Chapter 31 Script and Reality

The next day, three o'clock in the morning.

The competition had only been going on for fifteen hours, and five of the ten players had already been eliminated. They were… Warren Buffett, Lindsay Lohan, Baron Solomon Rothschild, Barack Hussein Obama, and Iste Gu.

Among them… Lohan, Obama, and Gu were all eliminated by Stephen Carbon, played by Feng Bujue; while Buffett was eliminated by Lohan.

As for Baron Solomon Rothschild… he gave up on his own. After finding the first stash of marijuana, he stopped in place, leisurely smoked the two joints in the plastic bag, and then announced to a nearby camera that he wanted to withdraw from the competition.

Objectively speaking, the Baron's move was quite wise. When he felt that his chances of winning were not high, giving up was undoubtedly the most rational approach. Holding on with a fluke would only make the situation worse. Rather than "having his knees smashed" or "playing for seventy-two hours with all his might, only to fail in the end," quitting early could at least save him some suffering.

In addition, among the five survivors, there was one who was almost in a state of semi-elimination. That was player number ten – John Winston Lancing.

Like the Baron, Mr. Lancing immediately smoked all of his first batch of marijuana after finding it. But after smoking, he neither gave up nor continued to explore…

He just stayed in place, resting silently, for hours…

His attitude was very negative, as if he didn't plan to do anything.

Helpless, the production team sent a staff member over to ask if he had any physical problems. Lancing replied that he was holding a sit-in for love and peace, and that his behavior was a protest against the show and the world.

So, the staff member left again, because the director decided… to let him continue to protest…

In summary, there were only four players left on the island who were still competitive—namely, Gaimao, Bu Bo, Xiaojiao, and Carbon.

If the elimination rhythm of the first day continued, the survivor of this season's *Wilderness Dope* would probably be born before sunset on the second day.

And this… was a situation that Feng Bujue was extremely unwilling to see.

Looking back at the two main quests of this script: [Survive on Cannabis Island for seventy-two hours] and [Complete at least six challenges given by the production team], one could see a lot of potential information… or rather, potential "difficulties."

First of all, the phrase "Survive on Cannabis Island for seventy-two hours"… was itself a huge trap.

Under the joint misleading of the opening CG and the second main quest, players could easily develop a habitual way of thinking, as if the purpose of this script was to win *Wilderness Dope*.

However… as the script unfolded, Feng Bujue gradually realized… that things were not so simple.

If the first main quest was taken out and looked at alone, it could be found that… surviving on the island for seventy-two hours and winning the competition had no absolute causal relationship.

Secondly, the "Complete at least six challenges given by the production team" also had a very obvious restriction—you had to wait for the production team to actively "give" you the challenge. But… what if they didn't give it to you? Or… what if they felt that there was no need to give it to you anymore?

Seeing this, everyone must understand…

If the player quickly eliminated all nine opponents and won the game, then this script would be game_over.

Because from the moment you won, you would have no reason to stay on this island…

If you shamelessly stayed on this deserted island, there would usually be two results. The better one would be: everyone would just think that you were being stubborn for a while, and wait for you on the boat for a day and a half, until you figured it out and left. And the worse, and more likely, outcome would be: people would treat you like a madman, grab you and forcibly drag you onto the boat, and leave the island first…

Taking a step back, even if you really managed to stay on the island and waited for seventy-two hours, the production team would no longer give you any "challenges."

Therefore, the real difficulty of this script lay in… the fact that the two main quests were actually in conflict to a certain extent; and the basic setting of the plot was also in conflict with these two quests.

This conflict was not going in opposite directions, but a relationship of mutual restraint. For example… if the player wanted to complete main quest one, he could not win the game too early. But if he wanted to complete main quest two, he had to do the challenges, but doing the challenges would expand his advantage and win the game faster…

Also, how to deal with those "opponents" was also a very tangled and contradictory matter. If they were all eliminated, you would win the game and lose the script… but if you kept them, it would be like keeping a potential threat.

Any opponent could inflict a fatal blow on you at an unexpected moment (Brother Jue was almost eliminated by Lohan earlier; if it weren't for Kevin, he would have been done for), and their threat would become more and more serious over time.

Because… the situation at the end of the game was bound to be: there were only a few people left on the island, and among these people, the player had completed the most challenges. And the number of challenges completed by others was unlikely to exceed six (after all, they didn't have any hard indicators in this regard)… so, if they wanted to win, there was only one way—to eliminate the person who had completed more challenges.

Imagine, on the morning of the fourth day, when there were still about ten hours left before the end of the game. Anyone who had not been eliminated would definitely have the thought of "I've already come this far, I want to win!" And at this time, their state was usually a mixture of hunger, exhaustion, drug addiction, eagerness to win, and loss of reason…

At that time, the production team would also mediate, they would go to those losers to stir up trouble, reveal some information about the leaders, and give them a choice: "Do you want to take another challenge here and try to surpass him… or do you want to know his current coordinates and then do something?"

Then, the most interesting part of this reality show was about to be staged—all kinds of crazy tearing, swearing, and brawling would appear.

This was the guarantee of ratings, this was what the audiences of that era wanted to see…

You could say it was morbid, decadent, or vulgar, but in their eyes, it was something normal that didn't need to be defended.

Once upon a time, people looked kindly at everything that appeared on the screen and were moved by some performances that were not very clever but very sincere.

Later, people looked at entertainment products with a relatively objective attitude, enjoying brilliant creativity and dazzling visual effects.

Later, people began to pursue the unusual and the strange, in order to show off their so-called "personality" that no one cared about, or to satisfy some needs deep in their hearts. As a result, suggestive sexual promotions, idiotic idol culture, vulgar and base hype, and shameless plagiarism of celebrities emerged one after another, and gradually became mainstream.

And in the twenty-fifth century, in a peaceful era, an era in which everyone did not have to worry about starving, what kind of things did people crave to see…

The answer was simple—conflict, violence, and contention.

People had seen enough of the hypocritical tears, hypocritical smiles, hypocritical praise, and hypocritical surprises on the stage. They wanted to see the naked, unadorned, real reality show.

This was *Wilderness Dope*.

…………

Inside the cave.

The fire on the ground had already gone out.

The torrential rain outside the cave gradually subsided, turning into a drizzle. The thunder stopped around midnight, and the wind also weakened a lot.

Last night, when Brother Jue and Kevin went to hunt for Gara crocodiles, the production team braved the rain to come to this cave and carried away Lohan, who had lost his ability to move after being injured. So when Brother Jue returned with the crocodile meat, the cave was already empty.

Because it was raining, these people left more obvious traces, and the returning Feng Bujue quickly deduced what had just happened.

He didn't care about this, he just rekindled the fire, and while drying his clothes and socks, he enjoyed a delicious meal that he had never tasted in real life.

Nothing happened all night…

By this early morning, Feng Bujue, who had rested for several hours, had basically recovered all of his stamina.

And this also meant that he was about to take action…