Wrapped in a soft, comfortable fleece blanket, Song Zang lay on the clean, pleasantly scented bed.
Half an hour earlier, when he saw Chang Mei Jiang appear outside the bathroom door, Song Zang had “used the last of his strength” to reach into his pocket. With trembling hands, he pulled out the crumpled pink love letter.
After confirming that Chang Mei Jiang was qualified to deliver the letter on his behalf, Song Zang conveniently let his head fall sideways and fainted directly into Yin Chen’s arms.
He did not actually faint, but for the sake of realism, Song Zang simply forced himself to fall asleep.
When he opened his eyes again, he had already been moved into a newly changed bedroom, and even his pajamas had been replaced with a fresh set…
Yin Chen absolutely refused to let him sit up and insisted that he remain lying down and rest.
“Yin Chen, I…”
“Don’t talk. I’m putting medicine on it.” Yin Chen spoke coldly, though his hands were extraordinarily gentle.
He dipped a cotton swab into a pale medicinal solution, held Song Zang by the chin, and carefully pressed it against his soft lips, which had already stopped bleeding. He switched cotton swabs several times and slowly applied the medicine again and again.
Only when Song Zang quietly protested that his mouth was going numb did Yin Chen reluctantly stop.
The bedroom should have felt peaceful and warm, but the atmosphere was tense and stagnant. Yin Chen was obviously in a terrible mood.
“What exactly happened?” he asked, staring at Song Zang. A dark, cold scrutiny showed through his phoenix eyes.
Song Zang’s voice trembled, thick with fear and lingering shock. “That person pretending to be you… I think he really loved me. He said he came to save me… and he was willing to die for me. So perverted. So scary.”
Whether Yin Chen believed him or not, Song Zang genuinely had not lied. Everything he said was true. He had merely trimmed away part of the truth.
When Song Zang swung the knife at the impostor, the man had never fought back at all. Song Zang had seen it clearly. There was only pain and sorrow in his eyes. His handsome face had been full of shattered, pitiful misery, without even a trace of vicious malice.
The dark carpet absorbed color too well, turning the blood-spatter patterns from that moment into nothing more than several thick, filthy stains.
Without a professional forensic examination of the stab wounds and blood patterns, absolutely no one could definitively say who had killed whom.
Yin Chen’s eyes darkened as he pressed relentlessly, “Did he want to take you away? Did he hurt you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know…” Song Zang helplessly shook his head, then seemed to suddenly remember something. He clutched the edge of the blanket tightly and said in panic, “Right. Before he came through the door, I saw that face again.”
Yin Chen paused, then frowned and said coldly, “I saw it too this time, in the bathroom mirror. A face exactly like yours.”
Hearing this, Song Zang’s wrist trembled slightly. He asked fearfully, “Is… is it still there?”
“It vanished in the blink of an eye. I took the mirror down and checked it. I found nothing.”
Yin Chen answered with a grim expression while placing a hand over Song Zang’s shoulder. Through the blanket, he rubbed him soothingly with just enough pressure.
Song Zang obediently let him do it, taking the opportunity to display a little reassurance and dependence. In a soft voice, he speculated, “Maybe… the face in the mirror is the one who actually wants to kill me, and the impostor really did come to save me?”
The moment he finished speaking, the hand gently rubbing his shoulder suddenly tightened. The warmth of Yin Chen’s palm seeped through the fabric with an unmistakable presence.
Yin Chen seemed to become even angrier. He gripped Song Zang’s shoulder and warned him fiercely, “You’re not allowed to go with him. You’re not allowed to believe him. You’re not allowed to say nice things about him. He’s a liar, a huge pervert, a lunatic. He won’t treat you well. He deliberately scared you with a knife. You can’t like a freak like that. He’s pretending to be pitiful so he can trick you into having feelings for him. Do you hear me?”
The barrage of intense, extreme accusations left Song Zang’s head spinning. But it also made him suddenly realize…
So this was the real reason Yin Chen was in such a bad mood.
Song Zang desperately suppressed his laughter and sniffed pitifully. His damp black eyes shimmered with tears. “I didn’t believe him. I recognized him the very first time I looked at him. I knew. He wasn’t you.”
“Really?”
“Of course it’s true.” Song Zang’s lashes trembled, and tears immediately slid down. “You’re the one who’s been hiding so many things from me.”
“When did I ever hide—”
“If your role mission is to take revenge on me and expose my true nature, then you should hate me. Tell me, why did that impostor love me?”
After being righteously blamed despite being the victim of the accusation, Yin Chen fell helplessly into a long silence. Only after a long while did he gently wipe the tears from the corner of Song Zang’s eye and quietly explain, “My role description says that love and hate spring from the same root and depend upon one another.”
Then his voice became somewhat troubled. “I don’t understand it either. I have no idea what kind of sentimental bullshit that’s supposed to be. But ‘I’ want revenge on you, and ‘I’ also want you back.
“When your true face is exposed before the entire world, when everyone abandons you and you’re left utterly alone with nowhere else to go, then you’ll have no choice but to keep depending on me, clinging to me, too afraid to ever leave me again.”
“Oh my God. That’s so messed up.” The more Song Zang listened, the more stunned he became, and he could not help murmuring under his breath.
Yin Chen agreed completely, but did not forget to continue warning him seriously. “That role is psychologically deranged. Any Aberrant trying to replace me would definitely be just as deranged. You absolutely cannot believe that pitiful act he puts on.”
Hearing that Yin Chen’s tone was still so fierce, Song Zang’s wet lashes trembled and he immediately pretended to feel wronged. “I never did. He already came right into my room and bullied me, and now you’re still being mean to me.”
“…I’m not being mean to you.”
Song Zang seemed unconvinced and softly made a request in an aggrieved tone. “Then you have to hold me while I sleep tonight too. I’m scared I’ll have nightmares, and I’m scared of that face. If you aren’t here, it’ll definitely come back and kill me.”
Yin Chen’s expression softened almost instantly. Even his temper seemed to improve out of nowhere, the terrifying aura surrounding him changing from stormy to clear skies in the blink of an eye.
He had discovered that he simply liked it when Song Zang asked things of him. Once his mood improved, naturally everything became easy to discuss. Yin Chen tucked the blanket around Song Zang and immediately agreed in a warm voice. “Mm. Whatever you want.”
Song Zang’s lips curved slightly into a pale, pitiful smile.
Now that he had finished pretending to be innocent and successfully soothed Yin Chen, whatever happened next had nothing to do with him.
After all, he was still being forcibly kept in bed, making him half a patient, and Yin Chen had ordered him to recuperate properly.
Yin Chen did not leave the room. He stayed by Song Zang’s side the entire time in case that face of unknown intent appeared again.
Even after washing up, Yin Chen, still wrapped in lingering shower steam, did not leave. He placed a glass of hot milk on Song Zang’s bedside table, then sat on the other side of the large bed in a bathrobe, opened his tablet, and put on headphones.
He was holding a video meeting with Chang Mei Jiang and the others to discuss tomorrow’s schedule. Song Zang curled beneath the blanket with his eyes closed, ears perked as he secretly listened in.
The mangled corpse had already been collected and sent to the laboratory overnight for testing and analysis.
Sure enough, absolutely no one suspected Song Zang of being responsible for “Yin Chen’s” death. Chi Yan had suspiciously asked Yin Chen about his role identity, but all she received were a few sparse, completely honest answers.
Very honest. After all, Yin Chen himself could not understand his role. How could someone supposedly both love and hate another person at the same time? It sounded like a lunatic.
Chi Yan, on the other hand, laughed uncontrollably and concluded that Yin Chen and Li Jun seemed to be cut from the same cloth this time—both becoming increasingly psychologically twisted because the person they loved did not love them back.
Yin Chen lowered his eyes helplessly and did not bother arguing. After all, he also thought the role was extremely deranged.
Still, it was perfectly fine for him to play a pervert. An impostor daring to replace him and become the pervert in his stead, however, was absolutely unacceptable.
As for Li Jun… ever since Chi Yan knocked him unconscious with one punch that morning, he had seemed slightly more well-behaved after waking.
He hid nothing and honestly revealed his role mission—to work hard on the dating show to shed his straight-man image and find himself a suitable boyfriend. Even if he merely went through the motions of entering a contractual relationship, it would still count as completing the mission.
The mission was not actually that difficult, but Li Jun himself had long stopped caring about these bullshit tasks. He did not care if points were deducted.
He just wanted to stay alive!
In order to survive, whenever his mental state was relatively normal, Li Jun immediately went to Chi Yan and proposed working together. He frankly admitted that he really did possess an ability to detect danger.
He could see 【visions of the future】. Sometimes he saw one second ahead. Sometimes he saw several days ahead. It was a passive ability that he could not trigger voluntarily, and each glimpse lasted no more than five seconds.
Most of those futures contained deadly danger. They would appear in Li Jun’s mind without warning, forcing him to experience death as though he were physically there… and reducing his sanity to mush.
If no one changed the way reality developed, then the future he saw would inevitably come true exactly as shown. It had never failed once.
Given such a powerful ability with such a punishing cost, Chi Yan gladly accepted Li Jun’s request to cooperate. The two quickly agreed on several rules.
—He was willing to serve as a human detector. Whenever Li Jun began showing emotional instability, he would type three periods in the group chat. The players could automatically assume that an Aberrant was about to appear or that one of their companions had already been replaced, and everyone would immediately go on alert.
—He would do his best to control his incoherent babbling. If he failed, Chi Yan had the right to break his nose with one punch.
—As for anything involving Song Zang, he should simply keep his mouth shut.
Yin Chen was very satisfied with Li Jun’s tact. At the same time, however, he felt a trace of curiosity about Li Jun’s incoherent rambling. “You said before that all of us were going to die. What did you mean? What did you sense?”
On the other side of the screen, Li Jun sat obediently on the sofa with gauze taped across the bridge of his nose.
The moment he heard Yin Chen’s question, his whole body suddenly shrank back. Fearfully, he turned toward Chi Yan for help.
Chi Yan immediately understood and explained for him. “Looks like it has something to do with Song Zang. Are you sure you want to keep listening?”
“Of course.” Yin Chen tilted his head and glanced at Song Zang lying beside him, confirming that his mood was currently perfectly calm.
Li Jun had no choice but to answer in a trembling voice. “I saw Song Zang. I saw Song Zang in hundreds of predictions. He was smiling. He looked beautiful, and terrifying… He killed me. He killed everyone. He enjoyed it. He’s a demon!”
Fear had completely destroyed Li Jun’s self-control. His speech became faster and faster regardless of consequences, while Yin Chen’s gaze grew colder by degrees.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, shut up already.” Chang Mei Jiang’s scalp prickled beneath Yin Chen’s stare. She quickly jabbed Li Jun with her elbow.
“No. Li Jun, keep going.” Chi Yan shook her head, frowned, and lit a cigarette. Looking toward the screen, she spoke in a calm voice. “President Yin, don’t let your emotions control you. The information Li Jun sees is extremely important to everyone. It’s important to Song Zang too.”
Yin Chen’s phoenix eyes curved slightly. His smile was dark enough to make one’s skin crawl, but his tone remained mild. “I understand. Continue.”
Outside the computer camera’s frame, no one knew that Yin Chen had quietly closed his hand around Song Zang’s wrist. His thumb repeatedly stroked the smooth skin over Song Zang’s pulse as if using it as a sedative.
Song Zang had been secretly listening to the conversation leaking from Yin Chen’s headphones. At first he had intended to keep his eyes closed and let Yin Chen do whatever he wanted, but Yin Chen really did keep stroking him more and more…
The arm beneath those gentle caresses began tingling and going numb. Like a viral infection, that subtle sensation spread throughout Song Zang’s entire body until he genuinely could not take it anymore.
His cheeks faintly reddened as he glared at Yin Chen. “What are you doing?”
“…Someone’s saying bad things about you. I’m unhappy.” Yin Chen muted himself, removed one side of his headphones, and obediently lowered his eyes to explain.
When Yin Chen looked at him, he deliberately restrained the violent irritation in his eyes. His soft, damp black hair lay neatly over his forehead, and his expression was both restrained and painfully straightforward.
He looked ridiculously obedient.
Song Zang fell silent for a moment, suddenly feeling as though Yin Chen had attacked him for absolutely no reason.
A devastating close-range beauty attack…
Post-shower edition.
His heart softened. Song Zang reached around Yin Chen’s firm, taut waist and quietly suggested, “How about I hold you instead? You’re too strong. You keep squeezing hard enough to hurt me.”
Yin Chen’s entire body tensed almost imperceptibly before slowly relaxing again, as though evaluating this strange restraint that was gentle yet voluntarily initiated.
“Fine. Hold tighter.” After silently assessing it for a moment, Yin Chen expressed complete satisfaction.
He put his headphones back on and looked toward Li Jun. “You can keep talking now. I won’t kill you.”
Despite how peaceful the sentence sounded, Li Jun still shuddered.
Avoiding Yin Chen’s gaze, Li Jun covered his face and said quietly, “I’ve seen many terrible futures. A lot of them had something to do with Song Zang.
“I don’t know whether it was the real Song Zang or an impostor, but he was insanely strong. He didn’t seem human! Every single time, he fooled everyone and killed everyone. Whenever I opened my eyes, the floor was covered in all your corpses!
“And me? Hahaha. He crushed my skull with one hand and dug out my brain. You can’t even imagine how much it hurt! I haven’t been able to sleep properly for nights. Every time I see Song Zang, I get a migraine. Please don’t let him come near me. It really hurts…”
“The floor was covered in corpses. Did that include mine?”
Just then, Yin Chen suddenly interrupted his rambling with a meaningful question.
Fear showed on Li Jun’s face as he nodded. “You too. You always died the worst. Your whole body was full of bloody holes!”
The instant he finished speaking, the serious, oppressive atmosphere among the players suddenly loosened. If anything, everyone seemed slightly happier.
Chang Mei Jiang even poured herself a glass of wine and another for Chi Yan. Shaking her head, she laughed. “Great. Mystery solved! The one who killed everyone was definitely not Song Zang, and that corpse on the floor definitely wasn’t President Yin either.”
Chi Yan happily accepted the wine and leisurely asked, “Li Jun, do you seriously think Song Zang could kill Yin Chen?”
Li Jun froze, then hurriedly added, “He couldn’t, but a monster impersonating him could—”
“Even a monster couldn’t.”
A lazy male voice interrupted Li Jun’s defense.
It was Lu Xing You, who had been listening from his wheelchair. His abdomen and neck were still wrapped in thick bandages, and one lower leg was in a cast, but he could already more or less bounce around again.
Lu Xing You tilted his head toward Li Jun, looking half asleep and utterly drained as he lazily added, “You don’t know? Yin Chen once killed a false god.”
“What’s a false god?” Li Jun was clearly not someone who spent much time reading the forums. His expression was completely blank.
“The strongest BOSS that has appeared in an Infinite Game instance so far,” Chi Yan explained while swirling her wine. “If a player’s resistance isn’t high enough, one glance—just one glance—from a conscious false god can instantly turn them into a raving lunatic. If they’re too weak, their head can even explode like a firework.”
Chang Mei Jiang nodded. “So you really don’t need to worry about the big shot’s combat ability. Compared with a false-god instance, the monsters in this one are easy mode.”
The players on the other side of the screen began chatting, taking turns educating Li Jun about Yin Chen’s terrifying record of single-handed slaughter. In the bedroom, Song Zang secretly listened with great interest too.
Yin Chen really is amazing.
Song Zang could not help recalling the Earth Mother Goddess from the beginner instance in Tianhai City—the horrifying figure whose entire body had been ulcerated and oozing pus. Perhaps She could also be considered a false-god-level BOSS?
No wonder Xie Chun Ye had remained so hung up on it. No wonder the moment their clear-video was uploaded to the forum, its popularity had exploded overnight.
A false god appearing inside a beginner instance—even though the system had never forced players to confront Her head-on—was still enough to make the difficulty of clearing it hellish.
And yet Yin Chen had been capable of personally killing such a terrifying existence…
That alone was enough to prove how powerful he was.
Song Zang quietly relaxed. As long as Yin Chen was strong enough, that was fine. If an overwhelmingly powerful Aberrant copying Song Zang really did appear in the future, then at least Yin Chen would be safe. At least Yin Chen would be able to kill that impostor.
“It’s midnight. Time to sleep.”
Just as Song Zang’s thoughts drifted away, Yin Chen’s low, uncompromising voice sounded beside his ear.
“Hmm? You’re done talking?” Song Zang feigned confusion and looked up at him.
“They kept praising me. Boring.” As he spoke, Yin Chen reached over and turned off the light. He accurately tossed the computer onto the soft sofa at the foot of the bed, then turned and lay down, naturally pulling Song Zang tightly into his arms. “You were frightened tonight. You need plenty of sleep. Rest properly.”
“…Mm.”
Song Zang felt slightly awkward. He tentatively tried to withdraw the hand resting around Yin Chen’s waist, but Yin Chen predicted it in advance, caught his wrist, and firmly pressed it back.
“Sleep.”
Yin Chen emphasized it again.
So fierce. Song Zang obediently closed his eyes and stopped talking, though inwardly he was full of doubt—could Yin Chen really sleep peacefully like this?
After all, this time there was no blanket separating them.
Yin Chen had finally climbed into the bed.
Their skin, carrying a clear difference in body temperature, pressed closely together. Their breaths tangled stickily in the dark, each rise and fall immediately perceptible to the other. Wasn’t this even a little awkward?
Yin Chen’s pajamas were made of soft silk. Against Song Zang’s wrist, the fabric initially felt cool, but it was quickly penetrated and warmed through by Yin Chen’s furnace-like body heat.
Ten minutes later, Yin Chen’s breathing remained perfectly steady. He had not turned over even once.
Clearly, he was not affected in the slightest.
Song Zang kept his eyes tightly shut and forced himself not to secretly peek at Yin Chen’s sleeping expression.
When exactly did they become this intimate?
How had they somehow reached the point where they could naturally hold each other and sleep in the same bed?
An entire week had already passed, yet Song Zang realized he was still vaguely tangled up over this question.
Of course, he did not struggle with it for long. Song Zang abruptly and decisively gave up torturing himself.
He relaxed completely and simply went to sleep.
There was no helping it.
Sleeping while hugging a warm, toasty furnace was genuinely so comfortable…
And without a blanket between them, it was even more comfortable!
The next day, their final day at the villa, Song Zang was very happy.
He had slept well and was full of energy, so early that morning he voluntarily followed Chi Yan outside for several laps of jogging.
Perhaps Yin Chen had already warned everyone beforehand, because no one mentioned last night’s “bloody horror incident” to him. Chang Mei Jiang merely asked with concern how he was feeling and whether he could manage to finish today’s filming and the couple interview.
At the time, Song Zang was carefully pan-frying steaks for lunch. Hearing her question, he turned back in confusion. “What couple interview?”
“It was originally supposed to be an individual interview,” Chang Mei Jiang said quietly after glancing at Yin Chen, “but your guy refused. He said there was absolutely no way he’d let you stay alone in a room for that long.”
So that was it.
And indeed, he really could not.
Song Zang had already noticed that the face in the mirror seemed afraid of Yin Chen. As long as Yin Chen stayed beside him, it did not dare show itself at all.
There was no need to expose such details in front of the camera, however. Song Zang tilted his head toward the lens. His beautiful face took on four parts shyness and three parts smugness as he spoke in an affectedly soft voice. “Mr. Ex-Husband is really so clingy. He doesn’t want to be separated from me for even a moment. What am I supposed to do? It’s a little troublesome…”
He firmly believed that once the episode aired, President Yin’s male and female admirers would be so furious steam would come out of their heads.
That was exactly the effect Song Zang wanted.
Without changing expression, Chang Mei Jiang also gave him a look of approval that clearly said, Perfect.
Then, thoroughly satisfied, she led Liu Da Shan over toward Yin Chen, chose the perfect angle, and captured a flawless shot of Yin Chen gazing “deeply and affectionately” at Song Zang.
“Okay, we have enough footage of this pair. Xiao Xiao next.” Wearing towering high heels, Chang Mei Jiang strode upstairs in high spirits.
…
The rose garden was as elegant and romantic as ever.
Climbing roses blocked the midday sun, scattering beautiful fragments of golden light across the outdoor dining table. The air was heavy with floral fragrance, perfectly balancing the faint astringency of the wine.
This was their final date at the villa and also the perfect opportunity for their couple interview. There was no host. They simply had to refer to the “question list” Chang Mei Jiang had provided and improvise freely.
As for how exactly they should respond, the two had already discussed it beforehand.
Yin Chen raised his wineglass and lightly clinked it against Song Zang’s. “Two bottles maximum. Once those are gone, you’re done drinking.”
Song Zang curved his lips, checked off one item on the interview sheet, then turned toward the camera beside them. “President Yin, I’ve finally discovered your biggest flaw. You’re domineering. You always think it’s perfectly natural to control everything I do.”
“And you?” Yin Chen lowered his eyes with a faint laugh, immediately cooperating and firing back. “Without me, all you know how to do is cry.”
Song Zang took a small sip of wine and softly retorted, “You covet my body. Whenever you feel like it, you put your hands all over me. I don’t even have the right to refuse.”
“I already apologized. You forgave me too. What era are we living in that you’re still dredging up old grievances?”
“It took me all these years to teach you how to say ‘sorry,’ and now that’s the only apology you know. You still haven’t improved at all. Always looking down from above. So perfunctory toward me.”
The two traded insults back and forth with perfect rhythm, “exposing” each other’s flaws in a way that looked more like flirting than arguing and enjoying themselves immensely.
At the same time, on a private beach more than a hundred li away—
The production staff were inspecting the setup for the second episode’s filming location and waiting for the guests to arrive that night.
Then a terrified scream shattered the busy atmosphere.
“A body washed up on the beach!”
“Stop work immediately! Does anyone know who she is?!”
“…I do. She’s an intern with the stage-management crew. Qiu Shuang.”
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