The Younger Brothers Dig Up Each Other's Embarrassing Pasts, but It's the Older Sister Who Gets Hurt...

"I'll go first," Zou Yuxing said, his eyes lighting up as he ran over. "Not bad, I earned five points. You guys go ahead; I'll look for the next task location."

Mu Qianyu went second, but she only earned four points. "The points don't decrease with each attempt, do they?"

The atmosphere froze at her words. Ning Tingyu and Duan Haoran exchanged an awkward glance.

"Haoran-ge, you go first." Ning Tingyu put on the manner of a junior.

Duan Haoran exchanged a few insincere pleasantries with him before going to complete the task. When Ning Tingyu's turn came, he earned a pitiful two points.

Only half an hour remained, and the task locations were far apart. The four of them ran around like dogs, panting with exhaustion. Sweat blurred their makeup, and the wind tousled their hair. They looked utterly disheveled, with none of the glamour expected of stars.

Zou Yuxing finally earned a pitiful ten points. Dizzy with hunger, he stared fixedly at the Star House, where only a sliver of light was visible. "I can't go on. I want to go find him..."

Without thinking, Ning Tingyu grabbed him. "No."

Only after saying it did he realize he had made his feelings too obvious. He could only add sheepishly, "It's too late. Don't disturb him."

Zou Yuxing licked his lips. "All right, then. I'll ask him tomorrow how he earned those fifty points."

Only then did Ning Tingyu breathe a sigh of relief.

Wen Feiran had already outshone him. If they went to find him and made a direct comparison, Ning Tingyu would instead become Wen Feiran's stepping stone. He would never allow that to happen.

But he didn't know that the more he hid something, the more it piqued people's curiosity. The topic of discussion in the livestream shifted to Wen Feiran.

[This guy is so strange. Why didn't he tell the others when he found the task locations? Was it deliberate?]

[Including the room fee, Wen Feiran earned sixty points in total. Did he complete twelve tasks in one afternoon? That's way too efficient.]

[I'm curious how this ordinary guy did it too. I really want to know!]

[He doesn't have his own livestream, and he's not on any of the official cameras either. It's a real-life "Lost in the Stars."]

Chapter 3: The Younger Brothers Dig Up Each Other's Embarrassing Pasts, but It's the Older Sister Who Gets Hurt...

Wen Feiran had a wonderful first day.

For him, being a nobody and wandering around off camera made the five days of filming less difficult to endure.

Feeling hopeful, he drifted off to sleep, and the room fell quiet. Online, however, things were still lively.

Forward All the Way had attracted considerable attention before it even aired. Its first day of livestreaming generated plenty of buzz, and quite a few topics shot up the trending searches. The last one was "Lost in the Stars."

Although Wen Feiran had made the trending searches, he still had no name, which suited his status as a nobody perfectly.

In the trending topic, everyone was surprised that an ordinary person had come first on the points leaderboard. Quite a few curious viewers seized the chance to rally others to generate more buzz for Wen Feiran and get him a livestream.

But Wen Feiran had no fans and lacked a devoted following. Many netizens were merely watching for entertainment and weren't willing to waste even a minute on him. The buzz kept falling a little short of what was needed to open a livestream.

The next day, Wen Feiran received a text and immediately headed for the Dreamy Cottage.

He had just reached the door when Ning Tingyu came over to greet him warmly, putting an arm around his shoulders with feigned familiarity. "You're finally here. I've been waiting for you for ages."

Yesterday, when he saw that Wen Feiran's trending topic was right next to his own, he had nearly burst with anger.

Although Wen Feiran could never pose a threat to him, the idea that someone who served as his stepping stone deserved the spotlight was an outright humiliation to him.

In the space of a breath, Ning Tingyu's eyes filled with negative emotions. He pulled Wen Feiran into the living room. "Look who's here."

The other four guests and the cameras immediately turned toward them.

"..." Wen Feiran's brain instantly crashed, and he nearly lost the ability to speak. He stammered out a greeting to everyone, and the smile he squeezed out was extremely stiff.

The people present didn't notice anything amiss, but the fans in the livestream were highly sensitive to it.

[Why does that smile look so forced? Tch, who cares about his smile anyway?]

[Right? He seems so passive-aggressive. It makes me really uncomfortable.]

[This guy acts like a bigger star than the celebrities, making everyone wait for him.]

Wen Feiran couldn't see the comments in the livestream. He felt he had done fairly well and hadn't exposed the fact that he was socially anxious. After taking a deep breath, he sat down on the armchair at the very end.

The other five were chatting, and Wen Feiran listened attentively. Even though no one was paying attention to him, he responded supportively.

He was strange. At gatherings with several people, he would lose the desire to speak. Even when he sometimes wanted to say something, he would overthink it, worrying that "the conversation would die when he spoke and ruin the mood" or that he would "say something wrong and make things awkward." All he could do was check what he wanted to say three or four times in his head, but by the time he worked up the courage to speak, the conversation had already moved on to the next topic.

Over time, Wen Feiran had grown used to remaining on the sidelines at gatherings. But he didn't want to become unsociable, so he took the initiative to be the most supportive listener.

But this was a live broadcast, and his every move was magnified. The handful of viewers in the show's livestream grew impatient.

[This is so boring. Why isn't he saying anything?]

[Yeah, I'm almost falling asleep. I just want to know how he got first place on the points leaderboard. Why won't he say?]

[Does anyone else feel the same? His smile always looks sinister to me, like he's the type to crawl around in the shadows behind people's backs and can't stand seeing others do well.]

[The more I think about it, the creepier it gets. He's deliberately not explaining. Could he be trying to keep everyone in suspense and trick them into generating enough buzz to get him a livestream?]

[I smell trouble. I hate this sort of thing most. It's just a reality show, but he still has to scheme and plot. What a turnoff.]

This was what Ning Tingyu wanted to see. After plenty of buildup, he deliberately steered the conversation in that direction. "Feiran, you're amazing. How did you get first place on the points leaderboard?"

Suddenly called upon, Wen Feiran parted his lips and instinctively swallowed before his thoughts returned. "I'm not sure either. I just completed a few tasks yesterday afternoon."