That afternoon, they cleared several more levels.
By the time they settled the scores after dinner, everyone was surprised to find that Shen Wanwan and Shao Yuye’s team, which was supposed to be at the bottom, had suddenly surged to Level 18.
Now at the bottom was Su Tingxuan and Jiang Qianfan’s team. They were stuck at Level 13, closely followed by Jia Lu and Chi Tian at Level 14.
The situation had changed dramatically. Shao Yuye and Shen Wanwan, who had been on the verge of elimination in the first round, were now essentially safe. This meant that the two eliminated contestants would come from the other two teams.
“Amazing!” Zhang Yiran patted Shao Yuye on the shoulder, “Not bad, Bro.”
Shao Yuye spread his hands and playfully blew his bangs away from his forehead with an air of feigned distress.
“I can’t help it, this is just how strong I am.”
The livestream chat was flooded with laughter.
[Brother Ye, enough!]
[Cocky Brother Ye!]
[Wuwuwu, I was worried for so long, but now I don’t have to worry about Ye Ge being eliminated! I’m happy again!]
Shen Wanwan remained silent, quietly watching from the side.
It was just as 001 had said. The more significant a person’s role in the story, the stronger their light.
Bai Ling’s light was so dazzling it was almost blinding.
At the same time, it only made the people around her, Jin Xiaoyu and Jiang Qianfan, seem even dimmer in comparison.
001 was completely unaware of this and simply emphasized to Shen Wanwan:
{Look, because Jin Xiaoyu teamed up with Bai Ling, she’s gained tens of thousands of new fans in just four days!
{Getting along with the female lead comes with lots of benefits~}
Yes, their lights seemed to shine brighter, but only because they were overshadowed by Bai Ling’s light.
It looked like they were glowing too, but…
“Xiao Yi1,” Shen Wanwan called out softly.
001 heard her quiet voice.
“Borrowed light, how long can it last?”
After dinner, the production team announced the latest rankings.
Currently, Jiang Qianfan and Su Tingxuan were at the very bottom, stuck at Level 13, while Jia Lu and Chi Tian had reached Level 15.
Tomorrow was the final day of the show, which meant the first eliminated team would be decided.
Jiang Qianfan was both anxious and nervous. Seeing how Shen Wanwan and Shao Yuye seemed to be progressing at an almost supernatural pace, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Bai Ling had somehow changed their fate. Frustrated, she confronted Bai Ling directly.
“That hot spring card the other day, why did you give it to Shen Wanwan but not me? Bai Ling, are we even best friends or not?!”
The past was suddenly dredged up again, and Bai Ling’s face flushed red.
Her foolish decision was being questioned over and over again, like thousands of slaps landing on her face.
“I… I saw Wanwan fall into the water and get scared, so I wanted to comfort her.”
“Oh, you comforted her real well. Now they’re at Level 18 while I’m still stuck at Level 13. Nice. Just great.”
The more Jiang Qianfan thought about it, the more annoyed she became. She had played a big role in getting Bai Ling onto the show in the first place.
If it weren’t for her pushing hard to recommend Bai Ling to the director, the director wouldn’t have even noticed Bai Ling.
Jiang Qianfan’s voice wasn’t quiet, drawing a lot of attention.
Including Shen Wanwan’s.
She raised an eyebrow with interest. She was about to see how Bai Ling would respond when 001 nudged her shoulder excitedly.
{Quick! Now’s your chance! The female lead is being attacked from all sides. It’s time to step in and defend her! That’s how you build your friendship!}
Shen Wanwan’s lips curled into a high, mocking smile, her tone carrying a sugary, sarcastic edge.
“Then what should I do? I’m getting scolded too.”
Her eyes were cold.
Not adding fuel to the fire was already the biggest help she could offer Bai Ling.
001 : {…}
It had seen Shen Wanwan’s usual aloofness and her indifference to everyone.
Hearing her speak like this out of nowhere, if not for the familiar words, it might have thought she’d been possessed.
Such a rebel!
And now she was being rebellious in a new way!
Jiang Qianfan kept pressing Bai Ling. “I’m at the bottom now. Just tell me, are you going to help me or not? If you have any item cards that let you skip levels, hand one over!”
Bai Ling hesitated, torn between choices.
Her teammate Jin Xiaoyu, seeing her struggle, became anxious. “You can’t just give them away! Our item cards didn’t just fall from the sky, Bai Ling. You’re not allowed to give them away!”
Jiang Qianfan turned to pestering her shamelessly. “Bai Ling, are we best friends or not?! Su Tingxuan is your friend too, isn’t he?! I’m telling you now, if you don’t help me, we’re done being friends!”
Su Tingxuan stood off to the side, wishing he could find a hole to crawl into.
Jin Xiaoyu was getting desperate. “Bai Ling, if you keep giving away our item cards, I won’t be your teammate anymore!”
Seeing that the situation was about to spiral out of control, Jiang Yuan, the group’s peacemaker, quickly stepped in.
“Everyone, calm down! No need to fight, it’s just a game. Don’t take it so personally.”
That reminder brought Jiang Qianfan and Jin Xiaoyu back to their senses. They realized they were still on a live broadcast. Their argument had been broadcasted for everyone to see. They quickly reined in their emotions.
Zhang Yiran nodded and asked Jiang Qianfan, “What about your item cards?”
Jiang Qianfan covered his face. “Used them all up.”
Zhang Yiran continued, “What about your Speed Tokens?”
Jiang Qianfan shot Shen Wanwan a resentful look. “Used those up too.”
In a way, Jiang Qianfan and Su Tingxuan’s team was actually the slowest, and they had major problems.
Su Tingxuan was the typical pampered rich kid, weak and unreliable.
Jiang Qianfan had a fiery temper and never let things go.
Unlike Shao Yuye and Shen Wanwan, who aired their conflicts openly, these two kept up a front of harmony while secretly resenting each other.
Zhang Yiran hesitated for a moment before mumbling, “Well, you can still hope to win the evening game and get an item card to turn things around!”
The production team knew exactly how to keep the drama going. A last-minute comeback was always the biggest highlight, so they scheduled extra games every night.
Winning teams could draw bonus item cards, ranked in different tiers.
The hot spring card Bai Ling had given Shen Wanwan had been an SSS-tier card she’d gotten by sheer luck after winning a game.
But despite what Zhang Yiran said, everyone knew the truth.
When it came down to the game segment, there was no way the others would simply watch their team fall behind and just hand over the chance to get an item card.
The evening’s mini-game was a round of Pictionary.
Even though Shen Wanwan had high hopes for the item card, reality once again proved—
She and Shao Yuye had neither chemistry nor artistic talent.
Faced with Shao Yuye’s incomprehensible scribbles, even if she stared hard enough to set the paper on fire, she still couldn’t decipher what kind of masterpiece he was trying to create.
After getting passed over repeatedly, Shao Yuye finally lost his patience.
“How can you even get this wrong?!”
Shen Wanwan looked at the mess on his drawing board, speechless. “Why don’t you tell me what this is?”
“It’s the Kamehameha!”
Shen Wanwan rubbed her forehead in exasperation. “Do you want to take a good look at what you actually drew?”
Shao Yuye, unconvinced, glanced at his own board.
A stick figure with exaggeratedly long arms was dramatically launching an attack. In an effort to help her, he had even thoughtfully added a turtle and a taro pie beside it.
His artistic genius was simply unparalleled.
Shen Wanwan should have been able to guess ‘catching a turtle in a jar2‘ with this level of clarity!
Shaking his head, he clicked his tongue in disdain. “You should really brush up on your general knowledge.”
Ha! Utterly hopeless!
Shen Wanwan: “……”
If he weren’t her own brother, she’d be cursing him out by now.
The live chat was flooded with sympathy for Shen Wanwan :
[Uh… Brother Ye, let’s be real, this one’s not on Shen Wanwan, right?]
[Hahahaha, I’m losing it! The ‘Kamehameha’ is so magical! Hahahaha! Also, Brother Ye, that’s not general knowledge, okay?]
[Why do I suddenly feel bad for Shen Wanwan? Brother Ye, I beg you, your art is amazing, but please, just stop drawing!]
Naturally, the two of them ended up at the bottom of the ranking.
Other than the winning team, Qi Luozhou and Jiang Yuan, the remaining five groups had to accept a small punishment from the production team.
The program team prepared three rows of bottles filled with boiled water for the losing teams. Among those, three bottles were filled with sweet and refreshing coconut water, while another three were filled with the notoriously awful snake grass water, known for its indescribable taste.
The losing teams had to pick at random and drink whatever they got.
“I heard that snake grass water is legendary! It’s like drinking mop water!”
Zhang Yiran waved a hand dramatically in front of his nose. “Ugh! Just thinking about it makes me want to gag!”
Hearing that, the girls instinctively clutched their noses, convinced they could already smell something foul.
“Oh God, I really don’t want to drink snake grass water!”
As the winners, Qi Luozhou and Jiang Yuan were responsible for distributing the cups.
While picking her drink, Bai Ling accidentally spilled a little on Qi Luozhou’s sleeve.
“Oh! I’m so sorry…” Bai Ling quickly apologized. “I didn’t mean to…”
Qi Luozhou waved it off casually. “It’s fine.”
001, perched on Shen Wanwan’s shoulder, cackled excitedly : {Wahaha, this is the first interaction between the male and female leads!
{Watching it live is different! I swear I can almost see pink bubbles floating around them!}
Shen Wanwan : ?
Where’s the chemistry?
Where’s the romance?
Just as she was about to debate romance tropes with the glowing little orb, Shao Yuye nudged her shoulder.
“Pick one.”
Shen Wanwan casually pointed at the bottle closest to Qi Luozhou.
“Number 27.”
Her luck had always been pretty good.
Qi Luozhou poured out two cups from that bottle and handed one to her.
There was a faint woody fragrance on him, subtle and clean, lingering in the air as he moved.
The little light orb clung to her shoulder, taking a deep breath : {Wow… what a pleasant scent…}
But that pleasant scent was quickly overpowered by the subtle yet ominous smell coming from the cup in Shen Wanwan’s hands.
Shen Wanwan : “……”
001 : {……}
The two stared at the cup in horror.
After a few seconds, 001 murmured : {I think… it’s snake grass water.}
The corner of Shen Wanwan’s lips twitched.
She lowered her head and took a sip.
The taste was—
Indescribable.
Bitter, astringent, with a strange hint of spiciness. The moment she swallowed it down, a lingering aftertaste hit her, reminiscent of food that had gone bad…
Just one sip made her scalp tingle and her soul leave her body.
{See? The female lead doesn’t like you, so your luck is weaker now. That’s why you picked the ‘bad’ drink.
{So my advice—wait, hold on! It’s already that bad, why are you taking another big gulp?!}
Gritting her teeth, Shen Wanwan swallowed another mouthful of the wretched liquid.
“Because a proper rival never admits defeat.”
001 : {……}
Damn.
Is this competitive spirit hereditary in your family or what?!
Shao Yuye, watching from the side, asked, “How does it taste?”
Shen Wanwan immediately put on the sweetest smile.
She was stunning, with an innocent, delicate beauty. If not for the public’s perception of her as a spoiled princess, such a smile would be irresistible to anyone.
“It’s delicious.”
Qi Luozhou raised an eyebrow, subtly observing her.
He knew exactly what was in her cup.
And judging by her reaction, it was definitely not pleasant.
Yet, she said it was delicious.
Her charming smile held a hidden edge, like poison wrapped in honey.
Luring the unsuspecting closer, step by step.
Shao Yuye, seeing her reaction, assumed the drink was either plain water or coconut water.
He happened to be thirsty.
Without hesitation, he grabbed the other cup Qi Luozhou had poured and downed it in one big gulp—
That sour, rancid, astringent taste instantly spread across his tongue, flooding every single taste bud like liquid garbage.
*PFFT—*
What the hell was this, sewage water?!
He shot a murderous glare at Shen Wanwan.
—Delicious, my ass!
Shen Wanwan smirked, pure mischief in her expression, and threw his own words right back at him—
“No worries. Just brush up on your general knowledge.”
Not every drink a pretty girl hands you is safe to drink~
- 一 (yī) means 1 ↩︎
- I don’t know how Kamehameha, ‘turtle and taro pie’, and the Chinese idiom ‘catching turtle in a jar’ relates, so this explanation is based on speculation after consulting with a few AIs :
– Kamehameha (かめはめ波) is the signature attack in Dragon Ball series.
– The “Kame” in Kamehameha (かめはめ波) literally translates to ‘turtle’ in Japanese (亀 – kame).
– Taro pie is 香芋派 (xiāngyù pài) in Chinese. The Chinese characters 香芋派 can be read as ‘ka-imo-ha’ in Japanese, which sound similar to ‘kameha’.
– The word ‘hame'(はめ) from Kamehameha (かめはめ波) sounds the same as 嵌める (hameru/はめる) which has several meanings, one of which “to trap”. I think this is where it relates to the Chinese idiom ‘catching turtle in a jar’ (瓮中捉鳖 wèng zhōng zhuō biē), which describes a situation where someone is easily captured or in a situation with no escape, implying a setup or a trap. ↩︎