Choosing Lian Yufan to enter the studio was the result of careful deliberation on the part of Director Xiao and the other leaders. 

The battle with Yuan Luori at the amusement park had been a training drill and a test. When the poison bubbles had covered the sky, the only ones with the capability to remain conscious had been You Zhengping, Cen Xiao, and Lian Yufan. Of these, You Zhengping’s combat effectiveness and combat awareness were outstanding among the younger generation; there was a vast difference between him and the other two. Cen Xiao fell into the category of good luck, having been rescued by Zhen Li; luck was also an aspect of capability. Lian Yufan, however, had a very clear line of thought in battle; his abilities and combat methods were better suited to battlefields he had prepared for in advance. 

Comprehensively analyzing the three men’s temperaments, the organization’s leaders unanimously believed that Lian Yufan was best suited to act as the bridge between the Zhen Li Studio and the Protectors. 

In fact, when the investigation into Yu Hua had concluded but Director Xiao had retained him in the Xuyang District, Lian Yufan had guessed this outcome. 

The Xuyang District was You Zhengping’s jurisdiction; there were also quite a few veteran Protectors attending to it. Unless they encountered a calamity, there wasn’t room in a single district for two captains, especially him and You Zhengping. 

The leaders also couldn’t demote Lian Yufan to deputy-captain. Therefore, he could only have been retained to carry out a special assignment. 

Hearing this resolution, You Zhengping frowned. He very much wanted to be the one handling this assignment, but he understood that he was the Xuyang District’s captain. His family was all here, and he had an official job and identity in the Xuyang District. He wasn’t suited for an undercover mission. And Yu Hua was at the studio, so he especially shouldn’t join it to keep his feelings from impacting his assignment.  

Lian Yufan accepted the assignment. He asked, “How should I deal with Yu Hua?” 

“Wait for a suitable opportunity to arise, then find an excuse to dismiss him,” Director Xiao said. “I’ll have the psychologist constantly follow up on Yu Hua’s psychological state. When his psychological state can withstand the stress, you’ll have Zhen Li fire him.” 

Lian Yufan nodded. He had no more objections to the assignment. 

During this undercover assignment, he would have close contact with Zhen and Yuan. Using a nanotech mask was unsuitable. The Protection Organization’s plastic surgeon made a few small adjustments to Lian Yufan’s face, making him look slightly different from before. 

Lian Yufan was twenty-six years old, unmarried, had never dated. His father had died young, and his mother had sent him to study at a military academy after remarrying. At the military academy, Lian Yufan’s special ability had awakened, and he had been taken to the training camp. The Protection Organization had altered Lian Yufan’s records in the household register; he now had no connection to his parents. He hadn’t returned home since entering the training camp at twelve. He only sent a letter to his mother each month. His mother didn’t even know what he had grown up to be like. 

The surgeon compared his appearance with his photograph when he had just entered the training camp, changing the obvious characteristics he had had as a child. Now there weren’t any particular similarities between Lian Yufan and the photograph taken in his youth. 

He looked in the mirror, touching a teardrop beauty mark at the corner of his right eye. Dissatisfied, he said, “Isn’t this kind of girly? Why do I need a mole?” 

The surgeon explained, “A beauty mark can easily change the disposition of the whole face, give a person a completely different feel. Many people who go on TV dramas get this change.” 

“You’ve watched a lot of those melodramas, have you?” Lian Yufan picked unhappily at the beauty mark and was quickly stopped by the surgeon. 

“All the changes I’ve made to your face are reversible. When the assignment is over, I’ll change it back,” the surgeon said. 

Only then did Lian Yufan stop picking wildly. Very unsatisfied, he went to the room where Zhen Li was imprisoned. 

Zhen Li and Yuan Luori were locked up separately. Yuan Luori was currently receiving medical treatment from the base. He had been beaten into a dreadful state by the melancholy husbands. It wasn’t enough to rely on his own healing capacity. The organization had had to urgently transfer over a Protector with healing abilities to treat him. 

Yuan Luori received treatment under everyone’s surveillance. Zhen Li was at his leisure. He didn’t conceal the fact that he had a large wardrobe; he had openly displayed the wardrobe in front of the Protection Organization. It had dazzled everyone’s eyes. They had allowed Zhen Li to change his clothes every day. 

“Hello, I’m Lian Yufan of the Protection Organization,” Lian Yufan said, walking in the door and politely introducing himself. “In the future, I will be your colleague. I hope you can cooperate with our secret assignment.”

Even though the two of them had met several times, and Lian Yufan had even once beaten Zhen Li up, that had all been the handsome uncle’s face, so it would be You Zhengping’s blame to bear now. It had nothing to do with Lian Yufan. 

“This is my resume. Please arrange a formal interview and prepare a fairly high position for me that allows for activity,” Lian Yufan ordered in a polite tone. 

Zhen Li: “…”

He ate an entire organic apple in a couple of bites, took Lian Yufan’s counterfeit resume, mobilized his scant brain cells to consider it for a long time, then said, “I don’t know what you can do. Why don’t I call Director Yu and ask?” 

Lian Yufan narrowed his eyes. “…You’re the studio’s president, why do you need the human resources director to assign someone a job? Can’t you just notify him? Or is it that…Yu Hua is also a Destroyer, and he’s more powerful than you and Yuan Luori, so you have to listen to his orders?” 

His suspicions about Yu Hua hadn’t disappeared. Even when he had wrapped up the case and reported, Lian Yufan had still left that 1% possibility. 

Zhen Li felt panicked. Luckily, after doing it several times, his acting skills had progressed remarkably. Without displaying his emotions, he shook his head and said, “That’s not it. When I suspended my university education and opened the studio, I was only thinking that a popular online livestream would make a lot of money. I’m not very clear on how to allocate personnel in a standard company, so of course I have to ask a specialist. Yu Hua worked at a well-known enterprise for five years. I think he must have a good understanding.” 

“Don’t ask him for now.” Lian Yufan restrained Zhen Li from making the call. “When Yuan Luori’s wounds are healed and the studio opens for regular business, just tell him you’ve employed a new public relations director and have him put the employment contract on file.” 

“Public relations director? Why do you want that position?” 

Lian Yufan swept a cold gaze over Zhen Li. “If a Destroyer attacks your studio, given your current disposition of employees, who will cover up the news for you?” 

“You.” 

“You know Yuan Luori’s character, and you still let him livestream. If he has a fight with someone, or even a clash with law enforcement, who will settle it for you?”

“You.” 

“You’re trying to get famous online by livestreaming. If a stalker fan spies on you and accidentally discovers the existence of Destroyers, who will take the stalker fan to be instructed concerning confidentiality and sign a confidentiality agreement?” 

“You.” 

“So you tell me, what position am I suited for?” 

“Public relations director.” 

Zhen Li was forced to admit that what Lian Yufan said made a lot of sense. The Protection Organization’s spy inside the studio really was very suited to be a public relations director!

The only problem was, did he really not need to notify Yu Hua ahead of time? If he acted first and reported later, would the great master give him a beating like he’d given Yuan Luori? 

Zhen Li was in a very awkward position, but he couldn’t afford to offend Lian Yufan. He snuck a look at Lian Yufan, getting Lian Yufan to ask callously, “What are you looking at?” 

Lian Yufan subconsciously wanted to touch the beauty mark, thinking that Zhen Li was glancing at him because of it. He was very unsatisfied with this beauty mark. He looked at Zhen Li coldly. 

Zhen Li retracted his neck. The studio had four people, one president and three directors, and the president’s position was the lowest. He couldn’t offend any of the directors. 

Though when he thought of the environmental maintenance director Yuan Luori, Zhen Li cheered up again. Yuan Luori seemed to be in a more miserable position than him, and in the future there would be someone to clean the office. That was great. 

With this bit of inner happiness, Zhen Li left the base before Yuan Luori. 

He hadn’t livestreamed for three days. Zhen Li had nearly a million fans on the livestreaming website. Suddenly disappearing would attract notice. So as not to raise suspicions, the Protection Organization let Zhen Li return to the studio to make an appearance. 

Yuan Luori was receiving brainwashing-style training, being force-fed a common sense education, and receiving electrotherapy treatment. It would be a few days before he could return. Zhen Li went to the studio alone. The studio was covered in dust. He opened the blinds. As he happily cleaned up, he freely imagined that after this there would be someone else to clean the room. 

When the studio was more or less clean, Zhen Li wrapped his foot up in gauze as tightly as a zongzi and cheerfully turned on the livestream. He picked up a piece of durian layer cake and started eating towards the camera. 

Since he hadn’t said in advance that he was going to livestream, there weren’t many people there. There were very few comments in the barrage. 

“Hello, everyone,” Zhen Li said, waving his hand. “This past weekend I went out to the amusement park and accidentally sprained my ankle. I’ve had to take some time off these past few days.” 

[Other people livestream on the weekend, but you rest. That’s unprofessional.]

There were few comments. Zhen Li chose some of the representative ones and answered, “Well, with Director Yu not willing to work overtime and Director Yuan not cooperating, if things go on like this, the studio will close down sooner or later.” 

[Why isn’t Director Yuan livestreaming with you today?]

“Oh, Director Yuan, he’s near-sighted now, he’s shut himself up,” Zhen Li explained. “Soon there’s going to be a new public relations director joining the studio, though he won’t participate in the livestreams. You may sometimes hear his voice. He’s also a graduate of a top three school. He’s quite capable.” 

[His education history and abilities aren’t important, the important thing is how he looks.]

“He’s very handsome, especially the beauty mark at the corner of his eye, truly captivating.” Zhen Li looked at the corner of his own eye in the livestream camera and sighed. “I’d wanted to save up some money and get a beauty mark. With him coming, our personas have coincided. I’m disappointed.”

[Hurry up, we want to see what the public relations director looks like.]

Having explained to the fans why he had been offline lately and eaten in front of the camera, Zhen Li turned off the livestream, planning to get off work and go home. 

As soon as he walked out of the office building, he saw two auxiliary policemen on police-issue motor scooters patrolling outside the building. They were riding the motor scooters very fast. One of the auxiliary police officer’s wheels rolled over Zhen Li’s gauze-wrapped foot. 

“Sorry.” The auxiliary police officer hurriedly stopped the scooter and apologized. “Was your foot already injured? I’ll take you to the hospital!” 

“No need, no need,” Zhen Li refused quickly, waving his hand. “I’m just… Huh? Director Yu’s husband?” 

He had recognized the other auxiliary police officer as You Zhengping and immediately stood up straight, looking at You Zhengping with the respectful bearing of someone appealing to a sister-in-law.

You Zhengping nodded. “Thank you for letting my husband take a vacation.” 

“No need for thanks, I’ve been slacking off, too,” Zhen Li said. 

Naturally, You Zhengping’s companion was Cen Xiao. It wasn’t a coincidence that the two of them were passing by here. They had planned it. 

They had been keeping an eye on Zhen Li’s livestream and waiting outside of the office building, then had rolled over Zhen Li’s foot just after he had left the building. Cen Xiao was of course perfectly well aware that Zhen Li’s sprain was fake. He was deliberately using this as an opportunity to have a natural interaction with him and indirectly observe the situation at Zhen Li’s studio. 

“How about this, I can see you’re having a hard time walking, so I’ll take you home.” Cen Xiao patted the back of the motor scooter’s seat. “On the way, I can have a look at your injury, and if anything is wrong, I’ll take you to the hospital.” 

“O-okay.” Zhen Li couldn’t refuse in front of You Zhengping. He had to mount Cen Xiao’s motor scooter. 

When You Zhengping had watched the two of them leave, he took a routine turn patrolling the streets, wiling away the time until he got off work. He went to the police bureau to hand over the motor scooter and change to ordinary clothes, then quickly ran home. 

Yu Hua had a prior record of breaking furniture when he was home alone after You Zhengping had gone to work. You Zhengping was worried that Yu Hua’s mood would be bad while he was staying home alone, so after work he hurried home to keep his husband company. 

As soon as You Zhengping walked through the door, he heard the bang! of a gun. He was so startled he nearly opened a space and released his special ability on the spot. You Zhengping was feeling some stress after the successive events of the last few days. He was unusually sensitive towards this type of sound. 

Fortunately, he controlled his nerves in time and looked towards the source of the sound. He saw that it was the TV making the sound. Only then did he relax slightly. 

“Are you back?” Yu Hua, wearing an apron and holding a large spoon, stuck his head out of the kitchen. “It’s about another ten minutes until the food will be ready. Why don’t you rest a bit?” 

Yu Hua’s hands smelled of cooking, and he was holding the spoon. It was inconvenient for getting close to You Zhengping. 

But You Zhengping wasn’t so fastidious. He went over and hugged Yu Hua. The gunshot just now had really scared him a little, making him recall how Yu Hua had looked fallen on the ground at the amusement park, when You Zhengping hadn’t known whether he was dead or alive. 

“Be good, go change clothes.” Yu Hua couldn’t hug You Zhengping back. He could only kiss his husband’s face and order, “And go wash your hands and face.” 

This was Yu Hua’s household rule: wash your hands frequently. 

Reluctant to let go, You Zhengping hugged him for a while longer. When he felt his husband’s heartbeat, he finally let Yu Hua go. 

He changed into house clothes and carefully washed up in the master bedroom. Then he went to the living room and looked at the time. It was precisely 19:00. 

Ordinarily, Yu Hua would have turned on the news broadcast at this time. He was fairly attentive towards the major events happening in the country. After each council of leaders, he would download what the leaders had said and study it seriously. He was a rather old-fashioned person. 

But today Yu Hua was watching a TV drama, and of a type he had never watched before. 

Yu Hua liked watching serious history dramas, spy dramas, dramas about resisting Japanese oppression, dramas set during the Republican era, dramas about fighting corruption, and other TV dramas of that kind. You Zhengping liked fantasy, xianxia, wuxia, exciting animation, and similar shows. They’d never dabbled in melodramas, idol dramas, or slice-of-life dramas. 

But today the TV was playing a popular romantic drama called The Fatal Housewife. While he was waiting for dinner, You Zhengping looked up the plot online. This was a drama with a female main character. The main character was a housewife who discovered her husband was cheating on her. She tried holding back and pretending she didn’t know, but finally she had realized that her husband was a scumbag and come up with a plan to kill him. The gunshot You Zhengping had heard when he’d come in had been the sound of the husband being killed. 

You Zhengping: “…” 

He quickly backed out of the show and checked the viewing history. He found that the style of the shows Yu Hua had watched had changed a great deal. 

The records of the dramas with male main characters had been forced down to the very bottom. The recently viewed shows respectively were The Allure of Leaving Home, A Husband and Wife’s Universe, The Wife’s Revenge, and so on. Squeezed in among them was also a drugs crackdown drama. 

You Zhengping searched through these dramas’ summaries and found that they were all about the reactions of a wife to finding out her husband was cheating. There were ones who had made concessions for the overall good and taken their husbands back, and there were those who had secretly investigated and found that their husbands were scumbags and decided to get revenge. There were also stories where the mistress and the wife teamed up to get rid of the scumbag.

Even the one drugs crackdown drama had a segment about a wife finding out a certain leader was involved in a crime and using any means necessary to cover up for her husband, even going down the path of no return. 

You Zhengping: “…” 

“Time to eat,” Yu Hua said in the dining room. 

You Zhengping quickly changed the TV to the news channel, heard the familiar sound of the news broadcast, and felt calm. 

For dinner, Yu Hua had made hand-pulled noodles with bone broth. This was genuine pure bone broth that had been cooked all day to thicken. The noodles were full of the flavor of the bone broth. Yu Hua had cooked the bones so that the meat became melt-in-the-mouth soft and fell off, producing a layer of delicious gravy, making an excellent savory dish of boneless meat. 

You Zhengping forced down the questions in his heart and slurped up the bone broth and hand-made noodles. When he had gobbled up a whole bowl, Yu Hua ladled out another one for him, warmly and understandingly saying, “There’s still some in the pot, slow down. Eating so fast is hard on your stomach.” 

“When I walked in the door, I saw you playing that TV drama. What dramas have you been watching today?” You Zhengping ask, seeming casual. 

“The Fatal Housewife,” Yu Hua answered frankly. “It was just to have something to watch. When I was fired before, I watched everything I could watch. There haven’t been any dramas I like recently, so I watched some fairly well-known ones.” 

“Oh.” You Zhengping accepted this explanation and talked about what had happened today. “Cen Xiao and the others stole all the snacks you made again, I was so mad!” 

Yu Hua’s hand, doling out food for You Zhengping, paused slightly. In a peculiar voice, he said, “When I make you food to take to work, there’s usually a share for them. Your friends are my friends.” 

He naturally put the food in You Zhengping’s bowl, as though the pause just now hadn’t happened, and he asked casually, “How much does Cen Xiao eat compared to you?” 

“He eats even more than I do!” You Zhengping said. 

Cen Xiao was also a special ability user. Yu Hua inwardly noted it down, then smiled and said, “Your relationship is so close. How does the old saying go? So close that you could wear a single pair of pants.” 

“Don’t mention it, I really have worn his pants,” You Zhengping said. “We’re about the same size, and when we lived in the same dorm, we’d sometimes put on the wrong clothes.” 

“Really?” Yu Hua’s smile became even more radiant. 

Yu Hua’s expression was very ordinary, but You Zhengping felt a chill go up his spine. 

A light went off in his mind. He thought about how Yu Hua had revealed in the calendar diary that he was jealous of Cen Xiao, about the viewing history he had just looked through, and about the bizarrely burned pair of pants. 

Seriously, why would Yu Hua, who liked to watch the news broadcast, do a dangerous thing like burning those pants because of bad luck? That was totally unreasonable. 

Unless Yu Hua had discovered that the pants had been changed but hadn’t said anything about it! 

And just now he had suddenly mentioned he and Cen Xiao being close enough to wear the same pair of pants…

You Zhengping was astonished. Yu Hua couldn’t suspect that he and Cen Xiao…

This was truly an injustice throughout the ages! 

---

Author's Note

Yu Hua: I want to find that pair of pants, give them a thorough cleaning, hide them in the cabinet, not let other people wear them. But where are the pants? I have to investigate. 

Yu Hua, watching TV: I have something on my mind that I can’t talk about. Let’s see how ordinary people (in a TV drama) handle secrets.