CHAPTER 63: CHAPTER 63: FIRST ATTEMPT

Mu Qiu couldn’t stop laughing, mixing with the laughter of Li Yang and Guan Yu, it seemed like their laughter filled the entire factory.

Laughing so hard her forehead got hot.

After they had their fill of laughter, the two staggered their way to the middle of the cylinder, with a space between them.

"Let’s try having a guy sit in the middle first."

Since Cheng Zhirang and Shi Yuhuai helped them over, they naturally sat on the sides, trying to steady the cylinder with their feet.

The middle spot had to be Li Yang’s to take.

Sitting formally between two girls for the first time, with the possibility of falling together, Li Yang felt a bit awkward.

So he opted for a very "elegant lady-like" position, facing directly toward the swing.

His posture was very stiff, as it was hard to keep steady on the cylinder. He had to hold a single pose, not daring to move much.

The five of them, though wobbly, finally managed to sit stably and collectively breathed a sigh of relief.

Mu Qiu and Guan Yu sat cross-legged, leaning forward to lower their centers of gravity, while Cheng Zhirang and Shi Yuhuai focused on stabilizing the cylinder, sitting cross-legged but slightly sideways toward the swing, and Li Yang was the only one facing directly, feeling the breaths of Mu Qiu and Guan Yu on his hands on the cylinder.

"Now, how do we push?" Guan Yu didn’t dare move and even lowered her voice.

Shi Yuhuai: "She can only push off with her foot first."

"Of course, we have to push off with our foot first, we can’t come down again, can we? I meant how do we push it away when the swing swings back."

Given their current posture, with two people lying prone and two stabilizing, only Li Yang seemed capable of pushing the swing.

The so-called teamwork looked more like a game between Shu Ran and Li Yang.

Li Yang, with an invisible heavy responsibility on his shoulders, could only bravely say, "Then I’ll push, Brother Cheng, Brother Huai, you both keep an eye on the ropes, lend a hand if necessary."

Cheng Zhirang nodded, "Alright, let’s give it a try."

After discussing it, they informed Shu Ran, who was sitting on the swing from the start, "Sister Shu Ran, try pushing yourself with a foot to see if it works."

Shu Ran, her back to them, responded with a half-hearted okay, her expression almost at the end of her years of patience.

She tried hard to straighten her toes, barely touched the ground, and pushed off backward, getting the swing to sway a bit.

"Not enough! Shu Ran, push again!"

"...Fine."

Thus, Shu Ran suppressed her fear, and when the swing returned to its previous position, she pushed off again with her toes to make herself swing higher.

Just now she sat there, listening to the laughter and chatter behind her as they helped each other out, not needing to look back, feeling like everyone was mocking her for not fitting into the team. Despite being part of a team of six where even an unknown comedian and a nobody could talk to Cheng Zhirang and Li Yang like that, she couldn’t.

And Shi Yuhuai clearly didn’t favor her attitude-wise.

Shu Ran couldn’t understand why in all previous shows she was able to get along with others and become the show’s highlight, attracting the most audience, whereas in this show, she felt so overlooked. The production team turned a blind eye to the situation, not providing a plan, whether intending for a dramatic turnaround or merely making her an easy target for the drama later.

She wanted to ask Cheng Zhirang, but didn’t have the courage yet, and her agent didn’t agree either.

These dispiriting thoughts swirled in her head, as she tried to ignore the height of the platform in front of her and pushed off the ground for the third time to swing higher.

This time, it finally worked, the distance between the swing’s backward motion and the cylinder was close. Li Yang held his breath and focused, counting down in his mind three, two, one.

"Your hands! You didn’t lift them!" Guan Yu exclaimed beside him.

Li Yang, tense and focused, didn’t move his eyes an inch, still staring at the swing quickly approaching him, "No hands, I’ll use my foot!"

Mu Qiu was startled and looked up to persuade, "No, no, no! Don’t use..."

Don’t use your foot.

Unfortunately, it was too late. As soon as Li Yang lifted his leg, before he could push the swing cushion, the cylinder suddenly moved.

"Hey, hey, hey! Why’s it moving?!"

"Li Yang, your leg! Put it down!"

"Hold tight! Don’t panic!"

Screams of panic echoed.

The five of them were in chaos on top, as Li Yang with hands and feet entangled in mid-air staged a dying struggle, leaned back trying to grab onto something, and ended up grasping Guan Yu’s "fur coat," dragging her down with him.

Thud!

"Are you guys alright?" Shu Ran, sitting on the swing, passively swinging past them, swaying further and further, could only tug at the swing rope to barely glance back at them.

Of course, they were not alright.

Like dumplings, Li Yang dragged Guan Yu down with him, and then Cheng Zhirang and Shi Yuhuai couldn’t hold on either, following them in a tumble, with Shi Yuhuai falling flat on his back, his ethereal white robe flipping up from his legs covering half his face.

Mu Qiu held on the longest, clamping the cylinder tightly with her legs, but with everyone falling off, the cylinder rolled unrestrainedly, flipping her from lying face down to hanging upside down, then bam, she fell onto someone’s body below.

Thanks to Cheng Zhirang being such a good cushion, with the five of them sprawling everywhere, others rolled down the slope into the foam pit, leaving only the two of them up there.

Cheng Zhirang got her ponytail faceplanted, laboriously tilting his head sideways to avoid it. Mu Qiu quickly scrambled up, "Sorry, sorry, Brother Cheng."

Cheng Zhirang glanced at her high ponytail, inwardly marveling at its volume, with a sweet grapefruit scent seeming to linger at the tip of his nose.

Pushing himself off the ground, his voice remained calm, "It’s alright."

His voice seemed incapable of being harsh.

With such an inherently gentle voice, would it remain unchanged even when encountering anxious, painful, or joyful situations?

Mu Qiu let her gaze linger on him for a moment longer before looking down at the three people in the foam pit.

Li Yang sat up indignantly, grabbing a nearby foam block and whacking it, "Ugh, why did it move so easily! We were so close!"

Beside him, Shi Yuhuai was already standing and climbing back up, with an expression that clearly showed he’s the kind of determined person who wouldn’t give up until making several more attempts.

The last one, Guan Yu, also panted while sitting up, shaking her head like a paraplegic, with an oddly shaped foam piece somehow stuck to her head.

"You call that close? It was just the beginning!"

Li Yang looked at her, let himself flop down back onto the foam block, pointing weakly at her head, "You’ve got something on your head."

Guan Yu touched her head, removed the oddly-shaped foam piece, and threw it away, "Let’s go! Try again! I can’t believe it! This time, we’ll use our hands!"