Xu Qi's flustered appearance confirmed Ji Qian's guess. Her face darkened, and she said in a serious tone, "Stop looking. We've probably been tricked."

"What?"

The crowd was momentarily confused. Ji Qian did not explain, but instead turned to look at the corner where Earl Lanruer was.

Sure enough, the place was now empty of ghosts, with only tangled ropes scattered on the ground.

Mi Yesi exclaimed in surprise, "How did he escape?!"

"Maybe we never really caught up with him in the first place." Han Mengyao realized this at this moment.

"In other words, he was playing us from the very beginning," Ying Xu still didn't quite understand:

"But what was his purpose in doing this?!"

"It's not clear yet, but I have a way to figure it out."

After saying this, Ji Qian turned and walked towards the banquet hall on the second floor.

The others exchanged glances and followed in Ji Qian's footsteps.

Holy crap, this is a complete reversal of extremes!

Isn't this better than a TV series?

[Ji Qian is overthinking it. That count doesn't seem like a smart person.]

[You're wrong. I just checked, and that Earl of Lanruer is anything but simple.]

【？？？】

[Please provide a detailed explanation]

Where are they?

[You're only saying half of what you mean!]

Inside the banquet hall, staff were still cleaning up the mess from the previous night.

In the center of the banquet hall, the assistant director was imperiously directing the staff. Seeing Ji Qian and her entourage enter, he immediately put on a fawning smile and went to greet them.

"Excuse me, teachers, we're still packing up..."

The assistant director initially thought Ji Qian and the others were there to search, but upon closer inspection, he noticed their grave expressions. He quickly swallowed his words and looked at Ji Qian with a tense expression.

"Excuse me, what happened?"

Ji Qian did not answer the assistant director's question directly, but only gave a perfunctory reply:

"It's nothing, but I have something to discuss with Director Liu. Where is he?"

"Oh, because the mountain road was blocked, the repair materials couldn't be transported up, so the director went to check it out himself."

Seeing Ji Qian's hostile demeanor, the assistant director felt a surge of relief. It was good that he had stepped down early; it was nice to have a leader to hold up the sky when things went wrong.

The production team had actually prepared some repair materials in case of emergency, but unfortunately, they did not include large pieces of glass.

So after the shards of glass and the broken window frame were cleared away, Director Liu stared at the two holes in the wall and fell into deep thought.

It was nearing the end of summer in England, and with a heavy rainstorm the day before, the air already carried the chill of early autumn.

If the wind outside the window made Director Liu's already weary heart even colder, then the arrival of Ji Qian and her group was like adding insult to injury.

Director Liu knew from Ji Qian's expression that she was up to no good. To prevent Ji Qian from regaining the upper hand, Director Liu preemptively struck:

"I'm sorry, Professor Ji, I'm very busy right now. If you have something to say, please wait a moment."

After saying that, Director Liu wanted to leave the scene, but as soon as he turned around, he saw Han Mengyao, who had somehow wandered around to his side, looking at him with a kind expression.

Despite Han Mengyao's innocent and cute appearance, Director Liu knew that she was sometimes more difficult to deal with than Ji Qian.

If Ji Qian is the general in charge of the charge, then Han Mengyao is the strategist behind her, guiding the course of events.

Seeing that his escape route was blocked, Director Liu had no choice but to resign himself to his fate: "Just tell me what you want to do."

Seeing that Director Liu was being unusually cooperative, Ji Qian didn't beat around the bush:

"The situation here is too complicated; we need off-field assistance."

"Off-field assistance?"

Seeing that Director Liu didn't understand, Ji Qian looked up at Han Mengyao, who then took over the conversation and explained:

"We need access to the entire castle's surveillance system and a working cell phone that can communicate with the outside world."

The production team's monitoring room is not supposed to be open to the public, but during the last recording, Ji Qian's intrusion was so natural that no one was able to muster the energy to investigate the matter.

Ji Qian could have followed the same procedure this time, but she made a special trip to get his approval. This action pleased Director Liu, so he readily agreed to the request.

However, the issue with mobile phones is far more complex than that.

According to the program's rules, guests are absolutely not allowed to contact the outside world during filming, so the mobile phones that Ji Qian and the others are using now have been modified.

In fact, Ying Xu had secretly brought a spare phone with him when recording the old house episode, but unfortunately the production team discovered and confiscated it before this recording.

"This doesn't comply with the rules. The most important thing about this kind of live broadcast is authenticity. If you can watch the live broadcast, you will definitely be influenced by the audience's comments. What if this greatly reduces the effectiveness of the program?"

Director Liu said he could compromise on anything except the point of the show's effect.

Ji Qian was prepared for this: "Do you think I'm the kind of person who cares about audience opinions?"

"this……"

Director Liu recalled Ji Qian's various outrageous behaviors during the recording, and it certainly didn't seem like she cared about the audience.

He even suspected that Ji Qian had some kind of mental illness because her behavior was too erratic.

However, of course, this couldn't be said directly to Ji Qian, so Director Liu chose a very tactful way of expressing it:

"Professor Ji, you have always been the most unique one."

Come and learn the art of speaking from Director Liu!

High Emotional Intelligence: Setting You Apart

Low emotional intelligence: outrageously erratic

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