Chapter 109: Group Variety Show (Extra 9)
After filming the haunted house episode, what followed was a one-day amusement park trip.
Lai Yudong had specifically asked the staff whether he was allowed to mention their schedule on Starlight (the fan platform). The answer was yes—because their itinerary had already gone viral online.
Apparently, after the park issued a visitor limit notice, some experienced fangirls immediately guessed that a recording was planned. By cross-checking the date and IP address, they easily deduced that it was for StarEpoch’s group variety show.
As for the amusement park arrangement, reactions varied—some were delighted, others miserable. This contrast was especially obvious among the three roommates.
Lai Yudong was cheerful on his own, while Zhao Yifeng and Qu Xincheng looked grim.
The reason was simple: fear of heights.
When Lai Yudong found out, he was utterly shocked.
“I can understand Qu Xincheng, but Zhao Yifeng—you’re afraid of heights too?”
Zhao Yifeng was just as shocked.
“Do I look like someone not afraid of heights?”
“Yeah.”
“…Yeah??”
Qu Xincheng stared at the two of them, utterly lost.
“Wait, why is it understandable for me?”
Zhao Yifeng: “You seriously don’t know why?”
Lai Yudong: “Isn’t it obvious?”
Because everyone agreed—the member with the smallest courage-to-body ratio in the entire group was none other than Qu Xincheng.
The next day, the whole group took a bus to the city’s largest amusement park.
The visitor limit notice had been posted well in advance, so by the time fans solved the “mystery” and tried to come watch, most of the tickets had already been bought by casual park-goers. Only a few lucky fans could grab leftover tickets on-site.
The upside was that the fans wouldn’t flood the park. The few who did make it in were easily kept outside the filming area by security, allowing the members to actually enjoy their day in peace.
The bus soon arrived at their destination.
[On the way to the amusement park! Wait for me!]
[So jealous of the fans who got tickets.]
[Woke up early just to watch others have fun at an amusement park—am I okay in the head?]
[For those going on-site, please don’t bring support banners or interfere with the filming of the group show~]
[It really is an amusement park! The rumors online didn’t lie!]
[Yuzu even posted on Starlight last night!]
“Are we free to play however we want inside, or do we have a set route?” Lai Yudong carefully confirmed with the staff.
“There’s no fixed route—you can move around freely,” the staff member replied, handing over a park guide. Several attractions were highlighted in fluorescent marker. “But before the end of the day, you must check in at all the marked rides.”
“Got it.” Lai Yudong quickly scanned the page—almost every extreme or thrill ride had been circled.
“Roller coaster, drop tower, log flume…” Su Junzhe read aloud a few of the names. He looked up curiously, blinking his innocent eyes. “What happens if we don’t go?”
Zhao Yifeng gave a cold laugh. “You’ll be kicked out of the group.”
[Bro, no need to be that harsh 😂]
[Instant solo debut]
[By the end of the show there’ll be two fewer members 😂]
[So only 4 and 5 are afraid?]
[Not sure, but I wouldn’t overestimate their courage either]
[This show’s turning into a survival game—the last member standing wins and takes all group resources (kidding)]
[Group variety show or Battle Royale edition??? Kkkk]
“The quality of your dinner tonight will depend on how many of the marked rides you complete,” the staff member announced, voice warm as 37 degrees—delivering a rule as cold as ice.
Qu Xincheng tugged pitifully at the team leader’s sleeve.
“Captain… do we really have to go?”
Su Junzhe, on the other hand, bounced up excitedly.
“Big dinner!!”
Lai Yudong looked genuinely torn.
On one hand, he couldn’t bear to push poor Qu Xincheng any further—after two days of back-to-back trauma, the guy truly deserved mercy. Having everyone eat instant noodles together back at the dorm didn’t sound that bad.
But on the other hand… the thrill of amusement rides was calling. Unlike the haunted house that took hours, these rides lasted mere seconds—or at most, a few minutes. Life was short—just grit your teeth, scream once, and it’d be over.
Either choice would make for excellent variety-show footage.
“Let’s vote,” Lai Yudong decided, opting for fairness. “Raise your hand if you want to do the rides.”
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—six hands went up.
“Six to one,” Lai Yudong concluded. “Then we’re riding everything.”
The only one who hadn’t raised his hand, Qu Xincheng, looked utterly helpless. He stared in disbelief at Zhao Yifeng, who had just betrayed him. Their brother-in-arms bond crumbled in an instant.
“Weren’t you afraid of heights?!”
Zhao Yifeng’s eyes shone with noble determination.
“Dinner’s on the company dime. I’m willing to sacrifice myself for the feast.”
Qu Xincheng: “…”
Such heroic conviction!
[Zhao Yifeng I’m actually crying 😭]
[If the capitalist’s paying, you milk the capitalist]
[Tonight’s goal: eat enough for seventy people]
[Zhao & Qu ascend to heaven—bottomless appetite unlocked]
[Even if Zhao didn’t raise his hand, majority still rules 😂]
Outnumbered and overpowered, Qu Xincheng could only resign himself to fate. Eyes brimming with tears, he was escorted to the roller coaster closest to the entrance—special thanks to Lai Yudong and Su Junzhe for their unwavering “support,” who gave him absolutely no chance to turn back.
If there’s a next life, he swore, he’ll reincarnate as someone brave.
However, once they reached the waiting area, the screams of the riders ahead had such a powerful sense of immersion that it made everyone start to second-guess their life choices.
“I’m… suddenly a little scared,” Bai Xuanhe swallowed nervously. “Why does it have to spin three hundred and sixty degrees at the highest point?”
“At that height, there’s not much difference between being upside down or right side up,” Lai Yudong’s attempt at comfort sounded more like a threat. “In the haunted house you at least had to run from NPCs. This one? You just buckle your seatbelt and do nothing—it’s a fully automatic experience.”
“…Isn’t that just another way of saying there’s no escape!?”
“You’re in the sky,” Lai Yudong teased. “Where exactly are you planning to run? Parachute midair?”
Mo Li couldn’t help asking, “You’re not scared? I’m kind of freaking out.”
“Not really.”
Lai Yudong wasn’t completely immune to heights, but compared to the haunted house, this was nothing. Rock climbing, bungee jumping, parkour—those were things he’d politely decline. But an amusement park ride? Totally manageable. At least he wouldn’t be trembling while being dragged along by teammates.
More than his own nerves, he was worried about them.
Above the seven of them, dark clouds were gathering thicker and thicker. By the time Qu Xincheng sighed for the 108th time, it was finally their turn to board.
Then came a serious dilemma—seat assignments.
The roller coaster had eight seats, two per row, meaning one person had to sit alone. Plus, there was the question of who would sit in the front or back.
“I’m sitting in the first row!” Su Junzhe volunteered immediately.
Bai Xuanhe hesitated at the edge of the platform.
“Isn’t the first row the scariest?”
“The view in the front row is more intense,” Lai Yudong explained while walking toward the back. “When you’re at the top, looking straight down feels like you’re hanging off the tracks. But if you keep your eyes closed, you’ll be fine.
“From a physics perspective,” he added, “the farther back you sit, the stronger the centrifugal force and the greater the sense of weightlessness—you’ll feel like you’re about to be thrown out.”
[? Then why are you sitting in the last row?]
[Someone’s gotta do it, right?]
[Self-sacrificing Captain Yuzu 🥺 always thinking of the team T^T]
That said, no one else volunteered for the first row. The roller coaster paused for a few seconds at its highest point—just long enough to test anyone’s mental endurance, even with their eyes shut tight.
One by one, everyone took their seats: Zhao Yifeng and Qu Xincheng in the second row, Mo Li and Bai Xuanhe in the third. That left only the first and last rows open for Li Xu.
“Didn’t they say the last row’s the scariest? Li Xu, you should sit in the first row,” Mo Li suggested kindly.
But Li Xu’s pride couldn’t handle that kind of concern. He walked straight toward the back with defiance, clearly unimpressed.
“It’s just the length of one theme song—what’s there to be afraid of?”
Watching the red-haired boy sit down and buckle in, Lai Yudong hesitated before asking,
“Have you ever ridden one before?”
Li Xu gave him a sideways glance.
“No.”
Lai Yudong: “…”
There were a lot of things he could’ve said—but now wasn’t the time.
Every seat had a fixed camera mounted for filming. Once all the safety harnesses were checked, a staff member pressed the start button.
The coaster began with a few smooth seconds, then turned sharply and started its slow, vertical climb to the top.
“This is taking forever! Are we still not there yet?!” Bai Xuanhe wailed.
Mo Li tried to sound upbeat.
“You can, uh, admire the park view—helps distract you.”
“Nope. If I even glance down, I’ll puke.” Zhao Yifeng had his eyes clamped shut, determined not to let anything from the outside world disturb him.
Meanwhile, Su Junzhe had completely different priorities.
“Why does everyone have their own close-up camera? When we drop, our faces are definitely going to collapse!”
[This is what true idol awareness looks like 😂]
[Only the fearless have the luxury to worry about their expressions]
[You can just do what Xiao Qu did—curl up like a boiled shrimp and no one will see your face.]
[I was wondering what that red lump was—turns out it was the Crown Prince kkk]
When the coaster reached its highest point, it came to a stop—as if giving everyone a moment to repent, but no chance to back out.
Lai Yudong remained perfectly calm. From under a hundred meters up, it wasn’t nearly as terrifying as it looked from below.
Without the walls and concrete of a skyscraper closing him in, the view of the amusement park stretched wide and open—much broader than looking down from a twentieth-floor window.
His teammates, however, clearly didn’t share the sentiment.
Except for Su Junzhe—who had freed both hands to “fully enjoy the experience”—everyone else looked grim.
Their forearms bulged with veins from gripping the safety bar so tightly it was a wonder they didn’t rip it clean off.
Lai Yudong had thought Li Xu, who sat upright and composed, was genuinely as calm as he looked. But when he glanced sideways, what he saw was a face so pale it looked like he’d put on the wrong shade of foundation.
Sensing the gaze beside him, Li Xu stiffly turned his head, forcing a grin.
“P-pretty… high up here.”
Lai Yudong smiled knowingly.
“Too late to regret it now.”
“I’m not regre—”
Before he could finish, the roller coaster jolted violently and plunged downward, straight as a meteor crashing to earth.
Their souls seemed to lag half a second behind, flung out of their bodies and chasing desperately after the fainting forms still strapped to the seats.
A storm of screams echoed over the amusement park.
“Aaaahhh! Help! I’m done! I quit!!”
“Woooah—it’s amazing! So exciting!!”
“Ow! The wind’s making my eyes water!”
“That’s not wind, that’s conjunctivitis!?”
“I—I screamed so hard my throat hurts!!”
[Who said the conjunctivitis line I’m crying 😂]
[It was Xiao Hong]
[Guess it wasn’t thrilling enough—some of them still had the energy to roast each other doge]
[Every member has the potential to be the group’s main vocal]
[Can’t hit high notes? Easy—send them to a haunted house or a roller coaster]
[What about Yuzu?]
[Yuzu’s been disqualified from being the main vocal because he’s too brave (just kidding)]
In truth, Lai Yudong had shouted a few times himself—like when the coaster first dove straight down from the top, or during those whip-fast, drifting turns.
But his screams were nothing more than instinctive, short bursts of surprise.
“Wah!”
“Ah!”
“Whoa!”
“Wow!”
—Something like that.
Compared to his teammates, his reactions were utterly insignificant.
All his exclamations combined probably didn’t last as long as a single scream from Qu Xincheng during one short drop.
The coaster flipped midair, their bodies hanging upside down at a 180-degree angle, like bats dangling from the tracks.
The world inverted in Lai Yudong’s eyes—the distant Ferris wheel looked like a sun sprouting from the ground.
Wind and shrieks tangled together around his ears, sharp and unrelenting, so much so that he couldn’t even tell whose voice was whose.
Only one thought crossed his mind—
Please don’t tell me the staff are going to ask again who screamed the loudest.
————————————————————
Author’s Note:
Info Drop —
Sweet or Savory Preference:
Su Junzhe (sweet), Lai Yudong (savory), Mo Li (savory), Zhao Yifeng (sweet), Qu Xincheng (sweet), Bai Xuanhe (savory), Li Xu (savory)
Yuyu suffering in silence