Superstar's Development Diary
Chapter 329 - 330: Fighting for Money

Chapter 329: Chapter 330: Fighting for Money

He Jinxia slightly furrowed her brows, feeling a headache coming on again. Both explanations made sense, and she didn’t know which one to believe.

Ouyang Baoer blinked her eyes, offering a suggestion that was somewhat a compromise:

"It’s still early, and the victim isn’t in a hurry to confirm anything. Let’s keep Brother Qingzhu’s idea on hold and focus on finding the clue related to the number 34 first. If we still can’t find anything by the end, then we might have to go with Brother Qingzhu’s approach."

The others thought it over and nodded involuntarily.

Indeed, what other option was there?

So, they began their journey of flipping through books again, checking what the thirty-fourth word on the thirty-fourth page of each book was, recording all those words, and searching for any associated meanings among them.

The study was large, and the bookshelves held at least hundreds of books, but everyone was flipping with a purpose, so the process was efficient. In less than two hours, all books had been examined.

"Of, with, therefore, perhaps, some..."

Wang Tao read out the words they found, but halfway through, he found it uninteresting, abruptly stopped, tossed the paper on the table, and said, "You take a look. Do you see any connection?"

The others had already looked over the words once, and hearing Wang Tao say this, they all shook their heads.

Ouyang Baoer spoke helplessly, "With five thousand years of Chinese culture, each dynasty has added quite a few characters. Now there are over eighty thousand in total, even though only about three thousand five hundred are commonly used. Still, finding a connection among this vast sea of characters is very difficult."

Wang Tao and Lin Qingzhu turned to look at her, faces filled with astonishment.

Wang Tao exclaimed, "It’s not easy, hearing such precise numbers from you."

Lin Qingzhu nodded emphatically, in complete agreement: "I thought her mind was only filled with vague words like ’probably’, ’maybe’, and ’seems’."

Ouyang Baoer’s expression darkened, and with her hands on her hips she retorted, "Hey, as a naive, cute, innocent, lively, and cheerful pretty girl, these bits of knowledge are not too difficult for me!"

Wang Tao and Lin Qingzhu immediately turned their heads away, one of them muttering quietly, "And who was it that said during the last theme competition that their mathematics was taught by a physical education teacher and was only at an elementary school level?"

The other also muttered quietly, "And who claimed in the competition before last that they were an illiterate, sternly warning us not to rely on her for ancient poetry or expect her to draw, also stating she was a descendant of the bluffer school, where all answers were guided by ’spiritual intuition’?"

What is spiritual intuition?

It’s walking around with closed eyes, hoping the random points made are somehow correct—"spiritual intuition."

He Jinxia and Ren Xiao couldn’t help but turn their heads away and smiled again.

Ouyang Baoer choked on her words, her eyes darting around as she pretended to be ungracious, "Two uncles, is it right to tear down a pretty girl’s stage like this?"

Wang Tao and Lin Qingzhu spread their hands and shrugged their shoulders, their faces expressing helplessness.

He Jinxia walked over, picked up the paper from the table, and looked at it again.

The text that came out was incredibly chaotic. It wasn’t even close to forming a sentence, nor did it contain any words from their names.

Her eyebrows slightly creased—could they be looking in the wrong direction?

The death list, 34, the Hell Girl’s CD, hundreds of books on the shelf... which one contained the victim’s information, and what pattern connected these clues?

He Jinxia looked up at Lin Qingzhu and Ren Xiao, a thoughtful look flashed in her eyes, and also, one of these two people might be the murderer?

The other people hadn’t shown their character cards to everyone, and she wasn’t sure if these two were the only ones who spoke Japanese. If a third person who spoke Japanese emerged, another suspect would be added to the list of potential murderers.

Suddenly, at that moment, a piercing echo sounded through the entire villa as someone deliberately blew into a microphone!

Everyone involuntarily covered their ears.

After a while, a sinister voice followed by a cackling laughter transmitted.

"In one hour, the villa will enter the final deduction phase. In one hour, you must determine the victim, and if you guess the wrong victim, ’massacre mode’ will begin."

The mysterious person’s tone abruptly changed, transitioning to a flat, mechanical sound:

"Massacre mode: The murderer hidden among you will no longer be restrained and can kill any one of you. However, you can only activate ’counterattack’ mode when facing the murderer. If you successfully counterattack the murderer, you will not face any punishment, but if you kill an innocent person by mistake, you will follow them to the Yellow Spring."

He Jinxia’s eyebrows twisted, her expression becoming very grave. If they entered massacre mode, it would be very disadvantageous for them as ordinary people.

In this mode, the murderer could kill without restraint, and although ordinary people could counterattack, killing the wrong person would also lead to their death, not to mention the difficulty in identifying the murderer would force ordinary people to fight amongst themselves.

To avoid being easily killed, they would have to perform a series of self-preservation actions, which would greatly test their cunning at every turn. This might be the most important stage of the theme game.

As for theme games, winning meant rewards, while losing brought punishment.

Punishment was one thing, but He Jinxia was rather envious of the rewards.

To encourage the stars to put in extra effort, the program didn’t skimp on benefits. The public reward for the winning team was gold jewelry, while the substantial prize money, not revealed to the audience, was hidden.

As for how much the prize money was, Luo You hadn’t told her exactly, only mentioning it was equivalent to what she would make from two second-tier magazine shoots.

Thinking of this, He Jinxia slightly clenched her hand.

Although she had various ways to make money after becoming famous, because she focused primarily on acting and spent most of her time on set, she had little time to attend external events, so her ability to draw money was not strong.

And she wanted to open a supermarket for her mother, something she couldn’t manage with her current savings alone.

Many thoughts flashed through He Jinxia’s mind, yet her face remained calm; she resolved to earn as much as possible and strive for victory!

Among the five stars present, probably only Jinxia was so earnestly participating in the program with the goal to make money.

Although this initial intention might seem tacky, it was grounded in reality.

Compared to the other stars’ pursuit of the intangible popularity and trendiness, the tangible money in hand was indeed substantial.

While she was lost in thought, the mysterious person had finished the threatening message and then announced that finding the real victim would trigger the next mode: "Find the True Murderer".

The flat, mechanical voice rang out again, seeming more personable than the mysterious person’s threats:

"Find the True Murderer mode: If the next victim is successfully identified, the murderer will be restricted to only being able to kill the victim and unable to harm others. The others may counterattack the murderer, but if they mistakenly kill someone, they will join the mistakenly killed innocent in going to the Yellow Spring."

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