Yuan Xingcheng's face went dark in an instant.
As if he wanted to be paired with her!
Yang Liu's eyes lit up instead, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. She glanced at her original teammate with a flicker of disdain—she had come for Yuan Xingcheng. If she could spin a little on-screen chemistry with him, her follower count would explode. Fame would be just a few episodes away.
Bad luck, though—she’d been stuck with a comedian host. Please. Being funny is not exactly a rare skill.
So when Yuan Meng said she wanted to swap partners, Yang Liu's mind ticked over. If Yuan Meng could switch, why couldn't she? Yet the host wore an apologetic smile and shook his head. “Ms. Yuan, we agreed on the pairs ahead of time. We can’t just change them on a whim—otherwise the show loses structure, don’t you think?”
Yuan Meng hesitated, looked at Yuan Xingcheng, then reluctantly nodded. “Fine.”
The matter was dropped. The host moved on to the next segment: choose your supplies.
Two tables had been shoved together on the dock, crowded with tools, food, and bottled water. This was an adventure program; their destination was an uninhabited island. Whether they would find anything to eat there was anyone’s guess. Choosing provisions mattered.
“Ladies first,” Zhao Lei suggested with a chuckle. “We’ve got one lady in each group—three of you, pick ahead.”
Zhao Heng agreed with a smile. Yuan Xingcheng said nothing, but he lifted his chin slightly, motioning for Yuan Meng to step forward. He didn’t like the woman who shared his aunt’s name, but manners were manners.
Guo Man, being the oldest, was given the polite precedence. She smiled brightly and picked compressed biscuits, water, and a handy tool—just in case there were wild animals on the island.
Yang Liu, not an idiot, followed suit with similar items.
Yuan Meng sauntered up as if she had nowhere else to be. She had already fixed her gaze on one item: a plate of small, irresistibly pretty pastries. They looked delicious—completely impractical for a survival trip, but she didn’t seem to care. The other cast and even the host blinked in surprise.
“Are you sure?” Guo Man tried to be helpful, but Yuan Meng put on an innocent, almost childlike expression. “I just… like these.”
No one argued further. The rest made their selections, and the six of them were blindfolded and ferried out to sea.
The blindfolds were thick; the world went black. Being unable to see made the air feel colder, closer—tiny, irrational terrors crawled under their skin. Yuan Meng fidgeted, realized someone was beside her, and asked a few questions that went unanswered. She concluded it must be the cameraman assigned to her group.
Without warning she flopped down and wrapped her arms around the cameraman's thigh. The man started in surprise and, not wanting to upset her, froze.
“Wahhh, cameraman bro,” she sobbed in a mock-pleading voice. “You look sturdy—so much safer than that other guy. You’ve got to protect me!”
The cameraman was speechless. Yuan Xingcheng could only think one thing: if he had to babysit her on the island, he might as well be a dog.
The boat cut across the river fast, but with their eyes covered time stretched. Eventually they reached the island and were set down in three different spots; the boat pulled away again. When Yuan Meng felt the earth under her feet, she knew it was safe to remove the blindfold.
Stores of green greeted them—wild, lush, unkempt. The name “uninhabited” was no joke; dense foliage swallowed the horizon. Yuan Xingcheng, uninterested in making small talk, tore off his blindfold and strode off in one direction. Yuan Meng arched an eyebrow and followed.
About ten minutes of hiking, and Yuan Meng had had enough. “I’m exhausted,” she announced, looking reluctant to sit on the dirty ground. “Dead tired.”
Yuan Xingcheng inwardly rolled his eyes but kept his cool for the sake of his on-camera image. Still, the barbed side of him peeked through. “You can’t walk for ten minutes? What did you think when you signed up for a show like this? You’re more high-maintenance than a real diva.”
Yuan Meng ignored him and kept plodding along. They drifted in and out of pace—stop, go; stop, go—until noon arrived and they’d found nothing.
Yuan Xingcheng, raised with spoiled comforts, hadn’t endured this kind of slog before. His stomach rumbled so loudly he could hear it. Then he remembered the pastries.
“Hey—when we picked supplies, you chose those little pastries, right? It’s noon now… they’re edible.” He didn’t bother to hide the implication: share them.
Yuan Meng blinked with wide, innocent eyes. “Oh! I’d forgotten.”
For a second he smiled—then his grin vanished. She produced the pastries and, without any hurry or regard, began to eat them herself, chewing as if she had all day and he was a ghost.
“You—” Yuan Xingcheng was fuming but couldn’t come out and order her to share. “Fine. I thought we were teammates. If you won’t be fair, don’t complain later that I don’t share what I find.”
Mouth full, Yuan Meng puffed her cheeks and looked utterly adorable. “Did you find anything yet? You’ve been walking all morning and seem to have dug up nothing.”
Ouch. He felt that one. Her tone—so innocent, so pointedly naive—stung more than any insult. He forced out a retort. “We were late getting here. Besides, look at your selection—pastries and ribbons won’t help at all.”
Yuan Meng remained sweetly unfazed. “So what? Not having them doesn’t stop anything.”
“Fine.” He bristled. “Then let’s make a bet. Whoever finds supplies first gets to forbid the other from using them. No exceptions.”
“Okay.” Yuan Meng agreed without a beat. Then, with a sudden, graceless thud, she toppled sideways into the undergrowth—and a small avalanche of supplies tumbled out from wherever she’d been hiding them.
Tin cans, a water pouch, a folding knife, a packet of dried food—one after another clattered onto the leaf-strewn ground.
For a heartbeat Yuan Xingcheng simply stared. Then his expression slipped between dumbfounded and furious all at once.