Wake Up, This is Not a Dating Show! Chapter 14

Chapter 14 Hunting Time (Part 5) “Brother Xingzhi, you’re so OOC like this…

Despite getting the special reward for the individual battle, as soon as he finished eating, Ye Nai’s drowsiness surged up again. However, not only could he not sleep now, but he also had to immediately face the next activity. His mood was truly not good.

He had originally wanted to buy a mint from the vending machine to wake himself up, but they were sold out.

“Even a broken machine is acting up against me, can’t even buy a single mint,” Ye Nai muttered with a sour face.

While listening to the rules for this round, he was groggy. His usually half-drooping eyelids felt incredibly heavy right now, wanting nothing more than to close completely. The host’s voice sounded as if it were coming from far away.

“Next up is today’s final team battle, ‘Multi-talented’. Each team must sequentially send one person to complete a different task, and finally, the three members will cooperate to complete the ultimate task. A mistake in any segment counts as a failure, and the other team will take the stage. The first team to complete everything wins.”

As for the specific tasks, although they hadn’t been detailed yet, Ye Nai was already tired just looking at the props on site.

There was a pull-up bar, a drum set where the drumsticks were pulled by a resistance machine, and a treadmill.

“The first solo task is to sing while doing pull-ups. Both lines must score no lower than 90 points. The song is the theme song of A Chinese Odyssey, Love in a Lifetime.”

“The second task is to use the resistance machine while fast-talking the monk Tang Seng’s rambling lines. It must be finished within ten seconds, and the speech-to-text must be completely accurate.”

“The third task is to run on the treadmill while acting out Fairy Zixia’s ‘The Man of My Dreams’ iconic scene. You must do it without a script, getting every word right and maintaining good acting.”

“The final cooperative task is: the first person continues singing the next part, the second person plays the drums according to the sheet music, and the third person acts out Zhi Zunbao’s ‘Ten Thousand Years’ iconic scene. The requirement is a song rating no lower than S-tier, and zero mistakes in the drumbeats and lines.”

Everyone: “…”

It sure was a rich variety of tricks.

Host: “Please send one person from each team to play rock-paper-scissors. The winner chooses whether to go first or second.”

Ye Nai: “Whoever is lucky, go.”

Anyway, he was used to bad luck and didn’t plan on stepping up at a time like this.

Yi Xingzhi didn’t show any intention of volunteering either, likely also believing he wasn’t exactly favored by Lady Luck.

In the end, Pei Ze went, and he actually won against Fu Tingyuan. The Red Team chose to go first, as going first naturally had a higher chance of winning.

Ye Nai was definitely going to handle the fast-talking task, no running away from that. As for the other two tasks, there didn’t seem to be a need to discuss the assignment.

“Do I act?” Pei Ze wasn’t quite sure.

“How many pull-ups can you do?” Ye Nai asked instead of answering.

Pei Ze choked, but was still a bit uncertain. “I have absolutely no acting experience, will it work?”

“No, you do. At least more than the two of us,” Ye Nai said in all seriousness. “Just show one-tenth of the acting you usually put on when you’re being dramatic, and it’ll be enough.”

Yi Xingzhi turned his face away, his shoulders twitching slightly.

Pei Ze: “…”

He was laughing, wasn’t he? He was definitely laughing!

Compared to Pei Ze’s performance, Ye Nai was actually more worried about something else. “Brother E, how are you with pull-ups?”

Yi Xingzhi had a well-proportioned build, but it was hard to tell if he had a habit of working out.

“Not bad,” he said lightly.

Ye Nai was half-skeptical, unsure if he was just trying to be tough.

As the first round began, Yi Xingzhi grabbed the bar, pulled himself up effortlessly, and his mouth was already close to the microphone.

As soon as the first line came out, everyone’s expressions changed. His breath control was as steady as if he were singing on flat ground.

With his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the muscle lines in his forearms became especially clear with his movements, and the visible veins exuded a sense of strength.

When it came to the next line, he did another pull-up, and even effortlessly altered his vocal tone to sound more weathered, closer to the original singer’s timbre, and full of storytelling emotion.

The two lines scored 98 and 100 points respectively.

Only then did everyone understand the true weight of his “Not bad”.

The singing was still echoing in Ye Nai’s ears. He spaced out for a second before realizing it was his turn. Fortunately, his mouth was fast enough, and pulling the resistance machine twice was no pressure at all. He finished the lines in eight seconds, and the speech-to-text translation was flawless.

The next task was relatively simple, and the lines weren’t long either. Although Pei Ze was running, he got into character surprisingly quickly.

He already had a delicate and handsome appearance. With a mournful face and sorrowful eyes, you could actually catch glimpses of Fairy Zixia.

Just when they thought they would pass smoothly, the host stopped them. “It’s ‘riding seven-colored clouds’, not ‘seven-colored auspicious clouds’.”

“Ah, really? I misread it!” Pei Ze re-checked the cue card and apologized repeatedly. “Sorry, sorry!”

Ye Nai scrutinized him. Sure enough, the possibility of this guy being the undercover agent still couldn’t be ruled out.

Next, the Blue Team took the stage. Their division of labor was even clearer, completely a case of each performing their specialized duties.

However, Yin Tianhan struggled much more with the pull-ups than Yi Xingzhi. After pulling himself up, his voice was noticeably more strained than usual.

He barely scraped by the first line with 92 points. By the time he pulled himself up again for the second line, the veins on his neck were bulging.

To make matters worse, the song had a slow tempo, and each line took a long time to sing. Towards the end, he completely ran out of breath, barely able to make a sound, and naturally failed to pass.

“No, no, it’s too hard.” Yin Tianhan waved his hand and asked the host, “Can we negotiate? Just pull up once, and then hold that position while singing?”

The directing team chimed in from the sidelines. “To be honest, that’s exactly how we originally designed it.”

Everyone was stunned.

Yuan Lei laughed. “So Brother Yi, this overachiever, increased the difficulty for us all on his own, right?”

“Haha, sorry, I didn’t explain the rules clearly,” the host took the blame. “Then for this round, let’s go with the overachiever standard, which means the Blue Team failed the task. Starting from the next round, we’ll uniformly revert to the normal difficulty, okay?”

In the blink of an eye, the opportunity had returned to the Red Team. All of this was thanks to the operation Yi Xingzhi had inadvertently shown off. Ye Nai’s suspicions about him being the undercover agent faded a bit more.

With the difficulty lowered, Yi Xingzhi completed it even more effortlessly, and Ye Nai passed smoothly as well. Who would have thought that they would get stuck on Pei Ze again?

“It’s ‘I guessed the front half’, not ‘guessed the beginning’,” the host corrected.

“Huh?” Pei Ze was shocked. “Hasn’t everyone always said ‘the beginning’?”

“Maybe that’s the viral version of the quote online, but the original movie definitely says ‘front half’,” the host announced mercilessly. “Red Team, please rest for a moment. Blue Team, take the stage again.”

Ye Nai’s expression grew even more world-weary; he couldn’t even be bothered to speak.

“Why does my mouth start freestyling as soon as I go off script?” Pei Ze remorsefully slapped his own mouth. He read the lines card over and over again and promised, “Next time, absolutely no problem, believe me!”

Ye Nai took his lines card, glanced at it, and asked in confusion, “It’s just these few words, is it really that hard to memorize?”

“How about one of you switch with me?” Pei Ze had a sudden brainwave. “I can do fast-talking too. If I only have to pull up once and hold it, I should be able to last.”

Thinking about having to act out Fairy Zixia’s “My hero in shining armor is coming to marry me” scene, Ye Nai paused, his attitude instantly softening. “Forget it, I can’t act.”

Yi Xingzhi also shook his head. “I can’t memorize lines.”

Hearing this, Ye Nai suddenly remembered hearing that the lead singer of the Feidu band occasionally forgot lyrics, even the ones he wrote himself, yet he could always improvise flawlessly, leaving listeners unable to spot any flaws.

Sometimes, he even created strokes of genius that were perhaps more classic than the original lyrics, earning him the nickname “live creative musician” from netizens.

“So when you were looking so emotional during your first stage performance, you were actually staring affectionately at the teleprompter?” Ye Nai asked.

“Do you want to know?” Yi Xingzhi adapted the Tang Seng lines Ye Nai had just recited. “If you want to know, just say it. If you don’t say you want to know, how will I know you really want to know?”

For a man of so few words to suddenly start rambling like this left Pei Ze dumbfounded. After a long moment of shock, he burst into laughter. “Brother Xingzhi, you’re so OOC like this!”

Hearing this term, Ye Nai couldn’t help but think of that CP video, and his good mood toward Pei Ze vanished again. “Did you memorize your lines? If you mess up again, I’ll bury you directly as the undercover agent.”

Pei Ze: “?”

Who did he provoke?

The Blue Team successfully completed the solo tasks in their second round.

Fu Tingyuan’s performance, in particular, displayed an incredibly strong sense of conviction. Both his delivery of the lines and his emotional state were extremely immersive, making everyone completely ignore the fact that he was on a treadmill.

However, during the cooperative task, Yuan Lei missed a drumbeat, ruining all their previous efforts.

Yin Tianhan had barely managed to hold on through gritted teeth until the very end, his body completely numb. He didn’t look like he jumped off the pull-up bar, but rather like he fell off.

Yuan Lei put his hands together in a flurry of apologies, massaging Yin Tianhan’s shoulders and thumping his back, begging him to hold on for one more round, promising they’d definitely get it next time.

Ye Nai glanced at Yin Tianhan, whose face was flushed red, and then at Yi Xingzhi, who looked perfectly fine, and couldn’t help asking, “Aren’t you tired?”

“It’s okay,” Yi Xingzhi told the truth. “After all, I only sang two lines each round. I haven’t experienced the final segment yet.”

Pei Ze looked up at the sky and silently recited his lines a few more times.

In the third round, the Red Team finally finished the solo tasks and entered the cooperative stage.

When Yi Xingzhi sang the chorus, his infectiousness grew even stronger. The singing was laced with endless helplessness and regret.

Everyone gradually became immersed in the melody, visions of the ancient, sand-swept city gate from the end of the movie appearing before their eyes—desolate and bleak.

“Stop,” the host suddenly interrupted. “The drumbeat is wrong here.”

Ye Nai focused his eyes and only then realized that he had drifted away from the sheet music while drumming. He had started playing according to his own understanding of the music and control of the rhythm, completely forgetting he was doing a task.

With a wooden face, he stood up and silently walked off the stage.

Pei Ze immediately started making a fuss. “Wow, I suspect you’re acting it up for me! You’re the real actor here!”

“This one’s on me.” Ye Nai didn’t defend himself and let him talk, but his mind was a mess. He didn’t know what he was doing.

He was usually very straightforward in his actions—setting a clear goal and single-mindedly working towards it.

He clearly wanted to win this round, so how did he get distracted and make a rookie mistake he couldn’t even forgive himself for? It was truly inexplicable.

Seeing Yi Xingzhi walk over, Ye Nai didn’t know what to say even more. But then he heard the other speak first.

“You drummed pretty well.” Yi Xingzhi’s tone was natural, without any deliberate intention to comfort. “I think it fit better than where the score originally marked it.”

“Do you really think so?” Ye Nai looked up at him.

“Mhm. If I didn’t have the sheet music, I would’ve hit the beat there too.” Yi Xingzhi’s slender fingers tapped lightly on the paper. “And here.”

“Right?” Ye Nai’s expression instantly relaxed considerably, his eyes lighting up as he began discussing with him which points in the song were better suited for drumming to match the musical emotions.

Pei Ze, who had been talking from the sidelines for ages and was completely ignored: “…”

However, the victory for this round was ultimately snatched by the Blue Team.

In the third round, they learned from their mistakes. They were exceptionally careful in every segment, maintaining a high level of concentration at all times, and finally completed all tasks in one go.

Yuan Lei: “Heavens above, four games, and we finally won one!”

Yin Tianhan: “Yeah, if we couldn’t get a single reward, how were we supposed to play?”

Even Fu Tingyuan sighed a rare, “Not easy.”

Seeing their reaction, Ye Nai didn’t feel as bad about losing this round.

The most important question now was: who were the undercover agents on both teams?

“Hunting Time” was fast approaching. Once a wrong judgment was made, they would either be killed by the undercover agent or accidentally injure an ally. Either could directly determine their final success or failure.

Ye Nai actually hadn’t come to a conclusion yet.

If the undercover agent was Pei Ze, then his identity had been exposed way too obviously. It seemed like he wasn’t even trying to hide. His biggest contribution from beginning to end was helping Yi Xingzhi win a round, and he might have even been helping the real undercover agent.

But if it really was Yi Xingzhi, that didn’t make sense either.

He was arguably the MVP of the Red Team so far, his contributions undeniable. Even in the final game, where Ye Nai himself made a mistake, Yi Xingzhi hadn’t slipped up once. He really didn’t look like he was intentionally trying to sabotage them.

Unless he was confident he could win even without the rewards. How else could it be explained?

Then what gave him that confidence?

Everyone headed towards the final activity location together.

Ye Nai was stuck in a deductive dead-end and decided to find a breakthrough. Taking advantage of the Blue Team gathering to discuss their final tactics and Pei Ze wandering around them trying to eavesdrop, he walked towards Yi Xingzhi.

Even when conversing with others, Yi Xingzhi always exuded a faint aura of not quite fitting in.

Now, alone, that “strangers stay away” vibe was even stronger. Like a lone wolf wandering in the snow, he seemed to drop the temperature around him.

Ye Nai walked up behind him, hesitated for a moment, and still called out to him: “Brother E.”

Yi Xingzhi turned around, meeting his gaze. “Hmm?”

His expression didn’t seem to change much, but looking into his eyes, Ye Nai inexplicably felt that the coldness he had sensed just now had faded significantly, like a gentle breeze thawing ice and snow.

“Do you believe I’m not the undercover agent?” Ye Nai felt a bit more confident in his plan and asked straightforwardly.

Yi Xingzhi didn’t speak. It was unclear whether he was thinking or weighing how to answer.

Ye Nai continued, “If I said I have a way for us to build a little more trust between each other, would you want to hear it?”

Yi Xingzhi raised an eyebrow, seemingly very interested. “I’m listening.”

Translator’s Note:

• A Chinese Odyssey (大話西游) is a classic 1995 Hong Kong fantasy-comedy film starring Stephen Chow.
• Fairy Zixia (紫霞仙子) and Zhi Zunbao (至尊寶) are the iconic romantic leads from the film.
• “OOC” (Out of Character) is fan-fiction slang used here humorously by Pei Ze, indicating Yi Xingzhi’s talkativeness doesn’t match his usual cool persona.