Chengcheng nodded heavily and said, "Right."
As if still worried, she added after a moment,
"Originally Liu Qingye wanted to pair up with the fifth male contestant, but he's got a mind of his own and probably won't want to get tangled up in her mess, so you need to be careful."
"Careful about what?" Ji Liuyue looked utterly clueless.
Chengcheng said earnestly, "Careful about getting pestered by him."
Ji Liuyue smiled.
That would be exactly what she wanted.
The affection values from both Xu Jinsi and Lu Nanxun were progressing far too slowly, and this new wild card was showing up at just the right time.
……
All the other guests had already boarded their departing flight, leaving only Ji Liuyue and Liu Qingye at the airport waiting for the next available trip.
Everyone had expected the two of them to just sit there staring daggers at each other.
But as soon as Ji Liuyue sat down, she pulled out her phone and started scrolling through short videos, finishing the whole sequence of actions smoothly and naturally.
She had no intention at all of striking up a conversation with Liu Qingye across from her.
Liu Qingye knew very well that the incident at the restaurant that morning had already left their relationship half-torn apart, so she simply decided not to bother with Ji Liuyue either.
Deep down, she was secretly looking forward to the arrival of the new male guest.
While feeling giddy with excitement, she also grumbled to herself that it was such bad luck she had to be stuck with her sworn enemy Ji Liuyue when meeting the new guest.
The two of them didn't spot any sign of the male guest even after they boarded the plane and stepped into the cabin.
Liu Qingye held up her boarding pass, which was for a window seat, and waved it as she said, "I'll go take my seat first."
It sounded like a perfectly polite greeting on the surface.
But in reality, she had no intention of offering any help at all.
Ji Liuyue was holding a tote bag that she needed to stow in the overhead luggage compartment, and she was standing on her tiptoes struggling to push it into place.
Suddenly, a deep, magnetic male voice came from right behind her.
"Let me help you with that, passenger."
"Thank you." Ji Liuyue caught a glimpse of the blue flight attendant uniform on the man out of the corner of her eye and was just about to nod in acknowledgement.
But the man took the tote bag right out of her hand with one hand, while his other arm curved around her back, holding her in a forced, enclosed semi-embrace.
He was very tall, and the warm breath from his words fell right on the top of her head. The distance between them was so close that it felt faintly intimate.
The air all around them seemed to grow warm and heavy.
Liu Qingye had noticed the scene too. At first she only glanced over quickly, thinking to herself: The flight attendant on this flight is pretty handsome.
Right after that, she started to sense that something was off.
Would a normal flight attendant ever stand that close to a passenger?
And earlier all the staff she had seen were stewardesses, why was there only one male flight attendant on this entire flight?
Back where they were standing, after the man finished stowing Ji Liuyue's tote bag, the strong scent of his cologne still lingered in the air.
A subtle look flashed across Ji Liuyue's face, and she nimbly slipped into her own seat.
She sat down, tilted her head up to look at him and said, "Thank you, male guest. What should I call you?"
She was met with an exceptionally handsome face.
His brow bone was a little too prominent, his eye sockets deep, the outer corners of his eyes tilting slightly downward, and there was a dangerous glint in his gaze, like a beagle crouching right across from its prey.
He had a straight, well-defined nose, relatively thin lips, and the lines of his mouth curved upward slightly.
He was leaning slightly over her, one hand still resting on the top of her seat back. His dark blue uniform jacket had copper-colored buttons on the cuffs.
His tie was also dark blue, loosened by two full widths, and a small sliver of his collarbone peeked out from the unbuttoned top of his shirt.
On the left side of his chest was a small name tag printed with three characters: Ji Xizhou.
He smiled first and said, "How did you figure it out? I thought my disguise was pretty good." Then he tapped his name tag and added, "It says right here."
Ji Liuyue read it out loud, "Ji Xizhou."
She paused for a second then smiled and said, "What a coincidence, our surnames share the same syllable. I'm Ji Liuyue, the Ji that means season."
Even Liu Qingye, slow as she was, finally realized at that moment that the man in the dark blue flight attendant uniform was none other than the new male guest on the romance variety show.
The fifth male contestant — Ji Xizhou.
"Hello, I'm Liu Qingye, you can call me Yezi." She realized she had already been beaten to the first chance to talk to him by Ji Liuyue, so she leaned forward hurriedly, stretching her hand out past Ji Liuyue.
Ji Xizhou glanced at her, smiled faintly and said, "Hello."
But he didn't reach out his own hand, let alone shake hers.
Instead, he looked straight at Ji Liuyue, pointed to the empty seat right next to her and said, "Do you mind if I sit here?"
Ji Liuyue joked, "I don't mind at all, but don't you have work to do?"
The new guests who joined the show later didn't have to hide their real occupations.
Ji Xizhou smiled and said, "Well, today I feel like calling in sick from work just for you. Are you going to report me?"
Seeing that the two of them were about to start chatting warmly, Liu Qingye spoke up hurriedly, unwilling to be left out.
"Ji Xizhou, you really have a great sense of humor, but I bet you already got your leave approved, after all, there are still several days of island trips ahead for us."
Ji Xizhou finally turned his eyes to her, and said with a faint, knowing smile, "Who knows?"
Ji Liuyue looked at his unrestrained, laid-back demeanor.
She pointed out bluntly, "Is your real job a legitimate one?"
Ji Xizhou drew his attention back to her immediately, pointing at his uniform and said, "Doesn't this look legitimate enough?"
Ji Liuyue smiled and went on, "The flight attendants of this airline all wear pale green uniforms. You don't work for this airline. To be exact, this uniform looks more like a cosplay costume."
"That's why I'm asking what your real, proper job is."
It was hard not to let her imagination run wild when he even had a cosplay flight attendant uniform.
Liu Qingye looked completely shocked. "What? His job isn't a flight attendant?"
All that excitement she had felt earlier had been for nothing.
Ji Xizhou laughed again. "You two can guess."
Although he said "you two", his sharp, leopard-like eyes were fixed firmly on Ji Liuyue the whole time.
"Can you give us a hint?" she asked.
"One hint costs one heart-to-heart text message, sent to me." The corners of Ji Xizhou's lips lifted. It was obvious he had watched the previous two seasons of the show before coming to participate.
Truly the ultimate wild card, he was already making bold, flirty moves the second he showed up.
Liu Qingye's cheeks flushed a little. She thought to herself that this was a perfect chance for some innocent flirting, so she said immediately, "Fine, I want a hint."
Ji Xizhou thought for a moment then said, "It's very different from how I look on the outside."
Liu Qingye: "Are you an entrepreneur?"
Ji Xizhou nodded: "Sort of."
After he said that, he looked back at Ji Liuyue and said in a slow, soft tone, "Don't you want a hint?"
Ji Liuyue smiled playfully, "My heart-to-heart text messages are very valuable. I won't just send them to anyone."
Ji Xizhou pressed on step by step, "What about me? I just helped you carry your tote bag, don't I deserve one?"
Ji Liuyue: "It depends on the situation. Trading a single hint for a whole text message doesn't seem like a good deal to me."
Ji Xizhou's lips curled into a smirk. "Then I'll give you a free keyword."
Ji Liuyue: "Go on."
Ji Xizhou: "Construction site."
Liu Qingye saw that the two of them were talking as if no one else was around, and she was getting no screen time at all. She craned her head over and raised her voice a little.
"I guess you're the boss of a construction company!"
