Zhao Shunian knew all this background information because a week ago, his phone suddenly received a message from Yu Yin. When he opened the chat window, he saw the headline "XX's Recently Released Annual Blockbuster 'The Ultimate Revenge Battle Between Her and Him' Captivates Audiences" — clearly Yu Yin had sent it to the wrong person, as they never discussed such things.
He didn't tap on it, waiting for her to retract it, but after taking a phone call, he saw that the message was still there in their chat window. He casually tapped into it and found himself looking at the synopsis of this very TV drama along with a summary of the episodes that had already aired…
"The Ultimate Revenge Battle Between Her and Him" updates two episodes per week, twelve episodes in total, one hour per episode, and it had now aired up to the tenth episode.
The latest episode was packed with escalating plot twists and dense information. Yu Yin felt she needed a moment to process it all. She had been sitting here since eight o'clock, and it was now past nine-thirty.
The projection was paused, and Yu Yin's gaze drifted toward Zhao Shunian with a shifting, thoughtful look. Others might have mistaken it for a tender, affectionate stare, but Zhao Shunian knew it wasn't — there was no telling what wild, fanciful thoughts were running through her mind. He let her stare at him, knowing that whoever spoke first would lose the upper hand.
Yu Yin thought Zhao Shunian had a thick skin. If she were being stared at like this by him, she would definitely be unable to resist asking why he was looking at her.
She had originally waited for him to speak up out of curiosity, but it seemed that wasn't going to happen. She spoke up: "I was thinking, what would you look like if you had a sex change? I think you wouldn't just need to cut off one leg — you'd need to amputate the other two as well."
She was essentially saying he should be castrated and have both legs amputated.
Hearing this, Zhao Shunian's expression remained unchanged. "What a coincidence — I was thinking about a similar question. What do you think you'd look like after a sex change?" He tossed the question back at Yu Yin.
Zhao Shunian's dry, warm palm covered Yu Yin's wrist as he awaited her answer.
"I think I'd fare better than you." Yu Yin tried to pull her hand away from his grip.
Suddenly, his broad palm tightened around her slender, fair wrist, making it impossible for her to break free. Zhao Shunian could feel the faint pulse beating beneath her skin. "You have a completely feminine appearance. Even if you injected hormones, or even underwent surgical removal and had a prosthetic organ installed, none of that would change your original physique."
"I don't need to change my physique. I'm fine the way I am."
"Some people have peculiar tastes. You'd be in danger like that."
Yu Yin found herself going along with his bizarre line of thinking, pulled off track by him. "I could get plastic surgery, work out to change my appearance."
"You'd need major reconstruction — to become someone completely unrecognizable like in the projection. But major reconstruction carries high risks. Even a simple smile could cause the threads in your face to snap, causing constant pain. You'd have to keep getting surgeries without end."
Yu Yin unconsciously touched the contours of her own face, as if she could feel the pain. She didn't want plastic surgery. Yu Yin had a low tolerance for pain.
Zhao Shunian released her wrist and delivered a cold, detached conclusion: "In summary, your conclusion that you'd definitely fare better than me doesn't hold."
Yu Yin's thoughts were also pulled back to reality. "I… you…"
She decided not to talk to him anymore and picked up her phone to play with it instead. When she couldn't win an argument, she resorted to avoidance — avoidance might be shameful, but it was effective.
When Yu Yin saw the barrage of notifications pop up on her screen, she felt like she had missed out on the world. She had only been away from her phone for a little over an hour, and the internet had already turned upside down.
The rumors about Zhao Shunian and Xu Ronghao had been cleared up, and fans and gossip-loving bystanders alike were sympathizing with Xu Ronghao for being slandered. The mysterious man in the photo wasn't Zhao Shunian either—he had merely been dragged into the mess innocently.
Yu Yin couldn't help but lift her head to look at Zhao Shunian. This time, she was genuinely angry. She should have taken everything Lana had brought today and made him bleed money.
He could tell she was upset and spoke slowly, "That blurry photo of the figure from behind does contain me, but I have no relationship with her whatsoever. She's Zhuoming's cousin. A while back at a gathering of friends, Zhuoming brought her along. I only saw her once there and don't even know her name."
Shang Zhuoming was Zhao Shunian's friend, and Yu Yin knew of him. In fact, Yu Yin had also recognized that the mysterious man was Zhao Shunian—she wasn't so unfamiliar with him that she couldn't tell.
If Zhao Shunian hadn't proactively admitted that the photo contained him, Yu Yin wouldn't have believed his subsequent explanation and would have thought the rumors about him and Xu Ronghao weren't baseless after all.
His subordinates knew how to handle public relations well. The incident had been completely turned around. The photo seen online had been processed repeatedly until it was impossible to identify who was in it, and all other versions had been scrubbed. That could fool netizens who were easily swayed and didn't know Zhao Shunian, but it couldn't fool her. She had recognized him yesterday when the public outcry was at its peak, so no one could sway her own judgment.
What had angered Yu Yin just now was that Zhao Shunian was treating her like a fool. She hated it when people tried to pull the wool over her eyes like that.
Whether Zhao Shunian had actually cheated, she didn't care much about. If she truly cared, she would have bombarded him with calls long ago, blowing up his phone, rather than sitting here so calmly in the media room watching her shows.
Zhao Shunian's words just now carried a sense of clearing himself completely as a matter of public relations necessity, but also of confessing to her.
Yu Yin's anger got stuck halfway. She said with a half-sarcastic, half-mocking tone, "I've seen plenty of cases where the home flag stays upright while colorful flags flutter outside. If you want to find someone, just give me enough money and I don't care about the rest. Anyway, I can find someone too. You started it first, so you can't blame me."
Now it was Zhao Shunian's turn to be angry. His tone unreadable, he asked, "Are you saying you want to use my money to keep a lover?"
Seeing his expression, Yu Yin felt a flicker of retreat in her heart, but in the end, she stubbornly insisted, "That's exactly what I mean. Boys of eighteen or twenty will keep themselves clean and tidy inside and out, with outstanding figures and looks. The moment a wealthy woman makes a call, he'll deliver himself to her door, providing high emotional value and service. All that for just a hundred or two hundred thousand a month, of course not including daily expenses…"
The lighting in the media room was dim. Zhao Shunian sat in the shadows, listening to the person beside him speak, the emotions in his eyes growing increasingly dark and unfathomable.
Sensing the danger in the situation, Yu Yin stopped talking.
Zhao Shunian didn't argue with her about anything else. "Seems like you know the market well. If you truly think that way, I can solve this problem at the source."
The implication was that he would cut off her financial source—she shouldn't dream of taking a single cent from him to support a lover.
Yu Yin understood what Zhao Shunian meant. It struck directly at her lifeline.