Chapter 8
Ji Ran, however, knew nothing about any of this.
The moonlight was dim, and the little grove was thick with branches and leaves. The visibility was terrible—he could barely even see the path clearly.
Ji Ran had never been to the grove before, so for a while he could not tell north from south. He wandered around like a headless fly for quite some time before finally following the faint sounds coming from afar and finding the place.
Southeast direction. Edge corner. Old withered tree.
Very good.
Everything matched up.
Ahead of him, two shadowy figures of different heights gradually came into view. Ji Ran hesitated for less than a second before carefully hiding himself in the dark instead of showing himself right away.
Compared with earlier, he had calmed down a little.
There was no point rushing over now.
He should observe first and see what exactly these two people were trying to do.
One reason was so that when the time came to “question” them later, he would have more confidence. The other was… Ji Ran still held onto the tiniest sliver of hope.
What if?
What if Yuan Yu was not here on a date with someone else, but instead—just instead—earnestly rehearsing lines late at night, or doing some other proper business?
Ji Ran pressed his lips tightly together, even slowing his breathing.
He heard Yuan Yu’s lowered voice, as if afraid someone might overhear: “Why did you ask me out so late? What if someone sees us?”
Hm?
So Yuan Yu had been asked out by the other party. He had not come here on his own initiative?
But before Ji Ran could breathe a sigh of relief, he heard another voice speak—
“Yuan Yu.” The female voice was unusually calm, even carrying a trace of release. “Let’s break up.”
Ji Ran: “???!”
Yuan Yu seemed startled. He stayed silent for quite a while before speaking. “Why bring up breaking up all of a sudden? Haven’t we been doing fine all along? Could it be… are you still bothered by the thing between me and Ji Ran?”
The woman said nothing.
“Didn’t I already tell you? Ji Ran and I are just hyping a CP.” Yuan Yu sighed. “Summer Night is still riding its wave of popularity. For every extra day I hype the CP with him, that’s one more day of traffic and attention.”
The more Yuan Yu spoke, the more worked up he became. “Isn’t this completely normal for artists? Shu Qing, you’re in the same circle as me, so why can’t you try to understand me a little? I’m also thinking about our future! Don’t you want us to climb to a higher position together?”
“Cut the crap.” The girl named Shu Qing let out a cold snort. “Whether you’re doing this for us or for yourself, you know the answer better than anyone.”
“We’ve been together for three years, and you’ve been hyping a CP with him for over a year! Back when we first got together, you told me we were both in our rising period, and that if people found out we were dating, it would hurt us. So I kept cooperating with you the whole time and never revealed a single thing about us to the outside!”
“Even my parents don’t know I actually have a boyfriend I’ve been dating for three years!” Her voice grew quick and sharp, filled with grievance and anger she could no longer suppress. “Now you’re hyping a CP with him—do you know what I feel? I just think it’s ridiculous! Completely ridiculous!”
“I’m obviously your real girlfriend! Yet even meeting you once has to be done in secret, always terrified of being found out, terrified people will point fingers at me and call me the mistress!” Shu Qing’s voice began to choke with emotion. “Yuan Yu, you’ve never once considered how I feel.”
That speech contained far, far too much information.
Ji Ran barely managed to suppress his shock and quickly counted on his fingers—
The girl said she and Yuan Yu had been together for three years.
And Yuan Yu had confessed to him, and the two of them had officially gotten together, one year and two months ago.
Ji Ran’s vision went black.
Fuck!
He had actually been made the other man!!!
Yuan Yu said, “Just give me a little more time. Once I figure out how to turn as many CP fans as possible into personal fans—”
“But I’m tired, Yuan Yu. I don’t want to wait anymore.” Shu Qing calmed down again. “I think what you said before was right. At our current stage, we should focus on our careers. As for relationship matters… let’s talk about them later.”
Yuan Yu was clearly panicking now. “You’re angry right now. Let’s not talk about this. Wait until you calm down—”
“Calm your damn [beep] self down!!!”
The sudden roar interrupted the conversation between the two.
Ji Ran had held it in and held it in, but in the end he simply could not bear it anymore!
He shot out from the darkness and charged straight at Yuan Yu. The moment he reached him, he swung a fully loaded punch with all his force!
“You scumbag! Eat my fist!”
Yuan Yu was completely unprepared. With a yelp, he was punched straight to the ground and instantly knocked silly.
He collapsed, clutching his face, unable to get up. His phone fell out of his pocket and was snatched up perfectly by Ji Ran.
Shu Qing, standing nearby, seemed startled. She took a step back and did not make a sound for quite a while.
Ji Ran skillfully unlocked Yuan Yu’s phone, logged into his Weibo, and with hardly any effort at all found the login record for another account.
It was This Filthy and Absurd World 40298.
The heart Ji Ran had been hanging onto finally died completely.
Yuan Yu climbed up from the ground. “A-Ran, listen to my explanation!”
“What exactly do you want to explain?” Ji Ran sneered. “Explain why you already had a girlfriend, but hid it from me and still confessed to me?”
“Explain why you’re clearly straight and even homophobic, yet still acted all sweet and lovey-dovey with me while enduring disgust the whole time?”
“Explain how you accepted the love of CP fans with one hand, while behind their backs cursing them out in the ugliest way possible with the other?!”
“What a joke that I actually believed you, even spoke up for you and made excuses for you—” Ji Ran took a heavy breath, his voice trembling a little. “Yuan Yu, I really never thought you were this kind of person!”
Yuan Yu froze for a moment. “…So you know everything now?”
Ji Ran exploded into curses. “What filthy and absurd world? Let me tell you this! This world isn’t filthy—the filthy one is you! It’s your heart! It’s your filthy eyes that look at the world in a filthy way!!!”
Yuan Yu finally struggled up from the ground. “Give me back my phone.”
“Heh.” Ji Ran let out a cold laugh and instead stuffed the phone into Shu Qing’s hand. “I think you also have the right to know exactly what kind of piece of trash the man you waited so long for really is!”
Yuan Yu panicked and lunged forward, trying to snatch the phone back. “Give me the phone!”
Tall and long-legged, Shu Qing moved her feet and easily dodged Yuan Yu’s desperate pounce, retreating to the side with the phone in hand.
Yuan Yu could not stop in time. His head slammed into the tree trunk with a bang, and the pain made his vision go dark again.
That brief moment was enough for Shu Qing to clearly see what was on the phone screen. Combined with what Ji Ran had just said, she instantly understood the truth of the matter.
Yuan Yu had just straightened up when another fierce blow came at him head-on!
“Scumbag!” Shu Qing shouted furiously as she slapped Yuan Yu hard across the right side of his face. “Damn you! If I don’t beat you to death today, my name isn’t Shu Qing!”
She used all her strength, slapping Yuan Yu so hard that his whole body staggered. Even Ji Ran, watching from the side, felt his own face ache faintly in sympathy.
“I’m so mad, I’m so mad!” Ji Ran paced back and forth in fury. “If I’d known you were this rotten, I should’ve dragged the cameraman along too, so your fans could see your true face!”
Both sides of Yuan Yu’s face were now swollen, and his speech came out slurred. “Even if you regret it now, it’s too late—”
“Not too late, not too late at all.”
But then, from the dark area off to the side, a fourth person’s voice suddenly emerged.
The three of them turned toward the sound.
The cameraman stepped forward two paces and walked out of the darkness, the camera slung over his shoulder gleaming under the night.
Yuan Yu: “?!”
Shu Qing: “Wow!”
Ji Ran was so shocked that he stuttered. “Y-y-you… why are you here?”
The cameraman remained calm and expressionless. “I followed Teacher Lin here.”
Ji Ran: “…Lin Zhiqiao?”
The cameraman shifted one step to the side, revealing behind him… Tang Zhou, Wen Li, Jiang Qianqian, and Pei Ning.
Ji Ran: “…”
Tang Zhou coughed lightly. “Mm, we also followed Zhiqiao here.”
Ji Ran widened his eyes and searched hard for quite a while. Finally, behind those five people, under that patch of pitch-black shadow, he found the last person.
Lin Zhiqiao said, “…The cameraman said you and Yuan Yu had started fighting.”
Jiang Qianqian nodded repeatedly. “That’s right. We were all really worried about you.”
Ji Ran opened his mouth, his brain still not fully processing the situation. But Yuan Yu spoke before he could.
“Delete the video. Name your price, I’ll pay.” He was speaking to the cameraman.
The cameraman stayed silent.
Yuan Yu said, “Is fifty thousand enough?”
Still silence.
Yuan Yu said, “One hundred thousand!”
The cameraman’s expression moved slightly, but he still said nothing.
Yuan Yu said, “Two hundred thousand!”
The cameraman finally said, “That’s not a small amount, but…”
Yuan Yu ground out the words through clenched teeth. “Five hundred thousand!”
From the side, Lin Zhiqiao let out a tiny sharp inhale.
How much salary had Director Fang even given the cameraman?
Five hundred thousand!
That was a full five hundred thousand!
And the cameraman was not tempted in the slightest?!
The cameraman sighed. “Even if you offered me one hundred million right now, there’s still nothing I can do for you.”
Yuan Yu frowned hard. “What do you mean?”
“To be honest, this is a livestream,” the cameraman said. “It’s being simultaneously broadcast across the top ten livestreaming platforms on the internet. The current number of viewers online…”
He glanced at the data.
But it was too dark, so he could not read it clearly.
“Anyway, it’s a lot,” the cameraman said. “The comment section is pretty lively.”
Yuan Yu’s vision went black.
His left cheek hurt, his right cheek hurt, his forehead hurt, and his heart hurt even more.
Something lodged in his chest. His eyes rolled back, the world spun around, and he fainted on the spot with remarkable decisiveness.
In a daze, Yuan Yu heard the people around him talking—
Wen Li: “Uh… does he need first aid?”
Ji Ran: “No need. He won’t die.”
Tang Zhou: “What about an ambulance?”
The cameraman: “Better not waste public emergency resources.”
Jiang Qianqian: “Then… maybe we stab him a little more?”
Shu Qing: “That could work… forget it, though. It’ll dirty my hands.”
Pei Ning summed it up: “Then let’s just bury the body directly.”
Lin Zhiqiao silently nodded.
For Yuan Yu right now, being buried in the dirt might indeed be the most fitting ending.
