Chapter 29: 29.1

If someone else did this, they might be criticized by the viewers. After all, the viewers weren’t fools – despite the contestants acting all buddy-buddy with each other, they were all still competing by the end of the day. 

But if this matter was done by Fu Jinxiao, they would only laugh it off. According to logic, it was Anran1 who took the initiative in joining Fu Jinxiao’s team. So it was his fault if he was duped in the end. Besides, the viewers already knew Actor Fu’s temperament for many years now – they were used to this. He’s the black-bellied type, so of course he would do something like this. 

Anran, who still didn’t know much about the actual situation, took the mask and asked hesitantly, “Then why don’t you two wear it?”

“Us? Well, this might be the logo of our team, but since you are the rookie amongst us three, it will naturally be passed for you to wear,” Fu Jinxiao lied through his teeth. 

At first glance, there seemed to be nothing wrong with his words.

But Anran’s gut feelings told him otherwise. 

Fu Jinxiao’s smile faded. He was very accurate in grasping people’s hearts, so he spoke as if he wanted to take his offer back, “If you don’t want to, forget it.”

Seeing that the mask was about to be taken back, Anran snatched it back immediately, and quickly put it on like a treasure. He slapped his own face, and then he quickly explained himself, as he was afraid that Fu Jinxiao might misunderstand, “No no no, I want to join you!”

Fu Jinxiao smiled.

The audience in the live broadcast room laughed like crazy.

[You are still too naive, my child.]

[It’s wrong to add insult to injury, but I can’t help but want to laugh.]

[Fu-ge, you truly are a ruthless man.]

Jian Xingsui was still in shock, and his dazed little expression became one of the jokes. The audience quickly christened his expression into a reaction meme.

Before this, everyone had given him the nickname of “20,000 yuan Brother”. Their impression of him was that he was a very naive boy. After this battle royale, many viewers found that most of the contestants are actually smarter than they usually appear. In contrast, this simple kid suddenly looked very attractive, especially when he was following behind the shrewd Actor Fu. It was as if the big-tailed wolf suddenly gained a little white rabbit as a loyal follower. The contrast between the two was very appealing. 

Fu Jinxiao turned around and patted Jian Xingsui, “Let’s go.”

Jian Xingsui nodded quickly, “Okay.”

After this rag-tag team walked forward a bit, they heard a distant voice from the radio upstairs: “There are 10 minutes left until the end of the game. The remaining players are 30 in total, 19 on the red side and 11 on the blue side. The current score of the red camp is 43 points, the blue camp’s score is 54 points. We are about to close the passages on the third, fourth and fifth floors. We kindly ask for all players to please move to the first floor’s lobby as soon as possible.” 

It was almost like shrinking the poison circle2. 

It is impossible for the contestants to hide. It forced those who hid in the dark to come out. The dawn of the final battle came closer and closer. 

Anran asked, “Why do we only have so few people left?”

Jian Xingsui looked around and said, “The red camp’s firepower is quite fierce.”

“But our score is quite high, who has all those torn off name tags then?” Anran pretended to ask casually, but he actually kept looking at the two people beside him.

Jian Xingsui hesitated for a moment, considering whether to answer or not.

Fu Jinxiao, however, glanced at Anran lightly, and said in a slow tone, “It’s not with you anyway.”

“…” 

It was the truth, but it felt slanderous somehow. 

Anran’s parlor was now gloomier, but he didn’t dare to talk back to Fu Jinxiao. Of course he also guessed that this should be a sensitive issue, so he simply stopped asking.

He came here for a team-up because he wanted to get screen time together with Fu Jinxiao. What he didn’t expect, however, was that instead of having a wonderful start, he got the beginning of a nightmare instead.

All three of them went down to the second floor, but they bumped into people from the enemy – the red camp.

The members of the red camp were taken aback for a moment, and the person leading the team was Zhou Xun. He was holding a water gun. When he saw the three blue camp members approaching from the opposite side of the room, he immediately picked up the gun vigilantly and made a defensive posture.

The person behind him said, “It’s the masked man! Zhou-ge, it’s him!” 

Zhou Xun also noticed it, and he said angrily, “We finally found him.”

“It’s him who eliminated many people from our camp.” The younger man behind him said, “Zhou-ge, the points on the blue camp’s side are so high, and most of them are held by the masked man, it seemed to be attached to his cell phone. Should we…”

Zhou Xun spat, “Of course I know! But you didn’t see the masked man’s phone. And that’s Fu-ge beside him!”

No one dared to tear Fu Jinxiao’s name tag. So having him was enough of a deterrent – by just standing there menacingly, he could emit a pressure that scared people. 

The younger man encouraged him and said: “Then we don’t tear Fu-ge’s name tag, we just need to deal with the masked man. We couldn’t let that masked man escape!”

Zhou Xun thought so too, so he nodded. This time, he was unlucky to not be in the same team as Anran. As they were technically enemies in this game, Zhou Xun was always worried he would meet his sweetheart and had no choice but to fight him. But if he didn’t perform well because he was soft to Anran, he would lose his face. 

But it seemed that his luck was coming around. He met the infamous masked man here. So long he succeeded in taking off the masked man’s name tag, won’t all of his problems be solved in one fell swoop? 

The only caveat was that Fu-ge is here, and it’s a 2v3 in his team’s disadvantage. 

“Hey, you are here too.” Just as he was thinking, a voice came from the nearby upstairs, “I am also from the red camp, what a coincidence.” 

His back-up was here! 

Zhou Xun suddenly breathed a sigh of relief, pointed to the person in front and said, “Over there! The masked man is over there!” 

Without too many words, the red camp back-up members had serious expressions when they heard the word ‘masked man’, “Where is he?”

The masked man was notoriously good. More or less, someone’s friend or teammate has been eliminated by him. Now they have a number advantage over him. Such a big piece of fatty meat, who wouldn’t want to grab his points for themselves? 

The two sides looked at each other, and both saw calculations in each other’s eyes.

Zhou Xun was afraid that the other party would strike first, so he didn’t have time to think carefully. He gave an order to the teammates behind him, “Don’t let them run away, hurry up!” 

With that command, everyone rushed forward – nobody would want to come out as the loser. 

At the other end of the corridor, Anran stared dumbfounded at the rushing red camp, weak and helpless.     

Fu Jinxiao , who was in front of him, had already prepared. He turned around and gave a command to the two people behind him: “Run.”

This time, Zhou Xun was going to go all out. The goal was very clear, which was to defeat the masked man. Anran also wanted to run along with him. Unexpectedly, Zhou Xun rushed over like crazy, holding a water gun and spraying at the three of his enemies. He tried to aim at the biggest piece of meat, and ignored the other two. 

Anran still tried to resist: “You…”

Zhou Xun said harshly, “I see where you are going this time!”

The overwhelming water poured down, and there was no way to retreat. Before Anran could open the door of the cafeteria, he wanted Shen Xingchen, who was also holding a water gun, to make trouble for Jian Xingsui. 

But alas, he never expected that the person who would finally enjoy this kind of treatment was actually himself. And on top of that, he was shot by his good friend. 

Anran: “…”

As the red camp members rushed up and tore off his name tag, Zhou Xun was stunned after he took a good look at the masked man’s identity. He raised his head hesitantly, his voice wavering, “Ranran?” 

It was actually Anran who was splashed wet like a drowned rat. Miserably, he took off the mask, wanting to cry but no tears came. How could he still have the beauty of a fairy boy now? His hair was messed up, and his makeup was smudged. He looked uglier than usual – just like another nameless character nobody would care about. 

In contrast to Anran’s misery, the audience in the live broadcast room was very happy with the current turn of events.

[This is too tragic.]

[It’s really difficult for our Angelic Ranran…] 

[Is it just me or now I think he’s not particularly good-looking…?]

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[Think carefully about the many things that happened this time. After the contestant was drenched in water, he would lose his hairstyle. And that’s an easy point to dock from their current good-looks. Though, there’s an exception to this rule…] 

Of course, the audience was talking about Jian Xingsui. 

Because of the strong contrast of Anran’s appearance, many viewers suddenly became inspired. They put a college of comparison between the before and after a contestant was drenched. Not-so-surprisingly, they found out that the person with the most consistent good-look was their 20,000 yuan Brother. 

That’s right, it’s him, who was currently sporting a buzz-cut hairstyle. No matter if he’s wet or not, his hair wouldn’t change.

That’s right, it’s him, who casually wiped off his drenched face, not caring if he would smudge his make-up. Because he’s not wearing any, he has no such worry.

Combining those two facts made this young man stand out from the crowd. 

The audience also sighed with emotion:

[Sure enough, the buzz-cut hairstyle is the true test of appearance. Idols nowadays are hard-carried by their trendy hairstyles.] 

[Actually, if you look closely, I think he is very good-looking.]

[At first I didn’t think he was very handsome, but now I think he’s very attractive now.] 

[His facial features are very three-dimensional. This is the kind that a cute girl would fight wars over~] 

Anran never thought that when he came here to get extra screen time, he would instead become a foil to Jian Xingsui because of their differences in hairstyle and make-up. Not only did he end up making a wedding dress3 for Jian Xingsui by mistake; nobody felt sorry for him, and he can’t even sell his misery for the audience’s pity points! 

On the other side, Jian Xingsui, who ran out of the crowd all the way to the hall, felt his legs go limp. He had never been so excited in his life.

Fu Jinxiao, who was beside him, glanced sideways at him, “Is this not enough?”

“Huh?” Jian Xingsui looked up, and found that the movie emperor4 next to him had obviously run the same distance, but he was neither flushing red nor panting. Curiosity took over, so he asked, “Ge, are you so physically strong?” 

Fu Jinxiao raised his eyebrows when he heard the words, and commented mercilessly: “It’s because you lack exercise.”

Jian Xingsui murmured softly: “I have been exercising for a while. But I still feel dizzy…” 

“Exercising requires long-term persistence,” Fu Jinxiao guided the child’s wrong thoughts, but he spoke not in a criticizing tone, rather it was in an impartial one, “I have strengthened my physical fitness for a long time. Coupled that with my work in many films, it was no wonder I would be stronger than you. A good physical condition is also a kind of professionalism in my line of work.” 

Jian Xingsui inwardly complained in his thoughts, ‘Just what level do you consider hard-working? You injured your throat because you sang too much, you skipped many meals until your stomach needed extra care, and you have a lot of old injuries because of filming accidents. Don’t you feel a little bit of shame telling your junior to take care of his body?’ 

He secretly slandered the older man from the bottom of his heart, so his facial expression was a little out of control. Fu Jinxiao squinted his eyes and easily noticed this, so he used this opportunity to tease the youth, “Are you secretly saying bad things about me in your heart?”

Jian Xingsui was shocked!

He looked at Fu Jinxiao in disbelief. Does this man have mind reading skills?

Fu Jinxiao raised his eyebrows, and his tone became a little threatening: “Hey, I was really right, then?” 

Jian Xingsui wanted to quibble, but looking at Fu Jinxiao’s dark eyes, he suddenly remembered that the actor said he hated liars the most. So he obediently begged for mercy: “I was wrong, I don’t dare to do it again, I will definitely exercise hard.”

‘His little cowardly appearance was actually cute,’ Fu Jinxiao mused. 

Fu Jinxiao couldn’t hold back his muffled laughter. It was the kind of joy that resonated in his chest, different from the public relations-style polite laugh he usually used. He was really amused by the youth in front of him.

The audience in the live broadcast room also laughed:

[These two people are inexplicably so cute.]

[I don’t know why but I feel they’re quite sweet lol.] 

[I didn’t have this feeling when I saw his CP with Anran. The corners of my mouth couldn’t stop rising up when I saw them talking to each other.] 

[Fu-ge really likes to bully people~]

As the audience was discussing things, the radio suddenly broadcast an announcement:

“The time is up, this game is officially over. The red camp’s final score is 51 points, and the blue camp’s final score is 57 points. The winner is blue camp! The staff will calculate the winner’s name tags, so please gather in the square.”

The broadcast ended, heralding the noisy burst of cheers from the blue camp’s members. They won from a headwind position! Their joy was making them a little bit too wild. 

Jian Xingsui was also very happy when he heard the broadcast. He raised his head and smiled at Fu Jinxiao with sparkling eyes: “I didn’t expect to win.”

“Yes,” Fu Jinxiao nodded, tore off his name tag, and said in a low voice: “We won.”

Jian Xingsui paused.

He mused about what Fu Jinxiao meant by “we”. 

It turned out that one day, and there was such a lucky day. He was considered in Fu Jinxiao’s definition of “us”. Not “him” nor “you”. “Us” together. 

This might just be a casual sentence from the actor, but Jian Xingsui’s ears are extremely hot. He was like a sponge that has dried up for a long time, carefully absorbing all the available invisible warmth, carefully cherishing every scrap he could find.

Fu Jinxiao handed him the name tag and said, “Why are you so dazed, go and hand in the name tag to the staff.”

Jian Xingsui quickly took it over and replied, “Okay.”

After reacting, he realized that these were two name tags. After hesitating for a while, he said, “Ge, I’ll just hand in this one. Or, do you want me to hand in your name tag too?” 

Fu Jinxiao nodded, “It can also be counted as points.”

The words “Fu Jinxiao” were written in black, regular script. It looked plain, if not for the words printed on it. Jian Xingsui squeezed it a little bit harder in his hand, and hesitated for a moment.

Fu Jinxiao urged: “Hurry up, if you hand it a little later, you won’t get into any screen time.” 

“…Okay.”

He ran to the scoring staff with small steps and handed over the name tag. The staff took a look and said: “This is no good, Fu-ge‘s name tag was not torn by you, so it cannot be counted as your score.”

Jian Xingsui was not sad: “It’s okay.” 

Just as the staff threw the sign into the box aside, Jian Xingsui suddenly said: “Hey, since there is no scoring, can you give me this name tag?” 

The staff looked at him in surprise.

“I mean…” Jian Xingsui was also a little embarrassed at his sudden query: “It doesn’t count anyway, right?”

Although the staff felt a little strange in their hearts, in the end, it really didn’t matter. So they nodded in agreement, “Okay, you can take it.”

Jian Xingsui hurriedly took Fu Jinxiao’s name tag from the box. It seemed that the name tag still had some warmth, and he put it in his pocket like a treasure.

Everything he experienced recently was as happy as a dream. He was very afraid that if one day he woke up from this pleasant dream, he wouldn’t know what to do. After tasting a bit of sweetness, he no longer could live in bitterness. 

But… every good thing has an expiration date. He could be so lucky in his life. 

In the end, he thought that this was enough. Even if he was to be eliminated from the show, with this memento, he could recall those sweet memories to give him extra strength to continue forward. 

1

the previous translator used “An Ran”. But since his full name is “Jian Anran”, I chose to translate it this way so as to not make it seem like “An” is his surname.

2

like in PUBG. The “safe zone” is steadily shrinking, and the area outside of the safe zone will decrease your HP continuously.

3

trying to make a trouble for someone, but ending up giving them benefits instead.

4

award-winning actor; another synonym would be “film king”

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