At the East Gate of Nancheng University, two young men in black t-shirts squatted by the roadside, both taking photos of the ground with their phones.
“This symbol is the letter Z, right, Yan Qiao? This is your clue. Combining it with what you found before, do you have any thoughts?”
Yan Qiao raised an eyebrow and after taking the photo, started flipping through his photo album repeatedly: “The clues I found before were all about the ‘lover’s’ appearance. A Z written on the ground with chalk… could it be the first letter of the ‘lover’s’ surname?”
“First letter… Zheng? Zhou? Zhang?” Wen Xinyi pondered, growing more confused as he thought, “But how are we supposed to know someone’s name? The notice board? Or do we need to go to the teaching buildings to find the honor roll?”
Yan Qiao added, “Or it might be a university teacher. I just observed, every college building has a wall displaying a teacher’s profile. If Z represents the first letter of the surname, we could lock down a specific teacher and go directly to their office.”
“Mmm… that sounds reasonable, but it still doesn’t feel quite right. If it meant a university teacher, this letter should be written on the teaching building, or even on that teacher’s profile wall you mentioned.”
Wen Xinyi stared at the asphalt road, dried and gray under the scorching sun. The chalk marks had faded a lot after the sticker was torn off, but the capital letter Z written on the ground was still clear.
“This should be a key clue. Unfortunately, there’s not enough time.”
He stood up, looking regretful. His gaze swept over the students coming and going at the East Gate, not paying attention to their curious glances: “Yan Qiao, let’s talk as we walk. Don’t let people see us discussing clues together. We’re not on the same team yet.”
Due to some coincidences, they had confirmed each other’s identities in advance. Although one was on Ji Sheng’s team and the other on He Shuyi’s team for now, their factions both belonged to the mouse team.
Thinking of this, Wen Xinyi also joked, “Didn’t we say before that Director Chen would put the four of us trainees on the same team? Looking at it now, maybe that’s really the case.”
“It’s possible, but we still need to hide our identities. Don’t tell anyone else.”
Yan Qiao stood up as well. He was just about to walk forward when he saw Wen Xinyi standing still, his eyes seemingly fixed in a certain direction.
He immediately realized another guest was coming over.
The young man wearing a baseball cap walked out of the crowd, followed by his cameraman and accompanying PD.
He had noticed Wen Xinyi and Yan Qiao earlier than they noticed him. When the two were squatting on the ground discussing the clues while taking photos, he had already been silently watching from a short distance away.
“Quentin?!”
The moment he saw the person, Wen Xinyi’s first reaction was delight. Only when the other party approached did he remember that he and Quentin were not teammates right now.
But then he thought, so what if they weren’t teammates. They had not yet started tearing off name tags. It was fine to walk together. Besides, maybe Quentin was actually his real teammate. Their cat and mouse factions were still a secret.
Quentin greeted them and stood directly by the Z clue, observing openly and earnestly: “Is this your clue?”
Yan Qiao glanced at Wen Xinyi, hesitated for only two seconds, then honestly admitted: “It’s my clue, but we haven’t figured out what it means yet.”
There was no need to hide this from Quentin. He and Quentin were both on Ji Sheng’s team. In this round, it was still a small team competition. Logically speaking, in this game of finding the “lover,” he and Quentin were allies who should help each other.
Wen Xinyi quickly realized this too. Sigh, looking at it this way, he was in an awkward position standing here. But he still wanted to find a chance to test Quentin’s faction.
The clues he found were too difficult and too few. With only ten minutes left until the game ended, it would be hard to find the “lover” in such a short time. There was no need to waste effort. He might as well stay. Quentin wouldn’t chase him away anyway.
Quentin lowered his head to look at the clue for a while, then looked up and glanced around: “Did you find all the other clues?”
Yan Qiao was stunned for a moment: “I think I have.”
“Then let’s go to the destination.” Quentin pointed at the ground. “It’s very obvious. This tells you where the ‘lover’ is. This is the East Gate, but the letter drawn on the ground is N, which means the person you’re looking for is at the North Gate.”
“…This is N?” Wen Xinyi changed direction, muttering, “It really is… After all that, we were looking at it wrong.”
The two of them had squatted on the ground discussing seriously for a long time, and Quentin gave the answer as soon as he arrived… As expected of Quentin. Was he this reliable everywhere?
Yan Qiao didn’t overthink it. Upon hearing the answer, he curled his lips into a smile: “Okay, what you said makes sense. I’ll listen to you.”
Quentin said “mmm” and turned to lead the way, asking casually, “How did you two run into each other?”
Wen Xinyi: “Ahem, we just happened to meet. Quentin, didn’t you run into anyone else?”
“No, I’ve been around the West Gate. I went to the gymnasium and also the playground, but I didn’t see anyone else.” After explaining his own situation, Quentin paused, then asked, “What about you two? Did you find your ‘lover’?”
Both of them shook their heads.
Quentin stared at them for a few seconds, then suddenly said, “So you two are in the same faction.”
“…”
Wen Xinyi touched the back of his head, looking surprised: “What do you mean, same faction? Aren’t we always the same faction?”
Quentin smiled. “Don’t pretend. Go on, tell me. How did you confirm you’re in the same faction? Did you find some teammate clue or did you just trust each other blindly?”
“How did you guess…?” Wen Xinyi looked helpless. He glanced at Yan Qiao, who seemed deep in thought.
Yan Qiao sighed inwardly. It was still too hard to hide things from Quentin.
At this moment, he hadn’t yet realized Quentin’s ability to read people. He only felt that they were too familiar with Quentin, and that Quentin had a formidable reputation on “NS.” The trainees naturally trusted him.
Once a few trainees went out together to record a show, as long as Quentin was there, they would spontaneously cluster around him as the center.
Relationships between people naturally have degrees of closeness and distance. This kind of thing was hard to avoid.
Unless it was like Ji Sheng and He Shuyi from ECHO, who had debuted for many years and accumulated enough variety show experience on top of being familiar with each other. They could trust each other and also tease and bicker with each other, maintaining the right balance. Only then would they avoid revealing everything upon meeting Quentin like he and Wen Xinyi did.
Yan Qiao acted as if he didn’t feel Wen Xinyi’s melancholy and answered casually: “I ran into Wen Xinyi while doing my personal task. Coincidentally, he was also doing his task. Quentin, you should know the connection between your personal task and your faction. We confirmed we were in the same faction through our tasks.”
Wen Xinyi remained silent, listening nervously, afraid that Yan Qiao’s mouth would slip and reveal their exact faction.
‘It’s okay… Since Quentin already figured it out, letting this slip is fine. No problem.’
Wen Xinyi had just relaxed his breath.
The next second, he saw Quentin nod thoughtfully, look at Yan Qiao, and slowly say…
“You know you love me.”
“?!”
Yan Qiao’s previously distracted expression suddenly changed. His eyes immediately sharpened, and he jerked his head up to meet Quentin’s gaze, instinctively responding as if waiting for a long time: “Yes, Yes, I do…”
The scene was silent for a few seconds, with the two people staring at each other with wide eyes.
“—It’s you?”
Yan Qiao snapped back to reality, raising his eyebrows high. He was surprised for two seconds, then quickly realized: “No wonder… You were the one I suspected most from the beginning.”
Because they had a cp online, and it might even be quite popular.
A task of this nature was either for pranking or for promoting a cp. The production team’s routine was all too obvious.
On the way to Nancheng University, Yan Qiao had received a secret task from the production team: while searching for his “lover,” he was also to act as the “lover” for a certain guest. The person who eventually made contact with him would be one hundred percent his teammate.
Most importantly, for someone like him, there was one person in the cat faction and one in the mouse faction.
However, as the game neared its end, Yan Qiao hadn’t yet encountered the teammate who was supposed to make contact with him. At the same time, he couldn’t confirm whether the opposing faction had successfully made contact. That was why he was getting more and more anxious.
Assistant Wu had said that when recording “Cat and Mouse Game,” you must be serious and have a strong desire to win. So Yan Qiao played the game very earnestly. He really wanted to win.
At the beginning of the game, besides Ji Sheng, Yan Qiao was the guest who most actively tested all suspicious targets around him. Unfortunately, his face caused him some minor trouble.
Not every university student passing by knew they were guests recording “Cat and Mouse Game.” This led to…
Some people took his love confession code words seriously. Others thought he and the cameraman next to him were deliberately pranking and teasing the female students.
Yan Qiao felt very wronged. He didn’t just flirt with girls. As long as they matched the clue conditions he found, he would directly go for it regardless of gender, okay?
If he hadn’t accidentally run into Wen Xinyi while doing his personal task, his bulldozer-style approach to finding people would probably have continued.
Now, it was great. As soon as Quentin arrived, he solved a clue problem for him and successfully made contact. It felt like their progress was far ahead, and they had locked in victory in advance!
Yan Qiao grabbed Quentin’s shoulders with both hands and pressed firmly.
The corners of his mouth turned up. His smile still carried a hint of casualness, but his tone was very serious: “Teammate, you finally came.”
And Quentin, equally serious, patted his hand and nodded: “Mmm, I’m here.”
Wen Xinyi: “…?”
What was happening? Were these two filming Romeo and Juliet? What plot had he missed? How did it end up like this?
*
>Topic: [Urgent report from the frontlines— Recording at Nancheng University complete! Candid photos presented!]
>Content: [OP is a survival show group fan. I followed Yan Qiao at the beginning, then followed Xiao Wen and Yan Qiao in the middle, and QT joined at the end. Who gets it! Their interactions are completely a group fan’s paradise!!!]
1L (OP): [Lucky OP witnessed too many famous scenes. But the on-site director advised us not to post online, saying too many candid photos might cause the footage to be cut after broadcast. For the sake of our budding survival show group, OP won’t post photos [face palm]]
2L: [Recording at Nancheng University was finished so fast??? I just got out of class (despair)]
3L: [Support OP. You really shouldn’t post too many candid photos. We can’t control passersby, but us fans should be self-disciplined. Those who took photos should keep them for themselves first. It’s not too late to post them after the show airs.]
4L: [I don’t know what famous scenes OP is talking about, but anyway, I saw the Yan-Que confession scene [shy][blushing][spinning in circles]]
5L (OP): [Hmph hmph hmph I saw it too! Although I didn’t hear exactly what they said, given the nature of this episode’s game, Yan Qiao’s code words were so embarrassing, Quentin’s definitely can’t be much better!]
6L: [Wait wait wait…what do you mean? Yan-Que confession? Are they playing Truth or Dare? How did they get involved with each other??]
7L: [Our 3A is as fierce as ever. Xue-Que just became the number one CP, then Yan-Que quickly caught up. I’m set on fire.]
8L: [Number one CP in your dreams. Xue-Que is steadily the number one. The next CP, don’t ride on their coattails [eye roll]]
9L: [Have they already left Nancheng University? Where are they going next? It’s already dark, so definitely not outdoors. Are they going to tear name tags at night?]
10L: [ls, don’t even think about it. Tearing name tags requires a closed set. Outsiders won’t be allowed in.]
11L: [Inside information. It’s said to be at Changhu City, which just finished attracting investment and hasn’t officially opened to the public yet. It’s a shopping mall in the economic development zone, a bit far from Nanhu University.]
12L: [Changhu City? It’s right near my house! I’m heading there first! If it’s true, wait for my post!!]
omg you’re finally back translator! welcome back ^-^