After the yacht trip, the entire program was about to conclude. The Hua Shao Group returned to the hotel in the same car they arrived in. Director Liao first called Zheng Peipei, taking her to a separate room for her final interview of the program.
The others sat on the lobby sofa, still not having fully recovered from their excitement, yet now they had to prepare to say goodbye to their companions. Their mood instantly dropped, especially Zhang Kaili, who wore a hat, kept her head down, and remained silent, not wanting anyone to see the tears in her eyes.
"Hey, by the way, can we have our phones back? It's almost over anyway."
Yi Xing asked a staff member in the distance. Since he was sitting there with nothing to do, he figured he could add his brothers and sisters' contact information and reply to messages. He had been out of contact for so many days; he didn't know how many people had been looking for him.
As soon as he said this, someone immediately handed him his phone. He long-pressed the power button and found that the battery was full. It seemed the production team must have helped charge it every day, otherwise, the internal battery would age.
"Sisters, Brother Han, let's exchange WeChat."
Hearing his suggestion, everyone opened their phones. The few under 40 years old scanned each other's QR codes, but Zhang Kaili struggled. She couldn't find where to add friends for a long time, nor could she find her own QR code.
"Xiao Xing, come over and help me."
"Alright, Pei Ma." Yi Xing took her phone, helped her add friends, and even added notes for who was who, to avoid confusion.
After getting their phones back, the few suddenly had something to do and didn't have to continue dwelling in the sad emotions of impending farewells. They might not even be able to reply to all the messages.
Yi Xing quickly scrolled through the messages. Most were junk, like news from certain sources, mostly push notifications. He had already informed people he usually contacted that he would be out of touch for nearly twenty days.
He first told his family that he had his phone back and that the variety show recording was over. Then he replied to his friends' messages and finally opened the chat with Ju Jingyi.
According to his habit of replying to messages, he would either put important people first or last. He read her messages very carefully and smiled faintly.
Most of her messages were interesting things she encountered on set, and occasionally she would send pictures of her costumes and makeup. Her ancient costume gave him a different feeling. Since he didn't have a habit of clearing chat records, there was no need to specifically save them to his phone's photo gallery.
The most recent message was about her wrapping up filming, which somewhat surprised Yi Xing. He remembered that on the day he lost contact, it wasn't even her turn to film yet, and by the time he regained contact, she had already finished.
It had only been twenty days, yet his own drama took almost three months from start to finish, and wasn't she playing the second female lead? Despite a belly full of questions, he still didn't ask.
【Yi Xing: Congratulations, happy wrap-up!】
【Yi Xing: Ancient costumes suit you very well! Quite pretty, actually.】
Considering the time difference between Spain and China, it was 4 PM here, while on the other end of the phone, it was 11 PM. Ju Jingyi was probably already asleep, which was why he didn't receive a reply from her.
While he was focused on replying to messages, Zheng Peipei walked out of that room, and Zhang Kaili went in instead. This repeated several times.
Currently, Zhang Han was being interviewed inside, and it would soon be Yi Xing's turn. He lifted his lowered head and saw the person he had called Pei Ma throughout the trip, and they exchanged WeChat accounts.
"Xiao Xing, if you encounter any troubles, you can tell me. This old lady knows quite a lot of wisdom."
"Understood, Pei Ma."
At this moment, Zhang Han came out and patted his shoulder, saying, "Go quickly, it's your turn. You're the last one among us."
"Ah, you're all done?"
This surprised Yi Xing a bit. He didn't think he was the last one. It seemed he was too engrossed in replying to messages and hadn't noticed what was happening around him.
"Yes, we're all done, only you're left."
"Okay, then I'll go." He took a deep breath, nodded, and stood up to walk into the interview room.
Director Liao was sitting on a chair at the other end, smiling and motioning for him to sit down, intending to have a good chat with him.
"This journey is about to end. Is there anything you regret?" "Yes, Xu Qing did not stay with us until the last stop. I find that quite regrettable." Yi Xing recalled the events of these past few days. If there was anything regrettable, there really was, and it happened today.
"Aside from that, is there anything else?" Director Liao's smile instantly vanished. He had hoped to find some explosive points to dig into, but everyone's regrets were exactly the same.
"No, that's all. I feel very satisfied with this journey. I met a few sisters, met Brother Han, saw many landscapes I had never seen before, and experienced many things I had never done. For me, there are no regrets."
"What do you think is the meaning of travel?"
The room instantly fell silent. Yi Xing was picking at the dead skin on one hand with the other.
Whenever he started to think, he would make this gesture, as if it could speed up his CPU. After a long period of contemplation, he slowly began to speak.
"The meaning of travel lies in discovering the unknown. Arriving at a new place is like opening a new door; you can never know what will happen next. Even if everything is planned out, the plan might be disrupted midway due to some factor."
"It seems you gained a lot from divas hit the road."
"Of course! The biggest gain was meeting these six people. I'm very grateful to you, Director, for bringing the seven of us strangers together to form a travel group."
Yi Xing spoke very sincerely. It had changed his perspective. Originally, he thought traveling alone was more relaxed and free, but after this trip, his ideas gradually began to change. Having companions to talk and chat with was also quite good.
"If you are invited for the second season, would you accept the invitation?"
Director Liao didn't ask this question to the previous five people, only to Yi Xing. Through their twenty days of interaction, he felt that Yi Xing performed the best on camera. He could step up when things went wrong and would actively cooperate with him to achieve unexpected results.
"If it's the same country, I won't come. If it's a different place, I'll consider it." Although Yi Xing didn't give a definite answer, he had the willingness. He himself privately enjoyed traveling very much.
"Thank you for your answer. You can go out now. We'll just shout the slogan one last time and then we're done."
"Okay."
The Hua Shao Group and the program staff gathered together, looking at the camera in front of them, and shouted loudly, "Divas Hit the Road, happy wrap-up!"
That evening, the seven people successively left the hotel and embarked on their respective journeys home. Yi Xing sat on the plane to the Magic City, looking at everyone's group photos on his phone, a beautiful arc curving at the corner of his mouth. He closed his eyes and rested, looking forward to meeting everyone again in a couple of days.
Because Mango TV highly valued the Divas Hit the Road project, they specifically arranged for them to perform the eponymous song "Divas Hit the Road" at the New Year's Eve concert. Therefore, on December 30th, the Hua Shao Group would gather in Xing City and join the concert rehearsals.