I am a local in North America

Chapter 25 "The Missing Persons" Return

Back in Yellowknife from Great Slave Lake, Su Jerry was surrounded by many more members of the production crew, making it a bit too lively for him to adjust for a moment.

Only after signing a simple confidentiality agreement, repeatedly promising not to reveal his victory to anyone except his family, saying goodbye to the production team, and returning to his room did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.

In reality, it is very difficult to keep things completely secret.

Some die-hard fans of the show "Solo in the Wild" try to guess whether a contestant has won the competition based on the date they return to social media.

Generally, the contestant who returns to social media the latest and whose living conditions have greatly improved, posting updates about changing cars or houses on their social media accounts, is likely to win the grand prize.

Su Jierui felt it would be difficult to hide it from others, but as long as he didn't admit it himself and didn't gossip about it, he wouldn't trigger the confidentiality agreement.

Too lazy to think too much, he turned to pondering an important question: what should be the first feast after returning to civilized society?
This may seem like a small matter, but it was quite special to him.

After all, I wanted to eat something good every day. After more than three months of self-suggestion, my expectations were raised too high.

If Su Jerry were to just eat any old, unappetizing fast food, he would definitely feel very uncomfortable.

All he wanted to do at that moment was to reward himself with a delicious meal, to thank himself for persevering until now and for successfully winning a large sum of money.

I am not familiar with Yellowknife, the capital of Canada's Northwest Territories, and I have no idea what restaurants are nearby.

After a while.

He belatedly realized that the production team had returned his personal belongings to him. He quickly opened his backpack and rummaged through it. When he took out his phone and held it in his hand, he felt incredibly relieved.

For today's young people, it's incredibly difficult to put down their phones and disconnect from the virtual world.

During his time on the show, there were countless mornings when he would wake up and, still half asleep, instinctively reach for his phone before remembering that he was living in the middle of nowhere and didn't have a phone at all.

Living in the wilderness for 100 days without cell phones and computers is empty and boring. If contestants were allowed to use these electronic devices to access the internet, it would be easy for them to survive for more than three months.

Even if you don't chat with others, time flies by if you just watch dramas, read novels, or browse social media every day.

After pressing the power button several times, Su Jierui found that the screen remained black, realizing that more than three months had passed and the phone's battery had long since run out.

I rummaged through my backpack again to find the charger, plugged it in, and waited anxiously, my leg trembling. The phone screen lit up quickly.

Shortly after the phone regained its network connection, it was immediately bombarded with numerous missed calls, text messages, and notifications from social media and instant messaging apps.

After being bombarded with messages for a while, Su Jierui found a comfortable position, lay down on the soft bed, and began to review the messages that others had sent him during his "disappearance".

He wanted to put aside the missed calls and text messages from his parents, sisters, and grandparents for now, as he wanted to take a break.

A friend who messaged him via WhatsApp, whose contact name was "Tang Jie," was one of Su Jierui's childhood friends. He sent him dozens of unread messages.

Su Jierui swiped the screen with his finger, and messages loaded one after another, as if pulling him back to the past three months.

He looked at his best friend Tang Jie's profile picture, and a smile unconsciously crept onto his face.

The news began in the days immediately following his "disappearance".

Tang Jie sent an exaggeratedly terrified emoji, followed by—

"Brother? Are you still alive? You didn't get scared by a wild beast on the first night and have to withdraw from the competition, did you?"

the next day.

Tang Jie sent another message
"You haven't replied to me for so long, have you already started recording?"

Su Jierui was recording a show at the time, and his phone was taken away by the production team, so he didn't have a chance to reply to his best friend A-Jie.

A few more days passed like this.

Tang Jie sent him another string of messages—

"Damn! After I finished talking to some people at the bar, they all found out you went to participate in 'Living in the Wilderness,' and they were all incredibly envious."

"There's also a South Korean girl I just met who said she really likes you after watching your YouTube videos. You're welcome!"

"We haven't heard from you for so long. Have you been starving and fainted?"

Upon seeing this, Su Jierui laughed and cursed, "You bastard!"

He could picture himself suffering from hunger and irregular meals, while Tang Jie was boasting and bragged in bars. As time went on, the intervals between messages grew longer and longer.

More than a month later, Tang Jie sent another message.
"Arui, it's been over two months!"

Two more weeks passed.

Tang Jie continued sending a series of rambling messages, and finally couldn't resist asking one last question—

"I just found out from a news search that this season of 'Solo' has a prize of $100 million!?"

“Every time my friends see me, they ask me if I've won.”

"Don't forget, we're best buddies. It's not too much to ask you to treat me to a few bars when you get back, is it..."

After Su Jierui had been "out of contact" for more than 80 days, Tang Jie finally went crazy, feeling even more nervous than Su Jierui.

I send him a message every few days, even more enthusiastically than a girlfriend, always asking, "Did you win or not?"

Su Jierui's lips twitched after reading it, feeling both annoyed and amused.

He was harboring a mischievous intention and sent Tang Jie a "smiling" emoji.

This is followed by a classic line from Walter White, the protagonist of Breaking Bad:
"Now, say my name!"

This is the highlight moment for the male lead, Walter White, symbolizing his self-declaration after transforming from an ordinary teacher into a drug lord, which is incredibly powerful.

American film and television culture is prevalent and has a wide influence. Many lines are regarded as classic quotes and are widely used in the daily lives of Americans.

Having grown up in Seattle, Su Jerry was naturally influenced by his surroundings and didn't find anything strange about this behavior. It was like an idiom in Chinese, which could concisely and vividly convey certain meanings.

Tang Jie has not yet replied.

He could already imagine how Tang Jie would jump up from his chair and let out a series of incoherent exclamations after reading this classic line on the other end of the phone.

Afterwards, Su Jerry continued to look at other news.

For example, on his YouTube video account, the last video on his homepage was a recording of him packing his things at home to tell his fans that he was about to leave to participate in the 7th season of "Living in the Wild".

Similar to his best friend Tang Jie, his fans initially didn't take it seriously, and instead teased Su Jierui about the abundance of bears and wolves in the wild, telling him to be careful lest he be eaten by those fierce animals.

As time went by, Su Jerry's fans on YouTube went crazy, checking in every day to ask if he had withdrawn from the competition, if he had won the prize money, and who could contact him, etc.

Last month, a well-known content creator on YouTube talked about Su Jierui's participation in a show, but there has been no news about him for a long time. He speculated that Su Jierui might persist until the end and win the competition, which attracted a lot of attention.

This resulted in Su Jierui's YouTube account going silent for more than three months, but his number of followers actually exceeded 21, an increase of more than 5 from before, all waiting for him to resume updating and to find out the results of the competition.

From relatives and friends to old classmates, some people he hadn't contacted for a long time have also reached out to him recently.

While checking each message and replying to them as needed.

Su Jierui saw a message on another messaging app, Messenger, from a stranger with the username "Qian Shuyao," sent in mid-September. The message read:

"Excuse me, senior. Professor Francis asked me to contact you; he needs to find a bibliography. Would it be convenient for us to meet tomorrow?"

A few days later, the girl named Qian Shuyao sent another message, which read:

"I've already found the reference books! I only found out from Senior Dai that you actually went to participate in a reality show, senior! I'll definitely watch it!"

Messenger is a chat app owned by Facebook. He clicked on her Facebook page without really thinking and found that the young woman was quite pretty, but he had no recollection of her at all.

After a while, Su Jierui remembered that his professor had mentioned during the summer that they would need their help in the new semester to help some newly enrolled international students integrate into campus life as soon as possible.

Judging from this girl's Facebook profile, she appears to be a freshman who just started studying at the University of British Columbia in September.

Her Facebook account username is simply "Qian Shuyao" in simplified Chinese, and she has posted some photos of her life at university, as well as her daily life shopping and eating in Vancouver.

The quiet and innocent-looking junior schoolgirl seemed exceptionally likable. After considering for a moment, Su Jierui typed a reply:

"Hi, sorry, I just finished recording and got my phone back. If you need any help in the future, feel free to contact me anytime..."

(End of this chapter)