After packing up, even though Michael wanted to rest, everyone decided to set off to find a place to take photos.
"Michael, you and Qianqian go together. I'm going next door to find Sister Wanyao." Ye Chu reached out and rubbed the head of the person still lying on the ground. After seeing her respond, she left the room to find Xie Wanyao.
Coincidentally, Xie Wanyao also came out to look for her, and the two met in the corridor and went out together.
"Have Sister Song and Sister Xu left already?" Ye Chu asked. Xie Wanyao nodded and said, "They put down their luggage and left."
"Everyone is very motivated," Ye Chu murmured, taking out the card that had been handed out on the bus to look at.
"Fox." Ye Chu frowned. "What do you mean, zoo?"
Xie Wanyao shook her head: "It shouldn't be. That would be too simple. The zoo is a big target. The production team wouldn't be that kind."
"Sister Wanyao, are you afraid of being scammed again?" Ye Chu asked with a smile. "How do you say 'fox' in Japanese?"
"No." Xie Wanyao shrugged. "Anyway, the English word is 'fox'."
The two walked through a small bamboo grove and down the slope, where they came to see a Japanese town that they usually only saw in anime.
"It's so clean." Ye Chu looked around the street and saw that there were no trash cans or garbage along the way, and not even a few fallen leaves.
The two stopped an older woman, and Xie Wanyao asked her, "Excuse me, do you know where I can find foxes?" Her English pronunciation was American, while Ye Chu had learned British English. Out of curiosity, she listened carefully to the woman's pronunciation, and found that they were two very different accents.
The older woman asked in confusion, "A fox?" She was clearly puzzled as to why the two girls would ask that question. "Isn't it at the zoo? There are foxes at the zoo."
"Oh, okay, thank you very much." The two bowed slightly to the woman to express their gratitude, and exchanged a helpless glance after she left.
Xie Wanyao insisted, "I still think it's impossible to go to the zoo. Besides, if we were to go to the zoo, we would probably have to take the tram, and we don't have the money for that. I don't think the production team would do that."
Ye Chu nodded in agreement. She thought for a moment and asked, "Could the fox not refer to a real fox? It can't be that it's telling us to go to some mountain, right? When the production team gives hints, they first make sure that if we want to find it, we can definitely find it, or at least we can ask for directions."
"It's a pity we don't understand Japanese culture and don't know what a fox can represent," Xie Wanyao said helplessly, looking up at the sky.
The two of them hid in a shady spot by the roadside. One looked up at the sky in thought, while the other looked down at the floor in thought.
"Ugh, why can't I check my phone!" Xie Wanyao said impatiently. "If I could use my phone to search on Baidu, I'd be more omniscient and omnipotent than a god." Her words were exaggerated, and Ye Chu, who was listening nearby, suddenly had something flash through her mind.
"Sister Wanyao!" Seizing the fleeting thought, Ye Chu exclaimed in surprise, "I remember now! I watched a documentary before that talked about Japanese shrines."
Xie Wanyao turned to look at Ye Chu with curiosity, only to see her excitedly say, "Inari God! Japan has special Inari shrines where people worship the Inari God to pray for a bountiful harvest, prosperous business, and safe traffic."
Ye Chu tried hard to recall: "I remember it said that since ancient times, Japan has believed that foxes are sent by the rice god. Therefore, all fox spirits and fox deities are under the jurisdiction of the rice god. So its messenger is the fox, and you can see fox statues everywhere in the shrine."
Recalling what was said in the documentary, Ye Chu saw someone about to pass by the intersection in front of them and quickly went up to them: "Excuse me, how do I get to the shrine here?"
"A shrine?" The person who stopped Ye Chu was a girl wearing a mask and dressed very cutely. "To get to the shrine, you need to keep walking along the road on the right until you see a taiyaki shop, then turn right onto the road and head up the mountain." She pointed in a direction for Ye Chu and kindly reminded her, "There are a lot of steps to climb."
"Thank you so much."
Knowing how to get there, the two of them perked up, thinking that maybe they could actually find it.
Following the route the girl described, the two of them successfully found a long staircase. Climbing up it, they came to a bright red torii gate, next to which was a large stone sign that read "XX Inari Shrine".
Walking through the torii gate, you can see fox statues standing on both sides. Ye Chu and Xie Wanyao exchanged a glance, both agreeing that this was the right place. Fortunately, the production team hadn't completely lost their minds, and the members could still communicate with each other, so the two of them called everyone and gave them a general idea of the location.
Half an hour later, the tour group members gathered here and took a group photo in front of the fox statue. Then they saw the NPCs arranged by the program team come out of the shrine.
"Congratulations on completing the mission." The other person spoke in Japanese, but fortunately Ye Chu understood the pronunciation of "congratulations" and led everyone in saying thank you.
Then, the other party took out five envelopes, each with a number sticker from 1 to 5 on it. The NPC said in English, "Choose one."
Everyone looked at each other, and finally pushed Jiang Qianqian, the team leader, forward, saying, "Go, team leader!"
Jiang Qianqian was a little nervous and hesitated for a long time before choosing envelope number 3 amidst Michael's shout, "Hesitation leads to defeat!" As soon as the NPC left the stage, everyone quickly opened the envelopes.
"Five thousand!" Although they didn't know whether this envelope was big or small among five, the pressure of the airfare was suddenly halved, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Zhou Tong loosened his collar, still panting: "I almost passed out from climbing those steps. Qin Ke and I passed by here before, but we didn't climb them because they were too long. I didn't expect we'd still have to climb them in the end."
Qin Ke: "There's no way to escape it."
Xu Miaomiao laughed and said, "You two men, what are you afraid of climbing stairs for?"
Zhou Tong scratched his head sheepishly after hearing this: "Isn't it just laziness? It's an old habit of mine."
The burden of 10,000 has been reduced to 5,000, and everyone can breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy the rest of their free time today.
The crowd dispersed. Xie Wanyao was pulled away by Xu Miaomiao and Song Nanran, while Ye Chu naturally joined Michael and Jiang Qianqian's team.
With Michael on board, the journey was anything but boring. The three of them walked along the alley, occasionally stopping to look at the flowers by the roadside and having silly conversations with the cats that popped out of the alley. On camera, it all seemed to have a unique kind of leisurely elegance.
"It smells so good." As evening approached, on the way back to the hostel, a delicious aroma wafted in from somewhere, smelling like slightly burnt fish, making my stomach rumble.
Back at the hostel, the group disappeared from view for a long time. When they reappeared, they were wearing yukatas, and it was immediately obvious that they had just gone to the hot springs.
Ye Chu sat at the table enjoying the dinner prepared by the inn. The hot spring was relaxing, and the delicious food made her feel incredibly happy.
"Ah—" came a sigh of pure bliss from the three people in the room, their composure completely gone.
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