[Ahhhh, I'm here, brother!]
[So happy, this episode features the trio together, finally we get to see two handsome guys in the same frame.]
For this episode of "Their Lives," the recording theme is what celebrities usually eat in their daily lives. To film this episode, the crew followed them for fifteen days, observing what they ate for three meals a day. Then, the three of them sat together in a restaurant, having dinner while watching and commenting on the playback of their own footage.
The first one shown was You Feibai. Because he's so busy, his meals are mostly packed and brought over by several assistants, largely consisting of salads made from various vegetables and fruits, along with some chicken breast and eggs.
"Being an actor is tough. To maintain their figure, they often eat these kinds of bland, oil-less foods," Xu Qingwei remarked with a sigh. She turned to ask You Feibai, "Do you usually feel full eating these?"
"It's alright. I don't have any particular obsession with food," You Feibai said with a light laugh. "A lot of the time, my focus is on the script, and I don't really pay attention to what I'm eating."
"Feibai is practically a workaholic. He never lets go of his script, even during meals," Xu Qingwei shook her head. "When I was young, I only knew how to have fun."
"I've taken on too much this year. I'll appropriately reduce my schedule next year," You Feibai said, sitting upright with his long fingers interlaced on the table. Compared to the various changeable roles he plays in movies, he himself isn't very down-to-earth; he belongs to the type that you can tell is distinctly different from ordinary people at a glance.
The videos edited for the show, although focused on eating, also captured the context before and after. Xu Qingwei is more ordinary. When work is busy, she eats out with colleagues or grabs something casual. When not busy, the housekeeper prepares home-cooked meals for the family to sit down and eat together.
"I'm not very good at cooking. I can manage porridge, but that's about it," Xu Qingwei said, looking somewhat helplessly at the footage of herself. "When I lived off-campus during university, I tried cooking myself once and nearly started a fire. I've had a bit of a phobia of open flames ever since."
"You could use an induction cooker," Xie Xi said bluntly.
Xu Qingwei was taken aback for a moment, then had to admit, "I don't really enjoy cooking either. My husband will cook when he's in the mood."
Xie Xi seemed thoughtful. Perhaps he could also learn how to cook. Professor Ye probably wouldn't cook either when busy.
[Hahahaha, why does Xixi even know about induction cookers?]
[Eh, Xixi is wearing glasses today, feels like he's reached a new level of handsome.]
[Silver-rimmed glasses with an anti-slip chain, doesn't it look familiar, sisters?]
[Lots of celebrities wear this style, right?]
[Professor Ye was wearing this exact type of glasses when he appeared on the show!]
[Awooo! Xie-Ye shippers never sleep!]
From their meals, you can tell how the three of them usually live. Xu Qingwei is like an ordinary middle-aged career woman. Apart from work, she talks with her children at the dining table, and the dishes are quite normal. You Feibai is busy every single day, often eating at makeshift tables in various locations, with meals mostly planned by a nutritionist—low oil, lots of vegetables and protein.
As for Xie Xi...
The two people beside him watched with their eyes wide open.
His three meals a day couldn't even be described as lavish anymore.
In the morning, the cook prepares several styles, both Chinese and Western. Which one Xie Xi eats depends entirely on his mood that day. For lunch, whether at home or out, it's the same variety of dishes with meat and vegetables, plus a hearty broth or clear soup. Even when ordering takeout, his assistant Zhang Dong ensures everything is perfectly arranged.
The most classic scene was when Xie Xi went to a forest park to shoot a commercial. The park was extremely far from the city center, with basically no restaurants around, except for one very small KFC outlet. Shooting from morning until noon, the staff could only make do with burgers and such.
Just as everyone was eating burgers, Zhang Dong arrived leading a car. He had placed a large takeout order early in the morning, timed perfectly for delivery, and brought it for the staff to eat.
After doing this, Zhang Dong began, with a clear conscience, to receive another vehicle. He unloaded a table, chairs, and tableware from it. The chairs even had long-haired soft cushions, making them comfortable to sit on. Over a dozen exquisite, delicious, and still-hot dishes were transferred onto plates. Sharp-eyed netizens could completely tell that this tableware set was the same one Xie Xi used at home.
They even temporarily set up a canopy to block the wind.
Although the staff's meals were plentiful, they weren't as refined as what Xie Xi ate. Of course, no one had any complaints, since they were still eating food he provided, and it wasn't bad at all.
In the video, Xie Xi displayed his picky eating habits to the fullest. Out of over a dozen dishes, he only actually took bites from two or three.
After watching the edited footage from so many days of following him, everyone gained a renewed understanding of Xie Xi's daily three meals.
[Holy crap, this is the celebrity lifestyle I imagined.]
[Xixi is so picky. Out of a huge table of food each time, he only eats a few dishes.]
[It mainly feels like he eats based on interest. He likes this today, that tomorrow.]
[Has no one noticed that across so many meals, there are hardly any repeated dishes?]
[I feel like Xie Xi's assistant could probably equal several of You Feibai's assistants.]
[Same feeling. Every time Xie Xi doesn't even have to say anything, his assistant has everything prepared. You Feibai's assistants seem to only do things within their scope; anything else, if You Feibai doesn't mention it, they don't do it.]
[Hahaha, don't you think Zhang Dong is like a chief steward? Figuring out Xixi's thoughts, taking care of everything for him in advance.]
[So just because he's a celebrity, he can waste a whole table of food every time? Also, being an assistant is just a job. Why should they be like servants? It's not the Qing Dynasty anymore. Only you fans still find it cute.]
[Slowly typing out a question mark. Is the person upstairs sick? Xie Xi has money, can't he eat well? Wasting is his own business. What era is this? Surely no one still forces themselves to eat leftovers regardless of their health just to avoid waste? Don't bring up people in poor areas not having enough to eat. Xie Xi donates money every year. Do you?]
[Some people are just jealous of the rich. Besides, do you even know about stimulating domestic demand through consumption?]
[Person who spoke earlier, did you really watch the show properly? Haven't you seen how Xie Xi and his assistant interact before? They clearly seem more like friends. Do you think You Feibai's assistant would dare play games in front of him?]
[You Feibai's assistant also wouldn't go into his room to slurp noodles, hahahaha.]
"Xiao Xie is still the same as ever," Xu Qingwei said, unsurprised after watching the video. Seeing You Feibai look over, she kindly explained, "I directed a celebratory music film before and collaborated with Xiao Xie at the time. His assistant and lifestyle manager... tsk tsk, every day they protected Xiao Xie like he was something precious. The manager would also drop by every few days, afraid he'd be at a disadvantage."
Xie Xi felt the information conveyed by the show wasn't good for his image. What if Professor Ye saw it and thought he was really this picky?
"They're just worrying unnecessarily," Xie Xi defended himself. "I'm actually very easy to take care of."
[??? Xixi, what kind of wild words are you saying?]
[Xixi, I'll collect scrap to support you!]
[Hahahaha, Xixi, if you're easy to take care of, then there's no one in this world who's hard to take care of.]
[Sigh, why isn't Feibai more open? I feel like this Xie Xi is really witty, I'm starting to like him a little.]
That very night, the hashtag "Xie Xi: I'm Very Easy to Keep" shot to the top of the trending searches, bringing quite a bit of traffic to the show.
...
Professor Ye was still working late into the night. The batch of glasses scheduled for after the New Year was about to go into production, and she still had several papers to publish before the year's end. She typically couldn't rest until two or three in the morning.
She came out of her study and checked her phone before bed, finding a message from Rong Shiyun. Clicking it open, she saw it was a shared Weibo link.
It was a short video clip of Xie Xi saying on the show that he was very easy to keep.
Rong Shiyun: [Our Zai Zai is really so good. I wonder which jerk will get to have him in the future, wuwuwuwu. What if that person can't afford to keep him or doesn't care about what Zai Zai likes to eat? With Zai Zai's temperament, he definitely wouldn't speak up.]
Professor Ye: "..." So, why must someone keep him at all?
Before she could reply, Rong Shiyun sent another message: [Back when his first assistant tried to fob him off with one of those cheap roadside breads that cost a few yuan, Zai Zai just ate it. He ended up with diarrhea that night and almost missed his stage performance.]
Ye Qiusuo: [Wasn't Zhang Dong his assistant from the very beginning?]
Rong Shiyun: [The first assistant was let go after three months. But Professor Ye, is that really your takeaway from this?! Shouldn't it be that Zai Zai got sick just from eating that mass-produced factory bread!!!]
Looking at her friend's message, Ye Qiusuo thought for a moment and replied: [If one consistently eats overly refined food, their digestive system's resistance can become weaker than average. That's normal.]
There's an old saying about eating a little dirt building immunity, largely because the body gets used to it and develops resistance to certain bacteria.
For someone like Xie Xi, raised so delicately, he really shouldn't eat just anything from outside.
Rong Shiyun then sent several more screenshots of Xie Xi from the show: [Zai Zai wore glasses today, doesn't he look good?]
Ye Qiusuo: [They seem quite suitable.] They wouldn't affect his appearance on the show.
Rong Shiyun: [Speaking of which, your glasses seem to be a similar style. I saw someone today who edited a new video, suggesting your glasses were a gift from Zai Zai, and Zai Zai's glasses were a gift from you. Hahaha.]
Seeing this, Professor Ye couldn't help but frown: [Who edited that video? How do they know about this?]
Seeing the first part of the message, Rong Shiyun immediately sent over a link. Only after sending it did she read the second half clearly: [???]
Rong Shiyun: [What do you mean?! Did you two really exchange glasses?!!!]
Had she accidentally stumbled upon real sugar?
Professor Ye didn't reply. She was watching that one-minute video. After viewing it, she realized it was another fan-edited, narrative-driven fake video. For a moment there, she had been wondering who could know both things simultaneously.
Recently, because of her previous conversation with Lu Minglang, she had become more vigilant. The company had also re-screened its staff, and several employees with problematic resumes or falsified work experience had been let go.
Ye Qiusuo exited the video and replied: [That pair of glasses was his compensation for breaking mine. As for the pair he's wearing, it's a product from a collaborative project.]
Rong Shiyun: [Oh, I see.]
She felt a twinge of disappointment.
Ye Qiusuo didn't send another message. Instead, she directly initiated a video call.
Flustered in her bed, Rong Shiyun immediately declined the call.
Ye Qiusuo: [?]
Rong Shiyun: [My roommate is sleeping, it's not convenient to take a call.]
Ye Qiusuo: [Rong Shiyun, don't you live alone?]
Rong Shiyun: [Hahaha, living alone was too lonely, so I found a roommate.]
The last bit of sleepiness Ye Qiusuo had vanished completely. She sat down, looking at the message her friend had sent.
When a project gets busy, even sleep becomes a luxury. How could one possibly have the mental space to think about other things?
Ye Qiusuo: [I have a student who, whenever under too much pressure, likes to chase celebrities.]
