Substitute Alpha Gets Confessed to by Her Ex’s Aunt on a Survival Variety Show – Chapter 81
by Little PandaTrap Stolen, Stakeout to Catch the Thief
The next day, after discussing it, Liu Yinxi and Nan Huaixu decided to check the traps and the fish trap in the morning, return to the shelter to rest before eleven o’clock, then head to the seaside to boil salt, and go beachcombing in the evening.
From now on, they would check the traps every two days. They also planned to make another trip along the route to the waterfall before the next airdrop to familiarize themselves with it in advance.
They hiked along the river, first locating where they had set the fish trap. Pulling it from the river, they found only two small fish the length of a finger inside. Since they could get larger fish from beachcombing, they left the small fish in the trap to act as bait to attract bigger ones.
Walking from the riverbank into the woods, they checked the traps one by one, from nearest to farthest.
In the first three traps, only the remnants of the bait were left, crawling with bugs. Liu Yinxi brushed the bugs away, reset the traps, and added fresh bait.
Mammals were incredibly difficult to catch, and even lizards weren’t falling for it as easily as they used to.
When they reached the fourth trap, Liu Yinxi opened the ground cage. It was completely empty. There wasn’t a trace of the bait, and the salt lick block was missing too.
Nan Huaixu took the cage over to inspect it closely. She then used her trekking pole to poke through the surrounding grass, murmuring, “How strange. We set the same amount of bait at the same time. The bait in the other traps wasn’t finished and had bugs crawling all over it. This trap is completely empty and bug-free, which means the bait was entirely eaten. It should be prey of a certain size, yet there are no signs of the cage being broken from the inside.”
Even without Nan Huaixu pointing it out, Liu Yinxi had noticed the oddity the moment she lifted the ground cage.
“Teacher Nan, wait here for a second.” She walked a little further away, searching through the grass and bushes before returning to Nan Huaixu’s side. “The salt lick block is gone.”
The circular salt lick block had a burn mark on it, making it quite conspicuous. If it had dropped in the weeds, it would be instantly recognizable, but neither of them could find it.
Nan Huaixu was puzzled. “Could the prey have carried it off?”
Liu Yinxi wasn’t sure. She shook her head. “I can’t say for certain.”
Nan Huaixu opened the ground cage door to show her. “There’s no sign of internal damage. Are there animals capable of undoing the mechanism from the inside?”
Liu Yinxi gave it some thought. “Primates. Corvids.”
Weighing the ground cage in her hands, Liu Yinxi reasoned that this cage couldn’t possibly trap an animal the size of an adult monkey. A one- or two-month-old infant monkey might fit, but a monkey troop would never let a young infant approach a strange object.
Crows? They hadn’t seen any trace of them nearby. Furthermore, with the intelligence of corvids, upon encountering a strange, unseen object like this, they would highly likely use tools to test it first. They wouldn’t easily fall for a trap.
Neither seemed likely.
Regardless, Liu Yinxi felt that something highly unusual had happened to this trap.
“Teacher Nan, do you think it might have been taken by someone…”
“Liu Yinxi, did someone steal…”
The two exchanged glances, the corners of their mouths simultaneously curving upward. It seemed they were on the exact same wavelength again.
They returned empty-handed.
At noon, they roasted and ate the fish they had scooped up last night.
Nan Huaixu thought it was a pity to throw away the fish bones. She tried pan-frying them on the flat rock slab until they were crispy, chewing on them as a snack. They were surprisingly fragrant, crunchy, and quite delicious.
Sitting on her small stool, Liu Yinxi pondered who could have stolen their prey. The other contestants? Villagers from the primitive tribe? Some sort of highly intelligent animal? A mysterious wildman?
Pfft.
Liu Yinxi shook her head. How absurd; she had even started imagining wildmen.
She took a bite of the banana stem core and exhaled heavily. It wasn’t that her imagination was running wild; having experienced dying and transmigrating into a novel—something a hundred million times more absurd than a wildman—she felt it was entirely possible for mysterious events to occur in this book’s world.
However, Liu Yinxi felt the greatest suspect was one of the other six contestants.
Under circumstances where food was becoming increasingly scarce, anyone was capable of stealing the fruits of another’s labor.
When did this thief strike?
Liu Yinxi pondered as she chewed on the banana stem core.
No similar incidents had occurred the day before yesterday or earlier. Since they hadn’t checked the traps yesterday, they could pinpoint that the prey was stolen sometime between the afternoon of the day before yesterday and this morning.
The primitive rainforest was fraught with danger. People woke up very early, worked during the day, and had to rush back to their shelters by evening. Therefore, the thief was bound to avoid the daytime hours and steal the prey just before dark.
Liu Yinxi deduced that the thief had struck yesterday evening.
She shared this analysis with Nan Huaixu, who agreed it made sense.
“It’s highly likely. Should we set up a stakeout here today?” Nan Huaixu asked.
Her expression was furious, a murderous aura radiating from her beautiful eyes. “Once we catch them, just watch how I deal with this thief.”
Heaven knew how utterly sick she was of eating fish every single day. She had been banking entirely on the traps catching a lizard or a wild pheasant or something for a change of pace, and it actually got stolen!
Good traits like friendliness and compassion were entirely thrown out the window by Nan Huaixu. To hell with that. Anyone who snatched her rations was a sworn enemy with whom she could not share the same sky.
Liu Yinxi gently coaxed her. “Teacher Nan, even though I’m very angry too, let’s just let it go for today. Losing a piece of prey, we can just treat it as Mother Heaven’s will, our one good deed for the day. Our daily rhythm still needs to follow the schedule. We’ve lost a piece of prey; we can’t also miss out on a scoop of salt and a bucket of fish and shrimp.”
Hearing Liu Yinxi’s words, Nan Huaixu immediately calmed down. “You’re right, we can’t lose the big picture for a small grievance. I’ll get the things we need for this afternoon ready right now.”
She packed the aluminum mess tin, wooden sticks, and banana leaves into her bag. She moved with more force than usual, clearly carrying a lot of resentment.
After stuffing the backpack full, Nan Huaixu called out to Liu Yinxi with a placid expression, yet her gaze was absolutely lethal. “I can’t swallow this anger.”
“Liu Yinxi, when are we doing the stakeout to catch this thief?”
Meeting her gaze, Liu Yinxi instantly recalled the time she had locked eyes with a wild puma before her transmigration. A shiver ran down her spine.
Teacher Nan was truly furious this time.
Just which audacious person dared to steal Teacher Nan’s rations? Didn’t they know that touching her meat would invite terrifying consequences?!
Liu Yinxi thought rapidly and answered, “Tomorrow! Teacher Nan, tomorrow morning we’ll go beachcombing and boil salt first. In the afternoon, we’ll head over to the traps and hide out there. We’ll catch that detestable thief like a turtle in a jar1.”
Nan Huaixu bit down on a fish bone with a crunch. “And if we don’t catch them tomorrow?”
Liu Yinxi’s tone was resolute. “We’ll go stand guard every afternoon these next few days until we catch the thief.”
“Alright, it’s settled.”
【Who stole it?】
【Dunno.】
【Wait, don’t you guys frequent the other livestream channels? If the other contestants stole it, it definitely would’ve been recorded. (puzzled)】
【I didn’t see anything. Surely my Huang-jie wouldn’t stoop to stealing from traps?】
【Heh, hard to say. Yu Yan ran into Liu Yinxi around those traps. Who’s to say Yu Yan didn’t lead Huang Heshan there to steal from them? (smile)】
【???】
【Our Yuyu isn’t that kind of person!】
【What, your Manman herself claimed to revere the law of the jungle. If others can steal, they can steal too. This is just karma, serves them right. (eye roll)】
【It probably wasn’t Xue Yunshao.】
【A Yun spent the entire day yesterday in the river spearing fish. 0v0】
【A Yun even resorted to deep-frying termites to eat. Being teamed up with Luo Ling is pure suffering. May A Yun’s remaining life be forever free of Luo Ling. (making a wish)】
【Xue Yunshao voluntarily gives the good food to Luo Ling. On what grounds is it all blamed on Luo Ling? Didn’t Luo Ling tell Xue Yunshao to eat the meat jerky? It’s Xue Yunshao herself who refuses to eat and insists on saving it. You people spouting all this nonsense, carefully use your pig brains2 and think about it: how is Xue Yunshao’s behavior any different from those self-sacrificing martyrs who scold children for wasting a feast while stubbornly forcing themselves to eat leftovers just to feel moved by their own sacrifice?】
【She’s just establishing her character setting, don’t take it so seriously. Isn’t it super effective? Look, she gained a million new fans in a month. (Doge)】
【Yuan Fang is so thin you can see every single rib. It’s terrifying, and she has so many red rashes on her body. (screaming)】
【She was already quite thin when she entered the competition. Yu Yan is thin but has a lot of muscle, whereas Yuan Fang has lost every ounce of strength after losing all her fat.】
【Yuan Fang and Lu Yiqi were just discussing what they could use to trade with Xue Yunshao for some meat jerky.】
【What do they even have left to trade? (worried)】
【I hope they can hold on for a few more days. Still, lasting over a month in 《Survivor》 is already amazing. Regardless, they’ve earned the name recognition.】
【LMAO, and here I thought Liu Yinxi’s team would be the least likely to have their home stolen, yet they’re the very first ones to get robbed. (laugh-crying)】
【It wasn’t her home that was stolen; it was an external project.】
【Right! Rigorous, sisters. We Xi fans must maintain this level of rigor.】
【The production team opened a new poll! Participate in the “Who Stole the Trap” event—guess correctly and you have a chance to win a contestant’s signed photo!】
【Speechless, pulling another rotten stunt. (eye roll) But for a signed photo, I will swallow my pride and cast a vote.】
【Whose signed photo?】
【Huh? Isn’t it all eight of them?】
【No, it’s a random one out of the eight.】
【… (profanity)】
They staked out the area for two consecutive days.
At dusk on May 19th, Liu Yinxi and Nan Huaixu were hidden in two separate locations with a clear view of the ground cage trap when they finally spotted something.
Just past six in the evening, a figure stealthily poked its head out from the tall grass by the river.
The person was draped in a straw-tied cape resembling a traditional grass raincoat3. Looking left and right, they jogged over to hide behind a tree two or three meters from the ground cage. Only after confirming that a lizard was trapped inside did they approach the cage, crouch down, and reach for the door.
Liu Yinxi made eye contact with Nan Huaixu, who was hiding on the opposite side. With a single nod, the two leaped out from the bushes, flanking the thief from the left and right.
“You shameless thief! Stop right there!” Liu Yinxi leaped down a small slope, yelling at the top of her lungs.
“You petty thief, daring to steal my prey! You’re dead meat!” Nan Huaixu raised her trekking pole and charged down.
Hearing the commotion, the figure immediately took off running. The straw clothing and straw hat concealed their face and attire. With the distance and the obstructions in the woods, it was impossible to discern who it was in the moment.
“You’ve got the guts to steal, but not the guts to fight?! Come trade blows with your Liu-jie!”
“Stop right there! Give back the prey you stole last time! Otherwise, I swear I’ll ruin your reputation!”
The sounds of chasing and cursing echoed through the riverside woods, startling a flock of birds into flight.
The thief ran wildly, skidding to a halt at a rocky shoal by the river. The water ahead flowed fiercely over a drop of more than a meter, the area densely packed with rocks.
“Thief, stop right there!”
“Give me back my prey!”
With the river blocking the way forward and relentless pursuers closing in from behind, the thief hesitated for half a second before scrambling onto a large rock protruding from the river’s surface, using both hands and feet to clamber over the rocks to cross the river.
“Haha, you can’t escape now!”
Liu Yinxi rushed to the edge of the rocky shoal and nimbly climbed onto a boulder.
The thief cast a panicked glance backward. Losing their footing, they suddenly cried out and plummeted straight off the rock. During the fall, they collided with a rock below with a dull thud before plunging entirely into the river.
“Glub glub glub—”
“Splutter—”
The thief struggled to the surface, coughing and choking as they screamed, “H-help! My foot is cramping! My leg hurts so much!”
Liu Yinxi hurriedly sprinted down along the rocky shoal. Saving a life was the priority.
Nan Huaixu swiftly threw out the sturdy vine rope.
Liu Yinxi jumped into the river water and swam to the thief’s side. “Don’t struggle. Keep your head tilted back.”
Footnotes
- An idiom (wèng zhōng zhuō biē), literally meaning 'to catch a turtle in a jar,' referring to trapping an enemy easily with no chance of escape.
- An internet slang insult referring to someone's lack of intelligence or thinking capacity.
- A suōyī, a traditional Chinese raincoat woven from dry grass or palm leaves, providing camouflage as well as protection from the elements.
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