The Protagonist Couple Refuses the Dating Show Shuraba - Chapter 4

The text on the phone screen was perfectly clear, yet it took Yun Qi a full thirty seconds to process what it said and the secondary implication behind it he had returned to a time before the second season of the dating show had even begun.

He had been reborn.

Yun Qi felt somewhat dazed. The sensation of death was far too vivid; his body still felt as if it were submerged in the ocean, and he could almost still feel that familiar sensation on his lips. Everything that happened within those twenty-four hours was far too real for him to dismiss as a mere dream.

He frowned and rubbed his throbbing temples. Steadying himself against the discomfort, he swiped past the notification and glanced at the date: June 27th. If his memory served him correctly, he was exactly two months away from his time of death.

The truth he had glimpsed while dying, the mysterious person who had pushed him into the water, and that kiss or perhaps, it was more accurate to call it CPR lingered in his mind.

Wait… CPR?

A cold sweat broke out over Yun Qi. He remembered Duan Xingge, who had stayed in the sea with him as he was slipping away. His previously clouded mind suddenly snapped into focus, and his limbs regained sensation, turning bone-chillingly cold.

It took a while before he recalled that Duan Xingge had long since obtained a scuba diving certification, and judging by various hints… he was the intended final choice for the protagonist, as dictated by the author and readers of that novel.

Upon this realization, Yun Qi breathed a silent sigh of relief. It was for the best that he was the one being abandoned. Once the tension left his body, the aftereffects of his near-death experience began to explode like fireworks. The hallucination-like ache and the phantom ringing of the seabed played over each other, making Yun Qi’s head feel feverishly hot. As for that instance of CPR and the intimacy born of desperation, Yun Qi dared not face it at all.

He hypnotized himself into believing that the most pressing matter was to identify the person who had pushed him overboard. If his assumptions were correct, the person who spiked his juice, the person who entered his room to steal his allergy medication, and the one who pushed him into the sea were likely one and the same.

The tangled web of information was headache-inducing.

Yun Qi closed his eyes, massaged his temples, and sat up, bracing his heavy head. After lingering for a long while, he still felt unsteady. He rose, walked to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out a glass of ice water. Just as he was about to drink, a fragment buried deep in his memory flashed by.

He stared at the empty fridge, remembering that many years ago, it had been packed full specifically, stuffed with iced sodas. At that time, Duan Xingge was only seventeen, at that rebellious age where he was constantly acting out. During his high school entrance exams, he had intentionally chosen a school close to home. Even though he could have lived on campus, he insisted on commuting, sprinting away faster than a rabbit the moment evening study hall ended.

A classmate who commuted with him had teased, “Brother Xing, the chain on your mountain bike is practically smoking. You’re always in such a rush to get home—what’s up, is your ‘sister-in-law’ waiting for you?”

At that age, especially for boys, they had no filter and loved to crack jokes. Duan Xingge hadn’t been annoyed; he just leaned on his bike and laughed, waving a hand. “Don’t talk nonsense. I’m rushing home to find my brother. You guys go on; we’ll talk about basketball on the weekend. See you!”

As his classmates watched him ride away, one of them rubbed his arm and whispered, “Niu-Niu, you have an older brother too… do you call him like that at home?”

That boy shook his head like a rattle. “No way! I don’t even use doubled characters when I call my cousin. If I called my brother like that, he’d probably kill me!”

Yet, when the weekend came and everyone finally had the chance to play basketball after a stressful week, Duan Xingge was again anxious to return home as soon as they were done. His classmates couldn’t stop him, so they let him go.

Duan Xingge was drenched in sweat after the game, wearing only a tank top. Knowing full well that a certain someone at home would scold him if they saw him like this, he intentionally carried his jacket instead of wearing it. As soon as he got home, he opened the fridge for a soda, not caring whether his stomach could take it—which always made Yun Qi’s eye twitch.

At the time, Yun Qi hadn’t realized Duan Xingge’s true intentions, viewing him simply as a rebellious child in need of discipline. He walked down the stairs and said coldly, “If you don’t want your stomach, go to the hospital and have it cut out. It’ll save us all the time and process.”

Duan Xingge, who was halfway through a soda, choked so hard at the sound of his voice he nearly died. Seeing that his reaction didn’t look faked, Yun Qi frowned and walked over with a hint of concern. “I told you to”

Before he could finish, Duan Xingge took the initiative, reaching out to hook his arm around Yun Qi’s neck. After coughing a few times and clearing his throat, he acted spoiled. “I was wrong, Brother. It’s the last time, I promise.”

Yun Qi’s remaining words were stuck in his throat. After three seconds of silence, he nodded reluctantly. “…Last time.”

Duan Xingge flashed a smile, leaned in, and planted a kiss on his cheek. Yun Qi froze, a strange ripple passing through him like an electric shock. He immediately tried to pull Duan Xingge’s hand away, but the younger man gripped his wrist, tilted his head, and asked curiously, “Brother, why do you wear gloves even at home?”

Yun Qi’s scalp tingled. He maintained a cold, composed expression and said, “To guard against a dog like you who comes close while covered in sweat. Go take a shower.”

Duan Xingge watched him for a few seconds, smiled, released his wrist, set down the soda, and headed to the bathroom.

The phone notification sound pulled Yun Qi out of his memories. He took a sip of the ice water, letting the coldness travel through him. Only after his brain had thoroughly cooled did he look at the screen.

His secretary had sent an advertisement video from the publicity department for his final approval. The content was fine, but it reminded him of something. He had no leads on the culprit, so he might as well start with the live stream recordings; perhaps he could glean some clues.

However, the production team took copyright very seriously. Yun Qi scoured the video platforms and only found a few snippets; there was no official full recording. Asking the producers directly was an option, but the ability to tamper with his juice and access his room suggested the culprit was likely within the production team. To avoid alerting them, Yun Qi sat on the sofa with his ice water and began scrolling through the clips.

Most people willing to spend the effort to record and edit these snippets, risking copyright issues, were “shippers” (fan couple supporters) and most of these, unsurprisingly, were fans of Ming Jiao’s pairings. Though, it would be more accurate to call them fans of the “crowd-pleasing heartthrob.” Yun Qi had even seen the same blogger post snippets under two different shipping tags for Ming Jiao. They didn’t seem to care who the other person in the pairing was, as long as they doted on Ming Jiao.

These videos were filled with clips of Yun Qi himself. Seeing his past self on screen—even though less than a month had passed in reality—gave him an ethereal, lifetime-away feeling.

Among all of Ming Jiao’s pairings, the “Xing-Jiao” (Duan Xingge/Ming Jiao) and “Yun-Jiao” (Yun Qi/Ming Jiao) shippers were in a league of their own. While “Yun-Jiao” trailed behind “Xing-Jiao,” their content production was just as fast and just as popular.

It was just that these two pairings often appeared together, as netizens seemed to love the “clash of rivals” dynamic. For instance, in a three-minute “Yun-Jiao” clip, just because Duan Xingge appeared in the frame for a few seconds while Yun Qi was handing a coat to Ming Jiao, the clip garnered tens of thousands of likes and reposts.

The comment section was ecstatic:

“Damn, President Yun is usually so cold, but he just gave away his coat like that this must be love at first sight!”

“Oh my, the look on Xing’s face when Yun gave the coat to Jiao-bao is priceless, hahaha!”

“Your Xing is clearly jealous!”

“I’ve stumbled upon a goldmine of a rivalry; Jiao-mommy is happy again, who gets it?”

Yun Qi didn’t care about the comments, but watching the video reminded him of his first meeting with Ming Jiao in early spring. Ming Jiao had been wearing incredibly thin clothing in the chilly weather and shivered upon meeting him. After a brief conversation, he naturally and adorably asked for Yun Qi’s coat. When Ming Jiao smiled, his dimples appearing, it suddenly reminded Yun Qi of someone else, and by the time he regained his senses, he had already handed the coat over. He hadn’t noticed at the time that Duan Xingge had been throwing such unpleasant looks his way.

However, no matter how popular “Yun-Jiao” was, it couldn’t compare to the top pairing in the circle. The “Xing-Jiao” tag had significantly more engagement, higher-quality snippets, and far more detailed analytical posts. Of course, they shared one similarity: videos that tagged both pairs were the most popular, as both circles enjoyed the “rivalry” aspect.

In the most popular “Xing-Jiao” clip, the scenario was similar: Duan Xingge handed Ming Jiao a coffee, and upon receiving a positive response, chose a soda for himself from the remaining options. The comment section was emboldened:

“Xing doesn’t like carbonated drinks, does he? Doesn’t he love black coffee? There are photos of him leaving half-finished colas aside and morning photos of him on set with black coffee.”

“He gave his coffee to Jiao-bao, he loves him so much!”

“He interrupts every time President Yun tries to talk to Jiao. The brain-dead Xing-Yun shippers call it ‘sweet,’ but it’s clearly jealousy!”

“Damn, when Xing handed over the coffee, President Yun looked like he was ready to kill. Is the ‘brotherly rivalry’ this terrifying?”

Yun Qi found the last comment absurd, but upon watching the video, his expression was indeed cold and foul-tempered. He opened his eyes wide in disbelief; he couldn’t believe that after so many years of estrangement, he still reflexively made a sour face whenever he saw Duan Xingge drinking soda.

…That’s so embarrassing.

In reality, Yun Qi knew that Duan Xingge hated coffee and tea; he was a loyal fan of “junk food” like cola and Sprite. Duan Xingge had excellent sleep quality but couldn’t sleep if he touched tea or coffee. He had never touched them in school, confident he could get into a top university without sacrificing sleep for study.

But after entering the real world, he realized how difficult work was. As a known energy booster, black coffee had become a habit for Duan Xingge after his debut. But he truly didn’t like it. Once, after they had fallen out and happened to meet at a banquet, a drunk Duan Xingge had hugged Yun Qi and whispered, “Brother… I’m so tired. I don’t like coffee, I don’t like waking up early, starting a business is so annoying… won’t you take me home?”

Yun Qi couldn’t clearly remember the dating show from a few months ago, yet these memories from years prior caused his mind to wander again. He took a sip of ice water—the ice had half-melted—and inadvertently glanced at the comments, noticing a remarkably long thread.

Yun Qi hadn’t really used Weibo before; his inspiration for jewelry design didn’t overlap with these public media tools. Duan Xingge had tried to talk to him about market saturation, but Yun Qi hadn’t cared. Only after their fallout and Duan Xingge’s debut did Yun Qi “accidentally” download Weibo, “accidentally” follow the tag, and get bombarded by industry jargon.

Thanks to that experience, he could at least understand the arguments. It started with a user timidly commenting under the coffee-handover clip: “Um, Xing doesn’t seem to like coffee… President Yun likes tea quite a bit, actually.”

This truth was like a drop of water in a hot pan of oil. The response thread had nearly a hundred replies, almost all sarcastic:

“Checking your profile… the composition is accurate.”

“Xing-Yun sister, since you’re already shipping Xing-Yun, I’ll let it go.”

“Just stay in the toilet, ‘toilet-content’ sister [sweat].”

“Xing-Jiao is truly trending; forget the rest. In short, Xing-Yun sister, do you not have a home that you have to come and troll someone else’s?”

“A joke for the ‘cult’ shippers: they really don’t have a home; does anyone not know the Xing-Yun tag square was slaughtered?”

Yun Qi had only smiled at the earlier comments, but the filth under this one made him frown. Seeing those people attacking the girl’s profile, he clicked on it. Her profile was sparse, mostly just retweets—mostly shipping edits of him and Duan Xingge. Pathetically, her posts had a fraction of the likes and comments compared to the other two videos.

After finishing the clips, Yun Qi still found no clues regarding the culprit.

After much thought, he took the awkward step of following the shipping tags from the clips into the square, hypnotizing himself that he was just looking for clues.

After the first season, there were few fans left. Yun Qi expected the square to be a wasteland, but to his surprise, it was entirely filled with fan-fiction depicting their rivalry over Ming Jiao, with only a few meager fan-fictions buried in the cracks.

The square had been completely occupied by Ming Jiao’s shipping fans.

Yun Qi felt a complicated mix of emotions. After pausing for a long time, just as he was about to exit, he saw a new reply under the flaming argument thread—posted by the same “Xing-Jiao” analyst: “Laughing to death. If you were ‘Yun-Jiao’ shippers being bold, I wouldn’t say anything, since Jiao-mommy’s family is family. But you… a Xing-Yun shipper? Where does your confidence come from?

“Hundreds of hours of live footage in Season 1, and you can’t even edit ten minutes of ‘sugar.’ The parties involved are practically enemies now, and you’re still shipping them? Fine, ship as much as you want. Season 2 is starting soon; let’s see how you spin your brainwashing lies.”

Perhaps finding the paragraph insufficient, the user added an impassioned closing statement:

“If they could actually be together, I’d eat my screen!”