Wen Feiran blinked. "Someone did tell me. It was an old lady I happened to meet."
"She... she came back?" The old man seemed shaken and staggered back two steps. Afraid he would fall, Wen Feiran hurriedly caught him.
"Are you his grandson?" The old man's attitude toward him did a complete one-eighty. His clouded eyes traced Wen Feiran's features closely. "You look like him. You really do."
Wen Feiran: "..."
"Grandpa, you've misunderstood. I just happened to meet her. She said she came back to visit relatives and brought her grandson with her."
"Visit relatives? Grandson?" After repeating the words several times, the old man's clouded eyes lit up. "Could that child be mine?!"
Wen Feiran: ??? Grandpa, how did you reach that conclusion?
Weren't we doing a task? How did this suddenly turn into a romance show?!!
"Where did you see her?" The old man was beside himself with excitement and reached out to shake Wen Feiran again.
Wen Feiran's shoulders still hurt, so he quickly said, "At the intersection over there."
The old man's limp vanished, and he was full of energy as he strode outside without stopping. When he reached the door, he looked down and straightened his clothes like an innocent, bashful young man, then went to see the woman he loved with a nervous heart.
Left behind, Wen Feiran could only chase after him for a few steps like a villain trying to ruin a romance. "Isn't this a task point?" he asked.
Only then did the old man remember the matter at hand. He waved a hand carelessly. "The stamp's under my pillow. Go get it yourself."
Wen Feiran watched the old man stride swiftly away, left alone in utter disarray.
The viewers in the livestream were dumbfounded too.
Wait, weren't we supposed to be supervising? How did the whole thing have nothing to do with us from start to finish?
Both sides were in disarray. Wen Feiran followed the old lady's directions to the next location. After he said the nickname, although the person involved and the process were different, the outcome was already a foregone conclusion. Without lifting a finger, or even finding out what the task was, Wen Feiran retrieved the stamp from a pile of firewood.
When he reached the third task point, Wen Feiran had a bad feeling and didn't dare say the nickname. But although he had spent only a few minutes with the old lady, this inheritor had already noticed something from the perfume scent that had rubbed off on him.
Wen Feiran was numb. "Grandpa, don't tell me you're going to look for her too?"
The inheritor stroked his long beard. Dressed in a short hemp tunic, he had an air of sage-like elegance. "She's my sister-in-law."
Hearing that, Wen Feiran was immediately reassured.
Surely this wouldn't turn into a romance show.
Unable to contain his curiosity, Wen Feiran said, "That grandma must have been a great beauty when she was young. Did she have a lot of suitors? At the first two task points I went to, both inheritor grandpas rushed out as soon as they heard about her. They even said the child was theirs."
The sage-like old man's eyebrow twitched twice, though his expression remained calm. Wen Feiran grew even more certain that he was an exception. But three seconds later, the old man slammed the table, planted his hands on his hips, and began to curse.
"Those two old bastards are still here ****, still refusing to give up! They still want to steal my rightful place! Sister-in-law must have brought the child back to acknowledge me as family. What's it got to do with them? Beep beep beep—"
This time, Wen Feiran was utterly dumbfounded. His whole worldview had cracked.
The livestream's bullet comments exploded.
[Wasn't she his sister-in-law? Then why is the child his?]
[Holy crap, it's actually sister-in-law literature. How trendy is that?]
[Hahaha, the older generation really is conservative in thought but open in action. Every time I go back to visit relatives, I get a whole mouthful of gossip. It's so juicy.]
[Sis up there, don't go! Leave the gossip behind!]
[What is this, a rural version of
the heartthrob
?]
[Could this be the earliest Mary Sue novel, "All the Inheritors Fall in Love with Me"?]
[Hahahaha, Wen Feiran really never breaks character. Even an NPC he encountered at random has so many romantic entanglements!]
[The task's done anyway. Wen Feiran, hurry up and follow them! I really want to see three old men pulling each other's hair. Now that's something new.]
Wen Feiran had easily obtained all the stamps in an extraordinarily bizarre way, becoming the first to clear the stage. His disruptive power was also astonishing: he had caused every gatekeeper to leave, making it impossible for the guests who followed to complete their tasks.
Wen Feiran walked on in a daze, as if he were living in a dream, with a strong sense that none of it was real, until Zou Yuxing patted him on the shoulder.
"Do you know what happened? The director suddenly told us the task couldn't continue... Why are you making that face?" Halfway through speaking, Zou Yuxing suddenly noticed Wen Feiran's very strange expression.
Wen Feiran felt a little guilty, but this couldn't be blamed on him, could it? He hadn't known that old lady could set off such a chain reaction.
The others returned one after another, equally bewildered. Some hadn't even found their task locations and had no idea what had happened.
Wen Feiran stood at the very edge of the crowd, his head bowed low as he tried to make himself less noticeable. But the viewers in the livestream didn't let him off, naming it the "pull up the grass by its roots" method of clearing a stage.
The director said, "Anyone who has obtained three stamps, please step forward."
The others exchanged looks, rooted to the spot like nails. After three seconds, Wen Feiran hesitantly took a step forward and handed over the stamps under everyone's astonished gazes.
"The director said something went wrong with the tasks and they couldn't be completed, so how did you get the stamps?" Zou Yuxing asked innocently.
Su Shangting guessed something. "It wasn't because of you, was it?"
Zou Yuxing was shocked. "You blew up the task locations?!"
Wen Feiran gave a hollow laugh. "It's a long story."