Zhao Peng saw Yan Xi blushing and thought that she was young and shy. After praising her a few times, he turned to open the van door, ready to leave. However, no matter how many times he tried, the door wouldn't budge.
"What's going on?" The driver came down and tried to pull the door open as well, but it still wouldn't open.
"This damn car!" The driver cursed under his breath. He was about to say a few more harsh words when he turned around and saw Yan Xi standing behind him with a smiling face. He swallowed his words. "Miss Yan, sorry to make you laugh. This car often has problems, it should have been replaced long ago, but the money for it hasn't been approved yet."
He had been driving this broken car around every day, and the frustration had been building up inside him.
"The door's stuck. Should we climb through the front?" Zhao Peng rubbed his nose.
"I'll try," Yan Xi handed the microphone to the driver and went to pull the door. Sure enough, it was stuck tight. She took a deep breath and pulled hard, but instead of the door opening, the handle came off in her hand.
The parking lot fell silent.
Yan Xi stared at the broken handle in her hand, dumbfounded. Had she just broken public property?
"Hahahaha," Zhao Peng, a big man, laughed so hard that he shook all over, pointing at the handle in Yan Xi's hand. "Xiao Yan, your strength is stronger than your eloquence!"
Yan Xi waited until Zhao Peng had finished laughing before she quietly spoke, "Zhao Ge, I think we should call someone to pick us up." She looked at her skirt and thought about crawling from the front seat to the backâthis was too embarrassing.
Before Zhao Peng could reply, headlights suddenly flashed towards them. A car slowly pulled up beside them, and the lights dazzled Zhao Peng for a moment.
The car stopped beside them, and the window rolled down. A man was sitting inside. Zhao Peng assessed the car's price and saw the driver's grim expression, so he silently stepped back.
He couldn't afford to offend this person.
Yuan Yi looked at Yan Xi, who was wearing a white dress, and pursed his lips, his face growing even more serious.
Yan Xi had been dazzled by the car lights earlier, and now, in the dim light, she squinted to see inside. She barely made out that the driver was a man. She turned to call her father to arrange for someone to come pick them up.
Hearing the woman on the phone acting a bit coquettish, Yuan Yi scoffed. He had forgotten that she wasn't some powerless person. Perhaps it was because the expression on her face when she broke the door handle was so amusing that it made him smile. That rare good mood made him want to help.
However, since she didn't need help, he didn't bother to offer. He didn't want to be misunderstood as trying to flirt with a married woman.
After the luxury car drove away, Zhao Peng breathed a sigh of relief, thinking they had just narrowly avoided offending a big shot.
"Zhao Ge, let's find a place nearby to sit. My dad's driver is coming to pick us up soon." Yan Xi hung up the phone and saw the car that had been parked in front of them drive off. "Did you know that driver?"
"I wish I did," Zhao Peng sighed, with an expression of regret, "But unfortunately, they didn't give me that chance."
"I understand," Yan Xi said with a look of understanding, making Zhao Peng keep his further remarks to himself.
This new female host didn't seem so delicate after all?!
The next day, Song Hai, under the guise of sponsorship, sent two brand-new vans to Channel 8, a display of his wealth.
As the saying goes, "When you accept favors, you become indebted," and since the two vans would be used by the station for fieldwork, and given that Yan Xi knew how to handle things, within a month, she had blended in with her colleagues and learned a lot from the seasoned veterans at the station.
Since the door incident, Zhao Peng and Yan Xi had become less formal with each other. Plus, they often worked together on location shoots, and their relationship developed into a friendly one.
For example, when they encountered an illegally kept large dog in an old residential building, Yan Xi didn't hesitate to take off her high heels and run to the car. Her reasoning was simple: as long as she outran Zhao Peng, she would be safe.
Or, when they encountered a neighborhood dispute with two women shouting at each other, Zhao Peng didn't hesitate to push Yan Xi out to mediate, reasoning that women communicate better with each other. In the end, Yan Xi nearly got her hair pulled out by the two women.
"Zhao, Zhao Ge," Yan Xi slumped in the car, gasping for breath, and pointed her trembling finger at Zhao Peng, "You're not being fair! I almost got torn apart by those women just now."
"But you're fine now, aren't you?" Zhao Peng chuckled, "Young people have good stamina and can run fast. Unlike me, I'm getting old, my legs aren't what they used to be."
Yan Xi rolled her eyes, unscrewed a bottle of water, and drank a few big gulps to calm her racing heart. "Last time, when the dog was chasing you, didn't you run pretty fast while carrying the camera?"
Zhao Peng smiled foolishly and didn't answer.
The program "Things Around Me" had been airing for some time, with its ratings slowly increasing, though it still couldn't compete with the satellite channel's shows. But no one minded. They were happy enough with the ratings they had.
When work ended, Yan Xi waited a long time for the elevator. When it finally arrived, she was about to get in but was stopped by someone inside. "The elevator's full, please wait for the next one. Sorry."
Although the person spoke politely, there were only six or seven people inside. The person standing in the middle was the celebrity they had just been talking about, Shen Xingyan. She was talking to a young man wearing sunglasses, her face smiling, probably a popular fresh-faced star.
Yan Xi smiled slightly and stepped back. Unexpectedly, the young star spoke up, "It's okay, let her in."
Shen Xingyan, noticing, looked up and smiled at Yan Xi, her attitude friendly.
"It's alright, the other elevator's here," Yan Xi smiled back, nodding at them, then turned and walked toward another elevator.
The young star was taken aback, not expecting to be rejected, but he quickly resumed talking to Shen Xingyan.
"The staff here don't know any better. Don't mind her, Teacher Xu," Shen Xingyan apologized quietly to Xu Qiaosheng.
"It's fine," Xu Qiaosheng didn't care about the incident. "It's natural for girls to be shy. I understand."
Shen Xingyan smiled and didn't bring it up again.
Shen Xingyan accompanied Xu Qiaosheng to the underground parking lot. Just as she was about to leave, the female staff member they had encountered earlier came down. Shen Xingyan noticed she was driving a red Ferrari, a car that wasn't cheap and wasn't a common model; its production was limited.
"Which floor did the elevator stop at?" Shen Xingyan asked her assistant. "Is that female staff from the front or behind the scenes?"
"Shen Jie, the elevator stopped on the 8th or 9th floor, which is the office area for Channels 8 and 9," the assistant thought for a moment, then added, "Those two channels don't really have any standout programs. They probably should have been canceled a while ago if there weren't any regulations in place."
Shen Xingyan nodded. It was probably some rich girl coming to the TV station to waste time. No wonder she seemed so calm when interacting with Xu Qiaosheng.
During rush hour in the capital, traffic was jammed. Yan Xi didn't expect that amidst the traffic, someone would recklessly dart through, their bright yellow car almost shouting that it was expensive and shouldn't be touched.
When the yellow car crashed into a black Cayenne, and the Cayenne lost control and crashed into her, she didn't even have time to react. The next second, the airbags went off in her face, and in the dazed moment, Yan Xi wondered if her makeup had smeared.
"Is the person in the car alright?"
"Have you called the police?"
"Call 120, hurry!"
Yan Xi, dazed, tried to open the car door, but for some reason, her hands were too weak to undo her seatbelt.
A young man with a grim face approached her car, glanced at her a few times, then bent down to undo her seatbelt and gently helped her out of the car. Despite his serious expression, his movements were careful, obviously concerned about causing any internal injury or further harm.
"Thank you," Yan Xi said to the man, who looked somewhat like Yuan Er Shao from the Yuan family, the kind of person who looked like trouble.
The man placed her on the sidewalk, muttered, "Sit still, don't move," and then walked straight toward the yellow Lamborghini owner.
The crowd around her murmured in sympathy, handing her a chair, and someone gave her a bottle of water, though she didn't know who it was. She was still dazed.
The Lamborghini owner was loudly cursing, while everyone around took out their phones to film, but no one dared intervene.
Without hesitation, Yuan Yi strode over and kicked the owner, sending him crashing into his car with a loud thud.