Chapter 108
I’m translating the chapter into HTML with the required paragraph structure and keeping the internet-comment lines as styled blocks. After that I’ll do a quick pass for any leftover Korean or formatting violations.CHAPTER_TITLE: The Lie Detector
After the walk and the autumn leaf viewing, they returned to find dinner and a campfire already prepared at the glamping site.
Well-grilled skewers of lamb and chicken were neatly arranged on camping plates. The skewers were a PPL product. There were also snacks prepared for roasting by hand, including marshmallows.
Neoul happily ate the lamb and chicken skewers instead of the grasshoppers and butterflies he had never managed to try. He did leave sauce around his mouth, nose, and cheeks like a child, but the sight of him chewing with his lips closed, quietly and carefully, was oddly charming.
The camera director made sure to keep a tight close-up on Neoul’s chicken-skewer mukbang.
After the meal, the fifteen participants sat in a circle with the campfire at the center. Near the fire, there were many long sticks already pierced through marshmallows.
"Can we roast them now? Are we eating them now?"
Woo Cheong asked. Producer Seok O-yeong shook his head as if to say not yet.
After a moment, the assistant director came over carrying a desk, placed it in the middle of the circle the participants had formed, and set a lie detector on top of it.
"We’re going to play a truth game. Only participants who are judged truthful on all three questions by the lie detector will be allowed to eat marshmallows."
"Wow! If all three are true, can we eat three?"
"You can eat as many as you want."
"Yeeees!"
Woo Cheong was usually not much of a glutton, but he took a keen interest in the white lumps of sugar and gelatin.
Producer Seok O-yeong launched into his introduction.
"A truth game to find out your real feelings before the final! We’ll begin with participant Ha On-ha. Please come to the center and place your hand on the lie detector."
"Yes~"
Ha On-ha rose with an expression that said this sounded fun, walked up to the lie detector, and set his hand on it. When a staff member stepped forward and pressed the button, the detector lit up and began measuring his pulse, breathing, and other bodily responses.
As the beeping started, tension crept over Ha On-ha’s face.
"By the way... does this thing hurt a lot with electricity?"
"If you don’t lie, it won’t hurt. For reference, this is an upgraded version of the previous lie detector, so the accuracy has gone up. Of course, even with the upgrade it’s not 100 percent accurate, so please enjoy it as entertainment."
Beep-dee-ling~♪
The lie detector completed its default settings.
Producer Seok O-yeong continued, "We’ll start with a common question. First common question! This question was prepared by Jake, the chief producer and president of Flux Entertainment, the company you’ll be contracted to if you survive to the end and debut."
Producer Seok O-yeong read from the paper on the question.
"I... if I debut...."
"......"
"I’m confident I won’t cause any scandals during the contract period!"
All the participants’ eyes widened at once. None of them had expected such a direct, blunt question.
Ha On-ha shouted, "I am! I’m confident!"
He looked self-assured and triumphant. The button was pressed again, and a tense stretch followed as the machine measured changes in pulse rate and skin conductivity.
Ding-dong~♪
With a clear chime, the result came back: truth. Ha On-ha grinned in satisfaction.
"Yes, the next question will be randomly drawn. This box contains questions collected from the staff, the writers, and the judges."
Producer Seok O-yeong reached into the box filled with folded slips of paper, drew one, and unfolded it.
"Honestly, among the eighty-one participants...."
"......"
"I think I’m the best-looking. Please answer true or false."
"Ah, false...!"
Ha On-ha answered in a fluster.
"I’ve never once thought that. There are so many handsome people here, so I absooo-lutely~! do not think that way! I don’t!"
Ding-dong~♪
Truth.
Ha On-ha, having rattled off his frantic excuse, let out a breath of relief and patted his chest. Whether the lie detector had been right or not was something only Ha On-ha himself would know.
"All right. The third question is a tailored one for participant Ha On-ha."
This time, Producer Seok O-yeong had picked a question based on what he’d observed of the participants so far. Without wasting time, he asked it at once.
"I’m actually a coward!"
"False!"
Ha On-ha answered quickly.
"A lot of people watched my introduction video and misunderstood me as someone who’s easily scared, but I’m really not a coward, everyone! At Jeju Folk Village, I was just acting scared~"
Chk-chk-chk-chk—
An electronic noise sounded, louder than the hiss of steam from an electric rice cooker but otherwise similar.
"I had to sacrifice myself a little so the staff would feel rewarded and the viewers would have fun, so I exaggerated things when I was actually not scared at all... eek! Ahhh!"
Bzzt—!
The lie detector rendered its verdict: lie.
"Gahh. You startled me."
Ha On-ha, who had jumped up in shock, hurriedly pulled his hand away and clutched his chest.
"Yes. Participant Ha On-ha, we heard your lie loud and clear. How strange. It’s in vibration mode, but did it still give you a little shock?"
The production staff and the participants pressed their lips together, trying not to laugh. A few of them eventually failed and burst out laughing.
"No, I mean, I was startled... It didn’t hurt, I just got startled... Ahaha."
Having been certified as a coward, Ha On-ha returned to his seat in embarrassment. Even though it was only in vibration mode, he had made such a fuss that he became the butt of everyone’s jokes.
"Hyung, I thought a crow just flew by!"
"The official coward of Idol Travel~"
"Three questions aren’t enough! That’s disappointing!"
The atmosphere heated up further.
"Next, participant Yeo Do-bin, please come forward."
Ha On-ha had gone first, but the order was random rather than by ranking. The idea was to let everyone enjoy themselves for now, without thinking about rankings or competition.
"I... if I debut, I’m confident I won’t cause any scandals during the contract period!"
"Yes! No scandals...! I’m confident!"
Ding-dong~♪
Yeo Do-bin passed the common first question with ease.
And then the second.
"Sometimes I think, ‘Am I maybe a genius?’"
At the question, Yeo Do-bin’s face slowly turned red. Only once he had become a human tomato did he finally part his lips.
"I... y-yes...!"
It was a thought he had only kept to himself; he had almost never said it out loud. Yeo Do-bin stared helplessly at the lie detector, not knowing what to do.
Ding-dong~♪
Truth.
The machine’s merciless confirmation made Yeo Do-bin’s ears go red too.
"E-everyone has thoughts like that sometimes, don’t they...? Some days you think, ‘Am I a genius?’ and then other days you feel like the biggest fool in the world...."
"Do-bin hyung, totally genius, no worries!"
"Yeah, yeah~"
Woo Cheong and Ha On-ha chimed in, egging on the embarrassed Yeo Do-bin. Yeo Do-bin waved his hands for them to stop flattering him.
"N-no, no. What if the passengers think I’m being arrogant...."
"The fact that an Australian would use the word arrogant already makes you a genius, doesn’t it~?"
Ha On-ha, relieved that his own turn was over, added his two cents. Once the participants had finished laughing, Producer Seok O-yeong lifted the microphone again.
"Here comes the next question."
"Ah, yes...!"
"I’ve written cringe-worthy lyrics while drunk on the emotions of the dawn, then deleted them the next day."
Yeo Do-bin answered in utter resignation.
"Yes...."
He did not seem to think lying to the lie detector was even worth the effort; every answer was absurdly honest.
Ding-dong~♪
"Hahaha! What kind of lyrics were they? What did you write?"
"Do-bin, tell me just a little. I won’t tell anyone~"
"I-I’ll take it to my grave...."
Yeo Do-bin hurried back to his seat, escaping the hyenas trying to dig up his embarrassing past.
After a few more rounds of the truth game, the sixth participant to face judgment was Neoul.
"I... if I debut, I’m confident I won’t cause any scandals during the contract period!"
"Yes. I am."
He breezed through the first question, and Producer Seok O-yeong rummaged through the box. The second question flew out.
"Honestly, I think our team was the coolest in the third round competition!"
"Yes."
Woooooo!
Ooooh!
At Neoul’s confident answer, the participants shouted and cheered. The reaction was especially fierce among those who had been on the same team as Neoul.
Ding-dong~♪
"Wow, you really mean that."
"But they really were good."
"True."
Producer Seok O-yeong’s final question followed.
"Among the fifteen participants here...."
"......"
"I don’t think my dancing is dead last!"
Neoul’s eyes rounded as he looked around at the others. After pondering it for a moment, he answered, "Yes!"
The answer was crisp.
That was the kind of answer that would be perfect for comments like these once the episode aired.
"Hey, Geolneoul has really grown up!"
"Neoul hyung, your dancing really has improved! It has, seriously!"
Baek Gi-yeom and Woo Cheong shouted. A cheerful ding-dong rang out, revealing Neoul’s sincerity.
As Neoul headed back to his seat after finishing, middle schooler Ko Un-gu latched onto him.
"Neoul hyung, are you maybe saying the person who dances worse than you is me?"
"That is a secret. We are only allowed three questions."
Neoul chose no comment for the sake of the several participants who would be shocked by the answer. In fact, there were more than a few.
Next came Woo Cheong’s turn. As expected, he passed the first question easily and moved on to the second.
"I find Producer Seok O-yeong annoying."
"Huh...?"
"What is this? Who wrote this question?"
Producer Seok O-yeong unfolded the slip and read it, then tossed it aside. He had told them to write questions they wanted to ask the participants, so why was somebody writing down their own complaints?
"Participant Woo Cheong, I’ll draw a new question."
"Okay!"
Woo Cheong, who had just removed his hand from the lie detector, was still smiling brightly when he put it back on.
"I’ve gotten tired of dancing, or hit a slump, at some point."
"No way! I haven’t!"
Bzzzt—!
The lie verdict came down.
"Ah! But it’s true! This thing seems broken! Dancing is my life! Idol is my dream! Woo Cheong is dance and dance is Woo Cheong! Isn’t that an inseparable destiny?"
Woo Cheong flailed around, insisting that the lie detector couldn’t be trusted, but then his eyes fell on the marshmallow skewers in Neoul and Yeo Do-bin’s hands.
"Nooo.... I can’t eat marshmallows? This thing really seems broken....?"
Like a deflated blue balloon, Woo Cheong wilted and had to answer the final question sadly.
"Participant Woo Cheong, this is your last question. When you teach your original choreography to participant Geolneoul...."
"Huh...?"
Woo Cheong looked at Neoul.
Neoul had been roasting marshmallows, following Yeo Do-bin’s lead, and when he heard his own name, he turned toward Producer Seok O-yeong. In the motion, the arm holding the skewer dipped toward the fire, and the marshmallow caught flame.
"Honestly, it drove me crazy! True or false, please!"
Ack! Fire! Fire!
Phew, it went out.
Hey, hey! Neoul-neoul-neolnul-nolnol! Stop! Don’t eat the burnt one! Eat a different one!
I-I’ll roast it for you...! Neoul...!
All kinds of commotion broke out over a single marshmallow. Woo Cheong snickered and answered, "True!"