No Time

Ok, so, 27 people left.

...That wasn't a satisfactory number, but nothing else could be done about that.

We could only bid the rest of the colorfully splattered contestants that couldn't make it goodbye. They each got a consolation prize of a gift card to an expensive restaurant and a photo with Shui Yu.

As for the ones that survived, it was time to feed them.

It was lunchtime, and based on their results, they would get to eat what they wanted or leftovers. This way they would be more motivated to do better.

First, they would finally get to introduce themselves and then get their portions.

The person who had the best score was...

"I'm Xia Jiayi, 15. I'm a researcher."

Xia Jiayi's introduction was short and simple. But the audience wouldn't like it if they only got a few facts about contestants, so we asked him more questions.

"You're a researcher, but only 15. Why are you not in school?"

"Because I'm a genius!"

"Uh, moving on. What's your favorite food?"

"I like popcorn, ice cream, corndogs, candy-"

"So, junk food. Why'd you join this competition?"

Although he was still an immature boy, he did answer seriously to this one.

"To win over Shui Yu!"

"Shui Yu's preference is a strong capable person. But you don't have any abilities. What will you do?"

"Win him over with my charm! But I can always research on how to make a zombie trial reagent... Just kidding," Xia Jiayi said with a blinding smile. He really did look like a friendly sunshine neighbor boy.

That didn't sound like a joke...?

I asked the other contestants normal questions, it was only Xia Jiayi's question that was different because he was an outsider.

Usually, our base citizens disliked outsiders, some even having xenophobia.

Of course, Xia Jiayi wasn't liked by everyone. There were plenty of people who spread bad rumors of the outsiders, even the kids that were brought in from a cannibalistic society.

It was a cruel setting, but to protect ourselves, we had to go to such extremes. We have a safe society compared to the outside where people are suffering and doing their best to survive every day.

Hopefully, through this show, more people would understand that outsiders aren't harmful if they're brought in by the chief. We had chased out plenty of outsiders, the ones who stayed were either talented or young. They could be of use to society.

There was currently a huge discussion to whether allow outsiders to go through the zombie trial with the reagent or not. Everyone knew about it.

This was just a few days ago, and now it had become a discussion on whether to make another base for outsiders to live in peace but not come to our base.

It got too out of hand, so Shui Yu had to reassure the public that this discussion was just an idea by regular netizens. He didn't take any part in it, neither his subordinates who dealt with making laws for the base. He instead diverted the topic by saying there would be a discussion for deciding the name of the base.

With a hired water army, or more like die-hard fans of Shui Yu, the discussion was swept away. Any netizen that tried to go back to the discussion about outsiders and incite the public would be drowned by spammed comments and wonders of what the base's title would be.

Sigh, this was getting heavy.

It was lunchtime, after all. Destressing by eating isn't healthy, but that's what I did. 

Actually, Shui Yu was probably more stressed than me. I was just a person of the base, Shui Yu was the leader. How much more stress would have accumulated on him?

The light smile on his face could be a real smile, but it could also be to hide his tiredness...

I shook my head quickly to get rid of these depressing thoughts.

Pa!

I slapped my cheeks to wake myself up and continued with the point system to decide which contestants got which amount of food.

I shouldn't worry about such things now, I had to be more concerned about my show!

If I succeeded, I'd gain status, my words would have some power, then I could help out in a worrisome situation.

But right now, my fanbase was weak, I needed to gain prestige as the base's top anchor!

---------

After lunch was finished, -well, at least for me, some poorly scored contestants only got one youtiao stick- we were off to the 2nd mission.

We borrowed a small clinic for this. The clinic wasn't In much use anyways, so it was easy to borrow.

Mission #2 would be an escape game. 

To make it interesting, it was a breakout game, but larger scale.

The theme?

Zombie-infested hospital!

How exciting! Can't you just imagine what these contestants would look like when scared? Will they scream? Will they jump back in terror?

The public would have fun reacting to this part as well.

Besides children and elders, everyone had gone outside of the base to gather materials or hunt down zombies and mutants.

While some of them did bravely fight off any encountered zombies, many still tended to avoid them, even while knowing how strong they were compared to regular zombies.

In this game, nobody was allowed to use their powers. They all had to downgrade themselves into regular humans. This game was all about brains!

There were only 27 people left, and it was a big group.

Expecting this, we had split the hospital into 4 areas.

Since the contestants + Shui Yu could be split into 4 groups, it'd be 7 in each group.

Originally, it would have been great to split them into 3 groups of 9, and then have Shui Yu be a boss zombie, but after the paintball mission, it didn't seem right to torture the contestants again...

So, that's how this became.

With a round of raffles, done by picking sticks with colored markings on the bottom when pulled out of a cup, everyone got into a group.

Team A for some reason was full of men.

Team B had 3 boys and 4 girls.

Team C was Shui Yu's group and had 3 girls and 3 boys.

Team D was consisting of the girl who had the charm ability, Xia Jiayi, and 5 contestants who had almost failed in the first round.

We would focus on all groups, but more so on Shui Yu's. The contestants in his group had a chance to woo him over.

Other groups looked rather confused about what would happen. Many of them were powerful ability users and could bring back many nuclei after hunting outside. They were likely doubtful about how this type of event could ever scare them.

But nay, they don't know the power of makeup, bgm, and setting!

We had hidden cameras installed everywhere inside and I hoped to get some shots that could be made into expression packages, gifs, or stickers.

Recently, there was a thing called "limiter" made. It was pretty useless, limiting your abilities to that of a normal human. And no matter how much you tried, you couldn't gain your powers unless it malfunctioned or you knew how to unlock it.

Shui Yu said it was good for training, so thus it was made, but training with just your body and sheer willpower was hard. Having abilities and strengthened physique and mind was such a cheat, but it was important to remember that without this zombie reagent cheat, we were useless and even weaker than the regular people battling daily outside.

We lived too comfortably. It was only through connections to the true chosen people of the base that many could live here. I mean, without us, only with powerful people and genius researchers, wouldn't the base function better? We were truly a burden...

But there was also the fact that people were solitary creatures. With only work on your mind every day, nothing was fun. Life is meaningless.

Look at me, I'm providing top-quality entertainment right here!

Without things such as shows, restaurants, karaoke, amusement parks, zoos, etc. these people would be suffering from boredom!

Therefore, I was doing a heroic deed!

There weren't any jobs not appreciated. Although some of them are weird, and sometimes straight-up disgusting, they're all necessary!

Whew, I found a need for myself again, and my passion was now at full blast, I could do this!

...Although, there wasn't really anything to do right now. Not even commenting...

Well, I was stuck behind the scenes doing some editing and discussing it with the crew.

Alright, onto Team A. Huh, they hadn't even escaped their first room yet? Are they stupid? ...No, they were just thinking too hard about the code... You could just solve it with a simple rule for multiplying the given numbers and factoring the ones that weren't prime numbers...

Team B was doing well. At least they escaped their own cells. Ah, but they had a layer of flour on them? They must've pulled the switch that was labeled "Do Not Press". Haizz, such unnecessary curiosity should be awarded proper punishment. A flour explosion is quite fitting.

Team C... Well, they've got Shui Yu. Team C had already gotten to the room filled with hidden doors and locks. Wait, what??? You're not supposed to just tear it open! Ahhh, we spent so much time making those props!!! Urgh, I'd rather not see this group's shoot, it's too damaging for my fragile heart...

Oho, Team D was doing astonishingly well! They had already solved many clues, and had great teamwork! Xia Jiayi and some other fellow researcher persons were doing great and were conducting some great discussions about the plot of the setting and any clues! While the other team members weren't slacking off and searching the whole place without letting even a speck of dust pass by!

Well, this certainly would make a great episode to air!

Today was another glorious day for Ding Li Feng, (future) top MC!