From 609’s perspective, every subsequent action Mo Yunyu took danced dangerously on the precipice of out-of-character behavior. Yet, miraculously, the character settings rating stubbornly refused to fluctuate, maintaining a pristine, one-hundred-percent perfect verdict.
“Host…”
This time it was 609’s turn to tremble with anxiety. Just what kind of unearthly host had it bound itself to?
Watching Mo Yunyu casually knock out Teacher Yin and gently set down a vase wrapped in a duvet, while still finding the bandwidth to comfort a frantic 609, the system heard its host murmur, “Don’t worry, standard operating procedure.”
Fumbling a smartphone out of the man’s pocket and unlocking it via fingerprint recognition, Mo Yunyu immediately dialed the emergency police hotline.
“Help… I am Mo Yunyu, someone is kidnapping me… I don’t know where I am…”
His face remained entirely devoid of expression, yet the words spilling from his lips were saturated with sheer terror and panic, once again leaving 609 awestruck.
Just when 609 thought the host’s survival attempt had succeeded and an escape was imminent, the door was violently kicked open with a thunderous crash that nearly short-circuited the system, prompting a barrage of panicked warnings to watch out. But the moment the intruder came into view, 609’s internal processing stalled completely.
Hanging up the phone, Mo Yunyu surveyed the newly arrived figure and let out a silent, inward scoff.
So it really is like this. They aren’t even bothering to act anymore.
Before kicking the door down, Zuo Yan had envisioned various scenarios: the youth throwing himself into his arms in tears, or a timely hero-save-the-damsel moment. Not once had he pictured this: Mo Yunyu kneeling beside an unconscious man, calmly clutching a smartphone as he reported a kidnapping.
He could only concede that Mo Yunyu was truly worthy of being the person who had captivated him. The boy was capable of engineering his own rescue even out of such a hopeless predicament.
Gesturing for his bodyguards to step outside and clear away any remaining obstacles, Zuo Yan strode toward Mo Yunyu, who sat frozen with the phone still gripped in his hand.
“You must have been frightened. Come, I’ll take you away.” Zuo Yan extended a hand, completely ignoring the crumpled form of the man sprawled on the floor.
Mo Yunyu was currently operating under a state of extreme paranoia where every bush and tree looked like an enemy soldier. Dropping the phone from his numb fingers, he slapped Zuo Yan’s hand away and stumbled to his feet.
“Stay away from me!”
Never before had Zuo Yan been defied so repeatedly, let alone suffered the failure of his grand rescue fantasy. His face darkened with displeasure as he fixed a stern gaze on Mo Yunyu. “Come with me. I won’t say it a second time.”
“You… you, I’ve already called the police.” Mo Yunyu had firmly categorized the man as an accomplice to Teacher Yin. “The police will be here any second, get away from me!”
Seeming to realize his tone was overly harsh, Zuo Yan exhaled heavily, forcibly reining in his temper and shifting his expression. He consciously donned the mask of the tall, dependable brother-in-law entrenched in Mo Yunyu’s memory.
“Yunyu, don’t be afraid. I’m here to save you. Your sister is waiting for you to come home.”
At the mention of his sister, Mo Yunyu faltered for a fraction of a second, finally snapping out of his terror-induced haze. Clinging to those words like a verbal safety password, his hyper-wired nervous system immediately went limp. The delayed side effects of inhaling the chemical smoke surged upward, turning his legs to jelly as he collapsed into unconsciousness.
Catching the youth securely, Zuo Yan swept him up bridal-style. His gaze lingered affectionately over those exquisite facial features, itching to smooth away the furrowed brow, though his hands were currently too occupied to grant the relief.
Vacating the apartment, Zuo Yan spirited Mo Yunyu away in advance, leaving behind a detail of bodyguards to deal with the arriving police.
Consequently, by the time the authorities and Zhou Xingyu arrived at the scene, they encountered only a handful of subdued men and an apartment preserved with virtually immaculate forensic evidence.
The kidnapping had blown in like a farcical storm, beginning abruptly and ending just as fast.
Just as the production crew let out a collective breath of relief, a series of explosive search tags began climbing the trending charts.
#ShiningStarsContestantKidnapped#
#MoYunyuKidnapping#
#MoYunyuWithdrawsFromShowForPersonalReasons#
#PrayingForYunbaosSafety#
#YinApprehendedAndJailed#
While this represented the neatest possible conclusion for everyone else, it offered zero comfort to Mo Yunyu. Opening his eyes after regaining consciousness to find Zuo Yan sitting beside the bed instead of his sister filled him with an overwhelming urge to flee.
Sitting upright with his fingers instinctively balling into the bedsheets, Mo Yunyu kept his head bowed.
His hair had grown slightly longer, scattering fine, fragmented strands across the nape of his neck that shielded his fragile, defenseless expression from view.
Zuo Yan wanted a clear look at the emotions playing across his face, yet refrained from startling him with overt movements.
“How do you feel? Are you experiencing any discomfort?”
His post-rescue heartbeat was still hammering at an unsustainable, hyper-load tempo. Uncomfortably dodging Zuo Yan’s gaze, Mo Yunyu answered with absolute docility: “I’m fine. Can you call my sister and have her take me home? There’s no need to trouble Brother Yan.”
“It’s no trouble at all. As I’ve said before, once you finish filming the show, we’ll get engaged. Since you’re quitting the program now anyway, it’s time to discuss our arrangements with the family.” Far from being deterred by Mo Yunyu’s evasion, Zuo Yan wore an expression of profound contentment.
“What…” Hearing those words, Mo Yunyu processed the underlying implications, a surge of fiery rage instantly burning away his lingering disorientation. “I never said I was quitting the show!”
Calmly unlocking his phone, Zuo Yan displayed a trending list dominated by multiple top-tier breaking tags.
Realizing the situation had already been railroaded beyond his control, Mo Yunyu spat out his refusal with teeth clenched in frustration: “My family was originally trying to set you up with my sister! Have you ever stopped to consider my feelings before trying to rope me into this?”
Deciding that wasn’t scathing enough, he manufactured a blatant falsehood on the spot purely to infuriate Zuo Yan: “Besides, I already like someone else. You should go find someone else.”
While the first statement lacked lethal force, the second declaration instantly froze the temperature in the room.
“You like someone else?”
Detecting the dangerous shift in Zuo Yan’s tone, Mo Yunyu’s survival instincts screamed at him to back down, but driven by stubborn defiance, he thrust out his chin and doubled down.
“Yes, I already have someone I like.”
Zuo Yan launched straight into an interrogation: “Who are you talking about? Is it that Zhou Xingyu who spends every waking moment clinging to your side, or that shameless seducer Shi Jingchi?”
At those names, Mo Yunyu experienced a flash of panic at having his secrets exposed, which quickly gave way to burning indignation. He shoved himself upright, aggressively widening the physical distance between them with a face full of guarded hostility.
“You’ve been having me watched?”
“Having you watched?” Zuo Yan chuckled, a sound that sent an unbidden shiver of terror down Mo Yunyu’s spine. “If my people hadn’t been watching you, you would have been snatched and dragged off by those thugs long before you ever managed a self-rescue.”
Mo Yunyu’s brain processed the information with uncharacteristic sluggishness. The fragments of speech echoing in his ears tangled together, blocking comprehension for a drawn-out moment.
“What did you say?”
“I said, if I hadn’t posted guards to keep an eye on you, you’d have already been cornered and gang-raped in some alley,” Zuo Yan stated with casual cruelty.
“You knew?” Mo Yunyu stared at him in disbelief. “You knew they were going to kidnap me…”
Zuo Yan didn’t bother denying it. After all, when leaking the necessary intelligence to Shi Jingchi, he had already factored in every contingency.
In business and romance alike, the calculus remained identical: the higher the risk, the greater the yield.
Without offering further soothing platitudes, Zuo Yan tapped his screen a few times and slid the device forward to display something else.
“Managed to get a bottle of water he drank from.”
[Image]
“Sooner or later I’m going to fucking break him in.”
“You wish, keep dreaming.”
“He made eye contact with me today, his face is seriously so gorgeous.”
“I snuck into his room and stole a pair of his underwear, hope he notices soon.”
“Bro, can you share the post-nut clarity with the rest of us?”
These weren’t mere text snippets; they were excerpts from an active group chat…
Snatching the phone away, Mo Yunyu’s trembling fingers scrolled upward frantically. The more he read, the deeper a cold horror sank into his bones. Right on cue, a fresh notification popped up in the active chat thread:
“He’s been taken away by Zuo Yan.”
“Taken away?”
“Anyone tracking them?”
“I am, but I can only go as far as the residential gate. Security is too tight, I can’t get inside.”
“No matter, I’ve already found the location.”
“What what is this…” Mo Yunyu raised his tear-shaken face to look at Zuo Yan, every scrap of color drained from his skin.
Reaching out with a gesture bordering on tender, Zuo Yan stroked Mo Yunyu’s cheek with chilling gentleness as he dropped the final anchor of despair.
“Don’t be afraid. They’re merely a few stray rats.”
“As long as you agree to my marriage proposal, I will protect you for the rest of your life.”
Hearing the condition tied to an engagement, Mo Yunyu’s terror-addled mind cleared by a fraction. He bit down hard on the tip of his tongue to force himself into lucidity.
“I don’t need your protection, I can go find my sister.”
“Are you really that opposed to me?” Zuo Yan’s expression iced over entirely.
Yet Mo Yunyu’s phone continued buzzing incessantly with incoming alerts, until one particular message flashed across the screen in bold text.
“Found it. Unit [Redacted].”
[QR Code Access Pass]
Staring fixedly at those latest two prompts, Mo Yunyu curled his hands into fists so tight his nails dug agonizingly into his palms.
Yet no amount of physical pain could generate a viable strategy to navigate this trap.
“Leave and get caught by them, or stay and accept my marriage proposal.” Zuo Yan settled back into the chair with unhurried deliberation. “Take your pick. Choose.”
Paralyzed by deadlock, Mo Yunyu stared at Zuo Yan through eyes that felt utterly foreign, stubborn yet entirely out of options as he sat in dead silence.
After several agonizing minutes, Zuo Yan’s phone vibrated twice. Glancing down at the screen, he looked back up at the youth.
“They’ve already reached downstairs. So, what’s your verdict?”
Gritting his teeth through a chaotic storm of panic, Mo Yunyu ultimately nodded in capitulation, reasoning that he could always find a loophole to renege later.
“Fine. I agree to get engaged to you.”
Naturally, someone as shrewd as Zuo Yan anticipated every flavor of betrayal. Extracting a pre-prepared agreement alongside a sleek fountain pen, he placed them before the youth.
“Don’t push your luck!” Mo Yunyu hissed, outraged and desperate. But right at that moment, a heavy knock echoed against the exterior door.
“Hello, room service.”
Convinced the stalkers had breached the building, Mo Yunyu abandoned all pretense of pride. Acting like a cornered bird, he threw himself directly into Zuo Yan’s arms, clutching desperately at the man’s jacket to siphon off whatever shelter was available.
“I’ll do it, I’ll sign it… Just don’t let them in…”
Listening to the trembling panic in Mo Yunyu’s voice, Zuo Yan slid the contract directly into his grip with a deeply satisfied curve to his lips, his eyes gleaming with the absolute triumph of an apex predator securing its prey.