Free Web NovelChapter 725: Chapter 724: Mu Qiu and Lin Lian Successfully Form a Team
The next few minutes were a time of rapid sprinting.
She was one of the more unfortunate ones, still unable to figure out the riddle’s location, so she could only run to as many places as possible, searching for the most likely spot.
From the lawn to the flat road, then to the so-called square, and then all the way east from the square.
Passing certain places, she could still bump into others running just as frantically.
Like Li Yang, who was running at lightning speed; she didn’t even have time to greet him before he vanished again.
She could only keep panting while following him in the run.
At this moment, the electronic voice chimed in again.
"Cheng Zhirang, Bai Shu, team formed successfully!"
Who is Bai Shu?
Mu Qiu paused for a moment but didn’t stop. The electronic voice started announcing other successful team formations, which only meant others were safe while she was still in the danger phase, with probably only a few minutes left in the countdown.
After passing through a stretch of bamboo forest, in front of her was a cylindrical bamboo structure with a thatched roof, where staff from the attraction were busy inside, and by the small fountain outside were a few bamboo tables, chairs, and stools.
"Hello?" She stopped to ask the people inside, her breath heavy, "Do you know if there’s any place related to the Black Tortoise and White Tiger here? Like, the turtle and tiger... You don’t have a zoo here, do you?"
She suddenly had an epiphany, what Black Tortoise and White Tiger, unless this wasn’t a fantasy game, it was all nonsense; the useful information should be ’turtle and tiger’. But how could there be a tiger here? A turtle was more likely.
The staff slicing fruit shook their heads, "There’s no zoo here and certainly no tiger. We do have turtles, but it depends on whether you’re looking for real or fake ones."
"Fake turtles?" She pulled out the pink pig from her pocket, squeezed it, making it emit a ’turtle’ sound, then asked, "Is it like this?"
Staff member: "...Pfft, what is this thing?"
"Just an insignificant pig," she didn’t have much time and couldn’t waste it chit-chatting, "Hey, just tell me already, where’s the real turtle, and where’s the fake one? I’m running out of time."
The young man finished slicing the orange, "The real turtle is in the creek by the entrance, right by the Kite Road. The fake turtle is by the fountain in the square."
...Damn, all places I’ve already passed by.
She immediately turned back to run to the square, a group of staff members trailing after her, rushing towards the square.
The young man shouted from behind, "No need to retrace your steps, run through the path between the buildings outside here, it can save you half the time!"
Upon hearing this, Mu Qiu immediately braked hard and changed her path to the small path outside.
Running through the narrow paths between several buildings, she came face to face with a group of people.
Leading them was Cheng Zhirang, running quickly, and as he got closer, she could hear his slightly heavy breathing.
It had been more than half an hour, and this was the first time the two had met. At the first glance, both had a slight...twitch at the corners of their mouths.
Cheng Zhirang held back his laughter, signaling to her towards the square, "There’s a fountain there, it might be the place you’re looking for, hurry up, there’re only two minutes left."
Mu Qiu couldn’t afford to say anything else, tied the white tablecloth on her face a bit tighter, nodded to him, and started sprinting toward the fountain.
The drumming electronic countdown had begun its final minute.
Mu Qiu ran until she was out of breath and finally reached the fountain with twenty seconds left on the countdown, spotting the legendary Black Tortoise—a turtle stone sculpture by the fountain.
Beside the sculpture, there was a boy sitting on a spring chair, holding a bright yellow cloth tiger.
The two of them, one standing and one sitting, looked at each other.
Mu Qiu expressionlessly said, "Don’t tell me, that cloth tiger in your hand is the ancient mythical beast White Tiger."
"Beast?" The boy’s voice was like jade falling into a pot, ethereal and pleasing, "Do you mean this?"
He squeezed the cloth tiger, and a synthesized tiger roar came from it.
"Roar—"
She twitched at the corners of her mouth, resignedly pulling out the pink pig, and squeezed it.
"Turtle Turtle"
"Roar—"
"Turtle Turtle"
"Roar—"
It was truly a touching scene of the mythical beast friends recognizing each other.
She squatted down, covering her eyes, feeling the production team either had too much imagination or whimsically came up with this process before recording.
Either way, there’s somewhat of a problem with them.
Just as the countdown ended, the electronic voice announced the few teams formed just in time.
"Guan Yu and Zhang Li formed a team! Mu Qiu and Lin Lian formed a team! Ten-minute countdown over! Guest rotation begins!"
There were still three people who hadn’t successfully formed teams: Shu Ran, Shi Yuhuai, and Li Yang. One of them would likely lose their partner and go solo.
But that wasn’t her concern anymore.
Mu Qiu casually found a clean spot to sit down, took a good breath, and then stared at the clean, handsome boy asking, "Is your name Lin Lian? Which Lian?"
Lin Lian stood up, secured the spring chair, and said, "Lian, as in Lian Yan. You can sit here."
She shook her head, taking the water handed over by a nearby staff member and drank a couple of sips.
"Your name sounds nice. Sorry for asking, are you an actor? I haven’t seen you on any show before."
"I’m a newbie just breaking into the industry but plan to be an actor in the future."
Lin Lian’s voice was truly beautiful, just like his face, clean and pure.
Though his refined features made him slightly feminine, his distinctive ethereal male voice combined with those long, straight legs, it was hard to mistake his gender.
He was unexpectedly a beautiful boy with feminine looks, and who knew where the production team found such a good seedling, so handsome.
Right in this episode, Cheng Beauty had been made up to look ugly...
Brother Cheng’s reputation as the number one beauty was being challenged.
A lot of thoughts crossed her mind, and she couldn’t help but glance at him again.
"How old are you?"
"...Eighteen."
It was Lin Lian’s first time taking part in a variety show, and he watched the previous six episodes of the series twice. When he saw Mu Qiu was his partner, he was happy, thinking it was time to start strategizing on the current situation to help a teammate, but he never expected her to seriously start investigating his age.
Could it be, just like what people said online, she was initially attracted to Cheng Zhirang because he was the best looking? Did she really just like good looks?
Mu Qiu didn’t know what he was thinking, but upon hearing his voice, seeing his face, and considering his age, she remembered the fun little stories fans wrote in serials under Cheng Zhirang’s social media post yesterday.
In the sunny breeze of summer, the clean and fresh boy tilts back to drink a bottle of overly iced honey lemon water, the droplets on the bottle sliding to his collar...
"Qiuqiu."
Mu Qiu shivered.
