【Bastard, do you know how worried we were about you? How dare you pull a disappearing act like that!】
【Found your Weibo password yet? If your hands are too clumsy, I can help you apply for a new account!】
【Where the hell have you been this whole time? Wuwuwuwu, not even a safety update.】
【Shows up and strikes a cool pose right away—gotta say, you nailed it. Lololol, I’m totally into this vibe of yours.】
【Screenshot screenshot, new wallpaper material!】
【By the way, is there really no spark between you and Fang Yama? You two with arms around each other look so good together, perfect match.】
【Where’d all those people cursing you on Weibo and in the Live Stream Chat go?】
【He’s back now, so quit the cursing. Dare to curse my Brother Fen? You’re asking to die!】
【……】
Like most people on the scene, Ulysses stared blankly at the face across from him. After several seconds, he smiled and extended his hand. “Hello, I’m Ulysses. You’re nothing like how you look on camera…”
That kind of impact couldn’t be felt through a screen.
Before he finished speaking, Xiao Fen withdrew his hand first, leaving Ulysses’s hand awkwardly hanging in midair.
“I don’t like shaking hands with people who haven’t washed their hands in the last three seconds.”
【Hahahahahaha, look at Blondie’s face stiffen up. Too funny.】
【Brother Fen is mighty! Really gave it to that Blondie. How dare he talk about you and Inspector Fang like that.】
【Not sure if I’m overthinking, but he’s only said two sentences, and both feel like they’re stirring the pot. His speech has such a green tea vibe.】
【What’s ‘green tea’?】 Foreign viewers didn’t get it and needed H Country folks to explain.
【And he’s got the nerve to look all drooling over my Brother Fen. In your dreams.】
【Even glancing at him extra is a blasphemy against my Brother Fen.】
【You’re overthinking it. With Apollo’s noble looks, why would he drool over Xiao? His rank is one level higher than Fang’s. He just thinks Fang didn’t perform well on the show. Don’t overinterpret.】
【Ulysses or whatever… holy shit, what kind of name is that? Western-style Squid, you really think you can reach the heavens and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the sun?】
【Don’t even say it—in their eyes, this squid is that great.】
【Have some good food.】
【Our guests joining your trashy show is basically to save your ratings and your eyesight.】
The foreign viewers had never faced this level of combat power and got utterly demolished.
Xiao Fen didn’t care what those people thought. He dropped his left hand from Fang Si Ting’s shoulder and took two steps to the side. Seeing the person behind him hadn’t followed, he put on a stern face.
“Let’s go, Mr. Black Cat.” Why bother with those boring people?
Fang Si Ting nodded. His gaze probed Ulysses once more before he followed with his footsteps.
Ou Yu hurried to catch up.
Everyone’s eyes shifted with his steps until he grabbed a piece of cake and shoved it into his mouth, shooting them a hostile glance.
Only then did their gazes release him. They pretended to socialize busily, though eyes still swept over him from time to time.
“Those people are sick, right?” Xiao Fen warily observed the crowd, cheeks puffed as he stuffed a big bite of cream cake into his mouth and chewed. “Watch out for them pulling dirty tricks.”
“It’s fine. Aren’t you here?” Ou Yu cherished the sight, looking him over repeatedly.
Xiao Fen noticed Fang Si Ting had followed and immediately ditched Ou Yu. “Did those people bully you?”
“No.” Fang Si Ting was puzzled. Where did “bully” come from?
“You, you,” Xiao Fen said, exasperated like iron that wouldn’t become steel. “Don’t let anyone bully you, got it?”
It was fine if he bullied him usually, but how could others?
“Mm.” Fang Si Ting’s gaze shifted slightly downward. “Where’d you get that hickey?”
Months apart, and he’d grown some skills.
“What hickey? It’s from the clothes rubbing. Suffered hell to wear this shirt.” Xiao Fen whined coquettishly, pulling open the right collar of his baseball jersey again. The corners of his eyes drooped pitifully as he showed off his shoulder. “Look, I’ve got bruising.”
Right now, his voice was soft and gentle, even the tips of his hair soft and fluffy.
Fang Si Ting, with his sharp hearing, caught several “Oh God” gasps from nearby. He quickly fixed the other’s clothes properly.
If no one were around, he’d want to pull him into his arms and hide him away.
“What are you doing? It hurts.” Xiao Fen twisted uncooperatively, dissatisfied. “The cold wind numbs the pain.”
“I’ll get you a Band-Aid.” His shoulder skin was freezing red.
“No, it’s ugly.”
“Then I’ll find some colorless ointment to apply.”
“Okay.” Still, Mr. Black Cat cared about him.
As soon as Fang Si Ting left, Ou Yu pulled him into the VIP lounge behind the banquet hall.
“Was it your idea to air the show in P Country?” Ou Yu asked. “I was shocked when I suddenly got the program invite a few days ago.”
“I don’t have that kind of pull. I’ve been recuperating this whole time.” Xiao Fen sat down and switched to munching mode, tossing a candy into his mouth. “Only someone like Lu Jin could come up with a brain-dead show like this. Every broadcast brings a pile of unexpected crap, and the Program Crew doesn’t have the chops to handle it. Who’d have thought it’d rot this bad and still snag some dumb rich sucker to take over.”
“…The one who caused all this fuss and tanked the previous show’s people was you.”
“Everything was within expectations.”
Without that massive backlash, there wouldn’t be this level of influence. It was a crime too big to cover up, with wide-reaching implications that even damaged the international image.
Every cent and bit of traffic he’d earned for the Lu Family became arrows stabbing back at them in the end.
Sacrificed with the original body’s blood and tears—dead men’s money wasn’t easy to take.
Ou Yu asked curiously, “How exactly did you survive?”
Though he’d gotten the text confirming he was alive, there’d been zero word from the outside world. He had no idea how Xiao Fen pulled it off.
“At the time, I contacted the National Special Investigation Bureau live on the show cameras. They set up a net for me at the cliff base outside the cameras’ view.”
Ou Yu listened with his heart in his throat. “That was way too risky. If you’d fallen straight down, or the Vice Squad Officers didn’t get your request, you’d be a pile of minced meat right now.”
Xiao Fen chuckled. “No way. I was on the railing—think I couldn’t tell if there was a net below?” If not, he’d have just listened and come down.
Even so, due to the Vice Squad Officers’ hasty prep, his body free-fell dozens of meters before hitting the net. The impact, plus his show-off landing pose, injured his body and organs. That’s why he’d been stuck in the hospital for recovery so long.
“Locked in the hospital for checks and rehab, plus this exposed case being huge, Inspector Tang kept my whereabouts secret to avoid their backers targeting me. Waited till the case settled before coming out. The official Weibo should have announced my survival by now.”
Xiao Fen had told the authorities everything about the Lu Family’s misdeeds from the book.
In that brainless domineering CEO novel, law and morals were ignored. Under Lu Jin’s halo, the background characters never batted an eye, letting them run rampant. But with his protagonist fortune destiny fading, the public’s reason returned. The Lu Family’s actions crossed every red line—utterly intolerable.
“But when did you coordinate with them? No earpiece this time—how’d you know the people across the live feed were Vice Squad Officers and not Director Wang from the Lu Corporation?”
Xiao Fen just smiled without answering.
Ou Yu quickly got it.
They’d already partnered up long ago. Just inconvenient to say.
The Lu Family’s downfall was inevitable.
Ou Yu tossed a candy into his own mouth, his expression slowly darkening.
“Ask you something.”
“Go ahead.” Xiao Fen lounged comfortably on the sofa, leg crossed over knee, stretching lazily with a contented squint.
He sat on the coffee table beside him, staring fixedly. “In your heart, have I always just been Lu Jin’s accessory? A tool?”
The man on the sofa froze, the relaxed smile dropping from his face.
The curtains by the lounge window fluttered, then fell back.
“No.”
He looked into Ou Yu’s eyes and gave the denial.
But in those silent seconds, Xiao Fen had already given the real answer.
Ou Yu learned the true answer.
Xiao Fen knew Ou Yu understood his genuine thoughts.
A flash of realization, hurt in his eyes. The mole at the corner teared up, finally turning into a bleak, bitter smile at his lips.
No wonder.
It had been premeditated from their first meeting.
During the warm-up, Lu Jin’s phone suddenly having his schedule—that should’ve been the clue. Xiao Fen had known Lu Jin liked him ages ago.
His first fake “staff” rescue was deliberate closeness to catch his attention.
After filming, going to Xiao Fen’s room—that carefree joking and heart-to-heart talk was just to up the stakes, making him leave with him the next day.
Then it snowballed. Xiao Fen effortlessly learned the Pursuit Team’s unknown whereabouts of Lu Jin and successfully knifed him.
He used him for traffic, for the second episode chance to keep stringing Lu Jin along. Even with a real murder, he leveraged his sway over Lu Jin to shift opinions on the Lu Family, kick off the live stream, and boost the show’s reach.
In the third episode prep, Xiao Fen asked him to invite Xue Chengge, Zhong Jinghuan, and Ma Xingwen—easy as Film Emperor. Then he followed his advice, getting Lu Jin to push the Program Crew to change rules: delayed live to real-time, location to Crescent Moon Manor, etc.
He even prepped some show props for him, steering eyes to those people’s crimes.
From warm-up to third episode, he’d been thoroughly used by Xiao Fen.
So his intentional slacking in the first episode, his honest little dark thoughts in the second—they meant nothing to him.
Xiao Fen could control everything outside the script, even ignoring black fans’ curses. Why care about his opinions or disruptions?
Xiao Fen didn’t care about him at all.
Didn’t care about his emotional swings, or that tiny bit of accidental fondness.
Who cared about a tool’s mood?
“I’ll hate you.” Ou Yu’s cold, sharp gaze wove pain and hatred.
