Chapter Fifty-Two: The Unexpected

They lost. They actually lost.

Lan Qing hadn’t even processed it when the host announced that Sang Yijia and Lu Wenchuan had won. The viewers in the livestream fell silent. Everyone had assumed Lan Qing was sure to win, but it was Sang Yijia who emerged victorious.

“I don’t believe it.”
“There must be something fishy going on.”
“Yeah, what kind of show comes up with such random questions?”
“Qingqing did just fine with all the previous answers.”
“It must be the buzzer—there’s no way the button wasn’t faulty.”

In the final stage, Lu Wenchuan’s reactions were lightning-fast, leaving Shen Jin unable to compete. As a result, Lan Qing had no chance to answer. Now that they’d lost the quiz round, Shen Jin was still in shock, staring at his buzzer with furrowed brows. It worked fine—there was no malfunction. But they had lost.

It took Lan Qing a long moment to recover, forcing a strained smile. “Jiajia, congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Sang Yijia replied politely. The key point had shifted in this round, and she was now even further from the original plot. Sang Yijia felt quite pleased.

“Hey!” Yan Ningsi and Bian He suddenly appeared from somewhere. Yan Ningsi couldn’t keep the smile off her face as she looked at Sang Yijia. “Jiajia, you really are amazing. You answered every single question I made up.”

Yan Ningsi’s words instantly silenced the viewers who had been casting doubt just moments before.

“Hahaha, let’s see you try to question Sang Yijia now!”
“To be honest, these were all basic common knowledge. It’s not even that impressive to get them right.”
“I knew it—the questions were all over the place and unrelated. Turns out, it was Ningsi who made them up.”
“Well, then there’s no problem.”
“What? Cheating? Oh, the questions were by Ningsi.”

Lan Qing’s lips twitched. So that’s why the questions had changed! It was Yan Ningsi stirring things up behind the scenes!

Suddenly, Lan Qing’s heart skipped a beat as she looked sharply at Yan Ningsi, her gaze complex. “Ningsi, what made you decide to write the questions?”

Could Yan Ningsi have discovered something? Impossible. Lan Qing rejected the thought. Jian Hong never made mistakes—this must be a coincidence.

“Huh?” Yan Ningsi blinked. “Nothing really. The production team just told us to stand outside the shop as mascots.”

“Ugh,” Yan Ningsi changed the subject, turning to Sang Yijia. “Did you know? In this scorching heat, they made us wear mascot costumes and hand out flyers at the door! If that wasn’t bad enough, the costumes couldn’t even stand up straight. Walk a couple of steps and you’re about to fall over.”

“It was infuriating.” Yan Ningsi shot Director Chen a glare. “Director, your punishments are really something.”

“I was drenched in sweat.” She sniffed at herself. “I smell like a salt-cured fish left out for three days.”

Bian He couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Three days? I think you’re more ‘flavorful’ than that.”

“Oh, like you’re any better,” Yan Ningsi retorted with a roll of her eyes.

Bian He waved it off. “At least we only had to stand for three hours. When we finished, Ningsi saw the staff preparing quiz questions and insisted on helping out. She negotiated with the crew: if anyone got over seventy percent of the answers right, the dinner reward would go to them. If not, it would be ours.” Finding this reasonable, Bian He had happily joined the question-writing team too.

Hearing this explanation, Lan Qing felt worse than if she’d swallowed a fly. She forced a smile. “Ningsi really has a way of catching people off guard.”

All her preparations during the lunch break had been for nothing.

Lan Qing gave a dry chuckle and glanced at Yan Ningsi. Comparing their current status in the industry, she knew she couldn’t compete with or offend her. Her gaze finally landed on Sang Yijia. “Jiajia, you were impressive too—got every question right.”

“It was nothing,” Sang Yijia replied, shaking her head. “Ningsi must have picked questions from general knowledge quizzes. I’ve seen them before.”

“That’s right!” Yan Ningsi admitted cheerfully. “Just found them online. I honestly thought none of you would get them all.”

She shrugged, disappointed. “Looks like we’re out of luck for tonight’s dinner.”

As she spoke, Yan Ningsi snuck a glance at Lu Wenchuan. She wanted to suggest tagging along for dinner with Sang Yijia, but when she met Lu Wenchuan’s gaze, she quietly touched her nose and let the idea drop.

Director Chen, seeing that all the guests had returned and everything had been explained, clapped his hands to announce the end of the quiz round and the start of the next segment.

Sang Yijia and Lu Wenchuan only needed to freshen up before heading straight to the hotel for dinner. Lan Qing and Shen Jin, having lost, would have to return to the farmhouse and prepare dinner themselves using only the fish they’d caught that morning. Yan Ningsi and Bian He, who hadn’t participated in the morning challenge, had no ingredients at all. Their only option was to go out and mooch a meal, since they had no money to buy food.

When Lan Qing heard about their situation, her lips tightened. She’d already lost one chance to shine on camera—tonight, she had to make dinner and win back some credit.

“Fine, I’ll cook tonight,” Lan Qing agreed graciously.

Yan Ningsi was delighted to have found a meal ticket. “Thanks, Qingqing!”

Meanwhile, Sang Yijia and Lu Wenchuan had to go get ready, taking a different route.

On the way back, Sang Yijia walked beside Lu Wenchuan, glancing up at him. “Thank you for earlier.”

Sang Yijia didn’t know everything—during the quiz, Lu Wenchuan had given her several helpful hints.

“No need to thank me. We’re partners,” Lu Wenchuan replied, gazing ahead. He seemed to spot someone running, with another person chasing after them, who then tripped and quickly got back up to continue the pursuit.

Sang Yijia saw it too—and heard the shouting.

“Catch him!”
“He’s the suspect!”

Several bystanders tried to help, but the suspect was quick and dodged them all. One girl even stuck out her leg to trip him, but it didn’t work.

Sang Yijia narrowed her eyes as the person drew closer and closer.

“I’ll handle this,” Lu Wenchuan was about to step forward, but Sang Yijia pushed him aside. She sidestepped, grabbed the suspect by the collar, and in a flash, threw him over her shoulder.

Smack.

Dust flew up from the ground.

As it settled, the suspect lay face-down, his hands pinned behind his back by Sang Yijia.

“What????”
“What????”

The livestream was filled with question marks. After a moment, the viewers started asking:

“What just happened?”
“I swear I didn’t even blink.”