CH 17.4

Do You Still Hate Her? 07 – The most handsome man in Shang Lu’s eyes

Ye Lu, who had no idea what had happened, felt inexplicably excluded and confused.

It’s really strange. Shang Lu and Lin Yanyan are so quiet today, Ye Lu wondered.

After arriving at the filming location, Lin Yanyan could only stand back with Xu Ze and Song Zeqian.

Both sides divided the tasks among themselves—two people would go in to search for the jigsaw puzzle pieces, while one person would wait outside.

The outcome of the task wasn’t usually that important, but Shang Lu didn’t want to drink bitter melon juice. So she looked at Ye Lu and directly assigned him, saying, “You wait outside.”

Ye Lu immediately protested, “Why?”

He could reluctantly accept it if Shang Lu was together with Lin Yanyan, but why could Yu Su take his place?

Shang Lu looked at Ye Lu with a ‘What nonsense are you saying?’ expression and asked, “Can you go in and search? Go in vertically and come out horizontally1?”

Ye Lu remained silent.

Oh, right, he was afraid of ghosts.

After realizing that Shang Lu was showing concern for him, Ye Lu reluctantly agreed to the task distribution.

Shang Lu looked at Yu Su again and confirmed, “You’re not afraid, right? Otherwise, the two of you can wait here while I go alone.”

Yu Su shook his head at her, indicating that he could handle it.

On the other side, Lin Yanyan, just like Ye Lu, was also left outside, waiting for her teammates to bring out the puzzle pieces and assemble the tangram.

There was a table nearby with two sets of tangrams of different colors placed on it, which were actually the fragmented shapes that the guests needed to find for reference.

There was still a long time to go, and waiting outside was boring.

But when Lin Yanyan and Ye Lu locked eyes, her mood immediately soured.

She thought that it was all Ye Lu’s fault for being so useless! If he wasn’t afraid of ghosts, he could have gone in to search for the puzzle pieces and left Shang Lu outside to accompany her and chat!

And Ye Lu looked at her with a bewildered expression.

Naturally, Ye Lu sensed that Lin Yanyan was displeased with him, but he didn’t understand why.

Someone commented:

[Is this what they mean by being brainless and unhappy?]

[He’s also Shang Lu’s right-hand man (bushi).]

[Shang Lu : It’s my good fortune to have you all with me. (Can’t Stop Laughing emoji)]

Meanwhile, inside the haunted house.

This is where Shang Lu’s advantage comes into play. In the dark environment, her vision is much better than others. Even when faced with terrifying decorations around her, she can maintain a blank expression. Even if an NPC dressed as a ghost suddenly jumps out, she can calmly greet them and say good morning.

After several failed attempts to scare Shang Lu, the NPCs in the haunted house start to feel unaccomplished and shift their focus to the remaining people.

Song Zeqian appears calm as well. Even in the enclosed room, he still doesn’t take off his sunglasses. After being scared twice, he adapts to their scare tactics and starts searching for puzzle pieces.

On the other hand, Yu Su and Xu Ze seem to be having a hard time.

Both of them are startled by the sudden appearance of the NPCs, causing their bodies to stiffen. They even tremble while searching for items.

However, their personalities are somewhat similar and they both don’t like to talk much. So, even if they are scared, they will endure silently without disturbing others.

As a result, in this haunted house, apart from the NPCs’ efforts to perform and howl, it becomes eerily quiet.

This is how the barrage comments summarize the situation.

[Shang Lu and Song Zeqian are not afraid. Xu Ze and Yu Su are afraid but they don’t make a sound. It’s a harmonious scene, a wise arrangement of personnel.]

[Director’s team : I worked so hard to arrange these scenes, and I didn’t expect you all to pass through so calmly!]

If Lin Yanyan or Ye Lu were here, the screams would probably be loud enough to shake the ceiling. It’s a bit of a pity.

Shang Lu quickly found several purple fragments belonging to their team and went to meet Yu Su. The two of them briefly assembled the fragments in the room but realized that they were still missing the final piece.

They turned the whole room upside down but couldn’t find the whereabouts of the last piece of the puzzle.

On the other side, Song Zeqian’s voice also rang out, saying, “We’re also missing a piece here. It must be part of the program’s arrangement.”

Indeed, that was the case. The program wouldn’t let them leave the haunted house so easily. There was another task—

Two-person three-legged race in the haunted house.

The game was still the same game, but playing it under these circumstances was a first for them.

After completing the task, both teams would receive the final piece of the puzzle. However, the winning team could leave a minute earlier to meet their teammates at the entrance.

A minute is almost enough to complete a tangram puzzle. Basically, it’s equivalent to determining the winning team now, so they won’t have to drink bitter gourd juice in the end.

Because they’ve been searching on the first floor for half an hour and have basically figured out the structure here, the competition location is now on the second floor.

This is a room that is neither too big nor too small, even darker than downstairs. No one can see the specific environment here clearly, except when Shang Lu squints her eyes, she can barely see some things.

Strangely, it’s quite empty here, as if there’s nothing placed.

But when Shang Lu lowered her head, he noticed something wrong because there seemed to be many buttons on the ground.

So Shanlu stretched out his foot and stepped on one.

“+3 seconds.”

An electronic female voice sounded.

Only then did the production director (PD) explain the rules of this round to them. The buttons on the ground represent different scores. Each team needs to walk from the entrance to the innermost part of the room. The buttons they step on will light up, and the displayed seconds on the buttons will be added together. The team with the lowest total time wins.

However, these buttons represent different numbers of seconds, and stepping on fewer buttons doesn’t necessarily mean a shorter total time.

After thinking seriously for a while, Shang Lu looked at the PD and asked, “So, the key to determining our win or loss is not how long we spend walking over there, but the buttons on the ground, right?”

The PD nodded and acknowledged that Shang Lu’s statement was correct. He then provided the program staff with the values obtained from five trial walks. The lowest total time recorded was twenty-five seconds, while the highest reached a surprising one hundred seconds.

The staff quickly approached and tied the legs of both teams.

Since this was a game entirely based on luck, Song Zeqian didn’t want to waste too much time on it. He turned to Xu Ze and said, “Let’s begin.”

Xu Ze nodded in agreement.