FLME Ch19: Advantage

Yu Wen sprinted back to the safe zone with lightning speed. His heart settled, and his expression relaxed.

Xi Su marched over menacingly, taking the stairs two at a time. His brows were tightly knit, and his face was so gloomy it looked like he was seeking revenge.

Tong Li had never seen him look like this. She took a step back and said in surprise, “Xiao Xi… why are you suddenly angry?”

Xi Su remembered they were still recording a show.

He took two deep breaths, raised the tails of his eyebrows, and restrained his expression a bit, though it still hid a faint trace of irritability.

“Teacher Yu, just now in the restroom…” He hesitated.

Yu Wen feigned ignorance, “The restroom? You were in the restroom just now too? What a coincidence.”

Xi Su: “Can we talk alone for a bit…”

Yu Wen: “Aiya, what’s there to hide about a trivial matter like borrowing toilet paper? Here, for you.”

He dug out a packet of pocket tissues from his pants pocket and easily tossed it to Xi Su from a distance of a meter or two. Once done, he immediately slipped behind Chu Han, his face full of the relief of surviving a disaster.

Xi Su looked like he wanted to spit out uncivilized words.

At this time, the director held up a megaphone and called for them to gather, interrupting the words that had reached the tip of Xi Su’s tongue.

The entire hike up Luming Mountain was about five kilometers, but there wasn’t just one route. Many mountain delicacies grew in the mountains, and nearby residents often foraged there, so small paths trodden by foot traffic could be seen everywhere.

From low to high altitude, the production team had set up four supply points. Point rewards would successively decrease according to the order of arrival. Foraging for mountain goods could also earn point rewards.

The director didn’t require them to act in their groups, but six people traveling together would have low efficiency. Tong Li took the map she had exchanged for and quickly divided the three groups into various areas rich in mountain goods.

Yu Wen was about to part ways with Chu Han. Before leaving, he silently stared at him for a long time with a complex gaze that words couldn’t fully express.

Chu Han couldn’t bear it anymore: “…Did you take the wrong medicine?”

Yu Wen tolerated him with the look one gives an unfilial son. “Forget it, sometimes ignorance is also a kind of bliss.”

He patted Chu Han’s shoulder, subtly glanced at Xi Su beside them, and said seriously, “Remember that I risked my life to save your innocence.”

He didn’t dare to look at Xi Su, afraid the latter would once again raise the desire to silence him with murder. Dropping this sentence, he slipped away like a loach.

The area assigned to Song Chenglei and Yu Wen was on the shady side of the mountain, cool and pleasant. Yu Wen plucked a large, unknown leaf and symbolically placed it on his head, poking his head around to look left and right.

What Tong Li had assigned them was bamboo fungus, a type of edible mushroom.

Yu Wen was someone whose four limbs didn’t toil and who couldn’t tell the five grains apart; he was also a picky, delicate baby, so he couldn’t be counted on. Song Chenglei, however, had years of variety show experience and dabbled in many things. He squatted down, pinched a snow-white fungus, and taught him how to identify it: “This is a bamboo fungus, it’s very easy to recognize. The stipe in the middle is snow-white, and the top has a dark green cap. After peeling it open, it’s also white. This is actually the spores of the bamboo fungus. You’ll know the texture once you peel it…”

Yu Wen took it as told. The thin cap split open with a pinch, revealing the white and tender flesh inside.

Song Chenglei directed him to pick two or three, and Yu Wen gradually got the hang of it.

Carrying the small bamboo basket provided by the production team on his arm, he transformed into a little girl picking mushrooms.

“Xiao Yu, your shoe,” Song Chenglei kindly reminded him. “Your shoe has mud on it.”

Yu Wen looked down. The tip of his shoe had rubbed against some mud, which was exceptionally obvious on the white shoe surface. “It’s fine,” he said.

They were already in the mountains, so what if it got dirty? No need to be squeamish.

Song Chenglei: “White shoes are so hard to wash when they get dirty, you should wipe it. My daughter is just like you. Every time she comes home, her shoes are especially dirty, and she particularly loves white shoes. It gives me and her mom a real headache.”

Song Chenglei’s tone had completely slipped into that of a parent looking at a naughty child. Yu Wen had no choice but to obediently pull out a tissue and squat down to wipe his shoe.

Before he could frolic for two minutes, Yu Wen was stopped again. “Xiao Yu, your shoe—”

Yu Wen squatted down to wipe his shoe with a bitter face.

He said listlessly, “If I had known, I wouldn’t have worn white shoes. So annoying…”

Song Chenglei let out a hearty laugh. “Sorry, sorry, us older folks have a habit of worrying over nothing, don’t take it to heart.”

Yu Wen shook his head and continued picking mushrooms.

—Truly annoying, another ‘Gold Stealer’.

Why were they all picking on him to fleece?!

When he locked onto Xi Su, he wasn’t sure about the specific method of stealing points, but just now when Song Chenglei repeatedly told him to wipe his shoes, he could basically be certain. The director’s team had exploited a loophole with the subjects. The complete task card should be: (Someone) makes direct contact with (Someone’s) (Certain body part), (Someone) earns points.

He wasn’t sure about the specific references in the parentheses yet, but what he could be certain of was that the blanks on the task card must have been filled out before scoring began. Otherwise, if the ‘Gold Stealers’ could change them at will, the other members would only have the fate of being stolen from.

Currently known:

(Song Chenglei) makes direct contact with (Yu Wen’s) (hair), (Xi Su) earns points.

(Yu Wen) makes direct contact with (Yu Wen’s) (shoe/foot), (Song Chenglei) earns points.

The person being contacted was the sheep being fleeced.

Having more than one ‘Gold Stealer’ was indeed a trick the production team could come up with. His own proposal had loopholes. After realizing this, Yu Wen had been reviewing the situation the whole way. Immediately he thought that the phrase “add one undercover mole” could also be manipulated.

He only said “add one undercover mole,” but he didn’t limit the original number of moles.

If the production team originally planned to arrange one mole, adding one more on top of that wasn’t… wait.

A flash of inspiration struck Yu Wen.

It might also be more than two.

He covered his head, letting out whining wails. The muttering could only be heard by himself and his lapel mic, “Could it be that I’m the only good guy today…”

“Xiao Yu, what’s wrong?” Song Chenglei had walked a bit further away. Seeing him suddenly squat down, his caring voice echoed through the forest.

Yu Wen stood up with a smile on his face. “I’m very good, fine.”

While Song Chenglei went to the restroom, Yu Wen sat on the stone steps, counting on his fingers how many points had just been stolen.

“Once, twice, three times… eight, or nine?”

The camera was right in his face. Yu Wen turned his head to ask the accompanying PD behind the camera, “The last time I pretended to wipe it, but didn’t actually wipe it, so that time shouldn’t count. So it’s about eight, right?”

The accompanying PD didn’t speak.

In fact, he was very surprised that Yu Wen could deduce Song Chenglei’s identity so quickly. When writing the script, several assistant directors had thought the rules were overly complex. Small Courtyard wasn’t a deduction-based reality show after all. Unpredictable rules could spark new chemistry with the MCs, but if they were too unpredictable, once they exceeded the scope of what the MC teachers could handle, it would just become a one-man show by the production team.

In post-production, it would look very boring.

However, Yu Wen’s existence was like a lighthouse, easily peeling out the truth from the minute details, leaving all the moles with nowhere to hide.

It even brought a sense of crisis to the director’s team.

The accompanying PD didn’t let such excellent material slip by. With the large camera lens aimed right at Yu Wen’s porcelain-white, delicate side profile, he asked, “Why does Teacher Yu think that Teacher Song is also a ‘Gold Stealer’?”

Yu Wen rested his chin on his hand, pondering for a moment. It was a long story, so he had no choice but to start from Xi Su and lay out his train of thought.

“…None of them were exposed by a single isolated point. By splicing together one subtle suspicious point after another and reverse-engineering the logic behind these behaviors, you can deduce their action formulas. Moreover, I’ve watched past episodes and know the production team excels at nitpicking words. By completely dismantling and analyzing my proposal from start to finish, I naturally had an idea in my heart of where the loopholes could be exploited. Once the formulas and values are out, getting the result is as easy as flipping a hand.”

The accompanying PD practically wanted to applaud him.

While Song Chenglei hadn’t returned yet, the accompanying PD seized the time to ask for his views on the identities of the other members. Yu Wen made bold predictions, and they were almost entirely correct.

“Xi Su-ge and Teacher Song are definitely wolves. Chu Han is a good guy; if he were a bad guy, he would be timid and subservient, it’d be obvious at a glance. Right now, we can confirm there are two in the good guy camp and two in the mole camp. That leaves Teacher Tong Li and Little Sister Lingyun. If there’s a mole between these two, it must be Teacher Tong Li. Little Sister Lingyun is young and easily gets nervous; if she were the mole, her state today wouldn’t be this natural.”

The phone in his pocket vibrated. Yu Wen sneaked a peek. An unfamiliar avatar requested to add him as a friend.

Requesting at this time, it must be related to work. Yu Wen didn’t think much of it and agreed.

The other party’s first sentence made his scalp go cold.

[Teacher Yu, remember not to leak that recording.]

Oh my god! It’s Xi Su!

Right now, thinking of him still made Yu Wen recall that horror-movie-esque blue head in the restroom, leaving him quite shaken.

He pressed the screen off and buried his head to play dead.

However, the other party was unrelenting, as if a motor had been installed in his phone, vibrating bzz bzz bzz non-stop.

The accompanying PD kindly offered, “If you have something going on, we can pause for ten minutes.”

Yu Wen gave a fake smile, walked to the side, and helplessly took out his phone.

Xi Su was frantically using the “Nudge” function to poke him. Yu Wen was puzzled; weren’t the others picking mushrooms? How could he be so free, having time to bombard him.

He sent a politely smiling meme, then said: [Teacher Xi, I’m here.]

Xi Su: [You’re finally willing to speak.]

Yu Wen: [Mute for many years, cured in a single day, this Dowager Empress can finally speak! Thank you Teacher Xi for your great kindness!]

Xi Su: […Do you always talk like this?]

Yu Wen: [Can’t you tell that this is sarcastic mocking?]

Xi Su: [Impressive.]

Yu Wen, a supreme chatterbox who could blow rainbow farts to his superiors above, and grasp sarcastic mocking below.

Occasionally, he could even gain some extra meal ticket opportunities by providing emotional value.

Xi Su: [Today in the restroom, I saw you recording audio.]

Yu Wen: [Absolutely no such thing.]

Xi Su: [I saw it.]

Yu Wen: [You saw wrong.]

Xi Su: […]

Silence from the other side for a moment.

Xi Su: [It’s useless for you to deny it, I just saw it.]

Yu Wen stared at these words, suddenly unable to hold back a smile, suspecting that Xi Su only had a kindergarten diploma.

Ah, speaking of which, when he was organizing Xi Su’s profile earlier, this blue-haired guy did indeed seem to have a low educational background, and had even been mocked by rivals because of it.

If he remembered correctly, he came out to work right after graduating from high school. His family’s financial situation was difficult. It wasn’t easy to get a little bit famous from the survival show, so he probably had no thoughts of improving himself educationally in the short term.

Yu Wen: [Fine, call the police then.]

Yu Wen: [Lying_flat.jpg]

Xi Su: [??? Why would I call the police? I’m just telling you, don’t leak it.]

Yu Wen: […Shouldn’t I be the one saying that? You hold the recording in your hands. When the time comes and you get the media to hype it up, Chu Han and Gao Kaiyu’s reputations will stink together. Technical restoration takes time, and the restored original version won’t completely clear their innocence. By then, these two will roll out of the entertainment industry together. Do you have the nerve to ask me not to leak the evidence?]

Xi Su replied with another barrage of question marks: [??? Why would I send it to the media?]

Yu Wen: [If you’re not using it to create a scandal, why edit it like that?]

Xi Su: [I’m sending it to Feng Chengzhou to extort money from him.]

Yu Wen: […]

Wait a minute, what kind of nonsense just floated past my eyes?

Yu Wen stood rooted to the spot for a full five minutes.

Messages kept popping up from the other side.

Xi Su: [I bought the recording from a private detective. A complete buyout, spent a hundred thousand. I’ll edit it to make it look more serious, then demand a million from Feng Chengzhou. I sought you out to tell you, if you also want to extort Feng Chengzhou, we can do it together. Otherwise, if I sell it to him exclusively and then you bring out another copy, it makes me look untrustworthy.]

Xi Su: [As for the split, 30/70. Me 70, you 30. After all, I put up the principal.]

…

What an absurd world.

What an absurd entertainment industry.

Yu Wen didn’t even know with what complex mood he typed this line: [Aren’t you the Feng family’s illegitimate son, Feng Chengzhou’s younger brother?]

Xi Su: [Fuck! How do you know!]

Yu Wen felt like something was swaying in front of his eyes; it seemed to be his departing logical abilities.

He realized his judgment of Xi Su had gone awry.

Interrupting Xi Su’s endless questioning, he said: [We need to talk face-to-face.]

The first supply point was not difficult to climb to. Yu Wen and Song Chenglei arrived at the supply point with a full basket of bamboo fungus to settle up. The members of the other groups also arrived one after another, and the three scattered groups reconvened.

Yu Wen glanced at Xi Su through the crowd. Xi Su happened to be looking at him too. The expressions on both their faces were identically complicated and hard to describe.

“Xiao Yu, what’s wrong?” Song Chenglei saw that he was lacking energy and wanted to rouse his mood. “You couldn’t be a ‘Gold Stealer’, could you? Did you wilt because you didn’t manage to steal any points just now?”

Yu Wen was greatly shocked and looked at him in disbelief.

You steal my points, and you still falsely accuse me?!

The emotion in his eyes was too straightforward. Song Chenglei was stunned for a moment, instantly becoming suspicious, and probed, “Do you know who the mole is?”

Yu Wen stared at him and shook his head expressionlessly.

“You don’t know? Then do you have anyone you suspect?”

Here it comes, here it comes, the smoke and mirrors from the mole.

Yu Wen had just been hit by a soul-crushing strike from Xi Su and temporarily lacked the energy to deal with these ‘schemes and intrigues’. Following the topic, he said blandly, “Does Teacher Song have someone he suspects?”

Song Chenglei carefully scrutinized his expression. After that fleeting exposure of emotion just now, Yu Wen didn’t show any more obvious emotions. Perhaps he was just overthinking it, it was hard to say.

Song Chenglei relaxed slightly and lowered his voice a bit.

“I suspect Xi Su.”

“…” Yu Wen fell silent for a second.

“Makes sense,” he said.

The blue-haired guy was indeed a mole.

Song Chenglei: “This morning, he asked me to help pick a piece of fuzz from your hair. I don’t know if you noticed at the time? That behavior was very suspicious. If the physical contact isn’t fixed between the ‘stealer’ and the ‘stolen from’, then picking that fuzz is very likely his action formula.”

Song Chenglei said this with a straight face.

Throwing out some rule clues to direct conflicts toward others while gaining a companion’s trust—this was a very common muddying-the-waters tactic in deduction-based reality shows.

Right now, no other member had jumped out of their habitual thinking to guess the complete action formula. He only needed to divert the disaster eastward, directing it toward the prominent Xi Su or the intelligent Tong Li, and he would definitely be able to perfectly hide until the end.

This round.

The advantage was his.