Eight o'clock sharp, Friday night.
The largest indoor broadcast hall in Arc City.
Season four of Ultimate Treasure, episode one of the island survival treasure hunt, went live the instant the countdown hit zero.
Hundreds of spotlights on the studio floor swung toward the central stage at once.
The director cut to a close-up.
The scream that erupted from the hall nearly blew the roof off, and in the control room, the load graphs on several livestream servers spiked red in an instant.
Eden stood at the very front of the stage.
She wore a wine-red tailored suit, cinched at the waist, cut with striking flair.
"Welcome to the season four premiere of Ultimate Treasure."
She held the microphone.
Her voice, carried by top-tier sound equipment, spread through the hall with that distinctive lazy richness.
"I'm your special guest host for this episode, Eden."
The danmaku became unreadable.
Text piled on text until the screen was just a solid white blur.
The whole internet was buzzing — a world-class superstar who rarely even showed up to major award shows had come to host an outdoor reality show.
Eden waited out the first wave of the frenzy before continuing, unhurried.
"You all know this season's rules by now — four teams will be airdropped onto an uninhabited tropical island in the South China Sea, and within forty-eight hours they'll complete a series of challenges to claim the ultimate treasure hidden deep on the island. The whole thing will be tracked by drone and streamed live."
Her gaze shifted to the side of the stage.
"Now, let's meet our contestants."
The four teams took the stage one by one.
Team one — a fitness-influencer couple.
Both wore matching athletic tank tops, their arm muscles standing out sharply under the lights. They struck the classic bicep-flex pose for the camera, and the danmaku filled with "So ripped."
Team two — a pair of retired athletes.
A former Olympic-level swimmer and a former rock climber, joining forces. Both were lean but radiated raw power, their eyes carrying that particular sharpness unique to competitive athletes.
Team three — the comedy duo, the "Nan-Bei Comedy Duo."
Two comedians who started cracking jokes the moment they stepped onstage, keeping the audience laughing nonstop.
"And our last team —"
There was a subtle shift in Eden's tone here.
So subtle that only someone who knew her very well could have caught it — someone, say, standing in the spotlight right now, waiting in the wings.
"Mr. Su Yu, a game producer from miHoYo Studio, and his most in-sync partner — my good friend, and the image ambassador for Honkai Impact 3rd — Miss Elysia."
The word "most" carried a noticeably heavier stress.
When Su Yu walked onto the stage, he wore an ordinary white T-shirt and khaki cargo pants.
He walked the way you'd walk down to the corner store for a drink — languid, slightly stooped, hands in his pockets.
Elysia walked beside him, in a pink athletic jacket and white shorts, her ponytail swinging behind her head.
Standing together, the two of them looked like a jarring mismatch — a red-carpet starlet next to the internet-café attendant someone had just dragged out by force.
Not remotely the same aesthetic.
The danmaku erupted:
[This is miHoYo's boss??]
[He's way too skinny... won't a breeze just blow him away?]
[Miss Elysia, you can still switch partners!!!]
[Beauty and the Beast (derogatory)]
[Wait, is he not fully awake?? Look at that face]
[Suggestion: just develop a new game on the spot, don't even leave the island lol]
[Yep, this team's coming in last]
[Brother Su, aren't you a game dev? Don't kill yourself doing extreme challenges!]
Meanwhile.
Arc City Tower, miHoYo Studio.
Nuwa had put the livestream up on the studio's 86-inch screen.
"Come on, come on, everybody stop working — the BOSS is on TV!"
A few employees in the work area craned their necks and drifted over.
Nuwa had already claimed a spot on the couch, an iced Americano and a bag of spicy strips in front of her, striking the pose of a professional spectator.
Kiana came out of the pantry carrying a huge bowl of instant noodles and plopped down onto the couch.
"What show?"
"Ultimate Treasure, the desert-island survival one! BOSS and Elysia are on it together!"
Kiana went "Oh," scooped up a huge chopstick-load of noodles and slurped it in, glancing at the screen without much interest.
On the livestream, it had just cut to the part where Eden introduced their entrance.
That phrase Eden had deliberately stressed — "most in-sync partner" — made the noodles pause in Kiana's mouth for a second.
She chewed twice and swallowed.
"...What does 'most in-sync partner' mean?"
Nuwa pretended not to hear.
Bronie's holographic projection popped up above the coffee table.
She tilted her head, glanced at the screen, and let out a knowing sigh.
"Tsk tsk tsk, looks like BOSS is about to carry home a beauty~"
Kiana's chopsticks jabbed into the noodle bowl.
"I said, looks like BOSS is about to carry home a beauty this time~"
Kiana's chopsticks came down hard on the rim of the bowl.
"Who's carrying who anywhere!" She spun around and glared at the hologram.
"I didn't say who's carrying who." Bronie spread her hands, the HOMU plush in her arms bobbing along. "Kiana, why are you so worked up?"
"I'm not worked up!" Kiana clenched her back teeth. "I'm eating noodles!"
"Mm-hm." Bronie pointed at her bowl. "Those noodles are basically mush by now."
Nuwa was holding back a laugh.
At the broadcast hall.
The introductions were over, and the show moved into a brief pre-match interview segment.
Eden, in her role as host, interviewed each team in turn.
When it was Su Yu and Elysia's turn, Eden stepped down from the host's platform and walked up to them, microphone in hand.
On camera, everything looked completely normal.
Eden's smile was professional, poised, warm in exactly the right measure.
"Mr. Su Yu, as a producer at a game company, is there anything in particular you're feeling about joining an outdoor survival show?"
As she spoke, she held out the spare microphone toward him.
Su Yu reached out to take it.
Eden's fingers didn't let go right away.
The tip of her wine-red-polished index finger slid across the back of his hand for half a second.
On camera, nothing looked off about it at all.
But Su Yu felt the warmth of her fingertip, and that small, deliberate-or-not little hook of a motion.
A thin film of sweat broke out across his back.
The gesture's meaning was obvious — something along the lines of "don't leave after school," the big-sister boss Eden signaling she intended to give someone a proper talking-to, in private.
"My feeling is... I might get a tan," Su Yu answered offhandedly. He genuinely hadn't expected Eden to go to the trouble of securing a hosting role just for this. Was this what money and stardom could buy?
The crowd laughed a little.
Eden laughed along, her voice pleasant. "And Elysia? Do you have confidence in your partner for this?"
Elysia took the microphone, beaming.
"Of course I do. Su Yu might look unreliable, but he always manages to surprise you when it counts!"
Back at the studio.
Bronie tapped a few keys on a virtual keyboard.
The livestream feed on the screen shrank down into a tiny data window.
She'd clipped the segment with the microphone handoff.
"Playback speed set to 0.25x."
Bronie's voice turned razor-professional.
"Analysis complete! While handing over the microphone, Miss Eden's physical contact with the BOSS's hand — via index finger to the back of his hand — lasted zero point four seven seconds."
"According to standard human behavioral statistics, a normal object handoff should involve contact of between zero point one and zero point two seconds."
She snapped her fingers, and a trajectory-tracking chart of Elysia's eye movement appeared on the screen.
"As for Miss Elysia's triangulation technique here, it's practically a textbook example of surveillance craft."
Nuwa rubbed at the goosebumps rising on her arms.
"Stop analyzing! Stop analyzing!" She tossed the bag of spicy strips onto the table. "I feel suffocated just watching this through a screen, and I'm not even the one in it."
Bronie propped her chin on both hands, and in the hologram her expression turned into the very picture of an old fox's grin.
"Heh heh, BOSS."
She watched the stiff, frozen man on screen.
"This is what they call the ultimate love-rival battlefield."
Kiana, beside her, silently spooned another huge ladle of chili oil into her bowl.
"...I don't know what you're talking about."
Her expression said "I don't understand," but the speed at which she was stirring her noodles said "I understand perfectly."
The feed cut away.
The four teams split across two speedboats, racing full-speed toward the target island.
The camera swept over to Su Yu.
He leaned against the gunwale, sunglasses on, arms crossed over his chest.
He looked like he was asleep.
The sea wind tousled his hair into a mess, and his white T-shirt billowed in the gusts.
His whole aura clashed hopelessly with the competitive mood around him — pure couch-potato energy.
Elysia sat next to him, smiling and waving at the tracking camera, covering for him at the same time. "Our President Su is conserving his energy — don't underestimate him, okay~"
The danmaku wasn't buying it:
[Conserving energy? Is he seasick or something lol]
[LMAO, is this a competition or a vacation]
[Miss Elysia's going to have to carry this team solo]
[The miHoYo boss showed up in person? Suggest he develops Ultimate Treasure Online right there on the spot]
[I'll bet a bag of spicy strips this team comes in last]
[Brother Su, you didn't come on this show just to nap the whole episode, did you? Don't embarrass us players!]
Back at the studio.
Nuwa watched Su Yu's couch-potato act and sighed.
"Ugh, this guy's always got that same dead-fish look in public."
Bronie said with a smile, "Maybe BOSS really is conserving his energy? You can't judge a book by its cover."
"Yeah, right! Back at the convention, he stood in line for two hours and his legs went out from under him. Kevin and I had to each grab an arm and carry him out. That's the exact reason I missed out on the limited doujinshi I wanted!"
Nuwa slapped the arm of the couch, still bitter about it after all this time.
"If he'd had even half his current stamina back then, I'd have gotten my hands on that out-of-print art book already!"
Bronie leaned out of the hologram.
"Nuwa." Bronie chewed her gum. "Just how much do you care about that doujinshi?"
Nuwa gritted her teeth. "It's out of print! OUT. OF. PRINT!"
Kiana glanced at Nuwa. "Are you here to watch the show or settle old scores?"
"Both, obviously!"
The speedboat slowed to a stop about three hundred meters from the island.
Ahead, the sea was a clear, brilliant blue, and you could make out the shadows of underwater reefs.
Host Eden's voice came through the boat's onboard speakers.
She had already gone ahead on another boat and landed on the island first; she now stood at the host's podium on the beach, with blue sea and sky and swaying palm trees behind her — a scene straight out of a vacation ad.
"Contestants, welcome to what will be your home for the next forty-eight hours. From your current position to the island is about three hundred meters — you'll need to swim to shore."
"Whichever team arrives first gets first pick of campsite — a good site means a better water source and better shelter."
"Ready? Then go!"
The fitness-influencer duo jumped straight off the side of the boat.
They hit the water with a loud splash — not small, but the dive was clean and decisive.
The moment they surfaced, they adjusted their form and started swimming toward the island in big, powerful strokes.
The retired-athlete pair moved almost at the same instant.
Former national-team athletes, after all — that feel for water was etched into their bones. The two of them fell into a smooth, practiced rhythm, one just ahead of the other.
As for the comedy duo, they were purely there for laughs.
The tall one had just swung his leg over the gunwale when the short one smacked him from behind.
The tall one pitched headfirst into the sea, throwing up a splash a meter high.
The short one stood on the gunwale laughing for all of two seconds.
Then a hand shot out of the water, grabbed his pant leg, and yanked him in too.
The two of them flailed together on the surface like a pair of drowning ducks.
The danmaku filled with strings of laughing emojis, clearly delighted by the comic pair.
The camera cut to the last team.
Elysia stood up and rolled her wrist a couple times.
She sat on the gunwale, legs together, flashed a V-sign at the camera — then tilted her body gracefully to one side and slid into the water.
The entire entry was smooth as a fish.
Almost no splash at all.
The tone of the danmaku shifted instantly:
[Whoa, zero-splash entry??]
[When did Miss Elysia train for this???]
[I was going to say Beauty and the Beast, but turns out the beauty is a hidden pro]
[That dive form is way too elegant]
[The belle's personal bodyguard, except Brother Su is the belle, apparently]
Then came Su Yu.
He took off his sunglasses and handed them to a crew member.
He glanced at the water, then stepped off the side casually, like stepping off a curb.
Everyone braced for him to slip and faceplant, but what happened next made jaws drop.
Su Yu's entry produced almost no splash — despite the fact that his form was nowhere near textbook and he barely seemed to adjust his posture at all.
But the entry was as clean as a pro athlete's.
[What does that even mean? What kind of diving form is that?]
[Told you, Brother Su's got hidden depths. Y'all kept doubting me.]
[He's a game dev — what hidden ability could he possibly have? Probably just got lucky!]
[Easy now, kids — actually, Brother Su just awakened his Stigmata and turned into a Valkyrie, showing his true self to the world.]
[Where's the Valkyrie?]
[Way to be cold — can't a man be a Valkyrie too??]
This 300-meter freestyle swim was streamed in full clarity.
The fitness influencer, powered by strong upper-body strength, thrashed ahead at the front.
The retired national swimmer demonstrated crushing, professional-level ability, breathing and stroking in a flawless rhythm, holding a steady first place.
In third place were Su Yu and Elysia.
The drone's telephoto lens zoomed in.
What struck everyone as strange wasn't their placement.
It was Su Yu's condition.
He was swimming.
But he made it look absurdly easy.
In the choppy swells of the Pacific.
His breathing rate was slow, almost lazy — he'd take three strokes for every breath.
He looked completely at ease, as if this weren't the open Pacific with its rolling swells at all, but his own backyard pool on a sunny afternoon — never mind that his place didn't have a backyard pool. Eden's did.
Elysia swam on his right.
When she turned her head to breathe, she stole an extra glance at the man keeping perfect pace with her.
A memory flashed through her mind.
Last summer, the Golden Courtyard had organized a team-building trip to a seaside pool.
This same man, in water not even a meter and a half deep, had put on a giant duck float, flailed around a bit, and then stepped straight into a hole and gone under.
He'd thrashed wildly in the water, and it was Kevin who finally grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out like a stray kitten.
And now.
This man was matching her pace, effortlessly, in a manner that looked practically like a stroll.
Elysia didn't think her own stamina was anything to sneeze at — Miss Pink Elf kept up all kinds of training on the side, alongside Eden, just to maintain a flawless on-camera presence.
And Su Yu? This homebody who spent every day tapping at a keyboard and gaming — calling him a physical wreck would have been generous, not an insult.
Elysia had once half-joked that if she ever tried to put her hands on Su Yu, the poor guy wouldn't even have the strength to fight her off — he'd just have to accept being taken advantage of with a tragic look on his face.
When exactly had this guy's stamina gotten so good?
A gleam of interest flickered in Elysia's eyes.
She said nothing.
She simply blinked those pink eyes of hers on her next stroke.
After the initial shock wore off, the livestream's danmaku began splitting rapidly into camps.
[This guy's definitely trained before, right?]
[Look at his breathing rhythm — so steady. He's swum fifty meters in the ocean and hasn't broken pace at all.]
[What's there to be so impressed by? He's probably just a casual swimming enthusiast who got lucky and found his water sense. Don't make a big deal out of it!]
[Hey, above — go find a random enthusiast off the street and see if they can swim like that in open-sea swells without gasping for air. You try it if you're so confident!]
[Brother Su's old swim buddy checking in: this lazy streamer, aside from being a fast shot in games, sits on his butt for like ten hours a day. When did he pick up skills like this?]
[Your Brother Su literally streamed before saying his place was bare, that he had nothing — then turns around and has Eden and Elysia backing him up! What a joke!]
As the praise for Su Yu piled up in the danmaku.
Kiana watched the text, and her expression began to change.
At first it was that subtle jealousy of watching other people comment on something she considered hers.
But before long, her mood lightened considerably.
Of course! What did they expect! He's my producer! Of course he's amazing!
On the surface, she said nothing, just quietly wound a huge tangle of chili-oil-soaked noodles around her chopsticks and stuffed it into her mouth.
Bronie's holographic projection drifted over and hovered in front of Kiana.
"Silly Kiana." Bronie leaned in close to the projected face. "You're smiling."
"Am not!"
Kiana choked on the chili oil and coughed hard twice, her face flushing bright red.
"The noodles are too spicy! That's all!"
"You added three huge spoonfuls of that special devil-chili oil," Bronie pointed out dryly. "Of course it's spicy."
"Shut up!!!"
Before long, all four teams had made it to the island.
Round one.
Jungle orienteering.
The show's referee stood in front of a hastily assembled tent, announcing the rules through a megaphone.
"Each team, come forward and collect a map of this primeval jungle, along with a compass."
The referee pointed at the dense rainforest behind him, so thick sunlight barely penetrated it.
"Hidden inside the forest are five checkpoints, each with its own unique stamp."
"The first team to collect all five stamps and return here with the map wins first place for today!"
The referee dangled the bait.
"The first-place team will win a set of high-end camping gear from the show, and it's the only one available."
"That includes a rainproof tent, a premium sleeping bag, a survival knife, and — most importantly — waterproof matches."
On this island with no modern facilities whatsoever, waterproof matches meant a guaranteed fire source once night fell.
The countdown began.
Su Yu took the waterproof-paper map from a crew member.
Ten seconds.
Only ten seconds passed.
Su Yu folded the map along its creases and stuffed it casually into a side pocket of his cargo pants.
Elysia stood beside him, watching the whole thing.
"You." She pointed at his now-bulging pocket. "You memorized it?"
"More or less."
Su Yu turned and glanced at the dense jungle ahead.
"Let's go."
The moment they stepped into the thick primeval rainforest, the light around them dropped instantly.
The air was thick with the smell of rotting leaves mixed with damp, humid soil.
Su Yu walked in front.
Once they entered the jungle, he became a different person.
He always managed to avoid the dry branches that would snap loudly underfoot, and the patches of soft mud that would swallow a foot whole.
The way his soles met the ground seemed stretched out in time — toes touching down first, feather-light, before weight slowly transferred back to the heel.
He made almost no sound at all.
As his body wove through the tangled undergrowth and thorny vines, the angle of his shoulders turning, the bend of his waist — every movement landed exactly in the dead space between the plants.
He looked like a ghost that had melted into the shadows of the forest.
What confused Elysia even more was the route.
The path Su Yu chose wasn't a "path" at all, as far as she could tell.
No visible trail, no signs of anyone having walked it before.
And yet he could find gaps in what looked like impenetrable brush — gaps just wide enough for one person to pass through.
And every single gap happened to point in exactly the right direction.
This left the tracking drone following behind him completely lost.
Su Yu's movement was simply too quiet.
In this dense, canopy-covered jungle, the thermal infrared signal was almost entirely blocked by the sheer volume of leaves.
Combined with his utterly unpredictable, non-standard path.
The onboard auto-tracking AI lost its target three separate times within just ten minutes.
In the control room, staring at the monitors that had dissolved into static.
The director tore at his own hair in agony.
"What is going on?! How is this guy walking through the jungle? Is he wearing some kind of signal jammer?"
Following behind Su Yu, Elysia gradually noticed something.
In this primeval rainforest, all the obstacles most likely to block their progress had simply vanished.
Just seconds before she reached each spot.
The man walking ahead of her had quietly cleared every one of them away.
Branches that would have snagged her were pushed aside with the back of his hand and hooked onto the branches of another tree.
Patches of soft, muddy ground were pressed firm and flat, in advance, by some subtle force from the sole of his foot.
The low vines that liked to snag people were pressed down by his shin as he passed, leaving just enough time and space for her to get through behind him.
These movements of his were unbelievably natural.
So natural they clearly required no conscious thought at all — pure bodily instinct as he moved.
Elysia stopped and looked down at herself, and it hit her all at once.
Her clothes hadn't caught a single tear.
She'd walked through this hostile, hazard-filled jungle for twenty minutes without a scratch, as if walking down a red carpet.
Elysia came to a stop.
Su Yu noticed the movement behind him had ceased.
He stopped too.
"Tired?"
"Su Yu."
Elysia ignored his question and stared at the man standing in the shadows.
"When did you become this kind of secretly-skilled outdoorsman?"
Su Yu's expression didn't change at all.
"I've always been like this," he said, deflecting casually. "Come on, one more checkpoint to go."
"Oh?"
Elysia had no intention of letting him off the hook.
"If I remember correctly, it was that summer team-building trip."
"We went to climb that little hill — one that wasn't even six hundred meters above sea level."
"Who was it that clung to the railing at the halfway viewpoint for dear life, sat down on the ground for a full twenty minutes, and refused to climb another step no matter what?"
Su Yu looked at her, recognizing the look of someone who wouldn't let this go until she'd exposed him fully.
"Ahem." He glanced away, at a beetle on a nearby tree trunk. "That was because the sun was too strong that day. Too much UV. Easy to get sunburned."
Elysia gave a cold laugh.
She raised a finger and pointed up at the thick canopy above them, completely blocking out the sun.
"Then would the all-capable Director Su care to tell me — isn't the sun just as strong right above our heads right now?"
Online, the danmaku had completely spiraled off into uncharted territory.
[Now I get it — this guy definitely served in some special forces unit before he retired. That stealth walk is way too professional!]
[What's up with the drone losing him three times? Is this guy a human EMP jammer?]
[I run a wilderness survival channel myself, and I'll be honest — after watching Mr. Su Yu's performance here, I'm going home to delete all my survival videos. This isn't even on the same level.]
[Oh no, this is bad, guys. Brother Su really is a hidden legend! Weren't we supposed to sit five-across at the internet café together forever, bro? Brother Su, you absolute beast!]
Thirty-eight minutes.
That was the total time it took Su Yu and Elysia, map in hand and all five stamps collected, to walk out of that jungle.
When they slapped the fully stamped notebook down on the judges' table.
The referee in charge of timing stared at the stopwatch in his hand, completely stunned.
Because the team of retired national swimmers, who'd started a full ten minutes ahead of them, was still frantically circling around a checkpoint called "Death Swamp."
And during the show's pre-production safety survey, the two retired special forces operatives assigned to scout the route — who knew the entire path in advance — had still taken a full fifty-five minutes to complete all five checkpoints.
"You two..." The referee looked at his stopwatch, then at Su Yu, who hadn't broken a single bead of sweat. "Did you two run through the jungle or something?"
"No."
Su Yu picked up a bottle of water the show had provided, twisted off the cap, and handed it to Elysia beside him.
His tone remained exactly that same infuriatingly casual drawl.
"Maybe we just happened to take a route that didn't require any detours."
The referee believed him, against his better judgment.
Elysia took the water.
She really did feel tired — fine beads of sweat had gathered on her forehead, and her breathing was a bit faster than usual.
After all, this was a hot, humid jungle; anyone would feel worn out after a long stretch in it.
She looked up, watching his back as he went to collect the winner's prize.
The first-place prize was a set of high-end camping gear packed in a huge waterproof bag.
Su Yu took the bag from the staff and unclipped the buckle.
What followed, in front of tens of millions of live viewers, was a display of organizational efficiency that bordered on frightening.
He simply glanced once at the contents of the gear bag, and his hands started moving.
Five aluminum-alloy tent poles were stripped from the waterproof wrapping in an instant and arranged into a neat fan shape.
The tent stakes were set within easy reach on the left.
The utility knife and the windproof, waterproof matches were pulled out separately and tucked into the sealed zip compartment on the outermost layer of the waterproof bag.
In under two minutes, a pile of jumbled survival gear had been completely reorganized and repacked, sorted by category.
Elysia crouched nearby, chin in both hands, quietly watching him work.
"You."
Elysia's voice mixed with the soft sound of waves on the beach.
"You've changed a lot."
Su Yu's hands, in the middle of fastening a zipper, paused for a beat.
He didn't turn his head.
"Not just physically."
Elysia went on.
Her gaze moved past his shoulder, to the fabric of his shirt where the outline of muscle showed faintly through the back.
"You used to always look... kind of loose and lazy. But now —"
She thought about it, searching for the right word.
"It's like something's tightened you up."
Su Yu laughed helplessly. "Am I a screw or something?"
The sea wind blew across the beach.
Su Yu snapped the final buckle shut on the waterproof bag, stood up, hoisted the heavy bag, and slung it over his shoulder.
"Before it gets dark, let's go find a good spot to pitch the tent."
Nightfall.
The first day of filming was drawing to a close.
The last segment the show had scheduled was a live satellite hookup between the studio host and today's first-place winners.
On the island.
At a rocky outcrop on higher ground.
Su Yu had already pitched the windproof tent and built a campfire in front of it to keep the bugs away.
On camera.
Su Yu and Elysia stood side by side.
Behind them stretched the Pacific, its surface dyed gold by the setting sun.
On the big screen at the broadcast hall, the two of them appeared.
"Congratulations, Mr. Su Yu, Miss Elysia."
Eden's voice came through the satellite feed.
Elysia waved at the screen, beaming.
"Thanks, Eden~"
She turned and gave Su Yu a generous, open look.
"All thanks to our all-capable Director Su. If it weren't for him, this beautiful Miss Pink Elf might have gotten lost on this island today."
At the broadcast hall.
Eden stood under the spotlight, microphone in hand.
"Is that so? Su Yu's performance today really did surprise everyone. I never expected Mr. Su Yu had this side to him."
On camera, Su Yu's spine went instantly rigid.
He knew this tone all too well — it was the exact same tone the rich-girl big sister used when she pinned him in the garage, hijacking Elysia's phone call while going after little Su Yu underneath.
Sure enough.
Eden's next question followed immediately.
"So, on behalf of all our viewers, I'd like to ask Mr. Su Yu a question."
"What exactly was it — what kind of motivation — that drove you?"
"To make you, someone who's usually so fond of taking it easy, so determined to win first place today?"
To the audience in the hall, this seemed like nothing more than a perfectly ordinary post-match interview question.
But to Su Yu's ears.
This was an outright interrogation from Eden.
What for?
If he said it was to get the game seen by more people, to earn more Emotion Points.
In the ears of a woman who already knew the truth about the apocalypse, that sentence would automatically translate to: I'm doing it to save the world.
And if he answered that way.
Eden's next move would definitely be that knowing little smile — the one that says she sees right through him but won't say it out loud.
And then? Some dangerous late-night punishment, in private, for the crime of trying to play hero.
And beside him stood Elysia — who didn't know the truth about the apocalypse, but whose instincts were terrifyingly sharp regardless.
Su Yu could practically feel Elysia's gaze boring into the side of his face, like she could see straight through him.
The Abyss lay ahead.
Pursuers lay behind.
"For the camping gear," Su Yu said, looking into the camera, his expression harder than the tent's steel poles.
"Because only the first-place team gets to sleep in a tent with a proper ground mat tonight. Instead of a drafty cave or a sand-covered beach."
At the broadcast hall.
Eden looked at the man on screen, tense as a stone slab.
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"Mr. Su Yu really is a very practical man."
The words sounded innocent enough, but the hidden meaning was crystal clear — "You think you can dodge me with an excuse like that?"
Revenge, as they say, is a dish best served whenever it's due.
Eden asked a few more inconsequential questions before finally wrapping up the call.
The sea wind reclaimed the silence around them.
____
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