Chapter 6
The moment that inner voice rang out, everyone present went blank for a second.
A series of thuds and clatters sounded one after another, mixed with a few pained cries of “Ow!”, but none of it drew anyone else’s attention.
“???”
“Lin Zhiqiao, are you okay??”
“Fun fact: spreading rumors about other people is against the law, okay? [smile.jpg]”
“I was just happily eating candy, and for no reason got force-fed a mouthful of [poop.jpg]. Speechless.”
Lin Zhiqiao was in utter despair. He looked over the gossip he had just pulled from the blind box again and again.
He tried one last desperate struggle: [System, the gossip that comes out of the gossip blind box… is it guaranteed genuine?]
888 put on a serious face: [Absolutely genuine. Honest business, no cheating. If there’s fake gossip, we’ll compensate one hundredfold for every fake!]
Lin Zhiqiao: […]
Who could understand the pain of a collapsed ship?
The old him did not understand, but now…
Lin Zhiqiao clutched his chest.
He understood. He understood too well.
It hurt, it hurt too much, it practically pierced straight into his heart!!!
Inside the training studio, almost everyone’s eyes were focused on Lin Zhiqiao, but unfortunately, he was too heartbroken to notice.
Ji Ran’s brows were tightly knitted.
A homophobic straight guy? Who? His Brother Yu?
Impossible.
Absolutely impossible!
[Yuan Yu has always known he’s straight, and the thing he hates most in this life is gay people. The reason he fake-dated Ji Ran and tied himself to the CP was only for traffic…]
Ji Ran could not hold back any longer and cut in, “Lin Zhiqiao!”
Lin Zhiqiao, still immersed in the pain of his shattered ship, looked up. His voice sounded dazed and slightly muffled. “What is it?”
“If you’re done stretching, then come over here and practice the choreography with me!” Ji Ran practically ground the words out through clenched teeth.
Lin Zhiqiao gave an “oh,” obediently pulled back his legs, and walked over to Ji Ran’s side.
But even so, his inner voice still did not stop—
[Back in junior high, a male classmate confessed to Yuan Yu, and Yuan Yu was so disgusted that he couldn’t eat for three whole days and nights. Every time he saw that classmate, he’d take a detour. He even made nasty snide remarks about how the other guy was “dirty,” led cliques in class to isolate him, and didn’t stop until he forced him to transfer schools…]
[How old were they in junior high? Barely teenagers, still muddled about what good and evil even are, still muddled about what liking someone means, right? So how had he already learned to bully a classmate like that!!!]
Lin Zhiqiao’s worldview was practically breaking apart, his inner screaming going off nonstop.
[The first time he got a taste of the sweetness of a bundled CP was when he had just entered the industry and shot an MV. Yuan Yu and another male actor unexpectedly attracted a small batch of CP fans.]
[But the two of them were only hyping the CP for business. They were never really dating. Originally they had agreed to hype it for a while, gain some popularity, and then stop at the right time. But Yuan Yu couldn’t bear to let go of the traffic and kept clinging to the other side without letting go.]
[Later, after that male actor got into the civil service exam and left the industry, Yuan Yu finally gave up. But he resented the actor for not cooperating, and afterward threw shade at him openly and secretly many times…]
[Last year, when filming Summer Night, he met Ji Ran. From the very beginning, Yuan Yu had already intended to bundle them as a CP, and kept guiding Ji Ran into falling for him and stepping into the trap.]
[Only if Ji Ran truly fell for him and got caught would it avoid ending halfway like last time.]
[So it was a setup from the very beginning! Ji Ran gave him such a cute pink Peppa, but Yuan Yu found it disgusting and just threw it away without hesitation!!]
[After kissing, he had to brush his teeth three times. After holding hands, he had to disinfect three times. After hugging, he absolutely had to shower three times, and he even prettied it up by calling it cleanliness obsession…]
“Lin Zhiqiao!” Ji Ran’s face was terrifyingly dark. “You messed up the move!”
Lin Zhiqiao came back to his senses.
Huh? He messed up?
That shouldn’t be right. He was actually pretty good at multitasking…
888 quietly reminded him, [Host, Ji Ran’s favorability toward you dropped another 20 points. It’s now -70.]
Lin Zhiqiao gave an “oh.” [Looks like I really did do the move wrong.]
The others did not dare say anything.
Although they thought the gossip was juicy, they had no way of judging whether it was true or false, so they could only treat it as a story.
Ji Ran was undoubtedly the angriest person there.
But besides being angry, he thought of the little yellow chick incident from earlier, and also the pink Peppa Lin Zhiqiao had just mentioned…
For a brief instant, Ji Ran suddenly felt uncertain.
That little yellow chick had been a gift from Yuan Yu.
At the time, both Ji Ran and Yuan Yu were still on the set of Summer Night. Ji Ran was the type who had trouble sleeping in a strange bed, and one night, while wandering outside because he could not sleep, he happened to run into Yuan Yu, who had come out in the middle of the night looking for food.
The two insomniacs had secretly snuck off to a nearby arcade to grab plushies from the claw machines.
Yuan Yu gave the little yellow chick he had won to Ji Ran, and Ji Ran returned the favor by giving him a pink Peppa.
Maybe it was just in that single moment.
A young boy’s heartbeat could come very suddenly.
Now, Ji Ran had taken very good care of this little yellow chick.
But the pink Peppa he gave Yuan Yu had long since disappeared without a trace.
Ji Ran had asked Yuan Yu where the pink Peppa had gone.
At the time, Yuan Yu explained that he had hung Peppa on his backpack, but after squeezing through the subway and getting off, it was gone.
Back then, Ji Ran had not thought much about it. But now…
He unconsciously clenched his fists, and his neatly trimmed nails pressed crescent-shaped marks into his soft palms.
The little yellow chick and Peppa—clearly only he and Brother Yu knew about them, so why did Lin Zhiqiao also—
Those inexplicable inner thoughts of Lin Zhiqiao’s…
Could they all really be true?
Just then, there came a knock-knock from the doorway.
“I’m not disturbing you guys, am I?”
Ji Ran instinctively looked up and met Yuan Yu’s smiling eyes.
“I brought you all some afternoon tea.” Yuan Yu gestured with the things in his hands. “Made with zero-sugar skim milk, so everyone can drink it without worry.”
Both his hands were full of milk tea bags. After he turned sideways and stepped inside, he noticed Ji Ran was still standing there without moving, so he paused.
“Ah… did I come at a bad time?” Yuan Yu asked carefully. “How about I just leave the milk tea here, and you can drink it later when you have time?”
Ji Ran suddenly snapped back to himself. While feeling guilty, a strong wave of shame rose sharply inside him.
—He and Yuan Yu had been together for so long. What kind of person Yuan Yu was, no one knew better than he did.
Ji Ran pressed his lips together, the side of his face burning from embarrassment.
How could he—how could he possibly begin to doubt Brother Yu like this just because of a few words from some “petty villain”?!
Seeing Yuan Yu turn as if to leave, Ji Ran hurriedly called out, “Brother Yu!”
Yuan Yu turned back, his tone gentle. “What is it?”
Even the tips of Ji Ran’s ears had gone red. He turned his head away and muttered awkwardly, “You’re not disturbing us.”
Yuan Yu blinked. “What did you say? I didn’t hear clearly.”
Ji Ran could hear the smile in his voice and curled his lips. “If you didn’t hear it, then forget it.”
“So sweet so sweet so sweet”
“Sweet enough to suffocate me! If Double Fire isn’t real, I’ll livestream myself standing on my head and gnawing on a keyboard!!!”
“Brother Yu and Brother Ran trust each other so firmly. They definitely won’t be driven apart!”
“You weird freakish creatures, get lost!!!”
Looking at the “sweet and loving” pair, Lin Zhiqiao kept sighing in his heart.
[They look so sweet on the outside, but underneath the sugar coating is a poison bomb.]
[Poor our Baby Ran, so innocent, handing over his sincere heart with everything he had, only for that scumbag to throw it to the ground and stomp it until it’s covered in wounds.]
[Too tragic, it’s really too tragic!]
Ji Ran found it irritating just listening.
Luckily, Brother Yu could not hear that annoying voice.
888 reminded him, [Host, Ji Ran’s favorability has dropped to -100.]
Lin Zhiqiao had no idea why and muttered to himself emotionally, [If negative favorability could also recharge the energy bar, how great would that be!]
After Yuan Yu left, the classroom returned to its previous training rhythm.
Ji Ran wore a dark expression, and Lin Zhiqiao did not go out of his way to make himself unwelcome. He simply held the group dance video and quietly practiced the moves by himself at the side.
After eating several pieces of gossip in a row, the energy bar was almost empty again.
[One last one. Let me see what I can pull out this time… Why is it still about Yuan Yu?]
[Yuan Yu has a Weibo alt account called This Filthy and Absurd World 40298. He uses it to record his daily mood—]
[“Faggots are the most disgusting creatures in this world, bar none.”
“Another day of being forced to play nice for work. I’m so grossed out I could puke. [vomit.jpg]”
“His tears don’t carry a virus or something, do they? Damn.”
“To be honest, CP fans are just a bunch of brainless creatures. Give them a tiny bit of sweetness and they’ll be grateful to death. They don’t even have a shred of dignity. It’s laughable beyond belief.” …]
[Good grief, this isn’t recording his mood at all. It’s obviously just a [beep—] garbage can for venting!]
[How can there be someone this disgusting in the world! He takes all the benefits and still acts like the victim! He’s hypocritical, shameless, stupid, and rotten to the core!!!]
[Scumbag, get the hell out of here!!!]
