Chapter 1 A Sunday Afternoon

June 8th, a Sunday afternoon, in the recording studio of a certain TV station's variety show.

Feng Bujue sat in a dressing room, waiting for the recording of *I Am a Writer: Resurrection Match* to begin.

A few minutes earlier, the show's makeup artist had come in, tidied up his appearance, and tweaked his hairstyle a little before leaving. Now, only a cameraman remained in the room. For recording purposes, unless Jue-ge went to the bathroom, this guy basically had to follow him everywhere.

This was a relatively popular filming technique nowadays, combining variety shows with reality shows, creating a sense of realism by recording the contrast between "onstage and offstage."

But in reality... don't take it too seriously. The stuff that needs to be cut will still be cut during editing...

Knock, knock—

Suddenly, a knock on the door sounded.

"Come in," Feng Bujue casually replied.

It wasn't like he could stop them from coming in anyway, since the door wasn't locked...

"Hey, Bujue, are you ready?" A middle-aged man wearing a baseball cap walked in smoothly. He was wearing an extremely ugly work uniform, holding a tablet computer in his hand, and a tool belt around his waist. Nine out of ten people who didn't know him would mistake him for a stagehand, but in fact... this unremarkable uncle was the show's chief director, Fei Ran.

"Actually... there's nothing to prepare, is there..." Feng Bujue slumped on the sofa, looking listlessly at the director, "The sooner it's over, the better."

"Haha..." Fei Ran chuckled, patted the cameraman's shoulder, and gestured for him to turn off the camera.

The latter nodded and stopped recording.

"I'm telling you..." Fei Ran took a few steps forward and sat next to Jue-ge, "This is for you to record a show, not to be tortured..." As he spoke, he took out a pack of cigarettes. "Do you mind if I have a smoke?"

"No problem," Feng Bujue replied.

Fei Ran lit a cigarette and took a puff: "By the way, have you seen the results of this online vote?"

"No," Feng Bujue replied immediately.

"Heh heh..." Fei Ran laughed, exhaling a mouthful of smoke, "Alright... then I'll tell you, your popularity is ranked second."

"Sounds ominous..." Feng Bujue muttered.

"There's more 'ominous' stuff," Fei Ran said half-jokingly, "Actually, the person ranked first in this vote has fake votes..."

"Huh?" Feng Bujue squinted at the director. "I'm a contestant, so this kind of thing... you're telling me... isn't that a bit much?"

"Hey... it's an open secret, you're the only one who doesn't know," Fei Ran took another puff of his cigarette and turned to the cameraman who was playing on his phone, "Hey, Xiao Wu, you know about this, right?"

Xiao Wu shrugged, "Yeah~ That person's fans and the other fans have been arguing for half a month. You can find hundreds of posts with a simple search online."

"See?" Fei Ran immediately looked at Jue-ge again, "I'm telling you, Bujue... you really don't pay attention to our show. If I didn't call you, you probably wouldn't even know that you'd been shortlisted for the Resurrection Match, right?"

"Yeah... I was just silently praying that I wouldn't appear in the voting results," Feng Bujue replied.

"Hehe... alright," Fei Ran continued, "Anyway, I've told you the situation now, you better prepare yourself."

"Hmm?" Feng Bujue looked puzzled, "Prepare for what?"

"Think about it..." Fei Ran said, "You're so popular, but you don't want to win, so shouldn't you do something?"

"Oh... you mean, find a way to perform badly, right?" Feng Bujue replied.

"Yes, but not like you did when you came last time," Fei Ran said, "I told you last time, the best way to get eliminated... is to perform mediocrely enough."

"Oh..." Feng Bujue responded, then thought for a few seconds before continuing, "Let me confirm something..." He turned to look at Fei Ran, "Actually, the winner of this Resurrection Match... has already been decided internally, right..."

Fei Ran was slightly startled when he heard this. He took another puff of his cigarette and replied after a few seconds, "Phew—why do you ask?"

"The reasoning process isn't that complicated..." Feng Bujue raised his hands behind his head and replied casually, "Since you know that the top-ranked contestant in the online vote has problems, but you still allow it to happen... then you must also be willing to see such a result. Also... this episode is scheduled to air at the end of June, so it should have been recorded in mid-June, but now it's suddenly been brought forward by a week... this is probably a countermeasure to prevent the 'manipulated voting' incident from further fermenting, right?" He looked at Fei Ran calmly, "So I guess... the winner of this Resurrection Match has essentially already been decided. And you, Director... are giving me a heads-up now, because you think... I might mess things up."

As soon as he said this, Fei Ran's expression changed drastically. For the next thirty seconds, silence filled the dressing room...

Half a minute later, Fei Ran took a deep breath of his cigarette, then extinguished the cigarette butt and looked up, "Xiao Wu, please go out for a moment."

Without saying a word, the cameraman left very sensibly, not forgetting to close the door behind him before leaving.

"Bujue," Fei Ran looked at Jue-ge and said in a deep voice, "You are a smart man. I am telling you some things here, and I hope they will not spread beyond this room."

"Mm, feel free to speak," Feng Bujue crossed his legs and replied in a relaxed tone.

Fei Ran glanced at Jue-ge again, then lowered his voice and said, "You guessed right, the person who will advance this time has already been decided, it's 'Nightfire', who was ranked first in the online vote." He raised his hand and made a pointing-up gesture. "In business, it's all about business... some things are beyond my control, they have to be decided by people higher up... do you understand?"

"Hmph... of course," Feng Bujue smiled, a hint of disdain flashing in his eyes at that moment, but he still said politely, "I completely understand, Director, you're having a hard time too."

Fei Ran gave a wry smile, "Heh... I'm alright." He shook his head, "To be honest... the original intention of me doing this show was definitely not to turn it into what it is today, what a pity..." He hesitated, his expression slightly helpless, "If everyone was like you, many things in this world might become more pure."

"If everyone was like me, this world would have ended long ago," Feng Bujue laughed. He quickly changed the subject, "Alright... I understand everything, Director Fei, don't worry." He patted his chest, "Trust me, I will definitely be eliminated very 'naturally', leaving no trace of acting..."

Fei Ran stared at Jue-ge for two seconds, "Mm... I have serious doubts about that..."