Chapter 13: Even the Big Black Cow Did It

……

“No！！！”

Listening to the broadcast announcement, Deng Chao yelled painfully at the camera, “My little brother is gone!!”

“Don’t worry, Chao-ge will avenge you right away.”

Just as Deng Chao made up his mind, the sound of a bell suddenly rang in his ears. His heroic spirit vanished instantly, and he panicked, hunching over to hide.

“Wang Baoqiang out! Wang Baoqiang out!”

“Zheng Kai out! Zheng Kai out!”

“Ma Su out! Ma Su out!”

……

Kim Jong-kook lived up to his name as the ‘Tiger,’ eliminating Zheng Kai and the others with ease.

Now, inside the entire building, only three brothers from the Running Man team remained!

Deng Chao, Li Chen, and ‘Gu Qing.’

Gu Qing?!

……

In the small elimination room,

Chen Chichi, whose back injury had flared up, was lying on his side on the floor clutching a pillow, handing his name tag over for ‘Gu Qing’ to inherit.

“Xiao Gu, whether we win or not depends on you.”

Chen Chichi was full of anticipation.

“Chichi-ge, don’t worry, I will carry your conviction forward!”

Gu Qing clenched his fists, pulled himself together, put on Chen Chichi’s name tag, and walked out of the room with determination.

“I don’t believe it. If I can’t beat him, can’t I at least hide?”

Gu Qing took a cameraman into the elevator and pressed a random floor button.

“Ding-dong—”

The elevator doors opened. Before Gu Qing could step out, a massive, dark shadow blocked the doorway.

Kim Jong-kook: “?”

Gu Qing: “??”

The two stared at each other, wide-eyed. The air seemed to freeze at that moment.

“Why are you still alive after being eliminated?”

“Wasn’t your name tag ripped off by me?”

Kim Jong-kook looked bewildered, not forgetting to block the gap where Gu Qing might escape.

“Hong, I’m using someone else’s name tag.”

After Gu Qing explained with a look of despair, he added, “I just came out, can you let me live a little longer?”

“No.”

Kim Jong-kook shook his head with a smile.

“Hong, can we play rock-paper-scissors? If I win, you let me run for three seconds. If I lose, you rip it off directly.”

“Hmm… alright then.”

Looking at the pitiful Gu Qing, Kim Jong-kook felt a bit of sympathy.

“Rock, paper, scissors!”

Gu Qing threw scissors; the Tiger threw a rock.

Gu Qing turned around, his face ashen.

“Sorry, you’re just too unlucky.”

This time, even Kim Jong-kook couldn’t suppress his laughter.

……

Meanwhile,

In the small black room,

“Chen Chichi, am I still your good brother or not!”

Zheng Kai was complaining, “You didn’t even give your name tag to me?”

“Don’t forget, I was the one who accompanied you to the hospital to get your appendix removed!”

Hearing this,

Chen Chichi got angry, “If you hadn’t accompanied me to the hospital, you would have been killing me!!”

“What does that mean?”

Wang Zhulan, sitting nearby, asked curiously, ready to eat some melon.

“A few hours ago, I said I wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go to the hospital for a check-up, but he insisted on dragging me to play games, and we played for the whole afternoon.”

Chen Chichi explained indignantly.

“……”

Zheng Kai was speechless and turned his head away in embarrassment.

“Chen Chichi out! Chen Chichi out!”

The broadcast announcement echoed through the small black room.

“What’s going on?!”

Chen Chichi’s eyes widened. He tried to sit up, but the pain made him gasp, “I’m done for just like that?”

“Has it even been a minute since Xiao Gu went out?”

“Creak~”

Gu Qing pushed the door open, looking dejected, “Chichi-ge, I’m sorry…”

He explained his tragic encounter, which made everyone in the room burst into laughter.

“Xiao Gu, you’re too unlucky.”

Chen Chichi covered his face, unable to bear the sight.

“Too miserable, too miserable.”

Wang Zhulan echoed from the side, but he couldn’t hide the envy in his eyes.

Needless to say,

Once this encounter of Gu Qing’s was edited into the show, it would definitely crack the audience up.

Unlike him, who was killed in seconds at the start, providing zero entertainment value.

“Next, we can only count on Chao-ge and Chen-ge.”

Gu Qing sat cross-legged next to Chen Chichi, resting his chin in his hands, zoning out while waiting for the game to end.

……

“Chen, we must join forces!”

After Deng Chao found Li Chen, he decided to rely on their numerical advantage to fight the enemy together.

Along the way,

The two intentionally made noise to attract Kim Jong-kook’s attention.

After a few probes, the battle was imminent.

Kim Jong-kook attacked Li Chen first, grabbing his name tag and preparing to rip it off.

But the ‘Big Black Bull’s’ reaction wasn’t slow either; he reached out to grab the Tiger’s name tag, but because his arms were shorter, he missed by a hair.

Fortunately,

Deng Chao intervened in time, rushing forward to rescue him and preventing Li Chen from being eliminated instantly.

The three wrestled for a long time, locked in a fierce battle.

Seeing that the time was almost up, Kim Jong-kook decided to throw the match.

“Rip—”

With Deng Chao’s encirclement, Li Chen yanked off Kim Jong-kook’s name tag.

The whistle blew, and the game ended.

Kim Jong-kook clapped with a smile, preparing to celebrate his opponent’s victory.

But unexpectedly,

Perhaps because he was too excited about winning, the Big Black Bull actually started stripping.

“Snap—”

Li Chen tore his short-sleeved shirt open, revealing a physique that was quite robust compared to the average person, celebrating with self-forgetful passion.

Seeing this scene,

Kim Jong-kook’s smile faltered. His already small eyes narrowed into slits.

Fine, fine, so that’s how you want to play?

Winning is one thing, but you have to rub it in my face?

He has his pride too!

*Sibal!!* (Damn it!!)

He decided that after this episode finished airing, he would have a good talk with the production team in the Peninsula to organize a showdown between the two Running Man teams as soon as possible.

He was definitely going to get his revenge!

……

“Oh oh oh, Chen-ge is awesome.”

“As expected of the Big Black Bull, he’s just fierce.”

Gu Qing and the others in the small black room naturally came over to join the celebration.

As the final winner, Li Chen went to the password box, entered the numbers found on the back of Kim Jong-kook’s name tag, and successfully retrieved the White Snake treasure inside.

Helping the team win!

With this,

The recording of the first episode of Running Man came to an end.

……

“Damn, I’m literally dying.”

Deng Chao draped his elbow over Gu Qing’s shoulder, exhausted, and cursed, “How is this variety show even more tiring than filming a movie!”

As a man nearing forty, running and jumping all day while having to wrestle people nearly took the wind out of him.

Gu Qing was thanking the assistant who had been filming him. Upon hearing Deng Chao’s words, his smiling expression didn’t change.

As an ordinary person from the bottom of society in his past life, he naturally didn’t agree with Deng Chao’s words.

Is filming a variety show for a day tiring?

Of course it is!

But compared to what he gained, it wasn’t worth mentioning.

In the web novels he read in the past, the ‘golden fingers’ obtained were at best one part effort for ten parts reward, or at most a hundred or thousand times.

But compared to the ‘208s’ (high-earning celebrities) of the domestic entertainment industry…

One can only say that poverty limits the imagination.

Besides,

Speaking of 208s, didn’t he have a ‘top female celebrity’ right beside him who was no less than them?

“Little brother Gu Qing~”

Speak of the devil, Baby’s sweet voice came over.

“What’s wrong, Baby-jie?”

Gu Qing squeezed out a professional smile.

“Hmm… ah?”

Yang Ying was momentarily dazzled.

Even though it was night, the young man’s smile was like the warm sun of spring: bright and gentle.

She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear unnaturally and said, “The director said the theme for the next episode is ‘Past Life Lovers,’ and the script assigned to us is *Comrades: Almost a Love Story*.

I wanted to ask if there are any scenes you’d like to film, do you have any ideas?”

“Baby-jie, I’ll listen to you.”

A hint of confusion flickered in Gu Qing’s eyes.

As a post-00s kid before he transmigrated, he hadn’t actually watched the full movie *Comrades: Almost a Love Story*; he only knew it from short video clips.

“It’s a deal then, I’ll send you the script later.”

Hearing this, Yang Ying smiled sweetly, stood on her tiptoes, reached out to pat Gu Qing’s head again, and didn’t forget to say goodbye to Old Deng.

“Xiao Gu, it’s getting late, you should go back and rest too.”

Watching Baby’s back as she left, Deng Chao also patted Gu Qing’s head and said warmly.

“Mm, bye Chao-ge.”

……

……

(End of chapter)