You're incredible!

The sounds of smashing and crashing rang incessantly through the living room.

His eyes bloodshot, Chu Yilan raised a hand and seized Shen Lian by the throat.

Shen Lian wasn't as strong as him, but he was fast. He landed a punch straight on Chu Yilan's shoulder.

"Fuck!" Chu Yilan kicked over the chair beside his feet.

Shen Lian shoved Chu Yilan away, then used the momentum to lunge forward, driving his bent knee toward a certain unmentionable part of Chu Yilan's anatomy.

Chu Yilan quickly covered himself, then looked up at Shen Lian in shock. "You're actually going for it?!"

They had been fighting for quite a while and had smashed plenty of things, but neither of them had actually suffered any real injuries.

"Are you trying to piss me to death?" Shen Lian grabbed Chu Yilan's shirt collar, looking determined not to let this go. "If you don't delete Zheng Ge, I'm fucking leaving right now!"

What a novel way to threaten someone.

Chu Yilan was utterly baffled. "Didn't you just delete him yourself?"

"I mean you're not allowed to add him back!"

Chu Yilan frowned. "Do I look like someone with no self-respect?"

Shen Lian studied Chu Yilan seriously, as though weighing the truth of that statement.

"You said it." Shen Lian's tone softened a little.

He leaned closer until the tips of their noses touched, then sniffed several times in quick succession, like a little animal.

"Don't let me smell anyone else on you." As Shen Lian spoke, he slowly lowered his head, caught the offending collar between his teeth, and tugged it aside.

Chu Yilan suddenly drew a deep breath.

He felt Shen Lian's slightly sharp canine teeth right against his neck, as though they might leave two bloody holes in it at any moment.

All teeth and claws, capable of both obedience and fury-Chu Yilan had finally come to know a completely new side of Shen Lian.

The dark possessiveness in Shen Lian's eyes just now had startled him.

At the same time, however, a seductive rush of excitement flooded his brain, making his temples pound so wildly that he momentarily forgot to take Shen Lian to task.

Shen Lian wasn't wrong. Zheng Ge looked innocent and harmless, but his affections were divided. He was always offering Chu Yilan vague hints of a promise, only to give most of his love to Zhou Tangsi.

That wasn't what Chu Yilan wanted.

It had even become the source of his suffering.

Chu Yilan had realized long ago that he wasn't quite like other people. Once something caught his interest, he needed to possess it completely.

Completely!

The good and the bad-he wanted to tear it all apart and swallow every piece.

It was a sick, obsessive kind of attachment, yet just now, Chu Yilan had actually received an answer to it.

He had seen the exact same thing in Shen Lian's eyes.

Did that mean they were the same kind?

Like brambles spreading through the darkness and the wilderness, seizing each other, wrapping around each other-even if they sank into hell, they would go together.

At last, Chu Yilan felt that keeping Shen Lian by his side was starting to get interesting.

The charged atmosphere between them gradually settled.

Shen Lian immediately returned to his frail, pitiful act, collapsing onto the sofa as though half-dead. "Master Chu, my back hurts..."

Chu Yilan gave an incredulous laugh. "So you do know what pain is? You called me a fucking coward, smashed my three-million-yuan vase with one punch, and shattered my seven-hundred-thousand-yuan plant stand with one kick. Aren't you a badass? You're incredible!"

Shen Lian: "..."

Shen Lian had assumed Chu Yilan would settle the score sooner or later, but to his surprise, he got away with it.

And Shen Lian himself was very well versed in taking advantage of being spoiled.

During his earlier ad shoot, he had added the photographer, Zhao Ban, on WeChat.

Shen Lian asked Zhao Ban for a photo-the one of him looking into the camera with a rose between his teeth-then printed it out, bought a frame for it, and finally handed it to Chu Yilan.

Chu Yilan asked, "What's this for?"

"Put it on your desk," Shen Lian said. "I'm way better-looking than Zheng Ge. Maybe it'll brainwash you."

Chu Yilan: "..."

Chu Yilan wanted nothing more than to smack Shen Lian in the face with the frame.

Noticing the look on Chu Yilan's face, Shen Lian made himself scarce.

Irritated and helpless, Chu Yilan casually picked up the frame and glanced at it...

Then glanced at it again...

Shen Lian didn't enter Chu Yilan's study, so he had no idea what Chu Yilan did with it.

Either way, the whole point was to keep himself on Chu Yilan's mind.

Meanwhile, Shen Lian's name was being mentioned frequently on Weibo.

His coolheaded, eye-catching performance on his first appearance in "Stars, Charge Ahead!" had genuinely stood out. Some of the new viewers were bound to be drawn to him. They edited photos, made GIFs, and chatted about him, generating a steady stream of organic buzz.

Zheng Ge's fans still rushed over to hurl abuse whenever they heard anything, but they couldn't stop people from liking him.

Besides, there were plenty of contrarians around these days.

Seeing which way the wind was blowing, the advertiser from his earlier shoot gave it some thought and released Shen Lian's studio photos.

Against a black-and-white backdrop, the desire in the young man's eyes was restrained yet intense. That dizzying masculine allure was intoxicating at first glance.

Excellent. This time, Shen Lian's supertopic finally blew up.

[Shen Lian, I'm begging you, let me lick your collarbone! Just once!]

[Followed the trail here! Good heavens, I knew at first glance that this was my long-lost husband!]

But the crowd had been claiming him as their husband for less than half an hour when a flood of haters poured into the public feed.

[Ha ha ha, hope you can still like Shen Lian after reading about his shady past. [link link link]]

[Seriously? Do you people have no standards?]

[I'll insult anyone who likes Shen Lian. Yep, that's how unreasonable I am.]

[Who do you think you are, a princess? If you're going to be unreasonable, so am I!]

The bickering made for quite a lively scene.

Whether they had a grudge against you or not, the entertainment industry was full of people who delighted in your misfortune and didn't want you making a comeback. But controversy meant buzz. Besides, what Shen Lian was showing now was a strong ability to engage an audience. Other than dredging up old dirt, the haters really hadn't had much to say about these last two appearances.

On Wednesday morning, the production team called Shen Lian to tell him the weather had cleared and filming would begin at noon.

Things were different this time.

A van came to pick him up, and Xingtu Entertainment had even assigned him a female assistant. She was in her early twenties, wore her hair in a ponytail, and looked like she had only just graduated.

The assistant's name was Jiang You.

"You can call me Youzi, Mr. Shen."

Jiang You had delicate features and was too shy to look up at anyone while speaking. Holding a water bottle, she nervously picked at its insulating sleeve.

She was a complete novice, but Shen Lian preferred that to seasoned veterans with ulterior motives.

"All right, Youzi. Here's my little backpack. Take it."

Delight showed on Jiang You's face as she hurried to take it. She was still on probation. If Shen Lian rejected her, she would probably be deemed unqualified when she returned to the company.

Jiang You hadn't expected the company to assign her directly to Shen Lian as his assistant, either.

Her feelings were rather complicated. She wanted to look after Shen Lian a little, yet didn't want to make things too easy for him.

Qian Gao hadn't even shown his face.

Shen Lian didn't care. Jiang You drove steadily, and they reached the filming location at eleven thirty.

It was worth mentioning that, given the Liu Kaisheng incident and Shen Lian's knack for "stirring up trouble," Chu Yilan had ultimately given him his personal phone number.

Shen Lian used that lead to add Chu Yilan on WeChat.

His profile picture was solid black. It suited a certain someone perfectly.

The moment Shen Lian entered the lounge, the chatter stopped, and the atmosphere grew awkward.

Nobody could quite explain what kind of luck Shen Lian had.

He had been cast as the punching bag, handed a script that called for him to be sacrificed, yet he had forced his way into the slimmest chance of survival.