After Entering a Romance Reality Show Disguised as a Man to Win Over All the Female Leads - Chapter 14

The livestream viewers all felt somewhat powerless.

[Ms. He Huaiting, we recommend that you read the following books: 32 Ways to Improve Emotional Intelligence, How a Good Woman Pursues Her Husband, and 108 Moves to Win Over an Aloof Male God.]

[Pfft, sister, don’t lose because you don’t know how to express yourself.]

Rong Yu held her forehead and looked at He Huaiting. She did not say anything more and reluctantly accepted her evaluation.

She should have known long ago. He Huaiting was just like Lian Langsheng during her aloof period. She could not be expected to say a few more words.

The second round of spinning the bottle began again. This time, the bottle pointed to Lin Mengxing.

Lin Mengxing raised a brow and lifted the card in her hand. It clearly showed—

Ace of diamonds.

Everyone lowered their heads to look at their own cards. Only Sheng Ming raised his hand.

“I’m the ace of clubs.”

Lin Mengxing crossed her arms, crossed her legs, swung one calf, and propped up her chin as she looked at him.

“Truth or dare?”

Sheng Ming smiled slightly. “Truth.”

“Good.” Lin Mengxing nodded, glanced at Rong Yu beside her, then turned back to look at him. She lifted her chin slightly. “What type of other half do you like?”

Sheng Ming thought for a moment, then answered, “It’s a little embarrassing to say, but I’m rather conservative. I like a virtuous and obedient other half.”

“Virtuous and obedient.”

Those four words did not match He Jiao’s currently displayed personality at all. The livestream viewers and everyone present understood that Sheng Ming was definitely not talking about someone like He Jiao.

Before anyone else could comment, Lin Mengxing, who had asked the question, gave an “oh.” Her clear voice curved around the word several times, sounding as if there were hidden meaning in it.

“A virtuous wife and good mother who is obedient and sensible? Looks like you and Qin Wenhan are very compatible. You have the same preferences.”

Comments:

[Pffthahahahahaha, fuck.]

[Lin Mengxing, how many tens of millions did you insure that mouth of yours for? You’re really not afraid of getting beaten.]

The smile on Sheng Ming’s face almost could not hold. “Don’t make that kind of joke. I don’t like men. Besides, how can a man give birth?”

Lin Mengxing nodded, looking thoughtful. “So you look for a partner in order to have children?”

Sheng Ming nodded subconsciously. “Otherwise?”

The moment the words left his mouth, he suddenly saw the camera in front of him and immediately waved his hand to change his words.

“I’m joking.”

He said, “But having children is human nature and social convention. It’s what should be done. Isn’t marriage for reproducing the next generation?”

Lin Mengxing narrowed her eyes. “Isn’t marriage supposed to be because you want a stable relationship certificate with the person you love?”

She sneered. “Does your family have a throne to inherit?”

The comments instantly exploded.

[Lin Mengxing!! I’m only convinced by your venomous tongue, hahahahaha!]

[…I… originally quite liked older men like Sheng Ming. I didn’t expect… Sure enough, the sisters were right. Daddy-type boyfriends are no longer popular. He reeks of feudal old customs.]

[Sister above, the problem isn’t that daddy-type boyfriends don’t work. It’s that this person doesn’t work.]

Someone in the comments also began making a grand speech.

[Is Sheng Ming wrong??? He spends money to marry you, buys you a house and car, and gives you betrothal gifts, but asking you to have a child is too much? Your uterus is really valuable, huh.]

[??? Is the person above an idiot? Can the moderator mute them???]

[666, you say that like the woman doesn’t give a dowry. Now women don’t even have the right to choose whether to have children or not? Does your family live by the sea? Why are you so controlling??]

The two sides in the comments began fighting directly. Some people even took advantage of the chaos to deliberately provoke gender conflict, constantly fanning the flames.

For a moment, the atmosphere among the male and female guests present also became strange. None of the male guests spoke up. Instead, they seemed to tacitly agree in their hearts.

Only Rong Yu raised her hand and spoke. “Personally, I think liking someone should simply be liking someone. If you have to consider all kinds of factors, then that’s not called liking a certain type of other half. That’s called wanting a certain type of nanny. It’s the same for men and women.”

Dating variety shows had more female viewers, and they almost overwhelmingly supported Rong Yu.

[Wuwuwuwu, following the right idol feels amazing! People who liked Sheng Ming were blind, huh?]

[Baby Yu is right! I think so too.]

[Exactly. Not liking someone is simply not liking them, and when you like someone, even if they’re the same sex, you’ll want to have a baby who resembles her, www. Whether to have children shouldn’t become the reason for liking or disliking someone at all. They’re not even comparable units. Also, when will medicine reach that level? ww, I want to give birth to a baby for my wife who looks like both of us, QUQ.]

Hearing this, Lin Mengxing turned to look at Rong Yu.

He Huaiting took a sip from her cup and also glanced at her.

Mu Shuiqing leaned even closer toward Rong Yu, tilting her head against Rong Yu’s shoulder. Her slow voice sounded especially gentle beneath the moonlight.

“Rongrong is right.”

Only He Jiao looked at Mu Shuiqing leaning on Rong Yu’s shoulder, then at He Huaiting and Lin Mengxing on either side. She gave a disdainful little laugh.

“Hypocritical.”

Her upbringing was the best. Her sitting posture was extremely elegant. Even while sitting at an open-air food stall, her legs were together, and she elegantly held the stem of her wineglass with three slender, fair fingers.

As long as she was not glaring at someone, even when she said something cutting, it sounded as if she were speaking sweet words of love. She was naturally a noble and elegant young miss.

The two words she said were not loud, and no one present heard them.

Only Rong Yu was sitting directly across from her. Even if He Jiao only mouthed the words, Rong Yu could tell what she had said and was momentarily speechless.

He Jiao put down her wineglass and stood up.

“I’m going to the restroom. You all continue.”

After He Jiao left, Rong Yu also wanted to go to the toilet a little. So after He Jiao had walked far enough away, she also stood up and followed.

Seven looked in the direction she had left, covered his head, and said he was going to sober up.

Mu Shuiqing glanced at Seven, who had his eyes half narrowed. Her crimson eyes silently stared at him without speaking.

The square-table game for eight people instantly lost three people. The remaining people could not continue playing either, so they simply ate while waiting for them to come back.

The nearest restroom nearby was a public toilet by the roadside, more than five hundred meters away from where they were drinking. To get there, one needed to cross a small grove.

When the sky had not yet darkened, that grove looked fairly normal. But now that night had deepened, dim yellow streetlights were half hidden among the dense trees. The light cast twisted, coiling shadows on the ground like writhing, wailing human swine. It looked even more terrifying than having no lights at all.

The cool night wind gradually picked up. As Rong Yu walked through the grove, she inexplicably began to feel cold. The chill poured through the collar of her shirt into her clothes in waves, making her unable to resist raising her hands and rubbing her arms.

The short two-hundred-meter forest path felt endless. Rong Yu walked for a long time and still did not reach the end. Her whole body was so cold that goosebumps had risen all over her.

For some reason, her back felt especially cold.

She abruptly turned around.

But all she could see was the pitch-black path behind her beneath the night sky.

Rong Yu tightened her collar and continued walking forward. The cold wind gradually rose, letting out rustling howls.

Suddenly—

She began to hear rhythmic footsteps.

The footsteps were not heavy, but on the empty, uninhabited forest path, they sounded especially clear.

Rong Yu quickened her pace and walked toward the road ahead. Yet she discovered that the footsteps followed closely behind, as if they were about to rush right up to her.

Just as Rong Yu lowered her head and took out her phone, preparing to call the police, she suddenly bumped into someone.

A clear, clean fragrance instantly crashed into her arms, as if she had thrown herself into soft flower honey.

Rong Yu abruptly raised her head and met a pair of sapphire-blue eyes. Bright golden curls were still beautiful and dazzling beneath the moonlight, like a treasure lost in moonlight.

The fear from the previous second was instantly soothed.

Rong Yu parted her lips slightly and looked at the person before her. For a moment, she did not know what to say.

Until He Jiao frowned at her.

“What are you doing?”

Rong Yu immediately came back to her senses. Only then did she realize that her hands were still on He Jiao’s waist. She quickly took half a step back and withdrew her hands.

“I just…”

She had originally wanted to say that she had heard footsteps just now. But now that He Jiao had suddenly appeared, she felt that maybe those had simply been He Jiao’s footsteps, so the words she wanted to say stopped.

He Jiao impatiently turned sideways, bypassed her, and walked away in the direction they had come from.

Rong Yu had not especially needed to use the restroom in the first place. After personally experiencing the terrifying forest path just now, she dared even less to go back alone. So she thickened her skin and followed He Jiao back.

Strangely enough, when she had been walking alone, the little road full of sinister tree shadows had felt especially eerie and frightening. But now, following He Jiao, she could no longer feel the fear from earlier at all. There was even a bit of calm beneath the moonlit night.

He Jiao walked steadily ahead of her. Her head was held high, and her steps were elegant. Even her walking carried the air of a young lady from a noble family.

Lian Langsheng’s etiquette had always been flawless. Even in business battles, no one could find fault with her. Rong Yu had also written this trait into the original heroine He Jiao’s character setting, and He Jiao had displayed it to the extreme in every aspect.

Just like now. Even ordinary walking was beautiful enough to become a posture textbook for young people.

But Rong Yu kept feeling that something was a little off.

It seemed…

Too quiet.

She lowered her head and looked at He Jiao’s ankles in front of her.

He Jiao’s fair, long legs stepped in a pair of red mid-heeled shoes of about three centimeters. When she walked, the Achilles tendon at her ankle rose and relaxed. The skin in the hollow of her ankle carried a faint pink. From calf to ankle, there was not a single place that was not beautiful.

Even the way she walked was especially quiet.

Rong Yu continued looking downward and suddenly realized…

Why did this He Jiao have no shadow?

As soon as that thought appeared, Rong Yu instantly realized something, and her entire body felt as if it had fallen into an ice cellar. Bone-chilling cold drilled through every opening into her clothes, making her shiver. Yet she gritted her teeth tightly and did not dare make a sound.

Suddenly, two hands reached out through the air. One arm wrapped around her shoulders, and the other covered her mouth from behind, directly dragging her behind a nearby tree.

Rong Yu was turned around and pressed against the tree, directly facing a familiar face.

She looked at the newcomer’s face in shock and uncertainty, not daring to make a sound.

He Jiao glanced at the back of the gradually departing “He Jiao,” then raised a finger to her own lips, silently mouthing to Rong Yu: Don’t make a sound.

Rong Yu quickly nodded.

She was pressed behind the tree by He Jiao and was not standing straight. He Jiao was originally about the same height as her, but now she was a few centimeters taller. The golden curls on her shoulder fell onto Rong Yu’s arm like a spread-out galaxy.

The two silently watched as the “He Jiao,” who had been transformed from who knew what, continued walking forward with her back to them and slowly disappeared into the darkness.

Only then did Rong Yu let out a breath of relief. But she still felt her back crawl. She turned to look at He Jiao and silently asked, What was that?

He Jiao stared into the distance for a while before withdrawing her gaze and lowering her head to look at Rong Yu. She leaned close to Rong Yu’s ear and answered in a low voice.

“Just now, before you finished speaking, you turned and walked off alone. Only after you had walked far away did I see that there was another ‘her’ in front of you.”

This overly supernatural scene made Rong Yu, a “soul transmigrator,” and He Jiao, a “reborn person,” both feel somewhat helpless.

Rong Yu clearly felt her heart speed up, and even her fingertips were slightly numb.

In the cold, damp grove around them, only He Jiao in front of her radiated a warm aura. Rong Yu subconsciously grabbed He Jiao’s wrist.

The girl facing her frowned and lowered her head to glance at it. Seeing Rong Yu’s slightly pale face, she ultimately did not pull her hand away.

Rong Yu was already extremely grateful that she had not been pushed away. She carefully held He Jiao’s wrist and asked for her advice.

“What do we do now?”

She was only a novelist, not a practical action expert. If this had been a plot she had personally written, it would have been fine. But her original plot did not include the current scene. Rong Yu had an instinctive fear of this unknown situation.

He Jiao leaned beside her ear and responded softly. “Head toward the main road first.”

Rong Yu immediately nodded.

The two looked in the direction they had originally been returning from. The “ghost shadow” identical to He Jiao had already disappeared, but the surrounding grove seemed even darker, carrying an eerie feeling that made one’s heart race.

And so the two turned and walked toward the main road near the restroom.

On the overly quiet path, even the sound of breathing could be heard clearly. The rustling of the cold wind brushing through the leaves drifted back and forth beside their ears.

Rong Yu kept feeling as if a pair of eyes in the dark was staring straight at her. The more she walked, the more her back crawled.

The two walked in the opposite direction for who knew how long.

He Jiao suddenly stopped, her expression extremely ugly.

He Jiao said, “Why has this road become so long?”

Rong Yu froze and also felt something was wrong.

Logically speaking, the place they had been just now was already close to the restroom. If they walked a few dozen more meters, they should have arrived. But now they had walked another one or two hundred meters, and ahead of them was still endless forest with no end in sight.

Rong Yu looked at the grove stretching endlessly before them, and an ominous feeling rose inside her.

Could this be—

He Jiao furrowed her long brows. “We’ve run into a ghost wall.”

As soon as she finished speaking, the surrounding air seemed to plunge into an ice cellar. Damp, cold wind blew from all directions, freezing Rong Yu until she trembled.

The cold air condensed into water droplets, and semi-transparent mist slowly rose along the path.

Within the obscuring mist, a stiff figure suddenly appeared at the end of the road.

The person stood in the darkness, and they could not clearly see who it was. Fortunately, the blue-dyed strands on the top of his head revealed his identity.

It was Seven.

Rong Yu looked him up and down. Why was he here? Could Seven have accidentally gotten trapped on this road just like them?

As Rong Yu was thinking, Seven in front of them suddenly teleported several meters forward, moving closer to them.

Rong Yu raised her hand and rubbed her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw Seven teleport closer once more. This time, only a little over fifty meters remained between them.

Seven’s face could finally be barely seen. His originally fairly delicate features were pale and stiff. His eyes were completely black and widened to the extreme, the corners nearly tearing open.

Black qi twisted all around his body, and he stood in a strange posture. His head was tilted forward, his shoulders lifted, and he stood on tiptoe, as if there were a long rope tied around his neck, suspending him by it.

Every two seconds, he would suddenly teleport several meters forward. But Rong Yu did not see his legs move at all. He was completely being lifted forward.

He Jiao beside her looked a little pale, but she was still fairly calm. Rong Yu heard her quietly say, “That shouldn’t be right. This plot didn’t exist before…”

Before she finished speaking, she suddenly realized something and turned to meet Rong Yu’s eyes.

But the situation was urgent now. Rong Yu had no time to wait for her to speak. She grabbed He Jiao’s hand and quickly pulled her to run in the opposite direction.

Seven’s figure abruptly appeared in front of them.

His pure black eyes hid threads of red. His expression as he stared at Rong Yu was sinister and strange. The corners of his mouth slowly lifted, stretching all the way to his ears, revealing bright red gums and flesh.

The cold wind around them roared and howled, yet it also sounded like a woman’s sobbing plea.

Seven reached out, stretching his hand straight toward her neck. His voice sounded like a snake’s whisper.

“Rong… Yu…”

This scene was truly scalp-numbing.

Rong Yu felt as if cold wind had drilled up through her pant legs. The chill climbed all the way over her head, and even her teeth could not help chattering.

She was just about to pull He Jiao around Seven and keep running when the girl beside her suddenly reached out, grabbed Seven’s wrist, twisted his arm backward, and threw him over her shoulder, slamming Seven to the ground.

Then she stepped down.

Mist floated all around them, already beginning to blur the ground. In the quiet black night, Rong Yu only heard the creak of bones breaking, making the roots of her ears go numb.

He Jiao expressionlessly clapped her hands and stood up straight.

“Go.”

“Oh, oh… okay…”

Rong Yu followed her and sprinted quickly along the way back. As she ran, she wondered: had she given He Jiao martial strength in the novel? It seemed like she had not.

But after running only a few steps, they stopped again.

Far ahead, at the end of the road, they saw another “Seven” gradually closing the distance. This time, he even held a knife in his hand and rushed straight toward Rong Yu.

Rong Yu turned back and looked behind them. In the direction they had come from, another “Seven” was also drifting closer. It was impossible to tell which one was real.

This was clearly no longer trouble that a pure-love story heroine like He Jiao and she could solve.

Rong Yu took a deep breath and wanted to let He Jiao leave first.

“‘They’ are coming for me. You go first. Run into the woods.”

He Jiao’s expression changed slightly. She furrowed her brows and looked at Rong Yu, her expression complicated.

“You aren’t the original Rong Yu. Who exactly are you?”

She continued, “That man would only use me until the very last moment.”

Rong Yu did not understand how the plot had become like this. Her original story had clearly been a little sweet romance. Could it be that the plot in Lian Langsheng’s mind had changed?

But time was pressing now, and she had no time to think more. She looked at He Jiao and said softly, “Is there a possibility that I’m the real Rong Yu?”

He Jiao froze and stared at her blankly.

Rong Yu was not wrong.

Because Lian Langsheng did not like the same sex, Rong Yu liked Lian Langsheng but did not dare confess. She did not even dare admit it in her novels, afraid Lian Langsheng would discover it. That was why she had set the protagonist as male.

How could she bear to let the original “Rong Yu” treat He Jiao badly?

The Rong Yu in the novel was absolutely the gender-swapped version of herself.

The settings of a brain world would all draw closer to the personal preferences of the consciousness’s owner. If He Jiao was Lian Langsheng’s consciousness body, and she did not like the male “Rong Yu,” did that mean she also might not care about gender?

What she cared about was Rong Yu herself?

This thought made Rong Yu’s fingertips tremble. A secret joy suddenly rose in her heart, so much so that she no longer cared about the terrifying surroundings.

Just then, another knife-wielding Seven actually rushed out from the grove behind He Jiao, raising the dagger in his hand and stabbing toward the two of them.

Rong Yu subconsciously pushed He Jiao away.

The tip of the knife was already close to her head. The cold blade gleamed with icy light, and the chill clung like maggots on bone. Rong Yu could even clearly feel the cold air passing through her skin.

He Jiao beside her reacted quickly, but it was too late now.

Rong Yu only heard He Jiao’s urgent shout.

In the next second, a figure suddenly rushed over at high speed. Between her fingers was a gold-bottomed talisman with red patterns, which she pressed onto Seven’s forehead.

Something seemed to pour from that talisman into Seven’s head. The four corners of the paper fluttered like the wings of a golden butterfly. When the newcomer let go, the talisman remained pasted to Seven’s forehead, firmly fixing him in place.

Mu Shuiqing’s eyes were tightly shut.

Her hands formed a seal and lifted before her eyes. Then she suddenly opened her eyes, and radiant light flowed through her crimson pupils.

The paper figure in her clothes tossed dozens of gold-and-red talismans out from her pocket. The talismans scattered and fixed themselves in midair, then began spinning rapidly around Mu Shuiqing.

“Five stars suppress color, light illuminates the mysterious darkness. Six Ding and Six Jia, follow my divine command…”

From the rapidly rotating talismans, she drew out one sheet. Holding it between her index and middle fingers, she quickly drew a talisman in the air toward Seven.

Rong Yu saw a series of golden characters gradually become clear in midair, slowly approaching Seven.

Following Mu Shuiqing’s sharp command—

“Go!”

The runes suddenly nailed themselves into Seven’s body.

Seven stood stiffly in place with his eyes widened like a wooden statue. Yet Rong Yu heard shrieks and roars coming from his body.

A semi-transparent, blurry black shadow with horns on its head was squeezed out from behind him. The black shadow looked both human and like a deformed monkey. It peeled away from Seven’s back and was suspended in midair.

The talismans originally circling Mu Shuiqing suddenly rushed over and wrapped around it. The black shadow had originally been taller than Rong Yu, but it gradually roared and shrank. The talismans wrapped around it continuously expanded, tightly binding it within.

When the twisting, struggling black shadow beneath the talismans stopped moving, the talismans had already wrapped it into a ball the size of a palm. Dense runes Rong Yu could not understand curled around it, making it look like an ordinary round ball.

Mu Shuiqing took the gold-red ball from midair, weighed it in her hand, threw it onto the ground, and crushed it under her foot.

The shattered talismans drifted down onto the ground, while the black shadow inside emitted white smoke and instantly disappeared without a trace.

At the same time, Seven, who had been standing stiffly in place, instantly closed his eyes and collapsed. The sharp knife in his hand also fell to the ground.

He was tall and sturdy, and when he fell to the ground, he made a light thud. Rong Yu and the others lowered their heads to look at him, then silently took two steps back with no intention of helping him up.

Rong Yu stared blankly at the talisman papers scattered all over the ground beneath Mu Shuiqing’s feet.

Mu Shuiqing followed her gaze and looked down. The corner of her mouth lifted with disdain. Her originally beautiful and wooden face, in this strange dark night, revealed a few traces of sharp, soul-stirring charm.

“Tanfen. Only a minor fire-evil ghost, also called a drought demon.”

Rong Yu was shocked. So this was the legendary “drought demon”?

She had written about it many times in her novels, but this was the first time she had seen one with her own eyes. It was too magical.

As the drought demon was caught, the gloomy, damp aura around them also instantly cleared away completely. The chill that had made one’s whole body crawl was gone from their breathing. It was now only ordinary cold.

Rong Yu let out a long breath. Her heart, which had been tense for so long, could finally catch its breath.

But as she breathed, she clearly felt her heart speeding up. Her hands and feet went numb, as if the body that had reacted sluggishly earlier because of fear was now retaliating with force. Every heartbeat was so forceful it nearly jumped out of her chest, even making it hard to breathe.

Rong Yu wanted to pat her chest and smooth her breathing, but blackness had already begun appearing before her eyes. Her fingertips were numb and powerless. Her throat felt as if something were blocking it. Even though she opened her mouth wide to breathe, she still felt a near-death suffocation.

Mu Shuiqing and He Jiao simultaneously noticed something was wrong with her.

Mu Shuiqing reached out and touched Rong Yu’s pulse, but could not determine the reason. The girl who had not changed expression even before an evil ghost instantly widened her scarlet eyes and said urgently, “What’s going on?! Call an ambulance!”

He Jiao beside them frowned and observed Rong Yu’s face, which had already begun turning pale. Then she reached out and touched Rong Yu’s fingertips, instantly understanding something.

“She’s hyperventilating. There’s no time.”

Mu Shuiqing froze. “What? What hyperventilating?”

He Jiao did not answer. She pushed Mu Shuiqing aside, stepped forward half a pace, lifted Rong Yu’s chin, lowered her head, and kissed her.

Behind her came Mu Shuiqing’s roar, no longer hiding her jealousy.

“He Jiao!”