"Well, anyway, everyone's here," Ren Yifei said, glancing at his watch. "It's still forty minutes until departure."
"Everyone can introduce themselves. The audience must be very curious about who you are."
Not only the audience, but the staff were also incredibly curious. They could hear the director's shrill voice through their earpieces: "Quick, quick, aim at them!"
"Wenli," Wenli said. "Female, likes men, and prefers obedient and sensible men."
The moment the older sister spoke, there was a brief pause in the live stream, followed by countless screams from people in bed: "Look at me, look at me! I'm so well-behaved and obedient, I do whatever you ask!"
"Sister, don't be so rigid about gender. Girls can be just as well-behaved and sensible."
Ren Yifei was stunned for a moment, and he couldn't help but wonder, "Have all the well-behaved boys in the desolate corner died out?"
...Oh, it seems that's true. Because of the censorship system, the truly well-behaved ones are probably all gone; what's left are all green tea bitches, not those with an arts and sciences orientation.
But how could she tell the boys watching the live stream that Wenli liked raising fish?
"Yamakawa, Afei's friend." Yamakawa only said one name and then fell silent. He was observing Tsuru and the other man.
Anyone who has seen Ren Yifei's walkthrough video for the Spring Banquet will recognize these two people, Crane Lord and Peacock, who are powerful demons from that world. But no one expected that Ren Yifei would invite them.
It seems they have a very good relationship; that's interesting.
Afterwards, Chen Shen, Butterfly, and Ke Bei introduced themselves one by one. Judging from their names, which included both mountains and rivers and butterflies, and none of them had surnames, everyone thought they had just temporarily chosen code names, but surprisingly no one complained about it.
"I'm good friends with the Best Actor, but we've never appeared in public together. They must be low-key people who don't want their private lives disturbed. I choose to respect their decision." Influenced by their good looks, today's audience members are unusually easy to talk to.
"May I ask who you and Teacher Ren are?" The director bombarded the staff with questions through the earpiece. The staff couldn't keep up and hesitated for three seconds between beauty and work, but resolutely chose work—beauty is not mine, but work is my own.
"Former colleague." Chen Shen leaned back on the black leather sofa, his arms resting on the backrest. His mature and powerful aura was enough to make anyone's legs go weak.
"Huh?" The staff thought they had misheard, and even the audience thought they were all hallucinating.
Former colleagues? But didn't Ren Yingdi start acting from a young age and never leave the entertainment industry? Could these people also be in the entertainment circle? But with their looks and outstanding charisma, how could they not be famous or unknown?
"Part-time," Ren Yifei said. "Similar to a game beta tester, helping a company test out games and find bugs."
Wenli laughed: "That's right, that's when we met. Now Little Rabbit is gone... Oh, Little Rabbit is Afei, he was codenamed Black Rabbit there, just like my codename 'Wenli'."
Black, black rabbit?
Viewers watching the live stream once again twisted into little worms: unexpected yet reasonable, the movie star is still so cute and adorable in private.
Most of the people who set alarms early in the morning to watch the live stream are Ren Yifei's fans. Although they are always very fickle in the face of good looks, their favorite is still their little Feifei, oops, little bunny!
The staff member suddenly realized: "So you're all beta testers from that game company?"
He included He Jun and Kong Que in the list, and muttered to himself, "What kind of company is this? Their vision is too unique. They're using promising talents from the entertainment industry to test games?"
"Have you considered changing careers?" The staff member extended a tentative finger, his voice full of expectation.
"Change careers?" Wenli shook his head. "We don't test games anymore. We're basically reviewers now."
"It's still the same game company."
Wenli suppressed a laugh and said, "Mm."
"Is the task of reviewing whether netizens' comments contain any illegal, disorderly, politically motivated, or pornographic content?"
"almost."
The staff immediately felt a pang of regret. With such qualifications, why were these people content to be auditors in a small, run-down company? Luckily, their movie star... well, no, their movie star was also a game tester.
Thinking about it carefully, Ren Yifei did indeed have a particularly low period. The audience was misled by some people and kept criticizing him, which caused him to not be able to get any roles and almost couldn't afford the rent.
That's probably the time.
The staff could all imagine it, and so could the viewers in front of the live stream. At that time, many of them were not Ren Yifei's fans, and some even followed the trend of criticizing him.
However, I gradually realized that this person doesn't cause trouble, doesn't play with fans' feelings, is hardworking and talented, so I couldn't bring myself to criticize him.
"I never imagined Xiaofei had such a difficult past. Fortunately, it's all in the past, and that rumor-monger got what he deserved."
The audience was referring to Ren Yifei's stepbrother, who is practically unknown in the entertainment industry.
Because it was a separate side world, this stepbrother didn't enter the Desolate Corner, but his path in the entertainment industry was extremely painful, lacking money, fame, and resources.
Especially when compared to Ren Yifei, it was like enduring torture every moment.
"How have you been lately? Busy?" Ren Yifei asked about the desolate corner.
"It's alright." Shan Chuan remained calm. If it weren't for the time constraint, he would have already started making tea, reading, and playing chess.
"A few accounts were permanently banned due to arbitrary judgments by the reviewers, so the workload has suddenly increased. Recently, they've been poaching people from other companies," Ke Bei coughed twice, explaining the current situation.
Ren Yifei sipped his milk: "We should have found more people a long time ago."
"It's only a matter of time before auditors run into problems. After all, the hiring process now is quite different from what it was back then, and the selected employees are very different. We definitely need to add an external selection mechanism. Of course, these rules will always need to be improved gradually."
Chen Shen picked up a bottle of mineral water from the coffee table and opened it: "I have to thank Afei. It only gave you face because of you. Otherwise, we would still be working overtime right now."
Ren Yifei smiled but remained silent.
The guests were speaking in a language only those close to them could understand, but outsiders assumed they were talking about a certain game company and secretly grumbled:
What kind of lousy company is this? They can't even find auditors by poaching from other companies? Just post a random job ad with a higher salary and no 996 work schedule, and I don't know how many people would submit their resumes.
Forty minutes isn't a long time. The group chatted for a bit, and before they even got started, it was time to leave.
Since the production team provides all the food and lodging, all they really need to prepare are changes of clothes, toiletries, chargers, and other items for these three days, which is similar to going on a trip.
Wenli and the others were well-prepared, dragging their own suitcases. Hejun and his companion already had plenty of belongings, ready to go into the mountains for cultivation at any time. However, they still needed to have some visible luggage.
Fortunately, Ren Yifei had made preparations in advance.
"He Jun, I've prepared everything for you. If you don't like it, you can buy more later. ...Can I buy more?" Ren Yifei, who was dragging several suitcases out of the guest room, suddenly thought of this.
"Sure," the staff member said. "Just bring money; we won't confiscate it."
Ren Yifei laughed when he heard this: "That's great, I'll just bring a phone and a phone charger."
"This show is a real leisure travel program; they even provide money and allow guests to buy things on-site." Viewers watching the live stream were discussing it. "Oh no, I already had a feeling that the only highlight of this show would be being able to admire the good-looking people to my heart's content."
"Don't be too greedy upstairs. In my opinion, having good looks to admire is enough." Then the audience member changed his tone, "At least their faces are truly naturally beautiful, and they are all without makeup."
"No beauty filters, no special effects, great job."
He Jun understood what he meant and directly pulled away the wheeled suitcase prepared for him, without any resistance or refusals. It was clear that the relationship between them was truly good.
"This show is destined to lack drama and conflict, but it's still a wonderful thing to spend a pleasant seven-day vacation with friends," the staff member thought.
The working group's vehicle was already waiting downstairs; it was a large bus that could seat thirty or forty people, and now only the guests were sitting in it.
The staff, worried that the staff would feel uncomfortable, all stayed in another seven-seater vehicle watching nine live-stream monitors, while the live-streaming fly did the filming.
Each guest gets a live stream shot, and viewers can freely choose their favorite.
They thought the nine people would sit together, but they each found their own preferred seats, and the nine people split into seven groups.
Ren Yifei and Saman were paired up. As soon as Ren Yifei got on the bus, he put on an eye mask with the words "Do Not Disturb" embroidered on it. Saman, on the other hand, unfolded a newspaper and began the tradition of middle-aged and elderly people reading the newspaper in the morning and evening.
Crane and Peacock were paired up. Crane focused on watching people come and go outside the car, while Peacock focused on watching Crane observe the crowd.
The other five people each sat in a separate row, and all of them avoided sitting in front of or behind each other.
You'd think they were enemies if you didn't know better, but listening to their casual conversation, they're clearly friends.
Just then, Butterfly, the cool boy who had been blowing bubbles with chewing gum in front of him, suddenly sat up: "Driver, stop the car."
"Huh?" The driver didn't react.
"It's leaking oil," the butterfly said again.
Ren Yifei, wearing an eye patch, turned around and said lazily, "Driver, stop the car and check the engine or oil tank."
This time the driver understood. Although he still couldn't understand and thought these idol stars were being unreasonable and strange (the driver didn't follow the entertainment industry and thought everyone else was a star), he still pulled the car over to the side of the road.
The seven-seater vehicle then stopped, and the staff inside looked at each other, wondering, "Should we get out?"
"Uh, wait a minute," the assistant director said. "Let's check the situation first, and we'll go down if things don't look good."
So the staff stayed in the car, leaving only the driver with a dark expression as he helplessly inspected the engine and oil tank.
"What's wrong with it?" the driver muttered under his breath. "I just checked the car yesterday, how could I possibly know if there's something wrong with it... Holy crap, when did they drill a hole in the oil pan?"
The driver's eyes widened as he saw that the oil tank, which had been working perfectly yesterday, was now leaking oil.
He hadn't noticed. There wasn't even any indication on his dashboard.
If this oil keeps leaking like this... the engine!
He grabbed his tools and ran to the front of the car. Repairing the oil tank wasn't a big deal, but if it caused engine failure, problems with the trip, or even problems with the passengers, he would truly regret it.
"Thank goodness, the engine is fine."
He told the work group about it: "We may need to send another vehicle to pick us up, as my bus has broken down."
The driver breathed a sigh of relief when they said they would send someone to pick up the guests. He couldn't help but look at Butterfly, who was sitting in the front seat, once again listlessly blowing bubbles: "Amazing, they didn't even notice it on the dashboard. How did they find it?"