Guan Yu snorted coldly, deciding to calm down and not bicker with Shi Yuhuai.
But she still had to grumble a few words.
"Finally, I can understand the feeling my mom had back then, gritting her teeth and glaring at me while panting."
Mu Qiu held back a laugh and went into the shell room to greet Shu Ran.
The next three minutes were filled with pleasant chatter, endless words of praise.
In this lively scene, Mu Qiu sidled up to ask Cheng Zhirang, "Brother Cheng, are you hungry?"
He hadn’t even had a couple bites of melon seeds or peanuts just a moment ago.
Cheng Zhirang shook his head and gently asked her, "What about you? After eating so much fruit, can you still eat hot pot?"
"That’s a small issue," she said, raising her head and waving her hand, "Piece of cake."
He chuckled softly, "Didn’t you just tell me the other day that you don’t eat much in the evening?"
"...Except for tonight. I can’t spoil the fun, right? Everyone’s ready to feast."
Who would be feasting? Except for Guan Yu and herself, probably no one planned to eat much.
He didn’t call her out, just touched her wrist gently and said, "Don’t eat too much watermelon, later when you eat something hot, you’ll easily get an upset stomach."
"Oh."
Nearby, Guan Yu took a bite of melon and mimicked their conversation, saying to Li Yang, "Don’t eat more melon, later when you eat something hot, you’ll get an upset stomach, and I’ll feel bad for you~"
Li Yang: "... Ugh, Sister Guan Yu, don’t talk to me like that."
Guan Yu rolled her eyes, "No fun, I’m just recreating the scene, the original words were much more sugary."
Syrupy man himself, Cheng Zhirang, acted as if he wasn’t the subject, "The performance is over, can we cue the director for the final procedure?"
Guan Yu didn’t plan to tease him more and nodded in agreement.
"But we still haven’t decided whose performance deserves the top three rewards."
She patted the table, drawing everyone’s attention, and pulled out a deck of playing cards from her pocket.
"Where did you find that?" Shu Ran asked.
"How is it ’finding’? I borrowed it openly from the guesthouse."
Guan Yu said righteously while opening the deck, shuffled the cards, then placed them face down on the round table.
"Come on, let’s use this simple and straightforward way to score the performances. Everyone blindly draws three cards to give to the three people you think had the best performances, and then we’ll tally up the scores at the end."
Indeed, simple and straightforward.
Li Yang, wary of being trapped again, cautiously asked for details, "Do we give them in order? How do J, Q, K score? What about the jokers?"
"Jokers and those letter cards count as half a point each, other cards are calculated according to their numbers, and we reveal the results all at once after voting."
She crossed her legs and said, "Blind drawing, blind voting, all depends on luck."
Mu Qiu saw through her idea, "You’re trying to avoid the awkward situation where no one votes for your program, right?"
Guan Yu corrected her patiently, "It’s our program. Share the glory and disgrace, right?"
"I don’t really want to share glory and disgrace with you. Everyone, listen to me, my act was playing the violin with Brother Huai just now, don’t forget to give me votes—oh, wait."
She suddenly thought of a loophole, "For group performances, does it mean if one teammate gets a certain number, the other also gets it even if they don’t have any cards in front of them?"
"I can’t tell if you have too much confidence in Brother Huai or if you think everyone else is a fool."
Guan Yu shoved the cards towards her, "According to your logic, the top three would all be pairs? Six people would get specialized dance training? What are you dreaming about?"
"...Fine, no then, but why misuse idioms."
She mumbled awkwardly, reaching out to draw a card.
After everyone drew their cards, voting started with Shi Yuhuai and went clockwise.
He laid out the three cards without a hint of hesitation, handed one to Mu Qiu, one to Jiang Zhufeng, and kept one for himself.
Distributed them in two seconds flat.
Mu Qiu put away her card and stared at the next person, Li Yang.
Li Yang’s fingers were still shuffling under the cards, hesitating to vote.
"Do you think this is mahjong and you can feel the indents?" She stood up leaning over to grab his cards, "If you’re so indecisive, just give them all to me."
"Stop, stop, stop!" Li Yang quickly snatched back his cards and immediately distributed them.
He was a lone wolf, without teammates, unsure who to give his cards to. After thinking for a while, he gave one to Shu Ran, one to Cheng Zhirang, and one to...
Guan Yu stared him down fiercely, almost having "If you don’t give it to me, I’ll assassinate you later" written on her face.
He hesitated, pulled his hand back halfway through handing it to someone else, but Guan Yu just grabbed it.
"Just give it to me! Don’t be shy!"
"..." He watched helplessly as the card was snatched away, unable to reclaim it.
Guan Yu gleefully announced, "Okay, next person!"
One after another, until Cheng Zhirang wrapped things up, giving cards to Mu Qiu, himself, and Li Yang.
When he handed a card to Li Yang, he added with a smile, "When you’ve learned, come back and teach us."
Li Yang happily accepted the card, "No problem, no problem!"
Guan Yu carefully arranged her six cards, thinking she should surely rank in the top three.
"Alright, reveal the cards!"
The twelve of them simultaneously flipped over their cards.
Mu Qiu glanced at the numbers on her cards, then leaned over to see Cheng Zhirang’s.
"Mine’s higher than yours!" She picked out the last card, "This highest number, ten, is the one you gave me."
"Great, I passed on some luck to you." His eyes slightly closed, eyes curved into a line, with the ends slightly upturned, very enticing.
He shuffled his cards back together, set them aside, and checked out the others’.
Guan Yu was in disbelief, laying out each card and closely examining them again, her face nearly pressed against the table.
"Can’t be this unlucky?!" She flipped a six around, "Is this a nine or six? I’m all mixed up."
"Six, auspicious six."
Mu Qiu helpfully flipped the card back and said seriously,
"Bless you, Sister Guan Yu, four of your five cards are letter cards and jokers, proving your performance earned a kingly title; the score doesn’t matter."
"...Thank you."
She rechecked two or three times, finally accepting it, pinning her hopes on "surely there are nine people scored lower than me," and craned her neck to look at the others’.
And she really did find someone worse off than her.
"Ha! Chuchu, you’re lower than me!"
Chuchu couldn’t muster a smile.
She performed with Bai Shu and Jiang Zhufeng, doesn’t matter the card numbers, just their cards alone were more than hers.
Either everyone thought her performance wasn’t as good as Bai Shu’s and Jiang Zhufeng’s, or they were ostracizing her on purpose.
Either reason didn’t make her happy.