Xue Ninglu screamed and woke up first, hurriedly calling out to Su Yanchen and Song Yunjian, "It's raining! Ah, the leaves are falling!"
Su Yanchen and Song Yunjian were startled. When they opened their eyes, they saw all the leaves above them swaying. Before they could react to what was happening, a strong wind blew by, and the loose vines were suddenly pulled out of the soil and swung around, with the leaves on them flying everywhere.
Their tents were no match for the storm and collapsed instantly.
Large raindrops pelted their faces, and the three scrambled to their feet, running towards the crew in panic. The director, who had gotten up before them, immediately ordered the crew to stop them, shouting, "This is wilderness survival; you have to figure things out yourselves. You can't ask us for help. Sorry."
Su Yanchen was about to curse, but seeing so many cameras, he shut his mouth and said angrily, "So what do we do now?"
The three of them were soaked to the bone. Xue Ninglu ran to the side of the wooden house and pounded on the vine-covered wall. "Brother Chen, Brother Yi, Lao Yao! Our tent is broken. Can we go inside and take shelter from the rain?"
Xu Zifan and his two companions' drones were all inside the wooden cabin, taking panoramic photos from three different angles.
Xu Zifan lay quietly with his eyes closed, not moving. He hadn't been sleeping; after drinking the spiritual spring water, he had been silently guiding the spiritual energy within his body to cultivate. But he didn't need to move now, because before going to sleep, he had woven earplugs from fine grass and given them to Chen Zaimin and Yi Xiao.
The earplugs provided excellent noise isolation; if Shao Hua hadn't projected the outside scene onto the virtual screen, he wouldn't have heard the shouts outside.
Moreover, Chen Zaimin and Yi Xiao had done far more work than usual today and were exhausted, fast asleep and snoring. The sounds of the other three were drowned out by the torrential rain; the rhythmic downpour was unlikely to wake them, so he could naturally ignore them without a second thought.
Xue Ninglu crouched down and pushed the barrier, but it wouldn't budge. Anxious, she turned to Su Yanchen, "What do we do? Why aren't they saying anything?"
Su Yanchen shouted loudly at the barrier, "Brother Chen, let us in! Brother Chen? Brother Yi? Junior Brother?"
He was furious, but he couldn't show his anger, so he could only say, "What are we going to do? This rain is so heavy, and we don't know when it will stop. We can't go in, so we're just going to get soaked here. Won't we catch a cold and get a fever?"
Song Yunjian was filled with regret. Remembering that they were recording a show, he said something to smooth things over, "They might be fast asleep and didn't hear us. Should we knock again?"
Xue Ninglu patted the wall again, but Xu Zifan had tied it so tightly that her palms turned red and hurt terribly. She covered her hands, her voice choked with grievance, "Can't you hear me when I'm so loud?"
"They must be fast asleep. Let's figure out how to get in first," Su Yanchen said deliberately, then suddenly kicked the barrier at the entrance of the wooden house. He'd said they were fast asleep first, so if they forced their way in, no one would call him impolite, right?
His powerful kick failed to budge the hut. The three men stared at the solid wooden house, standing silently in the pouring rain, unsure of what to do.
The director had the cameraman wear a thick raincoat and film them from different angles. Only after they stopped filming did he remind them, "The three of them are wearing earplugs and can't hear anything outside. Xu Zifan brought everything into the cabin just in case. Because the cabin is small and they were afraid the wind would blow the planks apart, they stuck the planks into the ground and piled everything behind them. So, forcing your way in probably won't work. You guys should think of another way to avoid the rain."
Su Yanchen and the other two were dumbfounded. They had witnessed Xu Zifan's caution before, but they didn't expect him to be this cautious. He was so cautious that they couldn't even break in unless they used extreme force to break the wooden planks. But they were filming a show, and there were no enemies inside. They couldn't do anything too rash; it would be too embarrassing.
Besides, Xu Zifan had mentioned rain several times during the day, but they stubbornly refused to believe him. Xu Zifan had even told them twice to stay in the cabin, but they insisted on setting up tents and staying there themselves. Now they were going to violently destroy the cabin to take shelter from the rain—it was too embarrassing. What they should be doing now was, as the director suggested, finding another way. If they did it well, it would make it seem like they had cleverly overcome the crisis.
The three of them gritted their teeth and looked around, shivering from the cold. There were bright lights in the camp for directors to use, but everything else in the camp was in the wooden huts. All they could use were the things they had with them and the vines and leaves.
They ran to the tent to get their things. Xue Ninglu had brought a watch and a backpack. The watch was useless at the moment, so she opened the backpack and wore it as a hat to at least cover her face, but she was still very uncomfortable from the rain.
Su Yanchen carried a dagger and a pot. The pot was in the wooden house. He used the dagger to cut the vines tied to the tree. The vines were heavy with leaves tied to them and were almost blown away by the strong wind. He used a lot of effort to pull the vines down and press them to the ground. Then he quickly put two leaves on his head.
Song Yunjian brought a small utility knife, which was fine for peeling fruit and slicing meat, but it was useless now. He also brought a first-aid kit, which was even more useless now; they would probably all need to take cold medicine and fever reducers after the rain stopped.
He also took two large leaves and put them on his head. The three of them sat on the sheltered side of the big tree, huddled together. Xue Ninglu sat in the middle, while Su Yanchen and Song Yunjian each held one end of the vine on either side. In this way, the row of large leaves tied to the vine covered the three of them like a blanket, almost avoiding the pain of the rain hitting their bodies.
But the leaves were wet, clinging to their bodies and pressing against their heads, making the three of them feel as if they were huddled in the cold.
Like a warehouse, everyone was shivering from the cold, and the more they squeezed in, the tighter it got. It looked incredibly cramped through the screen.
The director watched the screen happily in the tent. He thought for a moment that although the current development was completely opposite to what he had initially expected, none of the guests they invited had any important backgrounds. So, what the production team said was what they got.
He wasn't afraid of offending anyone. He immediately held a small meeting and decided not to give any help to any of them, and to nullify the previous agreement. After all, it was just a verbal agreement, and the most important thing was to make the show well.
Su Yanchen couldn't hold on any longer. The three of them hid behind the leaves and discussed for a long time but couldn't come up with a good solution. Xue Ninglu had never been so embarrassed in her life. The thought that all of this had been filmed made her feel suffocated. She couldn't help but say, "If only we had listened to Xu Zifan, we could be living comfortably in the wooden house now."
It was Su Yanchen who suggested that the wooden house wouldn't work and that a tent should be set up instead. Upon hearing this, he suppressed his anger and said, "There's no going back now. It's too late to regret it."
The three of them fell silent, the atmosphere extremely tense. If it weren't for the several cameras, they might have started blaming and arguing with each other, because it was just too uncomfortable and too cold!
The silence lasted only a few minutes before a sudden clap of thunder startled the three of them. Before they could even speak, another clap of thunder struck. Xue Ninglu pushed them aside and ran towards the director, yelling, "You'll get struck by lightning if you stay under a tree! Run!"
Su Yanchen and Song Yunjian immediately chased after them. They couldn't take it anymore and ran to the director's tent entrance, still in shock, only to be stopped by the staff.
Su Yanchen was furious. "Stop filming! No more filming! Director, what do you mean? We agreed on this before we came, and now it's raining so hard, are you going to make us stand outside in the rain? Are you trying to kill us?"
Xue Ninglu said urgently, "Let us in quickly. We can record again tomorrow. We can't risk our health. Why don't you find a way to wake Xu Zifan and the others up?"
Song Yunjian suppressed his urgency and advised, "Director, if the three of us get sick, we won't be able to continue filming the show, right? We've already filmed so much, we should have enough footage. We can film another scene of us hiding there tomorrow morning, just to pretend we hid there all night. It won't affect anything."
The director and his staff discussed it, and one of them quietly suggested, "It's not interesting for them to hide quietly all night. Let them wake up the three people in the cabin and go in. It would be more interesting to have all six of them squeezed in to avoid the rain. It would also be more ironic, and it would create more internal conflict among the six of them."
The director nodded and said firmly, "The show is filmed live, so we can't fake it. We definitely can't help you. If you want to take shelter from the rain, figure it out yourselves or find Chen Zaimin and the others to go into the cabin. That's it. Stop arguing. It'll be the same no matter how long you argue."
To ensure their safety, the production team hired professional wilderness experts and bodyguards. Now that they're being blocked, they won't be able to get through.
Su Yanchen cursed, turned around and ran towards the wooden house, sitting on the ground and kicking the wooden planks with both feet.
Xue Ninglu squatted down to the side and shouted into the room, "Brother Chen, Brother Yi, Xu Zifan! Help!"
It would be a lie to not hear such a commotion. Xu Zifan pretended to be woken up, sat up groggily, rubbed his eyes, saw the wooden board moving, crawled over to remove it, took off his earplugs, and exclaimed, "Senior brother? What's wrong with you guys?"
Xue Ninglu breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing his voice, and anxiously called out, "It's pouring rain! Let us in quickly!"
Chen Zaimin and Yi Xiao also heard the noise and sat up. They quickly moved the things at the doorway and took the wooden planks out of the deep pit. Xue Ninglu couldn't wait to crawl into the wooden house, and Su Yanchen and Song Yunjian followed her in.
Xu Zifan glanced outside, then quickly put the wooden planks back in place. The rain only wet the doorway; the inside of the wooden house remained dry.
Chen Zaimin was shocked to see the three drenched people and asked, "How did you get like this?"
Su Yanchen was furious with the director and said in a very bad tone, "We knocked and shouted for a long time, but you wouldn't open the door, so we got soaked like this."
Chen Zaimin held out his palm to show them the earplugs in his hand, looking very surprised. "We wore earplugs and didn't hear anything. Besides, I slept so soundly today that I didn't even hear the rain. I only woke up when there was thunder just now, and I was still half asleep. You've been knocking for ages? Is your tent broken?"
Xue Ninglu couldn't help but cry, "The tent is completely ruined. We were soaked for almost half an hour and are freezing to death."
After a moment of silence, Xu Zifan said, "Did you bring a first-aid kit? We can't start a fire here, and we don't have any clothes to change into. You should take some cold medicine as a precaution."
Song Yunjian was taken aback. "I forgot to bring it because I was running too fast."
Xu Zifan's eyes flashed, and he turned around to find a kind of medicinal herb he had collected from the grass basket and handed it to them. "You can prevent colds by chewing this directly, but it doesn't taste very good. Please bear with it for your health."