After Entering a Romance Reality Show Disguised as a Man to Win Over All the Female Leads - Chapter 1

“Hello, dear viewers! The 2023 new season of Heartbeat Moment is about to begin. Four male guests and four female guests will be appearing within the next half hour, so please be patient!”

At the entrance of a large international theme park, the host of Heartbeat Moment wore a green vest and held a cue card as he introduced the show to the livestream audience.

“I am this season’s host, Zhang Yong’an.”

The man smiled and waved at the livestream camera. “Before this season officially begins, everyone can first take a look at some live behind-the-scenes preparations…”

In a spot the cameraman could not capture, Rong Yu stood far away with her arms crossed. She raised a brow as she stared at the cheerful host in front of the theme park entrance, then lowered her head in boredom to look at the livestream comments on her phone.

Heartbeat Moment was a dating variety show broadcast in livestream format. After the show officially began, every paired male and female guest would have their own separate camera footage. Viewers in the livestream room could ship multiple couples at the same time, or watch only the couple they liked. They could also tip the livestream to cheer on and sponsor their favorite CP. It was a dating show with fairly decent interactivity and guaranteed authentic data.

It was just that data that was too authentic made it easy for there to be no explosive highlights. On the livestreaming platform, the show had always remained lukewarm. Its viewership was not even as high as the fan count of a powerful solo streamer. At present, the number of viewers was only around one hundred and thirty thousand, and the number of comments was also somewhat lacking.

Following the script, the host had the director switch to footage of the backstage staff. Before the show officially began filming, he first introduced the operating format of the variety show to everyone. It took a long time before a few comments finally squeezed out on the screen. It looked pitifully deserted.

[Does anyone actually watch this show?]

[Uh, where’s Seven? Why hasn’t my Seven come out yet? I wouldn’t be watching if not for Seven.]

[+1 to the one above.]

[Huh? This variety show is still airing? It’s been lukewarm for three years and it still has sponsors???]

After reading the comments for a few moments, Rong Yu even began to feel sorry for the host. There was a screen showing the program’s livestream and comments placed in front of the host so he could better interact with the audience. Facing such a deserted livestream room, Zhang Yong’an could still maintain such overflowing enthusiasm as a host. It was truly admirable.

But Rong Yu only watched for a little while before feeling bored. She put away her phone and prepared to go to the restroom. She kept feeling that her chest binder had not been wrapped properly and was somehow slipping down.

Her manager for this season’s variety show, Lin Su, was a woman in her thirties. She was sitting beside her, reading the script. Seeing Rong Yu stand up, she immediately looked over.

Rong Yu pointed at the public restroom in the distance. “I’m going to the restroom.”

Lin Su glanced at the time on her watch, a little hesitant. “There isn’t much time left before filming starts…”

Before she finished speaking, she looked up and met Rong Yu’s clear, washed-clean eyes, as blue as a beautiful aquamarine. Her gaze swept across Rong Yu’s exquisite, almost gender-blurring features and harmless, clean face. In the end, the words of refusal simply would not come out.

She nodded and even thoughtfully handed her a pack of tissues. “Here. Come back early, okay?”

Rong Yu nodded and accepted the tissues, not forgetting to thank her. “Thank you.”

She walked past Lin Su, avoided several staff members nearby who were checking the equipment, and headed straight for the restroom. As an international theme park, the park contained all kinds of internationally famous movie, comic, and animated characters. Even the public restroom near the entrance had been sculpted into the image of a wide-mouthed Gyarados from Pokémon.

When Rong Yu reached the entrance, she looked around. Seeing that no one was paying attention to her, she immediately slipped into the women’s restroom.

She found a stall and went inside. Swiftly, she unbuttoned the men’s shirt she was wearing and tightened the loosened chest binder again. After confirming that there were no problems, she buttoned her shirt again and prepared to push the door open.

There was no helping it. In this variety show, the role she was playing was that of a male guest. To avoid being discovered and kicked out of the production team, she could only carefully play her cross-dressing role and make sure she could smoothly hold on until the dating show ended.

To be precise, until she awakened her friend Lian Langsheng’s personal consciousness.

The world she was currently in was the brain world of her close friend, Lian Langsheng. In the real world, Lian Langsheng had been struck on the back of the head by a falling object from upstairs and had suffered severe brain trauma, becoming a vegetative patient. In order to awaken her personal consciousness, Rong Yu and Lian Langsheng’s attending physician used the brain-world stimulation method, sending Rong Yu’s consciousness into Lian Langsheng’s brain world through neural transmission.

Her mission was to find Lian Langsheng’s consciousness body inside her own brain world and awaken it, so that Lian Langsheng in the real world could wake up.

A person’s brain world was their personal spiritual world. A spiritual world had barriers and defense mechanisms. After Rong Yu entered this world, she was automatically absorbed into it as one of its characters. In order not to be detected by the defense mechanism as an invading consciousness from the outside, she absolutely could not let anyone discover that she did not match her original character’s identity.

What she had not expected was that after Lian Langsheng fell into a vegetative state, her brain world was actually acting out a novel she had once written—After Entering a Dating Show, I Became Famous Worldwide.

And Rong Yu’s current identity was the original novel’s male lead, who had nothing, was so poor his family’s pockets jingled, yet was presentable in public and capable in the kitchen, handsome in appearance and gentle in personality. In the dating variety show, he won the hearts of all the female guests, successfully held hands with the most beautiful female guest, He Jiao, and shot to fame through the dating show. From a college student, he leapt into becoming a new-generation popular young idol in the entertainment industry. One could say he gained both career and love.

That male lead had the exact same name as her—Rong Yu.

However, her body was still her own appearance, and her gender was still female. Right now, she was appearing before outsiders in the form of a woman disguised as a man, playing the male version of Rong Yu.

Rong Yu’s voice had always been slightly huskier and softer than the average girl’s. It carried a magnetic quality that blurred gender within its gentleness, so when she disguised herself as a man, it did not make people suspicious. They would only think she was a young fresh-faced idol whose voice had not fully matured yet.

And dressing as a man was not a very difficult task for her. The most difficult task should be figuring out how to find the consciousness body belonging to Lian Langsheng among the vast sea of people.

According to the attending physician’s speculation, the human brain world only had one consciousness body. Generally speaking, it would be an important character in that person’s brain world, and its personality would be free and unconstrained. Therefore, Rong Yu suspected that Lian Langsheng’s personal consciousness should be hidden among the four female guests.

Furthermore, the script of this world was originally a novel written by Rong Yu herself. She knew every plot point and character setting in the novel like the back of her hand. As long as Lian Langsheng’s consciousness body violated the original character setting she had written, Rong Yu would be able to spot it at a glance.

So Rong Yu felt that finding the consciousness body belonging to Lian Langsheng from among the four female guests should not be too difficult for her.

Just as this thought rose in her mind, a sudden whooshing sound came from the stall next to hers.

The sound grew louder and louder, like someone had torn open space and poured a hurricane through it, sweeping up the surrounding air. There was a ten-centimeter gap beneath the stall partition. Cold wind continuously spread in through the crack, and Rong Yu instantly felt a bone-piercing chill around her ankles.

Vaguely, something seemed to have jumped out along with the sound of the wind. Rong Yu only heard a thud as it landed on the ground, followed immediately by the wet, sticky sound of a soft-bodied creature slapping against the floor—pat, pat, pat. It sounded as if liquid had splashed up. Just hearing it was enough to make one’s scalp tingle and hair stand on end.

Rong Yu knew this was Lian Langsheng’s brain world, and that everything here was brainwave data, not real. So she was not afraid.

Even so, she could not help being curious. She wanted to step onto the toilet and poke her head up to look at what was happening next door.

But before she could put that idea into action, several octopus tentacles thicker than her thighs, covered densely in suckers of various sizes, stretched into Rong Yu’s stall from the floor of the neighboring stall. The suckers on the dark brown tentacles trembled and were covered in blood. The skin on them had peeling dead patches, and dried, filthy blood clung to the cracked fissures. They twisted and curled in front of Rong Yu’s feet like several bizarre snake tails that had been provoked, making one’s scalp go numb just looking at them.

If an ordinary person saw such a scene, they would probably scream in terror.

A muffled grunt from a woman exerting force came from the neighboring stall. Immediately afterward came the sound of a sharp blade plunging into soft flesh. Rong Yu watched as the thick tentacle in front of her suddenly went rigid. Then, like a lump of rotten mud, it collapsed limply and was dragged back into the neighboring stall by the woman, leaving trails of dark, spreading bloodstains in front of Rong Yu’s feet.

The cold wind in the air was still blowing, but now there was also a heavy, lingering stench of blood, as well as waves of salty ocean air.

After that came the sound of a heavy object being lifted. The woman seemed to have thrown the tentacle away. But Rong Yu did not hear the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground. Instead, she realized that the whooshing wind had instantly stopped.

The entire restroom suddenly became extremely quiet, so quiet one could hear a pin drop.

Immediately afterward, even the stench of blood disappeared.

When Rong Yu lowered her head again, she found that the bloodstains on the ground had also vanished. Everything was exactly the same as when she had first entered the restroom.

What was that?

A hallucination?

Rong Yu frowned as she looked at the floor, which had returned to its spotless state.

Just then, a phone ringtone suddenly came from the neighboring stall. The woman answered her phone, and the voice on the other end immediately echoed through the restroom.

“He Huaiting, the show is about to start. Where are you?”

Rong Yu blinked. Wasn’t “He Huaiting” one of the four female guests on this program?

But the He Huaiting she had set up in her novel was a cold, aloof young woman with high combat ability who came from a martial arts family. Why did she now feel like a female villain from a horror movie who murdered and dismembered people…

Before Rong Yu could continue thinking, she heard the woman called He Huaiting immediately respond. Her clear, cold voice was even colder than the air from earlier.

“I’m already here. I went to the restroom. I’ll be there soon.”

She hung up the phone and pushed open the stall door. The stall door slammed shut heavily behind her, shaking even the door of Rong Yu’s stall.

Rong Yu heard the woman’s footsteps heading toward the sink, followed by a stream of running water.

Only after the sound of water stopped and the restroom became completely quiet did she finally feel at ease enough to lift the latch and push the door open.

Then—

She came face-to-face with a pair of golden eyes.

The white-haired, coldly beautiful young woman, who was slightly taller than her, looked at her expressionlessly. Her golden pupils seemed to be looking at a dead person. Those eyes were like the eyes of a black-and-gold python. All fear and disguise had nowhere to hide before those golden irises.

White hair and golden pupils were He Huaiting’s signature features in the novel.

Only then did Rong Yu belatedly realize that when a restroom stall was occupied and locked, the latch on the door showed a color difference from the outside. He Huaiting had probably seen that her door was locked through the mirror while washing her hands and discovered that someone was inside.

“…”

If she explained now that she had fallen asleep in the restroom just now and had not seen anything, would anyone believe her?

Rong Yu had one hand hanging by her side and the other pushing the door open. Facing the cold and aloof young woman in front of her, she felt somewhat awkward.

He Huaiting’s golden pupils were too striking. In the dim women’s restroom, they faintly looked as if they were glowing.

Seeing that Rong Yu remained silent, He Huaiting frowned slightly and spoke coldly.

“You saw it, didn’t you?”

He Huaiting used an affirmative tone. Clearly, she had already guessed that Rong Yu had seen that tentacle. Rong Yu did not argue. She nodded frankly, her sapphire-blue eyes meeting He Huaiting’s gaze. She quickly raised a hand and swore, “Don’t worry. I absolutely won’t tell anyone!”

She was not sure whether He Huaiting was Lian Langsheng’s consciousness body. Preserving her own life was the most important thing. Entering the brain world required a suitable identity, and her current identity was the most suitable one for getting close to the four female guests. She absolutely could not be silenced here, or all her previous efforts would be wasted.

However, He Huaiting remained silent for a long while without speaking, still staring at her expressionlessly. Those golden pupils seemed capable of seeing straight into the depths of a person’s heart. Rong Yu felt her nape grow cold under that gaze, as if she had been targeted by a wild beast in the jungle.

The temperature inside the restroom gradually dropped, as if they had fallen into an ice cellar. Even though Rong Yu was wearing a pullover sweater, she still felt somewhat cold at that moment and could not help raising a hand to rub her arm.

Suddenly, He Huaiting spoke again.

“Come out.”

Rong Yu originally thought she was talking to her and was just about to step out when the stall on her left suddenly clicked open. A red-eyed girl wearing a JK uniform skirt and sporting a black hime-cut hairstyle with inward-curled ends walked out.

The girl’s glossy black hair spilled over her shoulders like silk, making her skin look as fair as snow. Her lips were bright red and moist. Her vivid red almond-shaped eyes were calm and rippleless, and her face likewise carried no expression.

If He Huaiting gave people the feeling of coldness—bone-deep coldness and fear—

Then this girl was like an exquisite doll without a soul. Even when she moved, there was a faint sluggishness, like a puppet.

Looking at her outfit and appearance, Rong Yu almost instantly confirmed her identity. She was likewise one of the four female guests: Mu Shuiqing. In the novel, she was set as the quietest and most introverted good girl, a top student who was not good with words.

But now, looking at her…

Rong Yu somehow felt that something was not quite right.

As she was thinking, she suddenly saw several little white paper figures slip out from the stall behind the girl through the crack of the door. The paper figures climbed up along the ends of Mu Shuiqing’s hair and onto her shoulder. Then they let go and jumped into the pocket at her chest, even remembering to wave at Rong Yu, who was watching them, before quietly hiding in the pocket.

Through the door crack that had not been fully closed, Rong Yu could even see dozens of red and yellow talismans pasted on the wall, various charms drawn on them in blood-red cinnabar with bold, sweeping strokes.

There were even three sticks of incense planted in the corner of the stall.

Rong Yu: “…”

Was this still the top student Mu Shuiqing she had set up to be obsessed with studying? Why did she look more like a charlatan obsessed with ghosts and gods?

He Huaiting looked at the wall behind Mu Shuiqing and furrowed her delicate brows. “You didn’t clean up your traces properly.”

Mu Shuiqing blinked. Expressionlessly, she glanced behind her, then pulled out the little paper figure that had just clutched tightly at the pocket in her chest. With a flick of her finger, she snapped it on the backside.

“Go clean it up.”

The little white paper figure was flicked onto the wall by her. It stuck to the wall and crawled toward the talismans. As it climbed, it split into several different paper figures, then diligently began tearing the talismans off the wall.

Rong Yu: “…?”

He Huaiting calmly watched the scene in front of her, as if she were already used to it. She glanced at Mu Shuiqing, then lowered her head to look at Rong Yu. “You two are also guests? Then hurry up and go.”

Rong Yu looked at the restroom stall that was plastered with ghostly scribbles, still had three sticks of incense burning, and was now hung with more than a dozen little paper figures floating around, as if some ritual had just been performed there. Her expression became somewhat complicated.

Wasn’t what she wrote a dating variety show novel?

Why did this now look like the scene of a fantasy novel?

Then she remembered that she was currently appearing in the women’s restroom while dressed as a man, yet these two were not at all curious about her behavior. She felt even more speechless.

Why did the two female guests who had appeared so far both feel so… abnormal?

Rong Yu vaguely had an ominous premonition.

Earlier, she had still thought that finding the one different consciousness body belonging to Lian Langsheng among the four female guests should not be difficult.

But now, she suddenly felt that this mission did not seem as simple as she had imagined. So far, the two female guests who had appeared did not match the settings from her novel. They had already exceeded her original character designs.

Could it be that all four female guests had broken free from their character settings?

This thought set alarm bells ringing in Rong Yu’s head.

As if proving her suspicions, the moment she returned to the program site with He Huaiting and Mu Shuiqing, she felt an unmistakably burning gaze.

She followed that gaze and looked over, meeting a pair of moist, pale-blue eyes.

Originally, Rong Yu had been the first person to arrive at the program site. She and her manager for this season, Lin Su, had been sitting in the temporary seats arranged by the production team for the guests. The seats around them had all been empty.

Now, however, more than a dozen men and women were already seated.

The three male guests and their respective managers sat in the outer circle, while the female guests were seated around the center. Three seats had been left empty in the middle for Rong Yu and the other two. The place where Rong Yu had originally been sitting happened to be surrounded by the four female guests.

The young woman sitting beside Rong Yu’s manager had blond hair and blue eyes. She wore a light purple off-shoulder French-style short-sleeved top paired with a white hip-hugging skirt, which outlined her slender waist and sexy, perky hips to just the right degree. On her feet was a pair of white Chelsea ankle boots, revealing two straight, slender legs so pale they seemed to glow.

The young woman had clearly received a good upbringing. Even as she sat with her knees bent on the wooden chair, her legs remained together and her upper body upright. Every movement was graceful to just the right extent. Her curled blond hair fell over her shoulders and shone brilliantly beneath the sunlight.

With just that signature blond hair, blue eyes, and refined, elegant temperament, Rong Yu recognized her identity.

She was the original novel’s female lead, He Jiao.

Her mother was a fallen noble from London, and both her parents were currently top investors in the domestic financial circle.

In the entire novel, Rong Yu’s favorite character was He Jiao. Her appearance was the most outstanding among all the female guests: bright and beautiful without losing nobility, stunning without seeming seductive, like a tulip in full bloom. Rong Yu had designed her features based on Lian Langsheng’s real-life appearance. Even her gentle and understanding temperament had been written in imitation of Lian Langsheng.

In the novel, He Jiao was the kindest, gentlest, and easiest-to-talk-to character in the entire story.

But at this moment, the gaze with which the other party stared at her could definitely not be considered kind. In fact… it could be said to be filled with loathing.

Rong Yu even saw hidden hatred in it, as if He Jiao had run into the murderer of her father.

The moment the girl met Rong Yu’s gaze, she glared at her fiercely, gave a cold snort, and turned her face away.

Rong Yu: “.”

After witnessing both Mu Shuiqing and He Huaiting’s character settings collapse, Rong Yu was no longer shocked by He Jiao’s reaction. She even had the mood to comfort herself.

At least there was still one female guest who had not collapsed, right?

She thought.

Right now, among the three female guests, one was cold and murderous, one was a metaphysical charlatan, and one looked at her with a face full of disgust. Surely the last one would not change too, right? What other character setting could there be?

Ahead, the host facing the camera lowered his head to glance at the time on his wristwatch. He picked up his cue card and waved to everyone, urging them, “Male and female guests participating in this season’s program, please come forward. The recording of our first episode is about to begin.”

“Male and female guests participating in this season’s program, please come forward. The recording of our first episode is about to begin.”

Rong Yu froze. She had clearly heard two voices saying the exact same thing.

And the people speaking were clearly one man and one woman. The female voice was extremely close, as if it were speaking right beside her ear. The voice was so quiet it could almost be ignored.

The people around her did not seem to have heard that voice echoing the host almost at the same time.

Rong Yu turned back toward the source of the voice and saw a catlike girl sitting right behind her. She had brown curly hair half-tied into a cat-ear hairstyle, upturned eyes, and sweetly delicate features. Based on her hairstyle, Rong Yu guessed that she should be the fourth female guest—Lin Mengxing.

At this moment, Lin Mengxing was still raising a brow as she looked at the host in front, her expression carrying a hint of casual indifference. Noticing Rong Yu’s gaze, the girl withdrew her eyes and looked at her. Her deep black pupils were like clear obsidian, carrying a radiance that seemed capable of absorbing everything.

Rong Yu suddenly smelled a rich lily fragrance.

That scent came far too suddenly, as if someone had abruptly smashed a bottle of highly concentrated lily perfume. The fragrance was intense and passionate, as if it seeped through her skin and into the gaps between her bones. As Rong Yu breathed, she felt the skin all over her body continuously shudder. A strange, addictive numbness—pleasurable to the extreme—made her unable to restrain the trembling of her entire body.

Yet the people around them seemed completely unaware of it. They did not react at all and continued quietly listening to the host speak.

For a moment, Rong Yu even forgot to ask how the other party had known what line the host was about to say. Instinctively, she searched for the source of the floral fragrance around her.

Then she discovered that the scent seemed to be coming from Lin Mengxing.

Following the fragrance, Rong Yu looked at the girl again, hesitating over whether she should remind her that she had sprayed on too much of that strange perfume. But in the next moment, she saw the girl narrow her eyes and take out a round Hello Kitty sticker from the pocket at her waist. Then Lin Mengxing lifted the curled hair at the back of her neck and, with a crisp smack, stuck it onto the back of her neck.

Her movements were clean and practiced, as if she had done this countless times before.

At the same time, the fragrance that had been so rich it nearly made Rong Yu unable to breathe vanished in an instant.

It was like…

Like an Alpha or Omega in an ABO world having a suppressant patch applied.

Rong Yu could not help glancing toward her slender, fair neck.

The girl noticed her gaze and smiled lightly. She turned her hand and took out an identical Hello Kitty sticker, holding it up in front of Rong Yu and handing it to her. Her voice was husky and sexy, with a hidden trace of unrestrained wildness.

“You like stickers too? I’ll give you one.”