WS - Chapter 39
Chapter 39
Setting aside the Production Team, there are three grown men standing right here. How can we always let the female guest go into the water to feel for stones?
Even though Song Shiyue's claim that she could find a stone pot in the water was really unreliable, they couldn't just stand on the bank and watch her flounder alone in the stream.
Guan Yongyi was less skeptical; perhaps Song Shiyue's string of successes had given him a measure of unfounded confidence, and now he was the first to follow her.
On the other hand, Zhuang Jiachuan, who usually rushed to do everything for screen time, was a step slower because he simply couldn't suppress his urge to complain.
The two men followed into the stream, while Mu Xingzhou stood on the bank, hesitated for a moment, then gave up on what he saw as a completely pointless activity.
"Aren't you going to try your luck?" Ning Chuyang thought for a moment, then walked over to Mu Xingzhou and asked.
Mu Xingzhou looked at the three people in the stream not far away and shook his head.
What's with him... He was perfectly normal those two days on the spaceship; why is he suddenly acting all cold and aloof...
Puzzled, Ning Chuyang glanced up at Mu Xingzhou's silent, almost wooden profile, but then decisively chose to end the conversation and walked back to Yu Nianbing's side.
Promoting a CP was a commercial collaboration between their two companies, a normal recurring business in the industry. Ning Chuyang hadn't objected, and Mu Xingzhou had also agreed at the time. From that martial arts drama they co-starred in, to the current The Wilderness Journey, they had cooperated well, playing the bickering couple persona.
Ning Chuyang had always been sharp-tongued, and Mu Xingzhou was always the glib, boyish type. Although their CP promotion was fake, they could play their natural selves and it was quite easy. Outside of that, while they weren't close confidants, they were still a bit more familiar than ordinary colleagues.
But who knew what was wrong with Mu Xingzhou? He hadn't been quite himself since they boarded the spaceship from Mingtan Planet to Wilderness Planet.
Not only did he neglect their daily CP-promotion duties, but even when Ning Chuyang initiated casual conversation, he only responded half-heartedly, as if his mind was elsewhere.
Ning Chuyang was mindful of the cameras recording around the clock. Though somewhat concerned, she couldn't ask directly; she could only try to probe indirectly or start conversations. But after several attempts, Mu Xingzhou showed no interest in proper conversation, so Ning Chuyang let it go.
After all, CP promotion was a mutual transaction. Now that Mu Xingzhou refused to cooperate, when the show ended, the two companies couldn't blame Ning Chuyang. Besides, even in a real relationship, you can't keep putting a warm face to a cold butt, let alone a fake one.
But that was fine. Ning Chuyang walked back to Yu Nianbing's side, somewhat cheerfully.
Compared to Mu Xingzhou, who had fallen into some strange mood swings, the all-knowing Yu Nianbing and the can-kill-anything Song Shiyue were definitely more reliable.
Ning Chuyang stood happily beside Yu Nianbing and, when the latter looked at her, gave a brilliant smile, utterly unaware that she might be on a path of shining ever brighter.
Yu Nianbing, who was inwardly sweating over Song Shiyue's bold actions, was unexpectedly dazzled by Ning Chuyang's smile. Now that she thought about it, this girl was also a bit strange. She seemed to stick very close the whole way; hadn't she heard of Yu Nianbing's reputation for being difficult? Yu Nianbing frowned slightly, as if she had completely forgotten there was someone who stuck even closer.
More importantly, there was something else that was urgent... Suppressing thoughts of Song Shiyue's recklessness, Yu Nianbing thought carefully and finally remembered what should have been done first.
Among the three standing in the stream, the other two had switched into work mode. Zhuang Jiachuan, carefully stepping onto two stones, steadied himself and spoke: "Finding a rough Stone Knife in this stream is already very lucky, a miracle of water eroding stone over time. But this is just a small creek, with no waterfall upstream or dripping rocks; it's truly unlikely that a stone could form a pot shape with a hollow center."
"Didn't Teacher Song say she's felt many large stones with depressions before?" Guan Yongyi looked up frankly, water dripping from his hands.
"Right." Song Shiyue, who had been named, was a few steps away and had already churned the water there into murkiness; she answered without lifting her head, "I think there might be one nearby too. Let me look."
She'd already stolen the spotlight so many times in just half a day...
And now she had to make a whole thing out of finding a pot?
"Why don't we just bear with it? Once we reach Camp tonight, we'll have a pot to use." Feeling that this was a wasted effort, Zhuang Jiachuan once again tried to dissuade them.
"It's still a bit hot during the day now. Can the meat last until tonight if we carry it like this?" Guan Yongyi hit the key point.
Probably not, but they could roast and eat the meat at noon, and cook the jicama in the evening. Of course, that was on the condition that they could start a fire at noon.
Yes, making a fire—that was definitely more important than searching for an illusory pot.
Prompted by Guan Yongyi, Zhuang Jiachuan thought he had found the crucial point and was about to speak again.
But then he saw that in the time it took for them to exchange those few words, Song Shiyue had already left her previous spot, leaving behind a patch of murky water, and moved farther away.
This girl is really...
Zhuang Jiachuan had the urge to just leave Song Shiyue and Guan Yongyi in the stream and go back to become the fire-making hero himself.
Before the trip, he had received some tips from the Production Team; he had practiced fire-making thoroughly. Under professional guidance and after many days of practice, having used up several sacks of materials, he could basically start a fire in half an hour to forty minutes if his luck was good. If he had the chance to make a small bow in advance, that time could be shortened by over ten minutes.
After training, Zhuang Jiachuan felt that among these amateurs, he could easily take first place.
Zhuang Jiachuan did the math: they only had an hour for the noon rest. Even if they started the fire now, they wouldn't have much time left to roast the snake meat.
However, in the Production Team's original plan, fire-making was supposed to make its first appearance at Camp tonight in a competition. So he couldn't be the one to bring it up and disrupt the Production Team's plan; he couldn't make them dislike him. He still needed to think about who to guide into suggesting it.
Should he pick Guan Yongyi, who had already realized the meat couldn't last until tonight...
Or Song Shiyue, who really loved eating?
Zhuang Jiachuan was mulling it over, and just as his internal scale was tipping, he heard Song Shiyue, who had again muddied a patch of water in the distance, cry out in delight.
"Ha, found one!" Song Shiyue laughed as she straightened up, her rolled-up sleeves emerging from the water, followed by her wet hands clutching a large stone.
"A pot?" Guan Yongyi quickly stepped on the stones protruding from the surface of the stream, moving toward Song Shiyue.
Zhuang Jiachuan was also astonished, but he prudently chose to go ashore first and then walk over from the bank.
"It really is a pot, hey, and the bottom is quite flat!" Guan Yongyi, walking through the water, actually reached Song Shiyue before Zhuang Jiachuan. He took the stone, unbothered by its weight, and kept touching it as if he couldn't bear to put it down.
While Guan Yongyi was happily admiring the pot, Zhuang Jiachuan carefully approached.
Zhuang Jiachuan, who from a distance had thought the two were exaggerating about finding a slightly hollowed stone, was truly shocked when he got close.
A large stone that couldn't be held in two hands, deeply hollowed in the center. The outside was still somewhat irregular, but the hollowed part was very smooth, as if it had been cut and polished. Aside from the lack of a lid and handles, it already looked very much like the ceramic stew pot at Zhuang Jiachuan's home. Oh, no, perhaps it was more like a thick-walled rice cooker inner pot?
"Here, take a look. Doesn't it really look like a pot? Hahaha!" Guan Yongyi cheerfully held out the stone pot toward Zhuang Jiachuan, whose neck was craned as far as it would go.
Zhuang Jiachuan also wanted a closer look and reached out to take it without much thought, but he hadn't expected that although the stone looked like a pot, it was still a rock—very heavy, so heavy he almost couldn't hold it. Luckily, Guan Yongyi supported it in time.
This small stumble made Zhuang Jiachuan focus most of his attention on worrying whether the audience had noticed that moment of weakness; for the moment, he wasn't in the mood to examine the stone pot further.
Just as Zhuang Jiachuan was feeling a bit down, Guan Yongyi suddenly said something that gave him an unexpected delight.
"I'll take the stone pot up. We should start a fire now, or there won't be enough time during the noon break." Guan Yongyi said, then turned to Song Shiyue, "Come on up, your sleeves are wet. You need to dry them quickly or you'll catch a cold."
Great! Zhuang Jiachuan gave Guan Yongyi a mental thumbs-up for proactively suggesting fire-making and quickly handed the stone pot back to him.
"Wait." Song Shiyue shook the water from her hands and spoke.
What now? You've already found a pot, what else could there be? Zhuang Jiachuan, who had already turned toward the bank ready to get to work, silently turned back.
"I'll get this one up," Song Shiyue said, then pointed to the spot in the stream where they had first stood. "Just now over there, I felt another one more or less the same. But it's stuck quite deep, my hand isn't long enough to get a good grip and pull it out."
"Another pot? Does this stream produce stone pots? Isn't one pot enough?" Zhuang Jiachuan couldn't help but fire off three questions in a row.
"The more the merrier. That way we can both make snake soup and boil some water to take with us, and we'll save time." Song Shiyue answered Zhuang Jiachuan, but her eyes were on Guan Yongyi. "It's near where I was standing earlier."
"Right, save time." Guan Yongyi nodded in agreement, handed the stone pot to Zhuang Jiachuan, and hurried back through the stream water.
Once again, the stone pot was thrust into his hands, nearly making him stagger. Zhuang Jiachuan held the heavy object with his arms hanging down, speechless.
Earlier, when Song Shiyue had pulled out the stone pot and Guan Yongyi and Zhuang Jiachuan moved toward her, the people on the bank had heard the commotion and walked over.
When Yu Nianbing came over, she happened to hear Song Shiyue say there was a stone stuck deep and urging Guan Yongyi to go check, and she almost laughed.
With that much strength, how could there be a stone she could feel but not lift?
If she wanted to bring it up, she could probably just pinch two dents in it with her fingers and lift it out...
Song Shiyue watched Guan Yongyi walk to roughly the right spot, then finally felt reassured enough to go ashore. The moment she stepped onto the bank, she met Yu Nianbing's half-smiling eyes and suddenly felt a bit guilty.
"We've got a pot now; let's go make a fire." Song Shiyue averted her face, avoiding Yu Nianbing's gaze that seemed to have already seen through something, and quickly walked toward the backpacks left not far away.
Make a fire?
Having alertly picked up on the word "fire" again, Zhuang Jiachuan quickened his pace ashore.
But the stone pot in his hands was truly too heavy, and the stones in the small stream were really slippery. For safety and to maintain his image on the livestream, Zhuang Jiachuan had to be extra careful and very slow. In his heart, he couldn't help but grumble about Guan Yongyi, who, out of chivalry, hadn't handed the stone back to Song Shiyue.
After this bit of delay, Zhuang Jiachuan fell a little behind Song Shiyue and the others.
Originally, Zhuang Jiachuan had thought it was just a short distance; lagging behind didn't matter—the upcoming show would belong to him, the fire-making hero.
Unexpectedly, in just that short distance, wisps of smoke rose from the Noon Rest Stop not far away.
Smoke! There was smoke!
Zhuang Jiachuan stared at the flames that had appeared in the distance, nearly dropping the stone pot in his hands from sheer shock.
Comments
Post a Comment