22: Chapter 22 Goddess, it looks like your makeup is caked up.

The lively atmosphere in the living room continued, but Lu Li couldn't be bothered to deal with it anymore.

He leaned back on the sofa, picked up another bottle of yogurt, and drank it leisurely.

Lin Yu was still chattering away endlessly over there, but Lu Li let it go in one ear and out the other, occasionally nodding to give a response.

However, Xu Hao was quite honest; he pulled out his phone directly and started searching for Lu Li's name. After searching for a long time, his brows furrowed tighter and tighter.

"No, Lu Li, why isn't there even any decent information about you online? There are only a few pieces of information related to you, and they're all previews for this dating variety show."

Lu Li took a sip of yogurt and said indifferently, "Just obscure, obscure celebs have no human rights."

Xu Hao: ...

How was he supposed to respond to that?

The netizens in the live stream burst into wild laughter again upon hearing this.

[Why is 'Obscure celebs have no human rights' so funny when coming from his mouth?]

[He definitely wasn't treated like an obscure celeb when he was singing "little dimples" earlier.]

[I'm dying of laughter at Xu Hao's expression. He probably didn't expect Lu Li to be so blunt.]

[To be fair, I feel like Xu Hao's emotional intelligence is a bit low. Don't flame if you disagree.]

[Slacker Brother is truly slacking off; he's even too lazy to maintain a persona.]

The scene fell somewhat quiet for a moment.

Xu Hao didn't know how to respond for a moment, so with a hot head and an open mouth, he directly threw out the question everyone wanted to ask but didn't dare to.

"Hahaha... Oh right! That aside, you sang such an affectionate song to Goddess Shen just now, you two aren't really..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but everyone understood the meaning.

The living room instantly fell silent, and everyone's gazes locked squarely onto Lu Li.

Everyone was just waiting to watch a good show.

Even Zhou Yichen instinctively straightened his posture and became serious at this moment, fearing he might miss any details.

Lu Li's mouth twitched subconsciously.

This Xu Hao really said things that were more defying of the heavens one after another. How was he supposed to answer this question?

If he said yes, to put it exaggeratedly, Shen Qingxue's fans could drown him with a single spit each.

If he said no, then after singing such an affectionate song to her just now, locking gazes affectionately and taking two steps closer, wouldn't that be acting like a scoundrel?

Even though this was a dating variety show and everyone knew it was just acting, whoever took it seriously would lose.

Furthermore, only he knew that singing so affectionately to Shen Qingxue was purely to piss off Zhou Yichen.

After all, Zhou Yichen had peeked at Shen Qingxue more than once, and drool was almost dripping onto the ground; shouldn't he stimulate him a bit?

As for himself, how could he think that much? Did he seriously expect Shen Qingxue to fall in love with him because of a song and a single eye contact? Stop joking.

Lu Li's brain spun rapidly for three seconds, and then he spoke with a straight face.

"Well, actually... when I was singing, I happened to see that Goddess Shen's face... seemed to be caking with foundation? That's why I took a couple extra glances at her."

As soon as these words were spoken, the entire scene crashed.

Everyone widened their eyes with slightly parted mouths.

Especially Lin Mo, who was drinking water gracefully. Upon hearing this sentence, the water in his mouth almost sprayed out, but he forced it back down and choked himself into a fit of coughing.

Foundation caking? You're saying Shen Qingxue... was caking foundation?

Meanwhile, the bullet comments in the live stream suddenly flooded with question marks.

[? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?]

[Foundation caking? ? ? ? ? ?]

[Hahahahahahahaha I can't do this anymore]

[Lu Li, what did you say? ? ? You said Shen Qingxue's foundation was caking? ? ?]

[I am laughing my head off, what kind of heaven-defying straight-man statement is this?]

[Heaven-defying Sigma male, never falling into women's traps.]

[No, look closely at Shen Qingxue's expression.]

[Here it comes, here comes the Goddess's death glare.]

[Shen Qingxue: "Say that again?"]

[Hahahahaha can Lu Li walk out of this room alive today]

[I bet fifty cents that Lu Li is going to be secretly assassinated tonight.]

At the scene.

Shen Qingxue sat on the sofa, her entire body freezing up.

She had just been trying to calm her pounding heart a moment ago, and the blush on her ears had only faded not long ago.

As a result, as soon as Lu Li said those words, her face instantly flushed red again.

But this time it wasn't out of shyness, but out of anger.

Foundation caking?

She didn't even wear heavy makeup, and even her light makeup was of the extremely subtle kind; there was simply no way her foundation could cake!

What kind of eyesight did this person have?!

Shen Qingxue took a deep breath, and the faint goodwill she had managed to build up toward Lu Li instantly plummeted to zero.

She slowly turned her head to look at Lu Li, her gaze calm, but terrifyingly calm.

Lu Li felt a chill down his spine under this gaze and instinctively shrank back.

"Um... Shen Qingxue, I was just joking, don't take it seriously..."

Shen Qingxue didn't speak; she just looked at him like that.

Until finally, it was Director Zhou who stepped out to smooth things over.

"Ahem... Um, let's continue, continue, there are still segments coming up."

As he spoke, he gave Lu Li a mental thumbs-up.

This kid is truly fucking talented!

As soon as the song ended, a trending search across the entire web was instantly booked, and then the next second, a single phrase about caking foundation booked another wave of popularity.

Regardless of whether he did it on purpose or unintentionally, the show's effect was absolute perfection.

Shen Qingxue finally withdrew her gaze, turned her head away, picked up the water cup on the table, and took a sip of water.

Her movements were still elegant and calm, but the hand holding the water cup was still trembling slightly, betraying her inner turmoil.

Lu Li looked at that hand and silently offered incense to himself in his heart.

It's over, I've offended someone. Won't Shen Qingxue deliberately trip him up during this show?

However, after thinking about it for a moment, he didn't care too much about it anymore.

After all, as a Sigma male, was he on this show to fall in love? He hadn't even officially started slacking off yet—romance? Not even dogs would date.

The bullet comments in the live stream were still scrolling like crazy, and the cumulative online user count broke a new record again, still continuing to rise.

Director Zhou looked at the backend data and grinned from ear to ear; this popularity was more than five times higher than he had expected.

Surprisingly, the vast majority of this popularity was brought by Lu Li.

Meanwhile, the popularity brought by Shen Qingxue and Zhou Yichen, whom he had pinned his hopes on, had dropped to around thirty percent compared to the beginning.

Especially Zhou Yichen; so much money was spent to invite him over, yet the popularity he brought was lower than imagined. It was simply a losing business deal.

On the other hand, Lu Li was invited for a mere fifty thousand yuan total, and the popularity and tangible revenue he brought multiplied that baseline by who knows how many times.

Thinking of this, Director Zhou's expression when looking at Zhou Yichen carried a hint of disdain.

As for why he didn't disdain Shen Qingxue?

Well, she was a goddess with a massive base of regular viewers, her popularity wasn't low either, and she could generate hype and heat by shipping a CP with Lu Li, producing wonderful chemical reactions.

Once these advantages were laid out, was Zhou Yichen anywhere comparable?