened her eyes, half-asleep, she saw Shen He’s face, which was as dark as an illustration from the Cthulhu Mythos.

More than one person in a white coat was tending to her.

Shen Zhi secretly glanced around and was relieved when she saw the camera.

Even though Shen He’s expression was terrifyingly bad, Shen Zhi was unconcerned and fearless, in stark contrast to the staff who were deliberately keeping a distance behind him.

She reached out to grab his hand and whispered, “I just feel a little unwell.”

Shen He didn’t say a word.

The village doctor next to her spoke in a Mandarin with a local accent: “Oh, girl. If your fever doesn’t go down, your husband is going to smash our door down...”

Anxiety crept into Shen Zhi’s heart. She looked at Shen He in surprise, questioning him with her eyes, Are you serious?

She had overlooked this.

The more sudden the situation, the more likely Shen He was to go overboard.

Shen He still didn’t say anything, only looking down at her.

The staff members quickly used gestures to reassure her—it’s not that scary.

It was just that he thought the show’s doctor was too slow, so he went out in the middle of the night to find a village doctor.

“How are you feeling?”

The doctor who was traveling with the production team asked.

Shen Zhi thought seriously about it and said honestly: “...I want something sweet.”

Many people laughed.

Shen He was not one of them.

With a face that looked like he was planning to destroy the earth in three days, he turned around and walked away.

Watching him leave, Shen Zhi had no reaction, but the assistant hiding in the back became anxious. She rushed forward, thinking, Brother Shen isn’t planning on following my sister’s script at all, is he? But she wasn’t as fast as the cameraman. By the time she caught up, a camera and a microphone were already filming.

Shen He first started boiling brown sugar water.

Then he took out the cassava flour and milk, mixed and stirred them, and put them on the fire.

At this time, some of the staff around Shen Zhi dispersed.

With fewer people, the room seemed more spacious. Shen Zhi was planning to rest for a while longer, but she felt a shadow fall over her.

She opened her eyes and saw Shen He holding a bowl, looking down at her.

She thought he would be kind and doting.

She didn’t expect him to start scolding her.

“Can you stop causing trouble for people?” he said.

She wanted to argue, but he had already sat down by her bed and was slowly spooning the sweet tapioca dessert from the bowl to feed her. Shen Zhi propped herself up, and the words she wanted to say were stuffed back by the sweet treat. She had once complained that the price of this snack on a shopping website was unreasonable. She hadn’t expected Shen He to learn how to make it.

He was extremely patient, waiting for her to swallow before feeding her another spoonful.

She noticed his shoulders and hair were wet.

Shen Zhi said, “Is it raining?”

Shen He lightly “hmm-ed” and put the bowl aside.

He didn’t speak again. He watched her lie down and then turned to thank and say goodbye to the staff.

Even if they captured a good shot, it was not appropriate to show too much joy at a time like this.

A director’s assistant asked, “Is Teacher Shen He leaving?”

But he shook his head: “I can’t sleep anyway. I’m afraid she’ll feel unwell again later.”

So only the two of them were left in the room.

And the camera fixed in the room.

After everyone had left, Shen Zhi, who had already closed her eyes, opened them again, and Shen He was also looking over. After a few seconds of eye contact, he went to turn off the cameras and take off the microphones one by one.

But worried about any oversights, neither of them spoke rashly.

Shen Zhi took her phone from her pillow and calmly typed: “The acting wasn’t very good.”

He said, “I don’t have my phone with me.”

So she handed him hers.

After reading it, Shen He deleted the line and re-edited it.

He seemed a little hesitant as he typed.

In the end, the screen he returned read: “You think I was acting?”

Shen Zhi laughed twice: “Wasn’t it?”

Did she look like someone who was so self-centered?

Shen Zhi knew that Shen He might think she was being too careless. But—she suddenly stopped caring about those things and spoke in a very low voice, saying something that came out of nowhere: “Yes, I like girls.”

When she was drunk before, he had asked her, Do you like girls?

And now she was finally answering.

Shen Zhi said faintly: “I want to have a daughter in the future. To give her the happiest family, I have to work hard.”

She spoke of the future in an understated way, but it seemed to settle on his heart like the setting sun.

Shen He was silent for a long time, as if he had experienced some kind of inner turmoil. In the end, he said, “You don’t have to think about these things alone.”

His response was met with the sound of light breathing.

Shen Zhi was utterly exhausted. She never made things difficult for herself and fell asleep after saying what she wanted to say.

After a little guidance from her manager, Ji Luoluo quickly matured. Even when she heard that Shen Zhi had been feeling unwell in the middle of the night, she no longer viewed it so naively.

Why is she so good at this?

Ji Luoluo was completely baffled.

What she didn’t know was that the true master wasn’t Shen Zhi. Shen Zhi considered herself to have only learned a little from Shen He.

She had also discussed this with Cheng Ruiyi.

But even if they had the idea of creating some small conflicts and drama, the implementation still depended on fate. There were too many uncertain factors.

In addition to their plans, Cheng Ruiyi and Ji Luoluo had both had the same thought—Did Shen He and Shen Zhi also make such careful plans and divide the work?

“Sure enough, these two must be in a fake marriage,” Cheng Ruiyi concluded.

Ji Luoluo couldn’t help but look at him with a suspicious gaze.

Their guess was actually wrong.

Shen He and Shen Zhi never communicated about these things.

There was no need to.

On the morning of the next filming, when Shen Zhi woke up, Shen He was boiling noodles.

“Where did you get the noodles?” she said while eating a sponsored bread.

Shen He said, “A villager gave them to me.”

“You didn’t steal them, did you?”

“Can you stop suspecting your husband of breaking the law every day?” Shen He said.

Hearing his indifferent teasing, Shen Zhi let out a small laugh. After the night before, the atmosphere between them was obviously much more harmonious.

The staff behind the camera held up a sign to prompt Shen He to read the sponsor’s ad.

Shen He stared at it for a long time.

Then he just looked away.

Shen Zhi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She knew he thought the ad copy was too forced. But since most of their pay was from the sponsor, she still went up and read it.

The production team then gave the signal for them to film separately.

So Shen He went to the backyard with a pot lid and chopsticks, while Shen Zhi sat back on the bed to film without him present.

Shen He said to the camera: “What are you looking at?”

Shen Zhi said to the camera: “I’m much better now.”

Shen He said to the camera: “It’s no big deal. She’s like this sometimes. She has too much work, so it’s inevitable that she can’t handle it all and feels unwell. But it’s also my fault. Sometimes when I’m busy, I don’t take care of her,”

Shen Zhi said to the camera: “I’ve been married to him for so many years, and it’s actually just like any ordinary couple. Yes, there are definitely happy times and unhappy times. But people don’t get married to be unhappy, do they? People get married for happiness.”

Shen He said to the camera: “I can’t imagine my life without Shen Zhi.”

Shen Zhi said to the camera: “That’s what marriage is.”

It was a habit in the village to put vegetables out to dry.

Someone had collected the vegetables last night but forgot to put the table away. The wooden table got damp, so people just put the vegetables on the ground to dry.

Shen He had just made a simple wooden rack with the lumber from before.

He had asked the production team, and they said putting it in the house would affect the filming, so he had to either throw it away or chop it up for firewood.

Shen He chose to give it to a villager.

When he delivered the wooden rack, the other person happened to need it. The old lady was old, and her hands and feet were not agile. Her grandson was too young to do this kind of work. So they were very enthusiastic and gave Shen He a lot of ingredients to show their gratitude.

Shen He looked around their house for a long time.

He found that the old lady and her grandson were both quite short, and it was always tricky for them to get things from high places.

They needed a stepping stool.

So he went back and started sawing wood again.

Because of this, before the game even started, their team no longer had to worry about what to eat next.

And because Shen He had interacted with the villagers a few more times, some kids who were on summer vacation and at home also ran to the gate of their yard to peek in. Shen Zhi was good-natured and friendly, and she waved them in to play.

Suddenly, it was very lively.

The game segment of the day was also very rich.

And Shen He and Shen Zhi also started taking it seriously.

They announced to everyone in subtle ways that they had made up. If it were to air, there would also be a logical reason that would convince the audience—Shen Zhi got sick, Shen He took good care of her, and their relationship went from a low point to a good one.

In the fruit peeling competition, Shen He came in first.

In the life knowledge competition, Shen He came in first.

In the animal training competition, Shen He came in first.

The director team, who couldn’t use post-production effects on the spot, was just short of adding a “The Invincible Loner” subtitle for Shen He.

And Shen Zhi sat next to him, watching the show and talking to the camera. When Wang Ruilan joked and asked, “Why are you so relaxed?” she replied with a face full of composure and said confidently, “Because I know he’ll win.”

As if to cooperate with her words, Shen He made a fist and showed it to the camera, then went behind Shen Zhi and joked with the other two teams: “With your fighting power, there’s no need for my wife to take action.”

“That’s right,” Shen Zhi also smiled.

Everyone’s scores were not too far apart. But the Shen couple gradually surpassed the senior couple. When the production team came to talk to them, Shen Zhi went to touch up her makeup, so they only saw Shen He.

“Last time, the ‘Cheng-Ji-san’ team came in first. If the senior couple falls behind this time, it might not be very suitable...”

Shen He lowered his head slightly, handed the water cup he had just drunk from back to his assistant, and didn’t speak in a hurry, only nodding gently.

The staff member thought that was all, turned to leave, and thought to himself, Teacher Shen He is so easy to talk to.

Then he heard him say, “Wait a minute.”

“We can follow the request, but we can’t do it for nothing,” Shen He looked at him.

His face was extremely handsome and very pleasant to look at. But when you were actually dealing with him, it was hard to notice.

“Give me some compensation.”

He reached out to the staff member without any guilt.

The final round of the game was “You Draw, I Guess.”

The participants couldn’t speak. One person had to describe the information given by the production team using body language, and the other person had to guess.

Cheng Ruiyi and Ji Luoluo had fallen too far behind in the previous round, so there was no hope of turning the tables. But they did a decent job.

And Qu Xiao and Wang Ruilan completed a lot very quickly.

Shen He and Shen Zhi’s division of labor was that Shen Zhi would describe, and Shen He would guess.

At first, a few words were quite easy to guess.

But the last one suddenly changed its tone.

Even Shen Zhi hesitated the moment she saw the cue card. It wasn’t hard to guess, it was just—

After a long time, she first gave the hint of the number of characters, gesturing the number three with her hand.

But Shen He, who had waited too long, said loudly, “‘OK’? OK! Let’s go.”

Shen Zhi could only reiterate that it was three words, not “OK.”

Then she put her hand on her chest.

“‘You’?” Shen He said.

Shen Zhi waved her hand and pressed it against her chest again.

Shen He said, “‘Heart’? Or ‘I’?”

Hearing “I,” Shen Zhi immediately nodded.

Then she struggled imperceptibly.

It was a struggle that only someone who was familiar with Shen Zhi to a certain extent could notice.

She silently chanted “for money” like a mantra in her heart. In the next second, Shen Zhi closed her eyes in embarrassment, raised her arm, and made a heart shape over her head, imitating a female protagonist in a K-drama.

In a sense, reality shows are shows of embarrassment.

Fortunately, Shen Zhi’s appearance was bright, and her fair, clean face inexplicably reminded people of sweet but not greasy fruit juice. Doing such a cute pose was very fitting and made people exclaim how cute she was.

Shen He was momentarily entranced, but he quickly reacted and announced excitedly, “I know!”

The onlookers urged: “Hurry up, say it, say it!”

Shen He, with full confidence and clear pronunciation, avoided the correct answer: “‘You love me’!”

Time was up just then.

Everyone burst into laughter.

A close loss! A close loss!

In the end, all three teams still got the clue for the second round.

At the same time, Shen He smiled at the staff member they had made a deal with earlier.

This time it was also three numbers.

“286.”

Originally, only the first-place team could get the extra hint.

But Shen He immediately shared with Shen Zhi what he hadn’t had time to tell her before.

The hint was a special tic-tac-toe grid.

It was a tic-tac-toe grid, but there was an extra square in the middle of the last row.

“Is this...” Shen Zhi looked at it. “A phone keypad?”

The hint clearly looked like a phone keypad.

Of course, this conversation between them would be edited out when the show aired.

And as the senior couple who were currently leading in points, Qu Xiao and Wang Ruilan naturally also realized this. They immediately dialed this quick number on their phones. After a pleasant piece of music, a voice on the other end told them that the treasure would arrive at night.

And Shen He and Shen Zhi also received the same information in the same way.

“Do we just have to wait?” Shen Zhi asked the camera.

Shen He continued to study the six numbers, 866 and 286, and muttered to himself in confusion: “Why does it have to be a keypad?”

They walked back, and on the way, they passed the convenience store. The owner of the convenience store gave them half a watermelon. It was probably because the owner’s child had also gone to their yard to play that morning and had eaten the noodles Shen He cooked.

Shen He and Shen Zhi carried the watermelon back.

Shen He was doing some woodworking in the yard, and Shen Zhi sat in the shade by the door, scooping out the watermelon with a spoon, eating it herself, and occasionally feeding a bite to Shen He.

“DIY is really great for passing the time,” Shen He said. “Should we buy a set of tools to take home?”

Shen Zhi said, “You’ll stop using it after a couple of days.”

He admitted it very quickly: “You’re right.”

While eating the watermelon, Shen Zhi used her spoon to scoop out the sweetest part in the middle.

Then she cut it in half, into two pieces.

“Hey, hey,” she said. “Shen He.”

Shen He turned around, looking indifferent and unemotional, walked over, and bent down to eat the half she was feeding him. He didn’t say thank you or even smile, and turned his back to continue hammering nails.

Shen Zhi didn’t care at all and put the other half into her mouth.

Later, she would just straighten her leg, and he would understand and walk over.

They ate until the watermelon was completely gone, the flesh was a little white, and the taste had changed from sweet to sour.

But they still ate a bite each, sharing it absolutely equally.

When Shen He finished the stepping stool, Shen Zhi suddenly thought of something.

She picked up her phone and typed “866286” using the Pinyin input method.

Immediately, an English word automatically appeared in the selection bar.

“tomato.”

Shen He frowned and hurried outside. Shen Zhi also quickly followed.

They soon arrived at the field where they had picked tomatoes that day.

The presence of extra staff seemed to indicate that they had found the right place.

Shen He joked, “Are you going to make us dig right here?”

“What’s wrong with this show,” Shen Zhi said with a laugh, gently fanning Shen He to drive away the mosquitoes.

Shen He also laughed and naturally pushed Shen Zhi’s fan back. Without saying a word, he took out some cooling oil from his pocket and gave it to her.

“You can go walk around,”

A staff member said.

At this moment, it was completely dark.

The boundless night sky was devoid of light, with only the faint glow of lights from the low houses on the other side of the field.

Shen Zhi said, “Are you kidding?”

Shen He said to her, “Move around a bit.” And then he walked over.

Before she could even jump down, a cracking sound came from a distance.

Then a light rose into the night sky.

It blossomed into a beautiful flower.

The sudden fireworks captured everyone’s attention. Everyone looked up at the sky. Shen Zhi was startled and instinctively dodged to the side, bumping into Shen He. He put his arm around her and grabbed her hand. She immediately calmed down and waved her hand to hit him.

The staff member said, “Congratulations on finding the treasure!”

Shen He was very satisfied.

The camera wasn’t filming. Shen Zhi suddenly said, “It’s not worth you going to all this trouble just so you wouldn’t say ‘I love you’ to me.”

She continued to look at the fireworks in the sky.

What she didn’t notice was that he was no longer looking at the sky.

When the fireworks ended, the assistant saw them to the yard gate. Shen Zhi was still thinking about what to say to the camera in the house when Shen He suddenly ran off.

No one knew what had happened.

Shen Zhi didn’t plan on chasing him.

Only Shen He’s assistant, for the sake of his livelihood, said “bye-bye” and followed him.

Shen Zhi unhurriedly entered the house and found out that Shen He had run off because he remembered the chickens. Their yard was not far from where the fireworks were set off. The chickens were timid, and they could have died of fright. Shen He was worried about this, which was why he rushed back.

Fortunately, the chickens were not in mortal danger.

But they had all been so scared that they flew up into a tree.

Shen Zhi found it amusing. Shen He stood with his hands on his hips and thought for a while. It was then that she realized that without her noticing, Shen He had completely renovated the originally dilapidated backyard.

The leaves were swept, the weeds were pulled, and a chicken coop was built...

“Are you here to be on a reality show or to cultivate a hobby?” Shen Zhi couldn’t help but say.

“I’m so sleepy,” Shen He replied. “I’ll deal with these chickens tomorrow.”

He said this and started walking back.

Shen Zhi, however, felt a bamboo pole by the wall, and after thinking about it, she went up to the tree and casually poked it a few times.

A few chickens were startled, clucking, and flapping their wings, almost falling down.

She continued to poke around a few more times.

She was about to give up.

She didn’t expect Shen He to turn back at some point.

He took the bamboo pole from her hand, and she stepped back in time, standing against the wall. The light in the backyard was dim. She used a flashlight to help him light up the tree.

Shen He had his back to Shen Zhi and unhurriedly chased the chickens off the tree.

On a summer night in the countryside, the trees blended in with the night sky, and there was the continuous, noisy clucking of the chickens. Shen He didn’t turn his head.

He said, “Shen Zhi.”

“Hmm?” She glanced at him fleetingly and then absentmindedly stared at the flashlight. He had a back that gave people a full sense of security.

The camera wasn’t filming. Shen He said, “I love you.”