Chapter 20: CH 20

Ling Che adjusted the seat to the highest level, which as he had stated, was indeed enough for him to handle on his own, and Xu Tangzhou did not need to put in too much effort.

The tandem bike ran quickly on the path, and the trailing vehicles unhurriedly followed them without delay. 

Riding a tandem bike required a certain degree of tacit understanding, and it was best for two people to pedal at the same frequency in order to increase speed.

However,……. because of their extremely close proximity and the fact that his medication was missing, the pheromones which didn’t stimulate him that much at the time were being constantly transmitted from Ling Che’s body to his senses.

As soon as Xu Tangzhou got onto the bike, he knew it was over. He genuinely had the desire to hop off at this very moment.

Was Ling Che paying attention to him? Will he notice his abnormal behavior? 

The more sensitive Xu Tangzhou was, the more restless he would be. He fantasized about all sorts of possibilities after being discovered by Ling Che and found that neither of them had a good outcome, so he tried to put all his focus into controlling his feet.

Cycling and nothing else!

What sort of improper thoughts are you even coming up with inside your brain!

The coconut trees, the ocean breeze and the scorching sun.

Under such an environment, Xu Tangzhou stared at the cobalt reel that was rotating over and over again.

Gradually, as if he was hypnotized, everything around him faded into the distance. The coconut trees were replaced with young green willow leaves, the bottle of mineral water in the basket became daisies, and the sneakers on his feet were replaced with rope-soled shoes.

The scene of the trail halfway up the hill from Ling Che’s residence on the day when Huang-ge drove the latter home after the annual meeting appeared before his eyes again.

Inside the scene, he was pedaling his bike, and because he couldn’t catch up to the speed of the man ahead of him, he stood up and pedaled fiercely: “Wait for me!” 

The man’s shirt was blown up by the wind, and he turned back while pedaling his bike before casually saying: “Come on, Xu Tangzhou, do you usually save all your energy for sleeping?”

He couldn’t see that man’s face clearly.

Simply trying to think about that man’s eyebrows made his temples ache in particular.

“Xu Tangzhou.” Ling Che spoke up all of the sudden from behind him. 

Xu Tangzhou regained his consciousness with cold sweat emerging from his forehead, and Ling Che pressed down on the brakes as his body leaned forward.

He propped his legs on the ground and snapped back into reality from that esoteric vision: “What’s wrong?”

They’ve been cycling for half an hour, and Ling Che had only noticed that something was off about him from the back.

“Are you not feeling well?” Ling Che frowned and reached out to probe his forehead. 

At first glance, he discovered that Xu Tangzhou’s thick eyelashes had beads of sweat on them which made his facial features appear detached with little vitality. That pair of eyes blinked, pulsing with emotion, as if they could speak.

Ling Che suddenly withdrew his hand, as if nothing had occurred.

Xu Tangzhou’s sunburned face suddenly became a shade redder, and his calm glands from before showed signs of turmoil as well. He was aware that his body especially desired to make intimate contact with Ling Che at the moment: What sort of pheromone allergy was this?

The program team’s vehicle came to a halt, and Mo-Mo ran over before asking: “What’s wrong with Zhou Zhou? Did he have a heatstroke?” 

Ling Che directly screwed open the mineral water in the basket, and the reason why he did not answer was possibly because he was annoyed at the fact that Mo-Mo was being too much of a disturbance.

He handed it to Xu Tangzhou: “Drink some water. Let’s take a break here first.”

Xu Tangzhou nodded before gulping down half a bottle in one go, and felt much more relieved.

Mo-mo was worried: Is it true that Omegas were that fragile? 

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The implication behind her remark was that they were eager to win but Xu Tangzhou couldn’t keep up with Ling Che’s speed which resulted in this situation.

But she didn’t have the guts to directly say it out loud. 

Ling Che was too lazy to provide an explanation.

Xu Tangzhou awkwardly told her: “No. In fact, I barely moved a muscle and he was the one doing all the work. I don’t exercise on a daily basis, and it’s possible that I saved all my energy only to waste it on sleeping.”

Ling Che was slightly stunned and glanced at him.

Xu Tangzhou sensed it and he looked up at Ling Che, but Ling Che quickly averted his gaze. 

Was Ling Che in a bad mood?

Unbeknownst to him, there was a wet glow left on his light-colored lips after he finished drinking the water, and coupled with his somewhat pitiful appearance at the moment, one couldn’t help but want to take a bite.

Everyone rested for a while at the roadside, and by the time they were ready to set off again, Ling Che coldly said: “You, sit in the back.”

Xu Tangzhou: “????” Aren’t you Alphas being too fickle? 

Ling Che snatched a straw hat from somebody in the program team and did not wait for Xu Tangzhou to object before roughly putting it on his head.

This time, there’s no need for Xu Tangzhou to watch the road.

Ling Che obstructed half of the poisonous sun for him at the front.

A small portion of Xu Tangzhou’s heart was heating up. 

He boldly wondered that if he were to tell Ling Che the truth, would Ling Che agree to give him a temporary mark as a last resort to ensure the smooth recording of the show? Since everyone was familiar with each other and what had been said has already been said, he shouldn’t get beaten to death, right?

Right at this moment, they met the LuMi CP as well as the Xia Sisters, who had successfully finished their attendance task at Mermaid Reef and were on their way back.

Lu Cheng’an: “God-Che, your stamina is lacking.”

Ling Che: “Heh.” 

Lu Cheng’an: “There’s a bunch of Omega girls sunbathing at the Mermaid Reef, you won’t get the chance to have a look if you are late!”

Ling Che: “Not interested, appreciate them by yourselves.”

Xu Tangzhou internally thought: Forget about it. He will definitely get beaten to death.

* 

That night, after deducting the rent, utilities and daily expenses on Day One, the program team announced the winner of the base funds for today. Surprisingly, the Xia Sisters, who formerly had the least amount of base funds and spent twice on plane tickets due to missed flights, won by a margin.

They received the winning reward on Day One: Entry tickets for the tourist location on Day Two for free.

CheZhou CP was the only one with free rent. They ought to have been the winner, but ranked third because Xu Tangzhou spent an additional 1,000 yuan on pheromone suppression spray and glandular patches.

As for the LuMi CP, although they lost 340 yuan on the plane and had to pay rent after Ling Che stole the privilege of house selection, they were still in second place of what they expected themselves to be, steady and unmoving. 

The first day of the program is generally the most relaxing because there’s little sense of competition, but conflict will become more intense during the later stages.

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The show’s surveillance monitors were live recording each group of guests in their rooms.

Lu Cheng’an and Mi Fei, an old married couple, gave each other massages and chatted as usual.

Mi Fei said: “We have to try and seize first place tomorrow as well, we can’t fall behind. If I had known that there’d be a reward, then we shouldn’t have spent money on renting bikes today. In my opinion, walking ten kilometers by foot is not a problem.” 

Lu Cheng’an laughed: “Ten kilometers is indeed not a problem, but with such hot weather, it’d be very troublesome if you were to get a heatstroke.”

Mi Fei hesitantly said: “I can see that Zhou Zhou seems to not be feeling well today, but he said he was fine when I asked him about it.”

Lu Cheng’an smiled and said: “With God-Che here, nothing should go wrong. In case you’re still anxious, you can put your worries at ease by asking Xu Tangzhou tomorrow and see if there’s anything we can help with.”

At this moment, Xia Xing and Xia Yue were counting their money.

Xia Xing was very excited: “We turned out to be in first place! Sis, you were still blaming me for missing the flight, but aren’t we going pretty steady?”

Xia Yue rolled her eyes: “Oh please, we have to pay the highest rent, okay? Does the utility reduction serve any use to us? As long as we stay in this house for a day longer, they can easily surpass us. Especially God-Che, they don’t need to pay rent at all. In my opinion, our funding gap should be relatively small.”

Xia Yue took out a notebook to do some math and scribbled for a while, roughly guessing the amount of money remaining for each group of guests. 

According to her calculations, there were currently about 4,000 yuan left for CheZhou, 4,600 yuan for LuMi, and they themselves had 4,800 yuan.

Everyone from the program team was secretly shocked in front of the monitor: Xia Yue’s calculations were too on point!

After Xia Xing took a look at it, she probably felt that her intelligence was lacking and became absent-minded at once: “Oh right. They still have two days left in their rent-free house, and we are required to spend 1,200 yuan for water and electricity each day. They will surpass us in two days even if they don’t do anything.”

Xia Yue said: “Therefore, we have to win the attendance task everyday, so that we can receive the next day’s reward. You ate two buckets of instant noodles today, for tomorrow, you are only allowed to eat one.” 

Xia Xing was unsatisfied and the two began to argue once more.

As for Ling Che and Xu Tangzhou’s group.

There was nobody in the living room. 

It was empty all over the place.

Everyday, the two guests minded their own business as soon as they got back with zero interactions.

The program team switched to another camera inside the cabin and saw Xu Tangzhou squatting in the yard… With a puppy. That puppy was very docile, strong and obedient, it stuck out his tongue and let Xu Tangzhou pet itself.

There was an envelope on its collar, Xu Tangzhou discovered a letter and stood up before walking back into the house after reading through it once. 

“Ling Che!” Xu Tangzhou shouted while knocking on the door, “The program team is too cunning!”

The crowd in front of the monitor: “……”

By the time Ling Che opened his bedroom door, Xu Tangzhou noticed that he was wearing a black sleeping mask and was getting ready to sleep by the looks of it.

Ling Che had an extremely handsome face in the first place and with the sleeping mask pulled up on his messy brown hair, there was a sense of unruliness after his sleep was disrupted. 

He looked at Xu Tangzhou with a little displeasure.

Xu Tangzhou was fascinated to a degree that his brain short-circuited and he angrily re-enacted the situation without even knowing what he was talking about.

It turns out that there was a hidden condition when the program said the owner had entrusted them to take care of all the items in the cabin on their behalf.

There was no such thing as the show giving away a house for free. 

The letter from the doggy was written by the owner which said that the dog’s name was Ruby, and it had decided to return home by itself because there would be two guests looking after it and it missed the place very much.

At the moment, the pup has already undergone evaluation and weighed 35 kilograms. When they check out, 500 yuan will be deducted from their base funds for every 100 grams the dog loses in weight. On top of that, the dog will need to be groomed and bathed at the island’s pet store which they need to cover for the expenses as well.

Xu Tangzhou was indignant: “The weight control error cannot exceed 100 grams. Is the show mentally retarded?”

Ling Che: “……” 

Ruby followed him inside and skillfully found the food bowl from somewhere and held it in his mouth, proving that it was indeed the aforementioned pup.

It was hungry.

Xu Tangzhou said: “Are we allowed to refuse? I want to request a change of residence.”

Ling Che walked over, bent down and gently touched Ruby’s head. 

This time, he surprisingly did not mock the show and even said, “Let’s keep it. Don’t you like puppies a lot?”

Xu Tangzhou was stunned: How come Ling Che knew about this? Was Si Tuya the one who told him? He remembered that he had not filled in any information regarding these aspects at all.

It was indeed true that he liked puppies.

Ling Che stood up and said: “You always made a fuss about taking care of one in the past. Consider this as practice, keeping it for a few days won’t be much of a problem.” 

The two of them stood by the door frame, and it just so happened that cameras in the bedroom and the hallway could not capture their faces. Through the screen, only the situation in the hallway and the room were displayed, thus making this place a blind spot.

No sound was transmitted through the screen for dozens of seconds, and the program team thought there was something wrong with the audio.

Xu Tangzhou couldn’t figure out whether Ling Che was improvising on the matter of them being friends at the moment or Ling Che was the one who liked puppies himself, therefore he was unable to pick up the conversation.

He didn’t ask anything on-camera, and merely said with hesitation: “But we don’t have much money left on us.” 

“Dog food should not be very expensive, and I can help with the bath.” Ling Che coldly said: “Furthermore, they should be aware that we won’t have the heart to refuse them when they came up with this.”

It sounded quite reasonable.

However, with such a huge pit falling from the sky, it still made Xu Tangzhou a bit reluctant to let it slip.

This show is so sloppy! 

No wonder Ying Chen gave a like to that “brainless celebrities” post on Flow.

The two led the puppy to buy dog food, unaware that the convenience store had been equipped with a camera arranged by the program team.

The convenience store was booked to provide special shooting services for them.

Xu Tangzhou was picking out dog food in front of the shelf, but he had no prior experience so he was unsure about which one he should choose. 

Ling Che observed him for a while and reached out to probe his forehead when he stood up.

On the display screen, Ling Che appeared to be a little rough.

This time, he made physical contact with Xu Tangzhou for real and the latter stepped back in surprise and leaned against the shelf.

Ling Che said with a frown: “You’re having a fever.” 

Xu Tangzhou thought in a panic: No, it was heat.

Pseudo-heat.

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