Part 5 of Chapter 60
This chapter is brought to you by Celestialsiren, thanks for the ko-fi! (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･
Please Like Her 11 – It’s hard to distinguish between what’s real and what’s fake
According to the rules, they would take turns entering a room to confirm their suspected pairs with the production team.
Shang Lu and Tang Qingqing were the last to enter.
The screen displayed a sentence, guiding them on what to do.
[Say “Are they the most special friends?” and then place the card of the group you want to inquire about in the box on the table.]
Tang Qingqing asked, “Who should we verify?”
Shang Lu’s gaze fell on the words ‘most special,’ and she began analyzing the current situation with Tang Qingqing : “We are fake friends, and the other two groups with Lin Yanyan and Song Zeqian are also fake.”
Tang Qingqing : “?!?”
Tang Qingqing didn’t understand: “How is that possible? Aren’t we the only fake friends?”
Shang Lu said, “They probably think the same way.”
Netizens were equally shocked.
[Shang Lu is indeed a woman who knows how to write scripts! The program’s tricks couldn’t fool her!]
[I can understand why Shang Lu thinks Lin Yanyan’s pair are fake friends. They are very close, after all. But what’s up with Song Zeqian? I think he acted the best among all of them.]
Tang Qingqing was also puzzled and asked, “How do you know that Song Zeqian’s group is fake?”
“Song Zeqian taught me about acting. He said that to make fiction seem real, the most important thing is to blend truth and falsehood and add seemingly meaningless details to increase authenticity.” Shang Lu tapped lightly on the table, as if still hesitating, and gave Tang Qingqing a detailed explanation : “The biggest mystery today lies in the beginning. Fake friends make up stories, while real friends just need to sit and wait. So, for real friends, such a long time should be boring. They should be eager to come out when the time’s up. But we were the first ones to come out, so what were they doing inside? They must have been adding friendship details to prevent any inconsistencies.”
Tang Qingqing widened her eyes, and for a moment, her brain seemed unable to process it all.
Although she didn’t understand, it sounded really logical.
Tang Qingqing looked at Shang Lu, and suddenly, at this moment when Shang Lu which to choose among the remaining cards on the table, she thought—
So calm, so clever, so cool!
Even though Shang Luwas a girl and even though there was still some flour on her face, she was really charming!
Tang Qingqing pursed her lips and looked at Shang Lu with a hint of undisguised admiration in her eyes.
[Hahaha, Tang Qingqing’s expression changed again after Shang Lu finished speaking.]
[Shang Lu makes so much sense! She really pays attention to details, so clever, my wife!]
[That’s right, wife! Stick to your idea! Everyone is fake!]
Shang Lu hesitated for a moment as she held the cards of Jiang Jing, Xu Ze, and Ye Lu’s groups. Her current guess was that these three groups were also fake, because neither Ye Lu nor Xu Ze’s groups seemed like real friends. Only Jiang Jing and An Qing were a bit ambiguous; she couldn’t tell if it was adult social etiquette or if their relationship was genuinely good.
So Shang Lu looked at Tang Qingqing and said, “Let’s check Jiang Jing and Teacher An Qing first.”
Tang Qingqing nodded in agreement.
Following the instructions on the wall, the two of them placed the cards with Jiang Jing and An Qing’s names into the box and said together, “Are they the most special friends?”
Very quickly, the words on the screen disappeared and the answer reappeared.
[No]
Shang Lu and Tang Qingqing exchanged a disappointed glance, and there was clear disappointment in Tang Qingqing’s eyes.
Then Shang Lu hesitated for a moment while holding the two cards representing Xu Ze and Ye Lu, and he replaced Xu Ze with Ou Yi. He asked directly, “Who do you think is more outrageous between them?”
[This way of asking by Shang Lu is simply amazing. Ye Lu and Ou Yi, who is more outrageous, hahaha]
[Of course, they’re both outrageous, hahaha]
Tang Qingqing didn’t hesitate and took the card representing Ou Yi. She felt that she couldn’t hold Shang Lu back and analyzed seriously, “Ye Lu and Yan Yu were breaking character from start to finish. None of the information about them matches. They’re definitely fake friends. Let’s check Ou Yi and Xu Ze.”
The two of them put the cards into the box and read the passage again.
Once again, the screen displayed the answer : [No].
Tang Qingqing : “!!!”
Tang Qingqing quickly responded, “Neither of them is, so what you said is right. We’re all really fake friends!”
Shang Lu glanced at the whiteboard with the default guiding sentence restored and said, “Not necessarily.”
All three groups have completed their verification.
Next is a 15-minute Q&A session, just like the beginning. If you still have questions about a certain group, feel free to ask.
Twelve blank-faced people sat together, each with a more complex expression than the other.
At this moment, there was no one asking Shang Lu and Tang Qingqing questions. They sat on the side looking very lonely, as if they were excluded from this group.
[Hahaha, no one would really suspect the sister duo with a 9 out of 10 correct answer rate]
[Shang Lu & Tang Qingqing : We really aren’t friends!]
And soon, the discussion time ended, and each group took turns to reveal their results.
Ou Yi was the first to accuse Ye Lu and Yan Yu, believing that Yan Yu was brought in by the production team as a package deal.
Yan Yu and Ye Lu also chose Ou Yi and Xu Ze, and the two groups were clearly at odds.
Lin Yanyan and Chen Zi’an also voted for Ye Lu and Yan Yu, after all, Ye Lu didn’t even choose a game controller, which was suspicious from the beginning.
Jiang Jing and An Qing observed carefully for a while and then also cast their votes for Ye Lu and Yan Yu.
An Qing directly said, “We also had suspicions between your two groups, but judging by the reactions of Ye Lu and Ou Yi, Ye Lu is clearly feeling more guilty.”
It’s now Song Zeqian and Cen Yan’s turn.
Song Zeqian directly said, “Everyone is fake.”
Everyone : “?!?”
Song Zeqian continued, “I’m fake, and all of you are fake too.”
His words immediately changed the expressions of most of the people present… Oh, but with the flour covering their faces, it’s hard to see their expressions.
[Director Song! You are my hero!]
[Director Song is the genius of this show? Support, press 1; don’t support, turn off the show!]
[Hahaha]
[But Shang Lu and Tang Qingqing have figured it out too!]
The production team looked at Shang Lu and Tang Qingqing, urging them, “Teacher Shang and Teacher Tang, it’s down to just the two of you now.”
Tang Qingqing looked at Shang Lu, obviously leaving the decision to her.
“We are all fake friends,” Shang Lu paused for two seconds and continued, “Although I haven’t figured it out either, based on the hints from the production team, Ye Lu and Yan Yu should be the real friends.”
[Why would Shang Lu’s answer be like this?]
[Everyone thought Ye Lu and Yan Yu weren’t real friends, but Shang Lu chose them, which is hilarious.]
The director asked, “What hints did we give you?”
Shang Lu calmly explained, “When we entered, the wording on the whiteboard was ‘most special friends’ instead of ‘fake friends,’ which proves that someone among us has a special status. It can’t be that we are all the same. So the truth should be the opposite of the rules you gave us. It’s not five groups of real friends and one group of fake friends, but five groups of fake friends and one group of real friends.”
Although she couldn’t tell if Ye Lu and Yan Yu were real friends, after eliminating the other five options, the truth had to be something else.
Soon, the production team announced today’s truth—
Only Shang Lu and Tang Qingqing guessed the correct answer. There was only one group of real friends on the scene, and that was Ye Lu and Yan Yu.
And for the sake of the show’s effect, they played a double deception, deceiving both the guests into thinking there were five groups of real friends and one group of fake friends and deceiving the audience into thinking they were all fake friends.
Netizens : “?!?”
[I thought I was already in the stratosphere, but the production team even fooled us?]
[I’m crying, how could this happen? The production team is really ruthless, they didn’t even spare the audience.]
At this moment, there were two more people in the scene who were very shocked.
Ye Lu looked at Yan Yu, a bit puzzled, “Are we really true friends?”
Ou Yi looked at Xu Ze, even more shocked, “Are we really not true friends?!”
Everyone : “…?”
What are they talking about?
Song Zeqian kindly reminded, “The program team said that true friends meet three conditions: going out separately, having meals together, and working together.”
“I know,” Ye Lu nodded, then asked Yan Yu directly, still not understanding, “When did we work together?”
It was because of this missing point that he thought he and Yan Yu were not true friends!
Yan Yu : “…I worked as your backup dancer after I was eliminated back then.”
Ye Lu : “?!?”
Is that also considered cooperation?
As for Ou Yi, he looked at Xu Ze, still unable to accept this truth and asked in anguish, “Are we really not true friends?”
Xu Ze had no expression, “We don’t meet any of these three conditions.”
Ou Yi was angry, “What are you saying? But we had a meal together a long time ago!”
Xu Ze : “…That was a chance encounter.”
The production team couldn’t possibly know about that.
Ou Yi : “But we also went out together!”
Xu Ze explained, “That restaurant had a problem. We both got food poisoning and ended up in the hospital; that’s not considered going out for fun.”
The production team couldn’t possibly know about this either.
Ou Yi : “We’ve also worked together!”
Xu Ze : “No, we haven’t.”
That really never happened.
Ou Yi shouted desperately, “I just signed a contract yesterday, and I’m going to sing the OST for your new drama next week!”
Everyone : “…”
How could they possibly know about something happening next week when you just signed the contract yesterday?!
Netizens were also perplexed.
Here’s the translation of the provided text:
[No, wait, so both of you didn’t even figure out your own identities? What have you been doing all day?]
[I knew it! Why was Ou Yi so confident this morning? Turns out, he actually thinks he and Xu are real friends, haha.]
[The real friends don’t know that they are real friends, yet the ▯▯▯ confidently believe that their partner is a real friend? This situation is really absurd.]
[In such a ridiculous situation, Shang Lu still managed to figure out the truth. It’s really impressive.]
[So, in this whole situation, it turns out that only Shang Lu is standing at the atmospheric level (tactical retreat)]
This is fun
I CAN’T STOP LAUGHING 😭🤣