On the third day, Xu Zifan got up early and practiced Tai Chi as usual. Then he boiled sweet potatoes for everyone. Boiled sweet potatoes were juicier than roasted ones, and they were quite comforting to eat in the morning. There were also two kinds of cold wild vegetable salads. The arrangement still had the feel of a farmhouse restaurant. Everyone ate happily and looked forward to the new day, asking Xu Zifan what he was going to do that day.
Xu Zifan said, "There are many coconuts on the island, so we'll make coconut chicken today. I'm worried that eating too much seafood will make me feel unwell, but chicken is fine. Drinking chicken soup can also nourish the body. How about we have grilled fish for dinner?"
Chen Zaimin and the others naturally agreed. Xu Zifan had prepared all the food, so they felt too embarrassed to complain. Besides, everything Xu Zifan made was delicious; they had no dietary restrictions and didn't need to be picky.
Su Yanchen and Xue Ninglu have recovered from their illnesses. They missed a day and are a little out of sync with their pace. They haven't spoken or made any statements yet, intending to try their best to fit in.
Just as Xu Zifan was planning his island getaway for the day, a staff member delivered a task card.
The group was astonished. "We have a mission?"
The director said, "This is a reserved item. If you have a hard time surviving these past few days and don't have the energy to do the tasks, then we won't issue any tasks. Now that you've passed the panic period and entered a stable period, you need to take on some challenges on the island."
Several people immediately stood up to protest, "Director, this isn't fair! Why didn't you say so before we came? Did you add this at the last minute?"
Director: "It's a project that was prepared in advance. You can get rewards for completing the task, such as rice, flour, instant noodles, etc."
The group exchanged glances, and Xu Zifan whispered, "I think we can give it a try. If we win, we'll get the main course."
Chen Zaimin thought for a moment and said, "Anyway, we don't have anything we absolutely have to do. Even if we lose, it won't make any difference. Why don't we give it a try?"
After discussing it, they decided to accept the mission. Upon opening the mission card, they saw that the mission required them to split into two groups, deciding by drawing lots. The winning side would receive a reward, while the losing side was not allowed to accept food from the other side and had to find their own food on the island.
Xu Zifan immediately suspected the show was cheating when he saw the rules. Sure enough, when they drew lots, he was grouped with Chen Zaimin and Yi Xiao, while the three inexperienced people were grouped together.
The task was to find flags of different colors in the areas they had explored. Xu Zifan's team was looking for red flags, while the other team was looking for blue flags. Some flags were in the grass, some were high in the trees, and some were hidden in the crevices of rocks—in short, they were easy to miss and difficult to find. They had a three-hour time limit, and the team with the most flags at the end would win.
This task was too easy for Xu Zifan. He took care of his two teammates along the way, trying to let them find it. Only when they had passed by without him noticing it would he pretend to have found it. He even deliberately missed two flags, only noticing them after circling around and coming back.
When they encountered a flag hanging precariously in a tree, Yi Xiao suggested climbing it. Xu Zifan, of course, gave him the chance to show off and helped him get it with some difficulty.
When they encountered a flag hidden in thorns, Chen Zaimin searched for tools and devised a solution, while Xu Zifan assisted him, giving him more screen time and opportunities to shine.
Only when neither of them could reach them did he use a branch to shoot them down or a vine to whip them down. The three of them spent two hours not only getting all the red flags, but the process was also quite exciting, with difficulties, laughter, and an increasingly close brotherly bond, making it a very watchable story.
Meanwhile, the other three were in a much worse situation. They couldn't walk fast on the uneven path, and no one reminded them when they missed a flag. When they finally found it, they climbed trees for a long time, becoming exhausted. They pricked their hands several times while moving through the thorn bushes, drawing blood. When they went to get a flag in the grass, they saw a snake, which terrified them so much that they screamed and ran away frantically.
The three of them ran in different directions. Song Yunjian ran off on his own, while Xue Ninglu instinctively grabbed Su Yanchen's arm and ran with him.
Song Yunjian was quite shocked. After collapsing to the ground and panting heavily for a few moments, he decided to return to the camp and abandon the mission.
In their panic, Su Yanchen and Xue Ninglu wandered off into unfamiliar territory and got lost. Even in broad daylight, getting lost is a painful experience. They spent the rest of the mission time searching for their way back, and by the time they finally returned to camp, it was already past the allotted time. Both of them had aching feet and legs and were completely exhausted.
Afterwards, the program's experts went to see it and told them that the snake was not poisonous, but the three of them were still terrified and looked extremely pale.
Xu Zifan's team naturally won the competition and received three bowls of rice. All three were very happy. For lunch, they planned to have rice with coconut chicken and a cold wild vegetable salad—it sounded delicious!
Su Yanchen and the others were punished by not being allowed to eat the food prepared by Xu Zifan and had to find it themselves. However, all three of them were exhausted and frightened and did not want to move. After discussing it, they decided to find food in the afternoon and eat dinner early in the evening, which would count as two meals.
Xu Zifan put half of the rice into the pot to cook, saving the other half for dinner. Chen Zaimin and Yi Xiao looked on with great curiosity; they usually cooked rice in an electric rice cooker, and had never seen rice cooked like this before, especially since the fire from the bonfire was difficult to control.
Xu Zifan adjusted the fire, told them to watch over it, then ran off to hunt a pheasant and picked two fresh coconuts. When he returned, the rice was just cooked, so he started making coconut chicken.
The coconut chicken was savory with a hint of sweetness, a completely different flavor from the chicken stew with mushrooms the day before. Paired with refreshing side dishes, it was absolutely delicious, and the three of us were extremely satisfied.
Xu Zifan guessed that the production team deliberately wanted someone to be on the show.
Their disheveled and pitiful state added to the dramatic tension of their struggle for survival, so they deliberately asked Su Yanchen, "Senior brothers, would you like something to eat? We're willing to give you some, so it should be alright, right?"
The director immediately said, "No, the losing side must find their own food."
Xu Zifan tentatively whispered to Chen Zaimin, "How about we deliberately lose to them next time?"
The director overheard his words in the footage recorded by the drone and quickly said, "The person who receives the award must cook for themselves, from starting the fire to cooking and preparing the meal; they must do it all themselves and cannot have another group help them."
Yi Xiao said bluntly, "It's no use deliberately losing to them. They can't start a fire or cook, so it's a waste of an opportunity."
Chen Zaimin nodded: "Yi Xiao is right. We have to win again, Lao Yao. I haven't had rice for several days, and it tastes so good. This way of cooking is completely different from cooking it in a rice cooker. It's especially fragrant. Seriously, Lao Yao, I'll come find you when we get back, and we'll get together more often."
Upon hearing this, Yi Xiao said, "Me too, I'll join too."
Xu Zifan smiled and agreed. Suddenly, the director's stomach growled. He clutched his stomach in frustration, thinking, "I should have given him instant noodles. How could the rice be cooked so well? It smells so good!"
I initially thought that filming a show like this would involve the production team providing lavish food and drinks while the guests suffer in poverty. But what I've found is quite different. The guests are enjoying large meals of meat, seafood, and wild vegetables, while the food brought by the production team seems rather ordinary and tasteless. It really feels like they're filming a food show.
The aroma wafting from Xu Zifan's place made the three people in the hut even hungrier, and they felt incredibly dejected. They knew their own limitations; they couldn't even start a fire, so how could they cook? What could they make? Thankfully, they had eaten the wild fruits Xu Zifan had picked over the past two days and knew what they looked like, otherwise they might have really been drinking coconut juice until they were full.
After lunch and a nap, Xu Zifan took Chen Zaimin and Yi Xiao to the beach. Since they had experience catching crabs before, he let them do it. He, on the other hand, made a fork out of tree branches and a dense net out of vines and straw ropes, and dived into the sea to catch seafood.
Since he had rice as his staple food, he decided to have a seafood feast for dinner.
In just one afternoon, he scooped up three sea cucumbers, three abalones, a dozen oysters, a dozen shrimps, a large handful of three different kinds of small clams, and the large clam he had grilled last time.
Chen Zaimin and Yi Xiao worked together to catch six crabs, and the three of them returned home with a full load of crabs, their faces beaming with smiles.
The cameramen captured all the wonderful moments during their shoot. The drone that followed Xu Zifan also captured many beautiful underwater scenes, including beautiful corals, colorful fish, and Xu Zifan's effortless swimming skills. The crew members were all captivated by Xu Zifan!
The other group of three naturally had another miserable afternoon. They wanted to tie the branches into long vines to poke the coconuts, as Xu Zifan had suggested, but they didn't know how to tie the vines properly. No matter how they tried, they couldn't tie them tightly, and the branches wouldn't connect properly. As soon as they touched the coconuts, they would pull back, and one even fell and hit Song Yunjian on the head.
Later, Song Yunjian finally managed to climb the tree and pick three coconuts. He even took the two of them to catch crabs. He had gone with Xu Zifan the day before, so he knew where the place was and how to catch them.
The director chuckled upon seeing this. The contrast was even more striking when both groups went to the same location one after the other. Sure enough, Song Yunjian had oversimplified things. He had caught Xu Zifan easily the day before because Xu Zifan had woven a net, but Song Yunjian didn't know how to do it. The three of them had put in a lot of effort chasing and intercepting him but still couldn't catch him. They even almost got pinched by a crab. They were in a terrible state of mind, and their faces showed their displeasure.
Su Yanchen even said, "Even if you catch them, you won't cook them. What's the point of catching crabs?"
Song Yunjian immediately felt uncomfortable, but he didn't argue with him. Instead, he suggested picking sweet wild fruits. These could be eaten after washing, which was a tacit admission that they didn't know how to cook them, as Su Yanchen had said they didn't. He only caught crabs to get more screen time, and he also harbored a bit of wishful thinking, hoping that the production team might eventually allow them to use Xu Zifan's campfire.
But there was nothing they could do if they couldn't catch them, so they ended up picking a whole bunch of wild fruits and putting them in leaves to take back.
That evening, Xu Zifan prepared a seafood feast: grilled oysters, grilled abalone, sea cucumber porridge, spicy stir-fried small clams and prawns, pan-fried clam meat, and steamed crab. They used clean leaves as plates, and Chen Zaimin even arranged a plate in a good mood, making it a table full of seafood. The aroma once again filled the entire campsite.
This time, when the cameraman was shooting close-ups, he didn't think of it as a rural farmhouse anymore. He felt like he was watching a seafood feast at a high-end restaurant. Xu Zifan's cooking skills were simply amazing! The cameraman silently decided that when he got back, he would exchange WeChat and phone numbers with Xu Zifan. He was determined to get on this good side. Once they were on good terms, he could get some amazing food. Xu Zifan seemed easy to talk to, and he definitely couldn't miss this opportunity!
There are quite a few people who share his thoughts, and some people in the production team are already thinking about it. The only one who is resentful is probably Su Yanchen, who has become a foil to Xu Zifan!