Chapter 16

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Fu Yan kept waking in the middle of the night just to slap himself. Why had he gone and prodded someone else’s painful, unspoken memories?

But as his guilt lingered, he suddenly noticed something suspicious.

“I still don’t think it adds up. How could anyone brush aside the hardships of their past so calmly?” No matter how Fu Yan thought about it, something felt wrong.

If Xia Wansheng had chosen to keep it hidden, then why reveal it now? Unless something even worse had happened recently, making it pointless to continue concealing the past.

“What has Xia Wansheng been doing lately?” Fu Yan asked.

The best-case scenario, of course, was that he had finally come to terms with things and decided to open his heart. But situations were rarely that simple.

Perhaps he simply felt that none of it mattered anymore.

“The variety show he’s preparing for won’t air for another two weeks. He should be rehearsing these days.” Yu Congyan opened the daily schedule his assistant had sent him. As he read, his voice faltered. “Recently, he… connected with Elder Feng’s livestream? And even won the approval of the viewers.”

Had Fu Yan’s ears been deaf all this time? How had he never noticed that Xia Wansheng possessed any musical talent?

“It’s also possible that, for all these years, family circumstances or contractual obligations forced him to deliberately hide his talent in exchange for a chance to protect himself,” Fu Yan mused.

If Xia Wansheng had managed to endure for so long, then what kind of blow had he suffered to suddenly give up on everything now?

It felt like a bolt from a clear sky had struck him.

Yu Congyan abruptly realized it, and for a moment he felt profoundly uneasy. He simply stared at the buildings not far beyond the window.

He had never decided what industry to invest in within this area. His memories of his previous life were too vivid, so he had merely instructed everyone to leave things as they were. He had no intention of investing in or changing anything. He had become nothing more than a lofty observer.

Now, he suddenly understood that he had treated Xia Wansheng the same way.

He had never interfered with or cared about Xia Wansheng’s changing emotions. He had only watched with detached interest to see how far the man would ultimately go.

Would he, as before, walk toward that predetermined ending between the two of them?

Thinking about it now, perhaps Yu Congyan himself was also a link in the gears of fate. His indifference might have been the final straw that pushed the story toward its conclusion.

Yu Congyan’s face darkened, as though he had made some sort of decision.

…

At that moment, Xia Wansheng had just finished his vocal lesson. He sat with his chin propped on one hand, staring blankly at the endless stream of traffic outside. He had no desire whatsoever to go back and work overtime.

He was urgently discussing countermeasures with the system, his expression grave.

“Yesterday, we were dragged back from the brink of exposing ourselves. If we put on even one wrong performance now and arouse suspicion, there’ll already be a ready-made explanation for why we look suspicious,” Xia Wansheng said, rubbing his temples.

“Host, why don’t we find a chance to leave now? If we drag this out and get discovered, both our bonuses will be ruined.” The system was still shaken by what had happened.

The system itself did not particularly care about the money. At worst, it could work for a few more years. But once Xia Wansheng returned to the real world, there was a high chance that this money would be his only opportunity to change his fate.

He had no other choice.

“Why don’t I just disappear? Leave behind a suicide note, vanish without a trace, and make sure to choose the right time when I leave. Then we won’t have to worry about the protagonist’s aura interrupting my exit.”

Xia Wansheng was genuinely developing post-traumatic stress from Yu Congyan’s overwhelming protagonist aura. Every time, it managed to rescue him from disaster.

It would be even better if it did not ruin his bonus in the process.

“Then I’ll submit the request right away!” the system exclaimed excitedly.

Even after deciding on a new method of leaving the story, Xia Wansheng could not act too far out of character and risk being found out. To avoid suspicion, he had no choice but to pretend to be cheerful.

By the end of the afternoon, Xia Wansheng felt as though every last bit of his energy had been drained.

As luck would have it, Yu Congyan was behaving completely out of character today. The man who was usually addicted to overtime had come home unusually early. Xia Wansheng had planned to find an excuse to slip away after dinner, but now he could only abandon that plan and move the operation to the middle of the night.

This time, he had deliberately charged his phone in advance, to keep poor visibility from slowing him down later.

All he had to do was leave the suicide note somewhere conspicuous where everyone would see it. By the time Yu Congyan realized he was gone, Xia Wansheng would already be free as a bird, carrying five million back to the real world to enjoy his new life.

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That was how things should have unfolded.

But Yu Congyan was currently making every possible preparation to investigate what had been wrong with Xia Wansheng before. He wanted to stop viewing him solely as an observer and start paying closer attention to his emotional state.

What if the plot could change because of that?

Unfortunately, he arrived at precisely the wrong moment—the very moment Xia Wansheng had gripped his suicide note and was preparing to hide it.

Xia Wansheng clutched the freshly written sheet of paper, its ink barely dry. He was just about to tuck the note into the corner of the sofa. After finally finishing the movement, he straightened up and turned around—

—and found Yu Congyan silently watching him.

His balance gave way, and he dropped to his knees in front of the sofa, striking them painfully against the floor.

The pain brought tears to Xia Wansheng’s eyes. Was this protagonist aura not a little too powerful?

“Um… could you help me up?” Xia Wansheng asked with difficulty.

At the same time, he silently prayed that he could somehow bluff his way through this yet again.

Yu Congyan reached out and pulled him to his feet.

At first, he had not suspected what the paper was. But faced with Xia Wansheng’s hesitant expression and obvious nervousness, he instinctively sensed that it was not an ordinary sheet of paper.

Sure enough, ignoring Xia Wansheng’s attempts to stop him, Yu Congyan snatched it away. The two glaring words “suicide note” immediately caught his eye.

“…”

So it really was that.

Xia Wansheng was somewhat dazed as well.

Yu Congyan really had not planted some kind of tracking device on him, had he? Otherwise, why did the man always appear and stop him whenever he came closest to securing the five million?

Was this some strange passive ability possessed by capitalists?

“Have you… run into something lately?” Yu Congyan asked, with an unusually stiff trace of concern in his voice.

Yet he still confiscated the paper without mercy, showing no intention of returning it to Xia Wansheng.

It seemed that every move this man made fell outside his expectations.

“No, it’s just that I…” In Xia Wansheng’s eyes, this was unmistakably the opening of an interrogation.

What was he supposed to do? He had not prepared for this. Surely he could not claim, as he had the night before, that he was practicing for a role?

The situation in the middle of the night made it obvious that he had intended to leave behind a suicide note and run away. Unless Yu Congyan had suddenly lost his mind, he would never believe such an excuse.

He could only improvise and continue acting along with the situation.

“I can’t explain it to you right now, Yu Congyan.”

It was rare for him to address the man by his full name, as though he were deliberately creating distance between them. Yet apart from Xia Wansheng himself, no one else ever called Yu Congyan that way.

Xia Wansheng reached out to take the paper back, but Yu Congyan refused to let go. The two of them remained locked in a tug-of-war.

After a long stalemate, Yu Congyan was just about to compromise when Xia Wansheng suddenly lowered his arm.

“Forget it. If you want it, keep it.” Xia Wansheng gave him a deep look, as though all his strength had abruptly been drained away. He paid no further attention to the confiscated suicide note and returned to the bedroom without looking back.

Along the way, in order to preserve the image of an elegant, heartbreakingly fragile idealized figure, he did not even dare turn on his flashlight. He nearly walked straight into the wall.

Xia Wansheng: Someone save me! I feel like I’ve given myself away, but I don’t dare turn around. What am I supposed to do?!

Yu Congyan had naturally witnessed everything from where he stood, and his mind was torn between two opposing forces.

Reason told him that he should not continue questioning Xia Wansheng. After all, this fundamentally had nothing to do with him. But emotionally, he wanted to know what had driven Xia Wansheng into such agitation that even speaking with him had become so difficult.

Waiting around was no solution. Since Xia Wansheng refused to tell him the truth, Yu Congyan could only start with someone else.

For example, the manager who had recently resumed contact with Xia Wansheng.

At one in the morning, Ji Yang was still working overtime on his way home when he suddenly received a call from an unfamiliar number.

He had been wondering who would call at such an hour, but the moment he answered and heard the caller introduce himself, he was so startled that he nearly fell out of his seat.

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“Something like that actually happened?!” Ji Yang thought, instantly alarmed.

When Xia Wansheng had come to him back then, he had sensed that something was wrong. But at the time, he had been blinded by joy and had not thought too deeply about it. Looking back now, he could finally see the signs.

“I don’t know the precise details either. I hadn’t taken over Xia Wansheng’s management at the time. But the director’s accident did indeed happen around this period. Afterward, Xia Wansheng was assigned to work under me,” Ji Yang added.

Although Xia Wansheng’s earlier résumé had been impressive, he had always treated every activity with a careless, just-get-by attitude. Ji Yang had even wondered whether he had truly experienced the things listed in his past.

Now that he knew the reason, it was probably because Xia Wansheng had suffered psychological trauma. It was difficult to imagine how he had managed to carry on alone for so many years.

“You mean you had never known about this before?” Yu Congyan seized on the key point.

People only exposed their wounds in front of those they trusted. Xia Wansheng’s show of not needing anyone to care about him might, in reality, have been his final cry for help.

“I understand. I’ll investigate the matter thoroughly,” Yu Congyan said before hanging up.

The plot could be changed. He could no longer remain an observer.

At Fu Yan’s clinic.

“Do you know why you came here?”

“No.”

Xia Wansheng’s voice was utterly flat.

Inwardly, he mocked the question. The answer was obvious enough.

It was because his suicide note had been snatched away halfway through, leaving him no choice but to accept the psychological counseling his overbearing CEO had thoughtfully arranged for him.

The clinic was equipped with an astonishing array of high-end facilities. Xia Wansheng remembered that, in the original story, this place had been used to conduct perfectly legal interrogations of unlucky businessmen who had lost their battles in the commercial world.

Thinking of that, Xia Wansheng did not dare move a muscle. The system had only promised that it could take him away in advance at the exact moment he exited the story. It had never said whether it could shield him from psychological harm.

Why did a law-abiding citizen of the twenty-first century have to go through this?!

“Don’t be too nervous. This is just an ordinary counseling session. We’re only going to chat.” Fu Yan sat across from him, scrolling through videos, looking as though he did not care about the session at all.

Xia Wansheng thought bitterly, Do you take me for someone who hasn’t read the original novel?

In the book, Fu Yan had used this trick countless times to deceive people into lowering their guard, only to turn around and sell them out.

Xia Wansheng was desperately trying to figure out where he had slipped up. None of this even counted as acting out of character, so how had he suddenly ended up being sent for psychological counseling?

When Fu Yan saw that he remained silent, he assumed Xia Wansheng still had no intention of trusting him. Putting on a casual air, he said, “Actually, regular counseling at fixed times is beneficial to one’s health.”

From there, the conversation smoothly veered into Fu Yan’s professional field. He prepared to reason with Xia Wansheng, move him emotionally, and use his own experiences to inspire empathy.

But Xia Wansheng’s greatest talent was zoning out and slacking off whenever his employer held a meeting. Emptying his mind was effortless for him.

So after Fu Yan finally finished his long-winded introduction, the next step should have been for the patient to lower his guard and begin speaking of his own accord.

Instead, Xia Wansheng merely felt that his brief period of slacking had ended, and his emotions had grown even more tense.

Fu Yan: Why do I always feel that opening my heart has somehow produced the opposite effect?

The man across from him seemed to be searching for every possible opportunity to leave.

“I truly have nothing wrong with me. The suicide note was just a misunderstanding. I had no intention of harming myself,” Xia Wansheng attempted to explain.

If this dragged on any longer, he would not even make it to his vocal lesson that day.

Every time an attempt to leave the story failed, he had to invent an explanation to tie up the loose ends of his previous behavior. If not for the five-million carrot dangling in front of him, he would never have been willing to keep turning the mill like a donkey.

And now the carrot had led him around in circles so many times. Every time he was about to get his hands on it, the protagonist lured it away.

It was basically like having an employer wave a bonus in front of your face countless times without ever actually paying you.

Xia Wansheng felt as though his current emotions could beat up the entire world.

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