First Kiss Diary - Chapter 48

The day after the finale of Starry Night, the filming for Rapid Burn was scheduled.

Nie Jianglan was temporarily absent that episode because his wife was giving birth. Besides Ji Ning stepping in, the production also invited Ruan Ming, reportedly after much effort from Ruan Ming’s team.

Song Yu had almost gone mad when she heard Ruan Ming would be there. After repeatedly confirming she couldn’t attend that day, she had no choice but to settle for less and asked Ji Ning to get an autograph for her.

Ji Ning had no choice but to take a photo of Ruan Ming to the venue, and handed the picture into the dressing room, asking Ruan Ming to sign it.

After Ruan Ming signed his name, Ji Ning mustered the courage to continue asking, “Could you write ‘to’? To Song Yu — Song as in Song Yu, Yu as in Zhou Yu’s Yu.”

That was Song Yu’s favorite way to introduce herself; she said it sounded cultured and had the bearing of a great general.

Ruan Ming was easy to talk to; he signed quickly in two or three strokes and even wrote “drink more hot water.”

An idol who dares to invite fans to drink more hot water is truly respectable—after all, there aren’t many idols bold enough to do that anymore.

After finishing, Ruan Ming stared at her for a moment, then said, “Ji Ning? Is this the first kiss you filmed with Shi Yan-ge?”

The wording sounded a bit ambiguous, but Ji Ning still nodded.

“He seemed really gentle with you on the show,” Ruan Ming said, still dazed by what he’d seen. “Really.”

Ruan Ming repeated himself twice, and Ji Ning couldn’t help asking, “You know each other?”

“Yeah, we do. I played his younger brother back when I was a newcomer.”

“Is he not gentle with you?”

In her impression, Ji Shiyan wasn’t the kind of man given to tenderness, but rather someone rather indifferent; actors who’d worked with him all said he only looked difficult to get along with, that his character was actually decent, and had nothing to do with being unkind.

Ruan Ming swallowed, and remembering that night when he was “suddenly” lectured for a long time about not flirting around, he furtively asked Ji Shiyan—Brother, is she the kind of girl you like?

The result was that he nearly got blocked.

When the memory ended, Ruan Ming made the following judgment about the man.

“If I don’t fight him for people, he’s actually pretty nice to me.”

The two guests casually did their hair and makeup, and the show officially began.

This episode’s theme was called The Wheel of Fate.

The set was designed with an ultimate boss; there were five stations in total. Solving the corresponding puzzles would earn a clue about the boss.

There are four regular main characters: Ren Xing, Yuan Huan, Kang Nan, and Wei Bei. With the newly joined Ji Ning and Ruan Ming, there are six in total.

They set out together and reached the first checkpoint. The task was easy, and they quickly obtained the first fragment. At first the fragment didn’t reveal much, so they decided to hold onto it and piece it together with the others later.

“Before leaving, you need to choose someone to turn this pointer,” said a staff member standing by a clock.

Finally Ji Ning stepped forward and, as instructed, moved the hand.

This clock was not an ordinary one; it was divided into six equal sections, each bearing the name of a guest.

The hand began to turn clockwise, and finally came to a slow stop in Kang Nan’s section.

“Me?” Kang Nan pointed at himself. “What’s up with me? Is there some surprise in store for me?”

“I can’t reveal that yet; you’ll find out soon.”

After some discussion everyone decided to split up to act separately. To avoid suspicion, Ji Ning didn’t pair with internet celebrity Ruan Ming and chose Wei Bei instead.

Originally everyone thought they were about the same age and suggested pairing Ruan Ming with Yuan Huan or Kang Nan, but Ruan Ming hesitated for a moment before saying, “But I want to go to the waterside.”

“Take that one with me, I’m heading for the waterways,” Ren Xing said. “Yuan Huan will go with Kang Nan.”

The groups were roughly divided, and Ji Ning and Wei Bei proceeded along the routes that had been assigned.

Just as they were unraveling clues one by one to find the station, a prompt sounded overhead: “Kang Nan, glorified.”

In the show, “glorified” meant a character’s death, and it also meant elimination.

Wei Bei on the side was momentarily stunned. “How did Kang Nan get glorified so quickly?”

Ji Ning also found it odd, and after the second prompt, his suspicions became even clearer.

Six people created a group to coordinate matters; someone in the group reached the second site and obtained a fragment, and said that this time the pointer had landed on Yuan Huan.

Soon — “Yuan Huan, honor.”

She finally understood why this issue was called the Wheel of Fate.

“The pointer lands on someone, and it’s their turn to be honored.”

No one can escape fate; it is a predetermined prophecy.

“Damn, don’t scare me,” Wei Bei said, goosebumps rising. “Thinking about it like that gives me the creeps. How could they be celebrated? Did something trigger them or were they wiped out? We don’t know anything.”

Ji Ning pursed her lips. “We should find out soon.”

When they arrived at the third site the door wasn’t locked. Ji Ning found it a bit odd but didn’t suspect anything. After taking the shard, as usual, she had to move the dial.

This time there were only three dial positions: one for her, one for Ren Xing, and one for Ruan Ming.

Wei Bei laughed: “Why am I not on it? Am I safe? Did I activate some invincible buff?”

Before he finished laughing, Ji Ning noticed something wrong: “Every time this dial is turned, the name changes.”

Wei Bei didn’t think anything was off: “And?”

“When I turned it at the first checkpoint before, it didn’t do this—once the needle set on a name, it stayed; it wouldn’t move again.”

“Besides, since it’s following the theme of destiny, all the honor roll must have long been arranged in order. Could flipping the switch a few times in one minute really produce several different outcomes?”

Wei Bei looked at her.

Ji Ning said confidently, “When we went to the station before, the doors were all closed. This time they were just propped open—someone’s been here.”

Wei Bei thought this new guest got into character way too quickly. “You’re not one of our show’s writers, are you???”

“Let’s go for now; this place isn’t very safe,” she said.

Even though Ji Ning had analyzed everything once, he didn’t know whether Wei Bei was pleased with himself because his area wasn’t on the list, or if he simply chose to linger near the station.

Wei Bei said he might be a chosen one, that maybe there was a hidden mission for him, and he wanted to look around alone.

Ji Ning respected his wish and left him alone, but as she walked on she gradually felt that something was wrong.

She explained the situation in the group chat, then sent a voice message to Wei Bei: “Consider it another way—if both the hands and the dial were tampered with, and everyone else inside the area was accounted for but you alone were missing, wouldn’t that actually mean you’re the most likely to have been chosen? The point of altering the dial was to make you drop your guard.”

At the same time, the director spoke up: “Wei Bei, glory.”

…It really was.

At that moment Ji Ning thought of something else, opened the group chat and quietly reminded: “One site corresponds to one person’s glory. We have six sites, five people’s glory, game over.”

“So that means the boss must be one of us.”

The photographer and videographer practically deserved applause.

Everyone in the group suddenly became paranoid; Ruan Ming shouted even louder: “Hearing you say that, I have absolutely no sense of security!”

The real boss must have been commissioned by the production team from the start; Ji Ning didn’t receive any message, so the killer has to be either Ren Xing or Ruan Ming.

By chance, Ruan Ming appeared at that moment.

He was surprised to see Ji Ning too. “Weren’t you in the same group as Wei Bei? How did Wei Bei suddenly get eliminated?”

“I don’t know,” Ji Ning said. “I had already split off by then, in area C.”

“Me too, I was over there in those woods.”

Ji Ning remained highly alert; her intuition told her that she couldn’t trust anyone at this moment. She stepped back, her mind beginning to race.

The first to be honored was Kang Nan, the second was Yuan Huan—both had had opportunities to team up with Ruan Ming, but Ruan Ming had refused.

When he saw her, Ruan Ming also began to offer Wei Bei’s alibi for his time of honor.

The harder someone tries to wash away suspicion, the more likely they are the killer.

There’s a sixty percent chance it’s Ruan Ming.

Ji Ning, relying on the micro-expression theory he’d picked up from acting, asked him, “Is it you?”

He asked while watching his expression.

“What do you mean, me? The killer? How could the killer be me.” Ruan Ming smiled. “Don’t joke around.”

“It’s you.” Ji Ning repeated once more.

This time, the purpose was to unnerve the other with his eyes — as soon as they weren’t so steadfast in their lie, they’d be exposed.

Ruan Ming perhaps couldn’t explain it either, so he simply took the potion from his pocket and rubbed it on his hands. The moment Ji Ning saw his movement, she immediately lifted her leg and ran toward the dispatch room—if they could find the boss and get the intel out of here, they’d win.

What the production team said.

Ruan Ming must be the boss; if she had any doubt before, the moment his expression changed she understood.

She slammed the latch shut, quickly wrote her name on the paper the production team had just prepared, and Ruan Ming also pushed the door open and came in.

Maybe because he saw her alone, Ruan Ming was slow to move, perhaps thinking she couldn’t get away.

At that moment, Ji Ning vaguely heard a voice from next door, Ren Xing.

“Let’s make a deal,” she said to Ruan Ming.

Ruan Ming shook his head. “Don’t think about calling for help. It takes too long to come around from next door—long enough for me to deal with you.”

Ji Ning had just noticed a glass bottle beside him. Without changing his expression, he slipped the paper into the bottle and shook his head to divert attention: “I didn’t mean to shout for help, but…”

“But what?”

Ji Ning stepped back two paces, hurled the glass bottle toward the side that was absolutely safe and silent, and at the same time signaled Ren Xing, “Ruan Ming is here, run!”

Ruan Ming never expected she could send out a message using a bottle. After smearing the potion on her neck she hurried toward the wall, but once the glass shattered, Ren Xing had already run off with the note.

Ji Ning exhaled with relief. Fortunately, at the last moment Ren Xing chose to trust her—they had won.

After that episode aired, Ji Ning shot up the trending lists, all thanks to the huge popularity of “Rapid Ignition” and her own quick thinking.

After all, previous guests had been pranked and humiliated, becoming the butt of jokes on the hot lists. The worst of them had been woken at four in the morning by roosters, soaked to the skin and even shoved out of a car—making the trending lists for an entire day.

Not only was Ji Ning not targeted, he also managed to make the show’s logic flow very smoothly.

She analyzed everything that needed analyzing on camera, and for the parts she didn’t have time to say she later added voiceovers; for the first time the fans suggested not moderating the comments, saying they wanted to see the real voices of bystanders.

The bystander’s real voice was also very rational:

[If it weren’t for Ji Ning, this episode would be called The Wheel of Fate; with Ji Ning, it’s called Defying Fate and Changing Destiny haha.]

[One person works hard while the team coasts to victory; this old auntie came away from the episode liking her — a very clever kid.]

[I got dizzy halfway through the show; I followed her and the subtitle team the whole time. I’m really impressed by her orderly thinking—she went from being wronged to making things right.]

【Truly badass — in the past when guests hit the fast-food spot the trending topics that followed were all disastrous hot searches, but only Ji Ning was praised on the trending list haha, who wouldn’t call her clever.】

【Ji Ning told us: My fate is mine, not heaven’s!】

【And don’t you think — when she finally handed something to Ren Xing she even said “Ruan Ming is here.” Those four words conveyed a lot: for example, Ruan Ming might be the killer; if he doesn’t flee quickly, he’ll die, which is why Ren Xing ran so fast. And using a glass bottle was really smart — when the bottle shatters, the note comes out.】

[I used to have a pretty bad impression of her too — thought her persona had collapsed and all that. Later I found an account that debunked rumors about her, and after seeing the truth I became a fan. I strongly recommend anyone who’s biased against her go check it out.]

That night not only did Ji Ning gain followers, but the rumor-clearing account also picked up tens of thousands of new followers. Song Yu herself said, “If followers could be turned into money, I’d be rich tonight.”

Impressed by her outstanding performances on various variety shows, the program “This Morning Diner” also sent her an invitation, hoping she would become a regular MC.

The show is about running a shop, with the aim of promoting China’s distinctive breakfast cuisine, and it also features many fun daily activities. The two guests confirmed so far are both very well-known—a real prize catch.

Ji Ning suggested that Nono first schedule her specific itinerary afterward, then see if she could take it on.

///

“First Kiss Diary” reached its final recording amid the bustle.

It was the last episode, and everyone treated it with a sense of ceremony. As soon as she arrived she noticed the camera guy adjusting equipment, and all the writers were present.

She had barely sat down—unsure if the show had started recording—when Ji Shiyan handed her a box.

Ji Ning was momentarily stunned.

The man said, “Didn’t the ring get lost before? This is a replacement for you.”

She opened the box; inside was a necklace.

The pendant on the necklace was the little ear he had once drawn back when he designed a temporary tattoo for her on a show long ago.

This design is much more intricate this time—the floral vines wrapped around the ears and even each little petal are all very detailed.

Ji Ning happened to notice the tag on the box and froze for a moment.

If she remembered correctly, ordering a necklace from this brand required real-name registration.

Besides the steep price and the long waiting period…

Each person can only be custom-made once in a lifetime.