I have a persona specifically for acting.

What happened?

Lying on the ground with his hands tightly bound by a belt, He Su couldn’t understand the situation outside. When he heard his companions’ terrified screams, he crazily arched his body on the floor and kicked his legs wildly, trying to stop the crazy woman from her violent actions.

Just as he was about to kick Duan Ge, she effortlessly lifted her leg to evade the attack and then stomped down hard on his ankle. He had no idea where she was stepping, but she managed to immobilize his legs, her military boots mercilessly grinding against him.

Duan Ge: “Be quiet.”

He Su didn’t know what she was saying.

However, the violent glare she shot at him made him instinctively close his mouth tightly.

How terrifying…

He Su shivered.

Duan Ge’s shooting was precise; in the blink of an eye, the number of survivors in the top right corner dropped from 15/20 to 11/20. The three people in the filming room awoke to see the equally astonished expressions of the staff…

Actually, people had rushed over upon hearing the commotion.

Duan Ge initially wanted to wait with her gun for a few of the less intelligent ones to walk into her line of fire. However, after being angrily reminded by Kong Yeming, no one dared to make a reckless move.

“Fine then…”

She softly muttered as she used strong packing tape to attach the machine gun’s grip to a cardboard box, placing it under the cashier counter and slightly pushing it out. Anyone glancing in from outside the store would see the exposed gun muzzle.

“Sure enough, ambushes suit my style better, right?”

“And I’ve really wanted to try this trick…”

After taking down three enemies who had much better treatment than her, Duan Ge’s mood improved. She smiled joyfully and chatted with the foreign survivor in a language he couldn’t understand—he didn’t understand, but he could see what this woman was planning.

Duan Ge picked up another gun and took a breathable, dust-proof black mask from her waist bag, putting it on and revealing only her cold, sharp eyes.

This wasn’t to conceal her identity or to look cool.

It was just that there was quite a bit of dust in the ventilation ducts.

Duan Ge crawled from the ventilation duct to the women’s restroom on the same floor— a short distance, just adjacent. If it were any farther, she wouldn’t bother crawling. Not only would it be strenuous, but she would also likely end up in strange places, which weren’t suitable for moving around.

……

Kong Yeming was very cautious. After hearing the gunfire, he stopped his companions from rushing in impulsively.

He suspected that his teammates were likely in grave danger. They couldn’t fall into the enemy’s trap and let the sacrifices increase: “Since they have firearms but haven’t directly killed us, they probably aren’t as numerous as I imagined. If we all rush in together to attack, maybe some will get injured, but the chances of survival will be higher.”

“Rush in?” someone questioned.

“I’ll be the first to charge in,” Kong Yeming replied calmly. “We could also exit now and escape the mall, but I don’t think we’d get far. What do you all think?”

The group fell silent.

Someone quickly poked their head out to glance through the glass window and immediately spotted the dark muzzle of the machine gun, their heart tightening as they pulled their head back. “He’s still waiting for us! Shouldn’t we just run?”

Run?

The group exchanged glances, and no one dared to make a decision. They all turned to look at Kong Yeming in unison.

Kong Yeming sighed inwardly, realizing that his strategy of overwhelming numbers was no longer feasible—[These people are too likely to betray their teammates,] he thought.

[Kong Ge (brother ) is right.]

[Kong Ge understands people; I’m starting to like him. He performed the best in this show besides Tong Zhao.]

[Why not just run away directly?]

The next moment, Kong Yeming’s inner voice answered the audience’s doubts: [The enemy’s goal is to wipe us out. We have a relationship of life and death. Previously, the enemy was hidden while we were in the open, but now that we finally know he’s in the Watsons store, we can’t miss this opportunity to take him out…]

Kong Yeming helplessly sighed, “Since you all want to run, then let’s run.”

One more day of life is better than none.

This answer obviously aligned more with the group’s expectations; after all, turning and fleeing didn’t require much courage.

However, just as they turned around, gunfire erupted—

Specifically coming out from the ventilation duct, Duan Ge had two reasons: one, she had a sudden impulse to make her entrance in the classic assassin style, and two, she was also on guard against what Kong Yeming had said about a group of eleven charging in at the same time.

To minimize risk, she had to catch them off guard.

Before everyone could react, she planned to take them all out!

All the escapees were focused on the muzzle of the gun in the Watsons store ahead, and they all felt a sense of retreat, thinking about how to avoid the enemy and that if they could escape, they should.

With this mindset, how could they possibly stand against Duan Ge?

“How did she appear behind us!?”

“Run!”

As gunfire rang out, some fled without a word, some reminded their “teammates,” and others pulled their teammates to use as shields against the bullets. Kong Yeming was hoarse, desperately trying to reorganize them, only to find it was futile.

The pressure Duan Ge exerted made them lose their courage to resist.

Except for Kong Yeming, whose fighting spirit was at 50, everyone else was below 20—while they weren’t scared to the point of begging for mercy and waiting to die on the spot, they also lacked the courage to fight her to the death. With every gunshot, someone in the filming chamber awakened in shock.

Not only were they unprepared, but the production team was also stunned.

The entire staff backstage fell into silence.

No one had anticipated this kind of situation.

Yes, Tong Zhao had previously performed excellently, her handgun skills were precise, but what was happening in this mall was on a completely different level. Who would have thought that she could kill everyone as if she were in a god mode! You could say she was like a berserker; she was seriously crawling through the ventilation ducts for infiltration. You could call her an assassin, but she was at most relying on surprise attacks, killing them all right in front of them.

After a brief moment of silence, the backstage erupted into a flurry of discussions—

“Damn, what’s going on? She’s taking them out one by one!”

“Quick, modify the data! Don’t let her finish them all!”

The data technician was nearly in tears: “What can I change to stop her? Besides, I think what I change isn’t as fast as her kills…”

All the staff turned to look at Director Chen, waiting for him to make a decision.

A cigarette slipped from Director Chen’s fingers and fell to the ground.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

“Don’t worry? Are you serious? But this is a huge mess!”

…

Director Chen raised his hand and pressed his forehead: “Because there’s only one survivor left alive, and everyone else has awakened.”

Ah, I see.

The filming backstage fell into another long silence, with only the voices of questions rising and falling in the filming chamber—seeing that almost everyone had awakened, the contestants thought it was a normal filming wrap-up, still puzzled that they didn’t feel the usual headache from the common instinctive reaction after long-duration variety shows.

Only Tong Zhao and He Su remained asleep in the cabin.

…

Duan Ge didn’t listen to stories and left no survivors.

After clearing the scene, she counted the number of bodies present, confirming that she had captured them all. She then diligently began to take off their watches: “I want to see what I can draw from this.”

After removing the watches, Duan Ge remembered that she had left someone in the store.

He Su heard the outside noise transition from chaotic sounds to angry shouts, then to screams, and finally to silence…

He began to wish he was the one getting shot.

Not out of self-sacrifice, but because waiting for the big bad to return here was truly more torturous than death.

He Su felt his heart racing, almost ready to burst out of his chest.

[No sound? Could it be that they all got killed? How did she do it? Is she crazy? Help, I really hope she forgets about me and doesn’t come back to finish me off. But if she leaves me here, I won’t survive either…]

In his fear, all kinds of chaotic thoughts flooded his mind.

Then, he heard footsteps gradually approaching.

[He Su’s perspective really gives off a horror movie vibe.]

[Just a passerby, watching a survival variety show for the first time, how does one survive this?]

[Look at the title, “One Life Survivor,” that’s about Tong Zhao. Don’t you get it yet?]

[Wow, that’s a perfect essay right to the point.]

With tears in his eyes, He Su saw that slender figure.

She was splattered with blood, coming from a respectable opponent— the only one who dared to rush in and try to dodge her shots with agile movements, closing the distance to subdue her, Kong Yeming. This bloodied appearance made her seem even colder and more sinister, almost inhuman.

Like the Grim Reaper?

That description seemed too literary.

In any case, when He Su saw her, he couldn’t help but think: “My dog at home looks like this when it sees the butcher.”

All the audience focused on how Duan Ge would handle He Su.

He Su was still wondering: “Am I going to face the top ten tortures of the Qing Dynasty? No, please! Just give me a quick end!”

“You really didn’t need to be kept alive,”

Duan Ge scoffed with a tone of indignation, “Seems like all that good food didn’t improve you much.”

The rabbit was not only brutal but also held a grudge.

He Su, considered somewhat handsome among the contestants and having survived to the end, made the audience draw comparisons between the two. Unfortunately, Duan Ge didn’t give them a chance to ship a new couple; she simply ended it all with a shot, took off his last watch, and hummed a little tune as she returned to the base.

A true total annihilation.

Like something out of a dream…

In traditional variety shows, guests often tone down their performance to continue filming, even if they are extremely talented, or they may build up their act gradually. But in survival variety shows, for Duan Ge, this was her real life—who would consider the show’s effect in a fight for survival? If you’re going to kill, do it quickly; anything that can be resolved in one day should never be dragged into the next!

How could they continue filming like this?

The staff exchanged glances, and half of them went to explain the situation to the awakened guests.

In order to stretch the episode’s runtime and because they had previously promised Tong Zhao’s fans that the top ten on the fan leaderboard would have the chance to participate in a lottery for her, the show was not over yet; it had just turned into a “one-person variety show.” In the real “One Life Survivor,” after returning to the base, she redeemed a total of nineteen watches at once!

The results of the ten lottery draws were determined by the top ten wealthy fans on the leaderboard:

1. Unified Old Vinegar Pickled Beef Noodles
2. Hema Fresh Instant Food
3. Soup Master
4. Mediterranean Chicken Skewers (a box of 7 skewers)
5. A pack of marinated salmon
6. Lazy Instant Handcrafted Mini Lobsters
7. A shampoo and body wash set from a certain sponsor brand
8. A snack gift pack
9. Self-heating mini hot pot
10. Strawberry Milk-flavored Popsicle

…

After exchanging for a pile of miscellaneous items, Duan Ge sat cross-legged in front of a mountain of supplies, no longer as excited and anxious as she had been when she saw the cooked food before. She leisurely picked through the items, glancing at this one for a moment and touching that one, exuding the happiness of a hamster surrounded by a room full of sunflower seeds.

After all, having experienced the resource shortages of a post-apocalyptic world, Duan Ge had a deep obsession with food.

Even a bland and tasteless instant noodle cake would be thoroughly enjoyed by her.

In the end, Duan Ge chose a pack of marinated salmon, Mediterranean-style chicken skewers, and a self-heating hot pot. Once the mini hot pot was heated up, she tossed in the chicken balls, letting them roll around in the boiling, spicy red oil broth, which soon glistened with a layer of oil.

After eating and drinking her fill, she treated herself to a strawberry milk-flavored popsicle…

What a divine life this was!

Duan Ge: [Does this mean the dog boss is finally acting like a human?]

Hearing the little one’s confused thoughts, the fans were eager to jump up: [Absolutely not, it’s all about mom’s love!]

[The dog production team wouldn’t treat her like a person; only we are the solid support behind our little one.]

[I want to see Tong Zhao on a food variety show; she looks so cute when she eats seriously!]

Duan Ge: [Never mind, none of these seem like normal supplies anyway…]

After finishing her meal, Duan Ge carefully packed up the remaining supplies and slung the ridiculously heavy backpack onto her back, heading toward the quarantine line outside of The City. She had completed her mission, her hands stained with blood, and the smell of gunpowder lingering on her palms.

As the sun set, it gradually draped the entire City in a layer of golden clouds.

Duan Ge walked down the deserted street, the setting sun casting a long, elongated shadow behind her, her slender figure contrasting amusingly with the heavy, oversized backpack.

The background music was Delara’s “We Don’t Run From Anyone.”

Assassins fear nothing.

No matter who it is or how many people there are, Duan Ge will not shy away.

As her figure grew smaller in the distance, the scene gradually blurred, and the only clear words that remained were…

“One Life Survivor.”

This time, the survivor is: Tong Zhao.

This time, the production team had no time to modify the data.

The wall Tong Zhao stood behind was so high that even a desperate dog couldn’t jump over it.

As the list of behind-the-scenes staff appeared, the audience finally realized… it was really over! Those who had come to enjoy the show left five-star reviews in the live stream, while seasoned variety show fans quickly noticed that this was clearly at least half shorter than the expected season duration. Ending it like this was likely a last resort…

What else could they film?

Would they just let Tong Zhao do an eating broadcast, filling the remaining half of the duration with that?

Throw the “dead” guests back in for a sequel titled “One Life Survivor: Twenty People Return from the Dead”? Please, that would be utterly humiliating; the audience would be furious, and no one would tolerate such nonsense. After weighing the pros and cons, Director Chen chose the path with the least loss, leaving this episode with a dignified conclusion and hoping for high quality—

As long as enough people watched, they could still break even.

Once they realized it was finished, some reluctant variety show fans and supporters didn’t exit; instead, they began chatting in the comments section, filling the screen with applause emojis for a while.

[It wasn’t enough to watch; I want to see Tong Zhao continue filming!]

[Will Tong Zhao still participate in variety shows in the future?]

[What variety show would still dare to invite her? She would just take everyone out!/Dog head]

[Don’t be so petty; this is the production team underestimating her abilities. If it were a survival show on a deserted island, it might be much more interesting.]

[I’ve said it before: waiting for Sister Zhao to battle a T-Rex!]

The comments were so lively that even after the live broadcast of “One Life Survivor” ended, the discussion continued for a full two hours, overshadowing other serious 24-hour variety shows that were airing at the same time, leaving them frustrated and speechless.

So annoying.

……

When Duan Ge woke up in the holographic filming pod, she immediately relinquished her position to her primary persona.

The long-sleeping Tong Zhao opened her eyes, looking dazed, as if her soul had been scattered.

When she finally opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the chandelier on the ceiling and a circle of staff and fellow guests surrounding the pod.

It was like a combination of Tang Seng, Sha Seng, Sun Wukong, and Zhu Bajie, all with the same “You’re awake!” expression.

Director Chen was delighted: “You’re awake!”

It was pure and perfectly aligned with reality.

Tong Zhao was even more confused.

Propping herself up with one hand on the bottom of the pod, she asked after her assistant sister helped remove the data cables connecting her forehead and temples, “What is everyone doing? Is this a collective viewing of my remains? I’m not dead, am I?”

“Puh! Don’t say such ominous things.”

The assistant used to be her fan.

After several episodes of “Cloud Raising the Rabbit,” the fan’s admiration had transformed into maternal love. Hearing Tong Zhao curse herself like that, she couldn’t help but disapprove and correct her. Tong Zhao was more accepting of the care that girls might overstep boundaries, so she obediently nodded and said, “Okay.”

Director Chen wore a sympathetic expression: “Let’s put it this way—she can’t possibly die even if everyone else does.”

The other staff immediately showed expressions of discomfort, clearly feeling called out.

Tong Zhao, who hadn’t yet regained her memories, looked over: “Director, do you really want me to die?”

“No, no!”

Under her intense gaze, Director Chen quickly shook his head like a mouse that had its tail stepped on. “I wouldn’t dare! Um, actually, this is everyone waiting for you to join us for a celebration feast.”

Tong Zhao was puzzled: “Even though I don’t have a headache, don’t you all need to rest this time?”

In the past, whenever filming a long-term survival variety show, they would always arrange a full day of rest after each awakening.

At this point, Director Chen sighed again: “No need to rest.”

After all, it won’t take long.

The others died much earlier than her, and after a shower, they all said they were well-rested.

It didn’t matter that the others weren’t coming; this meal was mainly because he didn’t want to offend Tong Zhao and wanted to make a good impression before she regained her memories.

So Director Chen clearly explained to the others before arranging the celebration feast that those who didn’t want to come didn’t have to.

But how could the guests pass up the chance to get close to a variety show director?

Knowing that the celebration feast would be filmed in full for behind-the-scenes editing later, everyone became even more enthusiastic.

Even the amateur guests who weren’t pursuing fame but came to have fun immediately decided to attend the dinner when they learned they would have a chance to eat with Tong Zhao, even if they had to endure a headache.

With twenty guests and the staff behind the scenes, there had to be at least four large tables of food.

The production team was considerate in this regard. Noticing the weather forecast predicted no rain that evening, they set up the banquet by the lakeside, allowing everyone to enjoy the beautiful scenery while indulging in delicious food. After returning to her room to freshen up, Tong Zhao changed into casual attire for the event. Her table was filled with the main crew members, including the director, assistant director, and variety show screenwriters.

As soon as Tong Zhao appeared, there was a wave of cheers by the lakeside—

“The super assassin has arrived!”

“Super assassin? Isn’t it an empire?”

“Because she has killed more than eight people without dying even once, she’s a super assassin now.”

“Wow, that’s impressive!”

The crew of ‘One Life Survivor’ was relatively young, and they spoke so casually that it felt like a barrage of comments.

Tong Zhao hadn’t regained her memories from the variety show yet, but seeing this scene, she smiled slightly with a calm demeanor, as if everything was under her control. Her gaze fell on Director Chen, who immediately understood and stood up to pull out the chair next to him: “Come on, Sister Zhao, sit here.”

It felt a bit strange for her to be called “Sister Zhao” since she was younger, and it carried a hint of flattery.

“Sister Zhao” was a compromise between the two.

Before filming the variety show, the others looked at her with suspicion or disdain.

But after filming…

She silently observed the looks the others gave her and found only admiration.

A small number of the guests who had fallen early still looked at Tong Zhao with awe.

As Tong Zhao sat down, she asked the voice of Duan Ge in her mind: “What did you do to win these people over as your fans?”

Duan Ge replied, “I haven’t remembered yet.”

Concubine Chen was quite pleased that no one dared to look at her with lustful eyes anymore: “Isn’t this only natural? Little Ge is just that outstanding.”

Duan Ge smiled slightly: “You’re right.”

By the lakeside, there was a long truck with a screen hanging from the cargo area.

The assistant director beside Tong Zhao explained that this was going to be used for projecting exciting clips from ‘One Life Survivor’ during the meal.

The variety show screenwriter looked a bit constipated: “Actually, it’s just your solo performance, Sister Zhao.”

“Really?” Tong Zhao asked, a bit curious.

”You’ll know when you see it later.”

The waitstaff quickly began serving the four large tables.

Tong Zhao glanced over; the other tables were filled with beautifully presented home-cooked dishes.

But in front of her…

There were abalone, sea cucumbers, shark fins, and fish maw—nothing less than the most luxurious, with even more extravagance!

“Miss Tong, please move aside,” a server said softly. Tong Zhao instinctively shifted to the side, and the plate in front of her was taken away, replaced by a large bowl of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall!

How big is it?

To be specific, after this bowl of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall was placed down, she could no longer see the faces of the people sitting across from her.

It was uniquely set in front of her, and no one else had one.

The others looked completely normal, seemingly unaware that there was any problem at all.