Chapter 33: The Greedy Deceiver Part 2

Although Lian Mei’s words weren’t exactly pleasant, they still allowed most guests to relax. Immediately, they all rushed to close every window on the first floor, preventing the long snake from slithering inside.

Just as the group returned to the living room, they saw Lian Mei standing in front of the window, right in front of the snake, staring at it without moving. Everyone held their breath, wondering what Lian Mei was doing.

Suddenly, Lian Mei turned her head and smiled at them. “Actually, it’s a fake snake. The Production Team put it there.”

Just as Lian Mei spoke, the long snake on the window behind her moved, causing those standing in the living room to scream again. “It’s moving! It’s moving!”

The moment Lian Mei turned back around, the long snake had indeed shifted position, now level with her head.

Lian Mei sighed. Suddenly, she opened the floor-to-ceiling window, slipped outside herself, and shut it again, leaving one person and one snake outside.

“AHHH—” The guests all shrieked.

Xie Moluo rushed to the window, yelling for Lian Mei to come back inside. But Lian Mei just shook her head at her with a smile. Then, stretching out her long arm, she grabbed the head of the snake, which seemed to be trying to flee, and with a “gentle” twist, the snake cracked in two.

Faced with the guests’ dumbfounded expressions, Lian Mei held the two broken ends up to the window for everyone to see. Inside were mechanical parts. It was a toy snake, an incredibly realistic toy snake, the kind you could control with a remote to move its head and body.

Lian Mei flung the snake over the courtyard wall, then pushed the window open and stepped back inside.

“Phew—” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed back onto the sofas. Many had red-rimmed eyes, having nearly been scared to tears moments before.

Lian Mei sat near the window. Xie Moluo handed her a tissue to wipe her hands. Lowering her eyes, Xie Moluo whispered, “Next time… don’t be so impulsive. What if it had been a real snake…”

Lian Mei shook her head. “It had no life pulse. I could tell at a glance it was fake.”

Xie Moluo: “…You seem to know snakes pretty well, then.”

Lian Mei blinked but didn’t speak.

Well, I was briefly a snake king, after all.

Meanwhile, Tang Su once again stepped forward to analyze. “This season is basically a horror-themed villa survival show. They’ll set up a series of frightening scenarios to torment us guests. But luckily, these scary things are all deliberately arranged by the Production Team and are fake. So as long as we firmly believe that, no matter what we see, we can just treat it as fake.”

Tang Su spoke with a steady expression. “These four days and three nights probably won’t be calm.”

Wang Jianxi hugged Tang Su’s arm tightly and immediately chimed in after her. “Sister Tang is right! Although these things look scary, they’re all fake! Don’t be afraid, everyone!”

Everyone nodded in agreement. “Okay…”

In the corner, Xie Moluo found this amusing and looked at Lian Mei. “The spotlight’s on them now.”

Lian Mei shrugged indifferently, then beckoned mysteriously for Xie Moluo to lean closer.

Curious what she had to say, Xie Moluo moved closer, and then heard Lian Mei whisper huskily in her ear, “Not everything… is completely fake…”

The sentence was so disjointed, yet Xie Moluo immediately understood that Lian Mei was contradicting Tang Su’s statement.

Not all fake… meaning there were “real things” among them.

Xie Moluo didn’t dare think deeply about what those “real things” might be.

Xie Moluo tensed up, unconsciously grabbing Lian Mei’s arm and leaning closer. She whispered, “Are there really ghosts?”

Their eyes met, and neither spoke.

But Lian Mei’s silence, as time passed, made Xie Moluo’s heart grow heavier and heavier.

Could this villa really have some kind of unclean thing in it…?

“Hahahaha,” Lian Mei suddenly burst out laughing, reaching out to ruffle Xie Moluo’s hair. “Please firmly believe in materialism, okay? How can there be ghosts in this world? You’re so silly, actually believing that.”

Xie Moluo: “…”

Smile. Maintain the smile. Must maintain the persona of us being a loving wife-wife couple.

Xie Moluo looked at Lian Mei with smiling eyes and suddenly collapsed against her, raising her little fists to pound on Lian Mei.

“You’re awful! You tricked me… And I actually believed you…”

Xie Moluo hit Lian Mei with every word. Small fists, but packed with great power.

What Xie Moluo thought were powerful punches felt like tickles to Lian Mei. But she certainly wasn’t going to let Xie Moluo keep hitting her without getting some compensation.

Lian Mei caught Xie Moluo’s fists, wrapped them in her palm, then hugged Xie Moluo’s waist and whined into her ear, “Honey, you hit me so hard it hurts. You need to kiss it better~~”

Lying in Lian Mei’s arms, Xie Moluo felt a moment of complete cognitive dissonance. How had she ended up in Lian Mei’s embrace? It seemed like she’d done it herself… What on earth had she been thinking at that moment?!?

“Cough, cough—” A crisp, deliberate clearing of the throat came from behind them. The two in the corner turned to find six pairs of eyes staring at them.

Zhang Xingyan smoothed things over. “Oh dear, Lian Mei just went out there to defuse the crisis, and we haven’t even thanked her yet. Otherwise, who knows, we might all have been crying. Lian Mei, you’re really amazing…”

Everyone quickly chimed in with a few words of praise for Lian Mei. Even Tang Su smiled at her and said, “Thank you. You were very brave.”

Wang Jianxi just offered a perfunctory, half-hearted echo. Making me keep praising Lian Mei? Not a chance!

Xie Moluo felt immensely awkward inside, but she still got up from Lian Mei with a calm expression and then began playing dead.

Lian Mei, being much thicker-skinned, sat up and shook her head at the six. “It was nothing. I barely did anything.”

Not caring what the others thought, she directly started smoothing out Xie Moluo’s hair, which she had messed up.

Xie Moluo glanced at her, and as if giving up in despair, didn’t stop her and just let her be.

Han Hao then noticed an Antique Clock on the dining room wall, ticking away.

Han Hao said, “It’s only 4 PM. Three hours until 7. What are we going to do for these three hours?”

Tang Su swept her gaze around and asked, “Anyone have any ideas?”

After Tang Su spoke, the room was very quiet. Clearly, no one wanted to move. Lian Mei was even resting her head against Xie Moluo’s back, drowsy and about to fall asleep.

It was early autumn, and the villa’s Thermostat System was running. The comfortable temperature easily made people sleepy.

Lian Mei had spent far more time as an animal than as a human. She’d long formed the habit of sleeping whenever there was no hunting or tasks to do. This was clearly a time of idleness. If she didn’t sleep now, when would she? The night might not even be as suitable for sleeping as now.

In the end, Xie Moluo offered her suggestion. “If it’s really like Miss Tang said, tonight probably won’t be easy. That being the case, why don’t we all close our eyes and nap for a while? We can wake up when it’s 7 PM.”

People often practice guilt by association: hating someone means hating their family too.

Wang Jianxi hated Lian Mei, so she also hated Xie Moluo for being blind enough to fall for her. Hearing Xie Moluo’s words, she immediately picked a fight. “But we don’t have any electronic devices now, no alarm clocks. What if we oversleep?”

Xie Moluo couldn’t be bothered to deal with her. She had a temper too; she wasn’t some Little Princess pampered only at home.

A faint hint of sarcasm crept into Xie Moluo’s smile. “Oversleep then. As long as we wake up, it’s fine. It’s not like we won’t wake up at all.”

“You—” Wang Jianxi was instantly provoked. Just as she started to speak, her wife Tang Su cut her off.

“Jianxi, stop it.” Four emotionless words, yet they fell on Wang Jianxi’s ears as if she were cursed. She fell silent instantly, lowering her eyes and sitting quietly beside Tang Su.

Her current fame and status were all pushed forward by Tang Su. No matter how she flaunted their affection in public, when Tang Su was truly angry, she didn’t dare to even let out a peep. Tang Su could lift her high, but also drag her down from that height.

In the end, no one had any other ideas, and so they fell asleep in pairs on the sofas. The room temperature was just right, not too cold, not too hot, making for a comfortable sleep.

Not far from the villa was a temporarily constructed Camp. The show’s Head Director, Director Meng, ordered filming to pause. Watching the eight slumbering figures in the villa’s living room through Hidden Cameras, his eyes gleamed.

Director Meng said, “Take all the footage shot so far and hand it to the editing team. Tell the Editing Team to cut it to be interesting and full of controversy. You can give more screen time to the Tang Su/Wang Jianxi and Lian Mei/Xie Moluo couples. Go. Bring it to me after it’s done.”

The Director Assistant nodded. “Okay, I’ll have them start editing now.”

“Wait,” Director Meng called to the Assistant. “Get those Featured Extras ready. After 7 PM, it’ll be their time to move.”

The Assistant’s face lit up with a grin. “Right away. I’ll go inform them now.”

Their Production Team had long since cleared the Forest surrounding the villa of animals to ensure the guests’ safety. The show could scare the guests, even torment them, but it absolutely would not endanger their personal safety. It wasn’t worth risking lives or lawsuits for a temporary show effect.

The villa was situated in the woods. As the sun set in the west, the house grew dark much faster than an ordinary building. When the last ray of sunlight dipped below the horizon, the entire villa was shrouded in gloom.

It was brightly lit, the only source of light in the entire Forest besides the Production Team’s Camp.

But the brightness didn’t last long before plunging into darkness, save for a single Emergency Light exuding a deep, silvery glow.

“Brr… so cold.” Wang Jianxi and Wu Shuyi were the first to be woken by the cold. They were the only ones wearing thin dresses. When the villa’s Thermostat System stopped running, they felt it the most acutely.

“Hey, why are the lights off?” Wang Jianxi exclaimed, shaking Tang Su, who was asleep next to her. “Sister Tang, wake up! The villa lost power!”

Tang Su was jostled awake by Wang Jianxi, which displeased her, but mindful they were filming a show, she suppressed her irritation and asked in a low voice, “Did someone turn off the lights just now?”

Everyone around was startled awake by Wang Jianxi’s shouting. They groggily opened their eyes and sat up from the sofas. Only Lian Mei slept like the dead, completely oblivious to any change, snoozing soundly.

“Lian Mei, Lian Mei… don’t sleep anymore, you’ll catch a cold…” Xie Moluo tried to pull Lian Mei up. On such a chilly night, sleeping too long on the sofa could easily make someone sick.

“Mm… Wife?” Lian Mei opened her bleary eyes. Suddenly, she grabbed Xie Moluo’s arm in return and pulled her down onto herself.

Holding Xie Moluo, a cold gleam flashed in Lian Mei’s eyes as she stared icily at the Little Ghost sitting in Xie Moluo’s spot.

No wonder it’s so cold. The Thermostat System isn’t working, and with a Little Ghost sitting right next to you, prolonged exposure means getting tainted with Yin Qi. That would shorten your lifespan.

Lian Mei’s hand, resting on Xie Moluo’s back, traced a talisman with agile speed. In the blink of an eye, it was complete. Lian Mei imprinted the talisman onto the Little Ghost. Instantly, the Little Ghost’s seven orifices bled, its whole body engulfed in an invisible-to-others Blue Flame. It let out a sharp ghostly wail, quickly burning up until not even ash remained.

What do you think you’re doing? I just convinced everyone to be materialistic, and you pop out to cause trouble? You’re slapping my face, disrespecting me!

Do I not deserve respect?

These Little Ghosts who desperately dodged the Netherworld Envoys, refusing to go to King Yama Palace for judgment and punishment, disrupting the mortal realm’s order—whenever the Taskers from the Atonement Team encountered them, they could tag the Little Ghosts with a Revealing Talisman so an Envoy could easily take them below. But the Taskers in the Atonement Team usually weren’t that kind. They’d just slap a Destruction Talisman and burn any Little Ghost that bothered them to nothing.

These Little Ghosts were too low-level to even qualify as Team members. They’d simply do a good deed to the end, saving the Envoys an extra trip.

“What are you doing!” Xie Moluo, lying on Lian Mei, couldn’t help but hiss furiously.

This is too much! Today, using this show, she’s been handsy with me who knows how many times!

Lian Mei felt she’d done a good deed and was in an excellent mood. She hugged Xie Moluo and swayed back and forth. “Honey, I’m cold. I need a hug~~”

Xie Moluo: “…”

Hug my foot! Let go of me! The people next to us are watching!

This is… so embarrassing!