Chapter 42: You Feel Sorry for Me

Chapter 42: You Care About Me

Early the next morning, the live broadcast resumed, and the production crew waited outside the door, ready to begin filming. However, Zhou Yun kept staring suspiciously at Chu Yan, making the already guilty Chu Yan feel even more on edge.

"What are you looking at?"

"Were there mosquitoes last night? How’d you get so many bites?"

Zhou Yun finally voiced his confusion. The production team had placed plenty of mosquito repellents in the rooms and even lit two mosquito coils to prevent bites. He hadn’t been bitten at all, so he was puzzled—why did Chu Yan, who shared the same bed with him, have so many marks?

"Nope, none." Chu Yan, shifty-eyed, avoided eye contact, his mind filled with images of being pinned against a tree and devoured in kisses by someone the night before.

Zhou Yun pointed at the obvious marks on his neck. "Here, and here, on your collarbone, and—damn, behind your ear too. That mosquito must’ve been vicious."

"Yeah… tell me about it, really vicious," Chu Yan muttered, so embarrassed he wanted the ground to swallow him. He couldn’t meet Zhou Yun’s innocent, wide-eyed stare.

At first, that guy had only kissed his lips, but later, he’d grown bolder, nibbling at his neck and getting increasingly out of control.

He was treating his employer like a personal benefactor!

Fortunately, Chu Yan still had some boundaries and had stopped the overzealous bodyguard before things went too far.

"Huh? Xiao Yan Yan, are you allergic to something?" Zhou Yun suddenly looked at him with concern. "Your lips are swollen too."

*Allergic my ass. Thanks, really, for pointing that out.*

"No, I just didn’t sleep well, so they’re a bit puffy." Chu Yan just wanted to end this conversation as quickly as possible.

"Come on, Second Young Master, let's go, everyone’s waiting for us."

Luckily, the show didn’t allow guests to bring assistants, so everyone had to handle their own clothing, food, and lodging. Chu Yan had some makeup in his bag and quickly used concealer to cover the marks on his neck.

By the time Chu Yan and Zhou Yun arrived at the gathering spot, the other four guests were already there. After a quick breakfast provided by the production team, filming officially began.

Standing in front of the camera, Chu Yan instinctively searched for a familiar figure. Soon, his gaze locked onto a man in black clothes and a black cap standing at the very back of the crowd.

Even among dozens of staff members, Chu Yan spotted him immediately—tall, with an imposing presence, his face mostly hidden under the low brim of his cap, yet his aura was impossible to ignore.

Even without showing his face, he stood out like a sore thumb.

Suddenly, a deep sense of safety washed over Chu Yan.

At that moment, the man slightly raised his head, and their eyes met across the crowd.

*With him here, I feel safe,* Chu Yan thought.

Once all the guests had gathered, the director announced that the online voting channel was now open.

From this moment on, viewers could vote for their favorite guests. The results would be announced at the end of filming.

Now, it was time for the day’s challenge—finding hidden items to earn points.

The production team had hidden objects marked with the show’s logo throughout the village. They could be anywhere—inside villagers’ homes, vegetable patches, ditches—anywhere. The guests had two hours to find as many marked items as possible.

Each item found would earn one point, and accumulating five points would grant the guest the right to answer a question.

The questions were curated from the top-voted ones online, with each guest assigned different questions.

For disgraced celebrities, the most pressing questions from netizens were naturally the harshest criticisms. Getting the chance to answer meant they could address these issues in front of millions of live viewers—an opportunity to clear their names.

Basically, this was a chance at redemption.

This was why disgraced celebrities were willing to risk tenfold contract penalties, or even complete ruin, to join *Rebirth Challenge*.

The two wealthy young masters who had wound up on the show didn’t care much, but the other three guests subconsciously balled their fists. Lu Zhaoyang, usually silent, showed rare excitement on his face, his eyes alight with urgency. Li Wenzhang also looked eager.

This was only the first episode. To ratchet up the drama and ensure future episodes remained engaging, the production team wouldn’t make the challenge too easy.

Chu Yan had expected the item hunt to be difficult, but he hadn’t anticipated it would be *this* freaking hard.

After an hour, all he’d found was a busted broom.

He searched house after house, then moved to vegetable gardens, fields, even pigsties and cow pens—yet after an hour, he’d only earned one point.

*Well, as the saying goes, spreading lies comes easy, but setting the record straight takes ages.*

Clearing your name was brutal.

However, while searching, Chu Yan noticed something strange—the villagers seemed to grow a lot of *poppies*.

Yes, *those* poppies. You know, the illegal kind.

In the past, some rural households grew them as vegetables—young leaves could be chopped and fried with eggs, dried for medicinal use, or added as seasoning for stewed meat.

Chu Yan had seen them before. His grandmother had grown them when he was a child, but later, strict bans were enforced. Getting busted meant heavy fines or even jail time—no exceptions. Not a single plant could be grown.

Yet in this village, every household had a small patch in their gardens, and many even grew them in flower beds like common herbs like chives or garlic sprouts.

It was super weird.

Was it because this village was too remote for the laws to reach? Or was this fictional world different from reality, with looser restrictions on poppies?

Both possibilities made sense, so despite his confusion, Chu Yan kept his mouth shut.

Perhaps distracted by these musings, Chu Yan wandered further into the mountains behind the village—hundreds of meters beyond the rundown house where he’d stayed the night.

Logically, the production team wouldn’t hide items so far from the village. But the path leading into the mountains was unusually wide, and the further he went, the smoother the dirt road became, polished by frequent foot traffic. Before he knew it, he’d ventured several hundred meters in.

To his surprise, deep in the mountains, there was something unexpected—a towering cliff, its perimeter enclosed by a stark, jarring concrete wall.

The wall looked completely out of place, giving the entire cliff a creepy vibe.

"Damn, where the hell have we stumbled into?" Chu Yan’s instincts told him they shouldn’t be here.

"Is this some kind of tourist spot?" the cameraman asked, equally puzzled. "But the production team didn’t mention this place during their research."

Otherwise, they definitely would’ve set a challenge here.

Chu Yan shook his head. Even if it was a developing tourist area, it would’ve shown up on maps. But before surrendering his phone, he’d checked—there was no such location marked.

Somehow, Chu Yan had a strange and bad vibe about this place.

"Let's get out of here."

"Alright, Teacher Chu."

This might involve the village's secrets, and they were currently on their territory. If they could avoid trouble, they absolutely should.

But it was already too late. Just as the two turned to leave, a guarded voice suddenly called out from behind the wall.

"Who's there? Is that you, Old Fourth?"

The abrupt voice startled both Chu Yan and the cameraman. At that very moment, when no response came, the person inside began walking toward the gate.

In the distance, there was an iron door.

The sound of the iron door opening took on a creepy, supernatural edge in the silent and unsettling depths of the mountain forest. Caught off guard, Chu Yan and the cameraman froze stiff, too terrified to move.

Instinct told Chu Yan they couldn’t be discovered, but his mind went blank for only a few seconds before the sound of the door opening reached them.

"Run!"

Chu Yan grabbed the cameraman and took off running.

Yet, the moment Chu Yan turned, a powerful force suddenly seized his wrist, and in the next instant, both he and the cameraman were pulled into the roadside bushes.

"Mmf—"

Chu Yan crashed into a broad, solid chest, and his mouth was immediately covered.

His pulse still pounding, his entire body tense, Chu Yan finally recognized the person holding him the next second.

"What are you doing here?"

Unable to hide the delight in his eyes, Chu Yan lowered his voice and gazed at the man whose face was hidden beneath a cap and mask. All his tension melted away the moment he saw him, and he relaxed completely.

"I'm your bodyguard. When the boss is in trouble, the bodyguard naturally has to come."

Fu Junhang leaned close to whisper in his ear. Chu Yan’s eyes sparkled as he looked at him, his image filling them completely.

Chu Yan grinned. "Worth every penny."

He prodded the man’s chest. "Nice work. I’ll reward you later."

"Thank you, boss."

The two whispered back and forth.

Fu Junhang’s large hand still covered Chu Yan’s mouth. As Chu Yan moved his lips, they tickled against his palm, making Fu Junhang’s heart flutter.

Unable to resist, Fu Junhang pinched Chu Yan’s cheek affectionately. It was soft and pliant, and his lips puckered like a pufferfish's.

Too cute for words.

If the situation were different, Fu Junhang would have kissed him right then.

But the two whispering seemed to have forgotten something.

The cameraman, who had also been dragged into the bushes by Fu Junhang, didn’t have a sturdy cushion to land on. He was flung straight into the prickly bushes.

And damn it—whatever these plants were, they had thorns.

The cameraman yelped in pain, struggling to sit up, only to see Chu Yan being held by a man, the two making eyes at each other.

"Chu—mmph!"

Before he could speak, the cameraman who'd just gotten up was shoved back down by Fu Junhang.

Damn it, what had he done to deserve this?

The moment Fu Junhang turned his gaze away from Chu Yan, all the tenderness in his eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, deadly sharpness.

The cameraman went rigid with fear.

Fu Junhang wore a cap and mask, revealing only his eyes—but that single glance was enough to make the cameraman feel as though the Grim Reaper himself had locked onto him. He froze, unable to make a single sound.

Right then, footsteps outside the bushes gradually faded away, and soon after, the opened iron door was shut again.

The person had left. They hadn’t been discovered.

Only then did Chu Yan’s stiff body relax. He pulled Fu Junhang’s hand away from his mouth.

"What’s going on here? It feels really weird, all hush-hush."

Something dark flickered in Fu Junhang’s deep eyes, but he didn’t explain further to Chu Yan. Instead, he gave Chu Yan’s hair a reassuring ruffle.

"It’s fine. Seems like the village’s off-limits area. Good thing you didn’t barge in recklessly."

Indeed, his young charge was sharp. If they had actually trespassed, the consequences could have been dire.

"Then let’s get out of here quickly."

Fu Junhang didn’t hesitate to take Chu Yan’s hand, though as they stepped out, he fixed the cameraman with a warning look.

The cameraman was frozen in terror. What kind of devil was this man, with such a terrifying aura? It felt like a single look from him could kill. His icy aura felt physical, and the cameraman, overwhelmed by fear, couldn’t summon even a hint of resistance.

Also… had he accidentally uncovered some juicy gossip? Was this guy Chu Yan’s boyfriend? But hadn’t the rumors said Chu Yan had a thing for the eldest young master of the Fu family?

Showbiz rumors—you could never tell what was true.

Unaware of the cameraman’s wild theories, Chu Yan was still rattled after running out. He didn’t even notice his hand being held, but soon the cameraman caught up to them, in a panic.

"Teacher Chu, there’s—there’s no signal here. We lost connection earlier."

In the earlier tension, they hadn’t noticed, but the cameraman now realized their livestream had cut out long ago. There was absolutely no signal in this area.

Fu Junhang’s face grew serious, his grip on Chu Yan’s hand tightening.

Once they were fully out of the mountain forest, the cameraman was about to reconnect to the livestream, but Fu Junhang stopped him with a look. Just then, the director called to ask why they'd disconnected, so he focused on explaining the situation first.

Chu Yan glanced at Fu Junhang in confusion. "What’s wrong?"

Fu Junhang put on a pout. "My back hurts."

"Huh? What happened?"

Chu Yan grew even more puzzled. He quickly turned Fu Junhang around to check his back but couldn't see anything wrong.

"There were so many thorns in those bushes earlier. When I yanked you in, I got scraped up. Ow."

The phone-calling cameraman, pricked all over, went completely still in shock: "Hey hey hey, someone feed me some peanuts, quick!!!"

Getting stabbed once wasn't bad enough—he got up only to be stepped on and stabbed again.

Are you serious?

Only then did Chu Yan remember that the bushes indeed had thorns. But when he was pulled in, he was immediately pulled into the man's embrace, with Fu Junhang acting as his living shield, shielding him completely from any pricks.

Hearing this, Chu Yan didn't notice Fu Junhang's deliberate martyr act—all he felt was worry and an overwhelming wave of gratitude.

"Let me see."

Chu Yan quickly signaled the cameraman to wait before restarting the livestream while he pulled Fu Junhang aside to inspect him.

In seconds, Chu Yan removed the man's jacket, revealing a military-green sleeveless shirt underneath. The perfectly toned muscles caught Chu Yan's eye, the broad chest and back making his face flush with an inexplicable sensation, and his mouth went dry. Not daring to look further, he hurriedly tugged at the man to examine his back.

But—"There aren't any thorns."

The jacket's material was top-notch—a specialized combat uniform, military-grade, that even knives would have trouble piercing, let alone a few thorns. But...

"Maybe they fell off when we got out," Fu Junhang took Chu Yan's hand. "It's fine. I'm built tough, a few pricks won't matter as long as you weren't hurt."

Cameraman: "Hey hey hey, feed me peanuts!!!"

Chu Yan, however, couldn't look away—he noticed what seemed like an injury on the man's arm, wrapped in bandages with faint bloodstains seeping through.

His expression darkened. "How did you get hurt? Why didn't you tell me last night?"

Fu Junhang, acting like it was nothing, casually put his clothes back on. "Just a scratch. Worried about me?"

"Pfft, yeah right, like I care."

Actions speak louder than words.

Got what he wanted, Fu Junhang smirked slightly. Just then, the director called everyone to meet up at the main house—time was up.

"Go ahead. I've got your back."

"Mm."

Chu Yan didn't press further. The moment he and the cameraman left, the affection in Fu Junhang's eyes froze over. He sent Jiang Lvshen a location pin, followed by two words:

"Come now."

On the other end, Captain Jiang, who had just returned from abroad, was baffled. "What's going on? Barely had time to sit down yet."

Fu Junhang grinned. "Want me to give you a first-class commendation?"

"For real?!"

Jiang Lvshen shot up from his seat, his messy hair, scruffy beard, and bloodshot eyes betraying his exhaustion—yet he was electrified with excitement.

A first-class merit—this was the real deal.

"Believe it or not."

"Wait for me!"