Chapter 31 What should we do then? How about I press it for you...?
Fang Xingu replied while rowing the boat, "It's not something that can't be brought to light."
Jing Yitong asked, "What is that?"
Fang Xingu fell silent. Of course, he didn't think that this kind of affection was shameful, but he was afraid that this affection would die if it were exposed and would not be accepted by Jing Yitong.
Although he had been thinking about Jing Yitong's suspicious behavior these past few days and wondered if Jing Yitong also liked him, he was ultimately not a confident person and liked to avoid matters of the heart. His self-protective mechanism made him only dare to secretly hide those little thoughts in his heart. He didn't even dare to fantasize too much, for fear that he would be disappointed and hurt someday.
In the silence of the world, Fang Xin thought to himself, if only he could be more honest, perhaps he could have confessed to Jing Yitong sooner. Whether it succeeded or not, it would have been a quick and decisive move.
But he dares not, and at least not now.
The snow was still falling, and Jing Yitong saw that Fang Xingu hadn't given an answer yet, so she wouldn't press him: "It's okay, you don't have to say if you don't want to."
"Um."
Jing Yitong looked up at the snow falling from the sky, enjoying this rare moment of solitude: "If you like this feeling, how about we go out together again next time? It's been so many years since we went out together."
This time, Fang Xingu smiled somewhat forlornly and said, "Teacher Jing is a very busy person, will he have time?"
Not to mention if he gets married in the future, he'll have even less time.
Jing Yitong mentally calculated the time: "It really is. When I get back to Beijing, I'll be doing a cameo role in a friend's drama, and I'll be joining the production around April... I probably won't have time until after your birthday. There are many places we can go in July and August. Would you like to go to Kenya or Tanzania to see the animal migration?"
Fang Xingu casually replied, "Hmm, that's good."
Jing Yitong sensed that Fang Xingu was somewhat downcast, so he slowed his pace and asked, "What about you? What are your plans for July and August? Besides releasing an album, do you have any other work scheduled?"
Fang Xingu didn't want Jing Yitong to notice his unusual behavior, so he forced himself to stay alert: "The current focus is on the album. We might go on a tour later, but not so soon. Maybe in July or August?"
Jing Yitong took out his phone: "Then I need to start arranging my time and have my agent clear that period out for me."
Fang Xingu never expected Jing Yitong to be such a man of action. He quickly grabbed Jing Yitong's phone and said, "There's no rush. There are still more than half a year to go!"
Jing Yitong chuckled and patted Fang Xingu's head: "I was just kidding. We'll play it by ear. If you'd like, we can pack our bags and head out right away."
"……Um."
Unfortunately, this wasn't Earth Online, and they weren't NPCs. They couldn't stay in that beautiful moment forever. The two of them drifted on the sea in their kayak for a long time, and it was time to return to the Affogato.
The two took a short detour back. When they passed an area with a lot of floating ice, Fang Xingu said something to Jing Yitong, then put down the oars and took out his phone and selfie stick from the pocket of his windbreaker.
Seeing his action, Jing Yitong subconsciously assumed he was going to take a picture: "Want to check in?"
Fang Xin fixed his phone to the selfie stick and started recording: "I'm going to record a video."
Before Jing Yitong could ask him what he wanted to record, Fang Xingu quickly held the selfie stick and stretched his phone underwater. He slowly rotated his wrist, trying to record the underwater scenery on his phone without any blind spots. He said with some interest, "Thanks to technology, I wonder what it looks like from underwater."
Jing Yitong just smiled and looked at him: "Did you fasten your phone securely? Be careful it doesn't sink to the bottom of the sea later."
Fang Xin glanced at him and said, "Don't jinx it, okay?"
Fortunately, Jing Yitong's jinx didn't come true. A moment later, Fang Xingu put away the selfie stick, and his phone was still on it.
He dried himself off and watched the video he had just taken. The underwater world was tranquil and deep, unlike the tropical waters where various tropical fish and anemones and corals swam. The Southern Ocean, which had just been revived from extreme cold, seemed to be another silent world.
The video shows almost only the base of the nearby iceberg. It is so quiet that it is oppressive, as if no life exists there. The deeper you go, the deeper it becomes. Only when the camera moves upward can you see small pieces of floating ice on the sea surface, with a sliver of sunlight leaking through the cracks.
Until the very end of the video, the camera seemed to capture something flash by—a dark, indistinct shape. Fang Xingu didn't see it clearly and was just about to rewind the video when he suddenly heard Jing Yitong behind him take a breath. Then, Jing Yitong's hand landed on his shoulder: "Xingu, look over there."
Fang Xingu looked in the direction he pointed and saw a small jet of water suddenly spouting from the calm sea. Below the jet of water, a dark shadow was moving. Fang Xingu was stunned for a few seconds before he finally realized what it was—a whale!
It was a minke whale about four meters long. Minke whales are considered small to medium-sized among whales, and this one was probably still a juvenile. At the moment, it was hiding underwater, and its figure was not very clear. Fang Xin could only barely make out its outline as it swam towards them.
December is not the best time for whale watching in Antarctica, and they hadn't encountered any whales along the way. Who would have thought that when they were kayaking alone, a minke whale would boldly approach them? It was only at this moment that Fang Xin Gu realized that the dark shadow he had just captured on camera might have been this minke whale.
The baby minke whale was also very curious about them. After swimming past their boat, it turned around and came back, stopping beside their boat to observe them curiously. Its shadowy figure was as if it were reflected on the water, and it was hard to see clearly. The baby minke whale did not move at all, and several times Fang Xin wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him.
Just as the two were watching the minke whale intently, it suddenly spouted another jet of water. This sudden action caused Fang Xingu and Jing Yitong to reflexively lean back, and even the boat shook. Jing Yitong instinctively grabbed Fang Xingu's arm, but fortunately the boat quickly stabilized again.
Although this minke whale was not as long as their kayak, it was clearly wider and more powerful. With just a slight nudge from the minke whale, their light kayak could be capsized. Fortunately, it had no intention of doing so. After successfully pulling off a prank, the minke whale sneakily retreated back underwater.
Jing Yitong, still holding Fang Xingu's arm, exhaled and said, "It did it on purpose, didn't it?"
Fang Xingu chuckled in a low voice, "Luckily the ship didn't capsize, otherwise we would have had to experience ice jumping in Antarctica ahead of time."
The curious little minke whale was also very interested in the two bipedal creatures sitting on the boat, and kept hovering beside their boat to observe them secretly.
Seeing that it was standing still and didn't understand, Fang Xingu took out his phone again. This time, he didn't have time to use a selfie stick and directly put the phone into the seawater with his bare hands.
The freezing seawater made his joints ache, but Fang Xin Gu couldn't care less about that at the moment. His only worry was whether he could capture a clear picture of the minke whale. He wanted to perfectly record this extraordinary encounter.
Fang Xingu only put his phone away and placed it casually to the side when his hands were so cold he couldn't stand it anymore. He watched as the minke whale waved its chubby, short pectoral fins, and a few wrinkles even appeared on its skin. He lowered his voice and whispered to Jing Yitong, "Look at its pectoral fins, they're so cute. I want to shake hands with it... no, I mean, hold its fins."
Jing Yitong helplessly grabbed Fang Xingu's wet hands and dried them. Fang Xingu's hands were ice cold, but he seemed not to care at all. Jing Yitong had no choice but to wrap his warm hands around Fang Xingu's hands: "Still holding hands? Shake hands with me first. Your hands are frozen."
Fang Xingu chuckled. He was a little excited at the moment and unceremoniously pressed his hand against Jing Yitong's to draw warmth from it: "Thank you for this hand warmer."
After a while, the minke whale finally lost interest in the two. It gently raised its body and poked its head out of the water, briefly glancing at the two before sinking back into the sea, flicking its tail, and swimming away.
Fang Xingu and Jing Yitong watched it leave until the little minke whale was no longer visible, then they quickly rowed the boat back.
By the time their kayak docked at the Affogato, the other tourists had already returned to their boats. Yan Tu stared at them with a gloomy face. As soon as they stepped onto the boat, Yan Tu roared in fury, "What are you doing! You're so disorganized and undisciplined! You rowed off to such a remote place, and you're three minutes late for the scheduled return! What if something had happened?!"
Fang Xin feigned mystery, but couldn't hide the joy in his eyes: "Director Yan, do you know why we came back late?"
"Why?"
Jing Yitong patted Yan Tu on the shoulder: "On our way back, we encountered a small minke whale, which stayed by our boat for a long time."
Yan Tu's eyes widened and a string of profanities spurred out: "Holy crap? What did you see?"
Li Wenyu, who was walking ahead of them, turned around abruptly and ran back upon hearing this: "You encountered a whale? Do you have any photos or videos? Let me see them!"
"Of course."
Li Wenyu exclaimed, "Ahhh, you guys are so lucky!"
Fang Xingu opened his photo album and clicked on the video of him putting his phone into the sea to film a minke whale. A group of guests and staff swarmed around him, and even a few foreign tourists curiously came over to watch.
Encountering whales in Antarctica is not uncommon, but this was the first time on this trip, and a close encounter at that, so everyone was obviously very curious.
In the deep blue ocean, a small minke whale hangs suspended in the water, waving its pectoral fins. Its deep, ancient eyes quietly meet people's gaze through the phone camera. Because the distance is so close, people can even feel the tranquility in those inorganic eyes.
Just when the video camera panned to Fang Xin Gu retrieving the phone from the sea, everyone thought the video was over, but then a gasp erupted from the crowd: "Wow, Xin Gu, you guys were way too close! It felt like you could reach out and touch them!"
"Is this whale still a baby? It looks like it's not even an adult yet."
"I definitely wouldn't be able to resist reaching out to touch it, hahaha."
"What?! Xin Gu, your video is too far away, I didn't even see it!"
Fang Xingu looked up and replied, "If you want to see it, I'll send it to the program team's work group later."
"Okay, thanks, Shin-gu!"
Fang Xingu was busy talking to everyone and forgot to pause the video on his phone. Li Wenyu saw that the video was still playing and assumed that there was some important scene to come, so she watched the video intently.
It was a bit noisy at the scene, and Li Wenyu couldn't hear the audio in the video clearly. It was probably Fang Xingu and Jing Yitong whispering to each other. But the next second, a hand suddenly reached out from one side of the video screen. That hand grabbed Fang Xingu's wet hand, dried it, and then held it in its palm. It was obviously Jing Yitong helping Fang Xingu warm his hand.
Li Wenyu: !!!
Her eyes widened as if she were about to split open. Reflexively, she grabbed Fang Xingu's phone screen and pressed it down, the force almost knocking the phone away.
Fang Xingu quickly gripped his phone, still thinking Li Wenyu was causing trouble: "What are you doing now?"
Li Wenyu was almost wronged to death; how could this person treat his good intentions like a donkey's liver and lungs!
Her face flushed red. She felt wronged but also disgusted by the two of them being so affectionate. She thought that if she put her cold hands in her best friend's hands to warm them, she would at most get a beating.
Li Wenyu's cheek muscles twitched for a long time before she finally snapped, "Look at your own video! It's outrageous!"
After saying that, she stormed off, her footsteps clattering loudly, clearly showing her anger.
Fang Xingu picked up his phone inexplicably and saw a fleeting image of two hands clasped together. He gasped, his expression contorting for a moment, and he immediately turned off his phone in fright.
How could this scene have been captured on video? He remembers that he clearly had his phone upside down at the time!
Oh no, he was using the front-facing camera at the time, so of course he could take a picture even when the camera was upside down.
Fang Xin let out a sigh of relief, thankfully only Li Wenyu saw it.
...That seems pretty shocking.
.
After lunch, the Affogato continued to approach the landing point for the afternoon.
Fang Xin returned to 608, took off his heavy gear, and collapsed onto the bed. He hadn't felt it before, but now that he was back in the warm and comfortable room, the fatigue suddenly overwhelmed him. After rowing at high intensity for two hours, Fang Xin felt like he could barely lift his arms.
He lay there for a while before regaining his strength. He then exported the videos of the minke whales he had just filmed. After obtaining Yan Tu's permission, he planned to edit a short video and post it on Weibo, partly to share the rare spectacle he had just witnessed, and partly to promote the book "The World Is So Big".
After sorting through the videos and roughly outlining their content, he discovered that the video he had taken of the minke whale spouting water and scaring them wasn't very good. He had just taken his phone off the selfie stick and hadn't had time to focus, so the image was a bit blurry.
Fang Xingu hesitated for a moment about whether to ask Jing Yitong for some material support. He stood up and wandered around the room aimlessly for a couple of minutes before finally crossing the balcony and knocking on the balcony door of 609 for the first time.
Jing Yitong was quite surprised when he opened the door: "What's wrong?"
Fang Xin changed the subject again before asking, "...Is your arm sore?"
Jing Yitong was puzzled by his question: "A little bit, what's wrong? Is your arm sore?"
"Yes, a little. I feel like I can barely lift my head."
Seeing that Fang Xingu had been talking for a while without getting to the point, Jing Yitong could only joke, "Then what should we do? How about I give you a massage?"
Fang Xingu was silent for two seconds, then actually raised his arm and shoved it in front of Jing Yitong.
Jing Yitong was stunned: "Are you serious?"
Fang Xingu slapped his head, feeling that he had gone around in circles and acted strangely: "No, I just wanted to ask if you could send me a copy of the video of the minke whale you filmed earlier. I didn't film a few parts well, especially the part where it sprayed water and scared us."
"Why beat around the bush over something so simple?" Jing Yitong chuckled, picking up her phone and sending him a few videos. "How about this?"
Fang Xingu received the video from Jing Yitong, glanced at it briefly, and said with great satisfaction, "Perfect footage, we can start working!"
Jing Yitong asked curiously, "Can I watch you edit videos?"
"Of course, come to my room."
The two sat down at the desk in room 608. Actually, this kind of video didn't need to be edited very meticulously; just splicing together a few videos would suffice. Fang Xingu finished editing the video in about half an hour, and then copied Qi Qiu and Yan Tu to ask them to help review it.
The video begins with Fang Xin Gu first dipping his phone into the sea, where the camera vaguely captures a fleeting glimpse of a minke whale. Then, the footage provided by Jing Yi Tong shows the minke whale swimming from afar and suddenly spouting water, startling them. The video then shows Fang Xin Gu dipping his phone into the sea a second time to look at the minke whale, until finally the minke whale surfaces to say goodbye to them.
Of course, many of their conversations were cut out, especially the scene where he used Jing Yitong as a hand warmer, which Fang Xin Gu completely cut out.
Qi Qiu and Yan Tu thought there was nothing wrong with the finished product Fang Xingu had edited. Fang Xingu then logged onto Weibo, which he hadn't opened in a long time, and posted the video he had just edited.
Fang Xin Gu: A magical experience, an unexpected encounter with a minke whale [shh]
Fans get to see first.
[video]"
Within seconds, the comment section was flooded with fan comments, but at first, it was all fans scrambling to get to the front of the page. It wasn't until half a minute later that there was some interaction.
"No, why does this video start by taking me into the sea? I can't breathe! Let me go back!"
"Gugu, have you arrived in Antarctica yet? The Antarctic sea is so different! Have fun!"
"What was that dark shadow that appeared at 00:11? My thalassophobia is about to flare up..."
"Holy crap, is that a whale? It just swam right up to your ship like that!"
"Our Gugu is just like a protagonist in a novel; even whales are attracted to him [blushing]"
"That little minke whale is so naughty, it's scaring people, hahaha."
"I'm so anxious! The baby whale is already poking its head out, why don't you touch it!"
"Ugh, what's so cute about this huge thing? I'm scared, waaaaah!"
"This video and editing technique are so simple and straightforward, it's obvious that our GuGu edited it herself, hahaha."
"This boat looks like a two-person kayak. Who will GuGu be paddling with? [Curious]"
"They should be with professional instructors. The production team can't just let these celebrities row the boat themselves; it's too dangerous."
"Wait, look at the minke whale spouting water at 00:23. The shooting angle of this part is different from the other parts. The other parts were probably shot by people sitting in the front row of the kayak, but the spouting part was probably shot by people in the back row."
"What does this prove... I'd like to see which CP fan club can't hold back anymore [smile]"
"The minke whale spouting water startled both of them. You could hear them gasping for breath. Since this segment was filmed by the person in the back seat of the kayak, the sound recorded on the phone should also mainly come from that person. It's obviously a male voice, so are there any fans of the other three male guests who can identify whose voice this is? If no one identifies it, it's probably a staff member."
"It actually sounds a lot like Jing Yitong's voice..."
"lol, you might as well say it's Wang Peiyang, a suspected last fantasy of a fan of the Xinyuan CP before his death."
"With Fang Xin's past relationship with Jing Yi, how could they possibly row a boat together? [eye roll]"
Meanwhile, in room 608, Fang Xingu and Jing Yitong didn't check the comments on Weibo; instead, they watched the video Fang Xingu had edited again together.
Jing Yitong praised as he watched, "Teacher Fang is very skilled at editing videos."
"It's alright, I've edited a few vlogs before."
Jing Yitong: "Actually, I was planning to edit a vlog after this trip was over."
Fang Xingu paused for a moment: "Then if you send me the video of your encounter with the minke whale, won't you have less material to use when you're editing your own vlog later?"
Moreover, the part where the minke whale spouts water and scares them is a truly memorable moment; you can't have two people using the exact same video, can you?
Jing Yitong shook his head, seemingly unconcerned: "This journey is long, it doesn't matter if we miss a bit of material."
Fang Xingu, however, did not think so. This experience was actually quite peculiar, after all, the minke whale was lurking right next to their ship, so close, almost within reach. Some people have been to Antarctica many times and may not even have such an experience once.
It would be such a shame if I couldn't include it in my own vlog.
Fang Xingu pondered for a long time, when suddenly a flash of inspiration struck him. He tentatively asked, "Shall I invite you to co-create this?"
Jing Yitong didn't react immediately: "Video co-creation?"
Fang Xingu nodded: "Yes, that way the video can belong to both me and you."
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Author's Note: CP fans: Good days have arrived! [shy]
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