This was an unremarkable Monday. Office workers were grinding away at their desks, while slackers in the pantry gossiped endlessly about the latest scandals.
Whether it was Mo Yunyu withdrawing from the show after being rescued from a kidnapping, or a mentor orchestrating that very kidnapping, everything related to Shining Stars was set to remain a hot topic of conversation for a long time to come.
Suddenly, someone let out a stifled yet wildly excited exclamation that instantly grabbed everyone’s attention.
“Holy shit!”
“Mo Yunyu posted on Weibo!”
In a flash, everyone reached for their phones in perfect synchronization to check the app.
@Mo Yunyu: Thank you all for your concern, and thank you for everyone’s love during this time. Just letting you all know I’m safe and sound. But unfortunately, I won’t have the chance to stand on the Shining Stars stage again. I hope we can meet again in a better way in the future. See you all around!
[Image: A selfie]
The comments section was instantly swamped by fans and curious onlookers alike.
“Wuwuwu my poor Yunbao, you scared the daylights out of mama.” “As long as nothing happened, crying tears of relief.” “Can’t he really continue the competition?” “The one I hated most is still here, and the one I loved most is gone.” “Who would ever dare participate again after something like this? (Crying while clutching head)” “Damn that Yin XX.” “Give me back my Yunbao!” “Baby, make sure to get plenty of rest.”
Watching the comments refresh endlessly, Yunyu chatted with 609 in his mind while picking out lucky fans to reply to.
609 had been autistic for a long time; the entire plotline had been battered into complete chaos by Mo Yunyu, this little butterfly. The only silver lining was that the character settings rating remained at a perfect score, and the withdrawal plot point had successfully triggered.
Yet, just thinking about the single-minded devotion the three male leads held toward its host made 609 want to let out a piercing shriek.
Damn men, stop affecting my host’s career and let him stay gloriously single!
“Host, what if the mission rating drops too low and you get dumped into a penalty world? We’re doomed!” 609 pleaded earnestly.
“It’s fine, these are all minor problems,” Yunyu replied with absolute calm, looking as though victory was already safely within his grasp.
609 fully understood the ancient human idiom: the emperor is not worried, but the eunuch is anxious.
It originally wanted to log off and wash its hands of the whole mess, but seeing its host carefully reading through every single comment, it softened and scanned the comment section anyway.
“Host, a few of those comments look like they were posted by those runaways who escaped.”
Yunyu chuckled softly. “Thanks, 609. Mind reporting them?”
609 sprang into action immediately, not only reporting them but also anonymously forwarding their IP addresses to the police station.
Daring to bully its host? Go enjoy some prison food!
Yunyu continued scrolling downward. There were simply too many precious sentiments, and his eyes curved with deep amusement at the declarations of affection from his fans.
He didn’t tear himself away until Zuo Yan called him for dinner.
“What are you looking at? You look so happy.” At this moment, Zuo Yan resembled a domestic househusband, radiating the warm, cozy atmosphere of a family man.
It was hard to imagine that this same person had threatened to force him into an engagement not long ago.
Silently lamenting that appearances can be deceiving, Mo Yunyu answered Zuo Yan, “Just checking my Weibo and reading the fans’ comments.”
Since there were only two of them, there were only three dishes on the table, though they could all be described as a feast of color, aroma, and taste. Eager to wash his hands, Mo Yunyu zipped over to the dining table like a miniature whirlwind.
Watching him eat with such obvious delight, Zuo Yan stood up to scoop a bowl of soup and placed it in front of Mo Yunyu. “Eat slowly.”
It took a while before Mo Yunyu noticed that Zuo Yan hadn’t touched his chopsticks yet.
“You should eat too.”
Only for the other to reply a few seconds later, “If you still want to continue participating in the show, you actually can.”
Realizing the reason the man wasn’t eating was because he was mulling over this, Mo Yunyu immediately put his foot down.
“Stop right there. You were the one who made the executive decision to pull me out of the show, and now that the official statement is already out, you want to go back on your word? What do you take the fans for?” Mo Yunyu didn’t hesitate to denounce Zuo Yan’s egregious behavior. “Do you think you’re a frog in a wishing well, doing whatever you please?”
“I only care about your thoughts.” Zuo Yan’s expression was dead serious, as if all Mo Yunyu had to do was nod and he would turn into a wishing-well frog to put him right back on the show.
Mo Yunyu waved a dismissive hand. “Forget it. Being a celebrity is no walk in the park. This meal you cooked is already the best thing I’ve eaten in the past two months.”
Recalling the grueling days as a contestant where he worked himself to the bone only to subsist on plain water and boiled greens sent a shudder through Mo Yunyu.
Realizing Mo Yunyu genuinely had zero desire to return, Zuo Yan let out a silent breath of relief.
Because he hadn’t expected the youth to accept his presence this quickly, nor had he anticipated that they could sit down and share a meal in such peaceful harmony. His earlier self had acted with despicable ruthlessness, cutting off all of Mo Yunyu’s escape routes solely to trap him by his side.
“Eat up, the food is going to get cold.” Zuo Yan spoke, casually sweeping the previous topic aside.
Mo Yunyu immediately dove back into his meal, terrified that the caramelized spare ribs might lose their savory perfection.
After finishing dinner, Mo Yunyu collapsed onto the sofa once more.
Instead of checking his phone, he zoned out while staring at the school of fish swimming inside the massive aquarium.
Life as a contestant had been so frantically busy that he genuinely couldn’t think of what to do with himself right now, leaving him with an intensely hollow feeling.
Noticing how bored Mo Yunyu looked, Zuo Yan retreated to the study and picked up a half-read book resting on the desk.
The title emblazoned across the cover read: The Sweet Handbook for Couples.
A short while later, Zuo Yan reappeared beside Mo Yunyu and extended an invitation, “Want to bake a cake together?”
Mo Yunyu had eaten plenty of cakes in his life and watched others make them, but he had never baked one himself. His interest piqued instantly, and he bolted upright from the sofa.
The two of them headed into the kitchen together.
To Mo Yunyu’s utter astonishment, the kitchen was remarkably well-equipped, practically stocked to the level of a commercial bakery.
Thus, armed with a tutorial pulled up online, the two of them fumbled away at baking a cake all afternoon.
Flour and eggs flew in every direction, matching the uniform shade of scorched caramel that covered both the sponge and the frosting. Through the combined efforts of Zuo Yan’s hard work and Mo Yunyu’s sabotage, they finally managed to produce a caramel black tea cake. Truly a cause for celebration.
The black tea used seemed to be Zuo Yan’s prized Jin Junmei collection.
In short, they had created a cake that looked like it had been accidentally incinerated in a furnace, yet utilized exorbitantly expensive ingredients.
Eyeing its less-than-stellar appearance, Mo Yunyu didn’t dare test his luck first, electing instead to let Zuo Yan pioneer this culinary exploration.
Under Mo Yunyu’s expectant gaze, Zuo Yan calmly sliced the cake and used a fork to carve out a small morsel, popping it into his mouth.
“Is it good?” Mo Yunyu scrutinized Zuo Yan’s reaction closely.
Zuo Yan slowly spat out two words: “Not sweet.”
Mo Yunyu’s eyes lit up instantly. The highest praise a Chinese person could give a dessert was that it wasn’t sweet. What did that mean? It meant their baking experiment had succeeded!
Eagerly forking off a chunk and shoving it into his mouth, Mo Yunyu successfully missed Zuo Yan’s expression of unspeakable hesitation.
“Blech… blech.” Mo Yunyu felt as though his tongue had just suffered a physical assault. Spitting out the remnants and frantically chugging several gulps of water, he shot Zuo Yan an aggrieved look. “Your idea of not sweet tastes a bit bitter.”
For once, Zuo Yan averted his gaze. “It tastes just right to me.”
So Mo Yunyu finally turned the tables, forcing Zuo Yan to eat nearly half the cake himself.
Regrettably, the man maintained a completely poker-faced expression throughout the ordeal, until Mo Yunyu couldn’t bear to watch any longer and called a halt to it.
As night fell, Yunyu lay in the guest room bed chatting idly with 609.
“Host, why is it that even though he pushed you around so much, you’re getting along with him so harmoniously?” 609 asked curiously, intending to log the host’s philosophical musings.
Yunyu didn’t answer directly, instead tossing out a seemingly unrelated quote:
“The most painful thing for a person is not what they’ve lost, nor what they’ve never had. It’s thinking you’ve finally obtained something, only to realize you never actually had it from the start.”
609 didn’t understand, deciding only that it sounded terribly profound.
The next day, Mo Yunyu wasn’t allowed to go home; instead, Zuo Yan dragged him to a hospital for a complete battery of tests.
“The family doctor already checked you over while you were still unconscious, but I still wasn’t at ease. It’s best to run a full checkup,” Zuo Yan stated with utmost gravity.
How could Mo Yunyu fail to see through the true motive behind this? It was nothing more than deploying various creative excuses to keep him from leaving.
Sure enough, for the next consecutive week, Zuo Yan pulled out one wildly imaginative excuse after another to detain him, ultimately culminating in the brazen introduction of a tiny kitten.
Staring at the minuscule, newborn kitten that clearly required round-the-clock nursing, Mo Yunyu fell silent.
“I found it downstairs. Look, doesn’t it look just like you?”
A smile played at the corners of Zuo Yan’s lips, while Mo Yunyu merely wanted to land a swift punch to his jaw. The man has zero real work to do and spends all day racking his brain to cause trouble for me!
Mo Yunyu crossed his arms. “Are you telling me you just happened to find a Devon Rex kitten?”
Yet the man across from him possessed skin thick enough to rival a city wall, determined to see his plot through to the end. “Yep, isn’t it cute? Let’s raise it together.”
Mo Yunyu felt a strong urge to snap that he wasn’t staying and to stop manufacturing chores for him. But the moment he pictured how insufferably smug that man’s ego would get if he admitted defeat, he forcefully swallowed the words back down.
Just as Mo Yunyu was racking his brain for a retort, the neglected kitten suddenly mewled. Because it was too tiny, it couldn’t even manage a proper meow, reducing it to a soft, pathetic squeak.
“…Meow… meow.”
Scraping his fingers through his hair in sheer exasperation, Mo Yunyu conceded defeat. “There better not be a next time.”
With that, he spun on his heel and marched back to his room, furiously searching his phone for a manual on how to raise newborn kittens.
Thus, without realizing how it happened, Mo Yunyu successfully ended up marooned at Zuo Yan’s place for nearly half a month.
Staring at a trending search topic regarding the 8:00 PM grand finals broadcast of Shining Stars, Mo Yunyu blinked in a daze. Only half a month had passed, yet his days as a contestant felt like a lifetime ago.
Will you come to the live finals?
The message sent by Zhou Xingyu remained frozen on his screen. Mo Yunyu glanced furtively in the direction of Zuo Yan, who was busy working in the corner, feeling deeply torn.
He had actually kept in touch with both Zhou Xingyu and Shi Jingchi during this period. However, owing to Zuo Yan’s omnipresent surveillance, their interactions resembled guerilla warfare, requiring meticulous caution with every text sent.
It was completely innocent, yet felt suspiciously like cheating.
Shaking the messy thoughts out of his head, Mo Yunyu finally reached a verdict.
He had to go. A person ought to see things through to the end, even if he wasn’t performing on that stage.