After the production team finished explaining the rules, Ji Mingtian was pleasantly surprised to discover a little loophole.
“The final round is worth a lot of points. That means even if we lose the first and second rounds, we can still win as long as we take the third!”
Ji Liuyue gave him a look, unwilling to crush his hopes.
Liu Qingye, however, made no effort to spare his feelings. There was no need to be considerate toward a simp, after all.
“The third round is a name-tag-ripping game. It’s all about physical strength. There are three male guests on the other team. Do you really think we’ll tear off their name tags first, or will they get ours first?”
Ji Mingtian fell silent. “...I suppose you have a point.”
Cen Yu encouraged everyone. “So if we want to win, we still have to do our best.”
Wang Aitian suddenly interrupted, “Everyone... how about we just give up?”
Ji Mingtian was baffled.
“What do you mean?”
Ji Liuyue cast Wang Aitian an appreciative glance and explained, “Tiantian is right. Even if we win the first two games, we’ll only have accumulated five points. If we lose the final round, all our earlier efforts will have been for nothing.”
“And everyone agrees that we can’t beat them in a test of physical strength in the third round. So instead of struggling pointlessly, we might as well just lie flat.”
The truth was painful.
But it made perfect sense.
Ji Mingtian glanced at Liu Qingye beside him and noticed that her eyes were not on him at all. Instead, she was looking at Chen Xindi, who stood some distance away.
Curious, he asked, “Yezi, what are you looking at?”
Liu Qingye pouted. “I’m jealous of Chen Xindi...”
She really was lucky. The moment she arrived, she had been grouped with Xu Jinsi, Lu Nanxun, and Ji Xizhou—the three men she had once planned to pair herself with for a publicity CP.
And this time, she was guaranteed an effortless win.
“You don’t have to be jealous of her! We can definitely win. I’ll give it everything I’ve got!”
Ji Mingtian clenched his fist, then added, “I used to be a professional athlete.”
At the house gym, Ji Mingtian and Ji Xizhou were also the two who went most often.
Liu Qingye replied blandly, “I hope so.”
The first game began.
Group 1 sent out the brimming-with-confidence Ji Mingtian.
Group 2 sent out the young and energetic Ji Xizhou.
It was practically a showdown between two fitness buffs.
Before the match began, a staff member reminded them to deliver a line of trash talk.
Trash talk?
Ji Mingtian bent his arm and flexed his biceps, declaring confidently, “I won’t lose!”
That hardly counted as trash talk. It sounded more like he was cheering himself on.
Ji Xizhou’s eyes were partly hidden beneath his tousled brown bangs. His gaze passed over Ji Mingtian and landed on Ji Liuyue.
The corners of his lips curved upward.
He had to seize this opportunity. He absolutely had to win her over!
He then turned his attention back to Ji Mingtian and taunted him with obvious disdain.
“Don’t lose heart, Brother Ji. Your team is doomed to lose this match. You won’t have another chance after this!”
Ji Mingtian’s face turned livid with anger.
“Anyone can talk big. We’ll settle this in the match.”
The guests on both sides stood nearby, cheering for their teammates—and adding plenty of fuel to the fire.
The match began.
The two male guests faced off in a game of chicken within the designated area.
Ji Mingtian was a little shorter than Ji Xizhou, but he had built up an impressive amount of muscle.
So at the start, he simply planned to overwhelm Ji Xizhou with sheer strength.
He hopped forward at high speed on one leg, his other leg tucked up, and charged straight at him.
People often said that taller people had poorer balance, but Ji Xizhou was remarkably steady. Faced with the head-on attack, he nimbly twisted aside.
Ji Mingtian, on the other hand, nearly lost his balance and toppled over.
Fortunately, all his workouts at the gym had not been for nothing. He quickly steadied himself using his core strength.
But there was now a hint of wariness in his eyes as he looked at Ji Xizhou.
“Kid, you’ve got some skills!”
Ji Xizhou smiled. “Brother, I was going easy on you because you’re a senior citizen. But I won’t be holding back next time!”
The moment he finished speaking, he attacked like a gear spinning at full speed.
Fast and fierce.
Ji Mingtian hurriedly hopped backward on one leg, trying to evade him, but Ji Xizhou was already in front of him in an instant, like a dense mass of storm clouds bearing down on him.
With a forceful bump, Ji Mingtian began swaying from side to side again. He struggled for three or four seconds, but the leg he had kept raised instinctively dropped back to the ground.
First round.
Ji Xizhou won!
Dejected, Ji Mingtian returned to his team and apologized.
“Sorry. I lost.”
Cen Yu and Wang Aitian comforted him. “It’s okay. There are still two rounds. Maybe we can win the next ones.”
Liu Qingye, however, got straight to the point.
“If we can win one round out of three, we’ll at least save face. Tiantian, Cen Yu, we’re counting on you two for the next round.”
The second round was a mixed doubles jump-rope competition.
Naturally, Group One sent out Cen Yu and Wang Aitian. Ever since they had confirmed their feelings for each other, the two of them had spent nearly all their time together on the island.
And doubles jump rope required good coordination in the first place. Since they were jumping together, neither of them would be so nervous or embarrassed that they broke their rhythm.
They were the perfect candidates.
But how would Group Two pair up?
Liu Qingye sidled over to Liuyue again and murmured in an eerily devilish voice:
“Yueyue, who do you think they’ll pair with Chen Xindi for the jump-rope round?”
“Will it be Xu Jinsi, who gave her a bracelet worth 120,000? Dr. Lu, who’s so gentle and considerate? Or Ji Xizhou, who said he’s had a crush on her for years...?”
“I feel like Chen Xindi is interested in all of them. And when two people jump rope together, don’t they need to hold each other by the shoulders?”
“They’ll also be standing very close together. An activity like this is practically tailor-made for bringing a man and a woman closer.”
“Who knows? Maybe their feelings will heat up after they finish. Tsk, tsk...”
Listening to her painstaking analysis, Ji Liuyue could not help nodding along.
Only then did she ask, in an indifferent tone:
“Who do you think she’ll choose?”
“I don’t know. I’m not worried no matter who Chen Xindi chooses.” Liu Qingye curled her lips.
Ji Liuyue asked, “So you’re worried for me?”
Liu Qingye smiled sweetly.
“I’m looking forward to seeing you make a fool of yourself. If one of the male guests runs off because of this game, then you’ll be just like me.”
Ji Liuyue asked again, “You’d be happy if I ended up like you?”
The corners of Liu Qingye’s lips lifted slightly. “Of course!”
Ji Liuyue stared at her with an ambiguous smile.
Liu Qingye froze. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Ji Liuyue said, “Don’t you think you’ve been paying a little too much attention to me, Yezi? What did you come on this dating show for, anyway?”
What else? Obviously, she’d come to pair up with one of the male contestants, play up a fake romance, and boost her popularity—so she could become famous!
But now that Ji Liuyue had pointed it out...
Liu Qingye realized that lately, all her attention had been on Ji Liuyue. She’d completely forgotten to cultivate any flirtatious chemistry with the male contestants.
Ah, damn it.
What was going on?
