Transformed into a heartthrob's simp, every day is a battleground.

Chapter 98 Spreading Rumors About Couples

Ning Xinian smiled but didn't reply.

Feeling guilty, Yan Xun thought to himself, he was now convinced that Ning Xinian was the prime suspect. Seeing that Ning Xinian didn't respond, he didn't press the matter either. This made the other regular guests who were familiar with Ning Xinian break out in a cold sweat.

Ultimately, nobody really believes that they are all lifelong singles.

Unexpectedly, Yan Xun and Ning Xinian left the camera's view and didn't even bother to act, seemingly wanting to tear each other apart on the spot.

In the end, only a senior colleague could smooth things over by changing the subject.

When Ning Xinian returned backstage, instead of going to her usual rest room, she squeezed in as Yan Xun entered.

"?" Yan Xun pressed one hand on Ning Xinian's shoulder, preventing him from entering. "What is it?"

"Let go," Ning Xinian said, his gaze lingering for a moment on the hand Yan Xun was pressing on his shoulder. "Although this is backstage..."

However, with so many people talking, if someone with no sense of propriety happens to see them, the next day they'll appear in some unknown gossip from some marketing account.

Yan Xun looked Ning Xinian up and down. "Who are you threatening?"

Whether it was because she remembered that Yan Xun was a stubborn person who wouldn't listen to reason, or because she was mindful that they were still backstage, Ning Xinian finally softened her tone and asked, "Can you let me in?"

"I beg you."

Yan Xun immediately pulled his hand back, as if he had touched a high-voltage line—unlike a high-voltage line, Ning Xinian's words were not fatal, but purely disgusting.

"So annoying?" Ning Xinian was a little displeased when Yan Xun pulled his hand away as if he had been electrocuted. Was he really that scary?

Yan Xun stepped aside to let Ning Xinian in, so that he wouldn't continue to embarrass himself outside.

Assistant Xiao Zheng stared in disbelief at their interaction. After a while, as if she were a beat slow to react, she stood up from her chair and prepared to get Yan Xun the clothes she would wear after the show.

Ning Xinian stood behind the door with his arms crossed, wondering how Xiao Zheng could be so obedient.

To be honest, the company paid its assistants only average salaries. Ning Xinian knew that many assistants were outwardly obsequious but inwardly disobedient, deceiving their superiors and taking bribes. At first, he thought that Xiao Zheng was so eager to curry favor with Yan Xun because he wanted some benefits from him.

He later realized something was wrong.

Xiao Zheng neither contacts his fans nor secretly takes kickbacks or benefits... He is even excessively honest at the company.

She just loves to serve people.

In feudal society, he could have become a chief eunuch.

Oh no, he can't be one, Ning Xinian thought somewhat cynically. After all, Xiao Zheng wasn't clever enough, but he would most likely be an obedient little eunuch.

"Hehe, how could I hate it?" Yan Xun took the clothes handed to him by Xiao Zheng, walked into the small dressing room, and took off his pajamas.

He was still responding to Ning Xinian from a distance.

"Aren't you the face of our group?"

"How could I possibly hate you?"

"Liar," Ning Xinian thought, as he stood behind the door, watching Yan Xun hang his pajamas above the dressing room door.

A little while later, the pajama bottoms were also thrown out.

Xiao Zheng hurriedly went over and helped Yan Xun pack up his pajamas and pajama bottoms—Ning Xinian felt increasingly annoyed as he looked at them.

“His hand isn’t broken,” Ning Xinian said.

"Can't you just let him clean it up himself?"

Just then, Yan Xun pushed open the door to the dressing room and came out. At first, he didn't understand why Ning Xinian had started acting up again and picking fights. But when he saw the timid and helpless Xiao Zheng, and the pajamas that the other person was clutching in his hand...

Even Yan Xun was speechless for a few seconds.

"Thank you, I can do it myself." Yan Xun said, and prepared to take her pajamas from Xiao Zheng's hand.

Xiao Zheng seemed a little lost, so she gripped the handle a bit too tightly, and Yan Xun couldn't pull it away immediately.

“?” Yan Xun looked at Xiao Zheng.

Xiao Zheng quickly shook her head, "It's okay, I'm just a personal assistant."

He spoke softly, then hurriedly turned to Ning Xinian, who was "standing up for him," and said, "Brother Ning, this is something I did willingly."

In that instant, Ning Xinian felt as if she wished she could transform into the Queen Mother of the West, use her hairpin to draw a Milky Way, and completely separate Yan Xun and Xiao Zheng.

He even shared his thoughts with some of the most wronged people online who complained about their love-struck best friends. He was angry at their lack of self-control, suspected that Yan Xun might be using witchcraft, and even guessed that Xiao Zheng might have been caught embezzling a huge amount of public funds. That's why he listened to Yan Xun so much and even worked on his own initiative without her asking, showing considerable initiative.

Seeing that Xiao Zheng was clutching his pajamas tightly and refusing to let go, Yan Xun assumed that Xiao Zheng was just a responsible personal assistant. He had never been a celebrity, and he just guessed that personal assistants took care of the daily lives of artists. Because Xiao Zheng was so careful, he also thought that Xiao Zheng was just a hard-working person.

Yan Xun thought he was probably worried I'd get angry and lose my job. Anyway, his character in this instance seemed to have a bit of a prince complex and was very self-centered.

"What do you want to say when you come in?" After changing into casual clothes, Yan Xun tidied his hair in front of the mirror.

He looked at Ning Xinian standing behind the door in the mirror. "Did I act badly?"

"So-so," Ning Xinian said immediately. "Have you been slacking off in your acting classes lately?"

"Everyone says we're best friends, but we don't usually show it in front of the camera for various reasons." Thinking this, his tone became slightly annoyed. "Why were you so stiff when I put my arm around your shoulder?"

"Didn't we agree before that when I put my arm around your shoulder, you would lean back slightly and rest against me, pretending we were really close?"

Yan Xun: "………………?"

When did you say that?

The script he received didn't include this! This is extra, it's priced separately!

“In Brother Bai’s office.” Ning Xinian frowned. “You were definitely distracted at the time and didn’t listen at all.”

Yan Xun didn't have this memory at all, probably because the system felt this part of the plot was unnecessary, so it didn't create any related storylines.

"This is so fake, bro," Yan Xun couldn't help but say. "We hadn't even added each other on WeChat before, but we're all all over each other on the show..."

Who can believe that?

Upon hearing this, Ning Xinian suddenly fell silent, seemingly lost in thought.

After a long while, he finally spoke.

"Some people will believe it."

Seeing the confusion in Yan Xun's eyes, Ning Xinian paused for a moment before continuing.

"...They would say that only real couples pretend to be strangers."

They're not close friends or in contact, yet their body language is so intimate and unreserved. That can only mean one thing: they've slept together.

Of course, Ning Xinian would not say the second half of that sentence.

He's not crazy, why would he say this to a straight man for no reason?

Yan Xun stared in disbelief at himself, then at Ning Xinian, “...The two of us?”

"Are there any couples?"

Ning Xinian was a little annoyed when she heard this, "Is it so hard for you to accept that we're a couple?"

"Not exactly," Yan Xun said after a moment's thought.

"We haven't really spoken to each other in three years..."

He glanced at Ning Xinian and thought to himself, "Isn't this just a fabricated couple pairing?"

What can we consume in these three years? Air?

Ning Xinian even wondered how Yan Xun had managed to maintain his image for the past three years. Isn't the fun of shipping couples all about spreading rumors?

It's like he and He Jinqiu are really together... Wait a minute? Ning Xinian looked at Yan Xun, "Then why don't you say it's you and He Jinqiu?"

"You two don't seem to know each other very well."

Yan Xun thought for a while about who He Jinqiu was before finally remembering that this person was the lead singer of the group, and that their relationship was only slightly closer than that with Ning Xinian—for example, they had added each other on WeChat three years ago.

But the chat never lasted more than ten sentences.

“We’re not that close,” Yan Xun nodded. “But compared to you, I’m still closer to He Jinqiu.”

Slow-moving Xiao Zheng seemed to finally sense the tension in their words. Apparently worried that they might start fighting backstage, turning the plastic boy band into a fighting boy band, he could only hurriedly try to persuade them, "Brother Bai just told me to take you back to the dorm first."

He then looked at Ning Xinian and said, "Brother Ning, go change your clothes first. I'll inform the driver."

……

In the van, Ning Xinian and Yan Xun walked one in front of the other.

They were showing through their actions that they were ignoring each other.

Yan Xun sat in the back seat, and Xiao Zheng sat in the passenger seat. He whispered something to the driver.

Yan Xun looked out the car window at Ning Xinian, who was sitting in front of him.

Through the reflection in the glass, he could see Ning Xinian looking down at her phone, but because of the privacy screen protector, he couldn't see the content...

Could he be texting his girlfriend? Yan Xun wondered.

"Check the group chat," Ning Xinian said without looking up.

Upon hearing this, Yan Xun took out his phone and discovered that someone was tagging him in the group chat... It was Mu Yuanming, the dance leader who was known for being lively in the team.

He's currently working abroad and said that while browsing a secondhand market, he saw jewelry from a brand that Yan Xun really liked and asked if Yan Xun wanted it.

Yan Xun typed "OK" in the group chat.

The other side quickly responded with an emoji.

Yan Xun glanced at the small group chat. There wasn't much chatting, and the few times they did chat were mostly for business or to notify people of things.

The last time they spoke was when Mu Yuanming wished Yan Xun and Ning Xinian to sell themselves, to become strong, and to try to dispel the rumors of their "plastic brotherhood."

【Our bond is stronger than gold (5)】

[He Jinqiu: Why did Brother Bai arrange it this way? Why did he choose the two people he was least familiar with?]

[Mu Yuanming: You don't understand. Even the people we're least familiar with are being so ambiguous; that just proves we have a good relationship.]

Ning Xinian: ...

Yan Xun didn't reply to the message, probably because he hadn't even looked at the group chat, or perhaps he thought they were being silly and was too lazy to reply.

He checked everyone in the group one by one and found that He Jinqiu had sent him a message.

[He Jinqiu: Are you okay? If not, find someone else from Brother Bai. Your relationship has always been strained.]

[Yan Xun: Never mind, too much trouble.]

[Yan Xun: Anyway, it's just recording a program once.]

[He Jinqiu: Okay, if you change your mind, I'll go talk to Brother Bai and go in your place.]

Yan Xun felt a little awkward looking at the chat history. He scrolled up a lot more and found that his relationship with He Jinqiu was actually not bad.

The two chatted a lot, and occasionally when He Jinqiu was working alone and saw something interesting, she would send it to Yan Xun to share.

[He Jinqiu: Look, a hedgehog.]

[Yan Xun: Where are you?]

[He Jinqiu: What's wrong?]

[Yan Xun: Come find me.]

However, their conversation was intermittent... Yan Xun watched for a while and felt that some chat history must have been deleted in the middle.

Could it be that He Jinqiu is the one with a sister-in-law?

Did he discover that He Jinqiu had a sister-in-law when he went to find him?

He scrolled through "his" chat history with a subtle expression in the back row, and found that he was being very cautious. The chat history contained nothing important and did not reveal much of the key clues.

As Yan Xun was browsing through the chat history, He Jinqiu's new message popped up in the group chat—

[He Jinqiu: Brother Bai just arrived.]

[He Jinqiu: It should be about that incident online.]

[Yan Xun: What is it?]

He asked the question knowingly, of course he understood that the agent was coming to talk about the online incident involving the sister-in-law.

[He Jinqiu: It must be... that thing about one of us being in a relationship.]

[Mu Yuanming: Stop talking, my parents are still asking me if I know who it is.]

[Yan Xun: ? ?]

[Yan Xun: Who?]

Ning Xinian: Maybe it's fake.

Yan Xun glanced at Ning Xinian's message and poked his shoulder with his finger.

Ning Xinian looked back.

"You think it's fake?"

"Otherwise what?" Ning Xinian asked. "We all live together, how can anyone hide their relationship from others?"

Their group consists of five people. Except for the team leader Ning Xinian, who has a separate room, the rest of the members all have double rooms.

Yan Xun and He Jinqiu were slightly closer because they were roommates.

Yan Xun observed Ning Xinian's expression as he said this, and seeing how he spoke so matter-of-factly and confidently, he began to doubt that he had wrongly accused a good person.

After all, although the main storyline remains the same, different endings will be generated based on different players, and everyone will encounter different members with the sister-in-law.

The reason this dungeon is considered easy is because there are only five members in total. You can get an A grade if you die no more than 6 times. Even if you use the process of elimination, you can find the teammate with the sister-in-law within 6 deaths.

Yan Xun remained silent, deep in thought about the copy.

However, Ning Xinian interpreted his silence as something else entirely.

He was just about to ask if you were the one with a sister-in-law when he remembered that on the show just now, someone had a secret: he was secretly dating someone.

Ning Xinian looked at the silent Yan Xun, then turned to look at the driver and Xiao Zheng in the driver's seat and passenger seat.

After hesitating for a long time, I still didn't speak.

Ultimately, he didn't really trust the driver and Xiao Zheng that much.

"Anyway, if it's fake, Brother Bai definitely won't ignore it."

"If it's really true..."

He looked at Yan Xun meaningfully, "Brother Bai won't ignore this either."

"Ideally, the person in a relationship should be able to guarantee that their relationship will not be known to anyone."

……

When the group returned to the dormitory, they saw He Jinqiu sitting on the sofa wearing headphones. He seemed to be listening to music. It wasn't until he saw Ning Xinian going back to his room to change clothes that he realized someone had returned.

He Jinqiu took off her headphones and looked at Yan Xun, who was following Ning Xinian into the room.

"How did it go?" He leaned over the edge of the sofa, looking at Yan Xun. "Was it all right?"

Yan Xun looked at his teammate.

The other person's hair was bleached to platinum blonde and was slightly long. He had pale skin and light-colored eyes, and looked as if he had never seen the light of day, like some kind of wandering ghost.

When he saw Yan Xun, a smile appeared on his face, making him look as if he had returned to the world of the living from the underworld.

Yan Xun thought of the outrageous descriptions of He Jinqiu online, referring to male ghost-type celebrities.