CHAPTER 54: CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR: FISH-CATCHING FIASCO(2)

The director blew his whistle with the enthusiasm of someone who didn’t have to enter water of questionable clarity.

"Teams, to your stations!"

And with their tools, or lack of tools, decided, the cast lined up at the pond like reluctant soldiers marching into battle.

The pond shimmered beneath the sun, deceptively calm.

Ripples glided across the surface like a warning.

Somewhere beneath, fish plotted their escape.

The first touch of pond water was shockingly cold, sending a collective shiver down several spines.

An Ning stepped down the slope, net in hand. The water splashed around her calves, cool and oddly refreshing after the rice fields.

Zhou Zhenyu followed, rolling up his sleeves with the air of a man preparing for a respectable day of work rather than televised chaos.

He tested the water with his foot. "Depth is manageable."

An Ning nodded. "Visibility is low. We catch by movement."

"Understood."

The audience adored them already.

[They’re treating this like a documentary shoot]

[Zhenyu calculating water depth is sending me]

[While they looked good together, there was absolutely no romantic spark!]

[maybe because...ningning is too capable?]

[An Ning entering the pond like she’s clocking into work]

*****

A few meters away, Chen Yiming and Wu Shiyun approached the pond with the bamboo trap.

Wu Shiyun inhaled deeply, as though preparing for a hostile red-carpet interview. She had already survived mud. Surely she could survive water.

Then she saw something dart beneath the surface.

She froze.

"That," she whispered, "moved."

"It is a fish," Chen Yiming said patiently.

"I know it is a fish," she hissed. "But it moved."

Chen Yiming held back a smile. "Fish tend to do that."

She glared at him, then clutched the trap. "Fine. Let us begin."

She stepped into the water.

Immediately, something brushed her ankle. For a split second, she achieved levitation.

Wu Shiyun: "..."

Chen Yiming: "..."

Wu Shiyun started trembling just a little. "I am calm."

She was definitely not calm.

But she was trying, and that was something.

*****

Further down, Sun Qiaolian clutched the plastic basin as if holding a priceless family heirloom rather than 2 dollars’ worth of moulded polymer.

She stepped into the pond with exaggerated delicacy.

The moment cold water hit her skin, her smile wavered.

"I... did not expect it to feel like this," she murmured.

"It is just water," Zhao Guangyao said, trying to sound confident.

Then something splashed near him.

He jumped and almost shouted but caught himself in time.

Sun Qiaolian saw it. Her smile turned even gentler but not the words that come out of it.

"So," she said sweetly, "you have caught fish before?"

He stiffened. "Well, I..."

She raised a brow.

He coughed lightly. "I did...but it has been a while."

[Sun Qiaolian is fighting for her life to stay elegant]

[Is it me or is Zhao Guangyao looking unnatural here?]

[Is the bro hiding something?]

*****

And then there was the final pair.

Jiang Shuyue stood at the edge, staring into the pond like a heroine about to face a tragic fate.

Shen Xiyu pinched the bridge of his nose. "We need to enter."

She did not move.

"Jiang Shuyue," he tried again.

She shook her head slowly. "I can see my reflection. She is telling me to go home."

"Jiang Shuyue."

"It is a sign."

"It is not a sign," he said, despair creeping in. It just goes to show that those who excelled in their career didn’t mean they excelled in other areas. "It is daylight."

The livestream was wheezing.

[BARE HANDS GANG LET’S GO]

[Shuyue is girlbossing her way out of this task]

[Shen Xiyu aged 5 years in the mud and will age 10 in the pond]

Finally, with the resignation of a tragic protagonist, Shuyue forced herself to step in.

A small fish shot past.

Shuyue shrieked.

Shen Xiyu closed his eyes. "We are never escaping fourth place."

*****

While the rest of the cast wrestled with their personal crises, An Ning and Zhou Zhenyu moved with peaceful precision.

Together, they formed a quiet, efficient unit.

Zhou Zhenyu disturbed the water with slow sweeps of his hand, guiding fish toward her.

An Ning angled her net, waited patiently...

Then lifted.

A fish flopped inside, glittering in the sun.

"That’s one," she said calmly.

Zhou Zhenyu nodded. "At this pace, we can reach five soon."

The livestream:

[THIS IS A NATURE DOCUMENTARY]

[Zhenyu: water flow velocity is...]

[An Ning catching fish like she is doing a brand collab for fishing equipment]

[they are making this seems a little too easy.]

[I am studying this for in case I need it in the future.]

The director, watching from the shade, nodded in approval. While His dating show had turned into a survival program, but the ratings spoke for themselves.

"This," he whispered, "is money."

Human suffering, he mused, was truly the golden fuel of reality TV.

And as the sun climbed higher, the pond rippled with impending disaster. The fish were ready. The cast, less so.

The pond grew increasingly active as more fish sensed movement. Every sudden splash echoed like nature mocking the cast.

Zhao Guangyao attempted to corner one with his basin, but the fish slipped past him with the ease of a seasoned escape artist. He lunged, nearly fell, windmilled his arms wildly and somehow did not drown.

Sun Qiaolian watched politely, as though pretending the entire display did not belong to her teammate. She lifted her basin with the hope that sheer elegance would attract cooperative fish. It did not. Not a single fish respected her gentleness.

Farther away, Wu Shiyun had entered the bargaining stage of survival. "If nothing touches me again, I will donate to three charities," she whispered as she eased the bamboo trap forward.

Chen Yiming tried to focus, but a fish splashed his sleeve. He froze. "This pond is unclean," he murmured.

Meanwhile, Jiang Shuyue and Shen Xiyu stood in a duet of despair.

Jiang Shuyue made an attempt to grab a fish, only for it to leap up, brush her wrist and vanish beneath her feet again. She screamed. Shen Xiyu accepted his fate with the silence of a man whose soul had already left.

And as chaos rippled across the pond, one truth became painfully clear: the fish were winning.