Ruth announced the task for the second day of the competition: "Today you all will need to be carrying out two missions, one of them is to repair your home, and the second one is make your own handicraft. In the ocean in front of you, there are many beautiful things, but you will need to pick them out using your own abilities. Please pay attention, this time each one of you will need to make your own craft, the object that you manufacture, you will be able to keep. Or you can also give them to us, we will randomly choose one of the fans supporting you and gift it to them. At this time tomorrow we will return, I will remind you, tonight there will be an even bigger 'surprise.'"
After Ruth and the judges left, Jing Yang walked back into the forest, using some very tenacious and strong thin vines to make a net.
Jake followed at his side, he didn't know what he should be doing, so he took the initiative to ask: "Is there something that I should be helping you out with?"
"No need, this is very easy, I'll be done soon." Jing Yang responded.
Jake looked at his fingers flying around, very quickly weaving the net, then he hesitated for a bit and said: "For the matter yesterday, very sorry."
"What matter?" Jing Yang looked at him doubtfully.
"That's…making you be in a team by yourself, since us three people were left over, we should have been in a team, but…" Jake really sincerely felt sorry for this.
"You don't need to feel sorry about this thing." Jing Yang responded without any care. "Everyone has their own freedom of choice, nothing is required to be done."
"Then can I be in a team with you now?" Jake asked quietly.
"If you want to join, it's not like you can't." Jing Yang simply said.
"Really? Thanks!" Jake said happily. "If there's anything that I can help with, don't hesitate to tell me."
"Take this." Jing Yang gave him one of the nets.
Jake took the net and the two people walked towards the ocean, Jing Yang picked a shallow area that was especially filled with rocks. Most of the people all chose to go to the deeper ocean, they all felt that the deeper the ocean, the more good things would be there.
If today's competition mission had been to compare who would be able to catch the most valuable fish, Jing Yang would also have picked to go to the deeper sea areas. But for making handicrafts, it's still better to pick shallower areas, because there are much more beautiful conches, clamshells, and so on, and in some of the clams there may even be pearls.
Danny also followed behind them from far away to the shallower sea areas, because his ability wasn't great, but in order to express that he was not in a group with Jing Yang, he always kept his distance from them.
"You can look around, under some of these stones, there will be beautiful sea crystals, we don't want big ones, the smaller the better." Jing Yang advised.
"Why don't we want bigger ones?" Jake asked, he also knew about sea crystals, it's a type of relatively cheaper gemstones. But most of the ones on the market are artificial, so that's why it's relatively cheaper.
"The quality of the big ones is bad, for natural sea crystals, the smaller it is the better the quality, because the impurities are all washed out by the ocean water and the sand." Jing Yang explained.
"So it's like that, you know so much." Jake suddenly understood and nodded, crouching down and starting to flip the stones and look around.
Jing Yang took a wooden stick and his nets, walking towards the bigger rocks.
~
"Brother, you've returned." Nia personally went to the wine cellar to choose a bottle, she was just preparing to bring it back to the lounge to drink while watching the live stream when she saw her elusive elder brother.
"Well." Bowie glanced at the wine in her hand and asked, "You didn't go to school?"
"During this period of time there's the live streaming competition, so I took some time off. Anyways I will be graduating soon, whether I go or not doesn't make a big difference." Nia smiled, making an expression of inevitability.
"Don't drink too much, don't forget you're still a student."
"I'm just at home anyways, not outside, brother do you want to come drink a cup with me and then watch the live stream together?" Nia shook the bottle of wine and invited him. "We haven't drunk wine together for a long time, you should also occasionally relax a bit ah, this time's live stream competition is very interesting oh. Many of my classmates also excused themselves from school to go home and watch this, this is the privilege of being in the graduating class, we've all gotten enough credits anyways."
"I'll go change, you can first go back." Bowie had also heard his subordinates mention this time's live stream competition, even though the reports had been sent to his office, he hadn't looked at them.
"Brother, take this." Nia saw her elder brother coming in, immediately pouring him a glass of wine and passing it over.
Bowie took the offered glass and then reclined on the sofa.
"This time's competition is really too interesting, last night there were some people's roofs that were directly blown away, even a house that had been built for an entire day had been blown apart. That image was really too hilarious, Angus is really a genius, I think that you should give him a raise." Nia excitedly said, yesterday's scenes had made her laugh for a very long time.
Bowie drank a mouthful of wine, watching the projected scene. In the image was a gold-haired young man swimming in the shallow ocean, because of the ripples caused by the light on the water, his appearance was not too clear.
"I feel like this person named Milton is very interesting, earlier he was scolded very miserably on Star Network, my classmates and I all thought that when he entered this competition he would definitely be scolded even more miserably. But I can tell that he is actually a pretty good person." Nia suddenly became somewhat indignant: "Did you know? Last night only his cabin didn't leak rain, and also didn't keep swaying from the wind, but the judges only gave him 7 points. Kedi's team actually got 9 points, that cabin of his shook until my eyes were dizzy okay? Don't know where they found those judges, not fair at all, you should cut Angus's wages."
Bowie turned around to glance at her, she just said to let him give Angus a raise, and then said to give him a pay cut, his sister's mood swings were really big.
"What's that?" Nia suddenly excitedly sat up. "Is that a natural golden black pearl?"
Jing Yang lifted the fortune value in the system, he found a black clam that was hard like a stone, when he opened it to take a look, inside was a golden black pearl the size of a marble. Even though it couldn't be considered too big, but it was very rare and valuable.
Jing Yang emerged from the water, flinging off some of the water from his hair. That scene let not a few people stare blankly.
Under the sunlight, the gold-haired blue-eyed handsome youth seemed more dazzling than the sun. The pure and clean blue eyes, as well as the still slightly childish eye sockets, just looking at those eyes, you would find it hard to believe that he was a bad person. His upper body emerged from the water, his well shaped and firm muscles brought out his excellent figure.
"So handsome!" Nia clenched her fists and exclaimed, when she saw Jing Yang lift up the object in his hands to look at it under the sunlight, it was really a golden black pearl. Then she called out in amazement: "My god, it's really a natural golden black pearl, ah~, I really want it, I also only have three of them, and they're still not as big as his."
Bowie suddenly stood up, Nia doubtfully raised her head to look at him: "What's the matter? You're not watching anymore?"
"I still have some matters to take care of, you can keep watching." Bowie quickly walked out the lounge.
"Oh." Nia also didn't pay attention to him, her brother's state of busying himself with his matters until he wasn't able to stop, she had long gotten used to it.
Bowie returned to his own room, landed on Star Network, clicked open Jing Yang's live stream image, and unceasingly enlarged the projection image.
~
Jing Yang lifted a net full of mussels and all kinds of pretty shells back, he saw that Jake was dispiritedly sitting on a rock scratching his head.
Throwing the net onto the ground, Jing Yang used a knife to knock open the two brown globes in his hands and carefully removed the inedible parts. Then he handed one to Jake, "You going to eat?"
"What's this?" Jake took it and asked curiously.
"Sea jelly." Jing Yang responded.
"Originally sea jelly looks like this ah." Jake said with surprise. "I've only eaten sea jelly in the form of desserts twice, they were plated in beautiful small crystal bowls, each serving was tiny, but so expensive."
Jing Yang ate the sea jelly in his hands and crouched down to start to look through the sea crystals.
Jake carefully finished tasting the sea jelly, and then continued to search through the stones: "I've looked for so long, but still couldn't find any, I really am too useless."
"I'll come search." Jing Yang pointed at those big stones. "Under those big stones are many lobsters, my net wasn't able to fit them so I didn't go catch them. You can go over to catch a few for our dinner."
"This I know how to do." Jake stood up and immediately picked up his net to run over to those big stones.
Jing Yang continued to enable his system, casually looking around, very quickly he found more than ten very beautiful sea crystals. The netizens were all shocked by his luck. If they hadn't been watching Jake look for half a day and not be able to find any, they would really have thought that in that area of stones, underneath was all covered with natural sea crystals.
Jake lifted a few big lobsters to come back, Jing Yang thought he was basically done, handling these things all needed time, he couldn't use all the time on searching for things.
"Ah!!!"
Jing Yang and Jake, who were just preparing to walk back, heard some loud yelling and immediately turned around to look over.
Danny was covering his face and crouching in the water, they also didn't know what happened to him.
Jake immediately quickly walked over to ask, "Danny, what happened to you?"
Jing Yang also followed him over.
"Really, really hurts, wu wu…" Danny covered his face, his words were unclear.
"What really hurts?" Jake had only heard the two words really hurts clearly, he didn't know what he said was hurting.
"Take your hands down to let us see, could constantly covering it up relieve the pain?" Jing Yang said.
Danny put down his hands, lifting his head: "Mo, mouth, really hurts."
Jing Yang froze, Jake was shocked, Danny's lips were swollen like two hot dogs, and his face was still covered with mucus and saliva, even the people watching on Star Network through the screen all froze.
"What did you eat?" Jing Yang asked.
"Sea, sea…" Danny was already hurting to the point of not being able to speak, he picked up the shell of the sea jelly from the water and showed them. Just now he had seen Jing Yang and Jake eating this, he also just happened to pick up one, he was curious about what it tasted like, so he opened it and ate it.
Jing Yang picked up the shell of the sea jelly and pointed it at the flying camera in the air, saying seriously: "It's best not to randomly eat sea jelly that has not been properly dealt with, the yellow parts inside are poisonous, they definitely need to be removed before eating. As long as the yellow parts has infiltrated into the white parts even a little bit, you can't eat it, otherwise you will become like him." The camera immediately turned to point at Danny's mouth.
Quite a few netizens all started laughing, Jing Yang's serious explanation, Jake's shocked face, and then the two hot dogs on Danny's face, this scene was really too comical.
"Hahahaha…" Nia laughed while hammering the sofa, without a bit of the appearance of a virtuous lady. If her etiquette teacher had seen her, they would definitely have been tempted to take some noodles and hang themselves.
The Bowie who always showed a cold expression also couldn't resist revealing a smile, he didn't feel like Danny's hot dog mouth was amusing, but rather felt that Jing Yang's deadpan appearance was too cute.
Jing Yang gave the lobsters and clam meat to Jake to deal with, he again entered the forest. Tonight the organizers would be giving them a "big trick," he needed to reinforce his roof in order to sleep well tonight.
Besides getting some tree bark that seemed like rubber, he also picked some kinds of herbal medicine to go back, and then placed them into the coconut shell to hammer them into pieces. Then he brought them to Danny: "Spread it on, tomorrow your swelling will be reduced, otherwise if you wait until tomorrow, your mouth will be rotten."
Danny took it with hesitation, he used his eyes to ask him, would this really be useful?
Jing Yang also didn't really say anything, he turned around to go busy himself, whether or not he used it was his own matter.
Danny used his finger to take some and smear it on his mouth, the refreshing feeling seemed to have lessened his pain, he immediately smeared the rest of the juice on his mouth. The green hot dog mouth seemed even more hilarious.
After he finished preparing the materials needed for his crafts, Jing Yang said to Jake, "Pick what you want to use."
"Thanks." Jake looked at the shells that had been polished into different shapes, as well as the conches that had already been cleaned, he felt that they were all very pretty. He had originally just planned on making a small bracelet, just stringing together a bunch of these would already be very pretty.
"You don't want the pearls or sea crystals? I've already chosen the ones I need, these are all extras." Jing Yang saw that he only picked some shells and conches, and then pushed the pearls and sea shells toward him a bit.
Jake felt bad about taking his sea crystals, because he had not even found a single one. He saw that the number of small white pearls left was still quite large, so he took a few.
Jing Yang started preparing dinner, Jake crouched at one side hugging his legs. For evaluating and reviewing food he is quite proficient, but not very good at making it himself. His home has many cooking high tech products, normally he only needed to put in the ingredients and select the recipe, and then he would be able to eat delicious food. But now there was not even a single high tech product, even the most basic portioning and fire management would all be done by himself, he really didn't know how to start.
Jake didn't know what Jing Yang was putting into the soup, the fragrance wafted out, he was unable to control his saliva from continually overflowing.
The other people who had been busying themselves in the ocean for a day had just returned when they smelled the fragrance from the food, but they could only see it and couldn't eat. Each one forcefully raised their spirits to run into the forest, they wanted to fill up their stomachs before coming back, otherwise that fragrance was really too tormenting.
"Delicious! Too delicious!" Jake bit the lobster meat, his occupational disease took over, he faced the camera and ate while introducing: "This lobster meat is very tender, it was roasted to perfection, not even a bit tough, the blending and proportions of ingredients are also particularly delicious…"
Jake had a large number of fans. This was because of his devotion to food, he would never falsely recommend some bad-tasting food for money. Plus he was very good at describing the flavor of the food, if it was delicious it was delicious, if it didn't taste good then it didn't taste good. Through his recommendations, his fans were able to accurately determine where they could go to eat delicious food and avoid some bad-tasting food. He had never made a misjudgment.
So he especially needed money, because his expenses were very high, the delicious things were always especially expensive. Jake felt that being in a team with Jing Yang, was really the best decision that he had made in his life. In order to still be able to eat such delicious food after the end of the competition, he would definitely need to cultivate a good relationship with him, and follow all of his advice.
To be honest Jing Yang really didn't think of using food to conquer anyone, but as long as the situation permitted, he wouldn't want to treat his own mouth and stomach badly. And along the way, you could torture those people who weren't able to make delicious food once they left their high tech devices.
Translator Notes:
[1] sea crystal – 海晶石, literally means sea crystal stone, it should be some kind of crystal but idk if it exists irl
[2] Nia – 杰卡, more names, pinyin Ni Ya
[3] Bowie – 博威, pinyin Bo Wei, this is a very important name so I was debating about this, Bowie just doesn't sound like a very cool name y'know
[4] inevitability – 理所当然, idiom, as if it should be by right
[5] golden-black pearl – 金边黑珍珠, would appreciate advice with this, 金边 means Phnom Penh in Cambodia, but I haven't found anything about Phnom Penh black pearls, so I just took it literally as colors
[6] sea jelly – 海乳冻, literally means sea milk jelly? I also don't know what this is
[7] deadpan – 一本正经, also means deadly earnest
[8] follow all of his advice – 言听计从, idiom, literally means to see, hear, and obey
Random Notes:
1.5 hours: 3:30 pm – 5 pm, for 4.4k characters to 3.1k words. Not bad actually, I think for the past arcs I also took about 1.5 hours. Also I recently spent about 1.5 hours translating 3.4k characters for 100kV, so this speed is actually quite good. I think most of the words here are quite simple, so I was able to just directly translate from the raws instead of having to always keep putting phrases into MDBG. Though of course an abundant amount of MDBG was still used.