For the employees of Huachuang, Chen Yiran had been out of sorts for many days. Fu Angsi even suspected that he had been cursed and wanted to find a master to exorcise him.

As a special assistant who helps the president share his worries and solve difficulties, Assistant Wu had been keeping an eye on the developments on the show ever since he learned that Li Linlin was participating in it. So when he found out about the challenger guest, he immediately informed Chen Yiran.

Chen Yiran looked at the information compiled by Assistant Wu and pondered for a long time. Assistant Wu wasn’t sure what he would do, but he felt that the probability of him participating was low. After all, the company had so many things waiting for him to deal with all day long, so how could he have time to participate in a show.

Chen Yiran had thought a lot these days. Many people have told him that he likes Li Linlin, but he had no such awareness. But now that he clearly had a desire for Li Linlin, could he still convince himself that he just regarded her as his sister?

He didn’t have such thoughts about his real sister.

Being able to lead Huachuang to this day, Chen Yiran was naturally a person who’s very good at analyzing problems and himself. When he encountered trouble at work, he would always look for the reason within himself first, because it was the best place to start.

The problem before him was now clear. His feelings for Li Linlin weren’t pure. Although he didn’t know when this change started, it was obvious that he noticed it too late.

The problem was his and he had to solve it himself. Avoiding it wouldn’t solve anything, so he decided to follow his heart and made a decision.

“Help me make the arrangements, I’m going to participate.”

Assistant Wu was stupefied. After a moment, he nodded and said, “Yes, President Chen. I’ll contact the program group now.”

Assistant Wu thought that perhaps what Fu Angsi said was right. There’s always the possibility that someone would humble President Chen.

The program group had more than just Chen Yiran as a candidate for the show, but there was no doubt that he was the best. The director decided to choose him without any hesitation.

So now Chen Yiran was sitting opposite Li Linlin.

He also asked her what her plans were for that day’s date.

He found that saying the word ‘date’ wasn’t as awkward or difficult as he thought.

Li Linlin forked the bread that Chen Yiran cut for her and didn’t answer right away. She and Du Yanwei hadn’t known that there would be a challenger yesterday until it was late, so the two had already discussed their dating plan, but now that the person had changed, she wanted to change the plan as well.

“Let’s go play an escape room today.” Li Linlin looked at Chen Yiran and smiled at him.

Chen Yiran’s hands holding the knife and fork paused slightly. “Escape room?”

He thought of the first time Li Linlin and Du Yanwei met, which was to clear the escape room. Some people online even said that it was where their love began.

Heh.

“Okay.” Chen Yiran nodded without hesitation. He hadn’t played an escape room in many years. The last time he did so was with his classmates when he was studying abroad. But he’s different from Du Yanwei. He had been very smart since he was a child and an escape room wasn’t difficult for him at all.

Seeing that he had taken the bait, the corners of Li Linlin’s lips couldn’t help but rose up. “Let’s do one of those horror-themed ones, like zombie, haunted house, or mental hospital.”

“……” Chen Yiran looked at her silently. “Escape rooms nowadays are all that complicated?”

Wouldn’t it be better to decrypt properly? Why make it so gaudy?

Li Linlin said, “Yeah, have you been without entertainment activities for so long that you’ve lost touch with society?”

Chen Yiran: “……”

“Are you going?” Li Linlin asked him to express his opinion. She and Chen Yiran had known each other for more than ten or twenty years. She dare not say that she understood him completely, but she did to a certain extent.

In short, she knew that Chen Yiran was afraid of ghosts.

Although he has grown up now, this kind of mentality was difficult to overcome. He might’ve never even been in a haunted house before.

Chen Yiran pursed his lips before finally nodding. “Okay.”

“Then it’s settled.” Li Linlin clapped her hands happily. “Last time I heard Xixi talk about a zombie-themed escape room. It sounds exciting. I haven’t found a chance to go, so let’s go there today.”

“Mm.” Chen Yiran nodded and glanced at her. “Aren’t you scared?”

Of course he knew what Li Linlin was up to, but Li Linlin herself wasn’t taking in the whole situation. She’s calculating against others but also including herself.

Li Linlin said, “I’m not scared!”

As long as she get to scare Chen Yiran, what was a little sacrifice on her part?!

“Then alright.” Chen Yiran picked up the knife and fork again and said nothing more.

The escape room Li Linlin was talking about was located in Xingguang Park. As it wasn’t far from Xingguang Farm, the two decided to play in the escape room in the morning and have lunch there.

The filming crew followed Li Linlin and Chen Yiran to the escape room, but because the two weren’t allowed to take their mobile phones after entering, it was even impossible for the cameraman to carry the camera equipment inside. Therefore the program group communicated with the person in charge of the escape room to have a copy of parts of the surveillance footage.

When Li Linlin arrived at the scene, she felt a little regretful—— In order to create the atmosphere, the corridors and halls were all decorated in the style of zombie apocalypse and there were even posters of oversized zombies.

Do they have to start putting psychological pressure on players’ right from the entrance?

According to the process, there was a written agreement that they had to sign before entering. After the lady staff explained to the two of them, she asked them to sign their names.

The cameraman captured them entering the door to the escape room and then followed the staff to the monitoring room. The inside of the escape room was dark, completely different from the one set up by the program group before. The depressing scenes and tones accompanied by the creepy music on the speaker made Li Linlin’s heartbeat speed up unconsciously.

She swallowed and looked at Chen Yiran beside her. “If you’re scared, just say it now and we will withdraw.”

Chen Yiran’s face was taut, not at all as calm as usual, but he didn’t admit that he was scared. “I’m fine. If you’re scared, you can say it.”

“……” Okay. Li Linlin thought to herself, let’s see which of them could endure.

As soon as she thought of this, two zombies rushed out from the side and made garbled noises. Their makeup was very realistic, almost to the level of a professional movie. With the lights and music playing on the background, it could scare the player to death on the spot without having to add any computer special effects.

Li Linlin screamed almost instinctively, grabbed Chen Yiran’s arm and ran away. Chen Yiran was already startled by the zombies, but was startled a second time by Li Linlin’s scream, making his face turned pale.

Li Linlin ran wildly while grabbing Chen Yiran. The zombies relentlessly chased after them and not only did they fail to get rid of them, the zombies were even joined by another zombie with a chainsaw on their way to escape.

Li Linlin shouted in despair, “……I was wrong, big brothers, I won’t do it again, I won’t do it again, I really won’t do it again! Don’t chase me, please, wuuwuuwuuwuu!”

She was wrong. People shouldn’t do bad things while they’re alive, as sooner or later it’s going to come back to bite them.

“We ran the wrong route.” Although Chen Yiran was extremely tense, he was still able to think. Li Linlin dragged him and ran around without looking at the road at all, going the wrong way.

Li Linlin didn’t even dare to turn her head back and said, “You only remember the right way now?”

Chen Yiran said, “There’s a hanging sign before we came in. The one marked in green should be the correct route.”

“?” A question mark appeared above Li Linlin’s head. “When did you saw it?”

“I glanced at it in passing earlier.”

“……” Sure enough, he’s the founder of humblebrag.

Suddenly, another person appeared in front of them, blocking their way. Li Linlin was already in a nervous mood, but this sudden movement frightened her so much that she screamed on the spot. “Ahhhhhh, there’s someone, there’s someone!”

Chen Yiran looked at the other person and ran behind him while holding Li Linlin’s hand. “This seems to be the police officer, let’s hide behind him.”

Li Linlin rushed to hide behind the police who used props to aim at the zombies besieging them. But he was only one person and couldn’t beat them all, so he asked Li Linlin and Chen Yiran to grab the props to help him eliminate the zombies.

The prop gun contained colored powder, which could be used to kill zombies by hitting the designated parts. Li Linlin quickly picked up one given to her by the police and joined the zombie-fighting team.

She had quite a lot of momentum, but her shot wasn’t accurate, and she didn’t know if some hidden setting was triggered, the zombie she hit suddenly screamed and lunged towards her.

Li Linlin was so frightened that she immediately shut down. Fortunately, Chen Yiran next to her shot the zombie in the designated part, and the dedicated NPC finally fell down.

Li Linlin almost cried with joy when she saw the zombie fall to the ground. “Thank you, hero, for saving my dog life!”

Chen Yiran: “……”

Who was the person making trouble earlier?

Chen Yiran hit a zombie and the policeman also hit one, but another zombie killed the policeman.

“……” Li Linlin said fearfully, “The policeman is dead, the policeman is dead. What do we do, what do we do?”

An alarm blared on the speakers, informing them that they failed to break out and might be bitten by zombies so they would now be sent to the quarantine area.

Li Linlin: “……”

No, can she still come out safely? QAQ

She and Chen Yiran were moved to the quarantine area, which was full of people who might be bitten and could mutate at any time. Li Linlin’s heart was beating wildly throughout the entire time, completely forgetting that they were participating in a dating show.

This was a dating show? It’s obviously a doomsday horror!

When they leave the secret room, Li Linlin was close to collapsing and Chen Yiran’s forehead also had a thin layer of sweat.

The staff greeted them outside. The young lady from earlier poured them a glass of water helped them review their performance. “You chose the most dangerous path from the beginning. If you had taken the green passage, there wouldn’t have been so many zombies.”

“……I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have participated in any dating show to begin with.” Li Linlin deeply reflected on how humans must be bored to torture themselves like this.

The director could already think of the hot search for this episode, #CowardLiLinlin#.

After resting outside for a while, Li Linlin and Chen Yiran left the escape room. Chen Yiran saw that her complexion still didn’t look very good, so he bought her a cup of milk tea.

He still remembered the cup of milk tea he accompanied her to secretly drink at the convenience store downstairs during the last new year’s eve.

“Are you feeling better?” Chen Yiran asked while sitting beside her.

Li Linlin drank something sweet and finally felt less nervous. She held the milk tea with both hands and asked Chen Yiran, “Why aren’t you afraid? I remember you use to be extremely afraid of ghosts before!”

Chen Yiran glanced at her and chuckled. “So you did it on purpose? Harm set, harm get.”

Li Linlin: “……”

“I’m actually quite scared.” Chen Yiran loosened the top button of his shirt and pulled down his tie. “But you’re all scared like that, so if I show it, you’ll only be more scared.”

“Uh……”

The camera was still filming them. Li Linlin coughed lightly and stood up. “Let’s go eat something delicious to relieve our nerves.”

“En.”

According to their plan, they would head to Xingguang Farm next. It has farmland and orchards, and guests could try planting or go to the fields to pick crops, which they could buy and take home or eat directly on the farm.

Since Li Linlin and Chen Yiran were there on a date, they definitely needed to find more things to do together. They chose to pick vegetables and make their own lunch, but there’s just one problem——

She, Li Linlin, wasn’t compatible with the kitchen.

“It’s not good for the kitchen if I stay inside.” Li Linlin told Chen Yiran while standing in the field picking cabbage with gloves on.

Although Chen Yiran’s movements were unskilled, he twisted off a cabbage in a very standard way. He glanced at Li Linlin and said, “I’ll cook later and you can help me on the side.”

“No problem.” After Li Linlin said so, she asked him uncertainly, “But can you cook?”

Chen Yiran modestly stated, “It’s edible.”

“Oh……” Li Linlin stood up after him and walked towards the place where tomatoes were planted. “Can the tomatoes be eaten now?”

“They look okay.” The two picked a few tomatoes and went to the next place.

The director stood aside and whispered to the people around her, “Why do I feel that these two aren’t acting? Are they a couple in real life?”

“It looks like it to me.” Another person said, “You see, Linlin is more valiant when she’s with Du Yanwei. Basically, it’s Du Yanwei who listens to her. But with Chen Yiran, she becomes a bit more delicate?”

“Right, this is a matter of aura. When two people are together, one of them will definitely overpower the other.”

“What aura are you talking about? Do you see me changing color?”

Director: “……”

After Chen Yiran and Li Linlin picked out the ingredients, they went to the kitchen to prepare lunch. This was the first time Li Linlin watched Chen Yiran cook. She remembered that Chen Yiran made milk porridge for her last time she was sick, however, she didn’t see him work. She didn’t expect to see Chen Yiran cook in a reality show.

Chen Yiran was wearing an apron from Xingguang Farm, standing in front of the cutting board and cutting vegetables with his head down. His knife skills were better than Li Linlin imagined and it was obvious that this wasn’t his first time cooking. His eyes were slight downcast, the hair on his forehead hanging down, and his beautifully contoured profile were covered with a layer of soft sunlight.

As the saying goes, men were the most handsome when they were working seriously, and Li Linlin also deeply felt it today. Chen Yiran’s focused expression seemed to have some magic power, firmly attracting people’s attention.

Was this what Ning Le told her about—— Sex appeal?

The cameraman also felt that this profile of Chen Yiran was incredibly handsome and gave him a big close-up.

Chen Yiran finished cutting the tomatoes and looked up at Li Linlin. “If you really have nothing to do, think about what we will do in the afternoon.”

Li Linlin coughed lightly and averted her gaze. “Then…… let’s go and watch a movie, a scary one.”

Chen Yiran: “……”

Still haven’t learned your lesson, have you?