Mu Qiu also felt that her sudden show of affection was not appropriate. Without waiting for Lin Lian’s response, she coughed, retracted the fat gardenia, and twirled the short flower stem around.
"So, Brother Huai was just caught. He should be the one with the lowest score, right?"
"Not necessarily." Lin Lian also pretended not to hear the previous comment.
"We’ve only heard about Sister Guan Yu and their points allocation, combined with Brother Yang and Sister Shu Ran’s total points. We don’t know how the other teams have distributed their points."
"Their total score is the lowest, but they have one fewer person compared to Sister Guan Yu’s group. If Brother Huai took into account that his teammate is a girl and needs care, then Jiang Zhufeng’s points must be higher than his. So his points should be around ten."
Lin Lian summed it up: "Only good enough for two rounds."
"Right, so in order to escape being last, he can only make a comeback like Sister Guan Yu did.
If he listened to us and went directly to catch Chuchu, then he could end up with about fifteen points, still likely the last place."
It’s unlikely that he’d agree to eliminate Chuchu right now.
She stopped, still twirling the gardenia flower in her hand.
Lin Lian’s legs were long, even though they walked the same distance, he walked slower, so he didn’t bump into Mu Qiu when she stopped.
"What? Should we change direction to find Brother Huai?"
"No."
She looked at the row of shell houses ahead and said, "Let’s go see what’s for dinner tonight."
"Huh?"
The shell house is essentially an individual room, with only a round table inside and a small balcony extending over the lake. Open the glass window, and you can stand outside to watch performances at the center of the lake.
The round table is set for eating hot pot, with bowls, chopsticks, and cups already laid out.
"Looks like we’re having hot pot tonight, has the food been ordered?"
She asked the accompanying director behind the camera.
The director was speechless, whispered, "This doesn’t mean we’re having hot pot tonight."
"But I feel like we are, so has the food been ordered? If not, I can help you order."
The director and other staff were silent. Lin Lian, adhering to the principle he had just worked out that "Mu Qiu always has some reasoning," seriously asked her:
"Sister Mu Qiu, is there something wrong with this room? Did you discover something?"
Mu Qiu was puzzled, "I discovered we’re having hot pot tonight."
"... Nothing else?"
"What else could it be? Is it a spicy pot or a divided pot? Clearly, it’s a divided pot, someone among us probably doesn’t eat spicy."
"......" He was speechless.
Mu Qiu caught sight of his glassy eyes and guiltily touched the tip of her nose.
Okay, she just wanted to lay low for a while. Shi Yuhuai wouldn’t agree with Cheng Zhirang’s cooperation for some time, and she wasn’t even sure if Cheng Zhirang really wanted to cooperate sincerely.
If Cheng Zhirang learned from her bad ways, went to ally with Shi Yuhuai, and pulled an ambush on the others like Guan Yu, bumped Shi Yuhuai’s points, then caught Chuchu, she wouldn’t be able to stop it.
But if they did that, without knowing how Cheng Zhirang and Shi Yuhuai’s points are allocated among their teams, she could perhaps end up with the least points.
The best approach now is to lay low, observe the situation, and probe Cheng Zhirang’s team for their intentions.
She sat down at the hot pot table, took a menu from the storage cabinet next to her, and pretended to browse through it.
Lin Lian also sat down but spent most of the time looking out at the lake outside the shell house, his ears alert to catch any information.
Then Mu Qiu said again, "I think we’re having hot pot here tonight."
His gaze settled on the top of her head, and he echoed, "Probably. The only restaurants here are in the villas we’re staying in and another dedicated restaurant over by Kite Road. Aside from these, there’s this place."
"Did the show crew set this up for atmosphere? Or is there another purpose?"
She looked towards the extension stage in the center of the lake, where the piano was still placed, sparking an unpleasant memory in her mind.
"You might need to be careful," she said sympathetically, but with evident schadenfreude in her eyes, "What if they want you guys to perform on stage?"
"That’s impossible, right? I’m not really good at singing or dancing."
"Just teasing," she suddenly smiled, pointing at the LED screen across the lake,
"That’s the point. After the game ends, aren’t we supposed to choose a performance piece? Probably doing it while dining, which means this third round of the game won’t end so quickly. The show crew has ways to extend our playtime."
Lin Lian wasn’t familiar with the show crew, unable to offer any significant opinion.
After a quiet moment, his voice came again in the shell house, "Sister Mu Qiu, how long do you plan to lay low here?"
Mu Qiu: "..." It’s not necessarily a good thing for young people to be too smart.
Elsewhere.
Cheng Zhirang already anticipated everything Mu Qiu might consider, and analyzed it one by one for Xu Cheng and Bai Shu.
Xu Cheng almost couldn’t wrap his mind around it, took a good while to digest it, and then asked admiringly,
"Then why don’t we let Brother Yang catch us, turn us into predators, and then catch Chuchu ourselves? Or even directly catch Brother Huai, wouldn’t this end the game immediately? Having control in our own hands seems more secure."
Bai Shu contradicted him, "We get an electronic sound notification when we’re caught, Sister Mu Qiu and the others would instantly know we’ve betrayed the alliance. Want to learn to squeal like a pig?"
"... I don’t really want to. So what do we do?"
Cheng Zhirang leisurely stroked the fragrant gardenia flowers by the roadside, not worried at all.
"Then just find someone else, the main goal is to eliminate the one with the lowest score, it doesn’t matter who does the elimination."
"Find someone else? Who?"
Cheng Zhirang borrowed Mu Qiu’s words, "Someone with a high score."
Running on the field, the well-known high scorers are just two —
One is in riot mode, chasing Guan Yu’s group, Shu Ran; the other is running around the field, chasing Mu Qiu, Li Yang.
According to Mu Qiu’s prior plan, finding Shu Ran would be best. But...
"Let’s go find Li Yang first."
Mu Qiu least wanted to find Li Yang, but Li Yang didn’t yet know about their alliance, so he operated on reputation.
He believed his reputation was still good, much better than Mu Qiu’s.
Li Yang should agree... right?
Passing through a route opposite to Mu Qiu’s, crossing a couple of buildings under the bridges and streams, he turned a corner and bumped into Shi Yuhuai.
Maybe it was destiny, Cheng Zhirang stopped, considering whether to abandon Li Yang and work with Shi Yuhuai.
But as soon as he lifted his foot to move over a couple of steps, Shi Yuhuai, like a frighted bird, nervously turned around and ran away.
Ran away...
"What happened?" Xu Cheng looked at Cheng Zhirang, "Brother Huai seems terrified of us. He’s the predator, we’re supposed to be afraid of him, right?"
"Maybe he fears we’ll trick him like Guan Yu tricked Shu Ran. We have more people, he’s afraid to snatch. Over there is a mattress corner exposed, is that the Sailor Moon?"