Su Yan unexpectedly glanced at him. “Radiator” didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong, and he smiled brightly: “You don’t really think that among the participants in this game there are any veteran guests who are good people, do you? I can be courteous to a strong guest, but I would never feel any sympathy for a loser.”
Su Yan pursed her lips, knowing that he was right.
This game was all about survival of the fittest.
Among the fifteen guests in her round, only she and “Radiator” could be considered useful; the other twelve were basically useless.
But—
“I don’t want to give up on anyone easily, as long as I’m still capable. Since I can help them without losing any points myself, then why not?”
Su Yan took a step back.
She suddenly remembered how “Tiger Bro,” a popular veteran guest, was willing to be the first to jump into the river as a demonstration for everyone.
That wasn’t a meaningless gesture—at the very least, it helped her, didn’t it?
If possible, she wanted to pass on this goodwill.
This wasn’t some saintly kindness, just the quality expected of a Young Pioneer who had grown up learning the core socialist values!
Su Yan clicked her tongue and sighed.
Even someone like her, raised under the red flag and born with righteous roots, still couldn’t perfectly adapt to this ruthless game!
“Radiator” saw that Su Yan had rejected his suggestion but didn’t get angry.
He shrugged indifferently.
He was well aware that everyone has their own way of living.
Although he himself was a complete egoist, that didn’t stop him from appreciating those with a noble heart.
Of course, the only reason he appreciated those people was because their nobility could benefit him.
“So, how do you plan to get those extra useless players across?”
Su Yan glanced at him, then walked straight over to the other guests.
“There’s a plan: five guests who just passed the first round will give up on the second round and instead cross in the third round.”
There were fifteen guests in total.
Ten had already passed the first round.
So these ten only needed to win one more round to get 100,000 yuan.
If five of them stepped forward to replace the five guests who failed the first round, by the third round there would be exactly ten guests who had each passed only once.
In this way, if they won one more round, everyone would pass smoothly.
This was indeed a good idea—but who would give up the chance to pass in one go?
The guests exchanged looks, and no one spoke.
Su Yan didn’t indulge them, speaking coldly: “You should know, there’s no way I can squeeze anyone else into this formation now. So if you don’t voluntarily make a small sacrifice, you’ll be forced to make a bigger one.”
She had made her position clear.
If still no one was willing to step up, she wouldn’t mind them fighting among themselves to eliminate five guests manually.
After all, while she wanted to bring everyone through, she didn’t intend to expend extra effort.
What she was doing already showed mercy—she wasn’t a saint and didn’t need to do more for a bunch of selfish people.
Soon, a girl stood up.
“I’ll wait for the next round. Since the plan’s been laid out, it shouldn’t matter which round we pass.”
With her lead, three more people stood up quickly.
Now there was one extra guest left, but the remaining guests remained silent, none willing to volunteer.
A boy cautiously glanced at Su Yan.
“Uh… boss, which round do you plan to pass in?”
Su Yan almost laughed in disbelief.
“What? I came up with the plan and I’m leading you through. Now you still want me to sacrifice myself for you?”
“No, no!”
The boy saw Su Yan’s expression darken and immediately shook his head, trying to clear suspicion with a mischievous smile: “I’m just asking, what if you do decide to sacrifice yourself? You wouldn’t get mad over something like that, right?”
His words reeked of slyness.
Even a Ni Ke native who didn’t know what “green tea” was could tell.
“Why does this guy sound so weird?”
“Anyway, it makes me feel uncomfortable.”
“‘Yan Jing’ is leading them through, and now he hopes others will sacrifice for him?”
“This guy’s so annoying!”
Su Yan sneered and pointed at him: “I’m assigning you to the third round now. If you don’t want to go, you can kill yourself to repay me for helping you pass earlier.”
Ah!
The boy’s expression changed, panicking.
“No… please? I didn’t mean for you to sacrifice. You can’t take revenge based on personal feelings!”
“Hmph!”
Su Yan gave him a cold look.
“Take revenge on personal feelings?”
Suddenly, another boy shouted loudly, “Why waste time with him? Why not just beat this ungrateful dog to death?”
His words immediately won unanimous agreement from the other guests.
“Yeah! What’s the point of keeping such a white-eyed wolf?”
“He was clearly planning to kill himself to apologize! Helping him is just a good deed.”
“‘Yan Jing’ boss, don’t worry! We’re all on your side!”
Su Yan’s expression finally improved.
Meanwhile, the boy was truly desperate.
He tried to defend himself: “I’m not blaming you, boss, I… I just…”
Su Yan was tired of his nonsense.
She waved her hand: “Knock him out. Leave him to the pursuers later.”
The others obeyed, ignoring the boy’s terrified screams as they beat him unconscious.
Then, following Su Yan’s instructions, everyone returned to their original positions.
Su Yan quickly climbed the tree, not occupying the ground spot.
She clapped her hands and shouted to the host: “You may begin.”
Soon, the system’s notification sounded:
Second round of the game begins.
The audience was somewhat bored.
“Is there even a point to the second round?”
“I’m honestly not interested in watching the Shadow faction get played by the Earthlings again.”
“Half an hour of the same thing—I just want to leave the stream.”
“Don’t leave! Is ‘Yan Jing’s’ commentary not good enough?”
“Yeah, yeah! I was planning to learn from ‘Yan Jing’! (dog head)”
“Hey! Speaking of which, I’m all fired up!”
The Shadow faction re-entered, but this time its eyes no longer looked confused or helpless.
Seeing the formation that had given it a headache last round, it looked confident now.
From the moment it appeared, all eyes on the field were focused on it.
The Shadow faction glanced at the unconscious guest, then decisively went to snatch the opportunity.
Free stuff should never be missed!
Then it quickly ran to the pond without hesitation.
Seeing how clearly the opponent had a target, a bad premonition rose in Su Yan’s heart.
By rights, it should still be as clueless as last round, but now this behavior clearly meant it had found a way to break through.
Realizing this, Su Yan immediately tensed up.
She watched the Shadow faction’s movements closely while her mind raced, thinking of a second plan.
Sure enough, the Shadow faction reached the pond and scooped up some water, splashing it at the guests.
Yes, this was the solution the production team had come up with during the break.
In fact, this was based on Su Yan’s original idea: she had tried to use the pond water to stop the Shadow faction.
But since it was structurally different from humans, it wasn’t affected by water.
It didn’t mean the humans wouldn’t be affected.
The production team was exploiting this, using the pond water to disrupt the guests’ formation.
Once their rhythm was broken, it would be nearly impossible to recover.
Their plan succeeded.
The water splashed into some guests’ eyes, making them unable to keep their original steps and stagger sideways.
One stagger led to another, and soon the formation collapsed.
The Shadow faction took advantage and launched a fierce attack.
In just a minute, three guests disappeared after being touched.
The audience was delighted by the production team’s counterattack.
“The production team is amazing!”
“The old fox still knows best!”
“The production team really knows how to control so many guests, very impressive.”
“So that was the weak point? Too clever, I would never have guessed.”
“Now that the formation is broken, the guests are in danger.”
“I really don’t see how ‘Yan Jing’ can save this situation.”
“To be honest, I think only ‘Radiator’ will survive this round.”
“The production team really caught everyone off guard. Even ‘Yan Jing’ probably can’t come up with a good plan this time.”
Su Yan stared at the chaos and sucked in a breath of cold air.
“This is too ruthless. Isn’t using pond water cheating?”
Although she said it, Su Yan knew in her heart this move was legitimate.
After all, hadn’t she used the tree to take refuge in the first place?
Besides, Su Yan wasn’t a goldfish with no memory; she clearly remembered she had tried first to splash the Shadow faction with pond water.
Now she just hoped the opponent wasn’t inspired by her, or else it would be her fault.
Production team: Guess what? 🙂
What to do?
Su Yan felt like a nervous ant on a hot pan up in the tree.
The production team had indeed caught her off guard. She had thought her plan was flawless, but it was so easily broken.
She had been too naive!
Su Yan had assumed the Shadow faction alone couldn’t break the deadlock, but she hadn’t expected it to use environmental advantages.
And another thing—she had assumed the Shadow faction’s intelligence was too low to figure out a solution in a few minutes.
That part was true, but she forgot the Shadow faction had an entire production team behind it.
Just because the Shadow faction lacked brains, didn’t mean the team behind it did.
Three ordinary minds can equal a Zhuge Liang! Especially one that produced such a hit variety show.
Su Yan sighed heavily, but when she looked at the tree beneath her, her eyes suddenly brightened.
It seemed she had thought of a way!