Chapter 29 – How Love’s Poison Spreads

Yang Yuze followed the standard artist debut process under Guan Lan’s guidance. Guan Lan arranged for someone to write a song for the young master, spent a fortune on online promotion, and then Yang Yuze took the song to various events to familiarize himself with the audience.

During this time, it was inevitable that senior colleagues from the same company would lend a hand. This senior colleague was Zhuang Lin.

Ever since Zhuang Lin read that harem gossip post, he had taken a strong dislike to Yang Yuze. The way Yang Yuze called Guan Lan “senior brother” so affectionately made Zhuang Lin extremely uncomfortable. What kind of senior brother relationship is this? With your mediocre skills, if it weren’t for your privileged background, you wouldn’t even be worthy of kneeling down to fetch Guan Lan’s foot bathwater. Yet you have the audacity to call him “senior brother”? How shameless can you be?

However, since Yang Yuze was the boss’s nephew, Zhuang Lin couldn’t be too unreasonable. So, he reluctantly interacted with him in public, but in private, he kept a cold face and didn’t say a word more than necessary.

What Zhuang Lin didn’t know was that Guan Lan also found the young master quite annoying.

One day during lunch, Yang Yuze asked Guan Lan, “Senior brother, what’s Zhuang Lin’s current situation?”

Guan Lan was confused at first, “What do you mean?”

Yang Yuze: “Is he single?”

Guan Lan was startled.

He didn’t know what prompted him, but without blinking, he lied, “I don’t know if he’s single, but he’s straight, very straight. The kind who changes girlfriends every month.”

Yang Yuze: “You don’t understand. Usually, this kind of behavior is called overcompensation. The more he acts like this, the more likely he’s deeply closeted.”

Guan Lan: “…Are you interested in him?”

Yang Yuze: “Well, I just like the aloof type.”

Where is he aloof?

Guan Lan’s phone buzzed. It was a message from Zhuang Lin. Zhuang Lin said, “Oh no, I got hurt while working out. I need comfort and a hug.” The message was accompanied by a photo of his bare skin with a scratch about one square centimeter in size.

Guan Lan wanted to shove this photo in Yang Yuze’s face and ask him, “Where exactly is this person aloof?”

Guan Lan said with a straight face, “That won’t do. Not only does company policy forbid it—even if it were allowed, if you turned gay under my watch, your family would tear me apart. Especially your dad and uncle, who’ve been wanting to tear me apart for a long time.”

Yang Yuze: “Why would my second uncle want to tear you apart? He practically worships you.”

Not that uncle.

Guan Lan: “Anyway, if you want to focus on singing, don’t think about these distractions. You’ve fought with your dad for so many years to get this one year of freedom, and you’re going to waste it chasing men?”

Yang Yuze: “That’s true.”

He gave up that easily? Unreliable. Guan Lan was right to brush him off for Zhuang Lin’s sake.

He comforted himself this way, as if he had no ulterior motives at all.

Yang Yuze: “Senior brother, be honest with me. How’s my musical talent?”

Guan Lan looked at him, pondering whether to tell him the truth or a more tactful version of the truth.

Yang Yuze: “Just say it. Don’t worry, I won’t be sensitive.”

Guan Lan smiled: “Hasn’t your mom told you the truth, or do you only believe it when it comes from an outsider? Fine, I’ll be the bad guy today.”

Guan Lan: “Honestly, you’re at a KTV king level. A bit better than the average person, but very mediocre among professional singers.”

Yang Yuze sighed: “I thought so. Last week, when I went on a show with Zhuang Lin and heard his live performance, I had that feeling, but I was still holding onto hope.”

Guan Lan was surprised by his self-awareness.

Yang Yuze: “But actually, I just wanted to get into the entertainment industry. Singing isn’t that important to me. Senior brother, in your opinion, which field should I switch to?”

Guan Lan: “…Acting might make you famous faster.”

Yang Yuze: “But for someone like me with no experience or acting skills, would my second uncle have to spend a lot of money to promote me?”

Guan Lan: “I’m not familiar with acting, but probably.”

Yang Yuze: “Sigh, that’s no fun.”

In this industry, some people struggle to survive without money or resources; others have everything but still find it boring.

Yang Yuze: “What about variety shows? I think I’d definitely do well in that!”

Guan Lan: …

Yang Yuze: “Senior brother, you’re quite close to Chen Jin, right? Can you introduce me to him?”

Guan Lan: …

Yang Yuze: “By the way, is Chen Jin single?”

Guan Lan: …

Well done, young man. Go and steal your uncle’s wife! I can’t wait to see the family drama unfold!

—

Recently, Guan Lan felt his creative inspiration returning like the first thaw of spring snow, slowly regaining the songwriting touch he had in previous years.

He wrote a few songs for his darling Lu Qing. Every creator has a few cherished singers; over the years, his male darlings came and went, but his female darling has always been Lu Qing.

When Guan Lan picked Lu Qing up from the bar, she was already 28, with average looks and terrible taste, a complete nightclub nonconformist. Later, when she won two Golden Wheat Awards and became the queen of singing, it shocked everyone and cemented Guan Lan’s legendary status in the industry.

Lu Qing was very unique. Even after so many years in the entertainment industry, she still spoke her mind without caring about anyone’s feelings. Once, a music critic snarked on Weibo that Guan Lan had slept with more people than he had written songs. Lu Qing directly reposted it and fired back, “And you can only sit at home picking your toes and fantasizing, feeling so sour, huh?” When someone later attacked her, saying she must have slept with Guan Lan, she replied directly, “If Guan Lan ever wants to sleep with me, I’ll book the room myself.”

Her sharp tongue gave her manager endless headaches.

But Guan Lan loved her for it. Her singing was the same—arrogant, with a vibe of “I look down on all of you” radiating from her voice.

When Lu Qing found out Guan Lan had written new songs for her, she was thrilled. But after getting the songs, she was a bit speechless.

Previously, Guan Lan had written songs for her like “Eternal Night” and “Iron Horse and Icy River.” This time, however, one song was “Sudden Heartbeat,” and another was “Love Rose.” The entire score seemed to be drenched in pink.

Lu Qing: “Are these really for me? Did you get them mixed up?”

Guan Lan: “Do I have to write a song called ‘Dark Night’ for you to believe it’s for you?”

Lu Qing: “So, you really want me to sing this stuff in a cutesy voice?”

Guan Lan: “What’s wrong? It’s not that bad, is it?”

Lu Qing: “Look at it! I’m a woman in my thirties, and you want me to sing ‘Love Rose’!”

Guan Lan: “If you can’t stand it, just change the title. How about ‘Dark Night Rose’?”

If it had been anyone else, Lu Qing would have thrown the score in their face.

Lu Qing: “See if the company has signed any 15 or 16-year-old kids. These songs are too embarrassing for anyone over twenty to sing.”

After Lu Qing left, Guan Lan looked at the score from left to right and thought it wasn’t that bad. Was she exaggerating? Can’t a thirty-year-old woman have a little pink in her life?

He called Ren Xiaofei into his office: “Come, take a look at these songs. What do you think?”

Ren Xiaofei looked at them: “They’re really good! Are these for X-Dream?”

X-Dream was a newly debuted girl group with an average age of eighteen.

Guan Lan: “…Yes.”

He didn’t have the courage to say, “I actually wrote these for Lu Qing.”

Was it really that girly?

Later, the market told him it was indeed very girly.

Guan Lan revised “Love Rose” into “A Night of Roses,” which was more suitable for group singing, and gave it to X-Dream. The song became a viral hit of the year, the kind that everyone could sing along to, especially popular among middle school students. Everyone praised Guan Lan for being amazing, even mastering this style so well. After the song blew up, Lu Qing went on a rant on Weibo: “Can you believe this song was originally written for me? Has Guan Lan lost his mind?” But all that happened later.

At this moment, Guan Lan just felt bad for disappointing Lu Qing and planned to write her a song like “Dark Night” to make it up to her. However, he found that every time he started writing, it would drift off course, and by the time he sang it, it turned pink again.

It was at this moment that Guan Lan realized he was doomed.

He must have been poisoned by Zhuang Lin.

So the question is—how does Zhuang Lin’s poison spread?