Chapter 20: Shipping

After returning to the company dormitory, Zhu Huai entered deadline-seclusion mode.

He still had no new work. He’d already offended his agent, so no resources would ever fall to him—not that Zhang Bei, fully devoted to Liu Qi now, had any time for him anyway.

Great. Unemployed again.

So the laid-off worker Zhu Huai rushed and hurried, and finally finished that piece of fan art before Jiang Sheli returned to City A.

Two straight days of grinding had left his shoulders and spine stiff.

He opened Weibo, logged onto the Piggy Huai account, and posted with a sense of accomplishment.

Piggy Huai: Locked myself in for two days and finally finished the drawing. I’m a husk of a person now.

[Madam! Is this the piece from the last livestream? I only saw the rough draft, I didn’t even know what you were drawing! Please show us the finished piece!]

Reply: Sorry, this one’s confidential.

[Piggy, did you see the latest Indoor Games livestream? Have you considered drawing a Zhu Huai x Hundred Flowers fan art?]

[Reply: …I probably couldn’t draw that.]

[Reply: Why? Are you a Zhu Huai anti, Madam?]

Because I can’t draw myself.

But of course he couldn’t explain that. To settle it once and for all, he replied:

[Yep, sorry about that QAQ]

After replying, the comment section refreshed, and a new message appeared right before his eyes—

[Huaili: Do you take commercial commissions, Madam? Please check your DMs.]

The reason Zhu Huai noticed this comment was that the commenter’s ID looked familiar.

He suddenly remembered: when the investors of 《The Disloyal Minister》 had treated the crew to dinner, someone in the group chat Shen Jingjing had shown him seemed to have mentioned this ID.

At the time, they’d also mentioned a CP name. What was it again?

He’d taken note at the moment, but forgotten since.

Zhu Huai opened his DMs and saw the message this person had left him, timestamped yesterday.

Huaili: [Do you draw real-person CP fan art? Price is negotiable.]

Zhu Huai replied with a question mark.

Huaili: [Sorry, I didn’t know you were a Zhu Huai anti. Sorry to bother you.]

A vague premonition rose in Zhu Huai’s chest. He seemed to be about to learn something earth-shattering.

Piggy Huai: [Tell me first.]

The other side immediately flung a link at him.

Huaili: [[Holding Li in My Arms] [Jiang Sheli x Zhu Huai] Domineering Movie Emperor and Pretty Idol | Chapter 5: Separation | link→]

Zhu Huai looked at it.

?

What was this?

He read it again, carefully.

He recognized every character and understood every word.

So it meant…

…

It couldn’t possibly mean what he thought it meant, right?

Zhu Huai looked back up at their chat history: real-person CP fan art.

Oh ho. It was exactly what he thought it meant.

Huaili: [There’s a scene in this chapter that many readers want visualized. I’ve looked at many artists, and only your style fits. I hope you’ll consider it.]

Zhu Huai’s mind went blank.

He had no idea what he’d even replied.

Even after closing the chat window, that link still looped through his head.

He finally remembered. The CP name Shen Jingjing’s group had mentioned that day was “Holding Li in My Arms.”

And now he knew—it was the CP of him and Jiang Sheli.

He and Jiang Sheli actually had CP fans??

Zhu Huai picked at his fingers, not quite believing it.

No way. How had anyone connected the two of them?

But deep down, a thread of anticipation rose uncontrollably in his chest. The feeling came too strangely for him to examine; simply thinking about being linked with Jiang Sheli made him so happy he felt like he might bubble over.

Zhu Huai’s head was mush. When he came to, he realized he’d opened Weibo at some point, and the search bar already held four characters: “Holding Li in My Arms.”

The search button was right there. He hadn’t pressed it yet.

Zhu Huai’s heart pounded like a drum.

Well, okay. He was just taking a look. No particular reason.

【Holding Li in My Arms Super Topic】Followers: 2,713.

“…”

That number was a little pitiful.

He read the pinned post first:

[Holding You (Li) in My Arms: Jiang Sheli x Zhu Huai. A gallant, inaccessible-flower Movie Emperor x a stunningly beautiful little idol. Welcome to the ship. Keep it in your own corner, and please don’t disturb the artists themselves.]

Floating at the top of the Super Topic was the post with Huaili’s link—just a single long image, but with a fair number of comments and reposts.

Zhu Huai didn’t rush to click it. Instead, he slowly scrolled down page by page, carefully browsing this Super Topic with fewer than three thousand followers.

Not many people, but an abundance of output.

What met his eyes was a stream of fan fiction, simple web comic strips, and screenshots of the two of them interacting—the sole ginger soup Weibo interaction.

Just that one tiny crumb of sugar, and the CP fans had chewed out a whole world of joy.

After absorbing the various “sugary hints” the CP fans had extracted from that screenshot, he returned to the top of the Super Topic and clicked the long image.

#Holding Li in My Arms# [Movie Emperor x Idol] 18R WARNING! Movie Emperor Darkening WARNING! [Explicit Scene] WARNING! Omegaverse Birth WARNING!

Zhu Huai, who had just emerged from the gentle, artsy sweetness of sugar: ???!!!

Row after row of warnings blinded the little idol.

18R—understood.

Darkening—understood.

Explicit scene—…also understood.

Omegaverse? He only knew ABCs.

Giving birth? He and Jiang Sheli could have kids??

Zhu Huai was shocked.

Curiosity pushed him in.

…

Survival instinct pushed him out.

Zhu Huai felt like he might spontaneously combust. His palms were hot enough to fry an egg, and the phone in his hand felt like it was about to explode.

He’d been to CP Super Topics before, but the content there was always normal—little fan videos, matching fan art, some gentle manufactured ambiguity.

Nothing this explosive.

Seriously, wouldn’t the cyber police bust this?

Even so, Creator Huaili’s writing was genuinely impressive. As embarrassed as Zhu Huai was, he had to admit—it was captivating.

He clicked in again to take another look.

Hmm. It was… okay, actually? Not that unacceptable.

Mm… Jiang Sheli’s personality was written really well. Cold on the surface, but truly warm inside. Madam really understood him.

…And having a kid wasn’t entirely out of the question. The kid in the story was pretty adorable, too.

The darkened Jiang Sheli was also quite something…

Wuwu. Madam wrote him way too kindly. “The Movie Emperor’s little sun,” “a ray of light in his life”… He wasn’t nearly that good.

The long image was finished in no time, leaving Zhu Huai flushed from head to toe, wanting more.

He clicked into Creator Huaili’s Weibo—the pinned post was full of various “food.”

Perhaps because the starting bar had been set so high, he could stomach all sorts of plays afterward.

…And he even savored them.

[Jiang Sheli’s hands didn’t stop moving. Looking at the flushed body beneath him, he laughed low, breathing a wisp of hot air by Zhu Huai’s ear. “Does it feel good, baby? Hm?”]

Jiang Sheli’s sexy, mellow voice automatically inserted itself into his mind. Zhu Huai’s breathing quickened, and his toes curled in shame.

Zhu Huai told himself he should stop, but he just couldn’t control it.

His hand, acting entirely beyond conscious control, tapped “next page.”

The exit button in the top-left corner? Nonexistent.

Help. He couldn’t stop.

He clicked into the next piece.

“Hah!” Jiang Sheli sneered, hooking a finger under the youth’s fair, delicate chin. “Your father has already sold you to me. Where do you still think you can run? A toy should obediently listen to its master. Disobedience brings punishment.”

The youth’s lips pressed thin as he tried hard to wear a fearless expression, but his trembling body betrayed him. “What do you want?”

“What do I want?” The man’s gaze roamed over the slender, fragile form before him, burning without concealment, and his voice dropped low. “It’s time to teach this Little Friend how to obey.”

The text ended there, followed by a link. He followed it.

Thirty minutes later.

Zhu Huai’s heart pounded wildly. His ears and cheeks were scorching. He almost didn’t recognize the words “Mm,” “Ah,” “I can’t anymore,” and “Slower.”

The content was so intense it kept dancing along the edge of getting Red-Locked on Green River.

Zhu Huai took a few deep breaths and silently recited Prosperity, Democracy, Civility, Harmony… then rushed into the bathroom for a cold shower.

When he came out, he closed the web pages, buried himself under the covers, and forced himself to sleep.

Two hours passed. The blanket was shoved open, revealing a disheveled head.

Its owner guiltily reached for the phone on the nightstand, registered an alt account, threw in a tip, reposted, and left an impassioned comment.

“Madam, you’re amazing! Looking forward to your new car!”

—

All night, Zhu Huai wrestled with himself.

Reason: I’m perfectly clear-headed.

Brain: The hell you are!

Looking at his reflection in the mirror, complete with two massive dark circles, Zhu Huai was speechless.

This CP-shipping thing really went to your head.

He’d never imagined he’d one day ship himself and Jiang Sheli.

He scrolled while eating. He scrolled while on the toilet. His life was now in the hands of Madam’s pen.

This couldn’t go on.

Zhu Huai clutched his chest. He had to quit.

He resisted, again and again, the urge to pull out his phone, and used that momentum to nail down the final details of his fan art. In the bottom-right corner of the finished piece, he signed his name, then carefully saved it.

After dawdling aimlessly around the room for half the day, feeling that enough time had passed, he finally rewarded himself by pulling out his phone and opening Weibo.

Mm. Just a little while.

Out of habit, he checked the hot search first—and his heart leaped into his throat.

#JiangSheliInjuredInSasaengAttack# [Hot]

The words “sasaeng fan” made Zhu Huai’s heart drop.

Sasaeng fans were an extreme breed who treated celebrities as their personal property, stopping at nothing to get close to them. Installing cameras in celebrities’ homes and stalking them were considered the milder offenses—a few years ago, there had even been a case of a sasaeng kidnapping a celebrity.

When Zhu Huai had been an idol, he’d been harassed by sasaeng fans too. It had been an utter misery.

He quickly tapped into the news.

While attending an event in City C, Jiang Sheli had been followed by sasaeng fans. They’d long been tracking his schedule. After pinning down the address, they hadn’t made their move right away—they waited until Jiang Sheli was alone, then cornered him with accomplices. The sasaengs lunged at him the moment they saw him, and during the scuffle, one of them stabbed Jiang Sheli with a bladed weapon. He was rushed to the hospital.

The news article had been posted two hours ago.

Zhu Huai couldn’t help it. He dialed Jiang Sheli.

“Sorry, the number you have dialed is powered off…”

In that instant, a mess of thoughts raced through Zhu Huai’s mind.

He’d been hospitalized. It had to be serious.

Even though he knew Jiang Sheli was certainly surrounded by accompanying staff, he simply couldn’t calm down.

He rubbed his hands anxiously until his fingertips brushed against something cold.

The watch on his wrist—the wrap-up gift Jiang Sheli had given him.

Zhu Huai forced himself to settle, chest rising and falling softly as his fingers flew across the phone screen.

Then he stood, slung on a backpack, and walked out the door.