TBSDRA 20: You Two Are Living Together?

…

The night of the wrap party, everyone stayed out late and had a blast.

In the middle of the night, Xu Xishuang was woken up by the ruckus they made returning to the hotel—sounding like ghosts wailing and wolves howling. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling for a while, then groped for his phone by the pillow and started scrolling through Weibo to lull himself back to sleep. He didn’t have to get up early the next day anyway.

The official account for their film had already posted the wrap photos. Xu Xishuang skimmed through the comments and saw that most of them were from Yan Yushan’s fans, who were harmoniously expressing their excitement for the movie and hoping it would hit theaters soon.

The official account had also released a bit of behind-the-scenes footage. Xu Xishuang clicked on it and saw that it featured the makeup artist working on him and Chi Siyuan. He didn’t finish watching, he just closed the video and moved on to scroll other posts.

Currently, the hottest topic on Weibo was a new dating reality show called Can I Like You?

It was a celebrity-observed dating show featuring regular people. There were eight non-celebrity participants in total, three resident celebrity guests, and one or two guest celebrities each episode.

The celebrities would sit in a studio and watch livestreamed footage of four men and four women at a resort. They could guess which pairs might end up together and comment on the participants’ words and actions during their interactions. Among the resident celebrities, Bai Keke had gone viral for her sharp and witty commentary.

Xu Xishuang wasn’t particularly interested in these kinds of shows. The so-called “regular people” often weren’t that regular, the relationships always had some element of performance, and once the show ended, the couples usually went their separate ways. 

It was just like CP marketing in the entertainment industry—after the performance ends, sometimes they even turn on each other, and the only ones who suffer are the fans who genuinely shipped them.

But…

Xu Xishuang’s eyes fell on the other two resident guests. One was a rising actress named Yan Yao. She had formal acting training, decent acting chops, and some representative work. However, she was always quiet on the show, making her the least noticeable presence among the cast.

The other was a celebrity from the same boy group as Chi Siyuan. Xu Xishuang couldn’t remember the name of the group, but he knew it was the last male idol group formed through domestic talent shows.

There was always a strange kind of nostalgia for both the first and the last of something, so this particular group was very popular. The members who were still active in the industry all had pretty good resources.

This male celebrity was named Tang Min. Xu Xishuang remembered that in the original novel, he was a villain. After gaining a bit of fame post-debut, he secretly slept with fans and frequently hired paid commenters to smear competing celebrities. Later in the story, he used his sugar daddy’s connections to snatch a role that originally belonged to Chi Siyuan. Of course, Yan Yushan eventually helped Chi Siyuan get it back.

Tang Min was very active on the dating show, often making considerate, pro-women comments that won him a lot of female fans and public favor. Xu Xishuang knew from the original plot that Tang Min was a deeply misogynistic gay man. His alt account was filled with vile insults toward women.

Later, Yan Yushan had someone dig up this alt account and exposed it publicly, and Tang Min was chased out of the entertainment industry in disgrace.

To spare his own eyes, Xu Xishuang avoided watching any clips with Tang Min and instead browsed a few random fan edits. That’s when he noticed a new post from the alt account he’d followed using his side account: the one named 【I Can Stay Single But My CP Must Go Three Days and Three Nights.】

Since following this account, Xu Xishuang had noticed that the user would post edited CP or “crackship” videos every few days. Basically, if there was a good-looking male celebrity in the industry, they had probably been edited by her at some point but oddly enough, she had never made a video of Chi Siyuan and Yan Yushan. Instead, Xu Xishuang often saw himself paired with other male celebrities, especially Yan Yushan.

Xu Xishuang couldn’t quite understand it.

He had to admit, her edits were entertaining. This time, it was another CP edit of him and Yan Yushan. Xu Xishuang hesitated for a moment, then clicked it open.

The footage was new—fresh behind-the-scenes material from the Bitter Summer set. In the video, only he was shown getting his makeup done. Chi Siyuan had been completely edited out. Xu Xishuang watched for a few seconds, then noticed a pair of hands enter the frame—holding a soft makeup brush, gently brushing along the back of his neck.

Xu Xishuang went quiet for a couple of seconds, then went back to rewatch the video posted by the Bitter Summer official account. This time, he watched it carefully and confirmed that only he and Chi Siyuan’s faces appeared. Yan Yushan’s hands were only on screen for maybe ten seconds.

So… these netizens had X-ray vision or something? Human-feature recognition software? Just from a pair of hands, they could tell it was Yan Yushan??

Xu Xishuang was genuinely impressed. He was just about to close the video and read the comments when the screen suddenly changed.

The editor zoomed in on Yan Yushan’s hands, highlighting his long, elegant fingers. Then they spliced in clips from other dramas where Yan Yushan’s hands appeared, touching things like rose petals or tissue paper.

On their own, these clips weren’t suggestive but the video editor had added sultry, romantic background music and for some reason, they inserted a looped audio of Yan Yushan’s heavy breathing. The vibe turned… seriously inappropriate.

Xu Xishuang: …

He silently opened the comments. Sure enough, it was flooded with things like:

【My underwear just took off】

【Am I even allowed to be watching this??】

【Judging by that breathing, they did it at least eight times tonight】

【That flower… hehe… he’s touching his wife’s flower…】

The video’s creator 【I Can Stay Single But My CP Must Go Three Days and Three Nights】 posted a soul-searching question:

【With a professional makeup artist present, why did Director Yan insist on doing Xu Xishuang’s neck makeup himself?】

Others replied with:

【Because love!】

【Because possessiveness!】

【Because only he is allowed to touch his wife’s neck—no one else!】

Xu Xishuang was genuinely amazed by how far these netizens could stretch their imaginations. He couldn’t exactly explain that the reason Yan Yushan had done his neck makeup himself was to cover up the bite marks he’d left—so no one else would see.

…That just made it worse!!

Xu Xishuang slammed his phone face-down onto the pillow, shut his eyes, and forced himself to sleep.

As expected, he woke up late the next morning. Most of the crew had already left, and Yan Yushan had flown out early for an event. Xu Xishuang sluggishly walked out of his room but still managed to catch his flight.

Yan Yushan had already arranged housing for him and handed him the key. Once they landed, Xu Xishuang and Xiao Wang headed straight to the address.

True to his lavish style, Yan Yushan had given him a whole villa. Even though Xu Xishuang’s original family had villas—several, in fact—after two straight months of hotel life, stepping into such a beautiful house still gave him a jolt of excitement.

The interior was already cleaned and furnished. Xu Xishuang picked a room on the second floor, dropped off his luggage, sent Yan Yushan a message to say he’d arrived, and went downstairs. He glanced at Xiao Wang, who was busy in the kitchen, then casually grabbed an apple from the fridge, flopped onto the couch, and started watching a popular drama.

The drama was one of Yan Yushan’s past works, a historical political series. He played the male lead but didn’t have a romance subplot. His character was a young general burdened with a family vendetta. To clear his father’s name, who had been falsely accused of treason, he joined forces with the Fourth Prince to take on the Crown Prince.

The historical costume emphasized Yan Yushan’s refined bone structure, making him another fan-favorite “visual role.” The show had solid reviews online, no forced dumb plot twists, and the political intrigue was tense and layered.

Xu Xishuang got so absorbed that he didn’t snap out of it until the episode ended and commercials began. Still munching on the last of his apple, he idly opened Weibo again.

The algorithm quickly pushed him to a post related to the show. The blogger—clearly a Yan Yushan fan—had compiled all of his works since debut and pointed out that Yan Yushan rarely played roles with romantic arcs, and even when he did, the romance was subtle. To date, he hadn’t filmed a single intimate scene.

Xu Xishuang silently commented in his heart: No wonder he’s still a virgin.

Just as he was scrolling, a loud revving noise suddenly came from outside—it sounded like the engine of a flashy sports car. Xu Xishuang walked to the window curiously, looked outside, and saw a man in sunglasses climbing out of a gaudy car while heading towards the villa.

Jiang Yangze took off his sunglasses as he approached the house and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Yan-ge! ge! Yan Yushan!”

“Yan Yushan’s not here,” Xu Xishuang opened the window and called out to Jiang Yangze, who was already on the lawn.

Xu Xishuang had already recognized him—this was Yan Yushan’s friend, the guy who had shown up with him at the hospital that morning. In the novel, he was the ultimate wingman, Jiang Yangze.

With a plop, Jiang Yangze’s sunglasses dropped to the ground.

He stared wide-eyed and pointed at Xu Xishuang, voice trembling, “You—you’re Xu Xishuang, right?!”

“Yes, I am,” Xu Xishuang replied, a bit confused. Jiang Yangze hadn’t been this shocked the first time they met.

“You and Yan-ge are already together?!” Jiang Yangze shouted in disbelief. “You guys—you’re already living together?!”

Xu Xishuang quickly denied it, “No, no, it’s not like that. You’re reading too much into it.”

Something about Jiang Yangze’s reaction made Xu Xishuang suspicious. He asked, “Does Yan Yushan stay here often?”

Wasn’t this supposed to be a spare house?

“Yeah!” Jiang Yangze nodded furiously. “Yan-ge loves this house! He bought it with the very first paycheck he got after joining the industry. It means a lot to him.”