The first rays of morning sunlight filtered through the mist over the sea, falling in dappled patches across the slightly damp cave.
Elysia opened her eyes to the rough surface of the rock wall.
Something felt strange.
After a night sleeping in a place this cold and damp, with no mattress and only a thin sleeping bag, logic said she should wake up this morning with an aching back, maybe even a fever.
But instead, her body felt unusually light, as if she'd just had a full massage at a top-tier spa followed by a hot bath.
She turned her head.
Su Yu had his back to her, packing gear into the waterproof bag.
Memories of last night came flooding back.
Wind and rain lashing together, the temperature plunging.
The two of them had held each other tightly to conserve body heat.
She recalled the feel of skin against skin, the steady beat of his heart, the faint scent of laundry powder mixed with sea salt clinging to him.
Elysia's cheeks heated up without her permission.
She quickly turned away, pressing the back of her hand to her face to cool it down.
"You're up? Get packed, we need to head down the mountain."
Su Yu slung the backpack over his shoulder and turned to look at her.
Neither of them mentioned last night.
No one mentioned the two bodies pressed nearly together beneath the emergency blanket, or the few seconds where she'd buried her face in the crook of his neck half-asleep, or the warmth of his palm against her back after she'd drifted off.
By unspoken agreement, they both chose silence.
"What great sunshine today. Almost feels like it's celebrating the fact that we survived."
Elysia stood up, smoothed her hair, and slipped back into her usual energetic self.
The two of them walked down the slick mountain trail, one after the other.
By the beach, the production camp had been transformed.
Last night's gale had knocked several tents askew, and the crew was scrambling to repair equipment.
The other contestant teams had already arrived.
Most of them were wrapped in the silver thermal blankets the crew had handed out, cradling cups of hot ginger tea, their faces looking worse and worse.
Last night's storm had forced them to huddle in the production team's emergency shelter, and none of them had gotten much sleep.
The livestream had already started.
[Here we go! First-person view is live!]
[That storm last night was terrifying. The contestants on the island must be in rough shape.]
[The retired athletes' team looks wrecked. Their eye bags could touch the floor.]
[Wait, where are Brother Su and Elysia? I don't see them anywhere.]
[Please don't tell me something happened. They never made it to the shelter last night — they spent the whole night up on the mountain!]
[Oh no, in rain that heavy with no cover up there, they couldn't have frozen solid, right? We need to demand the crew send a search party!]
Just as the danmaku filled with worry, two figures appeared at the edge of the camp.
Su Yu had the big waterproof pack on his back, his stride steady and sure.
Elysia walked beside him, chatting and laughing, still carrying the branch she'd picked up yesterday as a walking stick.
Both of them had a bit of mud on their clothes, but their whole demeanor looked like they'd just come back from a relaxing island vacation.
The retired national swimmer's hand froze mid-air, ginger tea cup still raised, his eyes going wide.
The director spotted them and practically scrambled over on all fours.
"Teacher Su Yu! Teacher Elysia! You're finally back! Quick, quick, medical team, check them over right now!" The director was sweating bullets. "If you're feeling the slightest bit off, please don't push through it — safety first, we can arrange for you to withdraw!"
Su Yu dropped the pack on the ground and rolled his shoulders.
"Withdraw? Why would we withdraw?"
Elysia tossed the branch aside and tucked back a loose strand of hair.
"Yeah, do we look sick to you?"
The director looked at their rosy, healthy faces, then glanced over at the other contestants shivering under their thermal blankets.
Something about this didn't add up.
Which of these two had actually been stranded on a wild mountainside in the cold wind all night?
[Holy crap! With how good Su-bro looks, I'd believe he went up the mountain, killed a boss, and leveled up!]
[This is insane! Absolutely insane! Everyone else is out here surviving in the wild, and those two look like they went on a romantic island getaway!]
[With energy like that, I'm starting to suspect Su-bro pulled a portal out of his pants last night, took Ellie to a five-star hotel for the night, and teleported them back this morning!]
[I don't care about anything else, I just want to know what happened when a lone man and woman spent the whole night in a cave together! Why does Elysia look positively glowing!]
"Are you sure you don't need a checkup?" The director still looked uneasy.
"Let's get today's competition started, Director. Everyone's waiting." Su Yu twisted the cap off a bottle of mineral water and took a big swig.
Once the crew confirmed both of them were fine, the staff began setting up the course.
The sun was brutal today, the sea breeze strong, and waves rolled unevenly across the water.
Eden, dressed in a crisp white short outfit and a pair of sandals, walked in front of the camera holding the cue cards the director had handed her.
"After surviving last night's trial, congratulations, everyone — you've reached the final day of Extreme Treasure Hunt. Today's challenge is a two-person kayak flag hunt on the open water."
Eden's voice carried across the beach through the microphone, elegant and composed.
"Flags of different colors have been scattered across the water by the production team. You'll have thirty minutes to collect as many as possible using your kayak."
She pointed a finger out toward the sea.
"Green flags are fixed to low buoys — one point each. Blue flags are hung on taller poles, which will require you to stand up in your kayak to reach — three points each. And as for the last one, the red flags..."
Eden paused.
"Red flags are secured to underwater anchors, at depths ranging from one to three meters. You'll need to dive down to retrieve them. Each red flag is worth five points."
Hearing the rules, the contestants' faces changed.
Standing up on a rocking kayak just to grab a blue flag was dangerous enough — never mind diving deep for the red ones.
Last night's storm had left the seawater murky, with strong undercurrents swirling below.
"This challenge tests your stamina, your skill, and above all, how much trust you place in your partner. One careless moment in these waves and your boat could capsize."
As she said this, Eden's gaze drifted past the camera lens and landed squarely on Su Yu.
"So please, make sure your partner is... reliable enough."
Eden deliberately put extra weight on the word "reliable."
A chill ran down Su Yu's back.
He knew exactly what Eden meant.
It wasn't just about reliability in the competition — it was an answer she owed to her role as his "investor" and "secret lover."
Elysia stood right beside Su Yu.
She caught Eden's glance immediately.
Rather than turn to look at Su Yu, she met Eden's gaze head-on, curving her lips into a flawless, sweet smile, and threw in a playful wink for good measure.
It was as if she were saying: don't worry, he's very obedient.
Su Yu quietly looked away, pretending to study the direction of the waves.
While Su Yu was busy studying the waves, the official servers for Extreme Treasure Hunt were about to face an unprecedented traffic surge.
The reason was simple: after two days of building buzz, news that the sneaky Su Yu had secretly gone off to film a variety show had finally spread completely through the Honkai Impact 3rd player community.
This crowd of Hyperion captains, who had just been mercilessly gutted by Final Lesson and were still crying in their dreams, marched straight into the livestream chat wielding their metaphorical cyber-machetes.
[Where's that old scoundrel Su?! Point the camera at him! I want to see him gnawing on tree bark!]
[Give me back Teacher Himeko!! If the production crew has any sense, they'll assign him the most venomous mosquitoes and the hardest coconuts they can find!]
[I heard this island is brutal. Perfect. I want to watch this cutscene-killing demon starve until his eyes roll back!]
The chat was flooded with pure vengeful rage.
But the "veteran viewers" who had been camped in the livestream since day one watched this new wave of avengers arrive and quietly typed out a row of sympathetic messages.
[Newcomers, I'd suggest taking your blood pressure medication first.]
[Gnawing tree bark? Ha, this guy turned the show into 'Island Vacation Tycoon' the first couple of days — seafood every meal.]
[Don't curse him, that bastard's been in first place on points the whole time, built like an ox — the other contestants look like malnourished chickens next to him.]
The freshly-arrived Honkai players froze.
[???]
[What the hell? The man writes scripts twisted enough to be crimes against humanity, and in real life he can survive on a deserted island bare-handed?]
[What kind of life-winner is this?! Heaven has no eyes! Somebody kill him already!!]
[Does Su-bro have some System that makes him stronger every time he writes a tragic script??]
In stark contrast to the chaos in the livestream chat...
At the top floor of miHoYo Studio, at the same time...
A massive display screen was playing the live broadcast of Extreme Treasure Hunt.
In the spacious lounge, the air had gone eerily still.
Nuwa sat cross-legged on the sofa, chewing on the plastic stick of a lollipop.
She stared at the close-up shot of Eden's face on the screen, her brows twisting into knots.
"Weird... why does the way Miss Eden is looking at him look like she's catching a cheater in the act?"
Nuwa mumbled, mouth still full of lollipop stick.
Not far away, Bronie was typing rapidly on her keyboard, a huge bubble of gum inflating from her mouth.
"Based on frame-rate analysis of the video feed, when Eden looked toward the Boss just now, her pupils dilated by fifteen percent. Micro-expression analysis indicates this is definitely not a typical host-to-guest look."
"This is a gaze marked by strong exclusivity and possessiveness."
Bronie rattled off a string of conclusions in rapid succession, then popped her bubble gum with a snap.
Curled up in a beanbag chair in the corner, Kiana had folded herself into a tiny ball.
She'd been happily munching on a bag of plain potato chips.
But at Bronie's words, her hand stopped moving.
She stared at Su Yu and Elysia on the screen, standing so close together.
Crunch.
The pressure in Kiana's grip increased without her meaning it to. A whole handful of chips instantly crumbled to powder, sifting through her fingers and scattering onto the carpet.
This cat was not happy.
"Hey hey hey! Silly Kiana, that's the carpet! It's so hard to clean!"
Bronie shouted.
Kiana ignored her.
She crumpled up the chip bag and tossed it in the trash, then grabbed the HOMU cushion beside her, hugging it tightly to her chest, her heterochromatic eyes fixed unblinking on the screen.
The scene cut back to the island.
At Eden's whistle blast, four kayaks shot forward like arrows loosed from a bow, plunging into the waves.
The first few green flags were easy to grab — the buoys sat low, and all it took was paddling over and reaching out.
This was the first time Su Yu and Elysia had ever paddled together.
With a kayak, if the two paddlers weren't in sync, the boat would just spin in place.
Sure enough, at first Su Yu paddled left while Elysia paddled right, and the whole boat spun in circles on the water like a headless fly.
The other three teams quickly overtook them.
[LMAO, Su-bro's paddling looks like my grandma grinding grain at the village mill.]
[Well, it's their first time paddling together, not that easy.]
[That retired national swimmer brought a professional coach along, his form is so clean — looks like Su-bro's going down this time!]
"Su Yu, don't rush. Follow my count."
Elysia, sitting up front, turned her head to speak to him.
"One, two, one, two."
Su Yu took a deep breath and focused all his attention on the movement of Elysia's shoulders.
By reading the flex of her muscles, he could predict, fractions of a second in advance, exactly when her paddle would hit the water.
In under three minutes, the two of them had their paddle strokes moving in perfect sync.
The kayak sliced a straight white wake through the water, gaining speed rapidly, and quickly caught up to the team that had fallen behind.
[??? Is that kind of adjustment speed even humanly possible???]
[Three minutes ago they were spinning in circles, three minutes later they're a synchronized figure skating pair??]
[Su-bro's learning speed is terrifying]
[It's not that Su-bro's learning fast, it's that these two have insane chemistry!]
[Is Su-bro playing possum? Letting everyone else get a head start before pulling off a dramatic comeback?]
Up ahead, tall blue flags started appearing.
Bamboo poles three meters high stuck out of the buoys, blue flags flapping at the top in the wind.
Wave after wave rolled through.
Standing up on a kayak rocking this violently was extremely dangerous.
"I'll go up and get it."
Elysia set her paddle down in the hull, preparing to stand.
"Wait for the wave to pass."
Su Yu watched a large wave rolling in ahead of them.
The wave passed, and the kayak steadied briefly.
"Now." Su Yu barked, low and sharp.
He turned the double-bladed kayak paddle sideways, jamming both ends firmly against the sides of the hull, planting his feet against the deck in front of him, his whole body becoming a stable tripod, using his own core strength to physically hold the boat steady against the rocking.
Without hesitation, Elysia stepped up onto the gunwale and pushed herself upright, using the leverage.
Because the bamboo pole was too tall, even with her arm fully extended, she couldn't reach it.
"Step on my shoulder!" Su Yu called out.
Without even looking, Elysia lifted her foot in its non-slip shoe and planted it precisely on Su Yu's right shoulder.
Su Yu's shoulder dipped slightly under the weight, but didn't waver at all.
Elysia used the boost to raise herself higher and yanked the blue flag free.
Right at that moment, a wave came slicing in sideways, slamming hard into the side of the kayak.
The kayak tilted violently to the left.
Elysia, still standing on Su Yu's shoulder, instantly lost her balance. She let out a startled cry as her body pitched backward.
Below her was nothing but churning seawater.
It happened so fast that even the drone filming from the shore didn't have time to adjust its shot.
In that split second—
Su Yu released the paddle wedged against the hull, ignoring the boat that was about to flip over, and instead threw his weight sharply downward.
His left hand clamped down onto the edge of the kayak, using his own body weight to force the tilting gunwale back level.
At the same time, his right hand shot out.
Before Elysia hit the water, his forearm hooked firmly around her waist, catching her and pulling her back.
The sheer force of the momentum sent Elysia crashing into Su Yu's chest, and the two of them tumbled together into the cramped hull of the kayak.
For a moment, the air seemed to freeze.
Elysia found herself pulled tightly against Su Yu's chest, close enough to clearly hear the beat of his heart against her ear.
The firm feel of his chest muscles came through even his soaked shirt, his exhaled breath warm against the top of her head, mixed with the faint salt smell of the sea breeze.
For the first time, she could feel so clearly the explosive power hidden inside this man.
That instant of reaction and strength — there was no way that was something an ordinary person could do.
"Hold onto the flag."
Su Yu's voice sounded above her head.
Elysia snapped back to herself, raised the blue flag she was still clutching tightly, and waved it toward the drone camera, flashing a bright, dazzling smile.
"Got it!"
On shore, Eden watched the footage on the big screen, an iced coffee in hand.
As she watched the replay of Su Yu's almost instinctive catch, the base of her coffee cup clinked crisply against the marble table.
"That kind of chemistry... is almost obscene."
She murmured the assessment quietly. The staff member standing nearby was too startled to respond.
The race continued.
For the next few blue flags, the two of them repeated the same routine, growing more and more in sync with every attempt.
Su Yu no longer even needed to wait for the waves to pass — he could predict the impact of each swell in advance, using his own weight to counteract the rocking, sending Elysia smoothly up into the air each time.
Soon, they reached the red flag zone.
This was the deep water area.
The kayak came to a steady stop on the surface.
Ahead, the color of the water shifted to a deep blue, a sign that the seabed dropped away sharply into a massive underwater trench.
"The red flags here are tied to a discarded iron anchor fifteen meters down, and there's a strong rip current below."
A staff member on a nearby rescue boat called out through a megaphone.
"If it's too difficult, don't force it."
The other kayaks arrived one by one.
The team with the retired national athlete put on fins and goggles.
That contestant flipped into the water, but surfaced again in less than twenty seconds, gasping for air, clutching tight to the side of the boat.
"No good! The undercurrent is too strong. I can't sink down at all — the deeper you go, the more resistance there is, like there's a wall pushing me back!"
The diver wiped water from his face, shaking his head repeatedly.
[Fifteen meters? You've got to be kidding! Free-diving fifteen meters, and in this weather?]
[That diver is a professional, and even he says he can't make it down there. Nobody else stands a chance.]
[Forget it, forget those five points, safety first!]
[Look, look at Su-bro! What's he doing?!]
Su Yu stood up in the kayak.
He pulled off his soaked short-sleeved shirt and tossed it onto the seat.
His bare torso was exposed under the sun.
Elysia sat behind him.
She didn't look away.
The lines of muscle across Su Yu's back were sharply defined, striking even, not exaggerated but every muscle looked as though it had been forged in molten steel, tight without a trace of excess fat.
It didn't quite match the image of the lazy producer who was always slouched over his keyboard back at the studio.
Su Yu wasn't wearing any diving gear at all — he didn't even have a nose clip.
"Wait for me up here."
With that, Su Yu bent his knees slightly and pushed off with sudden force.
His body shot forward like a cannonball fired from a barrel, plunging into the deep blue water.
Only a ring of white spray spread out across the surface.
The world underwater fell silent.
Su Yu opened his eyes.
The powerful rip current rushed straight at him, strong enough to knock an adult clean off their feet.
But to Su Yu, this current felt like nothing more than slightly thick air.
His legs kicked in an alternating rhythm through the water, moving so fast they left a trailing streak of white current behind him.
At his current physical level, fifteen meters and one and a half meters made no real difference, and holding his breath for one minute or ten minutes made no difference either — all of it was child's play to him.
It took him only a few seconds to hit the bottom at fifteen meters.
The heavy discarded iron anchor lay half-buried in the sand, the red flag tied to its lowest point.
Untying the knot would normally take at least two minutes against a current this strong.
The retired athlete, meanwhile, was hauling himself down the safety line dropped from the rescue boat, struggling to reach a depth of seven or eight meters.
He looked down through his goggles, hoping he might still get a chance at the flag.
Then he saw a sight that made him question whether he'd ever actually learned to swim in his life.
Fifteen meters down, that video game producer with no equipment at all was standing on the seabed with both feet.
The sand beneath him had been pressed into two clear footprint-shaped depressions.
Su Yu didn't bother untying the rope.
He grabbed the rough surface of the anchor with his left hand.
The retired athlete's eyes went wide behind his goggles.
The veins bulged suddenly along Su Yu's arm, and the anchor — weighing several hundred pounds, half-buried in the sand — was ripped clean out of the seabed with one hand!
Sand billowed up in a cloud.
Su Yu yanked with his right hand, pulling the flag and a length of anchor chain up with it.
With that done, Su Yu bent his knees against the seabed and kicked off hard, shooting toward the surface like a depth charge.
The retired athlete broke the surface, ripped off his goggles, and gripped the edge of his boat for dear life.
He turned to look at his teammate, who was still trying to dive down, his voice trembling.
"Don't go down there. Get up here. That guy isn't human." The athlete swallowed hard. "If I'd faced someone like that back in my competition days, I'd have drowned myself right on the starting block."
While Su Yu was down below, time on the surface crawled by unbearably slowly.
One minute.
Two minutes.
The kayak bobbed up and down in the waves.
At first, Elysia managed to keep the corners of her mouth curved up, her hands resting calmly on her knees.
But once the second hand ticked past two and a half minutes, her fingers began digging unconsciously into the edge of the kayak.
Three minutes.
The surface of the sea showed nothing but rolling deep-blue waves.
Even the staff on the rescue boat started to panic, several safety officers pulling on fins, getting ready to jump in.
"Su Yu!" Elysia shot to her feet.
The kayak rocked violently, and she stumbled half a step before catching her balance.
The smile had vanished completely from her face.
In her pink eyes, the usual unshakable composure had shattered into genuine panic.
Without a moment's hesitation, she reached up and stripped off her windbreaker, dropping it at her feet.
She bent down, grabbed the sides of the kayak with both hands, and prepared to flip herself into that unknown, terrifying depth of water.
Just as her foot was about to leave the hull—
With a splash!
Less than half a meter in front of her, the water suddenly tore open.
Su Yu's head broke the surface.
He casually swept his soaked black hair back and gulped down great lungfuls of fresh air.
In his left hand, held high, was the dripping red flag, and in his right hand — of all things — a king crab the size of a washbasin.
"The anchor down there was rusted through and stuck, so I just tore the whole thing loose. Grabbed this out of a crack in the rocks while I was down there too — we can add it to dinner tonight."
Su Yu swam over to the boat, tossed the crab into the hull, planted both hands on the gunwale, and pulled himself up with ease.
He turned his head, about to say something with a smile.
Instead, he met Elysia's stare head-on.
Elysia still had the same posture she'd had, ready to dive — her chest heaving violently.
She looked at the man sitting in front of her, completely unharmed, and every taut nerve in her body snapped at once.
She didn't reach for the red flag, didn't care about the crab scuttling around the hull.
Elysia lunged forward, her knee slamming into the deck.
She raised her clenched fist and brought it down hard on Su Yu's solid arm.
Smack!
The sound rang out sharply.
"Are you insane?!"
For Miss Pink Elf, who always wore perfection and sweetness like a mask, this kind of losing control was rare.
"Three minutes! You stayed down there for three whole minutes with no equipment at all! Do you have any idea what I just—"
Elysia's hand froze mid-air, her chest still heaving, a clear flush of red rising at the corners of her eyes.
The smile on Su Yu's face vanished instantly.
He looked at this girl in front of him — someone who always handled everything with effortless ease, but who now had shoulders trembling ever so slightly.
It suddenly hit him that in this ordinary world, an equipment-free dive lasting three minutes was, for a normal person, essentially a death sentence.
He'd crossed a line, using standards his body had grown used to from the intensity of the Honkai world.
Su Yu didn't dodge, and he didn't try to explain that the delay had been because of the strong current.
He reached out and gently took hold of Elysia's wrist, still frozen in midair.
"I'm sorry." Su Yu's voice was heavy. "I didn't consider how you'd feel. It won't happen again."
Elysia didn't pull her hand away.
She took two deep breaths, forcing the surge of emotion back down.
She pulled her hand free and took the red flag from Su Yu's grasp.
"Let's head back. The competition's over."
She turned around, sat back down in the front seat, and picked up her paddle.
Su Yu couldn't see her face from behind, only the pale nape of her neck, still tinted with a flush that hadn't quite faded.
The two of them paddled together at the same moment.
Neither of them said another word the whole way back.
But the livestream chat had already exploded.
[Holy crap crap crap! Elysia totally freaked out just now! Absolutely freaked out!]
[Well duh, if your partner spent three minutes underwater without moving, wouldn't you panic? I almost called 911!]
[Su-bro, please don't do that to us! If you actually died who would make our games for us?! You jerk!]
[That genuinely scared the hell out of me]
[Wait, "your partner"? Someone up there caught the real point.]
[Does this count as an official confirmation? If there's nothing going on between these two I'll eat this kayak!]
[That apology from Su-bro was perfect — no excuses, just owning up right away, maximum emotional payoff.]
[Where's the confirmation, where's the confirmation? Who's going to cover my losses on the White-Haired Little Junior Sister stock I'm holding??]
Thirty minutes later, the whistle sounded from shore.
The final scores for each team popped up on the big screen.
"Congratulations to Su Yu and Elysia's team — with one hard-won red flag and multiple blue and green flags, for a total of thirty points, a clear and decisive victory in this round's ocean flag hunt."
Eden stood on the beach at the finish line, microphone in hand.
Applause broke out across the whole area.
The retired national athlete walked over, gave Su Yu's shoulder a rueful pat, and walked off shaking his head without saying a word.
Eden walked up to the two of them as they came ashore and handed Su Yu the custom wooden treasure chest.
As Su Yu reached out to take it, Eden's fingertips brushed feather-light against the back of his hand.
She took a small step closer.
In a voice only the two of them could hear, her tone dripping with meaning, she spoke.
"Such stamina, Producer Su. Staying down that deep for that long, and still having the strength to catch someone that steadily." Eden's gaze flicked between Su Yu and Elysia. "Tonight... you'd better give me a good explanation, Mr. Number One."
Su Yu's hand, still holding the box, stiffened slightly, and a smile appeared on his face that looked more painful than crying.
Number one at what? Eden was the number-one woman in every possible sense!
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