The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Chen Jue collapsed onto the mossy ground, his hand clamped over the two tiny puncture wounds on his forearm. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, and the adrenaline of the hike had turned into a cold, paralyzing terror. In his mind, the bite of a snake in a tropical jungle was an immediate, agonizing death sentence.
"Jue! Oh, god, there’s so much blood! It’s turning black!" Wang Bai wailed, though there was barely a drop of red on his skin. She stood ten feet away, her face a mask of fake horror, making no move to touch him. "Zhang Rui, we have to get help! We have to find a doctor before the venom reaches his heart!"
"The clue!" Zhang Rui hissed, pointing to the scrap of parchment Chen Jue had dropped in the dirt when he was bitten.
Wang Bai snatched the clue from the dirt, her eyes darting around like a cornered animal. "Jue, stay here! Don’t move your arm! If you move, the venom travels faster! We’re going to run to the nearest production station and bring the medics. I promise, I’ll save you! Just hold on for me!"
She turned and sprinted away, Zhang Rui hot on her heels. At first, she actually intended to find help, but as they rounded a bend in the trail, her eyes caught a second glint of paper caught in the low, thorny branches of a shrub. "Another one!" she gasped, her fear for Chen Jue instantly replaced by the thrill of the hunt.
The competitive greed, fueled by the starvation of the last few days, surged through her. "If we get the next one, we’ll have three clues! We can win the rations! We can be the heroes!"
Zhang Rui nodded feverishly. "Chen Jue will be fine for a few minutes. He’s a man, he can tough it out. If we win the food, he’ll have the strength to recover. Let’s grab this one first, it’s right there."
The two of them delved deeper into the brush, following the trail of the game. Behind them, the image of the shivering, pale boy on the forest floor faded from their minds, replaced by the golden shimmer of eggs and smoked ham.
Chen Jue lay alone under the vast canopy. The silence of the jungle felt heavy. He felt a strange numbness spreading through his arm—not from venom, but from pure, unadulterated shock. He was convinced his veins were turning to ice.
’This is it,’ he thought, his eyes filling with hot, bitter tears. ’I’m twenty-one years old, a superstar with millions of fans, and I’m going to die on a dirt floor because I wanted to please a girl who didn’t even give me a drop of water. How did I become so pathetic?’
He looked up at the production drone hovering twenty feet above him. Its blinking red light felt like a mocking eye, broadcasting his final, undignified moments to the world. He knew his fans were watching. He knew his family—his ’real’ family—was likely seeing this.
"I’m sorry," he whispered, his voice breaking into a sob that racked his chest. "To everyone who supported me... I was such a fool. I followed the wrong light. I wasted my life chasing a shadow."
He looked directly into the drone’s lens, the "Lotus Fog" finally, completely shattered by the cold hand of perceived death. "And to Chen Ying... if you can hear this through the monitors... I’m so sorry, Yingying. I spent years calling you a monster, years spreading lies about you, while you were the only one who ever truly stood by me. You’re my sister. My real, blood sister. And I threw you away for a lie. I miss you... I miss the way we used to be, before I became this... this puppet."
"Goodbye," he choked out, closing his eyes as the tears flowed freely. "I’m sorry I won’t be there to see you win. You were always the strongest of us."
In the production tent three miles away, Director Zhao was leaning back in his chair, a half-eaten sandwich in his hand. He was staring at the monitor, his eyes wide, but he wasn’t crying. He was vibrating with suppressed, wheezing laughter.
"Is he for real?" the head medic asked, checking the high-resolution capture of the snake. "It’s a Green Keelback snake. It’s a non-venomous garden snake. It’s about as dangerous as a horror movie. It doesn’t even have real fangs, just tiny teeth."
"He’s giving a deathbed confession to a literal blade of grass!" Director Zhao cackled, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "This is gold! The ratings just tripled! The ’Idol’s Last Words’ segment is going to trend for a month! Don’t send the medics yet—let him simmer in his own drama for a bit. It’s the best character development we’ve had all season!"
The bush parted with a sharp snap of dry twigs. Chen Ying stepped into the clearing, her expression calm. She was followed closely by her worried teammates. They had heard Wang Bai’s initial scream and, despite the competition, Chen Ying had detoured from their path to investigate.
They found Chen Jue curled in a fetal position, his face streaked with tears and dirt, still whispering apologies to a family he thought he’d never see again.
Chen Ying walked over and stood over him, her shadow falling across his face. "Are you finished with the final act of your tragedy, or do I need to call a priest for the last rites?"
Chen Jue opened one eye, trembling. "Yingying? Is... is this the hallucination phase? Am I seeing my regrets before the darkness takes me?"
"You’re seeing your sister, who is very tired of your incompetence," Chen Ying said. She reached down, grabbed his arm with zero gentleness, and inspected the tiny bite. She didn’t even use a bandage at first; she simply took some water and poured it onto the "wounds" to wash the dirt away. "It’s a Keelback, Chen Jue. It has no venom. It bit you because you’re loud and you probably stepped on its tail. You aren’t dying; you’re just embarrassed."
Chen Jue froze. The "deathly numbness" in his arm vanished instantly, replaced by a stinging sensation from the cold water. He sat up, his face turning a shade of red so intense it rivaled the tropical sunset. "It’s... it’s not poisonous? I’m not... dying?"
"The only thing poisonous in this area is your lack of common sense," Chen Ying said. She pulled a clean strip of cloth from her kit and wrapped his arm. She handed him a piece of dried beef jerky and a full canteen. "Drink. Eat. You look like a ghost, and you’re making the Chen family look like a joke."
Chen Jue took the water, drinking with a desperation that bordered on feral. The cold water hit his throat, and the reality of his situation flooded back. He looked at the Highland team—at Zhou Yaya and Wu Haoran’s pitying gaze and Zixuan’s amused smirk. He had never felt more humiliated, but beneath the shame was a soaring sense of relief.
"I’m a joke," he whispered, looking at the ground.
"You’re a Chen," Chen Ying corrected him, her voice firm and grounding. "Act like it. Get up."
Chen Jue stood, his legs finally finding their strength. He wiped his face with his sleeve, his eyes focusing on Chen Ying with a new, fierce intensity. "I’m not going back to the Lowland. I don’t care about the contract. I don’t care about the cameras or what the fans say. I’m staying with you."
He looked at the empty spot where he’d found the clue. "I gave Wang Bai the clue I found... I’m such an idiot. I wanted to help you, but I gave our enemies the lead. I’ve ruined everything."
"It doesn’t matter," Chen Ying said, turning back toward the trail.
"No, it does matter!" Chen Jue scrambled after them, his energy returning as the adrenaline of shame kicked in. "I’ll find more! I’ll be the best scout you’ve ever had! I’ll climb every tree on this ridge! I’m fast, I’m—wait, is that a clue? No, it’s a mushroom. But look over here! I’ll find the ticket for us, I swear! I’ll make up for it!"
He began darting around like an over-excited puppy, his awkward, over-eager attempts to be "useful" making even Yang Zixuan chuckle. He was halfway through a rant about how he would "repay her favor ten-fold" when the Highland team suddenly stopped in their tracks in front of a small, rocky alcove.
"Yingying, why are we stopping? The summit is still half a mile up! We have to find the remaining pieces before Wang Bai does—"
"Chen Jue," Chen Ying said, pointing toward a hollowed-out knot in a tree.
Tucked neatly inside the knot, tied with a bright red ribbon that stood out against the dark bark, was the ’Golden Ticket’.
Chen Jue’s jaw dropped. "But... we only had three clues. The puzzle was missing pieces. How did you know?"
"The clues were riddles about the ’Heart of the Ancestor,’" Chen Ying explained, her tone as casual as if she were reading a grocery list.
"The banyan is the oldest tree on the ridge. Mathematically, it was the only logical place to hide the prize once the coordinates were narrowed down. We haven’t been looking for clues for the last twenty minutes, Chen Jue. We’ve been walking straight to the finish line while you were busy apologizing to your fans."
Chen Jue stood in the silence of the forest, watching his sister calmly tuck the ticket into her pocket. He realized then that while he had been playing a game of "survival" staged by idols and villains, Chen Ying was playing a game where she already knew the ending.
He didn’t feel jealous. For the first time in his life, he felt a surge of pure, unadulterated pride. "Wait for me!" he shouted, rushing to catch up as they headed back down the mountain. "I can carry the water! I’m actually really good at carrying heavy things!"