"Ah?!"
Seeing Yun Mu's expression, Xue Zhiqian was dumbfounded. It took him quite a while to realize that the young man thought he was a scammer.
"Damn, I really am Xue Zhiqian, not a scammer! And I'm not here to borrow money!"
To convince Yun Mu of his true identity, he pulled out his ID card.
"Look, this is my ID. I am the real, bona fide Xue Zhiqian!"
Xue Zhiqian felt a bit numb. This was the first time since his debut that he actually had to prove he was himself.
Seeing the ID card, Yun Mu relaxed slightly.
"Oh. Follow me."
With that, he turned and walked aside. Xue Zhiqian was baffled once more by his attitude.
"Hey! Is that your only reaction?"
Yun Mu cast a somewhat puzzled glance back at him.
"What sort of reaction were you expecting?"
Hearing this, Xue Zhiqian's eyes widened. He leaned forward, waving his hands frantically in front of himself.
"I am Xue Zhiqian! A celebrity! Xue Zhiqian!"
"I don't have any money!"
"Damn it, I'm not borrowing money!!!"
"Then what do you want?!"
"Hey! I'm the star Xue Zhiqian! Shouldn't you be excited when you see me? Why are you so calm?"
"I'm not your fan. Why would I be excited?"
"......"
It was a rare occasion for Xue Zhiqian to be completely rendered speechless by someone's retort. He closed his eyes, took a deep, lingering breath, and slowly let it out. A moment later, he opened his eyes again, his emotions having settled.
"Friend, I need a favor. I'm currently participating in Back to Field, and the crew is chasing after me. I need to hide out here for a bit. If anyone comes by asking, just tell them you haven't seen me. Deal?"
Yun Mu frowned slightly.
"Aren't the staff following you filming the live stream? If you don't want to be on camera, why come here?"
Hearing this, Xue Zhiqian's expression turned somewhat dejected.
"Don't even ask, I got trapped. They told us to order dishes, but then demanded we forage for valuable items ourselves and trade them with the production team for equivalent ingredients."
"The two dishes I ordered require ingredients worth at least a hundred-something yuan. According to Maomao, they spent the entire day yesterday digging bamboo shoots and only made a little over a hundred yuan."
"So I had to figure out if there was a way to get ingredients without putting in any effort."
Hearing his account, Yun Mu's eyes gradually lit up. The corners of his mouth curled into an inexplicable smile.
"I have an idea. Care to hear it?"
At that, Xue Zhiqian's eyes instantly brightened.
"Let's hear it."
"In a bit..."
Hearing the plan, Xue Zhiqian's eyes lit up instantly, and his face filled with excitement.
"Alright, alright, alright, brother, let's do it!"
After the two of them agreed on the strategy, Xue Zhiqian slipped into a local worker's jacket, mingled with the crowd, and pretended to work.
Before long, the staff members dispatched by Wang Zhengyu tracked them down here.
"Yun Mu! Yun Mu!"
Virtually all the crew members knew Yun Mu. Hearing someone call him, Yun Mu composed his expression, calmed himself down, and walked over with a look of feigned bewilderment.
"What's wrong?"
Having run quite hurriedly, the staff members were drenched in sweat.
"Have you seen Xue Zhiqian?"
Yun Mu put on a blank look.
"Xue Zhiqian?"
"Yeah, he's a guest on this episode of Back to Field, but he just shook off his camera crew and God knows where he ran off to."
Hearing this, Yun Mu put on a hesitant expression.
"I did see someone running up from down below a moment ago, heading toward the woods, but I'm not sure if it was him."
Hearing this, the staff members didn't suspect a thing, their faces turning pale with shock.
"What? He went into the woods?!"
They were already well inside Changle Forest Farm, and going any deeper meant entering the remote interior of the forest. While there weren't large ferocious beasts here, there were certainly snakes, and this season was peak activity time for them. If Xue Zhiqian were to be bitten by a snake... If it weren't venomous, fine, but if it were, they would be in serious trouble! That would genuinely become a live-streaming disaster.
Learning of this, the staff immediately reported the matter to the director's team. Wang Zhengyu couldn't sit still upon hearing the news either; aside from the staff strictly required to maintain the live broadcast, he dispatched everyone else to search in the direction Yun Mu had indicated.
Meanwhile, the viewers in the live streaming room grew quite anxious upon seeing the production team mobilize almost in full force.
"Is Qianqian actually in trouble?"
"If something really happened, this is going to be a massive broadcast accident! The production team is severely lacking when it comes to safety!"
"Exactly! If anything happens to Qianqian, I'm going to report them until Back to Field gets canceled!"
"Is the person above blind? Didn't you see that Xue Zhiqian ran off on his own? He even had Mao Buyi hold back the crew. What does this have to do with the production team if something happens?!"
"It's still poor security on the show's part. If they had more staff stationed around, Qianqian wouldn't have been able to run off even if he wanted to!"
"Right! It's the production team's fault, Qianqian did nothing wrong!"
"Fanatic!"
"Who are you calling a fanatic? You're the brainless one!"
While the live chat was descending into chaos, the members back at Mushroom House also began to grow uneasy. After all, the production team's commotion was simply too large.
Mao Buyi had already returned by this time. He Jiong asked with some concern, "Maomao, what's actually going on with Qianqian?"
Mao Buyi looked completely bewildered.
"I have no idea either!"
Huang Lei blinked in disbelief and said, "You don't know? And yet you helped him stall the staff?"
Mao Buyi felt quite aggrieved.
"I really didn't know! When the two of us left earlier, Teacher Xue turned off our recording equipment and just told me to help him stall the crew for a bit."
"Then, not long after we walked out, he just took off running."
He Jiong said incredulously, "And you actually helped him stall the staff?"
Mao Buyi nodded timidly. By now, he was genuinely scared—if anything happened to Xue Zhiqian, the responsibility on his shoulders would be enormous!
Just as everyone was filled with anxiety, Huang Lei suddenly spotted a furtive figure outside Mushroom House waving at them. Moreover, upon noticing that Huang Lei had spotted him, that person kept gesturing urgently toward the remaining crew members.
In an instant, Huang Lei seemed to understand something, and a strange smile spread across his face.
"Look, Jiongjing, Maomao, there's nothing going on right now anyway, I'm going to step out for some personal business and I'll be right back."
As he spoke, he told his camera crew, "This is personal business, not suitable for live streaming, so you don't need to follow me. I'll be back in ten minutes at most."