Ji Nuo’s appearance gave him a sickly, weak look. Although he was usually efficient at tasks, everyone chalked it up to practice. Only Han Cheng and Lu Aotian understood something about his freakish strength.
So, him flooring a special forces soldier with one punch seemed near impossible to outsiders. Hence, once Ji Nuo had thrown the punch, he immediately said, “Don’t you fake it! Get up! Trying to frame me now, huh! Tell me why you wouldn’t even let a child off!”
Even though Ji Nuo hadn’t had many acting opportunities these past years, he still had this much acting skill. Quickly, he perfectly enacted the script Han Cheng had arranged earlier.
The shore became a scene of chaos, and the live stream’s danmaku multiplied until nothing was visible.
After Ji Nuo helped Lu Aotian pin the blame firmly, he smoothly “calmed down” under Ming Yu’s coaxing, remaining pale-faced by the reef, staring at the ocean while several figures in bright orange rescue suits busily searched.
Because the seawater was turbid and deep, those on shore could see nothing of what happened underwater.
Combined with Lu Aotian struggling once after entering the water and quickly sinking to the bottom, all hearts were wrenched tight for a time.
At the same time, Weng Kai, one of the first batch to enter the sea, had not long after entering caught a small moray eel and a small grouper.
Seeing these two were small with little meat, he thought to head back to shore first and trade for more supplies. But as he swam ashore, he learned that such a big incident had happened.
For a moment, he forgot about trading supplies. Even the production team staff were anxiously waiting at the sea’s edge. Everyone was terrified that the child might really be in trouble.
Seconds ticked by. During that time, two lifeguards surfaced for air, both indicating they hadn’t found the child yet. What had started as feigned worry for Ji Nuo had turned into genuine concern. Ignoring others’ attempts to stop him, he quickly began warming up.
Without the staff to hold them back, the children from the cub waiting area also ran over. Ming Yu held down two little girls single-handedly, while Ruirui was scooped up by Peng Li.
There was only one chubby little boy, as slippery as an eel and utterly unwilling to be disciplined, who dodged the production staff’s hands, walked up to the shore, and took pleasure in Ji Nuo’s misfortune: “After this long without finding him, he’s definitely drowned…”
Those words instantly drew everyone’s ire. Usually, no matter how bratty this child was, everyone figured he wasn’t their kid, so it wasn’t their place to discipline him. During the show, they tolerated him as much as they could.
But at this critical moment when another child’s life hung in the balance, he popped up to kick someone when they were down. A six-year-old child with a character so nasty it chilled the bones.
Ming Yu had Weng Kai stop Ji Nuo, but upon hearing this, her straightforward temper flared as she scolded, “Don’t you have an ounce of empathy?! Ao’ao is your little buddy, a little brother you should be protecting!”
The chubby boy had been raised being fawned over his entire life. The only one who could say harsh words to him was his grandfather, though he always knew how to read the room and behaved perfectly in front of his grandpa.
So this was the first time he heard such heavy criticism outside the home, and it was from a female star he looked down on like his stepmother.
The chubby boy instantly exploded like a firecracker and retorted: “I don’t have a brother like that! I wish he were dead! Who the hell are you to talk to me?!”
In his fury, he spoke without thinking at all, nearly letting slip that line “Do you know who my grandfather is?”
Ji Nuo was shaking with rage, but right now he didn’t have time to waste on a bratty kid. He zipped through the ten-minute pre-dive warm-up exercises in a minute and a half. Just as he was about to leap in, a piece of rotten wood the size of an arm suddenly flew onto the shore, landing precisely on Xu Xiaolin’s foot.
Through his shoe, the pain was negligible. But the chubby boy had always been Old Madam Xu’s precious darling clutched in her palm. The tiniest hint of pain would be amplified by him into a world-shattering catastrophe.
After all, the moment he wailed, everyone around him would immediately rush to comfort him and comply with every demand. This time, the chubby boy pulled the same old trick. After being hit, he immediately collapsed on the ground and shrieked, “AHHH!!!”
He howled in pain and rolled around, determined to make whoever hit him pay a severe price. He had no idea that the reef rocks on the shore were not something to mess with. Rolling on them with tender skin was like rolling on a bed of nails. What began as fake crying quickly turned into real tears and snot as the reef scraped him raw, and he screamed bloody murder, demanding they call the police to arrest whoever did it.
But right now, nobody had time for him. All eyes followed the direction the piece of wood had come from. A tiny, eye-catching fluorescent-yellow figure was nimbly stepping along the somewhat steep rocky shore’s edge. It was none other than the little friend Lu Ao’ao, who had been missing for four or five minutes.
Ji Nuo strode forward quickly, grabbing the cub’s sopping clothes and arm to haul the child up. Amid splashing water sounds, Ji Nuo hugged the little one tightly: “Thank goodness, Ao’ao! You scared Uncle to death!!”
Then he immediately let go, checking the child’s body up and down meticulously for any other wounds. Only when he saw the child was completely unharmed did his suspended heart ease. He took a large towel handed over from the side and wrapped the child up carefully.
Ji Nuo took deep breaths and muttered incessantly: “Ao’ao, don’t scare Uncle like that again. I was really so worried something happened to you…”
Something happened? This? What could possibly happen? Didn’t he say he had a foolproof plan… Lu Aotian listened, completely baffled, and was about to spout some cocky remark.
But seeing Ji Nuo’s reddened eyes, he swallowed the words back down and instead grumbled in a slightly complaining murmur: “I already told you it’d be fine… So troublesome…”
Once it was confirmed the child was okay, everyone finally turned their attention back to the truth of the incident.
“What exactly just happened? Was it Uncle William who pushed you?” Ming Yu was the first to ask.
She was relatively close by. When the child fell into the water, she had been concentrating on fiddling with the crossbow in her hands, and she’d vaguely heard something.
Lu Aotian kept his little face stoic and nodded without hesitation.
Facing William, who had tried to harm his little brother, Lu Aotian felt zero psychological pressure denouncing him: “He was upset that Ji Nuo… Un-cle and I swapped places. He pushed me on purpose.”
Those around him showed bemused expressions. Upset about Ji Nuo and Ao’ao swapping places, so he pushed the child into the sea on purpose? Was William crazy or sick? This was a far cry from the good impression William had left on everyone, but indeed, the child had fallen into the sea…
William had already been stunned into a stupor by Lu Aotian’s entire string of shameless schemes, especially that earlier German curse—the harshest one—delivered with such perfect pronunciation, which immediately connected to his encrypted call at midnight.
He was already laden with guilt, and for a moment, his language system short-circuited. He couldn’t explain himself in Chinese at all, his speech a jumble of German and English that sounded like gibberish.
Lu Aotian’s eyes held even more mockery. This was his level of mental fortitude, and he was special forces? Couldn’t he have been discharged early? What a waste!
The incident happened between William and Lu Aotian. Neither of them was wearing a GoPro, and the main live stream camera could only capture their backs from a slightly distant angle. This had originally been exactly what William was counting on.
His idea had been that with insufficient evidence, it would come down to one person’s word against the other. His injuries would be more serious than Ji Nuo’s. As long as he played the victim well enough, what did truth matter? Both the law and public opinion would lean in his favor… Yet things changed in a flash. In an instant, the black pot he’d designed was slammed back onto him.
And the parties involved had shifted from him and Ji Nuo—two grown men—to him and a four-year-old child. The kid was resolutely insisting he’d been pushed into the sea. No matter how wronged he felt, no one would believe that a child would jump in himself to frame him!
Thinking of this, William could only deny it feebly in Chinese: “I didn’t! I really didn’t! He’s lying!”
And exactly as William thought, everyone on scene was looking at him with ugly expressions. The guests with children especially instinctively moved their kids behind them, terrified that this William would do something else insane.
The danmaku online was a bloody storm:
[Damn, this foreigner is disgusting. On the main stream footage, I kept staring at the Ao cub. I watched the child fly out after his arm swung!!!]
[This is attempted murder, right?! Call the police, lock this William up first, too terrifying!]
[William deserves to die, I’ll say that first, but I still don’t get it. Why would Ao’ao swapping spots with Ji Nuo provoke William to push him? The logic is weird, it feels like something’s missing…]
[Where’s Bai Yong? Off eating crap?! Such a big thing happened and he still hasn’t shown up???]
The moment the danmaku started cursing Bai Yong, Bai Yong came over, baring his teeth and clutching his hip. He was also completely baffled. Although he had agreed to Lu Ao’ao replacing Ji Nuo in the water, he never imagined the child would be pushed in early.
