“Shit!” Qian Huang jumped to his feet and rushed over to the table, scrambling to turn on the notebook and carry it back to the dinner table. “How could I forget about this?!” He drummed on the table with his fingers, feeling that this thing was taking much too long.

Xiao Ming just chuckled. “Hey, it’s not that big of a deal. The episode will be online anyway. We could just watch it later.”

Qian Huang turned to look at him, his eyes widened, and his brows raised in doubt. “How could it not be a big deal? It’s your first time being on TV! I’m pretty sure everyone is watching right now.”

Li Shui pulled his chair around to them and picked up his bowl and chopsticks again. “You know, it’s not actually the first time. Wasn’t he already on TV when they had that press conference?”

Qian Huang gave him an annoyed look. “How could that even be compared?” He shook his head but didn’t argue any further.

The notebook had finally turned on so he rushed to type in the password and then hurriedly went to find the episode. Thankfully, he didn’t need long. Since Li Shui had warned them early enough, they had only missed the first couple of minutes. Right now, E Cheng Jun was up on the stage, announcing the rules for the casting. She seemed to have only gone up so it really was still early.

Neither of them said anything, just quietly watching what was happening. This episode was actually an odd one because it wasn’t like the following ones would be. From the looks of it, the first few minutes should have been some introduction of the venue and the contestants.

E Cheng Jun finished her speech and the camera immediately cut to several shots of the contestants cooking.

Seeing this, Xiao Ming couldn’t help but give a faint huff while smiling. “They seem to have cut quite a bit. If you look closely, the contestants have all gathered their ingredients already and also processed some already.”

Qian Huang nodded. “True. Well, I guess you can’t expect them to show too much. The casting was really long and they need to show the atmosphere, how the casting was done, introduce some of the contestants if they can, as well as you and Mister Yu. Can’t have been easy to fit everything in there. It’s no wonder they’d cut out a lot of the more boring details. We’ll probably get to see a lot more food when it’s getting to the later stages.”

Li Shui nodded vigorously. “Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be a lot. I saw them do a lot of close-ups of the food and also the cooking. Not much of that in the early stages but later on … yeah, there’ll be a lot.”

As it turned out, Li Shui was right on the mark. In the first half of the episode, the content focused on introductions: there were many shots of the venue, usually tied to the people participating. They had interviewed people at their cooking stations but also in the areas where they were supposed to get ingredients. Toward the middle, they snuck in more and more shots of people bringing their dishes to be judged.

They started with them going up to the chefs helping out that day, making sure to include both people who were given feedback but turned away and those who were finally let on stage to present their dishes to Xiao Ming and Mister Yu.

At that point, the three men from Bright Yellow Water all tensed up. This was the moment of truth.

The person that was currently shown was actually somebody they knew pretty well: Si Qi of the Si clan or, as they knew him, the best-selling novelist Shi Ru Qiu.

He had been shown several times already. The first part was a candid shot from the side as he had been taking the necessary ingredients in a calm manner. The lighting in the venue was bright to make sure everyone saw well while cooking but it wasn’t necessarily flattering on people. Si Qi had managed to look decent though and with the way he carried himself, there was even something soft about him despite the harsh lighting.

The next time he turned up, he was processing his ingredients. E Cheng Jun had walked up to him to ask a few questions. He smiled gently and when he spoke, the three of them felt like holding their breath.

Qian Huang finally clicked his tongue. “You know, if I didn’t know the inside story, I’d expect to see some major love story unfold later on the show.”

Xiao Ming sighed. “I hope for him it does.” Really, he had talked with Si Qi privately so he knew about this better than the other two who had only heard about it second-hand. He had seen just how sad and … frankly, lost Si Qi seemed that day. But now on camera, there was that melancholy about him that was impossible to ignore.

Qian Huang glanced at him. “Well, it’s probably good for the number of viewers. He’s good-looking.”

Xiao Ming looked over, a bit at a loss himself. “How do his looks factor into this?”

“Well, a handsome, caring, honest guy who can cook …” Qian Huang tilted his head. “There are a lot of girlfriend fans out there, you know? And those can drive the ratings of a show up like nothing. As long as he doesn’t actually get together with anyone, there’s always hope that they’ll hit the jackpot and make him fall in love with them.”

Xiao Ming looked at Qian Huang exasperatedly before turning back to the screen. At this moment, Si Qi was standing in line, waiting to be able to present his dish to the chef. He still looked just the same, just with the added benefit that he didn’t seem to be impatiently waiting for his chance to go up but was instead looking into the distance. His gaze seemed gentle as if he was indeed looking at the person he had just said he loved.

There was a cut and the camera panned past the stage, giving everyone a glance at the back of a petite person before focusing on another contestant at the other side of the venue who was currently finishing up his dish.

Xiao Ming stared in a daze and then couldn’t help but turn to Li Shui. “Was that …”

“Deliberate? Yep. They could have just cut over there straight away. It’s like they wanted to imply something.”

Qian Huang sighed as well this time. “You know, they might want to sell the cooking and the dishes but if you look at the marketing so far, they clearly don’t mind playing dirty either. I wouldn’t be surprised if they continue to put him with several of the female contestants in the future episodes just to have the fans make a guessing game out of this.”

Xiao Ming joined him in sighing. “Nobody would guess he is gay, huh?”

“Well, it’s better for him if they don’t. Not just for the show. Don’t forget he’s famous. If it gets out …”

Xiao Ming nodded, once again reminded that he himself also needed to be careful. Anyway, living with two guys certainly didn’t make him seem any straighter than he was. Well, the show hadn’t tried to put him into this kind of situation so hopefully, it wouldn’t happen. As for Shi Ru Qiu, he could only hope that he would manage to get out of that situation somehow.

The three of them didn’t talk about it any further and just continued to watch, keeping a close eye on everything to make sure they wouldn’t run into unforeseen situations later on.

Of course, they weren’t the only ones who had noticed the matter with Si Qi. Back at the temporary headquarters of the Si clan, Si Jin was watching the episode as usual, making sure that he wouldn’t miss a single second of Xiao Ming’s screen time.

As his trusted right-hand man, Si Yi was naturally at his side as well, keeping a close eye on matters. His understanding of filming might not be as good as Li Shui’s but this matter wasn’t too difficult to figure out if you had seen any kind of TV show in your life.

Seeing the camera pan over, he gritted his teeth. He knew there was nothing to it but just the idea that somebody was suggesting that Si Qi could be interested in that random woman … he hated it.

Si Qi wasn’t that arbitrary. If he fell in love, he would only do so when he knew the person well. He wasn’t that shallow to just look at somebody and get hooked by looks alone. Those people, he had seen them for the first time at the casting or maybe even today. Why would he care?

The worst thing was that this wouldn’t be the only time this happened. Si Qi was so open about being in love, surely, the crew behind ‘Golden Spoon’ would take advantage. They would fan the flames of this rumor and who knew what people online would make out of it? In fact …

Si Yi hesitated but then silently took out his phone. He turned down the volume and went to open the video. He went back to a few moments before Si Qi appeared for the first time and turned on the barrage.

Usually, he disliked this view. It felt disorganized to him and only seemed like a distraction, something obscuring what he actually wanted to see. But this time, he was interested in precisely what it was that people were writing about Si Qi so this was what he needed to see.

That shot in the area for the ingredients appeared and even though he had wanted to look at the comments, Si Yi’s gaze was attracted by the figure that could be seen behind them.

That look … he knew it. He had seen it so often. He … well, it wasn’t like he hadn’t noticed how often he received it. In fact, even at the casting, he had felt those eyes on him. Even though it pained him that they couldn’t be together, he had gotten used to this. And he actually liked the reassurance that, despite their circumstances, nothing would change between them.

He suppressed a sigh and rewound the video by a few seconds, this time forcing himself to really read the comments. When he did, he wished that he hadn’t though.

[OMG, he’s so handsome!]

[*licks screen*]

Si Yi’s brows furrowed tightly when he saw these comments. People online … they didn’t know how to behave! How could they be like this toward Si Qi? To somebody like him, looks didn’t matter much. Yes, he was good-looking but that was really the least interesting part about him. Not that these people would know.

No, they didn’t. They never would. They could only ever get this kind of superficial look at him. Knowing Si Qi well, that was a privilege only the members of the Si clan had. Something he …

Si Yi furrowed his brows further, suppressing that thought. He shouldn’t get ahead of himself. That wasn’t what he had come here for.

[Wait! Isn’t that Shi Ru Qiu?!]

This third comment made the corners of his lips rise slightly and his brows smoothed out. Yes, that was more like it. Si Qi should be recognized for his excellent work. He deserved that.

Feeling some hope, Si Yi continued to read, only for his expression to get increasingly worse. People online … they indeed didn’t know how to behave!

[That famous author? I love his works! I’m especially into his main series. It’s just so thrilling but also romantic at the same time. I can’t wait to see who the MC’s going to end up with!]

[Yeah, me too. I don’t like the MC though. What a douchebag! There are many awesome side characters though.]

[Let’s not talk about that. Is that really Teacher Shi? He’s gorgeous!]

[That’s definitely him. Check out the photo on his Weibo. It’s 100 % true!]

[Whoever he’s in love with that doesn’t cherish him, she doesn’t deserve him.]

[Yes, yes! Nobody hold me back, I’ll fight her!]

[You can all go fight her. I’ll go snatch Teacher Shi to get married. Where could I find a better husband than this?]