This segment of the video came to an end.
Everyone saw Liu Qingye deliberately wait until Lu Nanxun got off work before handing him the steam eye mask she had thoughtfully prepared.
“Thank you, Yezi.”
Liu Qingye looked rather bashful. She cast him a shy, coy glance and moved a little closer.
No one knew what she said.
The production crew’s microphones hadn’t picked it up.
To stir things up, the editors even added a caption beside them: “The couple’s little secret.”
The comments section came alive again with Liu Qingye’s fans.
【Aaaah, they’re so sweet together!】
【Leopard and Kitty—I’m born again!】
【As expected, Yezi and Dr. Lu are the perfect match.】
【Our couple is solidly happy!】
Of course, there were dissenting opinions too.
【This is still way too early to say anything. Dr. Lu was smiling happily when he went on his date with Liuyue too.】
【Was he really happy? He was just being polite.】
Seeing the comments start fighting again, Zhang Xiaotao decided to focus on watching the video.
Just as the handsome man and beautiful woman stood talking not far from the entrance, the front door opened again.
It was Xu Jinsi, returning to the house after work.
He happened to walk in on the gift-giving scene.
“Sorry. It seems I came at a bad time.”
【Oh my God, this is an absolute battlefield!】
【I’m certain Xu Jinsi likes Yezi. He must be jealous! But I’m still supporting Dr. Lu.】
【Dr. Lu is so well-behaved. I still like Xu more. Xu and our Yezi are a much better match.】
【Aaaaaah, either way, this is delicious. They all like Yezi!】
While Liu Qingye’s fans were still indulging in their fantasies, Xu Jinsi simply walked past the two of them and headed for the kitchen.
Right in front of everyone, he leaned his head through the doorway.
“Ji Liuyue, come out for a moment.”
The comment section fell silent for a second.
【Wait, what? Am I seeing things? When did Xu Jinsi and Ji Liuyue start interacting?】
【The sky is falling! What’s going on with my Leopard? You can’t like Ji Liuyue, that wicked woman!】
The scene changed to the house’s media room.
The two of them stood facing each other in the doorway.
They were neither too close nor too far apart. Xu Jinsi lowered his head, his amber eyes gazing deeply at Ji Liuyue beside him.
The girl raised her porcelain-pale, exquisite, and charming face, her expression full of confusion.
Whether viewed in close-up or from a distance, the scene looked as though it had come straight out of a romance novel.
Even Liu Qingye’s fans couldn’t bring themselves to criticize it.
The shot really did make them look like a perfect match!
Xu Jinsi asked, “Are you free tomorrow?”
Ji Liuyue replied, “I think so.”
Xu Jinsi handed her a pale pink bag.
“Here. Take it.”
“What is it?”
“Open it and see.”
She unwrapped the box. Inside lay a crystal-clear peach-pink bracelet.
Ji Liuyue stared at it. “This is…”
Xu Jinsi’s gaze had already drifted away from her face. In an offhand tone, he said, “You accepted my gift, so we’re going on a date tomorrow.”
With that, he turned and left.
【Oh my gosh, how domineering! He’s got that overbearing CEO vibe down perfectly.】
【He invited her first! What does that tell us? It tells us our Mr. Xu likes Ji Liuyue. Case closed, everyone.】
【All you Liu Qingye fans, come out and face the music! Weren’t you just cheering so loudly a moment ago?】
Liu Qingye’s fans were crushed one after another and couldn’t help changing their tune.
【Our Yezi and Dr. Lu are perfectly happy together. Who wants this Xu guy anyway?】
【Hmph! Yezi never liked that man in the first place. He’s too arrogant and always acts so high and mighty.】
【Exactly!】
The scene then cut to the male guests receiving text messages one after another and picking up their phones to read them.
A caption appeared beside them:
“Round Two of the House Dates Begins.”
【Round Two of the House Dates is about to begin. This time, the men will be the ones to issue the invitations.
The invitation method is as follows: The male guest selects a gift and presents it to a female guest. If she accepts it, the date is considered successfully arranged.
Note: A female guest who has already been invited cannot be invited again.
Invitations close at 10:00 p.m. tonight. Any invitations made after the deadline will be invalid.】
Only then did the viewers understand. No wonder Xu Jinsi had suddenly called Ji Liuyue out to the media room. He must have received the program’s rules by text on his way back.
So the moment he entered, he went to the kitchen to call her, give her a gift, and invite her on a date.
Everyone had initially thought he was secretly asking her out, but it turned out to be part of the show’s rules.
Some people couldn’t resist being nasty in the comments.
【Maybe the production team forced him to do it. They’re obviously trying to manufacture drama.】
【Exactly. The gift Xu Jinsi gave her wasn’t even that expensive. Maybe he just picked something at random to fulfill the requirement.】
【That pink crystal bracelet looks pretty expensive, though.】
【Isn’t it just the kind of thing you can get for 9.9 yuan with free shipping on PXX?】
【Probably the same kind of thing sold on Taobao.】
It wasn’t until someone dug up the bracelet’s origins that everyone realized it wasn’t some ordinary PXX or Taobao accessory. It came from a prestigious overseas crystal brand with a history spanning more than a century.
The brand’s customers included princesses and crown princesses from royal families around the world. Naturally, its prices were not going to be anything like 9.9 yuan.
The internet was full of capable investigators.
Although the bracelet Xu Jinsi had given Ji Liuyue wasn’t considered especially expensive by luxury-brand standards, it certainly wasn’t cheap either.
128,888 yuan.
【Good heavens, am I seeing this right? How many digits is that?】
【More than 120,000! These rich people are insane. It’s that expensive?】
【How can one bracelet cost more than my annual salary? I’m going to cry…】
【Face-slapped! Whoever said Xu Jinsi was just going through the motions, come out and explain yourself. If he were being perfunctory, why didn’t he give your Yezi a bracelet worth 120,000 yuan?】
Before long, thanks to the 120,000-yuan pink crystal bracelet, the dating reality show was trending once again.
Even the program’s editors had completely failed to recognize the bracelet’s value. They had assumed it was just an ordinary piece of jewelry.
Only after netizens uncovered the truth did the production staff realize that Xu Jinsi was a truly powerful man.
Some viewers who shipped Xu Jinsi and Ji Liuyue even went so far as to rename their pairing the “Twelve” CP.
Zhang Xiaotao considered herself a veteran viewer of dating shows.
Even she was stunned when she saw how expensive the bracelet was.
Good heavens!
Mr. Xu really was an overbearing CEO—not only domineering, but filthy rich too.
All right, she was prepared to take back everything she had said about Xu Jinsi being pretentious.
It seemed he wasn’t putting on an act.
He really had the wealth to back it up!
And a man willing to spend that much money on Ji Liuyue couldn’t possibly be a bad man, could he?
Back at the house, some of the residents were resting in their rooms while others were scrolling through their phones. After all, the middle of the day on the island was far too hot for outdoor activities.
Wang Aitian was an avid internet surfer, and she knew that the third episode had aired. She was curious to see how everyone would react to it.
But before she could even find her own scenes, she came across the bracelet Xu Jinsi had given Ji Liuyue—the one worth 128,888 yuan.
Like a gust of wind, she rushed into Ji Liuyue’s room.
She had even forgotten that Liu Qingye shared the room with her.
The words flew out of her mouth.
“Girl! Do you know how much that pink crystal bracelet Old Xu—uh, I mean, Mr. Xu—gave you is worth?”
Before Ji Liuyue could respond, Liu Qingye, who was lying on her bed, took off her eye mask.
With a speechless look on her face, she asked, “How expensive could it be?”
