The cast returned to the cottage looking polished—but not, perhaps, in spirit.
Their expressions were composed, their postures upright, and their steps measured with the grace of people who knew they were still being filmed.
Yet beneath the well-rehearsed smiles and retouched hair lay the unmistakable fatigue of individuals who had just escaped a trial neither romantic nor dignified.
It was curious how easily people could restore their outward decorum. Their minds, however, remained in quiet disarray.
Some called it professionalism; An Ning thought it closer to survival instinct.
Across the courtyard, the director had watched their procession with the expression of a man resigned to fate.
He had thought it was a fantastic idea to send them to an escape room—something novel, thrilling, and above all, safe.
Perhaps, he had reasoned, nothing could better test a couple's chemistry than a little puzzle-solving under pressure.
What he had not accounted for was how fear revealed character far more efficiently—perhaps too efficiently—than any puzzle ever could.
First and foremost, Wu Shiyun and Shen Xiyu.
On screen, they looked picture-pefect—beauty, grace, composure. Add to the fact that Wu Shiyun had openly declared she was here for Shen Xiyu, and it seemed everything was falling neatly in place.
The director almost smiled.
Isn't this a good recipe to get the romance brewing?
But alas, he had underestimated that not even love could make Wu Shiyun tone it down. Or perhaps, he had overestimated Shen Xiyu's patience as a gentleman?
Maybe these few days of polite smiles and gentle words had made everyone including himself forget—that Shen Xiyu came from a background not so different from Wu Shiyun's.
In short, he was born with patience, not servitude.
From all these years of meeting different kinds of people, the director knew one thing well—put two people who were used to getting their way in the same room, and you'd get sparks. Not the romantic kind.
So when Wu Shiyun refused to crawl under the table because "the lighting there was unflattering," and when she handed him every prop with the same tone one used for personal assistant—something in that gentlemanly facade finally cracked.
The facade continued to crack in the final room—when Wu Shiyun, in all her elegance, declared that she could possibly outrun the "shadow" in her very expensive heels.
Her solution?
"Carry me," she said sweetly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
For a fleeting moment, Shen Xiyu's smiled held. Just barely. Then it didn't.
The silence that followed was teh kind that could flatten galaxies.
[😭😭😭 SHE REALLY SAID CARRY ME 💀💀💀]
[Bro's patience bar just hit zero 😭🔥]
[This isn't romance—it's a hostage negotiation 😭😭😭]
It would've worked and perhaps some would find this cute—
if this had been anyone else other Shen Xiyu.
Or Chen Yiming.
Or…never mind.
It would've worked if the other party had even the slightest romantic interest in Wu Shiyun.
Unfortunately, Shen Xiyu was not that man.
He didn't sigh.
He didn't roll his eyes.
He simply crouched down in silence, his expression calm—eerily calm.
Wu Shiyun blinked in delight, mistaking composure for affection.
And then, without a word, Shen Xiyu lifted her up—like one would a particularly troublesome piece of luggage—strode straight to the last door.
[😭😭😭 WHY DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A KIDNAPPING 💀💀💀]
[He carried her like she's emotional baggage 😭🔥]
[Romance? No. Silent suffering? Yes 😭😭😭]
[Bro's doing cardio for character development 😭💅
By the time, they reached the end, even the cameraman looked winded. Wu Shiyun, however, was radiant—convinced she had just scored herself a prize moment.
Meanwhile, the director quietly reflected—
and then remembered, with creeping dread of a man reconsidering his life choice,
that this show was sponsored by the Shen Group.
Oh.
Wait.
Right.
The Shen Group
Who actual top boss wasn't Shen Xiyu,
but Shen Bojun—his uncle.
The director froze for a full two seconds—
then exhaled in relief.
Right. Shen Xiyu might be a Shen, but he didn't have actually have any real power in the company.
Which meant the director's career, budget, and possibly his house mortgage—were safe.
For now.
He even allowed himself a small smile. Perhaps, after all, this episode would not be the cause of his dismissal.
At least, not because of Shen Xiyu.
Now—onto the next pair.
Chen Yiming and Jiang Shuyue. The director leaned closer to the monitor, already sensing where this was going next.
If Wu Shiyun and Shen Xiyu's pairing had been a clash of pride then Chen Yiming and Jiang Shuyue's was something quieter—less fire, more frost.
At first glance, they made an elegant picture. He, calm and steady, the sort of man who could perform surgery under storm.
She, poised and polished, her smile never slipping out of place.
But elegance, the director's stress level had learned, was often civility in disguise.
Unlike the others, there were no raised voices, no visible friction. Only the faint tension of two people trying to see who could control the rhythm longer.
Jiang Shuyue had entered the room with the kind of confidence that came from years of being listened to. She was used to things unfolding the way she planned—to words being followed, not questioned.
Unfortunately, Chen Yiming was not the kind of man who took well to being managed. No, it wasn't even about being managed. If he could defend himself, it was about the tone.
The kind of tone that expected one to obey without questions—but why would he? He wasn't her subordinate.
When she pointed at a clue, he paused to verify the mechanism. When she told him which direction to go, he quietly chose another path—politely, of course, but with enough certainty that it made her eyes narrow.
[😭😭😭 she's giving CEO energy while he's in passive-resistance mode 💀]
[He's calm but you can feel the rebellion 😭🔥]
[She's trying to lead the surgery, he's the one with the scalpel 😭😭😭]
[Two control freaks, one small room 😭💅]
Still, for all her sharpness, he never once lost his temper. He only gave that polite half-smile doctors were trained to wear—the kind that said: "I'm indulging you, not obeying you."
By the time they escaped, Jiang Shuyue looked satisfied enough, and Chen Yiming looked like a man who had just survived a consultation.
The director rubbed his temples slowly. Of course, he expected this, right?
But not all hope is lost. He still had his last pair.
Let's put our hands together as we welcome the final pair—
Han Yichen and Sun Qiaolian.
If Wu Shiyun and Shen Xiyu had been all fire and pride, and Chen Yiming and Jiang Shuyue were frost and restrain, then Han Yichen and Sun Qiaolian were something else entirely—all smiles and softness on the surface, sweetness hiding calculations beneath.
A pairing that could almost make one believe in fate.
Almost.
On screen, they seemed perfectly in step—the gentle songwriter and the earnest young woman whose eyes shone with the dream of entering the entertainment world.
Together, they painted a picture of sincerity so convincing that even the director had nearly believed it himself.
Nearly.
For beneath Han Yichen's polite smiles lay a wariness difficult to disguise, and in Sun Qiaolian's every gesture, there lingered an ambition too deliberate to mistake for innocence.
At one point, when the lights dimmed unexpectedly in the escape room, Sun Qiaolian had let out a startled gasp.
Han Yichen, ever the gentleman, had offered a small comforting tap on her shoulder—giving words of assurance, saying that he was here. She could most definitely rely on him.
It was the sort of scene that made the audience's hearts flutter, the director's stress level momentarily decline.
[Boyfriend material 😭😭😭]
[He's so calm even in the dark 🥹💖]
[Gentle, reliable, talented—where do I apply 😭🔥]
[She's so lucky 😭😭😭 I'd faint if someone talked to me like that!]
There was also the unspoken admiration in Sun Qiaolian's eyes whenever Han Yichen managed to solve something.
The way she leaned in slightly,
the soft curve of her smile,
the subtle lift of her lashes—
each reaction perfectly timed,
as though the cameras themselves were her audiences.
Han Yichen's however, didn't seem to notice the act. Or perhaps he chose not to.
There was a quiet warmth in his eyes when he looked at her—the kind that came not from performance, but from habit, from care.
Yes, part of it was instinct—the habit to look good on camera.
But there was still a thread of something genuine in him—a small, unguarded sincerity that he had chosen to show.
Maybe he recognised something of his younger self in her ambition and struggle and maybe, deep down, he simply wanted to believe that she was genuine.
Either way,
the sincerity was his.
The illusion, hers.
If An Ning were here to see this, she would have scoffed.
True, Han Yichen might have had the slightest feelings for Sun Qiaolian now but at the core of his character, he was a man of quiet calculation—polite on the surface, but every word and gesture weighed, measured, and never without purpose.
If he weren't, he wouldn't have treated Zhang Yazhi the way he did in the original timeline—discarding her the moment he had squeezed out every last drop of value.
This was why An Ning had to give it to Sun Qiaolian—the woman had perfected the art of leading someone on.
She had found the perfect balance between warmth and distance, affection and restraint—just enough to make a man believe he was the one pursuing, when in truth, every step had already been choreographed.
Even fate, An Ning thought, would struggle to compete with that kind of calculation.
But fate, as it turned out, had its own sense of humour.
Somewhere beyond the cottage's gates, Zhang Yazhi had already arrived.