Secondary CP Chapter 2: Out of Control Exposure

The high-speed train entered a tunnel. In the dim light, Ah Zhe pressed his face against the window, watching his exhausted face reflected in the glass. The dark bruises under his eyes were the mark of staying up late at Yun Heng's house to revise lyrics. The orange wood pick in his pocket rubbed against his thigh, as if reminding him that his life had quietly gone off track.

His phone vibrated violently in his bag. It was his agent, Sister Zhang, calling. Ah Zhe took a deep breath and just as he pressed the answer button, Sister Zhang's anxious roar made his ears hurt. "Azhe, are you still on the train? Check Weibo quickly! Something big has happened!"

With trembling fingers, he clicked on Weibo. The trending searches, like a war-torn landscape, were blindingly red. Terms like #Lin Yu and Meng Yao's relationship exposed# #Dangai drama fake business# #Azhe tragically backstabbed# climbed wildly, firmly occupying the top of the charts. His heart sank as he clicked on the topic of Lin Yu and Meng Yao. One intimate photo after another stabbed him like sharp blades.

In the photos, Lin Yu wore his all-too-familiar dark gray coat, custom-made for the winter scenes. Under the warm yellow light of the mall's underground parking lot, Lin Yu bent over to open the car door for the woman in the passenger seat. The woman, wearing an off-white knitted hat, revealed a small, fair face. It was none other than the moderately famous lifestyle blogger Meng Yao. The final photo was the most captivating. Lin Yu gently reached out to brush Meng Yao's hair off her shoulders, his fingertips gently brushing her earlobe, his eyes filled with affection, a tenderness that Ah Zhe could never hope to find during filming.

Meng Yao's Weibo account has also been flooded with comments. The update she posted half an hour ago contained only a photo of their clasped hands, captioned "Happy 3rd Anniversary," and the location displayed as Lin Yu's upscale residential complex. The comment section instantly erupted, with fans pouring in their well wishes. Meanwhile, fans of the series and its cast angrily accused it of being a "scam," with some even taking to the official Weibo account to demand the title be changed to "Unfortunate Fate." They also dug up a story from a few years ago about the lead actor of another popular gay-themed drama, who secretly married and had children, denouncing the male leads of gay-themed dramas as "not one clean one."

Azhe's finger stopped on the screen. He remembered that when he left Yunheng's house, his grandmother chased him out, stuffed a bag of oranges into his hand, and said with concern: "Eat on the way, it will help you feel better." Now, the oranges still carry the warmth of home, but his throat seems to be blocked, so sour and bitter that he can hardly swallow them.

"Did you see that?" Sister Zhang's voice trembled. "Lin Yu's team just called and said it was the artist's personal matter and had nothing to do with the show, and told us to figure it out on our own! The brand's phone is practically blowing up. They want to terminate our endorsement deal immediately and demand liquidated damages from us!"

Azhe leaned back in his seat, his head hitting the metal backrest with a dull thud. The woman sitting next to him handed him a pack of tissues with concern: "Hey, young man, are you okay? You don't look well."

He took the tissue and whispered a thank you, but he didn't have the energy to wipe the moisture from his eyes. Outside the car window, lush green fields flew by, looking very much like the vibrant radish seedlings in Yunheng's vegetable garden. But the light in his eyes dimmed little by little, as if the fire of hope had been extinguished by a sudden rainstorm.

He couldn't help but recall the day they filmed their last scene. It was incredibly cold and rainy. In the script, Gu Yanchen was delivering documents to Lu Shi in the rain. Lu Shi stood under the eaves, looking at Gu Yanchen's soaked shoulders, wanting to say something but holding back. After the director called "Cut," Lin Yu immediately wrapped his down jacket tightly and hurried to the break room. Ah Zhe, his lips purple from the cold, still chased after him and asked, "What do you think Lu Shi was thinking in that scene just now?"

Lin Yu turned around and glanced at him, his eyes full of impatience: "What can you think? It's just acting, don't take it too seriously."

Looking back now, the perfunctory nature of that statement was completely apparent. For this scene, Ah Zhe deliberately caught a cold in the rain three days beforehand, just to accurately portray Gu Yanchen's "trembling endurance." To help Lin Yu find the feeling, he proactively cut his own lines, leaving only the five words "the file you want." At the wrap-up banquet, he even raised his glass with anticipation and said to Lin Yu, "Our couple might just create a ratings miracle."

Now it all seems so ridiculous.

The phone vibrated. It was a WeChat message from Lin Yu: "Sorry, I didn't tell you in advance."

Ah Zhe stared at the words and suddenly laughed out loud, drawing another worried glance from the woman sitting next to him. He quickly lowered his head, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Didn't tell me in advance? Could a simple apology make up for this?

He opened his Weibo account, and the comment section had become a battlefield of verbal abuse. Fans who once frantically posted, "Gu Yanchen's eyes are killing me," were now flooded with messages like "Unfollow," "Swindler," and "I feel bad for Meng Yao." One highly-rated comment compared him to a male star who was caught up in a similar scandal a few years ago: "At least they didn't announce their relationship until after the show aired. Some people, on the other hand, hide their girlfriends and then drag their co-stars into a frenzy of homosexuality. It's so ugly."

Ah Zhe scrolled down the screen and saw someone had pulled up a replay of last week's livestream, where Lin Yu had a cold expression throughout, while he, like a clown, tried to find a topic to talk about, saying, "Teacher Lin takes good care of me in private," only to be met with a cold, "Don't talk nonsense, we're not close." At the time, he had awkwardly tried to smooth things over, but now he realized it wasn't a joke at all, but rather a naked expression of disdain.

"Azhe, Meng Yao is live streaming!" Sister Zhang called again, her voice filled with anger. "Go check it out! She's hinting at you being part of a hype campaign, and she even said she knew someone was trying to use Lin Yu to get ahead!"

Azhe quickly clicked on Meng Yao's livestream. She was sitting at her dressing table, wiping tears from her eyes. The background behind her was Lin Yu's bedroom. He recognized the lamp; it was a gift from the brand during a magazine shoot. Lin Yu had dismissed it as "too fancy" and tossed it to his assistant.

"I didn't want to say this," Meng Yao sobbed, "but some people are really too much. They know we're together, but they still post those ambiguous updates every day, deliberately misleading fans..."

The barrage was instantly ignited:

"My sister is so miserable. She's being used as a stepping stone!"

"I feel so sorry for Yaoyao. Three years of love have been trampled upon like this!"

"Azhe, come out and apologize!"

Ah Zhe's fingers gripped his phone so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He recalled Meng Yao visiting him on set. She was wearing the same beige sweater he wore in the show, and she said with a smile, "Hello, Brother Zhe, I'm Lin Yu's friend." He recalled her deliberately sitting across from him in the crew's coffee shop, flipping through Lin Yu's photos on her phone and boasting, "Isn't Lin Yu's photography amazing?" He recalled the day she came to pick up Lin Yu with flowers in her hands, and as she passed by him, she whispered, "Thank you, Brother Zhe, for taking care of Lin Yu."

It turns out that behind those seemingly friendly attitudes are all carefully planned calculations.

By the time the high-speed train arrived, the rain had intensified. Zhe dragged his suitcase out of the station, the cold rain pelting his face like countless needles pricking his skin. The car Sister Zhang had sent was already waiting by the roadside. The driver rolled down the window and handed him an umbrella. "Brother Zhe, Sister Zhang said we should go back to the company for a meeting first."

"Not going to the company." Azhe opened the car door and threw his wet coat on the passenger seat. "I'm going to the publicity office of the drama."

The driver was stunned for a moment. "Go now? It's a mess over there. I just passed by and saw a lot of reporters waiting there..."

"We'll break in even if we have to." Ah Zhe looked at the blurry street scene outside the window, his voice as cold as ice, "Some things must be explained face to face."

The publicity office was on the 15th floor of the office building. In the elevator, Azhe bumped into several familiar media reporters, all carrying professional equipment. When they saw him, their eyes flashed with excitement. Azhe lowered his head and pressed the button for the 15th floor, his fingertips leaving damp marks on the cold metal.

When he pushed open the door, the clamor ceased abruptly, and dozens of eyes turned to him. The show's producer, Brother Wang, was shouting into the phone, "Take down all the two-person posters!" Seeing Azhe come in, he hurriedly hung up the phone, forcing an awkward smile. "Azhe? Come sit down. I was just about to call you..."

"No need to fight." Ah Zhe threw his soaked coat on the conference table. Water droplets slid down the hem of his coat, staining the table. "Let me ask what we plan to do next."

The conference room was completely silent, with only the rustle of air from the air conditioner. Xiao Li, the publicity officer, pushed his glasses and whispered, "I just had a meeting with Lin Yu's team. They suggested... that you and Lin Yu handle the promotion separately. For example, if he attends an event in the east, you go to the one in the west..."

"Going apart?" Ah Zhe sneered, picking up the drama brochure on the table and flipping to the page with the note. It featured a poster of him and Lin Yu. Gu Yanchen stood in the shadows, while Lu Shi stood in the bright light, his eyes unconsciously drifting towards the shadowed Gu Yanchen. He and the designer went through seven iterations of this poster before finally settling on it, all to capture that "unconcealable heartbeat."

He slammed the manual down on the table, causing the papers to rustle. "You're talking about breaking up now? When we signed the contract, who was it that so confidently said, 'CP sales are key, you two must be deeply tied together'? Who was it that, when I was hesitating about taking this drama, used the success statistics of previous hit dramas to convince me, saying, 'Lin Yu has his own traffic, and as long as you cooperate well, you'll definitely become a huge star'?"

Brother Wang's face flushed crimson, and he rubbed his hands awkwardly. "Azhe, this happened unexpectedly... You know, Lin Yu has a lot of capital behind him, and we can't afford to offend him. His team insists that this is just a personal relationship issue and won't affect the promotion of the series..."

"Just because you have ample capital means you can do whatever you want? You can deceive the audience?" Ah Zhe's voice suddenly rose, vibrating the windowpanes. "Lin Yu is getting paid as the male lead, acting out a love scene with a man, but then he turns around and tells everyone, 'I've had a girlfriend for three years.' If this isn't a scam, what is it? You knew he had a girlfriend, yet you still forced me to hype him up as a couple. What are you? An accomplice?"

His eyes swept over everyone present, finally landing on the surveillance camera in the corner. He suddenly burst into laughter, "Why are you all silent? Don't you all love to stir up topics and attract attention? Film it! Record everything I say now and release it for the public to judge—who is wantonly exploiting the audience's emotions? Who has thrown away the professional ethics of an actor?"

Someone quietly pressed the pause button on the recorder, someone lowered their head to check their phone, and Azhe glanced at Xiao Li's screen and saw that the topic #Drama Promotion Emergency Public Relations# had already ranked 12th on the hot search list.

At this time, Lin Yu's assistant Xiao Chen hurriedly pushed the door open, holding a document in his hand, his face as pale as paper: "Brother Zhe, this is what Teacher Lin asked me to give you... He said that if you don't want to participate in the subsequent promotional activities, you don't have to force yourself. He will pay the liquidated damages..."

"He's going to pay?" Ah Zhe took the document and tore it into pieces without even looking at it. The scraps of paper fluttered down like shattered dreams. "Tell him that I, Ah Zhe, am not so poor as to ask him for liquidated damages. I filmed this drama for a full five months, lost 15 pounds, and filmed in the rain three times in the freezing winter. Not to serve as a foil for Lin Yu, and certainly not to watch him and his girlfriend show off their affection in front of me!"

Xiao Chen was so frightened that he stepped back repeatedly and stammered, "Teacher Lin...Teacher Lin said that he didn't hide it on purpose, he just didn't want Meng Yao to get hurt..."

"What about me?" Ah Zhe stared at Xiao Chen, his eyes red as if blood was about to drip out. "Do I deserve to be hurt? To be called a liar by fans? To be condemned by the entire internet? Three years of my hard work, all wasted just because he said 'I didn't want my girlfriend to suffer'?"

He recalled the rainy day three years ago when he was persuaded to withdraw from the training camp. The director threw his arrangement manuscript to the ground and scolded him: "When you helped Yun Heng revise the song, why didn't you think about your own future?" Now, Lin Yu's team is hiding under the protection of capital, and with a light sentence "I don't want my girlfriend to be wronged", they destroyed his hard work - it turns out that the rules of this world have always favored those who have backgrounds and backers.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a message from Yunheng. There were no words, just a photo: radish seedlings in the vegetable patch were sprouting tender green shoots, glistening dewdrops hanging on the leaves. In the background, I could see my grandmother squatting nearby, carefully supporting the young seedlings.

Azhe's fingertips lingered on the screen for a long time before he slowly typed out two words: "It's okay."

In reality, everything was terrible. As he walked out of the office building, the rain continued to fall. Reporters swarmed over him like sharks smelling blood, their microphones practically poking at his lips as they peppered him with questions: "Did you know Lin Yu had a girlfriend?" "Do you feel like you've been used?" "Will he retire from the entertainment industry like a certain male star did before due to negative news?"

Ah Zhe didn't respond, but pulled the orange wood pick from his pocket and gripped it tightly. The edge of the wood was warmed by his body heat, and the carved leaf pattern on it dug deep into his palm, causing a slight pain, but also gradually sobering him up.

He recalled the last episode of the series, where Gu Yanchen told Lu Shi, "Some debts must be repaid sooner or later." At the time, he had also said to Lin Yu with a smile, "Could you have been more assertive when you said that line?" Lin Yu rolled his eyes at him, "It's just acting, why take it so seriously?"

Now, he finally understood that some plays become reality as they are performed.

The rain intensified, blurring the distant streetscape. Ah Zhe stood in the rain, staring at the soaked pick in his hand. The anger and resentment within him gradually transformed into a resolute conviction. It was a force fueled by the pain of betrayal, like a seed taking root in the darkness, sprouting thorny vines that entwined his heart, a constant reminder: This was not the end.

He turned and walked towards the subway station, his back looking lonely and determined in the rain.

Since Lin Yu had chosen to withdraw from this farce, the rest would be left to him alone. He would personally write the final outcome, seeking justice for himself and for the deceived audience.