Due to a single stray remark from Zhao Xingjian, the reality show generated its very first trending search topic since premiering.
#He-Jian: Unbroadcastable Uncut Footage#
The title possessed an undeniable hook. Right around midnight, closing in on 1:00 AM, it rode the combined tags of Two’s Company and He-Jian straight to the number one spot on the trending list.
Waves of curious netizens flooded in, only to exit, re-enter, and exit again before finally exhaling collectively: “Thought I opened the wrong app for a second.”
The attached video was a screen recording capturing the dinner segment from earlier that evening. The moment Zhao Xingjian dropped that remark, an oppressive silence blanketed the dining table. Zhang Congsheng sat slack-jawed, clearly never expecting anyone to out-wild him.
Lin Dingshi, who had been speaking just moments prior, clutched his bowl of chicken noodle soup, his mouth opening and closing as he struggled to find a single phrase capable of salvaging the ineffable atmosphere. Ultimately, Zhang Qing had to intervene, striking Zhang Congsheng on the shoulder and hissing loudly, “Wipe your mouth, your noodle dropped on the table.”
Only then did everyone scramble to pretend nothing had happened, resuming their meal and scrambling to pivot the conversation.
The comment section remained relatively harmonious, populated mostly by newer viewers unfamiliar with the decade-old controversy surrounding Chu Minghe, who simply showed up to admire the visuals and ship the pairing.
– Who is this? Asking for directions. – @ChuMinghe – Come check out the super-topic for the absolute sweetest compilation of He-Jian clips since they joined Little Er! ……
Yet, almost immediately after that video peaked on the charts, a companion hashtag surged right behind it: #ChuMingheComeback#. Utilizing the exact same video clip, the comment section beneath this second tag erupted into a ferocious battleground.
– Is this really Chu Minghe? Hard to believe he actually got married. – Not just married, he married into a wealthy mega-family. – Wasn’t he already from a wealthy background? His family just went under later on. – But how is someone like that allowed to make a comeback? – Clearly you haven’t watched his performance on Little Er. He’s nothing like the old Chu Minghe anymore. – He slaughters chickens, feeds livestock, and cooks meals. Go watch the show and see for yourself. – Is this some kind of high-society etiquette training? Watching him dish out rice to his husband made the whole process look way too practiced. – Never married into high society, so I wouldn’t know, but he definitely feels different from ten years ago. – Different or not, lacking real talent while relying on capital injection just to force a comeback is pathetic. ……
After skimming through the video, Chu Minghe buried his face straight down into the soft pink duvet.
Sister Hong had only sent him the video link without the attached commentary, explicitly warning him against browsing external forums. Yet, unable to fight an itchy impulse, he had sneaked off to Weibo for a quick look, returning looking utterly shell-shocked.
Around that exact moment, Sister Hong was in the midst of firing off messages. Growing impatient after receiving no immediate reply, she placed a direct phone call.
“Checked it?”
Making no attempt to deny it, Chu Minghe poked half his face out from beneath the quilt to catch a breath. “Checked it.”
Sister Hong: “Since you’ve seen it, keep your emotions under control and don’t log on to start a flame war. Tomorrow morning I’ll release the official statement; just remember to retweet it and keep other commentary to an absolute minimum.”
The statement Sister Hong referred to contained the unvarnished truth of past events—facts, not fabricated whitewashing. The sole reason the original owner had spiraled into psychological collapse and lost control, failing to wait for Sister Hong to execute this strategy, was because he lacked the emotional fortitude to endure the process mid-recording.
Chu Minghe harbored zero anxiety that releasing these facts might trigger unexpected negative outcomes. He trusted Sister Hong implicitly; once that statement dropped, his upward trajectory would officially commence.
His sole remaining worry, however, was that trending number-one hashtag: the He-Jian CP topic.
Listening to Sister Hong’s relentless, thorough stream of instructions on the other end detailing what to do, what to avoid, and what never to say he finally interrupted her. “Can we get that number-one trending hashtag pulled down?”
“Pull it down?” Sister Hong sounded perplexed. “It doesn’t negatively impact you two. You don’t need to stress over this.”
Unable to confess the raw truth to Sister Hong, Chu Minghe carefully weighed his phrasing: “His professional work shouldn’t draw massive public exposure. We aren’t suited to being bound together publicly, and I want to prevent future rumors claiming all my resources are handed to me by the Zhao family. It’s better to get it removed.”
After a brief silence on the other end, Sister Hong compromised: “Can’t be completely scrubbed. We can only have it demoted in the rankings.”
Recognizing that Sister Hong was reluctant to surrender the organic traffic generated by the hashtag—traffic capable of delivering substantial visibility—Chu Minghe understood her perspective. Yet, he couldn’t risk provoking Zhao Xingjian’s displeasure or inviting suspicions of another premeditated trap, which would directly push them back toward the nightmare trajectory of the original novel.
Moreover, their imminent divorce upon wrapping up the show meant they shouldn’t deliberately string fans along or cultivate false romantic expectations.
More importantly, from the very beginning, his ambition never centered around manufactured viral clout; his baseline objective was simply securing a clean career rehabilitation, allowing casual viewers to evaluate him based on genuine substance. True popularity would ultimately depend on whether his future artistic output justified the attention.
Lacking full awareness of the private dynamics, Sister Hong refused to grant a complete removal, leaving him no choice but to reveal a fraction of the truth.
“We’re filing for divorce the moment filming wraps.”
Silence stretched across the phone line once more. Shifting abruptly from hard-nosed career manager to empathetic older sister, Sister Hong offered gentle counsel: “You’re at an age where you don’t need to project a permanent single persona. You should really give domestic life a solid chance.”
Mainly because projecting a single persona was an impossibility anyway, given his official record of marriage.
Realizing the conversation was veering entirely off track, Chu Minghe hurried to steer it back. “No, seriously, Sister Hong, you don’t understand—”
“There’s nothing to misunderstand,” Sister Hong interrupted earnestly. “You’ve already endured ten whole years together; you’re both just acting out of momentary impulse.”
“It’s not an impulse,” Chu Minghe sighed helplessly. “If we could have divorced ten years ago, we would have. There genuinely is zero romance between us. Once this show is finished, we’re going our separate ways. That’s why that trending tag has to go.”
As anxiety spiked in his voice, the sound carried clearly right through the bedroom door, reaching the ears of Zhao Xingjian, who was currently wrapping up a phone call outside in the hallway.
In Zhao Xingjian’s left ear played Cheng Zhou’s insistence that “That trending topic absolutely cannot be pulled down,” while his right ear absorbed Chu Minghe’s anxious declaration: “This trending tag really needs to be removed.”
A sudden sense of surreal amusement washed over Zhao Xingjian: Why on earth is he even more frantic about this than I am?
Having received no immediate response from Zhao Xingjian, Cheng Zhou pressed on with repeated prompts of “Hello?” until Zhao Xingjian finally offered an affirming “Mhm,” prompting Cheng Zhou to resume his lobbying. “This is an extraordinary promotional springboard! Are you planning to abandon your company’s marketing goals entirely? Dropping a few tens of thousands right now to clear a trending tag will only force you to sink multiples of that budget into future campaigns later. My old man always claims you’re smarter than me, but even you should realize how basic this math is.”
Zhao Xingjian understood the logic perfectly; his attention simply remained split, caught between Cheng Zhou’s lecture and Chu Minghe’s fervent vows of “immediate divorce” echoing from the bedroom.
“Forget it, I’ll let it slide,” Cheng Zhou sighed, misinterpreting the silence. “I figure Chu Minghe hates the idea of parting with you—and parting with the family fortune—so you might as well drop it. After ten years by your side, he’s hardly going to walk away empty-handed. Or were you actually telling the truth in that video?”
Zhao Xingjian snapped back to reality. “False.”
He added a clarifying postscript: “As if Chu Minghe would be reluctant to leave. He’s way more anxious than I am.”
Snickering on the other end, Cheng Zhou teased, “Anxious about what? Give it a couple of years and you’ll probably end up eating your own words.”
Zhao Xingjian: “Anxious to get a divorce.”
“What?!” Cheng Zhou coughed violently. “What’s there to rush about divorcing? Unless both parties are utterly head-ove wait. Divorce? What divorce? Who’s getting divorced?!”
Frowning, Zhao Xingjian muttered, “Committing bigamy is illegal.”
“…”
While Cheng Zhou remained utterly clueless regarding the intricate history binding the two men—knowing only that Chu Minghe had forced Zhao Xingjian into marriage through coercive tactics while Zhao Xingjian reciprocated with deep aversion and disgust—his frame of reference shattered completely.
That perception had been locked in stone until the night Chu Minghe arrived at the Chenghuang club to pick him up. Witnessing Chu Minghe’s timid, obedient docility first-hand had briefly convinced Cheng Zhou that the dynamic had evolved into an unrequited yearning on one side and emotional stagnation on the other.
Yet hearing Zhao Xingjian casually confirm that Chu Minghe was actively rushing toward a divorce left him utterly dumbfounded.
Lacking the patience to untangle Cheng Zhou’s mental confusion, Zhao Xingjian tuned out the sputtering questions, listening as Chu Minghe inside the room repeatedly assured his manager that zero romantic feelings existed and the trending tag must be scrubbed. Finally, Zhao Xingjian delivered his final verdict: “Get that trending tag pulled down for me. I’ll treat you to dinner when I’m back.”
Without waiting for Cheng Zhou’s reply, he terminated the call. Before stepping back across the threshold into the bedroom, he deliberately brushed his hand against the hallway trash can to create audible feedback.
Instantly, the frantic, loud whispers inside dropped to a muted murmur: “Can’t talk anymore, Sister Hong. Make sure that trending search gets cleared.”
As Zhao Xingjian pushed open the door and stepped inside, Chu Minghe swiftly tossed his phone aside, scrambled off the bed, and lunged toward the quilt to swap sleeping arrangements only to freeze when he cast a glance toward the sofa, spotting the dark wool blanket from the previous night still folded neatly in place.
Tonight’s bed belonged to Zhao Xingjian; the quilt belonged to Zhao Xingjian.
Glancing at him, Zhao Xingjian dropped heavily onto the sofa without a word. “Don’t bother moving it. Both spots are identical.”
Before Chu Minghe could formulate a reply, Zhao Xingjian reached out and clicked off the floor lamp by the sofa, plunging the room into immediate darkness.
For a long stretch, neither man drifted off to sleep.
Beneath the pink duvet, Chu Minghe retrieved his phone once more. Muffling the screen illumination entirely within the fabric, he checked WeChat, finding no new messages from Sister Hong, which sparked a flicker of anxiety.
Unable to resist, he sneaked back onto Weibo. To his profound relief, the trending hashtag had indeed plummeted toward the bottom of the rankings, disappearing completely after a couple of rapid page refreshes.
A wave of profound relief washed over him. Tapping open Sister Hong’s chat window, he typed out a quick expression of gratitude.
– Thank you, Sister Hong.
Though his face burned hot beneath the heavy layers of quilt, he steadfastly refused to surface. Driven by irrepressible curiosity, he tapped into the recently cooled He-Jian super-topic just to skim the community chatter.
Reflecting back across their interactions, he couldn’t pinpoint a single instance where he and Zhao Xingjian had engaged in genuinely intimate behavior.
Meanwhile, entirely oblivious to his activities, Zhao Xingjian lay cross-armed in the dark against the plush pink cushions, staring up at the ceiling as his mind churned relentlessly: Why is he in such a rush? Why is he way more impatient than I am?
The man hadn’t voiced a single complaint, nor had he attempted to sound out his personal stance before frantically begging his manager to bury the trending topic. If Chu Minghe had simply approached him with a rational explanation, would he really have flat-out rejected preserving their promotional visibility?
Tossing and turning within the dark, tormented by a buzzing mosquito circling overhead until his patience snapped, Zhao Xingjian reached out in the dark and slapped the insect dead against the wall.
Startled violently beneath the quilt, Chu Minghe let out a tiny gasp of fright. Seized by sudden guilt, he immediately powered off his phone, threw off the blanket cover, and flicked on the bedside lamp.
“Are there mosquitoes? I brought mosquito repellent spray.”
Looking ready to say no, Zhao Xingjian paused the moment his eyes landed on Chu Minghe—whose face was flushed a brilliant, feverish crimson, accompanied by wide, swimmingly disoriented eyes.
Startled into a panic, Zhao Xingjian bolted upright: “What on earth were you doing just now?!”
Overwhelmed by a guilty conscience and recalling the explicit fan fiction and edited clips he had just been browsing, Chu Minghe felt like he had just peered into a forbidden new world. Facing Zhao Xingjian’s direct interrogation, he shrank back instantly, pulling his head in like a turtle and murmuring defensively, “Nothing at all…”
Remembering the remark Zhao Xingjian had dropped across the dinner table earlier, Chu Minghe evaluated it silently in his heart with a newly minted verdict: He was actually holding back.