CP fans' carnival material
Rehearsals for the second public performance were in full swing, and the corridors of the training base were perpetually filled with the smell of sweat and disinfectant. Yun Heng, wrapped tightly in his thin training clothes, walked to the practice room. The cold air at five in the morning seeped in through his collar, making him shiver.
Yesterday's argument with Yu Xiao was like a thorn that pricked him all night. He deliberately avoided the morning rush hour, wanting to practice dancing before everyone else, but he bumped into the person he didn't want to see at the corner of the corridor.
Yu Xiao, wearing a black windbreaker and holding a thermos, paused when he saw him. "Good morning." His voice was a little hoarse, like he had just woken up, not as aggressive as usual.
Yun Heng didn't respond, lowering his head and trying to move away, but his wrist was gently grabbed. "Wearing so little?" Yu Xiao frowned, and before he could protest, he took off his jacket and draped it over his shoulders.
The warm coat instantly enveloped Yunheng, and the scent of cedar cologne mixed with the scent of sunshine filled his face. "I'm not cold." He reached out to pull it away as if he were burned, but Yu Xiao held the back of his hand.
"Don't pull." The other person's fingertips were cool, but the force was steady. "You have a cold and it will affect the rehearsal."
Yun Heng looked up and glared at him, her eyes red from staying up late, like a rabbit with its fur standing up. "Yu Xiao, don't you understand what I'm saying? I told you not to touch me!"
At that moment, a flash of white light passed by at the end of the corridor, accompanied by the sound of a cell phone shutter. They both turned their heads at the same time, only to see a figure in a gray training suit hurriedly entering the emergency passage.
"Who?" Yun Heng's heart sank suddenly.
Yu Xiao's face darkened as he let go of her hand and walked towards the emergency passage: "I'll go take a look."
"Don't go." Yun Heng held him, her fingertips still trembling. "It must be some trainee. If it gets out, people will start talking nonsense again." He pulled the jacket off his shoulders and stuffed it back into Yu Xiao's arms. "Don't do such inexplicable things again."
Yu Xiao looked at his red eyes, then looked at the coat in his hand that was warm from his body temperature. His Adam's apple rolled, but he didn't say anything in the end.
That afternoon, the video of the "eye contact in the corridor" went viral on the Internet.
The footage secretly filmed by the unknown trainee with his mobile phone was very shaky, but it captured every detail accurately: the moment when Yu Xiao put his jacket on Yun Heng's shoulders, the close-up of their fingers touching, the red eyes when Yun Heng turned around and glared at people, and the indulgence that was not hidden in Yu Xiao's eyes.
The entry #虞晓云昅氣感# shot to the top of the trending search list at rocket speed, and the comments below poured in like a tide, with praise and criticism intertwined:
[What the hell is this, a stare-off between two gods! Yun Heng glares at me like she's acting like a spoiled child!]
[Isn't the prince's gaze too doting? He's not even angry when being glared at. What kind of novel plot is this?!]
[Am I the only one who thinks Yun Heng is pretending? She's clearly trying to get close to someone, but then she turns around and acts so aloof. What a green tea!]
[+1 to the previous one! An ordinary person is relying on the prince to gain popularity, and now he dares to show off? He must be crazy about fame!]
[Stop being so mean, Yunheng Yigong's vocals are clearly very good, are you blind?]
Can the production team please take some control? They're constantly hyping up this industrial saccharin. Is there no one left to properly manage the stage?
CP fans on the super topic were churning out posts like it was New Year's Eve. Someone drew a chibi-version fanart: Yu Xiao draped his coat over a huddled Yun Heng, a furry rabbit beside him. Someone edited a mashup of their interactions from the first to the second public performance, captioned "From forced teaming to subconscious favoritism." The most popular was a hand-drawn image: the two, wearing white shirts with wheat field prints, stood amidst waves of golden wheat. Yu Xiao bent over to pick awns from Yun Heng's hair, his eyes brimming with tenderness.
The gathering place for black fans was in an uproar. Some dug out Yun Heng's hometown address and mocked him for "coming out of the mountains and wanting to climb up the social ladder"; some photoshopped his face and put the words "scheming bitch" together, saying that he "deliberately seduced the prince to gain attention"; some even dug out the video of him turning sideways on his first stage, played it on a loop and mocked him for "being worthy of advancing with this level? It's all thanks to the capital support."
Yun Heng was stunned by the screenshot Ma Yang sent during a break in rehearsal. He clicked on the fan art of the wheat field, his finger zooming in on the screen. His stomach churned as he saw the intimate figures in the painting. When he scrolled to the troll comments below, his fingertips suddenly tightened, his knuckles turning white.
"What the hell..." He cursed under his breath, his fingertips hovering over the "Report" button, but he couldn't press it. Report? Could he report everyone he thought had "problems"? Could he shut up everyone who said he relied on connections?
"What are you looking at?" Yu Xiao's voice suddenly sounded behind him.
Yun Heng, like a thief caught in a crime, flicked off her phone and nearly bumped into the man's arms as she turned around. "Nothing," he said, his voice tense. He took a half step back, creating some distance. "Stay away from me."
Yu Xiao's gaze fell on the tip of his red ear, then swept across his clenched fingertips, and a glint of understanding flashed in his eyes: "Did you see the trending search?"
"What's it got to do with you?" Yun Heng's anger instantly flared up. "Did you have someone take this video? Did you deliberately spread it out to create hype? Now everyone's blaming me for relying on you to get to the top. Are you satisfied?"
"I'm not that boring." Yu Xiao frowned, "But since it's spread out, it's not a bad thing."
"It's not a bad thing?" Yun Heng laughed angrily, grabbed her phone, opened the hater comments and slammed them in his face, "Look for yourself! They say I'm a green tea, that I'm scheming, that I don't deserve a spot in the promotion! Is this what you call 'not a bad thing'?"
Yu Xiao's face darkened. As he scanned the negative comments on the screen, his eyes were as cold as ice: "I'll take care of these."
"Deal with it? How do you deal with it?" Yun Heng shook his hand off, her voice trembling with anger. "Do you think you can settle everything with money? Just like how you dealt with those who said bad things about you? Let me tell you, I don't care!"
He pointed at the live-stream link on the screen, his tone growing even more excited. "Right now, the entire show is talking about us, the 'industrial saccharine' couple. No one cares whose performance is more explosive, or whose original work is more impressive! Are you satisfied? Is this the buzz you want?"
Yu Xiao was speechless. Looking at Yun Heng's red eyes, his heart ached like a needle. He had indeed not allowed anyone to take the photos, but he also did not prevent the situation from escalating. He thought this was a way to get closer to Yun Heng, but he had no idea that it would put him in the spotlight.
"I'll ask them to delete it." Yu Xiao's voice was a little hoarse, "I'll make it clear that we're just teammates."
"No need." Yun Heng pulled the corner of his mouth and revealed a mocking smile, "I was planning to withdraw from the competition anyway."
Yu Xiao's pupils shrank suddenly: "What did you say?"
"I said I want to withdraw from the competition." Yun Heng looked at his shocked eyes, and a sense of revenge rose in her heart. "I'll leave after the second public performance. I'll pay any amount of liquidated damages. Staying in the same space with you, being pointed at and called a scheming bitch, I'm afraid I'll vomit."
After saying that, he turned and walked out of the practice room, leaving Yu Xiao standing there alone, his fingertips clenched white.
That evening, the training base's bulletin board was packed with people. Someone printed out negative reviews from trending searches and posted them there, crossing out Yun Heng's name with a red pen. Someone posted live footage of other trainees on stage, captioned, "Isn't it better to focus on the stage? Stop hyping up couples!" Still others wrote lengthy essays analyzing the program, arguing that "capital manipulation is too obvious, leaving amateurs with no future."
As Yun Heng passed by, he was stopped by a trainee with dyed green hair. This person was a contestant who was eliminated in the first public performance, reportedly because he "blocked Yu Xiao's camera." The look in his eyes was icy as he looked at him: "Yun Heng, do you think it's an honor to rely on the prince? How does it feel to step on others to get to the top?"
"Get out of the way." Yun Heng's voice was as cold as ice.
"What? Was I right?" Green Hair took a step forward. "If it weren't for you, I would have been the one to advance! People like you who rely on connections..."
Before he could finish his words, a hand grabbed his collar. Yu Xiao had appeared behind him, his eyes as cold as the wind in the coldest days of winter. "Say it again?"
Green Hair turned pale with fear and struggled to beg for mercy: "Master Yu, I was wrong, I was just talking nonsense..."
Yu Xiao ignored him and just stared at Yun Heng's back until the thin figure disappeared at the end of the corridor. Then he let go of her hand and said in a voice that carried an undeniable warning: "If I hear one more bad word about him, get out of this circle."
Back in the dorm, Yun Heng received a text message from an unfamiliar number. It was from Assistant Yu Xiao: "Young Master Yu asked me to tell you that all malicious comments about you will be deleted, and the trending searches will be suppressed. Also, the trainee who spread the rumors has been persuaded to withdraw. He said...I'm sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you."
Yun Heng looked at the text message and suddenly felt it was ironic. He didn't reply and simply blocked the number.
Lying in bed, he tossed and turned, unable to sleep, so he simply opened the program's official Weibo account. The latest comment section was already abuzz with activity, with some commenting, "Give me back my real stage!", others swearing, "Capitalism get out of the entertainment industry!", and still others posting, "Yun Heng withdraws from the competition," calling him "unworthy of his position."
Scrolling to the end, he saw a different comment: [Actually, putting aside the CP discussion, Yun Heng's voice is really pure. If she sings the lyrical song in the second public performance well, she might even become a legend.] There were hundreds of likes below.
Yun Heng's finger paused on the screen, his heart pounding. He logged out of the official Weibo account and opened his practice recording, looping the chorus of "Moonlight Rose."
Maybe… he could finish the second public performance before leaving? At least, he could show those who accused him of "relying on capital" that he wasn't just a dodder hiding behind others.
The atmosphere in the rehearsal room the next day was still eerie. Yu Xiao didn't approach Yun Heng again, but when Yun Heng's voice broke, he silently asked his assistant to pass her a bottle of warm water. Yun Heng hesitated for a moment, but still accepted it.
During a break, he heard his teammates discussing a trending topic: "Did you hear? The marketing account that cursed Yun Heng the most yesterday has been sued by the Yu Group for slander and defamation." "Is that true? Is the prince serious about this?" "I told you not to take sides, and now you're the one eating the melon..."
Yun Heng's heart skipped a beat, and she looked up in Yu Xiao's direction. He was leaning against the mirror, looking at his phone. His profile, shimmering in the sunlight, looked remarkably calm, as if nothing had happened.
He lowered his head, his fingertips unconsciously stroking the water bottle. He suddenly felt that this storm might be more complicated than he had imagined. He and Yu Xiao were like two leaves caught in a whirlpool, unable to move.
He hadn't noticed, however, that Yu Xiao's phone screensaver had quietly changed to the wheat field fan art. Meanwhile, in the online chat room, CP fans were frantically celebrating the new sweet story of "The Prince defends Yun Heng," with the hashtag #YuXiaoProtectingHisWife# quietly climbing the trending search list.
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