I’m an eighteen-line washed-up male singer. I had a hit song ten years ago.
Since then, I’ve been neither popular nor unpopular.
My wife suggested many times that I should participate in a divorce variety show to create traffic.
But I thought it was unlucky to participate in a divorce variety show.
Moreover, I didn’t want to go against my heart and deviate from my original intention of concentrating on making music.
My wife gradually lost her patience in persuasion.
“Can’t you face the reality? You’re already washed up!”
“We’re just acting for the traffic! Can’t you stop being so rigid!”
“Don’t forget that we have three children and we’re still squeezed in this small shabby house. Do you want us to suffer with you for the so-called original intention all our lives?”
“I’m clearly doing it for your own good. I really don’t understand what you’re being so aloof about?!”
The pressure of life and the sense of responsibility as a husband and a father forced me to compromise.
However, when I chose “Yes” on the divorce intention card sent by the program team later, she was dumbfounded.
01
At the moment when my agent Xiao Qi handed me the contract, I was stunned.
“‘Marching Forward Bravely’? When did I say that I would participate in a divorce variety show?”
“You didn’t say it. It was Sister-in-law who said it. She asked me to take the initiative to contact Director Zhu of ‘Marching Forward’, recommend myself, and even reduce the remuneration. I spent half a month persuading them, and they finally agreed.”
Lan Xi came downstairs when she heard the voice.
“It’s good that they agreed. After all, Gao Jingxing doesn’t have much traffic now, and I’m just an ordinary person. It’s already very kind of them to agree with a reduced remuneration.”
My wife and the agent were chatting animatedly and even started to plan what kind of personas they would set up and what dramatic plots they would design in the variety show.
I sat on the sofa alone, sulking, but no one cared about my emotions.
It seemed that this matter had nothing to do with me and I had no right to vote.
Actually, before the contract was sent, my wife Lan Xi had mentioned to me several times about participating in a divorce variety show.
But I refused every time.
After all, I thought it was really unlucky to leave a good life and participate in a divorce variety show.
Moreover, I didn’t want to go against my heart and deviate from my original intention of concentrating on making music.
Later, Lan Xi gradually lost her patience in persuasion.
We had a big quarrel.
That day, I didn’t waste my breath explaining my dream to her anymore.
I shouted directly at her.
“I just don’t want to participate!”
Then I slammed the door and left.
That was the first time in more than ten years of marriage that I strongly opposed her decision.
I thought she would tolerate me and compromise once.
But I didn’t expect that she had asked the agent to negotiate the contract behind my back.
It wasn’t the first time that she made decisions for me privately and arranged my announcements according to her ideas.
Before, I respected and loved her because she gave birth to children for me and accompanied me from having nothing to having something, and she had suffered a lot.
So I always gave in to her.
But this time, I really didn’t want to back down.
We had another big quarrel.
Lan Xi was so angry that her face turned red and she shouted at me.
“Can’t you face the reality? You’re already washed up!”
“We’re just acting for the traffic! Can’t you stop being so rigid!”
“Don’t forget that we have three children and we’re still squeezed in this small shabby house. Do you want us to suffer with you for the so-called original intention all our lives?”
“I’m clearly doing it for your own good! I really don’t understand what you’re being so aloof about?!”
Lan Xi’s words stabbed me one by one.
The pressure of life and the sense of responsibility as a husband and a father forced me to compromise again.
I helplessly signed the contract.
02
The day before departure, Lan Xi took on a preaching attitude again, just like a mother educating her son.
“Remember, traffic is the top priority. The fiercer the quarrel, the better. Don’t be afraid of being exaggerated. What we’re afraid of is having no hot spots.”
“Do you remember the couple in the last season? They quarreled so much that the guests were all driven away by them. In the end, they didn’t divorce. A few days ago, they even announced their second child.”
“Look at that husband. We had never seen his plays before! After this variety show became popular, he appeared in several hit movies.”
“This is the dividend of traffic. We have to seize it too.”
I replied perfunctorily.
“I got it. Actually, you don’t need to design so much. We usually have small quarrels all the time. I think being ourselves is enough.”
With just this sentence, I accidentally stepped on Lan Xi’s minefield.
She cried again and got angry again.
“Gao Jingxing! Am I redundant again? You don’t prepare in advance and don’t let me prepare either?”
“From the time you debuted until now, if it weren’t for me thinking about everything for you and worrying about everything for you, could you be where you are today?”
“Now that life is a bit better, you start to think I’m redundant? You think we quarrel too much and you’re tired of it?”
“If so, then we might as well seriously finish this divorce variety show and seriously consider the matter of divorce!”
It was the same old argument and she threatened me with divorce again.
She knew that divorce was my weakness. I loved her and I loved this family.
Every time she did this, I had to spend several hours coaxing her.
Our life had always been like this. She was very fragile, sensitive and easy to get angry.
I’m a science and engineering man, and I’m straightforward in speaking. I always couldn’t understand her points, so I always made her unhappy.
I coaxed her nicely for the whole night.
“I know you’re good to me. I know that everything I have now is because of you.”
“You’re my lucky goddess. I can’t cherish you enough. How could I be tired of you or divorce you?”
“Honey, I’ve also thought it through. Let’s regard this variety show as a honeymoon trip. We’ve been married for so many years, and you’ve never been willing to go out to play. This time, let’s just take it as a dating trip for the two of us…”
It wasn’t until the sky was getting bright that Lan Xi finally stopped being angry.
03
The recording location was at Chaka Salt Lake.
Coincidentally, it was exactly the place I had always wanted to go.
It’s just that after marriage, Lan Xi became extremely thrifty, and my applications for traveling were always rejected by her.
My wife Lan Xi and I were the first to arrive.
Then a couple of Internet celebrities arrived. The man’s nickname was Hu Duidui, and the woman’s name was Tian Ye.
The two of them talked a lot and had been bickering with each other since they arrived.
After about half an hour, a couple of star couples arrived, or rather, a couple of big-shot couples.
The man was Fu Heng, a business tycoon renowned far and wide, and the woman was Su Xin, the national goddess who became famous right after her debut.
However, it seemed that they had just quarreled, and the atmosphere dropped to freezing point as soon as they entered the room.
The director broke the silence and began to cue the process.
“Everyone can share why you came here.”
The business tycoon was the first to answer quickly.
“There’s something wrong with this question! Why are we here? If we knew why we were here, we wouldn’t have reached the point of getting divorced! How old are you? What’s your surname? Are you married?”
The director was a young guy and seemed to have just started working. He was stupefied by Fu Heng’s few words.
Hu Duidui couldn’t stand Fu Heng.
“Just answer the question when others ask. You’re talking about something completely different! If you don’t want to say it, I’ll say it. We’re here because Tian Ye thinks that I stay at home every day and don’t make progress, and I can’t keep up with her pace. She wants to go solo.”
As she said that, Tian Ye gave him a supercilious look.
“I think he’s not making progress and doesn’t have the responsibility of a man. In the past, we two worked hard together. Maybe now that he thinks life is better, he wants to slack off and doesn’t want to work hard anymore.”
“But I’m getting more and more tired of dragging the two of us along by myself, so I want a divorce.”
After finishing speaking, everyone’s eyes turned to me.
I instinctively avoided their eyes and looked at Lan Xi for help.
My wife Lan Xi and I had indeed had small quarrels every three days and big quarrels every five days in recent years.
However, I thought that most couples’ lives were probably like this, and I didn’t think it was a big problem.
I really didn’t know what to say and what not to say. If I said too much, it would make Lan Xi unhappy.
Lan Xi took the initiative to speak.
“He thinks I’m a full-time housewife. I accompanied him from having nothing to having something. When we were poor, we slept in basements and picked up rotten vegetable leaves. At the most difficult time, I worked three jobs a day to support him in making music. But now, he thinks I’m not good enough for him.”
All of a sudden, the whole place became silent.
My heart skipped a beat.
What was she talking about? When did I ever say such things about her?
Is this what’s called acting? Is this creating a gimmick to attract traffic?
To attract traffic by slandering her own husband?
If it’s just for hot spots and traffic, obviously, she succeeded today.
Because her words successfully caused whispers on the spot, and many staff members also cast disdainful looks at me from time to time.
I thought that I would surely be scolded crazily by the bullet comments at this moment.
But what could I do? She’s my wife.
She said that everything she did was for me.
I could only cooperate.
04
It was already late at night when the event ended.
Since it was the first day, the director arranged that each family should not be separated and stay with their own partners.
Just right, taking this opportunity, I planned to have a good talk with Lan Xi.
I first checked the room thoroughly to make sure there were no cameras.
Then I sat down opposite her and was just about to speak.
But I saw Lan Xi looking at me with a scrutinizing gaze.
She spoke before me.
“Don’t you see? We’re the worst off!”
I was a bit confused. What was she talking about?
She continued.
“It’s okay if we’re not as good as that big-shot couple, but we’re not even as good as that couple of Internet celebrities! Just look at the suitcases they pushed when they came. They cost 37,000 yuan each! And they each pushed two. And Tian Ye’s bag is a limited-edition Hermès! I’ve liked it for a long time but couldn’t bear to buy it.”
“We can also buy it if you like. I’ll buy it for you as long as you approve the funds.”
“Approve what? How much money do you have? How many bags can you buy for me? If I buy whatever I like, how can we afford to change to a villa?”
With just a few sentences, she left me speechless again.
Originally, I wanted to talk to her about her acting at the dinner table tonight and ask her not to be so exaggerated and consider my face a little bit.
But now, I couldn’t even open my mouth.
I began to reflect on whether I was really too selfish and too aloof.
If I had followed Lan Xi’s suggestions earlier and tried various aspects such as variety shows, films, talk shows, and sketches, would I not have become washed up and wouldn’t have let my wife and children suffer with me.
I looked at my wife who was crying with grievance and felt more and more self-blaming.
05
The journey officially began.
Men and women set off in two RVs respectively.
The director announced that this was a travel divorce variety show and the journey would last for eighteen days in total.
Each couple would take turns to be the tour guide for six days.
Before the director even finished speaking, Lan Xi had already raised her hand.
“I’ll do it. Let’s go first. I’m the best at taking care of people and I’m also good at managing money. Hahaha.”
Seeing her so active, the others supported her one after another.
However, since she started to be the tour guide, problems occurred frequently.
The tour guide manual was lost, she couldn’t figure out the weather conditions at the destination, she ordered the wrong number of meals and everyone didn’t have enough to eat.
Even the accounts were miscalculated. The director gave 5,000 yuan as the fund.
On the sixth day, in the morning, she was still vowing to us that she had controlled the funds well and there was still more than 1,000 yuan left and we could have a big meal in the evening.
But in the evening, she suddenly cried and told everyone that she had made a mistake in the accounts and the remaining money was only enough for everyone to eat self-heating rice.
The other two couples didn’t say anything on the surface, but their emotions were obviously not good.
I comforted my wife on one side and comforted the emotions of the other two couples on the other side.
Seeing that everyone’s emotions had slightly improved, I hurriedly bought six boxes of self-heating rice and six bottles of mineral water.
I was about to open the self-heating rice for everyone when Lan Xi stopped me.
“Honey, let me do it! I made the mistake myself, and I want to make up for it myself. Let me prepare the rice for everyone.”
However, when she threw away the heating pack in the self-heating rice and poured hot water into the box, everyone was shocked.
Tian Ye shouted.
“Sister, why are you pouring hot water?”
“How can the rice be cooked without pouring hot water? Let me tell you, you definitely don’t know as much as I do about eating.”
Hu Duidui then complained.
“You’ve thrown away the heating pack. Okay, stop talking, Miss Know-it-all!”
Lan Xi’s face turned red all of a sudden, and then she looked at me.
“I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”
I quickly prepared the other few boxes of rice.
But I couldn’t help thinking in my heart…
My wife always said that she had to take care of the old and the young at home, worry about everything and do everything herself, and she was almost exhausted. But just being a tour guide for six days, she had so many problems and didn’t even have basic common sense of life.
What on earth was she taking care of?
What on earth could she do?
Was it just that what she said about having to worry about everything at home was just talking?
I began to doubt it.
06
The long six-day tour guide life finally came to an end.
It was Tian Ye and her husband’s turn to be the tour guides.
The RV drove to the next stop, Shanyue Mountain.
Fu Heng, the bigwig, was taking a nap in the booth because he had stayed up late last night.
Hu Duidui was looking at something carefully.
I asked curiously.
“What are you looking at? I’m not used to you being so quiet.”
He looked a bit helpless.
“Tian Ye made the travel guidebook in advance and forced me to read it carefully on the way. She’ll test me when we get off the bus.”
I took the travel guidebook from Hu Duidui’s hand.
It was marked in orange highlighter, detailing the local temperature changes, food features, tourist attraction precautions, the best visiting time, the best photo spots…
“Tian Ye is so serious about doing things!”
“Well, my wife is always like this when she does things. She likes to make preparations in advance. Whether it’s work, hobbies or travel, she likes to make plans and take notes.”
By contrast, I couldn’t help but think of Lan Xi’s performance as a tour guide in the past six days.
I wanted to help her share the work but she didn’t allow me at all, and yet she made so many mistakes by herself.
It seemed that I wanted to save some face for my wife, and also seemed that I wanted to tell others that my wife also had her merits.
I took the initiative to share my story with my wife with Hu Duidui.
“We really didn’t do a good job as tour guides these days. But actually, my wife is very nice. In those years, she gave up her job in a state-owned enterprise and came to Beicheng with me to pursue my dream. At the beginning, we had nothing. We lived in the basement and couldn’t make ends meet. It was she who worked three jobs a day to let me concentrate on making music.”
“Later, I won a little fame in the music competition and my income gradually became decent. I proposed to her. To thank her for her company, I asked her to enjoy life at home and stop going out to work hard to earn money.”
“But she was so thrifty that she even dismissed the nanny I hired. She said we should save when we should and spend when we should. She could take care of the children and the elderly at home, and there was no need to waste money on hiring a nanny.”
“She has actually sacrificed a lot for me. Look at her now. Her figure has changed and she doesn’t have time to dress herself up. Seeing the envious looks in her eyes when she looks at Tian Ye and Su Xin, I really feel sorry for her.”
Hu Duidui looked confused.
“But we don’t have a nanny at home either! Although we don’t have as many children as you do, my wife takes care of the housework, the children and the elderly clearly, and it hasn’t affected her career or her beauty at all.”
“I think your wife is just making excuses. They’re all excuses! Just think about how much money she can save by dismissing the nanny for a month. Besides, just look at how she dealt with the self-heating rice yesterday. She’s clearly not a person who often does housework.”
Hu Duidui suddenly slapped his thigh.
“I got it! I guess she just doesn’t want to dress herself up and is too lazy to manage her figure. Her current appearance as a yellow-faced woman is actually to make you feel guilty and make you think you owe her. She wants to control you through this.”
I was a bit stunned. I had never thought about it from this perspective.
Was the Lan Xi who accompanied me everywhere like what Hu Duidui said?
07
Before I knew it, the car arrived at the destination.
The sun had already set and the sky was gray.
But when we got off the car, what came into view was a brightly lit scene.
White balloons, white gauze and ambient lights paved a path.
White and blue balloons were floating in the air.
At the end of the path, a huge heart shape was stacked with balloons and flowers.
In front of the heart shape was a familiar figure.
Wearing a champagne-colored suit and holding a bouquet of tulips.
“It’s Fu Heng!”
Su Xin walked to the front in surprise. Fu Heng had prepared a grand proposal for her.
He said that he didn’t want a divorce, that he loved Su Xin, that he was willing to propose again and fall in love with her again.
Everyone present was touched by this romance.
At this time, Lan Xi actually burst into tears.
I originally thought that she was moved and was about to ask the staff for a tissue to wipe her tears.
But she pushed me away.
“Woo woo woo~ I don’t want to record anymore!”
Not only me, but everyone at the scene didn’t react to what had happened to her.
