Chapter Four: Digging the Earth, Burying the Body

Along the way, Shen Li gathered clues left by the production team while recalling how events had unfolded in her previous life.

In her past life, the show had deliberately left her as the only free agent on the disgraced team, so that she could be humiliated before a nationwide livestream. It had all been meant to degrade her.

Behind it all was Pei Wenxuan.

And the trap the production team had set for Jiang Fuya, the free agent on the star team, had been laughably simple. On the surface it seemed just as difficult, but in truth, just like the boar settings she had adjusted earlier, the production team had quietly gone easy on Jiang Fuya.

This program had been born for the sole purpose of humiliating her. The one who had gone to such lengths to torment her was Pei Wenxuan.

Qiao Le walked ahead, and only when she encountered the traps laid by the production team did she hide back behind Shen Li and issue orders with complete confidence. Shen Li obeyed, disarming trap after trap, and successively rescued two teammates.

For her, the early stage was the time to build goodwill with her teammates; only when their favorability toward her was high enough could they be used later.

Five years ago, Qiao Le had been a popular actress. With the explosive success of a hit drama, her popularity surged, and she became one of the strongest contenders for that year’s Best Actress award at the year-end ceremony.

Then, suddenly, news broke that she had cheated during her marriage, and worse, that she had smeared her ex-husband and falsely accused him of infidelity in an attempt to clear her own name. After that, the public boycotted her, and she vanished from the spotlight.

Over the years, she had tried many times to make a comeback, but each attempt had come to nothing.

From her previous life’s dealings with Qiao Le, Shen Li had roughly grasped her character. Qiao Le was actually very kind, especially toward the vulnerable; if they were injured in front of her, she could unleash enormous strength.

Someone like that could least tolerate being helped by others, and Shen Li intended to make use of exactly that.

“My teammate is actually you?” The man who had just been lowered from the cross had wind-tossed hair, and his dark skin made him look almost like a native islander. Yet no matter how deep the color, it could not conceal the strikingly heroic beauty of his face.

He was the third member of the disgraced team, Ji Beishu.

When he first debuted, he had been called “a Westerner living in the East.” His features were deep and sharp, and aside from his brown eyes, nothing about him suggested an Eastern temperament. Unfortunately, the moment he opened his mouth, people wanted to sew it shut.

Ji Beishu was notorious for his poisonous tongue, and because of it, he had been branded as disrespectful toward women and dismissive of women. Boycotted by female viewers, he faded into obscurity.

“Not bad.” Ji Beishu looked at Shen Li with contempt, a half-burned cigarette pinched between his fingers. “With you, the murderer around, I don’t have to worry about getting cursed at, right, Qiao Le?” He turned to Qiao Le.

Qiao Le gave a look that signaled agreement.

Shen Li paid them no mind. She dug at the earth beside the cross, her hands soon covered in sand and mud.

-- I told you she isn’t quite normal. A few days before the show, she was even filmed running around her own neighborhood in pajamas.

-- Huh? Is she really fit to be on the show? Shouldn’t she be sent to a psychiatric hospital?

-- She’d better stay far away and stop leeching traffic off my Yaya. Disgusting.

-- Can she show even a little team spirit? If she doesn’t want to save her teammates, just say so. What is the point of making them wait in the blazing sun!

...

Shen Li dug quickly. Dust flew everywhere, and her fair cheeks were smeared with dirt, making her look filthy. Yet she did not care in the slightest. She rolled up her sleeves and wiped her face at random.

Ji Beishu grew impatient.

“Murderer, are you burying a body? It’s getting hot. Can we move now?”

The faint sense of guilt that had risen in Qiao Le along the way vanished completely the moment she met Ji Beishu, who also disliked Shen Li.

“Exactly. You may have no shame, but I still need to save face. What if I get sunburned?”

Suddenly, Shen Li lifted a jigsaw piece, cutting off their barbs and mockery. She tossed it to Qiao Le.

“See if it fits.”

Then she picked up the map to find the way, pointing at a path. “The last cross is over there. This way.”

Qiao Le walked while trying to fit the piece together, then said in delight, “It fits! This really is a clue!”

Ji Beishu snorted in disdain. “What kind of nonsense is this? How could something dug out of the dirt be a clue?”

But when he leaned in to look, it really was.

He took it, held it up, and compared it against the coastline. Astonished and delighted, he said, “Could this be a picture of the beach?”

Shen Li, walking ahead to lead the way, glanced back lightly. A soft, nasal “Mm” escaped her, gentle yet haunting.

The camera unexpectedly caught a close-up of that backward glance. The barrage of comments fell silent, and a few seconds later:

-- No complaints about that face.

-- She took the pure and innocent route when she first debuted, and her looks could really carry her.

-- Her skin is fair with a rosy glow. Even filthy, she is still stunning. Honestly, between her and Jiang Fuya, who looks better?

-- Nonsense. How can a murderer be compared to my Yaya? She isn’t worthy.

...

Under Shen Li’s guidance, every obstacle set by the director was easily solved. The disgraced team successfully gathered all its members, and Shen Li also found the third jigsaw piece beside the cross.

After being exposed to the scorching sun for so long, Bai Qiuya’s youthful face was flushed red. She looked at Shen Li for only a moment, surprise and guilt flashing in her eyes, before she quietly looked away.

Bai Qiuya had debuted three years earlier. She was a highly gifted female singer with a voice like heaven itself. A year ago, the tabloids exposed that she had been kept by a wealthy man, and that man was a middle-aged, pot-bellied husband and father.

For a female celebrity, being the mistress of a married man was clearly a stain that could never be washed away. From that point on, her career had gone into steep decline.

Shen Li remembered her as quiet and taciturn, and in her previous life she had been the only person who, when everyone else laughed at her and called her crazy, had secretly whispered that she believed her.

Though that word of belief had not helped much, and Bai Qiuya’s strength was too small to pull her ashore, at least someone had believed her.

Once the team was assembled, the disgraced group set off together toward the beach indicated by the jigsaw. Behind the surveillance monitors, the director angrily hurled off his headset.

“Who? Just who set up this idiotic trap!”

The staff all lowered their heads and trembled.

“Not saying anything? Fine. Pack your things and get out, all of you!”

At that moment, the head of planning weakly raised a hand. “W-we designed the segment ourselves.” She hurried to explain, “Look, didn’t the people on the star team get trapped too?”

On the star team’s livestream, Jiang Fuya and her two teammates had been stuck in a trap for more than ten minutes while trying to rescue the last person, and still had not escaped.

The director paced in fury, his neck turning red as he shouted, “I told you to trap those scandal-ridden nobodies and make them look ridiculous, not to trap our patron’s people! That’s my money you’re holding up!”

His phone on the desk suddenly lit up with an incoming call. The director shuddered, waved everyone away, and walked off with the phone to answer it.

“Is this how you handled the task I gave you? It seems the money I prepared for you won’t need to be sent out for now.”

The icy voice made the director’s legs tremble. He dropped to his knees with a thud.

“It was my oversight. Please rest assured, Mr. Pei. From now on, I will raise the difficulty and make sure that the one surnamed Shen suffers the greatest torment.”