Welcome to Heart Signal Season 4! It’s summer 2021, and this time, we are in Shenzhen, the Chinese hub for technology and entrepreneurship. Here, young, hopeful urban professionals chase their dreams 996 (9am to 9pm, 6 days a week). For the uninitiated, here are the rules of Heart Signal: three men and three women move in together into a luxury apartment. They will interact and go on dates, but they are not allowed to send messages to one another outside of one nightly anonymous text. The panelists will watch, discuss, and predict love lines to win gemstones.
First, let’s meet our panelists. Back for the third time, Du Haitao plays host. His job is to rattle off the corporate sponsors and lob open discussion questions to the rest of the panel.
The biggest name on the panel is Angelababy, a popular female lead in romantic dramas and original Running Man cast member. She has been married for six years and is here to learn about how young people date and fall in love.
Next is Ma Boqian, an American-born Chinese who punctuates his fluent Beijing dialect with LA slang. He is a former idol survival show contestant, runner-up to play Minho in Maze Runner, and now an actor-comedian who expertly straddles American and Chinese humor.
Li Xueqin is a standup comedian, an up-and-coming star of an entertainment genre that is rapidly gaining popularity in China. She is also an alumna of Tsinghua University, the MIT of China.
Song Zu’er is the token young female celebrity, providing the early 20’s girl’s perspective and replacing the beloved Yang Chaoyue of previous seasons. Guo Qilin is the son of the famous xiangsheng (crosstalk) actor Guo Degang. He himself is also in xiangsheng and will be providing plenty of humorous commentary and reactions.
It’s 6.30pm on day 1, and our young cast members are closing their laptops and getting ready to meet each other for the first time. Do they usually get off work when the sun is still out, or did they have to take a half-day for filming?
The producers have set up a nice table for 6 on the rooftops of one of the many skyscrapers in the city.
First to arrive is Ma Zijia, aka Goldilocks, who tries out 3 different chairs before taking the best seat at the table – the middle seat facing the entrance. Our second boy, Chen Siming, who introduces himself as Simon, arrives on skateboard and selects the seat right opposite Ma Zijia. The reason for his seat selection? He didn’t want Zijia to be lonely.
While the two awkwardly gaze at the barely visible stars in the night sky, our first walking advertisement with a meticulously annotated OOTD arrives. She introduces herself as Mai Sui. Mai Sui is chatty and keeps a conversation going easily.
The three decide to play a prank on the next guest and pretend to be CEOs discussing business on the couch nearby. Our next guest to arrive is a cute girl called Hong Chengcheng, goes by her nickname Chengzi (orange). She chooses to sit next to Simon, and opposite Mai Sui.
The third boy, Deng Kaiwei, arrives by car. As the others predicted, he has a more muscular build than the first two boys. The girls jump out of their seats to provide service, pouring water and shaking out his napkin, which flusters Kaiwei a bit. Turns out it’s a little dare that Zijia came up with. Kaiwei is from Hunan, and when Mai Sui notes that he looks like he works out, he confirms and adds that he plays basketball.
Chengzi guesses that the last girl will have long black hair, a classic beauty. Based on previous archetypes that Heart Signal has used, I thought so too. However, the last to arrive is Melody, who sports a short, ashy brown bob and fashionable black jumpsuit. After some playful and flirty guessing (Zijia: “That province exports beauties.” Kaiwei: “You are the pride of Hunan!”), we learn that she is also from Hunan.
With all of the cast members present, food is finally served! As they start eating, they discuss who should be responsible for cooking tomorrow’s dinner. Historically, making dinner is a very critical opportunity to form love lines! Simon raises his hand to volunteer and asks everyone what they want to eat. Something spicy, for the Hunan girls? Stir-fried pork? How can you not like a boy who offers to make you anything you want to eat? The girls are all happy nods and smiles.
Mai Sui volunteers to assist in the kitchen. Chengzi signs up for dish-washing duty, and Zijia jokingly accuses her of trying to steal his job.
Zijia then suggests a movie night with the roommates, and Mai Sui proposes a horror movie. Kaiwei and Zijia laugh that the boys will all huddle together behind the sofa, and Chengzi adds that they’ll be watching and clapping along to “Makka Pakka.” Zijia cracks up at her joke and acts it out, clapping his hands to Makka Pakka. What is this meme?? The other roommates at the table are completely bewildered, and so is half of the panel. Haitao enlightens us who are not fluent in internet culture: after watching a scary scene in a horror movie, people watch Makka Pakka to cleanse their mind.
After dinner, the waiter brings out a gift box with a ribbon. Inside, the housemates find a card inviting them to move into the shared house tomorrow. Each cast member receives a key card. While getting ready to depart, they ask each other what district they live in. Most of them (the girls + Simon) live in Nanshan. Kaiwei lives in Longhua, and Zijia lives in Bao’an. Melody pipes up that she works in Bao’an, and Zijia immediately offers to pick her up after work. The group agrees to meet at 6:30pm tomorrow.
The waiter then brings out the bill, and it’s time to fight over it! Melody is there first, phone in hand to WePay, but Zijia walks over and insists that he will do it. Simon says, “How can we let that happen?” and the three guys end up splitting the bill.
Kaiwei sees Chengzi to her taxi, and other than that, the six go their separate ways. The night ends on a happy note with this group of new friends. The panel notes that the cast members seem more outgoing than previous seasons.
Back home, Melody’s mum is already waiting eagerly for fresh gossip. Under mummy’s probing, Melody describes Kaiwei who is also from Hunan, and praises his sense of humor. She then briefly mentions another guy is sending her to work the next day.
Chengzi is in her PJs video chatting with a good friend. She describes all the guys she met, giving the highest praise to Ma Zijia, who “is like the male lead in a drama”. Aww. She giggles adorably as she recaps the Makka Pakka story.
It’s time for the nightly texts reveal! Mr Popular, Ma Zijia, received all the love from the girls, while Chengzi is the lucky one who receives Zijia’s text. The Makka Pakka CP is the only pair out of the 6 to text each other. Melody receives texts from both remaining guys (but not the one she texted), while poor Mai Sui doesn’t receive any. Coming up in the next episode – move in day!
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