The Stone Catfish in the fish buckets, just like the Free-Range Chickens from the traps, were handed over to the Production Team for uniform processing.
As for the remaining bait like Bamboo Worms and Bee Pupae, it wasn’t part of the Chicken Stewed with Fish recipe, so the guests took it back themselves.
The Production Team’s original plan was for the winning group’s guests to eat Chicken Stewed with Fish at Jade Mountain Town in the evening, then pack their luggage and be sent to a five-star hotel in the city for the night. This would also make it convenient to go to the airport the next day.
In reality, there was a trap here too. Bai Yong, having worked in variety shows for so many years, had a fair understanding of delicate celebrities. Even a variety show pro like Weng Kai’s family would likely drag things out until at least six o’clock to finish.
If they finished the Chicken Stewed with Fish dinner, say, departing at seven, the fastest they could reach the five-star hotel would be a five-and-a-half-hour drive. This meant that more than half of the enviable victors’ night would be spent on a bus. They might as well have stayed at Jade Mountain Town for a solid night’s sleep, had a relaxed breakfast the next morning, and taken an afternoon flight out of Province A.
Bai Yong always loved playing this kind of reversal-upon-reversal game. For example, during the initial room draw, the small western-style house looked the best and most enviable, but that flipped completely when they learned the room fee the next morning.
The same logic applied to the Jade Mountain trip’s final competition. The reward looked huge on the surface, but upon closer analysis, the five-star hotel was a pretty big trap as well.
However, he was always well-versed in the “slap then a sweet date” principle. So, his original plan was to give the champion group preferential treatment during the “Island Trip,” not setting traps on the first night’s room selection and giving them a genuinely good place to stay. That way, they wouldn’t feel the championship win was pointless, allowing the Production Team’s promise of champion rewards to keep stringing people along.
Bai Yong had been deviously trappy like this since his days as an obscure junior director at a local station. Back then, without background or seniority, he showed some restraint.
But he still managed to anger plenty of guests. Every day he was either apologizing or on his way to apologize. His attitude of admitting fault was excellent, yet he resolutely never changed. Off-screen, everyone was his ancestor, but once filming started, he’d go all out for the effect.
It was precisely because of this that Bai Yong could climb to his current position as an Ace Variety Show Director. Many people felt Bai Yong’s success was unreplicable; if he’d encountered someone truly unyielding, he might have simply vanished.
But the current Bai Yong was now Mangosteen Platform’s ratings ace. The artists he invited were increasingly famous, and he was increasingly black-hearted.
Bai Yong’s goal was pure: he wanted every variety show in his hands to be a massive, explosive hit. Who would watch polite, courteous people pretending to be fake on a show? Now that he’d started doing live variety shows, why not play a really big game?
Thus, he always viewed the guests’ gnashing teeth and fan groups’ organized attacks as symbols of his success. Different standpoints meant he naturally saw these things in reverse.
That is, until he met Ji Nuo.
And then, when targeting the weak link, Lu Ao’ao, he kicked an iron plate. Finally, on Han Cheng, he was slapped in the face so hard he had to swallow his broken teeth with blood…
Because it was agreed early on that completing the task meant enjoying Chicken Stewed with Fish with the Granny, even though it was just past two o’clock now, even though Ji Nuo’s family had eaten a rather “luxurious” lunch, Bai Yong—who had been busy and running around on an empty stomach the whole time—still had to remotely connect and ask for their opinion.
As soon as the video call connected, the family of three was sitting in the steadily moving Minibus. The breeze outside fluttered the pale blue curtains. The stunningly good-looking family of three was comfortably enjoying the gentle wind.
Bai Yong found the sight extremely blinding. Gritting his teeth, he forced a Smile: “Should we make the Chicken Stewed with Fish now?”
The moment Lu Aotian heard that dish mentioned, his brain auto-loaded images of poop-covered chickens and stinky fish. His little brows furrowed tightly. He twisted his small body away from the Live Broadcast Lens, refusing to participate in the discussion.
Ji Nuo looked at Han Cheng: “Are you hungry?”
He felt like they’d just finished eating. Swinging the pickaxe while catching bees had used some energy, but he wasn’t tired now.
And perhaps because he’d eaten too much at lunch, the mention of Chicken Stewed with Fish now made him feel a bit nauseous. His head was also a little dizzy; he’d rather go back and lie down for a while.
Han Cheng glanced sideways at the young man’s peach-flushed cheeks. Although the redness on his face had faded, a lot of cold sweat beaded on his forehead and temples. Rather than the stifling flush receding, it looked more like the cold sweat was prematurely carrying away heat.
He shook his head slightly: “Let them make it first and we’ll take it with us. Heat it up when we get to the hotel?”
Ji Nuo thought for a moment and nodded. The two looked at Bai Yong on the video screen. The other party, hearing this, nodded with a face full of world-weariness, secretly resolving in his heart that during next week’s Island Trip, he absolutely had to eliminate this group of bugs!
The first-night accommodation that the champion group gets to prioritize—he definitely wouldn’t let this family of three off easy!
Just like that, Bai Yong, like some sand-sculpture villain, his face screaming “Just you wait!” and “I’ll be back!”, hung up the video call.
The three were first driven back to the “condemned house” to pack their luggage and wait for the local chef to replicate the Jade Mountain version of Chicken Stewed with Fish.
On the way, passing a pharmacy, Han Cheng got off and bought a box of Huoxiang Zhengqi Water. It was one of the common standby medicines when filming at the Film & TV Studio City, and he was very familiar with its effects.
Seeing it, Ji Nuo looked slightly surprised: “Brother Cheng, do you have heatstroke or a stomach flu?”
Han Cheng opened the packaging while asking him: “Any slight dizziness, headache, thirst, excessive sweating, general fatigue and weakness?”
Ji Nuo put down the water bottle in his hand and smacked his lips: “Just a tiny bit.”
Han Cheng responded flatly, without much emotion: “You have heatstroke.”
Ji Nuo’s eyes widened in surprise: “No, I was just feeling stuffy earlier. A breeze will fix it. I’ve had Heatstroke before—vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain, really awful. This is far from that.”
When his agency shelved him, he still had some savings. Later, as online scandals came one after another, online modeling jobs dried up too. For a while, he was extremely worried he wouldn’t make it to college graduation and desperately tried all kinds of work.
During winter and summer breaks, he helped in restaurant kitchens. During school terms, he tutored primary and secondary students. At night, he squeezed in time to run a street stall selling braised skewers…
But he never lasted long at anything. The restaurant’s head chef took a sudden leave, he covered for an afternoon, and the diners’ feedback was good, which earned him the chef’s ire. After finishing that summer break, that was it.
Tutoring students was a more long-term gig, but his school was too remote, and since it was just a bottom-tier school in Cloud City, the tutoring fees minus public transport costs were really not cost-effective.
Running a braised skewer stall became his best option. After two months, the university town management upgraded, and all small stalls were cleared out…
Experiences like this were too numerous. Ji Nuo himself knew he was a bit plagued by bad luck.
Fortunately, he was used to it. Besides these relatively long-term jobs, he joined countless odd-job groups. As long as the timing worked, he’d try almost anything. He needed a financial cushion against risk and accidents more than others.
The Heatstroke happened last summer. Cloud City hit extreme heat. Working as a mascot at the amusement park suddenly became a “high-risk” profession, and the daily wage tripled. Ji Nuo got Heatstroke on his first day trying it. Worried about developing heatstroke, he didn’t dare continue.
Ji Nuo was born weak, sickly as a child, looking like he wouldn’t survive. Before the terminal diagnosis, he always felt he had toughened up his body through training. Although he still looked thin and pale, he had plenty of strength and rarely got “sick.”
It wasn’t until Han Cheng repeatedly confirmed he had heatstroke, and he obediently drank the Huoxiang Zhengqi Water Han Cheng held, that he realized he might have always been wrong about the standard for judging sickness.
It seemed that many discomforts he just gritted his teeth and endured, for ordinary people, were illnesses requiring medicine and rest. Just like this time, he only felt a bit stuffy, but actually, this condition already counted as heatstroke.
Once the three arrived home, Han Cheng told Ji Nuo to go rest in his room first.
Lu Aotian, with a face full of disdain, frowned his little brows: “How can you not even know heatstroke? So stupid.”
Ji Nuo scratched his head blankly: “I didn’t feel that bad…”
Han Cheng took the Thermos Bucket and sought the little one to lead the way. Lu Aotian gave Han Cheng another “you’re even stupider” look, but ultimately led him to the Old Aunt’s house to return things.
The little Snake Lu Aotian hadn’t used was also released back into the mountain wilderness by him in a suitable spot.
After they left, Ji Nuo felt dizzy and quickly grew sleepy. Considering that sleeping too much in the late afternoon could make it hard to wake up, he set an alarm for half an hour.
When the alarm rang, Han Cheng had already brought the child back and repacked all the luggage they’d spread out over the past few days. The freshly made Chicken Stewed with Fish was just delivered.
Half was packed for them to take away; the other half was left for the Granny to taste.
A little past three, the family of three got into the business vehicle for the return trip.
Ji Nuo’s heatstroke symptoms hadn’t completely subsided, but his complexion was much better than before. For him, he had already returned to “normal.”
~
Meanwhile, the other three groups were still struggling with the trap-laden tasks Bai Yong had designed.
Both Tiantian’s family and Ruirui’s family had no idea about Ji Nuo’s group’s competition progress; they were still toiling hard for the champion group’s generous rewards.
Although Tiantian was a bit afraid of bugs, after gritting her teeth and trying a few times, she realized that as long as she didn’t put her hand near the bug’s mouthparts, the Bamboo Worm was just a big, dumb, wriggling bug.
Overcoming this, hanging bait afterward became smoother. Step by step, her chicken-fishing skills improved with practice. In an hour and a half, she successfully lured a chicken into the trap.
But Ruirui wasn’t so lucky.
