CH 29

Eventually Chris left in the early hours of the morning, before it was light. He was even stubborn enough not to let me see him off.

But at least I knew there were no dangerous people around here, apart from the David one. The security in the small town was good too. Otherwise I wouldn't have dared to let him leave alone like that.

Unlike many pathological sociopaths, I'm not really interested in ruining the good things in the world. If Dexter is only focusing on the bad guys who got away with it because of the principles Harry Morgan laid out for him. Then I'm proud to say that I still have the moral code of a normal person inside me.

It may be a bit funny to say that a sociopath has a moral code, but after that incident with David, I really do think I'm still saved. At least not to the extent of being sick to the extent that I find myself disgusting.

And Chris? He'd experienced the same pain, darkness, and shadows that life had caused, but his psyche was cleaner than mine, which had been affected by Brian's personality traits. So clean that I couldn't bear to get any closer.

And I didn't end up lying to him. I really couldn't date a regular boyfriend because of the influence of Brian's personality, and if I were to date him now, I don't think the relationship would last long. Because right now I'm too selfish and don't care about anything, so how can I maintain a relationship between the two of them?

That kind of bad situation is something I really don't want to try.

Using Chris to try and break out of my own inner shadow made me feel unusually guilty towards him. But soon the part of me that belonged to Brian convinced me to stop caring.

I redirected my energy into my studies and the modelling work I usually received. Chris hadn't contacted me again during this time, either. It was as if he, as a person, had suddenly disappeared from my life.

Not long after, during my mid-term break in my first semester at Stanford, a letter arrived back from the Survivor crew. I had passed their preliminary audition and was still going through one more interview before I could be selected.

I bought another flight to New York, packed briefly for a few days, and set off again.

It was just after a quarter past noon, just two hours out of the New York airport, when I dropped off my bags at a small, somewhat out-of-the-way but inexpensive hotel I had seen beforehand and cleaned myself up.

The next thing I knew, it was time for my scheduled interview at 16:00 pm. I didn't have to wait long, the interviewers seemed to be notified in time slots, and only five people had arrived before it was my turn.

"Hello, please have a seat." There were four people sitting in the interview room and the only woman in the room waved her hand in an inviting gesture and spoke. "Your name is Brian is it?"

I had scanned the four people in the room with an unobtrusive gaze as I entered this room. The woman who spoke was dressed strongly and professionally, but the fact that she was the one who spoke in the first place meant that if she didn't have too much control over the whole situation, she was presiding over the scene as the lowest-ranking of the four.

The man sitting on the far left I know as the host of Survivor. He is actually also the producer of Survivor and he is very vocal about the choice of contestants. In turn, he came over to skip the woman who opened her mouth, a middle-aged man who didn't seem too interested in the interview. He was a bit blond and didn't look up at first when he saw me coming in, just flipping through the information in his hands in a bored manner.

He must be the investor's representative, I thought without moving my face. He didn't seem interested in the interview, but if he was impressed, he could probably change the minds of the others at once.

The last man I saw a picture of when I was doing more in-depth research on the show Survivor via the internet. He is the main director of Survivor and also holds the rights to edit the show. Making a good impression on this man was inevitable if you wanted to stop working on the show for nothing but a handful of shots, in addition to your own efforts.

"Yes, ma'am." I had a nonchalant smile on my lips, not too eager to introduce myself and not appear to be lacking in interest.

After all, it was close to closing time for my interview, which meant they had at least a long line of people interviewed ahead of me. And apart from the small number of survivors who were there to have a mere experience and didn't expect to win the title. Most of them had the same idea as I did, to get through the interview process, get the title, get the prize money and improve their lives.

This means that they are bound to be eager to introduce and prove themselves right from the start. If it had been the beginning of a day of interviews, perhaps such eager introductions would have made a good impression on these people, and they might have been passed on the spot if they had done well. But when they had been doing much the same thing over and over again throughout the day, such behaviour would have been annoying and bad for them.

Sure enough, I didn't start off with a series of introductions, and the frown on the woman's brow lifted a little. The investor representative sitting next to her also looked up at that moment, then brightened up and sat up straighter.

As an investor representative, especially one who invests in reality shows like this, one naturally knows that apart from great programming, it is important to have one or two eye-catching people among the contestants. After all, it is the age of face-gazing.

But in previous seasons, it has been one big beautiful girl after another taking on the role of eye candy, as well as using the same old beauty ploy that has been criticised. That's why this season they wanted to do something special, especially to get a few more good-looking male contestants.

"Introduce yourself a little bit, I saw in your bio that you were in the latest edition of America's Next Top Model. This pre-recorded show just recently started airing in length, right? Why do you suddenly want to come on Survivor again?" The woman said as she looked at the file in her hand.

To get in front of the audience and brush up on her popularity, of course. I blinked, but knew it was impossible to say what I had in mind. "I dropped out halfway through the America's Next Top Model competition for personal reasons. Something happened to my original colleague and I was forced to withdraw in order to cooperate with the police investigation. It cost me an opportunity that was important to me and was a little upsetting."

I spoke in an unhurried tone and gave the reason for my halfway withdrawal so that they would not misunderstand me as an irresponsible competitor. After all, the police investigation required it, and it was not my fault that this was a last resort in order to assist in the case.

"And Survivor, the reality show, has always been one of my favourites. The intense race is actually a social game of human hook-ups, in addition to the theme of wilderness survival. And now that I've just become a psychology student at Stanford, I'm very interested in such social games."

I'll start with Survivor itself; after all, no one doesn't like it when others appreciate what they have. And what's more, unlike the All-American Supermodel contest, which is a reality show where even the qualifications are competed out. Survivor interviews contestants just like they interview company employees. You want to be on the show, you still have to be given that chance by them too.

Showing interest in the other company is one of the most basic aspects of an interview. Immediately afterwards, I reflected why I was suitable for the show Survivor in a bit of information about myself that I casually brought out.

"The prize money that the final survivor will receive will also go a long way to alleviating my financial situation. As an orphan, I'm still a little strapped for cash, even with the Stanford grant. If I get the chance to be on this show, I will do the best I can." At the end of his speech, he expressed his determination without failing to induce a bit of sympathy.

At this point, the director sitting next to her suddenly laughed and said, "Another model and a psychology student at Stanford. If we do get accepted, I'm not sure which group we should put him in."

Jeff, the host, also propped his elbows on the table, straightened up and smiled, "One has to give credit to a survivor in life for making it this far on his own as an orphan and enrolling at Stanford. If he does compete, it should be quite a sight."

I watched them discuss it alone, my face not changing in the slightest, while the investor representative, who had been excluded from the discussion, was sizing me up with an interested look on his face.

A thought crossed my mind and I suddenly tilted my head slightly to meet the other man's eyes, my eyebrows arched and I smiled at him. I smiled at him with an arched eyebrow, seemingly kind and attached to him.

The other man subconsciously returned the smile, then turned his head to look at the three people who were discussing it and said, "Why don't we just settle on this spot? At least for most of the day he's been the best performer I've seen, and it's better to have one more male model with brains than those blondes to add to the strength of the beauty group, right?"

I blinked and returned an innocent smile as the other three looked over at the investor's representative's words. Beauty group? I was inwardly thinking about it, but based on what that director had just said, so much for extrapolation. It seems that the type of grouping this time is not the same as before, random grouping, male/female grouping, geographical grouping and so on.

It seems that it might have something to do with beauty and intelligence? After all, what the director just said was that he didn't know which group to put me in because I was a model, and because I was a Stanford student.

Maybe it was my impressive resume, or maybe it was the words of the investor's representative that were the last straw that broke the camel's back. Without much more effort on my part, my entry was scheduled and decided.

Shortly after I left the interview room, I saw the contestants who had lined up after me hanging their heads and being dismissed. The official Survivor shoot, on the other hand, would begin two months later. It happened to be the end of the university's first semester holiday, which, as I expected, couldn't have come at a better time.