Twelve cars arrived at Nancheng University one after another. Quentin got out of the car at the West Gate. The accompanying director and cameraman followed behind him.
One was handsome and tall, one was carrying a pitch-black camera, and the other wore a work badge, a vest, and was dressed like a reporter. A trio like this stood out wherever they went.
Nancheng University was one of the top universities in the country, and the university students here almost all had their own things to focus on, either studying or working.
In short, apart from a small number of people who were passionate about following dramas and celebrities, most people didn’t pay much attention to entertainment industry trending topics. Even phenomenally viral people or events would take a while to reach their ears.
However, the students were still very interested in a national variety show like “Cat and Mouse Game.” Calculating by age, many people on campus should have grown up watching “Cat and Mouse Game” since childhood.
Walking through the university campus, Quentin could feel glances lingering on him from time to time, but no one actively approached him.
Even those who happened to be going the same way either sped up or slowed down, very consciously keeping their distance from him.
To the extent that without anyone shooing them away, a virtual vacuum automatically formed around the three of them.
The accompanying director looked at Quentin on his left, then at the cameraman on his right, and joked, “Which one of you two scared the kids? Anyone would think we were school leaders on patrol, the students’ voices even got quieter as they passed by.”
Quentin had his head lowered, carefully examining the clue rewarded from the previous round. Upon hearing this, he smiled and said casually, “It’s definitely not me. It’s the cameraman who’s too conspicuous. Everyone wants to avoid the camera when they see it.”
The accompanying director looked at him and said curiously, “Quentin, I noticed you smile more when you’re out recording this show than when you’re on ‘NS’. From the first episode I watched to the fifth, I feel like you rarely smile on ‘NS.'”
“…Is that so?”
Quentin moved his gaze away from the photo in his hand, tilted his head, and put on a thoughtful, reminiscent expression. “I don’t remember.”
Maybe he was still a bit tense when he first crossed over, and as time went on, he became more and more relaxed?
The accompanying director smiled. “Now that we’re on campus, what are you planning to do? How are you going to do the task and find your lover?”
“Does the director have any hints for me? You said before that clues about the lover are hidden in various corners. Am I supposed to just search hard?”
“No hints, of course. Basically, the clues can only be found by searching. But it’s not hard. The hiding spots all have patterns. You’ll probably understand once you find one.”
Quentin understood. This sentence itself was actually a hint.
Guessing the production team’s intention, the other guests’ “secret codes for meeting” were probably of a similar style to his. Recklessly using them to test strangers would definitely be very embarrassing, and the reactions of both parties were exactly the kind of show effect the director wanted.
Although Quentin didn’t find it embarrassing, most of the guests this episode were young people in their teens and twenties. Veterans like Ji Sheng and He Shuyi could probably handle it with ease, but for someone like Wen Xinyi, taking the initiative to strike up a conversation or confess to strange men or women…hesitation, awkwardness, shyness, embarrassment, and so on were all normal emotions.
If the correct target then deliberately acted along to add drama, the show effect would explode directly.
First, find clues, and at the same time, do the personal task. There’s no need to randomly test people just to create a show effect.
Thinking this, Quentin walked along, carefully examining the surroundings. The male and female students who accidentally made eye contact with him instinctively looked away, but more and more people silently took out their phones to take pictures.
That day, group chats of all sizes among the university students were unusually lively. High-frequency words like “green eyes,” “mixed race,” and “handsome guy” constantly appeared in the chat interfaces.
The news that “Cat and Mouse Game” was recording on campus spread quickly, and the news that a green-eyed, mixed-race, very handsome guy was active near the West Gate spread just as fast.
Yes, we really don’t care about entertainment news. We might casually mention news about an ordinary handsome guy and that’s it, but who doesn’t love looking at photos of a top-tier, extremely handsome guy! No blind spots from 360 degrees! Photos and videos from every angle were spreading!
The key point was that he was right on their campus. There was a snack street near the West Gate. You could see the handsome guy on your way to get food. There’s no harm in looking, right?
A girl who was enthusiastically chatting with a friend on her phone was suddenly nudged on the arm by her boyfriend beside her.
“What’s wrong? I’m chatting with my roommate.”
The boyfriend put his arm around the girl’s arm, looking warily in a certain direction. “Xiao Lin, let’s take that road. There are too many people here.”
The girl looked up, puzzled. “The West Gate snack street is this one road. Where else can we go?”
She hadn’t looked up before, but once she did, she sensed something was wrong.
Looking in the direction her boyfriend was staring, the mixed-race handsome guy she had photographed and sent to the dorm group chat seemed to be looking at them. The next second, he started walking towards them.
“…Oh my god.” The girl looked left and right and muttered quietly, “Is he coming for us?”
The boy also answered quietly, “I don’t know. Let’s just leave first, babe. Do you want to go back and eat at the cafeteria?”
“Ah, that cameraman is coming over too. Don’t call me that.”
Before they could say much more, the black-haired, green-eyed, handsome guy walked up to them. He first nodded politely, then said in very standard, natural Mandarin: “Hello, schoolmates. Could I take a photo?”
The girl: “…”
Quentin pointed to the Jerry mouse keychain hanging on the boy’s backpack zipper and politely repeated, “Can I take a picture with this brown mouse?”
He looked at the boy seriously and explained, “We’re recording a show. It’s my mission. Could you help me out, please?”
The boy was still a bit confused, his mind not quite working. Being stared at like that by the other party, he thought, ‘Fuck, this guy really is handsome, wait…’
The girl beside him snapped back to reality first, immediately agreed, and actively reached out to take the plush toy off the boy’s backpack, handing it to Quentin and smiling generously: “Of course you can. Go ahead, take the picture.”
After speaking, she also pointed to the Tom cat on her crossbody bag: “I have the matching cat here too. Do you want to take a picture of it?”
Quentin shook his head, took the Jerry mouse from the girl’s hand, and also smiled: “No need, just this one. Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome!”
The boy watched this scene unfold, giving his girlfriend a resentful look. ‘Xiao Lin, I gave you that for the Qixi Festival!’
The girl blinked, looking confused. ‘What did you say?’
After taking the photo, Quentin thanked the young couple again, and while looking through the photos on his phone, walked back to the path he was originally on.
“I’ve already taken five photos, fifteen more to go.” He showed the results to the camera and also explained his next plan. “Half of my personal task is done. Now to find the clues first…”
Quentin tilted his head slightly, looking at the accompanying director behind the cameraman, puzzled: “I’ve been in through the West Gate for almost twenty minutes. Where is everyone else? I haven’t run into a single guest.”
The accompanying director shrugged. “No idea.”
Quentin muttered to himself: “I wonder how their tasks are going…”
In the shot, the accompanying director was helpless, spreading his hands: “Don’t try to test me, Quentin. No more hints.”
Quentin acted as if he hadn’t heard, continuing to walk forward on his own.
After taking just two steps, his gaze paused, looking at the barbershop not far ahead on the roadside.
Basic facilities like barbershops and eyewear shops were generally available in most universities. Having a stable supply of new customers every year, they could be considered golden rice bowls on campus.
But that wasn’t the main point. The main point was…the pattern for finding clues that the accompanying director had mentioned.
In variety shows, the shortcut to finding a certain object is to look for cameras and the show’s logo. But Nancheng University was too large, and the game time was limited. You probably couldn’t even walk around the whole campus in an hour.
Time constraints were one issue. Second, if clues were randomly placed in some corner of the campus, unless there were staff members guarding nearby, it would be hard to ensure that the clues, or even the cameras, wouldn’t be damaged by passersby or stray cats and dogs.
Quentin had originally focused his attention outdoors, looking for mice and clues simultaneously. Unfortunately, while the former was efficient enough, the latter yielded no results.
Now, seeing the barbershop, Quentin suddenly realized. Shops with owners watching over them were definitely more reliable than outdoors. Regardless of whether there were clues outdoors, there definitely had to be some indoors!
He decided to check the barbershop first.
…
“It really is in the barbershop… The clue is just a sticker with the ‘Cat and Mouse Game’ logo?”
Quentin held his phone in his right hand and pinched the sticker in his left. “Other than the logo, the sticker also has my name on it. There’s nothing else special about it, so the sticker probably means this is my clue, and the main point of the clue is the place where the sticker was found.”
On his phone screen was a photo of a wig mannequin. The sticker was originally stuck on this black wig.
“Wig…” Quentin examined the photo. “Does that mean the ‘lover’ I’m looking for is wearing a wig, or that the ‘lover’s’ hairstyle is this one?”
This was just an ordinary, straight-down hairstyle for men, only slightly shorter than Quentin’s current hair. Nothing special.
If this were the screening criterion, firstly, most girls could be ruled out. A few boys with buzz cuts or long hair could also be ruled out. But in a busy university campus, this was still like finding a needle in a haystack.
Quentin stood at the shop entrance, thought for a moment, and said, “Let’s go check the eyewear shop next.”
He wasn’t used to saying all his thoughts and plans out loud, but since it was a variety show recording and he was alone, none of the other guests were around, if he didn’t speak up, no one would know what he wanted to do.
In fact, Quentin’s extremely high level of cooperation made his accompanying director breathe a huge sigh of relief.
Anyone who had watched “NS” knew that Quentin didn’t like to smile or talk much. He was aloof and calm. People like that weren’t really suited for variety shows.
Most variety shows require guests to be humorous and interesting, to have a knack for creating topics. Someone like Quentin could dominate a talent show, but that didn’t mean he could gain a high presence or enough screen time on other variety shows.
Before officially meeting Quentin, the accompanying director was quite nervous. But after following him for a while, he inexplicably felt very reassured.
Watching Quentin methodically do the task and analyze the clues painstakingly was comfortable and pleasing to the eye.
The accompanying director couldn’t help thinking, “Quentin is actually very suitable for competitive variety shows. His college entrance exam scores were really good, weren’t they? Come to think of it, maybe he’d unexpectedly be great at puzzle-solving shows.”
Soon, Quentin found an eyewear shop. After searching for a while, he didn’t find his own sticker, but he saw stickers belonging to the other four guests. This meant that among the twelve guests’ targets, at least four people wore glasses.
There were two eyewear shops on Nancheng University campus. If the other eyewear shop still didn’t have his sticker, he could deduce another clue…his “lover” was not wearing glasses.
