On Jun 24, Paige Chua and Zhang Yaodong took to their respective IG accounts to post pics of them looking lovey-dovey by the Singapore River.

“I’ll [choose] love again as long as [it brings you] happiness], he captioned. She wrote: “Life is about taking chances. So is love.

Naturally, this led people to believe that it was Yaodong and Paige's way of making it IG-official and announcing that they're dating. It didn’t help that their celeb friends, such as Romeo Tan, left a trail of heart emojis on both their posts.

We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Paige and Yaodong aren’t dating.

“We received so many congratulatory messages that I was quite shocked! Yaodong said with a chuckle when he spoke to 8days.sg over the phone a day after the photos were posted. But rumours of us dating aren’t true. We took these photos when we were filming Soul Old Yet So Young, and I decided to post something on my IG after I saw Paige do the same. We even added the show’s hashtags to our captions, so I don’t know why people would misunderstand.”

The 43-year-old explained that he’s worked with Paige so many times that they’re “very comfortable with each other”. That rapport helped a lot as they play a couple in Soul Old Yet So Young, and had plenty of emotional scenes that “wouldn’t have been possible to film if we didn’t know each other so well”.

Reel love life aside, what about an update on his relationship status in real life? He responded to with a mock sigh, “I’m still single.” The busy bee, who juggles acting, business ventures, and managing his stock portfolio, said that work still comes first for him. But he confessed that he won’t say no if Miss Right comes knocking at his door.

This urge to date — and perhaps eventually settle down — has been amplified after filming Soul Old Yet So Young. Yaodong laughed, “When we filmed certain scenes of us doing couple things, it felt like I was falling in love for the first time all over again.”

Soul Old Yet So Young is available on demand for free on meWATCH.
The series airs weekdays at 9pm on Channel 8.

Photos: Zhang Yaodong's Instagram, Paige Chua's Instagram