Ten years ago, Chu Minghe made a high-profile announcement on Weibo declaring that he was off to marry his true love, telling his fans not to miss him.
Unsurprisingly, the comment section beneath the post was flooded with harsh curses, primarily because that period coincided with the broadcast of a drama he had utterly butchered.
By a stroke of coincidence, the second male lead, who shared most of his scenes with Chu Minghe, had just published a Weibo post featuring a sleeping photo of Chu Minghe. His motive was clearly to latch onto Chu Minghe for shipping (CP) popularity and cash in on a wave of fans.
Ultimately, because Chu Minghe’s marriage announcement failed to tag anyone, anti-fans spilled over into the second male lead’s comment section en masse, demanding to know, “When are the two of you getting married?”
Cornered and embarrassed, the second male lead deleted the photo. From then on, Chu Minghe acquired yet another faction of anti-fans—fans of that second male lead.
In truth, throughout that period, whenever any male celebrity posted an update, comments asking “When are you guys getting married?” were guaranteed to be there, having officially evolved into a running internet meme.
However, that was all many years ago; anyone who still remembered was probably already married with children.
After finishing dinner, the group chatted for a while before the palpable weight of exhaustion caught up with them. Dragging their heavy legs, they all retreated to their respective rooms to rest—except for Chu Minghe. The moment he reached the upper floor, he scurried back down the stairs with a rapid pattering of footsteps, bolting straight for the villa’s front entrance.
The courtyard floodlights had already been turned off, and Chu Minghe hadn’t brought his phone down with him. Thankfully, the moonlight provided just enough illumination to keep him from tripping.
Reaching the doorway, he felt along the wooden panels and pulled the door inward—sure enough, it remained unlocked. With practiced familiarity, he threw the latch, locked it securely in place, and felt his way back through the dark.
【What’s going on?】 【Did he have a fight with his husband?】 【Amitabha, let’s keep our thoughts positive, please.】 【Where’s the light?】 【Production crew energy-saving policy: lights out at 9:00 PM sharp.】 【I heard the sound of a door closing.】 【Would he even know how to lock a door like that? Doesn’t his house use an electronic smart lock?】 【……】
When Chu Minghe headed downstairs earlier, Zhao Xingjian had been occupied with work. By the time he noticed, he was the sole occupant left in the room.
Noticing that the outdoor lights were turned off and fearing something might happen, Zhao Xingjian swallowed his boiling temper, tossed his laptop aside, picked up the flashlight provided by the production crew, and headed out to look for him.
Since it was early autumn in the suburbs, nighttime brought a sharp temperature drop, making the outdoors quite chilly.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he spotted Chu Minghe right away. Zhao Xingjian stood his ground to illuminate the path for him.
“Where did you go?” Zhao Xingjian asked.
“Just went to lock the front door. Why did you come down? Are you still hungry?”
This was the sort of routine conversation expected between ordinary married couples, but for the two of them who were far from an ordinary couple it felt profoundly awkward, sending a draft of cold air straight down their spines.
Still, they were acting a part, and both understood the assignment.
Zhao Xingjian replied that he wasn’t hungry, and reached out to guide Chu Minghe past a bucket blocking the hallway.
At that moment, the door to the left of the corridor swung open, and Lin Dingshi emerged wearing a small bear headband, instantly shivering from the incoming gust of cool air.
“Brother Minghe, where did you go?”
With a gentle smile, Chu Minghe pointed toward the entrance. “I went to lock the door.”
“I didn’t even know,” Lin Dingshi said curiously, squinting into the gloom without spotting anything. “We should take turns locking it from now on.”
“Goodnight, Brother Minghe!”
“Goodnight.”
As the two of them walked back up the stairs, Zhao Xingjian asked, “You actually know how to lock that kind of latch?”
He was genuinely curious. Chu Minghe hailed from a well-to-do family background and only started sliding downhill in recent years. By all logic, someone of his background shouldn’t know how to operate such rustic locks; even Chu Minghe’s ability to cook earlier had caught him somewhat off guard.
Sensing his curiosity, Chu Minghe realized that if Zhao Xingjian was wondering, the audience was likely wondering too.
He knew he was a transmigrator carrying memories of his past, but none of those experiences belonged to the original Chu Minghe of the novel, whereas the viewers only recognized the persona of the original owner.
Fortunately, a full decade had passed since then, during which he had remained completely out of the public eye. People were entirely capable of changing, and any alterations in his behavior could easily be hand-waved away.
“I’ve locked doors like this before.”
Forget this kind of lock; even the complex rope knots securing the wooden fence of the backyard chicken coop were tricks he knew how to untie.
Seeing that he offered no further explanation, Zhao Xingjian dropped the subject.
Back in the room, the live-stream hadn’t yet reached its cut-off time. Unwilling to make their interactions appear overly contrived, Chu Minghe intended to use showering as his standard avoidance strategy for the duration of the show.
Only…
“Are you showering first, or am I?”
Assuming that Chu Minghe reaching out meant asking him to take his jacket, a wave of displeasure washed over Zhao Xingjian, though he took it anyway. “You go first.”
Chu Minghe paused. Seeing Zhao Xingjian’s reluctant expression, he figured the other man found him talkative and troublesome, so he simply offered an “okay” and ducked straight into the bathroom.
After rinsing off once, he reached out blindly toward the row of identical plastic bottles lined up on the shelf.
…
If his guess was correct, those bare pink bottles ought to have had labels indicating which contained hand soap, body wash, toothpaste, and shampoo.
Right now, however, they were completely stripped of markings. Aside from the tube of toothpaste, he had zero clue which bottle was which. With no other choice, he turned off the showerhead and called out to the person outside: “Do you remember the bottle labels? Is the big bottle shampoo or body wash?”
Sitting unhappily on the pink sofa attempting to work, Zhao Xingjian paused at the question.
“Labels?”
“Yeah,” Chu Minghe called back, having already dried himself off and changed into fresh clothes to prevent any unbroadcastable accidents.
“The labels that said shampoo, hand soap, and stuff.”
Zhao Xingjian racked his brain. He had indeed entered the bathroom while Chu Minghe was poking around the chicken coop downstairs. Because he needed to wash his hands, he ripped the packaging off one pink bottle, and mindlessly tore the labels off the rest of them, figuring the white rectangular stickers on them were just promotional advertising inserts.
Since they were stuck to the bottom of the bottles, he hadn’t inspected them closely.
Just as he was processing this, Chu Minghe cracked open the bathroom door. “Do you remember?”
“I do…”
With a calm, deadpan expression, Zhao Xingjian stated, “They’re in the trash can.”
…
Since one couldn’t expect too much from a pampered corporate mogul, Chu Minghe accepted his fate without complaint, rummaging through the trash can to dump its contents out onto the floor.
Fortunately, the labels had been peeled off in one clean piece; matching them up by bottle size made identifying each item a breeze.
Staring down at him, Zhao Xingjian watched to see if Chu Minghe would show any sign of looking down on him, and upon seeing none, tossed his laptop aside to step over and assist with the sorting.
【Are you guys really making them dig through the trash can in the live-stream just to match bottle labels off scrap paper?!】 【Give me five minutes, I demand to see mandarin ducks splashing in the water through that bathroom door!】 【Have you guys forgotten already? Have you forgotten what he used to be like?】 【Are we talking about his investor-backed status? His current manager just released a statement; we’ll probably see the truth in a couple of days. Until then, just honestly watch this couple dish out sugar like regular bystanders.】
Five minutes later, Chu Minghe held up several bottles to show Zhao Xingjian, deliberating for a moment before summarizing: “The large one is body wash, the medium one is shampoo, the small one is hand soap, and the tiniest one is toothpaste. Did you commit all of that to memory?”
【Dad-type boyfriend.】 【Be bold—maybe he’s a “male mom.”】
Feeling similarly awkward, Zhao Xingjian dryly indicated that he had memorized it all, and retreated to his laptop to resume work.
Half an hour later, stepping out of the bathroom, Chu Minghe found Zhao Xingjian still glued to the computer screen. Deciding not to disturb him, he carefully crawled onto the bed and picked up his phone.
Barely five minutes passed before Sister Hong messaged him.
– Don’t check the live-stream comments, and stay off Weibo. You’ve held your ground pretty well today, but the real test is coming up in the next few days. Sustained pressure is the true test of endurance. – I understand, thanks Sister Hong. – You kept your boundaries well today, but don’t be overly proactive either. Coordinate with the others when harvesting vegetables or cooking, otherwise people will find something to criticize. – Understood. – I asked around—the final couple won’t arrive until the last few days. Word is they’re also industry insiders, so comparisons are guaranteed. Ignore them, and remember to keep your emotions in check. – Also, don’t show any obvious favoritism or resentment toward the two downstairs. Same rule applies: no complaining about hardship, no whining about fatigue, and absolutely no picking fights. Trust your own instincts for the rest.
Chu Minghe read through the instructions carefully and replied with a simple “Got it.”
Sister Hong’s professional style was worlds apart from the manager he had in the real world.
Back then, the manager representing him was practically the polar opposite. Arguably, his refusal to yield to investors’ “drinking accompaniment” demands and the ensuing smear campaign were entirely engineered by that very manager.
Things were different now.
Sister Hong’s industry competence and execution were top-tier, and he was determined not to let her down.
– Stop staring at your phone. Look at the person in your room, he’s been glaring at you for ages.
Startled, Chu Minghe raised his head and looked toward the row of sofas lining the wall.
Zhao Xingjian sat draped in black against the plush, fluffy pink sofa, completely swallowed up by surrounding pink decorative cushions.
Zhao Xingjian hadn’t expected him to look up so abruptly, though he didn’t look the least bit sheepish, smoothly redirecting his gaze back to his computer monitor.
He had initially only intended to work. But once he finished reviewing his documents, Cheng Zhou sent him a link to the live-stream.
Showing a shred of self-awareness, Cheng Zhou hadn’t called via voice chat.
– Figures you’d go radio silent today. Didn’t even tell me you were traveling with your wife. – By the way, when did your relationship get so good? Wasn’t it just a couple of years ago that you couldn’t stand the sight of each other and practically wanted to drag him off to sign divorce papers?
There were no active camera lenses overhead here, ensuring Zhao Xingjian’s chat logs wouldn’t leak.
– We aren’t close. We’re divorcing the moment the show wraps. – Divorcing right after filming? That’s wild. – Well, a divorce is a divorce. Still, reading the live-stream chat, the comments about Chu Minghe are brutally vicious.
Zhao Xingjian was already aware of this to some extent, having briefly opened the stream during the drive down today.
He had witnessed firsthand how the bullet comments shifted instantly from harmonious guesses of fan identities to a screen-flooding chorus of get the hell out the moment Chu Minghe appeared on camera.
Chu Minghe had confided in him about wanting to use the show to clear his name and stage a comeback. But looking at the current climate… Zhao Xingjian knew next to nothing about how entertainment figures clawed their way back from a landslide of public hate. Recalling Chu Minghe’s earnest expression, however, he found his gaze lingering on him a bit longer which was how he ended up getting caught.
Locking his phone screen, Chu Minghe sat cross-legged on the bed. The thin pink duvet was pressed into folds around his legs, accentuating his striking, expressive face and lending him an aura of docile obedience.
“Are you showering? It’s almost ten o’clock.”
He was gently hinting that if Zhao Xingjian felt out of place, he could retreat to the bathroom until the ten o’clock broadcast cutoff.
Instead, Zhao Xingjian shook his head. “You go to sleep if you’re tired.”
That response triggered a fresh logistical dilemma for Chu Minghe: there was only one room and one bed. If he went to sleep, Zhao Xingjian would be forced to spend the night on the sofa…
Yet, while cameras were still rolling live, any concrete sleeping arrangements would have to wait until the broadcast officially signed off for the night.
With no other choice, he lifted the edge of the quilt and slid inside, occupying a narrow strip of space near the edge.
【First-time viewer here. Is this the standard interpersonal dynamic between a corporate mogul and his pampered wife?】 【Next door, Lin Dingshi and his husband are super cozy, whispering sweet nothings in an embrace, while this side looks straight out of the Cold War.】 【I’m watching Zhang Qing and Zhang Congsheng fight, and I’m dying of laughter.】 【Honestly, this vibe feels the most realistic. After all, they’ve been married for ten years they’re practically the veteran couple of the group.】
Zhao Xingjian turned his attention back to his monitor, where Cheng Zhou was firing off more screenshots of live-stream comments.
– Look at that, pure old-married-couple energy. – Get lost. – Seriously though, last night when Chu Minghe came to pick you up, he hovered over you so carefully and looked so worried I thought I was hallucinating from being drunk. – Drop the secret training tips, teach me your ways.
That particular detail was news to Zhao Xingjian. Yesterday, his mind had been entirely preoccupied with unearthing Chu Minghe’s hidden agenda, causing him to overlook the fact that he hadn’t suffered from his usual debilitating hangover waking up that morning.
Yet he hadn’t done anything special, let alone undergone any “training” they had barely crossed paths over the years.
He glanced back toward the bed, discovering that Chu Minghe had wrapped himself up so tightly in the quilt that he looked like a silk cocoon. From where he sat, only a tuft of hair was visible near the top.
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from downstairs.
That small tuft of hair gave a violent start.
Chu Minghe bolted upright in an instant, his eyes wide with a flash of blind panic, his complexion draining to a sheet of chalky white.