He Mingyan’s sudden death left all the artists under her without anyone to manage them. The company lacked managers, so several assistants were promoted in quick succession. After treating the supervisor to several meals, Liu Xu finally managed to secure Chu Shicha for himself.
The discarded chess piece returned to the board.
Liu Xu was bursting with excitement. That very night, in the twenty-square-meter apartment, he and Chu Shicha cooked a two-flavor pot of spicy skewers.
They could not afford alcohol, so they made do with boiled water. Liu Xu discovered Chu Shicha secretly stirring white sugar into his cup, absurdly delicate about such things.
“Come on, a toast to our glorious future!” Liu Xu was overjoyed. Although he had a mountain of unfinished tasks and they had no work at present, he was beside himself with excitement over having rescued the fallen youth Chu Shicha.
Chu Shicha picked up two pieces of flower-cut sausage with his chopsticks. His expression was calm, though the faintest softness rested on his face. “Cheers.”
He licked at the sweet sugar water, steam clinging to his lashes.
Liu Xu said, “From now on, I’m your manager. You need to work hard for me and earn money seriously. But we don’t have to put too much pressure on ourselves either. We’ll take it slowly. Just keep moving forward!”
Infected by his enthusiasm, Chu Shicha asked, “Forward to where?”
Liu Xu had not expected that question. His hand, holding a shrimp dumpling, paused. “Let me think…”
“Best Supporting Actor, of course! Best Male Lead! Best Actor!! We charge across the country! Then we charge across the world!”
“…Mm.”
Liu Xu said, “Ah, if you become Best Actor, doesn’t that make me a gold-medal manager? Thinking about it that way feels pretty damn great.”
They drank one-yuan bottled water, ate a hotpot that had cost thirty yuan to make, and talked about dreams impossibly far away.
Blue sky, white clouds, a light breeze, and the softness in his eyes.
Liu Xu stared blankly, as though he could see some future day when this ice-cold beauty at the center of his heart walked step by step toward the light.
Merely imagining it was enough to bring tears to his eyes.
After they ate, Liu Xu brought out several workable plans. Their first priority was to stabilize Chu Shicha’s fanbase and wash away his reputation as the cancer of the entertainment industry.
Chu Shicha posted on Weibo: “It’s never too late to start over.” Three minutes later, he and Liu Xu opened the comments.
Well, damn.
—Ugh. White Lotus Chu has a new target now? Not tying yourself to Brother Mo Wenyu anymore?
—I’d believe those words from literally anyone except you.
—Cancer of the entertainment industry, get out of the entertainment industry!
…
Liu Xu’s chest ached. He closed Weibo. Chu Shicha showed no particular reaction and even comforted him. “It’s all right.”
Liu Xu took over Chu Shicha’s fan group. It was cold and deserted, without a single genuinely active fan. After pulling several group administrators into a chat, Liu Xu disbanded the fan group outright and declared angrily, “We don’t need a fan group like this!”
Chu Shicha sat beside him, eating nutritional tablets as if they were a meal. “If it’s disbanded, then let it be. There weren’t many active fans anyway.”
Liu Xu felt unbearably sour inside. “It’s fine. There’ll definitely be lots in the future! We don’t have work right now, so all we can do is manage the fans and Weibo properly.”
He had barely finished saying they had no work when his phone rang. The director of Wilderness Livelihood wanted Chu Shicha on the show. Liu Xu was thrilled and immediately agreed. Then he searched the program online, and his face almost collapsed.
“Chacha… I think I may have accepted a not-so-great show for you.” Liu Xu looked through the premise and format of Wilderness Livelihood and worried that his precious darling might not be able to handle it. “The show has no fixed script. The conditions are just really harsh, and not many people watch it.”
“It’s a wilderness-survival type of show. The new director added a livestream format, which actually looks pretty fun. But you’d have to live in the wild for fifteen days. Can you do it?”
Chu Shicha nodded. Liu Xu widened his eyes and scanned him from head to toe like a machine.
“Sounds good.” Chu Shicha was perfectly willing.
Soon, Chu Shicha met with the director of Wilderness Livelihood and finalized the arrangement.
On November 10, Chu Shicha went to the hospital for vaccinations in preparation for the wilderness trip.
This season, Wilderness Livelihood was using a completely different variety-show format, divided into an online version and a TV version. The online version pioneered a livestream format; the TV version was nothing unusual.
“So, during the fifteen days you live in the wild, the livestream will begin at six in the morning and continue until ten at night. There’ll be a two-hour break at noon, and the broadcast will run about half a day behind real time.” Liu Xu carefully analyzed the rules for Chu Shicha. “Support points are extremely important in the livestream format. Fans have the right to determine where supplies are dropped. In other words, the more people who like you, the more survival supplies will appear around you… Damn it, why is this rule so unfriendly to us?!”
Liu Xu nearly clutched his head and cried.
“Chacha… You might go all fifteen days without getting any supplies. What are we going to do?”
Chu Shicha remained calm. “The production team should provide minimum guaranteed supplies. A person only dies after about seven days without food or water, and the wilderness has plenty of fruit. It should probably be fine.”
Every inch of Liu Xu radiated worry. “At the moment, you only have a few thousand stabilized fans, but the support club and I will do everything we can to boost you! We absolutely won’t let you go hungry!”
Liu Xu continued, “The livestream ultimately determines how much screen time you get in the TV edit.”
“If this show can attract some face-fans and casual fans, maybe the TV version can open a path for you too.”
Chu Shicha asked, “Why are they keeping all the other artists’ identities secret?”
Liu Xu turned a page and looked over the contract. “The production team’s usual hype tactics.”
“Maybe they’re afraid that if the others see my name, they’ll break their contracts and refuse to come.” Chu Shicha joked.
After a period of reorganizing the fanbase, Chu Shicha could at least count a few people who simply liked his face. The moment they heard he was joining Wilderness Livelihood, they enthusiastically supported him, sending flowers to their idol and making his livestream page look slightly less miserable.
The production schedule was tight. News that Chu Shicha would participate in Wilderness Livelihood spread without prompting, and several discussion groups appeared online almost instantly.
—White Lotus Chu is really miserable, huh? He even has to go on a savage-survival livestream? Looks like his company’s business ability is garbage!
—Let me watch. Do you think Chu Shicha can actually come back alive from wilderness survival this time? I can’t wait to see that weak, delicate White Lotus Chu get wrecked in the wild.
—Oh ho, White Lotus Chu pretended to be a couple with Mo Wenyu last time and they tore each other apart. Now they’re meeting on a show? I can’t wait! Brother Mo Wenyu, slap him hard across the face!
—Taking Brother Wenyu away. We’re not participating in this nonsense.
Discussion online grew white-hot. The half-continuous livestream and fan voting made netizens even more excited.
Livestreams and variety shows were fundamentally different. A livestream could not manipulate a script as easily, while a variety show had a stronger sense of story. Fans wanted to see their idol’s real side and find a sense of connection at the level of the soul.
The first-night drop point would be selected by fan vote. There were four points, A, B, C, and D. Point D had the worst environment and lay farthest from the rescue boat. Mo Wenyu’s fans directly voted Chu Shicha to D and sent Mo Wenyu to supply-rich Point A.
At last they had found a direct way to mess with Chu Shicha. Mo Wenyu’s fans, the Feathers, celebrated as if it were New Year and camped on the webpage waiting for the broadcast to begin.
On the eve of the broadcast, everyone preparing to curse Chu Shicha and everyone waiting to see their idol perform stayed online.
At six in the morning, under Liu Xu’s tearful gaze, Chu Shicha was taken away by car.
Before ten, they were delivered to their drop points.
When the clock reached ten, they removed the cloth tied over their eyes.
Wilderness Livelihood began.
Point D.
On a half-risen peak standing over the little island, Chu Shicha removed his blindfold, tied it around his wrist, and then fixed his gaze on a drone not far away.
From the high ground, the whole island unfolded like a painting.
The director had genuinely managed to secure a private island. On one side stretched dense forest; opposite lay a gray-blue coast.
They would have to survive here for fifteen days, and during that time they had to travel from their various points to the place where the “rescue boat” would dock.
The production team had prepared basic supplies for each contestant in a hiking pack nearby. Chu Shicha found a military knife inside and first sharpened a branch into a walking stick.
A blade could probe too small an area, making it easy to miss snakes, insects, rats, or other hidden dangers. A probing stick would be safer.
Considering how delicate these celebrities were, the backpack also contained a lighter, compass, and spare jacket in addition to the military knife.
Chu Shicha took out the compass and roughly determined the rescue boat’s location—the production team had said it would be at the far southwestern end. All he needed to do was keep moving southwest.
The four points, A through D, were not far apart. Chu Shicha had no intention of looking for anyone. His reputation was already bad enough; if he rashly wandered into someone else’s camera frame, their various fans would probably tear him apart.
To survive in the jungle, the first thing he needed was water.
Chu Shicha cut down a green bamboo stalk nearby and sliced it into short sections to use as cups.
Once that was done, he held the compass and began walking southwest. At minimum, before nightfall he needed to find somewhere not too damp to sleep.
After walking for a long time, Chu Shicha was exhausted.
Codename 0 had possessed a body honed by years of sharp reflexes. Now he was trapped in Chu Shicha’s soft, sickly shell, and three quarters of that sensitivity had vanished. The remaining quarter was dulled further by exhaustion.
Just as he was nearing his limit, he finally found flowing water. He was about to scoop some up with a bamboo cup when a chill brushed his back. A cold gust sliced past his ear, the air driven by a blade stirring a lock of Chu Shicha’s soft black hair.
Against the wind, Chu Shicha tilted his head and sprang aside, watching the newcomer warily.
The next second, he remembered he was being livestreamed. He relaxed his taut posture and looked at the other man in silence.
“Yo~ Little friend, you’re filthy as a mud monkey. I’m Gu Hanjian.”
Utterly shameless, Gu Hanjian raised one finger and scratched at the loose hair near his temple.
As his bright smile spread, a snake rustled through the grass behind him.
“Be careful. The jungle’s full of nasty things. Who knows when something might swallow a delicate little friend like you in one bite?”
Chu Shicha thanked him and tossed him a bamboo cup in return.
The autumn light at noon rose bright and harmonious behind Chu Shicha. His exquisite, composed, soft face rested within the sunlight, making him look unusually young and his eyes brilliantly alive.
Gu Hanjian’s eyes slowly widened into circles. Then he slapped his thigh. “It’s you! The runaway pyramid-scheme employee with a pheasant crest on his head! Don’t think I won’t recognize you just because you dyed your hair black.”
“…” Chu Shicha blinked in surprise.
The man before him wore the same oversized camouflage shell jacket issued to the entire cast. His forehead was exposed, his brows, eyes, and bone structure deep and clear. His aura was arrogant and unruly, and a roguish curve hung at the corner of his mouth.
Seeing Chu Shicha stare blankly, he smacked him on the shoulder in disbelief. “No way. You actually forgot our first time?!”
“…?”