If The Persona Is Wrong, Everything Else Is In Vain - Chapter 20

In the blink of an eye, a week passed. The show’s recording went exceptionally smoothly, and the portion set in the Tea Mountain scenic area was basically completed.

“Thanks to” his leg injury, Zhou Wan only needed to sit on the sidelines every day, naturally becoming the foreman for the other “manual laborers.”

He served a somewhat dispensable supervisory role.

Since he didn’t care to move around, his cameraman simply set up a stool, fixed the camera position, and sat opposite him. The cameraman had never had such an easy job earning money so effortlessly.

Of course, Zhou Wan still held an important role in the show, the eye candy.

The recognition for this particular role was slightly higher.

Due to the absence of that “heavyweight” guest, Gu Ning single handedly swept last place for the past few days.

From cooking and washing dishes to organizing and storing, and then to various physical punishments like squats and jump rope…

With this frequency of undergoing punishments, Gu Ning felt as though he was being subjected to some sort of obedience test.

Finally, when the punishment item was announced as, the last place contestant must explore the You Mountain Cavern at night to test the next day’s filming route for the entire team.

Gu Ning couldn’t take it anymore.

You Mountain wasn’t high, it was located right behind the cluster of houses in Shuihe Village. The place where they had gone to see the camellias on their first day in Shuihe was the front of You Mountain.

After years of being washed over by wind and rain, a natural platform had been shaped there. Walking about another hundred meters further back, one could see a natural karst cave.

That was the You Mountain Cavern mentioned in the punishment.

Rumor had it that in ancient times, the dam upstream of Heshui had collapsed once. The floodwaters completely submerged all the houses in the village, forcing the villagers to flee up the mountain. Naturally, the You Mountain Cavern became a natural shelter.

To this day, a few traces of human life from that era remained inside. Later on, perhaps as a form of commemoration, people would always go there to burn incense and worship Buddha.

In recent years, driven by the tourism of Shuihe, it had gradually evolved into a place for the collective sacrificial rituals of Shuihe Village.

If it were during the day, there would be nothing to say about it. But at night… there were no lights. In this life, besides being afraid of getting fat, Gu Ning was most afraid of the dark.

Gu Ning pointed at Zhou Wan, who was spacing out in his wheelchair, and asked the director, “Why don’t you include him in today’s activity too?”

The director was currently communicating filming matters with the staff. In the midst of his busy schedule, he looked up, followed Gu Ning’s finger, and showed a look of difficulty.

“Me?” Zhou Wan snapped back to reality, pointing at himself.

Gu Ning crossed his arms over his chest, looking down at him from a height. “Is there a second eye candy on set?”

It wasn’t just a day or two that he had found Zhou Wan an eyesore. Speaking of which, their families often had business dealings, so they could be considered family friends.

During adolescence, Gu Ning had even been assigned to look after Zhou Wan. Back then, Zhou Wan was a very small thing, always covered in dirt, shrinking into any corner he could find, trembling like a little rabbit.

He was completely different from his current overbearing self.

Zhou Wan let out a light scoff, rolled his eyes, and didn’t reply.

“We are weaving bamboo hats today, you don’t even need to move your feet,” Gu Ning refused to back down and sneered. “Could it be that Young Master Zhou is afraid of losing face and doesn’t dare to participate?”

Just as Zhou Wan was about to shoot back, he caught sight of Lin Luo walking over. He shut his mouth and silently pushed his wheelchair away.

Lin Luo held a half-finished bamboo hat in his hand, weighing it. He looked quite satisfied with it.

Before he could even raise the hat halfway into the air to speak, Zhou Wan had already walked away on his own. He stared at Zhou Wan’s departing back, hesitating to speak.

Ever since that day they parted on bad terms, whenever Lin Luo appeared, Zhou Wan would always consciously walk away, constantly avoiding him. He hadn’t even gone to sleep in Lin Luo’s room at night like he himself had said he would.

Initially, Lin Luo wasn’t quite comfortable with this, often staring blankly at the newly installed camera in the dark. But thinking about it later, it was actually better that he didn’t come, saving Lin Luo the trouble of hiding. It was a great thing.

But he didn’t expect that Zhou Wan’s aloofness would actually last for a whole week.

The two of them seemed to have returned to before.

The period where Zhou Wan, as the “victim,” repeatedly inflicted “revenge,” while Lin Luo, as the “instigator,” could only silently “endure.”

Lin Luo sighed and tossed the half-finished bamboo hat to Gu Ning. “Learn it well, or you’ll be at the bottom again.”

For the sake of the show’s entertainment value, the guests needed to learn how to weave bamboo hats in advance. At least, nothing excessively ugly could appear on camera.

With quick reflexes, Gu Ning caught the bamboo hat, gave a peculiar smile, squinted at Zhou Wan’s departing back, and said sinisterly, “Don’t worry, I guarantee someone will do even worse than me today.”

“Comrade Gu Ning, can’t you strive for something better?” Lin Luo cleared his throat and said righteously, “Why do you always compare yourself with the worst? Look at President Ming.”

Ming Songqin was currently learning to weave a bamboo hat from an old craftsman, his brow furrowed. From time to time, he would nod and try it out himself according to what the master taught him.

That serious look of his was hardly any less intense than when he was researching stocks.

Gu Ning flipped his hand to give him a middle finger, rolling his eyes to the sky. His disdain for Ming Songqin surpassed his disdain for Zhou Wan.

“Do you want to take your family’s guy down a peg?” Gu Ning leaned close to Lin Luo and said mysteriously, “He caused quite a lot of trouble for you before.”

After a moment of hesitation, their gazes met, instantly achieving a perfect match. Lin Luo asked, “What do you plan to do?”

Gu Ning whispered a few words into Lin Luo’s ear. Lin Luo blinked, uncertain. “This… are you sure it’ll work?”

It wasn’t that he disagreed with Gu Ning’s idea, it was just that, his idea wasn’t very honorable…

In fact, Lin Luo didn’t think too much about it in his head, he just wanted Zhou Wan to pay attention to him.

Although he didn’t know why he was dwelling on this either, it wasn’t exactly a good thing.

“Ouch~” Gu Ning slowed down his movements and plopped his butt onto the ground, not even willing to let himself feel a bit of pain.

His acting came so quickly that Lin Luo didn’t even have time to react. The surrounding crew members quickly gathered around, forming a circle with him at the center, asking about the situation.

“What happened? What happened?” The director pushed through the chattering crowd and squeezed in, asking with concern, “President Gu, are you alright?”

“I hurt my leg from the fall…”

He managed to force out two tears. “I’m sorry, Director, I might…”

“This, this, this…” How could someone fall on flat ground!

The director was truly terrified. He paced back and forth anxiously, calculating in his mind.

Back in the day, he had single mindedly pursued art, unyieldingly offending people, which led to him being sidelined for a few years. However, those were all “foolish things” done during his impetuous youth. The current him was already thoroughly matured.

To make a comeback, he had even specifically taken on this variety show that resembled a documentary. This project not only had huge financial backing behind it, which the investors valued highly, but it also had few complications and was easy to achieve good results with.

Yet, he didn’t expect that before the first step was even fully taken, his rice bowl was already on the verge of being smashed. Creating this show had been full of twists and turns. He went through all the details of the pre-filming sacrificial rituals in his mind, but utterly failed to find anything inappropriate.

How could this be even more uncanny than when he used to shoot horror films back then?

The director’s gaze subconsciously darted in Ming Songqin’s direction, only to see him with a deep frown, staring intently at Gu Ning on the ground.

In the dead silence, Gu Ning covertly gave Lin Luo a look. Lin Luo immediately cooperated, supporting Gu Ning by his arms to help him up.

“I think President Gu probably won’t be able to film today. How about we send him to the hospital first?” Lin Luo suggested.

Gu Ning acted delicate at the appropriate time. Although it was quite fake, given the premise of being injured, let him be a bit fragile then…

The director was hesitating, and it looked like he was about to give in when Ming Songqin suddenly intervened.

Without a word, he grabbed Gu Ning by the back of his collar from behind, dragging him out of Lin Luo’s embrace.

“Hey!” Gu Ning stumbled, crashing right into Ming Songqin’s chest.

The rock hard texture of the chest muscles made his shoulder throb with pain. Clutching his shoulder, he said through gritted teeth, “What are you doing!”

With an expressionless face, Ming Songqin looked down at him and said to the director, “I’ll take him to tend to his injured leg first. The filming will start as scheduled in a moment.”

“No, on what grounds do you get to decide!”

Furious, Gu Ning threw several punches at him in a row, all of which were blocked.

Annoyed by his restless resistance, Ming Songqin directly locked his hands and lifted him up in a bridal carry. Squinting his eyes, his tone carried an undisguised threat, “Keep making noise and I’ll shut your…”

His voice cut off abruptly. His gaze landed on Gu Ning’s lips. His expressionless, fierce look naturally added a layer of credibility to his words.

Gu Ning was slightly stunned. Once he reacted, he reflexively covered his mouth. A blush climbed straight to the tips of his ears, and he stared at him with a flushed face.

Although he was in enemy territory, his entire body remained stiff to show his resistance.

Ming Songqin fell into a brief silence. Yet, Gu Ning felt that during these short few seconds, the man let out a faint, sinister, and terrifying chuckle.

Gu Ning cast a gaze for help toward Lin Luo.

Lin Luo looked at the two of them and immediately stepped forward. “President Ming, how about I take…”

Ming Songqin took a deep breath, softened his tone, pulled up a smile, patted Lin Luo’s head, and said, “It’s fine, it’s enough for me to take him. You practice hard.”

Following that, he even weighed Gu Ning in his arms as if weighing produce, and said, “He’s too heavy, you can’t carry him.”

“Fuck your ancestors! Ming Songqin, you’re the heavy one! Your whole family weighs five hundred pounds!”

He clamped his teeth onto Ming Songqin’s arm with a bite, using every ounce of his strength. If it weren’t for Ming Songqin’s thick skin and solid muscle, a chunk would have definitely been bitten out.

Ming Songqin endured it through gritted teeth, his expression turning dark as he continued to address the director, “Zhou Wan will also participate in today’s activity.”

He left no room for negotiation when he said this, speaking with absolute authority. After saying his piece, he carried Gu Ning away.

Belatedly, the director gave a blank nod, staring at the departing backs of the two men in a daze.

To ease the awkwardness, Lin Luo offered a line, “The two of them have a good relationship, they usually share everything…”

As a result, his tongue slipped a bit too far. After he finished speaking, the surrounding atmosphere became even harder to read than before. He gave two dry laughs and shut his mouth.

“Luo Luo!” Song Ranyu patted Lin Luo from behind.

Lin Luo turned around, his gaze falling on the vest Song Ranyu was wearing and the two large bundles of items tucked under his armpits. Hesitantly, he asked, “What is this?”

Following Lin Luo’s gaze, Song Ranyu glanced at the things under his arms and explained, “Oh, these are props that the brother from the prop team asked me to help bring over to set up.”

“My point is, shouldn’t you have gone back already?” Lin Luo frowned. “How did you end up blending into the production crew?”

Song Ranyu scratched his head sheepishly. “I… it’s just fate, you know? Besides, I don’t have anything to do these days anyway. It just so happened that the crew was short-handed, so I came to help out.”

“Just take it as doing volunteer work,” he said.

“Volunteer work?” Lin Luo was puzzled.

Just then, a man from the prop crew came over carrying a large object. Sharp eyed, Song Ranyu quickly put away the items in his hands and went forward to help.

Seeing it was him, the crew member didn’t stand on ceremony either. The two of them chatted and laughed as they moved the object up the steps, looking like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years, able to talk about absolutely anything under the sun.

Song Ranyu’s social skills were truly no joke, he had actually managed to worm his way into the production crew.

In just ten short minutes, Lin Luo had already noticed several crew members from different departments actively greeting him, and Song Ranyu could remember every single one of their names.

Half an hour later, Song Ranyu came over holding two ice creams. “Here.”

He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his arm, smiling brightly.

“By the way, why haven’t I seen Zhou Wan?” He looked around, puzzled.

Lin Luo took a large bite, the cold making his brain throb. He rubbed the space between his brows, and after swallowing it down, he carefully took another small bite, saying nonchalantly, “No idea, maybe he’s slacking off somewhere.”

“Slacking off?”

Realizing his slip of the tongue, Lin Luo hastily changed his words, “No, no, I… he should be busy with something.”

After saying that, he carefully observed Song Ranyu’s expression, deeply afraid that he might feel disappointed or form some unnecessary misunderstanding.

Even though Song Ranyu had explicitly stated in a private message before that he wasn’t that sensitive to OOC (Out of Character) moments.

Maintaining his teammate Zhou Wan’s image and helping him build a good persona to the outside world had already become Lin Luo’s conditioned reflex.

Fortunately, Song Ranyu didn’t say anything or think too much about it. Holding his ice cream, he excitedly went off to take photos.

Lin Luo quietly breathed a sigh of relief. But before the relief could fully settle, a commotion broke out not far away. He looked over in that direction.

He saw a young guy from the camera crew coming out of the restroom, stumbling, with a flushed face. One of his hands braced against the wall while the other clutched his chest as he panted heavily.

A person who was about to enter the restroom caught him and asked with concern, “What’s wrong with you?”

Lin Luo knew that young guy. He used to be Lin Luo’s cameraman and was an Omega. Originally, because his heat cycle was unstable, he was eventually assigned to follow Gu Ning instead.

Lin Luo’s brows knit tightly. The guy’s state already looked very obvious. It was fortunate that the colleague opposite him was a Beta who couldn’t smell pheromones, otherwise…

The young guy looked up at his colleague, lingering fear in his heart.

While urging his colleague to quickly support him away from the restroom, he said indignantly, “I don’t know which immoral jerk did it, but the restroom is completely swallowed by the smell of green grass, like they’re smoking bacon!”

“If it weren’t for the stalls… fuck!”

Green grass? Lin Luo’s heart skipped a beat, and unease swept through his entire body. Without looking back, he walked straight toward that direction.