WS - Chapter 146
Chapter 146
The young man sent by the insurance company, though young, was no mere cannon fodder. Dispatched specifically to stall for time, he certainly had to be sharp.
After chatting here for this long, the insurance guy had figured out that this Li Longsheng was utterly obsessed with money, money, money. Biological father though he might be, his concern for Song Shiyue's safety didn't come close to that of Wang Mancang, her agent.
For someone so single-mindedly fixated on money, everything became easy to handle once enough cash was on the table.
But the insurance guy didn't feel like humoring Li Longsheng. After all, Song Shiyue's insurance beneficiary wasn't him.
He'd also pretty much seen the real picture: Wanshan Entertainment had called the insurance people over precisely to fob Li Longsheng off with bureaucratic double-talk. To put it bluntly, they found Li Longsheng incredibly annoying. Wanshan Entertainment's people were done playing along with him, and since the insurance company owed Song Shiyue a debt anyway, they might as well send someone over to start repaying it.
Sure, he was being used as a human shield, but the insurance guy didn't mind. Beats actually having to discuss Song Shiyue's compensation, right?
People in insurance might not be silver-tongued orators, but they always had enough verbal skill to hold their own. The insurance guy, satisfied that he'd seen through Wanshan Entertainment's intent, drained half his cup of tea and stopped earnestly reciting insurance regulations. Time to just run out the clock with circular non-answers.
Once the insurance guy got with the program, Wang Mancang listened a while longer, then rose from the sofa and returned to the desk on the other side. He picked up another box of pastries— similar to the ones on the coffee table— and started stuffing them into his mouth.
When the body couldn't hold up, the mind collapsed even faster.
These past few days, to carve out every possible minute for following the livestream longer, Wang Mancang had been eating and drinking as needed. Even when he had zero appetite, he forced the food down anyway.
He regretted it— truly, deeply regretted it.
The Wilderness Journey was the show he'd stubbornly, single-handedly signed Song Shiyue up for. He'd personally seen her onto the spaceship bound for Wilderness Planet.
If anything truly happened to Song Shiyue, never mind the bond they'd built over these years— just the weight on his conscience would be impossible to bear.
People like Li Longsheng— Wang Mancang felt disgusted just looking at him one extra time.
If the company higher-ups hadn't picked this guy up first thing that morning, and considering Song Shiyue had nearly died because of this scumbag last time, Wang Mancang probably would've greeted that face with two fists the moment they met.
No... not just last time.
This The Wilderness Journey gig— originally it had nothing to do with Song Shiyue. If not for repaying the debts this piece of trash had racked up, why would she have ever gone to Wilderness Planet at all!
Song Shiyue had suffered terribly this time. No matter what happened next, this Li Longsheng— this clinging, sticky, nauseating wad of chewing gum— would never stick to her again.
Wang Mancang wolfed down several pieces of pastry, barely tasting a thing, wiped his mouth carelessly with the back of his hand, pulled up the insurance company's contact, and started sending messages.
As the insurance beneficiary in the event Song Shiyue lost the capacity for autonomous action, Wang Mancang knew that as long as he added one more sentence— "Would you like me to start contacting the agencies of the other cast members right now to jointly file for compensation?"— it would be enough to make the insurance company agree to his trifling, insignificant requests.
The insurance company's reply came very fast.
In just a moment, Wang Mancang's StarNet client received a video relay.
He put on his headphones. On the video relay interface that opened before him, suspended midair, were the same two people, the same scene, from the sofa not far ahead.
Excellent. With the insurance company willing to take responsibility for filming this video, followed by it being leaked from internally, Li Longsheng's scumminess would have that much more credibility.
There were no inherently flawed parents under heaven— but with a father this despicable, cutting ties cleanly in the future would be much easier.
Gambling, and now a visit to the Blue House— even if Li Longsheng hadn't collapsed there, Wang Mancang would never again give him the chance to latch on.
It was a bit rueful, come to think of it. Back when Song Shiyue had wanted to name Wang Mancang as her insurance beneficiary— to ensure that even if something happened to her, he could still retrieve the money he'd borrowed from others to cover the loan-shark debt on her behalf— Wang Mancang had refused. Now it seemed fortunate Song Shiyue had insisted. Only because of that could he now so easily press down on the insurance company's head and obtain this video.
No, not just the video.
Wang Mancang watched as the insurance guy lowered his head to glance at a text message. After a subtle shift in expression, the insurance guy quickly put on a bit of a smile. He stopped his endless deflections, played along with Li Longsheng's words with a few flattering remarks, and then began to utter the lines Wang Mancang had written for the insurance company— words full of traps and insinuation.
Lying on Wilderness Planet, Song Shiyue had no idea how hard Wang Mancang was working out there to separate the "soft-hearted" her from the original host's scumbag father. Right now, Song Shiyue's entire heart was suspended on Yu Nianbing, who had yet to return.
Unable to open her eyes, her consciousness's grasp of time was also imprecise.
Throughout this entire day, Song Shiyue could only guess what time it was by Ning Chuyang and Feng Qianqian's movements and their occasional conversations.
And just moments ago, Song Shiyue had heard Ning Chuyang outside the tent, stacking firewood and striking a lighter. Combined with the slight chill her body was beginning to feel, it wasn't hard to imagine that it must be dusk, approaching the time when darkness fell.
They'd agreed— they'd be back before dark!
Song Shiyue wasn't the only one anxious, of course.
When Ning Chuyang lit the campfire, brought a cup of water in for Feng Qianqian, and then used a small spoon to dab a little water onto Song Shiyue's lips, the two of them quietly discussed the matter as well.
But the three of them, trapped in camp by various circumstances, unable to go out and check the situation, could do nothing but wait.
At that moment, Yu Nianbing and Zhuang Jiachuan, the ones the three at camp were worrying over, were on their way down the mountain.
According to the livestream experts' calculations, at their current pace, it would still take about an hour to return to camp. They'd probably be walking part of the route in the dark.
Both Yu Nianbing and Zhuang Jiachuan's backpacks were laden with dandelions. Roughly a quarter to a third were without soil; the rest, per Yu Nianbing's instructions, had been dug out roots and all, still clinging to earth.
Dandelions weren't particularly heavy, but with the soil, both of them were carrying nearly full packs.
Unfortunately, apart from the dandelions and those few inaccessible chestnuts, today's search had yielded nothing more.
These dandelions, plant by plant, looked like they still had a decent edible portion.
But vegetables like these— once cooked, they shrank dramatically.
Like greens— you wash a huge basinful, toss them in a pan to stir-fry, and you're left with barely enough to coat the bottom of a plate. These two backpack loads of dandelions— if cooked all at once, they'd probably fill only two stainless-steel lunchboxes at most.
Of course, dandelions shouldn't be eaten in large quantities at once. Divided up, they should provide each person with an extra chopstick's worth of greens daily for about four or five days— enough to offset the monotony of jerky, at least.
But... the camp's remaining food was just that little. A chopstick's worth of greens was still far from enough.
Compared to Zhuang Jiachuan, who was calculating how many more days the camp's food could stretch, Yu Nianbing— who had grown increasingly preoccupied as dusk fell— was thinking about a great deal more.
On the way down, after digging the dandelions, they'd deliberately veered to the side, choosing a route slightly further along the edge than the one they'd taken on the way up. That way, they'd be covering new ground— who knew, they might stumble upon something else.
Yet... all the way down, even as Yu Nianbing's eyes grew sore from staring and her fingers became stained green from pinching too many suspiciously "edible-looking" plants, they still came away with no other discoveries.
The camp's food was running low. With only these dandelions to show, even if Song Shiyue could stay awake longer tonight and have more time to eat, how much would she be willing to swallow?
And it wasn't only Song Shiyue who needed food. Even if Yu Nianbing herself could eat less, or even go without, the others still had to eat.
Claiming that food could make Song Shiyue recover faster... saying that out loud would be hard for anyone to believe.
Yu Nianbing didn't know how much Song Shiyue needed to eat to recover in this state. With no way to find more food, sustainable planning was also essential.
Food... food...
If she could just find more food, she wouldn't have to scrimp and scrape, balancing between feeding Song Shiyue as much as possible and stretching supplies so everyone could eat a few more days.
When darkness fell and Yu Nianbing could no longer see beyond the beam of her flashlight, the plan of taking a different path down became futile.
Just as Yu Nianbing had decided that finding more food today was impossible, a tiny shadow— she couldn't tell if it was black or gray— darted through the grass ahead of the flashlight beam, startling the somewhat distracted Yu Nianbing so badly she stumbled. If Zhuang Jiachuan hadn't caught her from behind in time, she would have fallen.
"Teacher Zhuang, did you see that?" Yu Nianbing recovered quickly and immediately swept her flashlight in the direction the gray shadow had vanished.
Zhuang Jiachuan nodded, also aiming his flashlight that way. "Yeah, a shadow ran past. Not sure if it was a rat or something."
"No, rats aren't that big." Yu Nianbing strode quickly forward, speaking as she ran. "I think it was a rabbit. No... maybe a squirrel..."
"Rabbit, squirrel, or rat— it's all meat." Zhuang Jiachuan followed close behind, but pulled Yu Nianbing back, steering her away from a wider crevice in the ground. "But whatever kind of meat it is, we shouldn't chase it now. At night, our visible range is too small. It's too dangerous."
"..." Yu Nianbing looked unwillingly at the direction where the shadow had vanished.
"Teacher Yu, don't take risks. These ground fissures are already getting fairly wide. If we run into an aftershock, we won't be able to react in time in the dark." Zhuang Jiachuan held firmly to Yu Nianbing's sleeve. "We're not far from the foot of the mountain, I think. We can mark this spot and come back tomorrow during daylight to see if there are any rabbit holes or tree hollows. The round trip tomorrow won't take long."
Meat...
Yu Nianbing stared at the crevice before her— one she'd nearly stepped right into, very likely to twist an ankle— biting her lip, hesitating again and again. It took enormous resolve before she yielded to Zhuang Jiachuan's pull and reluctantly took a step back.
Zhuang Jiachuan breathed a sigh of relief.
Honestly, if Yu Nianbing had insisted, he truly wouldn't have known how to dissuade her further.
Thankfully, beyond the meat, there was still reason.
The two of them found a nearby tree, tore off a few vines, and tied a large, long, trailing butterfly knot onto a low-hanging branch.
They weren't far from the base of the mountain now. As long as they marked the path on the way down and made a similar marker at the foot of the mountain, climbing back up tomorrow wouldn't be difficult.
After two brief delays and nearly another half hour of walking around the mountain's base, the glow of the campfire finally came into view.
The campsite had changed considerably since they'd left.
The three tents encircled by the simple fence were still there. The campfire they ringed illuminated even the area beyond the fence.
Tied between several trees outside the fence, laundry— comforters, sheets, and clothes— hung to dry on strung-up vines, swaying in the night breeze under the fire's faint glow. How to describe it... it had a particularly lived-in feel.
Zhuang Jiachuan and Yu Nianbing, whose feet had gone weak from the long walk, felt an inexplicable warmth in their hearts.
During the day, Ning Chuyang had thoroughly gone through the camp again. She'd washed all the thin blankets and sheets that the departed had used and left behind, plus all the clothes they themselves had changed out of but hadn't had time to wash. Not only that, she'd also washed every pot, bowl, and set of chopsticks she'd unearthed that were still usable, and even specifically cleaned out a tent close to the fence to store them.
The wood from the collapsed treehouse, sorted into piles by size, was now stacked right beside the cookware tent— convenient whether they later needed it for crafting or firewood.
The rubble and debris inside the fence that hadn't been cleared in time were all gone. Small ground fissures had been filled and tamped down with dug-up earth.
Ning Chuyang had only slept briefly in the morning before busying herself all day. Though each task was a small detail, taken together, the camp was noticeably cleaner and tidier. The whole feel was different.
Even though Zhuang Jiachuan and Yu Nianbing had only brought back two packs of dandelions, they still received open, delighted praise from Ning Chuyang and Feng Qianqian.
Coupled with seeing their considerably cleaner living quarters, the two, exhausted from a day outside, felt deeply comforted.
The three of them pitched in together, and soon the soil-caked dandelions were planted on the other side of the tent Ning Chuyang had tidied outside the fence, symmetrically opposite the firewood pile.
A day had passed. Of the original two sandwiches, two hamburgers, eight soup dumplings, and two full packs of jerky, one sandwich and nearly half a pack of jerky had been consumed.
That day, Feng Qianqian had insisted on only eating one sandwich for herself; at Ning Chuyang's urging, she'd also eaten two pieces of jerky in the evening.
Meanwhile, Zhuang Jiachuan, Yu Nianbing, and Ning Chuyang had all subsisted entirely on jerky and water for the day.
This level of consumption was already very low. Everyone was eating far too little— so little that when Yu Nianbing began preparing for Song Shiyue's evening awakening, she didn't even know how to proceed.
In the end, the moment Song Shiyue opened her eyes, Yu Nianbing swiftly retrieved one hamburger and one steamer tray of four soup dumplings from the thermal storage box outside the tent.
Truly... far too little.
Before entering the tent, Yu Nianbing looked down at the food in her hands, thinking of Song Shiyue, who urgently needed sustenance inside, and of the others in camp, all so strenuously conserving food. Her heart twisted unbearably tight.
Carrying the food, she entered the tent. The first thing Yu Nianbing saw was Song Shiyue— the very person she'd just told not to move, to wait— sitting up holding a stainless-steel lunchbox and sniffing it.
"No. You're not allowed to eat that!" Yu Nianbing, somewhat frantic, snatched the lunchbox from Song Shiyue's hands.
Song Shiyue, who had only just recovered enough to slowly sit upright and lift her hand for light objects: "...Aren't these the dandelions you guys brought back? Why can't I eat them?"
Yu Nianbing glanced at the green vegetation inside the stainless-steel lunchbox— now cooked beyond recognition as dandelion, looking more like wild grass. "...How do you know these are... the dandelions... we brought back..."
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