Chapter 120: Transmigrated as a Scumbag in a Boy Group Survival Show (2)
Having finished threatening Xie Jinshen, Cen Yu immediately felt that it was a job well done.
Just as he was about to turn on his heel and leave, he noticed a corner of his clothes being yanked from behind.
“?” When he turned his head, he met the gaze of a coy, thoroughly embarrassed-looking Xie Jinshen.
What is the meaning of this?
Cen Yu felt somewhat baffled, but he still maintained his cold, scumbag persona. “What are you doing?” He shook off Xie Jinshen’s hand. “Don’t let anyone see us.”
Xie Jinshen wasn’t annoyed in the slightest at having his hand brushed away. Clad in his crisp white shirt, he maintained an aura of pure, flawless, gentle innocence. “Touch me.”
Cen Yu nearly thought he had misheard.
“Touch my head,” Xie Jinshen added softly.
I’m going to get scared to death by you people dramatic pauses sooner or later! Cen Yu thought to himself. He was just about to lean over and give Xie Jinshen’s head a pat, but suddenly remembered that he was playing a heartless scumbag right now! How could he possibly do whatever Xie Jinshen asked him to do?
“Ha,” Cen Yu let out a chuckle.
“Do you really think that’s happening?”
Saying this, he leaned close to Xie Jinshen and used the back of his hand to tap his cheek a couple of times. “Stop indulging in wishful thinking.”
With that, he genuinely had no intention of paying Xie Jinshen any further mind, stepping out from the quiet backstage area.
And after he departed, Xie Jinshen clutched the hem of his dress shirt, his face flushing deep red with excitement…
After a long moment, he caressed his own cheek, murmuring to himself, “Thank you, Little Yu.”
Having just left the backstage corridor, Cen Yu spotted Jiang Jueming standing beside a trash bin, idly playing with a lighter in his hand.
As the story’s protagonist gong, Jiang Jueming was set up as the all-around ACE who debuted at the center position. His popularity was off the charts, his background was formidable, his family was wealthy, and his demeanor was reserved. He wasn’t particularly fond of social interactions with others, maintaining a lukewarm relationship with everyone throughout the survival show.
As for Cen Yu’s character setup… heh.
Seeing this persona, Cen Yu wanted nothing more than to drag the system out for a thorough beating.
Cen Yu was set up as an absolute, shameless clout-chaser!
Whoever was popular, he would suck up to them!
He would act as though he was close with everyone, desperately scrambling for screen time… Sadly, out of the nine members in this group, roughly half were more popular than him, meaning he had to play the kiss-ass to at least four or five different people.
Thus, the moment he laid eyes on Jiang Jueming, even though Cen Yu wished this guy would scurry off immediately after eavesdropping, he still had to force himself over to maintain his persona—
“Brother Jiang, you’re here all by yourself?” He forced a look of surprise onto his face.
However, perhaps because they were too close to the backstage area where he had just been, he felt a flicker of worry that Jiang Jueming might have overheard his conversation with Xie Jinshen. He probed cautiously, “Are you waiting for someone here? How come I don’t see anyone else around?”
Naturally, Jiang Jueming picked up on Cen Yu’s probing.
Squinting his eyes, he studied the person before him.
The lighting in their current location wasn’t particularly bright, but he could clearly catch the subtle, watchful look in Cen Yu’s eyes.
What a pity, Jiang Jueming thought, snapping his lighter shut.
His appearance was actually so tailored to his tastes.
In truth, when the survival show first began, Jiang Jueming had taken notice of Cen Yu. The man’s somewhat distant exterior combined with his pale, cool-toned skin suited his preferences perfectly—not to mention those two tear-moles beneath his eye, which left a deeply memorable impression.
At the very beginning, he and Cen Yu had even been assigned to the same dorm room.
When the man stepped out after a shower, he would be wearing only the standard trousers provided by the show crew, while pulling the official hoodie over his upper body.
It was during one of those moments that Jiang Jueming discovered Cen Yu bore tattoos across both his lower abdomen and his arm… taking him somewhat by surprise.
Yet once they actually spent time together, Jiang Jueming discovered that Cen Yu’s actions were completely at odds with his looks.
Despite possessing such a cool, strikingly handsome face, he was thoroughly snobbish, flattering the influential while looking down on the weak… When they had just entered the show, Jiang Jueming was still adjusting, which led to a poor performance during the first public evaluation where he only managed a C rank.
During the first group selection phase, Jiang Jueming had originally intended to invite Cen Yu—his roommate—to join his team.
Unexpectedly, Cen Yu threw a glance at him and muttered, “Forget it.”
Perhaps because there were no cameras around in that spot, the disgust across Cen Yu’s face was brutally direct. “Your skill level is only a C. Don’t drag me down.”
Jiang Jueming hadn’t expected Cen Yu to be so bluntly harsh. He instinctively frowned, just about to explain that he had only performed poorly because he hadn’t adapted to the show yet, when he watched Cen Yu greet their other roommate, Li Yanxiao, and form a team with him instead.
Later, after Jiang Jueming’s popularity exploded, Cen Yu tried to butter him up on more than one occasion. Yet the more he did so, the more repulsive Jiang Jueming found him deep down.
So, taking in Cen Yu’s cautious, probing demeanor right now, Jiang Jueming merely threw him a glance.
“Waiting for someone?”
“Like Li Yanxiao?”
Hearing Li Yanxiao’s name, Cen Yu froze for a second.
If Jiang Jueming was the noble young master who debuted at the center position, then Li Yanxiao was the undisputed top-tier heartthrob of this survival show!
In almost every fanfiction mashup of the show, he was the dominant top!
Why are you, the main protagonist gong, bringing up Li Yanxiao right now?! Alarm bells rang wildly in Cen Yu’s heart.
He knew full well that Li Yanxiao—who debuted in second place as a high-popularity contestant—was framed around his mixed-race, rich second-generation persona. Standing at 187 cm tall, he was athletic, exuded a dominant aura, and possessed affectionate, captivating grayish-green eyes…
Unfortunately, Li Yanxiao and Jiang Jueming actually had a massive fan-shipped pairing.
In fact, it was the top-tier power couple of the entire fandom!
Holy crap, no way! Cen Yu thought to himself. You guys are both supposed to end up in Xie Jinshen’s harem… How can you just turn around and pair up with each other?!
“Isn’t Brother Yan celebrating with his family right now?” Cen Yu put on a puzzled expression. “Could you be waiting here for him?”
He specifically brought up Li Yanxiao’s family because the man’s household literally owned mines!
According to the novel’s background lore, his family owned not only copper mines but diamond mines as well—and while Cen Yu felt the premise was ridiculously melodramatic, that was how it was written in the text.
And as part of such a family, the Li clan was a textbook traditionalist family.
Therefore, they could never accept someone like Jiang Jueming as a male daughter-in-law. As for the protagonist shou, Xie Jinshen?
Heh, he was the protagonist shou—how could that be the same?
Li Yanxiao had mentioned this during the show before, saying his family was extremely conservative and that he had run away to make a name for himself because he couldn’t stand it.
Back then, Cen Yu had even joked, asking if they would even interfere in his future marriage and dating choices.
Li Yanxiao had simply stared at Cen Yu, pondering for a moment before replying, “…Probably.”
“No,” Jiang Jueming was sick to death of Li Yanxiao, having brought him up earlier merely to take a dig at Cen Yu.
Seeing Cen Yu seriously rambling on about Li Yanxiao being at a family gathering instantly made him feel annoyed again.
How did he know so much about it?
He frowned, glaring at Cen Yu. “How do you know so clearly that he’s at a family gathering?”
