Chapter 5
As a result, many people had envied and resented Ke Jian’s good fortune. It wasn’t until rumors began circulating online that “Cheng Group President Finds New Lover, Ruthlessly Abandons Ke Jian” that these people finally let out mocking snorts. Sure enough, no one could remain by that man’s side for more than a year. So what if Ke Jian was handsome? He still ended up being discarded like everyone else.
“Ptooey!” Was the entire world blind? How could such a scumbag possibly deserve to have everyone worshipping at his feet?
Just because he was handsome? Just because he was rich?
[Isn’t that enough, Host?]
[…]
Sometimes, 357’s values were seriously questionable.
Ke Jian scoffed at the various mocking comments online, but whenever he recalled what had happened that day, he still couldn’t help trembling with anger.
That scumbag Cheng had actually called his acting garbage in front of everyone! Since debuting at fifteen, Ke Jian had never suffered such humiliation. The sensation was like being slapped hard across the face, and it had sent him into a rage on the spot.
“You’re the fucking garbage! Your whole family’s garbage!” Even after cursing him, Ke Jian still wasn’t satisfied. Under the stunned gazes of everyone present, and with Cheng Yu’s expression darkening, he pointed straight at the man’s nose. “I’ve never met a man as worthless as you! You’re absolute bottom-of-the-barrel trash, and you don’t even realize it! You’re completely insane!”
Everyone present was so shocked that their jaws practically hit the floor. Cheng Yu, on the other hand, nearly burst out laughing at his antics.
Cheng Yu raised his hand and seized the finger pointing at his nose. Ke Jian’s eyes immediately widened in alarm.
His wrist was rather slender, and probably because of the “cannon-fodder shou” character setting, he was ridiculously weak as well. Cheng Yu only needed about thirty percent of his strength to hold him in place. Despite struggling with everything he had, Ke Jian couldn’t break free, leaving him glaring furiously at Cheng Yu.
[Holy fuck! Is that scumbag Cheng seriously going to hit me in front of everyone? No way, right?] At that moment, Ke Jian was genuinely panicking.
[He probably won’t…] Even 357 wasn’t sure anymore.
However, just as Ke Jian thought Cheng Yu was about to commit domestic violence against him in front of everyone, the hand gripping his wrist suddenly tightened. His entire body was forcibly pulled forward, sending him crashing into Cheng Yu’s chest.
[Fuck! He’s really going to hit me—] His thoughts came to an abrupt halt when he heard Cheng Yu lean close to his ear and let out a mocking chuckle.
Then Cheng Yu whispered, “That’s right. I really am that worthless.”
“But no matter how worthless I am, I’m still the sugar daddy you depend on to survive.”
After speaking, Cheng Yu leaned back slightly and lowered his gaze toward the person he had forcibly pulled into his arms. Ke Jian had beautiful eyes, even more so when viewed up close. At that moment, they were wide with a mixture of panic and fury. Most importantly, those beautiful eyes now reflected Cheng Yu himself, wearing an unmistakably scummy expression.
Cheng Yu’s presence was simply too overwhelming. To be honest, Ke Jian was somewhat frightened. Coupled with the fact that Cheng Yu’s words had struck directly at his most vulnerable point, he felt as though someone had dumped a basin of icy water over him in the dead of winter. He froze on the spot.
Cheng Yu watched Ke Jian’s reaction with satisfaction. Then, ignoring everyone watching, he seized Ke Jian’s chin and forcibly tilted it upward before uttering an extremely suggestive warning. “Don’t let my affection go to your head, sweetheart.”
You call this affection? If this counts as affection, I’ll fucking shower you with it for the rest of your life! Ke Jian wanted to spit in his face right then and there. Unfortunately, his chin was being held captive, and his hand was restrained as well.
So all he could do was unleash a furious barrage of ptooey, ptooey, ptooey at 357!
Cheng Yu watched the increasingly agitated Ke Jian with great interest, somehow feeling as though his face had been splattered with quite a bit of invisible saliva.
“Everyone, carry on. I won’t disturb you any longer.” With those shameless parting words, Cheng Yu finally left.
He departed with Secretary Xiao in an utterly carefree manner, leaving Ke Jian standing there alone, forced to endure the disdainful, mocking, and entertained gazes coming from every direction, along with the fury burning inside him that had nowhere to go.
“Boss, should we do something about that little celebrity?” After all, plenty of people had resorted to unscrupulous methods to attract his boss’s attention, but this was the first time Secretary Xiao had ever seen someone dare to point a finger at his boss’s nose and curse him to his face.
However…
“Leave him alone.” The corners of Cheng Yu’s mouth were actually curved upward when he said this.
Secretary Xiao was bewildered. Was such a disobedient little pet really worth keeping?
More than ten days passed in the blink of an eye. Although the rumors had spread online to a limited extent, they concerned the president of Cheng Group. Furthermore, Cheng Yu hadn’t issued any explicit instructions to the production crew afterward, such as ordering them to kick Ke Jian out. Since no one could figure out what the big shot was thinking, Ke Jian remained in the cast under somewhat awkward circumstances and continued playing the second male lead.
Just as Cheng Yu had expected, Ke Jian stayed furious for several days. However, after gradually calming down, he also began to feel that acting wasn’t a viable long-term career.
Ke Jian carefully considered his situation. If he wanted to defeat the protagonist shou, who was protected by the plot’s powerful protagonist halo, relying on acting skills he was unfamiliar with certainly wouldn’t work. Besides, the scumbag gong’s unattainable first love was known as the “Piano Prince.” How could he compete with someone like that without showing off some genuine talent?
Once he thought of this, Ke Jian came up with an idea. He summoned his dejected manager and gave him just one task: take the song Ke Jian had recorded using basic equipment and find a high-quality singing competition with a large audience. He intended to enter the music industry.
Before pursuing the scumbag gong, he needed to become financially independent and break free from his sugar daddy.
“Singing? You?”
Ever since Ke Jian had recklessly offended Cheng Yu in front of everyone that day, Xu Rui had felt that his career in the entertainment industry was already over. Ke Jian was undoubtedly finished as well. As a result, Xu Rui had already started planning his escape route, perhaps opening a hotpot restaurant with the savings he’d accumulated over the years.
But now Ke Jian was actually telling him that he wanted to sing, and he was demanding a high-quality program with a massive audience? What on earth was he thinking? After offending such a powerful figure so thoroughly, he still expected to pursue a singing career? More importantly, Ke Jian’s acting skills had already caused Xu Rui more than enough headaches. Apart from that face, Xu Rui had never known him to possess any other talents.
However, after listening to the song Ke Jian had recorded on his phone, Xu Rui was completely stunned. He couldn’t utter a word for quite some time.
“Ah Jian, have you lost your mind? With talent like this, why the hell did you decide to become an actor?”
Xu Rui was utterly dumbfounded. With looks like those, a voice like that, and an original song to boot, wasn’t becoming a superstar who dominated the entertainment industry practically inevitable? Only today did he realize that he’d been sitting on a treasure all along! With abilities like these, why the hell bother acting? It was painful to watch! And who the hell needed a sugar daddy? Didn’t people have any dignity left?!
Xu Rui immediately set to work, while Ke Jian once again found himself questioning his acting abilities.
[Was my acting… really that bad?]
[It was all right. Not too bad.] Keeping the host happy was what mattered most. As for lying against its conscience… well, 357 didn’t have a conscience anyway.
His career was secondary. His main objective was still to win over the scumbag gong.
Ke Jian had thought the matter through carefully. A strategy based on swallowing his pride and desperately trying to please Cheng Yu would never work. To someone as rotten to the core as that scumbag, people who threw themselves at him were no better than worthless trash. Besides, taking that approach would put Ke Jian’s chastity in danger.
Therefore, he needed to be different. For example, while countless people desperately wanted to throw themselves at the scumbag gong, Ke Jian would treat him like something worthless. While everyone else regarded him as a god and trembled in his presence, Ke Jian would look down on him with contempt, cursing him whenever he felt like it and hitting him whenever he wanted.
357: Hitting? Cursing? Host, please come to your senses!
To put it bluntly, the domineering CEOs in novels like this were all gluttons for punishment. They turned a blind eye to people who treated them well, yet when someone treated them like garbage, they would perversely find that person exceptionally special.
The whole point was to be one of a kind, and Ke Jian intended to become that one-of-a-kind person.
While Ke Jian was secretly changing his strategy for winning over the scumbag gong, everything remained peaceful on the other side.
In fact, Cheng Yu had previously managed one or two companies of his own, but he had always been a hands-off boss. He spent his days doing whatever he pleased, wasting time however he liked. After all, it wasn’t as though he would ever starve.
This world was clearly much more entertaining. Besides, compared to pursuing Ke Jian himself, he obviously preferred watching Ke Jian attempt to win him over. Thus, for several days after that incident, Cheng Yu occupied himself with adjusting to his new identity and surroundings, finding everything thoroughly satisfactory.
On this particular day, Cheng Yu was staring at his computer screen with great enthusiasm when Secretary Xiao entered the room. Secretary Xiao assumed his boss was reviewing documents and didn’t dare disturb him. Little did he know that Cheng Yu was actually wondering how Ke Jian would curse him to 357 after seeing what was on the screen. Would he be so furious that he started trembling?
Unfortunately, Cheng Yu couldn’t hear the conversations between Ke Jian and 357 once they were more than ten meters away. He found this rather regrettable.
Throughout the first twenty-four years of his life, Cheng Yu’s guiding principle could probably be summed up in four words: do as he pleased.
Coming to this world hadn’t changed that. He didn’t particularly care about the mission to win someone over, and the real world wasn’t necessarily any better than this one.
Of course, all of that depended on staying alive, so he still had to obey the basic rules of the game, such as maintaining his scumbag gong persona.
Then again, perhaps because he was already something of a scumbag himself, playing the role came effortlessly.
Seeing that his boss had been staring at the computer screen for quite some time without responding, Secretary Xiao grew somewhat uneasy. Recently, he had found it increasingly difficult to figure out what his boss was thinking. Fortunately, just then, Cheng Yu raised his head and gestured for him to approach.
The moment Secretary Xiao stepped closer, his gaze landed on the bold, enlarged title displayed on the screen, stopping him dead in his tracks.
“How Ke Jian Climbed Into His Sugar Daddy’s Bed”
The corner of Secretary Xiao’s mouth twitched, and he was so startled that the documents in his hand nearly fell to the floor. Since when had his boss started wasting time on things like this?
“Boss?”
“Find out what he’s been doing lately,” Cheng Yu instructed, his gaze still fixed on the screen.
Although his words had been rather harsh that day, seeing the furious superstar explode with anger had indeed been delightful. Besides, if Cheng Yu hadn’t provoked Ke Jian a little, what if the man remained blindly confident and insisted on pursuing an acting career?
Just how many terrible dramas would that add to the entertainment industry?
Secretary Xiao’s mind raced. He had originally assumed that the arrival of Wei Li, who resembled that person, had already sealed the little celebrity’s fate. But perhaps there was a reason Ke Jian had managed to remain by his boss’s side for so long after all?
“I’ll look into it immediately.”
“Mm.”
Secretary Xiao then handed over the schedule for the following day. Cheng Yu glanced at it, and his eyes narrowed.
Since this was a world generated from a novel, it naturally already possessed its own predetermined course of events. However, Cheng Yu was curious to see how the story would develop if he forcibly changed that course.
What Cheng Yu failed to notice was that, while handing over the schedule, Secretary Xiao had inadvertently glanced at his computer screen again. This time, the sight nearly sent him into a state of shock.
Earlier, he had only noticed the title without seeing the text beneath it. But this second glance almost made him stumble straight into his boss.
The screen was filled with all sorts of outrageously suggestive phrases. There were moans, cries of “Ahh,” references to “little temptresses,” declarations of “I can’t take it anymore,” and countless strings of censored **** scattered across the page.
Fuck! Secretary Xiao’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. What the hell was all this?!
Shocking! His boss was actually reading erotic fiction, and not just any erotic fiction, but a smutty story featuring himself and Ke Jian!
Secretary Xiao was completely dumbstruck. Looking at his boss’s perfectly composed expression, he suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of admiration.
Cheng Yu was reviewing the schedule. At five o’clock tomorrow afternoon, he was supposed to meet the eldest young master of the Lu family at Shixuanju…
Thinking about what was going to happen tomorrow, Cheng Yu raised his head and addressed Secretary Xiao.
“Notify the other party that we’re changing the meeting location. Have Shixuanju prepare everything as originally planned.”
Secretary Xiao was still somewhat dazed, and he was also confused by Cheng Yu’s instructions, but he didn’t dare ask questions.
“Yes, Boss. I’ll arrange it immediately.”
“Secretary Xiao, are you feeling unwell?” Cheng Yu suddenly asked in puzzlement. Secretary Xiao’s gaze was wandering, and his face was flushed.
“No, Boss! Not at all!” Secretary Xiao quickly retreated after saying this.
Cheng Yu blinked in confusion, then returned his attention to the screen, continuing to read with great interest.
He had to admit, the author was actually pretty good. The story was so immersive that he could practically picture himself in it.
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