In fact, things really did unfold just as Li Yi had imagined.
At six thirty that evening, the show's livestream officially resumed after a pause of several hours.
With the afternoon's advance publicity, the livestream during the evening's prime-time slot was far more popular than it had been that afternoon.
Although the afternoon livestream had only lasted a few hours, Shen Shuangjian was highly controversial, and his looks were truly stunning.
And so, netizens and fans who believed looks were justice personally edited plenty of clips and videos from the livestream and posted them on all the major platforms.
Even the production team and video platform were very good at generating hype: they replaced the original text cover with people.
Shen Shuangjian was placed right in the center of the cover just like that. Almost every viewer who opened the video platform found it hard not to be drawn in.
So, compared with its afternoon premiere, the evening livestream's traffic had clearly reached a new high. Hundreds of thousands of people had signed up for a reminder, and the number of simultaneous viewers had even surpassed one and a half million.
[Holy shit, I thought the video I scrolled past had beauty filters and editing. Someone actually looks this good?]
[There really aren't any filters. He's so pale he looks like he's on a different layer from everyone else.]
[Who is this? Some company's newly promoted star?]
[Which talent scout dug him up? His company must have burned some serious incense.]
[He's not a celebrity. He's an ordinary participant named Shen Shuangjian.]
[What ordinary participant? That's my wife. I'm going straight in with a hey, wife.]
[What do you mean, your wife? He's mine from now on.]
[Hello, wife, I'm a pervert. Oi, can't you see me? I said I'm a pervert.]
[So does the internet have no memory? Don't you remember what your "wife" did before?]
[I thought I was the only one with an extra set of memories.]
[Wasn't he the reason Xie Qingchi quit the show? That Weibo post is still right at the top. Don't you remember how Xie Qingchi cursed him out?]
[He was why the show got delayed, too. If I remember correctly, Shen Shuangjian hasn't offered so much as an apology from the start until now, has he?]
[Thanks for reminding me. I'm going to unfollow Xie Qingchi right now.]
[Same. I have to unfollow Xie Qingchi, because starting today, we're rival fandoms.]
[Xie Qingchi, you shameless bastard, get out of the entertainment industry!]
[????]
[Holy hell, everything's been turned upside down.]
It was early spring in April. Although the winter evenings had passed, the nighttime breeze still carried a little chill.
Shen Shuangjian was no popular star, nor did he have assistants or staff to prepare suitable makeup and styling for him. He was sensitive to the cold, but fortunately, he still had a light shirt he could put on for warmth.
"We already explained the rules of the game to everyone in detail at lunch. Our game of hide-and-seek will begin in three minutes. You can now look for hiding places throughout the estate."
"Remember, you must not let the ghost catch you, or there will be a very severe punishment."
Everyone present was well acquainted with variety-show tricks, so naturally, aside from Shen Shuangjian, not one of them really took the word "punishment" to heart.
But Shen Shuangjian did not actually attach much importance to winning, losing, or punishment either.
His health was poor. Aside from congenital heart disease, he also had a very troublesome clotting disorder.
So, at the most fundamental level, the possibility of a heart transplant or surgery had practically already been ruled out for him. In other words, every day he lived was really just another day spent waiting to die.
In Shen Shuangjian's worldview, winning and losing did not matter, nor did rewards and punishments.
The rules had not said they could not go indoors. He had only said the entire estate. Shen Shuangjian was sensitive to the cold, so if possible, he would of course choose the relatively warm indoors.
But he was not stupid enough to sit openly somewhere conspicuous, either. An estate this large naturally had a few storage rooms that did not need locking, and Shen Shuangjian chose one on the second floor.
Night deepened, and as the loudspeakers set up by the production team sounded, this one-sided game of hunting officially began.
At the very moment Shen Shuangjian finished closing the storage-room door, a pair of arms casually pushed open the main building's heavy double wooden doors.
The lighting in the hall was not particularly bright, but when the person stepped into the flickering candlelight, Xie Qingchi's face was finally revealed to the livestream cameras.
One stone stirred a thousand waves. With Xie Qingchi's appearance, the livestream chat instantly erupted.
[Holy shit, isn't that my dog of a son?]
[Holy shit shit shit, Xie Qingchi? Didn't he quit the show?]
[Wait, what exactly is going on?]
[See, I just said the ghost's background looked a little like my dog son's, and none of you believed me. Sob.]
[What's this grown-ass man doing, going back and forth like this?]
Turning off his phone screen, Xie Qingchi frowned irritably, utterly unable to understand what Li Yi was trying to achieve by telling him to be a good ghost and catch people.
He had told Li Yi to find someone for him among the production staff, yet the guy had gone and made him come find the person himself.
Dawdling and making excuses at every turn.
Xie Qingchi clearly had not understood his implied meaning. Less than two hours after messaging that bastard Li Yi that afternoon, he had called the director out of the blue and said he wanted to take part in this episode.
Faced with this, the director was speechless, but did not dare utter so much as a fart.
He had quit the show a few days ago, decided to rejoin at the last minute, and the director did not dare argue, because even the filming location belonged to his family.
And so Xie Qingchi, who had already been near the estate, joined in nearby as a returning participant.
His arrival was also very timely, allowing him to appear as the "ghost." But for the sake of mystery and surprise, the director had not arranged for him to appear before the game began.
After a cursory search of the first floor, Xie Qingchi headed to the second floor with impatience in his expression to continue searching.
There were a few unlocked storage rooms on the second floor, which barely qualified as hiding places. However, Xie Qingchi thought no one would be stupid enough to hide somewhere so obvious.
But since he was already there, not checking would seem too careless, so Xie Qingchi inspected the storage rooms one by one with a frown.
The storage room on the first floor: empty.
The first storage room on the second floor: empty.
But when he pushed open the next door, the slight frown that irritation had put on Xie Qingchi's brow instantly eased.
Pale moonlight mingled with the dim candlelight from the corridor, illuminating the outline before him just in time. When their eyes met, Xie Qingchi could not help freezing for a moment.
It was like thinking a problem was far too difficult, only for the answer to reveal itself in the blink of an eye.
"You..."
According to the rules, finding someone was not enough. The "ghost" had to catch them for it to count as a victory.
But neither of them seemed to have expected to encounter the other here. Several seconds ticked slowly by, yet neither moved first.
Only when Shen Shuangjian instinctively took a step back did Xie Qingchi remember that he was here to catch someone.