The bedroom was suddenly plunged into darkness.

Qiao Nansheng was really sleepy. After keeping her eyes open and remaining silent for a while, she didn't see him make any unusual movements and didn't give her a third goodnight kiss.

With her eyelids starting to droop again, Qiao Nansheng was so sleepy that she fell asleep almost immediately after closing her eyes.

She was really exhausted. The alarm clock didn't wake her up the next morning. It was Zhou Cheng who got impatient with the alarm clock and reached out to turn it off for her, while also waking her up.

He rarely slept in, and hadn't gotten up yet, but after being woken up by the alarm clock, he couldn't fall back asleep. He leaned against the headboard and watched her get up and get ready.

At 8:20, Qiao Nansheng finished getting ready and came out.

She went to the bedside to get her phone and heard Zhou Cheng say, "We don't need that umbrella."

She was taken aback, still a little confused: "What umbrella?"

Zhou Cheng looked at her, his dark eyes gleaming with a sinister light: "If that woman comes to return the umbrella she lent you today, don't take it. Just throw it away."

Qiao Nansheng exclaimed in surprise: "So extravagant?"

Zhou Cheng raised his chin slightly: "I don't like others touching my things."

If he hadn't seen the expectant look on her face last night, he would never have lent Tang Xuerou that umbrella.

Why would he lend money to someone he has no connection with?

That woman is clearly no good; I don't know how Qiao Nansheng became friends with her.

He usually seems quite sharp-eyed, so why did he act so foolish here?

"..." Qiao Nansheng's mouth moved, "Alright."

It's just an umbrella, it's not expensive, so I'll just throw it away.

She picked up her phone and turned to leave, when she heard Zhou Cheng's voice coming from behind her: "Why did you want me to lend her the umbrella so much last night?"

Qiao Nansheng paused slightly, surprised that he had noticed this last night. So she pretended to be naive: "I didn't think that way, but it was raining heavily at the time. If I didn't lend it to her, she would have to go back in the rain and catch a cold."

Zhou Cheng scoffed coldly: "So what if I have a cold? What does it have to do with me?"

"..."

Qiao Nansheng coughed lightly, turned to him and said, "You're wrong about that. She's a girl. In that situation, you have an umbrella and a car. Lending her one won't hurt you..."

Zhou Cheng: "It's my stuff, I can lend it to whomever I want, why should I lend it to her just because she's a woman?"

That's perfectly true.

The items belong to him; he can lend them if he wants, and he doesn't have to lend them if he doesn't want to. There's really no need to lend them to Tang Xuerou just because she's a woman.

Anyway, they have no connection whatsoever. Even if she really catches a cold, it has absolutely nothing to do with Zhou Cheng.

But... Qiao Nansheng wanted to watch the show.

She blinked, her eyes darting around, and after thinking for a while, she couldn't come up with an excuse. Finally, she said, "I'm going to training now, bye!"

She opened the door, turned around, and quickly walked out.

Zhou Cheng watched her leave, then turned off the light, lay down, and went back to sleep.

Qiao Nansheng is such a restless sleeper; she kept kicking off the covers all night. He stayed up late to cover her up, and she finally calmed down and stopped moving around when it was dawn.

They weren't this rowdy when they first got their marriage certificate.

…

When Qiao Nansheng arrived at Huaying, Tang Xuerou had already been waiting outside her training room for quite a while.

Seeing that she had finally arrived, Tang Xuerou came over with an umbrella, her face beaming, and said, "This is Zhou... his umbrella. I told you yesterday that I would bring it to you today. Thank you."

When Qiao Nansheng took the umbrella, she glanced at it twice. She wondered if it was just her imagination, but it looked brand new and unused.

She gave a faint "hmm," and said, "It's nothing, a small matter."

Tang Xuerou said, "How can this be considered a small matter? Yesterday you took me home and gave me an umbrella, otherwise I would have been soaked to the bone, and I might have even caught a cold today..."

"When are you free? I'll treat you to a meal as a way of thanking you."

"No need," Qiao Nansheng refused directly. "He doesn't have time, and neither do I."

"You'll be joining a filming crew for a show soon, and by the time you get back it will be almost Chinese New Year. Didn't you say you were going home to see your parents? Aren't you planning to go back this year?"

Upon hearing this, Tang Xuerou's expression stiffened slightly, looking rather unpleasant.

Her parents... have actually been here for several days and are currently in her rented apartment.

Tang Xuerou frowned as she thought of her two elderly relatives.

She disliked her parents and felt that their visit was a disgrace to her, but she couldn't bring herself to send them back, so she could only feel resentful in her heart.

"I'm going back," Tang Xuerou said. "Then I'll treat you to a meal after the New Year."

"We'll talk about it later." Qiao Nansheng checked the time. "Training is about to start, you should go back too."

Tang Xuerou didn't say anything more, but smiled gently at her and walked straight to the training room across the street.

Qiao Nansheng heard the sound of a door closing behind him, turned around and saw that Tang Xuerou had already gone inside. Then he went to the bathroom, threw the umbrella into the trash can, and returned to the training room.

The trash can in the bathroom was emptied and replaced with a new trash bag shortly afterward.

Tang Xuerou never expected that Zhou Cheng would simply refuse the umbrella, even though the real one was at her home.

Back in the training room, thinking of the umbrella at home, her smile deepened.

*

Time flies, and a week has passed in the blink of an eye, bringing us to the end of the month.

On New Year's Eve, the 31st was also the day when Qiao Nansheng joined another hundred members to record a program.

On the evening of the 30th, Amy let her go early, instead of making her train until 8 p.m. like the previous days. Just like before, she let her go around 6 p.m.

The first thing Qiao Nansheng did when she got home was to pack her luggage.

Joining a production team to film a show can take several days, even if it's just one episode, it can still take two or three days.

Each season of "With You All the Way" has 100 members, and this time there is an additional member, Tang Xuerou, making a total of 101.

There are 101 members. Some groups are combined to form a performance, which is kept to about ten minutes long. Some perform solo, taking turns, with various advertisers and sponsors involved.

The filming of a single episode, including the host announcing who received the most votes, who was eliminated, the suspense, and the breaks, takes at least three or four days to complete.

However, after filming and editing, the unnecessary and redundant parts were removed, and the final broadcast only had a program length of about five hours.

While Qiao Nansheng was tidying up, Zhou Cheng sat next to her reading the script, occasionally glancing at her.

Seeing that she had only packed thin clothes in her suitcase, the man frowned slightly: "The weather in City B is even colder than here. Are you sure you're only bringing those clothes? You'll catch a cold."