Chapter 66: Gotten into Trouble

Chapter 66: Chapter 66: Gotten into Trouble

Five or six minutes later, the cameraman slowly regained consciousness. He opened his eyes to a sea of lush green, dappled with spots of light, as surreal as a dream. For a moment, he thought he’d gone to heaven.

"Awake?"

A face suddenly loomed over him, making the cameraman’s heart skip a beat. He took a closer look—she seemed familiar and was quite beautiful. Looking again, he realized it was Gu Qingyin!

After a second of confusion, the cameraman was ecstatic. "I’m not dead!"

Gu Qingyin couldn’t help but smile. "That’s right. I’m the one who saved you."

The cameraman sat up and glanced at his ankle. The dark purple swelling had faded to a greenish-yellow bruise. It was still a bit swollen and sore when he pressed down, but he was overjoyed. Looking at Gu Qingyin, he no longer felt any dissatisfaction, only immense gratitude.

"You saved my life!" The cameraman scratched his head and made a simple, earnest promise. "I don’t have much to repay you with, but if you ever need me for anything in the future, just say the word. I’ll do it, no questions asked!"

Gu Qingyin discreetly sighed in relief. ’For a second there, I almost thought he was going to offer himself to me in repayment. But he’s really not my type!’

"Can you stand?" Gu Qingyin got up and looked around. "Wait here. I’ll find you a walking stick."

The one thing the forest wasn’t short on was branches, but given the cameraman’s build, she needed to find a thick one.

After looking around for a bit, Gu Qingyin found a fallen tree. Half of its trunk was charred black, likely from being struck by lightning during a storm.

Spotting a forked branch about as thick as her wrist, Gu Qingyin found the right angle and snapped it with a kick. Then, with a twist of her bare hands, she broke the connecting bark. After clearing off the smaller twigs, a simple walking stick was ready.

When she returned with the walking stick, the cameraman was stunned. Gu Qingyin’s competence was nothing like what one would expect from a pampered wife of the elite.

"Try it."

The cameraman used the stick to help himself up. Though his leg still felt weak, he could at least walk.

Gu Qingyin nodded in satisfaction. "The path is uneven, so we’ll go slow. Tell me if you get tired."

The cameraman was brimming with confidence. "It’s fine. We’re not that far from the beach here."

Gu Qingyin gave him a strange look but said nothing, turning to lead the way.

To make the path easier for the cameraman, she deliberately chose a slightly flatter route.

Following behind, the cameraman still felt a bit disoriented. A very important question belatedly dawned on him. "Teacher Gu, do you know the way? We’re not lost, are we?!"

’How long have we been walking? It feels like this is taking way longer than the trip in.’

"Relax and just follow me," Gu Qingyin said, perfectly calm. "You were focused on filming on the way here, so you probably weren’t paying attention to the time. We actually walked quite a long way."

’Is... is that right?’ The cameraman was utterly confused. ’Was I really that dedicated to my job?’

While the two of them continued moving through the forest at a snail’s pace, the production crew outside was going crazy looking for them.

After the live stream suddenly went black, the audience waited for a while. But when it didn’t come back on after a long wait, people gradually started going to other live streams to ask what was happening. At first, though, there were too few of them to make any waves.

As luck would have it, the director, who normally never took his eyes off the streams, had picked that exact moment to go to the restroom with a stomachache. There were two executive directors who were supposed to be watching, but they had been called away by someone.

The rest of the production crew were all busy with their own tasks, which meant there was no one left in front of the monitors.

At first, no one even noticed there was a problem with Gu Qingyin’s stream. It wasn’t until Huo Xinghai and the others had rented their diving and fishing gear and gotten off the boat to find the beach completely empty that they realized something was wrong.

That’s right—besides Gu Qingyin, Lin Xiaoyun was also missing.

Her stream was still on, but the signal was terrible. The video was lagging badly, looking like it could cut out at any moment.

Just then, the director sauntered back. His eyes went wide the moment he saw the monitors. ’What the hell is going on?!’

He grabbed his walkie-talkie to contact the cameramen following Gu Qingyin and Lin Xiaoyun, but there was no response. His heart sank, and he immediately ordered the crew to start a search.

Judging by the footage from Lin Xiaoyun’s stream, they must have entered the island’s forest.

He had just put down his walkie-talkie when he looked up and saw Huo Xinghai approaching with a grim expression. The director sighed to himself and decided to go on the offensive. "Did your mom run off into the woods? Doesn’t she know that area is off-limits?"

Huo Xinghai was left speechless.

The director kept his expression stern. "I’ve already sent people to look. You all just carry on with your activities. Don’t hold up the shoot."

Huo Xinghai’s brow furrowed. ’My mom is missing...’

"This island is only so big. They’ll find her soon enough."

Seeing the director’s confident assurance, Huo Xinghai could only suppress his worry and leave, though he was still skeptical.

The director let out a long sigh of relief. ’Good, the show is at least half-salvaged. Once they find them, we can make a public statement, issue an apology, and this whole thing will blow over.’

But as it turned out, he was being far too optimistic.

A nearly two-meter-tall fence encircled the forest. The production crew walked the entire perimeter but couldn’t find a single opening. Anxious and frustrated, they wondered, ’How on earth did they get in?!’

Just then, the signal for Lin Xiaoyun’s stream finally cut out. Viewers immediately began to speculate that she and Gu Qingyin had accidentally wandered into a dangerous place.

The startled cry and muffled thud from Gu Qingyin’s stream before it went black, combined with the lagging footage of Lin Xiaoyun deep in the forest, were replayed over and over. Add in the wild imagination of the online audience, and a rumor was naturally born.

However, the more rational viewers didn’t buy it. After all, the show was still going. If a guest were in real danger, the broadcast would have been suspended. The director couldn’t possibly be that reckless.

The director wasn’t being reckless, he just hadn’t grasped the severity of the situation yet. But as time went on, he grew increasingly panicked, to the point where he was considering suspending the broadcast and calling the police.

"We can’t call the police!" the producer shot down the idea firmly. "This has happened once before. If it happens again, our show will be completely finished!"

The director was also getting heated. "People are missing! Who cares about the show! That’s the mother of Huo Xingye, the CEO of the Huo Family!"

The producer adopted a mysterious expression. "Whether or not she’s actually his mother is still debatable."

The director was dumbfounded with anger. ’Seriously? That rumor has been debunked a million times, and you still believe it? What an idiot!’

The two were locked in a standoff, neither willing to back down. The atmosphere grew tense, and the surrounding staff didn’t dare to breathe, afraid the two men would come to blows at any moment. The main problem was, they didn’t know whose side to take...

At this crucial moment, an angelic voice spoke up beside them.

"What are you all gathered here for? Prepping the props for the next segment?"

Everyone whipped their heads around. The moment they saw Gu Qingyin, their eyes welled up with tears, and they almost started to cry.

"Where on earth did you go! We were about to call the police!"

Gu Qingyin froze. She was only just now realizing that she seemed to have caused a huge mess.