Chapter 14

Ke Xingzhou had been living particularly comfortably these past two days in Xie An's group.

Xie An kept his word. He promised Ke Xingzhou a carefree time, and truly, he had not let him worry about anything.

From negotiating with the program's staff to bringing him back to his own group's practice room, Xie An took care of everything.

Even when they first went to the practice room, before Ke Xingzhou had a chance to get a good look at how many people were in the group, Xie An had already dragged everyone out into the corridor, leaving Ke Xingzhou alone in the practice room.

He blocked the view between both sides the entire time and eventually went out himself.

Later, he remembered he hadn’t greeted Ke Xingzhou and poked his head through the door gap: "Bro, you rest first. I’ll have a little meeting with them!"

Ke Xingzhou: "..."

Anyone who didn't know might think he was isolating him.

He was isolating a whole group of people.

Such favoritism was always bound to attract criticism, especially since he and Xie An had some past “grudges.” In front of the cameras, it looked almost like they were enemies.

As expected, after Ke Xingzhou appeared, the live stream comments on the screen were refreshing rapidly.

The “All-Star Idol” program had a big budget. Not only was there almost continuous live broadcasting, but each group also had its own dedicated live stream room. The main live broadcast switched between the host, mentors, and contestants, while the other live feeds were fixed on the contestants’ practice sessions.

Popular contestants could even get the privilege of having their own live stream room unlocked through fan voting.

Since the program had just started, naturally no one had this privilege yet. Therefore, the footage from the practice rooms was fixed on cameras.

The group live stream rooms were locked behind a paywall, and most of the audience didn’t want to spend money to unlock another room. As a result, they were unaware of what was happening in An He Guang's group. Now that Xie An had brought Ke Xingzhou back, the live comments exploded.

[Wait, what's going on? The little cutie just went out for a snack, and now he's bringing this troublemaker back!]

[Wasn't he assigned to a different group? I remember he was with that real young master from the Ke family. Did they kick him out?]

[He’s back from the snack break. The fans are going wild, even the other group’s live stream was shut down by this fake young master! I only saw the news on Weibo’s super topic—do you know An He Guang? He went crazy because of the fake young master, and now he’s probably in a psychiatric hospital!]

[So scary?! Wait, didn’t Ke Xingzhou save the program? Isn’t he like a law-and-order guy? Why hasn’t anyone tried to talk him out of this???]

The comments were going wild, with some people even wanting to report the show to higher-ups.

The program staff were nearly terrified, frantically signaling to Ke Xingzhou, trying to get him to explain to the viewers that their program hadn’t crossed any boundaries.

They also felt that Ke Xingzhou’s mouth was truly a source of trouble. Anyone he talked to seemed to end up unlucky. But to be honest, after monitoring the situation, they didn’t think Ke Xingzhou could do anything too extreme.Although it wasn’t clear where Ke Xingzhou had gotten his gossip from or why he had to tell others through such an unreliable method like fortune-telling, the events of the past few days truly had nothing to do with him.

He could only say he was quite unlucky, always running into these situations.

But this was the cruel reality of the entertainment industry: even if everyone knew it wasn’t Ke Xingzhou’s fault, he still had to carry the blame.

The program team had to maintain a neutral and fair stance and couldn’t intervene, and as for the Ke family, when they sent Ke Xingzhou into the program as cannon fodder, they probably had already completely given up on him.

The pampered fake young master was eventually abandoned by everyone he loved.

Some overly sentimental staff couldn’t help but take off their glasses, wipe their eyes, and put them back on, only to look up and fall silent.

Ke Xingzhou had completely ignored the program team's hints. He didn’t even wait for Xie An and the others to come back. After scanning the room, his gaze decisively locked onto a few scattered bean bag chairs in the corner.

He stacked the different shaped bean bags together and pressed them flat. Without sparing a glance at the rapidly refreshing comments, he calmly lay down and closed his eyes.

From the steadiness of his breathing, it was clear he had fallen asleep almost as soon as he lay down.

Staff: "..."

Audience in the comments: "..."

--

When An He Guang came over, Ke Xingzhou was still fast asleep.

He couldn’t bring himself to just walk in and find him, so he pretended to walk past the door several times. After repeatedly glancing at the few people over there sweating, he finally caught sight of Ke Xingzhou sunk in the bean bags from another angle.

An He Guang: "..."

At first, he didn’t react, but as he walked out and realized what had happened, he made a strange expression and turned back.

The program had a big budget, so although they provided bean bags for the rest areas in each practice room, they were stylish and didn’t look cheap.

Xie An’s group had bean bags shaped like plants in their rest area. Ke Xingzhou was quietly lying in the middle without moving, surrounded by various soft, cute, and plant-like designs from the second dimension.

Strangely, his face blended perfectly into the environment, making it seem as if a sleeping beauty had stepped out of a phone call, only with the gender of the beauty switched.

An He Guang’s gaze turned to the other side.

In stark contrast to the relaxed and peaceful Ke Xingzhou, Xie An and the other teammates were almost crowded into another corner.

When An He Guang had passed by earlier, he hadn’t noticed anything unusual, but now, comparing them to Ke Xingzhou, he realized there was a hint of caution in their movements.

They hadn’t even woken Ke Xingzhou up; instead, they had only turned the music down and were sweating it out in another corner far away from him.

Even when they talked to each other, they spoke in hushed tones, occasionally glancing at Ke Xingzhou, as if afraid of waking him up.

At that moment, a member of the group noticed An He Guang and walked over, whispering, "Who are you looking for?"

"..." An He Guang silently stared at the person.

The other person looked at him as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

In the end, An He Guang was the one who gave in. He pointed to Ke Xingzhou in the corner: "I’m looking for him."Ke Xingzhou had already woken up by this time.

He had slept through the whole morning, and now it was about time to get up and feed the little kitten. When he saw An He Guang approaching, he wasn’t surprised. He nodded and greeted his teammates before walking outside.

An He Guang, for some reason, followed him.

He watched as Ke Xingzhou pulled a small kitten out of his pocket, no bigger than the size of a palm, and expertly prepared some milk powder to feed it. An He Guang was astonished: “Where did you find this cat?”

“My partner’s cat,” Ke Xingzhou glanced at him, his gaze pausing briefly at the red glow that had appeared between his eyebrows, then said without a change in expression, “Is there something you need from me?”

An He Guang was reminded of the reason he came. Looking at Ke Xingzhou’s calm expression, he inexplicably felt a bit embarrassed.

Just yesterday, he had been so stubborn, refusing to believe anything. Today, he was the one who had come to seek him out.

But what happened the day before had really scared him.

The team members all said he must have been tricked by Ke Xingzhou, or that it was a hallucination due to too much mental stress. In any case, it couldn't have been real. He had originally thought so himself, but the more he thought about it throughout the morning, the more it didn’t sit right.

If it had just been a hallucination, that would have been fine, but yesterday’s events were clearly not something a mere hallucination could explain.

An He Guang looked at Ke Xingzhou for a moment with a complex expression: “Yesterday…”

Sure enough, Ke Xingzhou’s expression softened a little as he turned to look at him.

An He Guang’s gaze shifted slightly. He felt a mix of anticipation and unease. On the one hand, he wanted to know what had really happened to him, but on the other, he feared that after he had looked down on Ke Xingzhou so much before, the other might take the opportunity to humiliate him now.

But instead, Ke Xingzhou spoke—

“You’re talking about the calming talisman? 1000 yuan each. No one paid for you yesterday, so you can pay now.”

An He Guang: "…"

Who asked him about that?!

However, after waking up, he did indeed find a yellow talisman next to him. The handwriting on it was nearly illegible with strange symbols, but it somehow made him feel at ease.

He didn’t know why, but his first instinct was to know it must be Ke Xingzhou’s thing. At first, he had considered throwing it away, but in the end, almost as if by some strange force, he kept it.

That talisman was still in his pocket now.

Ke Xingzhou stared at him steadily, and for some reason, An He Guang felt his cheeks grow hot, as though he had taken something from someone without paying for it.

His face flushed, and in a daze, he took out his phone: “WeChat or Alipay?”

Ke Xingzhou, who had previously appeared indifferent, suddenly became animated.

“Either works!” He pulled out a payment QR code, which seemed to have been prepared beforehand. He even became more talkative: “Is UnionPay okay? Alipay and WeChat withdrawals have transaction fees.”

An He Guang was taken aback by his sudden enthusiasm and replied in a daze: “I… I guess that’s fine.”

Then, Ke Xingzhou took his phone, aimed it at his own screen, and with a “ding,” he completed the payment. His service attitude was impeccable as he leaned over and kindly watched him enter the amount.

An He Guang looked at the slightly shabby four-digit number and then at Ke Xingzhou, hesitating to speak.To be honest, although this was the first time An He Guang had bought something related to mysticism, he was well-traveled and knowledgeable. He knew that truly skilled masters were often the ones you couldn’t hire with money, and the price for performing a ritual was usually exorbitant.

Although Ke Xingzhou hadn’t performed a ritual for him yesterday, he had, after all, saved his life.

Was paying just this little amount really okay?

At this moment, An He Guang completely didn’t realize that, previously, he had despised Ke Xingzhou because of his fake young master status. Now, he was actually starting to worry that the other person wasn’t making enough money.

He hesitated, wanting to add two more zeros, but Ke Xingzhou’s face immediately changed.

“Wait…”

Before he could even stop him, someone pressed down on An He Guang’s hand.

Ke Yuanbai glanced at the payment interface on the phone, then looked at both of them disapprovingly, or rather, he was mainly glaring at Ke Xingzhou, his face full of disappointment: “What are you doing again, ruining the Ke family’s reputation!”