Chapter 50: Third Master’s Reflection

Chapter 50: Third Master's Reflection

Little Sugar Daddy: Where did you run off to?

Little Sugar Daddy: Sneaky dog peeking.jpg

Little Sugar Daddy: Did your phone fall into the toilet?

Little Sugar Daddy: No reply = you're fired.

Little Sugar Daddy: Three days without a reply means automatic termination of employment.

Little Sugar Daddy: Consider this your termination notice—you’re unemployed.

Fu Junhang chuckled. Classic his little boss—even sending messages was this adorable, even when angry.

"Third Master, it’s time to change your dressing."

Dr. Qi hovered respectfully nearby. He was Fu Junhang’s personal physician.

Fu Junhang merely shifted slightly to expose his waist, his eyes never leaving his phone.

He was debating how to reply to the little fool.

As the doctor slowly unwrapped the bandage, the grisly wound came into view.

Fu Junhang’s waist looked as though it had been pierced by something sharp—the wound was deep, surrounded by inflamed, red swelling. It was the kind of wound that’d make anyone wince, yet Fu Junhang acted as if nothing was wrong.

Both Dr. Qi and Zhu Ye were stunned. After all, it had been years since Third Master had suffered such a severe injury. What shocked them even more was that this had happened domestically.

It was absurd. Completely insane.

In truth, Fu Junhang himself found it absurd.

That day, when Fu Junhang realized Chu Yan might be in danger, his mind went blank for a brief moment. He knew all too well how ruthless drug dealers could be. By the time he regained his senses, he was already bolting toward the rundown shack.

The clandestine drug operation was hidden in a cave along the cliff face. To prevent accidental discovery, the surrounding woods were rigged with traps—scattered traps, hunting pits over two meters deep…

Logically, Fu Junhang shouldn’t have fallen for such crude traps, but his concern messed with his head.

At the time, his mind was entirely hyper-focused on Chu Yan. Frantic and reckless, he didn’t pay attention to his surroundings—until he stepped into a pit over two meters deep.

The pit was lined with sharpened wooden spikes. Had an ordinary person fallen in, they would’ve been impaled to death. Fu Junhang reacted swiftly, but even so, a stake still gored his side.

Yet he couldn’t afford to care. He fought his way through, finally rescuing Chu Yan in time.

In truth, the metallic tang of blood Chu Yan had smelled that night didn’t belong to the villagers—it came from Fu Junhang’s waist. But he remained expressionless throughout, and with the darkness obscuring details, Chu Yan never noticed anything amiss.

Fu Junhang had considered playing the pity card to elicit sympathy from Chu Yan, but he feared his own unhinged behavior might scare him away. So, in the end, he chose to avoid the topic.

The wound became infected due to neglected treatment, and Fu Junhang developed a high fever, blacking out for two full days—which was why he missed Chu Yan’s messages.

Wang XX: Panda sliding on knees.jpg

Chu Yan had just returned to the hotel when he received Fu Junhang’s message. He didn’t know it had taken Fu Junhang five minutes of searching to find this meme.

In his twenty-nine years of life, Fu Junhang had never meme’d before—until now, with Chu Yan. Unfortunately, he still wasn’t very skilled at it.

Wang XX: Dog kneeling on a keyboard.jpg

Wang XX: "Sorry, boss! I was wrong!"

Chu Yan thought back to that night—the ruthless, decisive kicks Fu Junhang had delivered to those four men in the darkness. Though he couldn’t see his expression then, it was impossible to reconcile that image with the man now sending him memes of a dog kneeling on a keyboard. The whiplash was real.

And yet, inexplicably, a fuzzy warmth spread in his chest.

Chu Yan: "What’d you do wrong?"

What was he wrong about?

Fu Junhang frowned, mulling over.

Wrong for leaving him alone that night. Wrong for failing to prevent the danger in time. Wrong for letting him, as his bodyguard, fall into the hands of criminals. What else?

Fu Junhang went full introspection mode.

His expression, however, spooked Dr. Qi, who thought he’d hurt him while applying the medicine.

"Apologies, Third Master. Did I press too hard? Does it hurt?"

Bah, what nonsense! Since when did Third Master fear pain? This was the same man who’d pulled bullets out with his bare hands without anesthesia—since when did he care about pain?

Fu Junhang frowned, eyeing Dr. Qi and Zhu Ye.

Just as he was trying to figure out how to reply in a way that flexed his skills (while playing this off as a one-time thing) and also guilt-tripped the brat enough to avoid being fired, Chu Yan spoke again.

Chu Yan: "Captain Jiang told me you were injured. How are you now? Feeling better? Is it serious?"

Fu Junhang’s heart felt like it had been poked by something fluffy—tingly and warm. His lips twitched into a grin before he could stop them.

So the little fool cared this much about him.

Meanwhile, the two men who’d just been subjected to his glance felt an inexplicable chill down their spines.

As the saying went: When Third Master smiles, someone’s about to get wrecked.

So… what was going on with the boss now? Who was about to suffer?

Only Zhu Ye, his personal assistant, could catch on to the truth from that familiar smile.

No doubt about it—this weirdly out-of-character vibe of the boss was probably related to that young master.

Fu Junhang sent Chu Yan a voice note directly.

"Just a flesh wound. Don’t listen to Old Jiang’s nonsense—he’s just trying to scare you."

"Little Sugar Daddy, are you worried about me?"

Dr. Qi’s hands shook like a leaf as he bandaged the wound. You call this a scratch?!

Any deeper and your intestines would’ve been shish-kebabed!

Hearing how energetic and even smug Fu Junhang sounded, Chu Yan figured he was fine.

"Worried about you? As if."

"I was afraid you’d kill someone and land your ass in jail!"

Fu Junhang's smile froze abruptly.

So he was still spooked from that night, and the act of playing the victim he was about to perform was nipped in the bud before it could even begin.

Forget it, he couldn’t afford to be too hasty.

In the end, Fu Junhang asked Chu Yan for a few days off, claiming he had personal matters to attend to.

With a week left before filming the second episode, Chu Yan finally had time to check the online firestorm.

Since the live broadcast went viral that day, the trending topics had been a complete bloodbath.

First was Xu Meng’s team, leveraging the publicity to launch a PR campaign rehabilitating her image. However, upon realizing that her candid, laid-back persona—once seen as half-hearted—had unexpectedly gained public approval, they quickly shifted strategy to heavily promote her authentic self.

Surprisingly, this approach paid off tremendously, not only repairing her reputation from recent years but also smoothly transitioning her from a phony, uptight image. Both the audience and Xu Meng herself were delighted.

Still, mere clarifications couldn’t fully resolve the slander; they needed to identify the mastermind behind it.

Then there was Wang Mingyu, whose career collapsed overnight.

Since Fu Zeyu was the one who exposed him, Wang Mingyu lost any chance to defend himself. Fu Zeyu even publicly liked several of Wang Mingyu’s negative trending topics and declared that wherever he went, Wang Mingyu would never be welcome.

This was essentially a career death sentence.

No one dared to speak up for Wang Mingyu anymore—not even his backers, who all went into hiding.

Worse yet, actors, directors, and assistants who had worked with him came forward one after another, piling on with damning accounts.

His acting was notoriously poor; he was dubbed in nearly every drama, couldn’t even be bothered to memorize lines, and resorted to mouthing "12345" instead of actual dialogue on set. He treated assistants like slaves, verbally and physically abusing them, earning a reputation as the industry’s biggest diva. He scorned fans’ gifts as cheap and threw them in the trash, while online he posted sentimental messages to fans—only to curse them behind their backs.

The more he was exposed, the harder he fell. Fans shifted from defending him to shock, then abandonment—even turning against him.

In just days, a so-called top-tier idol was completely cancelled and erased.

Then there was Li Wenzhang. The live broadcast earned him a wave of new fans, and his team’s marketing was flawless. Not only did his reputation reverse, but he was rebranded to the opposite extreme.

From being labeled a domestic abuser, Li Wenzhang became the embodiment of devotion—a symbol of the older generation’s unwavering love, held up as a role model for today’s flighty youth. His decades-long dedication to art was praised as exemplary for the entire industry.

In short, Li Wenzhang was hailed as a rare, outstanding actor.

Within days, he landed several endorsements, mostly for household appliances like robotic vacuums and dishwashers, with slogans such as "A good husband shows love by buying XXX."

He even secured several high-profile scripts.

For the first episode, Li Wenzhang emerged completely vindicated.

Undeniably, he became the first successful challenger on *Rebirth Challenge*, inspiring many previously cancelled celebrities who had initially hesitated to join this unconventional show.

Even Chu Yan, once a Z-list nobody comparable to an amateur, gained millions of followers.

Of course, Star Journey Entertainment’s marketing team worked around the clock. Every compliment Chu Yan received during the live stream was quietly pushed onto trending topics—though the studio carefully controlled the scale.

Without stealing the spotlight from the others or being drowned out by their trending hype, the perfectly measured marketing strategy stealthily gained Chu Yan nearly six million new followers in just a few days.

Chu Yan couldn’t help but sigh—man, having connections really pays off.

Of course, for every winner, there’s a loser. Unlike Xu Meng and Li Wenzhang, Lu Zhaoyang found himself in the exact opposite situation.

That day, he struggled to utter a single word before being ripped to shreds online.

In the days that followed, his related hashtags were flooded with nonstop hate.

His long-time anti-fans, who had spent years digging up dirt on him, went wild like it was New Year’s, while Han Chuming’s fans launched a full-on attack on Lu Zhaoyang.

The worst came from the fans of Han Chuming and his husband—stars of the hit reality show about celebrity couples—who spammed Lu Zhaoyang’s social media accounts across all platforms so hard his accounts crashed.

Chu Yan was worried about him, but after reaching out, he felt reassured.

Lu Zhaoyang had finally snapped out of it, done staying quiet or feeling sorry for himself.

This wasn’t just for himself, but also for the fans who had never given up on him and still believed in him.

Let that bastard enjoy his moment—the higher he flies, the harder he’ll crash.

Knowing Lu Zhaoyang had a plan put Chu Yan at ease.

Another win for Chu Yan was that Liao Jian had found a charity that perfectly matched his criteria—the Angel Foundation.

This foundation focused on supporting orphanages by providing basic necessities like food, clothing, and school supplies, as well as funding education for children in impoverished rural areas and left-behind children—all causes close to Chu Yan’s heart.

Proof that you gotta leave it to the pros.

However, upon learning that Chu Yan had made a massive donation and intended to establish a long-term partnership, the Angel Foundation assigned a personal liaison to work with him.

Chu Yan wanted to meet with this representative before the second filming session to get things squared away quickly.

After all, his current situation was unstable—there was no telling when the Chu family might target him and drive him to bankruptcy. It was better to donate the money in his hands quickly so that, even if he ended up buried in debt, these funds wouldn’t be affected.

The meeting was scheduled at—Cloud Mansion.

This was a high-end members-only club in City A, where many business elites held their negotiations.

What should have been a pleasant affair took an unexpected turn when Chu Yan ran into people he’d rather not see there.

And not just one—three.