Isn't This Way Too Dangerous?!

Jiang Yanchu pushed the keyboard away, leaned back in his chair, and stared blankly at the crystal chandelier on the ceiling.

He had never done anything like this in his life.

Growing up, he had always been the model student in everyone's eyes, with excellent grades and impeccable manners. He had never even gotten into an argument with anyone.

Now he was switching between ten accounts like some internet-addicted teenager, trading insults with strangers. Even at three in the morning, when he could barely keep his eyes open, he kept going.

Because the moment he stopped, the comments attacking Jiang Xun would surge in like a tide, drowning out every positive comment he could see.

And what drove him to despair most wasn't the number of haters, but the discovery that he couldn't out-insult them.

He carefully composed a tightly reasoned, hundred-character rebuttal, and the other person replied with just three words: "You're getting mad."

Jiang Yanchu stared at those three words and nearly bit his keyboard to pieces.

He was, in fact, getting mad.

Although the production team's statement had cleared up some of the facts about Jiang Xun, once public opinion had been whipped into a frenzy, a single statement was nowhere near enough to suppress it.

Jiang Yanchu took a deep breath, rallied, and switched accounts again.

Even if he couldn't win, he still had to fight back.

Every extra reply he fired off meant one fewer comment attacking Jiang Xun left sitting at the top.

[@XunXunIsALittleSun: To everyone saying Jiang Xun snatched a boxed meal in the village, why don't you clip the part where he gave Grandpa Shen half of it afterward? The production team's editing is stirring things up. Do the people joining in the attacks not have brains of their own?]

[@ProtectTheWorldsBestXun: Have you watched the latest episode? He washed three huge basins of laundry for Shen Wangjing's household and rubbed his hands raw. You call that having no manners?]

Hundreds of replies instantly flooded the comments. Jiang Yanchu's fingers flew as he switched accounts and fired back, growing bolder with every exchange, until a private message popped up.

[You play guard dog for someone online every day. Does your master know? Your master's busy making eyes at that poor country boy on the show. They sleep in the same room under the same quilt. You're here scrubbing his tag clean, and he's over there scrubbing someone else's underwear. You two really are a perfect match.]

Jiang Yanchu's fingers hovered over the keyboard without pressing a key for a long while.

The air in the study suddenly grew thin. He read that line over three times.

What the hell?

Washing whose underwear???

What a joke. Jiang Xun argued with everyone and everything. He wouldn't even show their dad any deference. How could he possibly wash underwear for some poor country boy he'd only known for a few days?

Had the haters really taken their lies this far?

Jiang Yanchu took two deep breaths, then, as if compelled by some unseen force, opened the latest full episode of Metamorphosis and dragged the progress bar along, specifically looking for scenes featuring Jiang Xun.

On-screen, Jiang Xun crouched beside the well with a large basin in front of him, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, fishing a piece of black fabric out of the water.

He unfolded it and examined it, his expression earnest and unembarrassed, then called out to Shen Wangjing, who had just returned from the fields.

"Wow! You wear such a big size!"

Jiang Yanchu's face turned green at a visible speed.

His own little brother really was washing someone else's underwear in some impoverished mountain backwater?

Who the hell was that Shen Wangjing? What gave him the right to have his little brother wash his underwear?!

Jiang Yanchu gulped down two mouthfuls of water to quell his anger, then dragged the progress bar forward with trembling fingers.

The scene changed, and a blue-haired figure appeared on-screen, climbing out through the kitchen window of the Village Chief's house.

The figure moved with the practiced ease of a thief with twenty years of experience, clutching Soy-Braised Beef wrapped in a food-storage bag against his chest. When he landed, he knocked over a flowerpot and nearly fell flat on his face.

Why did this guy look so familiar?!

Jiang Yanchu dragged the progress bar back another five seconds, paused, and zoomed in.

His eyes weren't playing tricks on him. It really was the Duan family's only son, Duan Qizhao.

He had seen the boy at the Duan family's cocktail reception just last month, sporting blue hair and slouching whether he stood or sat. He had infuriated his father so much that his car keys had been confiscated on the spot.

Now he was wearing a Givenchy top covered in yellow dirt, with half a dead branch caught on his trouser leg, crouching outside the gate to Shen Wangjing's yard and pushing the Soy-Braised Beef toward Jiang Xun.

Jiang Yanchu slapped the tablet facedown on the desk, picked up his phone, and scrolled through his contacts for a while before finding President Duan's private number.

The call connected after two rings.

"Yan Chu?" President Duan sounded somewhat surprised.

"Uncle Duan, did your son go on Metamorphosis too?"

After a brief silence, a long sigh came from the other end. "Don't even mention it. Your brother looked pretty lively in the preview, so I thought I'd send mine there to experience a little hardship too..."

"Uncle Duan," Jiang Yanchu interrupted, "give me the address of that village."

President Duan paused. "What do you need the address for? I'm telling you, Yan Chu, this show doesn't let parents visit. I tried sending people over with a few things before, but they were all turned away-"

"You must have seen the trending posts about my brother being smeared on the show," Jiang Yanchu said calmly. "I can't get hold of the director, so I'm planning to go there myself and bring him home."

With that much said, President Duan asked no further questions and immediately instructed the secretary beside him to send the address.

Jiang Yanchu received the notification and was about to hang up when President Duan added, "Yan Chu, once you get there, check whether that useless boy of mine is still alive while you're at it. From the preview, it looked like he hadn't even managed to get a bed. He's never suffered any hardship in his life. Don't let him starve to death at the entrance to their village."

Jiang Yanchu: "..."

He gave an offhand agreement, hung up, and was about to have his secretary book a flight when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a scrolling comment drifting across the screen.

[Is it true that Shen Wangjing is a murderer? All the village kids say so. Did the production team even do a background check?]

Jiang Yanchu's fingers froze in midair.

A murderer?!

He had been so focused on watching Jiang Xun's scenes that he hadn't noticed what the scrolling comments were saying at all.

He hurriedly dragged the video back to the part where Duan Qizhao came running home from school-

Blue Hair charged into the yard, grabbed Jiang Xun by the sleeve, and dragged him behind the jujube tree, then leaned close to his ear and rattled off a string of words.

Although the production team hadn't picked up the audio, the scrolling comments had already filled in the content on their own.

[Shen Wangjing pushed his dad into the river and drowned him! Everyone in the village knows!]

[Holy shit, is that true? The production team put a minor in a murderer's house??]

[Has anyone called the police? Isn't this way too dangerous?!]