An Empress's Return to the Present: The Real Young Lady's Strong Comeback - Chapter 3
Chapter 3: Butterfly Effect
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Dinner passed quickly. It was already past nine o’clock by now. The children from the city subconsciously placed the bowls and chopsticks on the table and prepared to change and shower. Meanwhile, Gu Xiao and the other two children from the countryside quickly collected the bowls and chopsticks and placed them in the sink and began to wash them.
When Lin Xue and Meng Fei saw this, they suddenly felt that it was not good for them to be a hands-off boss, so they joined in the cleaning1. The five of them helping each other to do the work really presented a warm and cosy scene. But one person was excluded, and that was Ji Yao.
Gu Xiao glanced at Ji Yao from the corner of her eyes.
In her previous life, Gu Xiao learned that Ji Yao had actually known the true purpose of this show long ago. She had even done some special training before coming to the show, and that included cooking.
Ji Yao was a prideful person to the point of being conceited. Today’s low-level mistake was enough to make her feel sad for quite a long time. Moreover, her gratitude to Gu Xiao was not true gratitude. It was more of an act.
However, Ji Yao was not stupid. She must know how it would affect her if she did not clean up with them. For her to leave now, she must have something else that she had to do.
Sooner or later, her perfect facade would be torn apart. Everyone would then see how ugly her heart was.
Gu Xiao thought to herself, as she took the opening of drinking water to secretly switch back the labels of the salt and sugar that she had previously exchanged.
The fact that Ji Yao did not attend this teamwork-building dishwashing event naturally caused some dissatisfaction among the audience.
[Everyone can work, but Ji Yao is nowhere to be seen!]
[She’s a pampered princess. How can she compare to us? She’s born to enjoy life.]
The director started to panic after seeing this wave of mockery. He quickly instructed a cameraman to follow Ji Yao to see what she was doing.
On screen, Ji Yao was tidying up the clothes the production team had prepared for the girls. She placed them at the head of each child’s bed, and thoughtfully made the beds as well.
The comments fell silent for a while. After a while, a comment “I admit that I was a little harsh to Ji Yao just now” popped out, followed by a series of “+1”.
The director finally heaved a sigh of relief.
The villa they had rented for filming was very big. The director had two rooms as the girls’ dormitories. One belonged to the city girls, and the other naturally belonged to the village girls. Each room was very spacious and had complete facilities.
After Gu Xiao and the others had finished washing the dishes and returned to the dormitory as instructed by the production team, Ji Yao immediately went up to them and said, “I’ve already helped you tidy up the dormitory while you were washing the dishes. Let’s take a shower and rest quickly.”
The other two girls from the countryside were very surprised and thanked Ji Yao helplessly. “Thank you, Ji Yao, and thank you for cooking such a delicious meal too.”
Ji Yao nodded and gave the two girls a harmless smile.
“Coincidentally, there are three bathrooms here. The three of you should take a shower first. After all, it’s not easy for you to rush over so far from the countryside,” Lin Xue suggested.
Before anyone could say anything, Meng Fei interrupted, “No, I’m exhausted from washing the dishes and pots. I want to take a shower first.” Before anyone could object, she picked up her clothes and rushed in. The sound of running water was soon heard.
She looked exactly like a young mistress.
There were still two bathrooms left. Ji Yao wanted to create the perfect image of being humble and capable. In addition, Lin Xue had already suggested it, so she naturally wouldn’t snatch the chance to shower first. Hence, the choice still fell into the hands of the three rural children.
Gu Xiao was mentally laughing so hard that she wanted to die. The poor production team had never guessed that their mistake was not letting the children from the city read the script. However, it was precisely because she had exchanged the labels of sugar and salt that it triggered a series of butterfly effects, causing what was originally acting out a show to become a real reality show.
However, Gu Xiao still pretended to be timid. She covered her mouth with her hand and looked at the director and the two city children before asking carefully, “Can we take a shower?”
This question seemed to be seeking the agreement of Ji Yao and Lin Xue, but it was actually leading the audience to realize that there was a problem with the program’s arrangements. As it was a live broadcast, they could not edit the content of the conversation. These words were clearly heard by the audience.
[What does this mean? What does ‘can we take a shower’ mean?]
[Maybe it’s because water in rural ares is very precious, so they usually don’t take a shower every day.]
[I feel there’s something a little strange about this.]
After Gu Xiao finished speaking, the other two children also looked troubled, as if they were very resistant to taking a shower.
Seeing this, Lin Xue hurriedly said, “It’s alright. It’s just a shower. It’s very comfortable to sleep after a shower. Go quickly!” As she spoke, she pushed the two girls into the bathroom. “By the way, do you know how to use the tap? Let me teach you.”