Chapter 2

Chapter 2

[It hasn’t even been up that long, right? It’s already been censored four times. Isn’t the male lead getting it on with his ex a little too often?]

[They’re so broke they’ve got no other entertainment left. All they can do is **.]

[Keep **ing like this and they won’t even have money for condoms.]

[I came for the male and female leads, but somehow I’ve fallen for the male lead and his ex. Every time they’re in the same frame, I blush like crazy and my heart starts pounding.]

[Help, did the novel ever say the male lead and his ex were this clingy? When is our female lead showing up?]

I washed the sticky sweat from my body.

My gaze lingered on the strange floating comments as I extracted and pieced together the information in them.

According to them, this world was a romance novel, but the female lead wasn’t me.

I was only the gold-digging, vain, incompetent, self-destructive villainess.

Right now, the story hadn’t officially begun yet.

The story would probably start two or three years later, after Gu Xiaojing had his heart broken by me, the failed entrepreneur. We would break up, he would return home to inherit the family business, and then he would enter a business marriage with the female lead after she returned from abroad.

Marriage first, love later.

I was the tool who made him seal off his heart, only for the female lead to appear and open it again. After that, I would continue contributing to the development of their romance.

Then, in the grand finale, I would beautifully exit the stage by going to prison.

I had no interest in the future the comments mentioned-how Gu Xiaojing would meet and fall in love with the female lead, or who was the second male lead, the second female lead, or the villain.

What interested me was the future development direction they mentioned for Gu Xiaojing and the female lead.

At present, I temporarily had no capital to start a business, whether in terms of money or connections.

So my entrepreneurial ideas existed only as rough concepts in my mind.

The future mentioned in the comments happened to be able to give me more inspiration.

I dried off my drenched body and opened the door.

Two tall men were standing at the entrance to the shared bathroom. One was Gu Xiaojing. The other was the neighbor who lived next door.

He was bare-chested, wearing only a pair of shorts. His exaggerated muscle definition, tanned skin, and towering frame gave him an intimidating presence.

He Wei was carrying a bucket. As soon as he saw me come out, he immediately stepped forward.

He brushed past my shoulder, as if he had been so irritated by the heat that he was in a hurry.

Gu Xiaojing pulled me over, frowning, and used a towel to wipe the spot He Wei had touched.

He was a clean freak. Our tiny room was always kept spotless by him.

Back when he was still a young master, he carried tissues and handkerchiefs with him wherever he went, and anything he received from others would be disinfected immediately.

But after getting together with me, that symptom of his had been gradually disappearing. After all, if he really refused to change, the sweat he worked up in this sweltering weather would be enough to make him live in the bathroom.

Only belatedly did I realize there seemed to have been no sound of the door closing behind me.

I instinctively turned back to see what was going on, only to meet a pair of eyes peering through the crack of the not-yet-closed door.

It was like being targeted by a beast hidden in the bushes.

I had originally thought it was just a minor episode, but I hadn’t expected the people in the comments to react so strongly.

[Holy crap, is that the loyal-dog supporting male lead?!]

[The world of a novel really is tiny. Before the story even starts, the leads and supporting characters are all living in the same nest?]

[By the time the story begins, the male lead has already gone home to inherit the family fortune, and the second male lead has already risen from humble beginnings. Who would’ve known that before this was a CEO romance, it was actually a rental-room story?]

[Hehe, when the supporting male lead brushed past the villainess just now, the difference in their skin tones and heights was huge.]

[With that body and that face, the villainess doesn’t even take a second look? What a waste of a national treasure.]

[Those few seconds of being sandwiched between them just now made my thoughts go completely filthy.]

I never imagined that even a stranger I had merely brushed past would have a place in the story.

According to them, He Wei was the male supporting character. During the early days of his startup, when someone deliberately made things difficult for him, the heroine gave him a hand. From then on, he fell hopelessly in love with her-even after she later got married.

From the scattered bits and pieces in the barrage comments, I worked out that He Wei would start his business sometime in the next two years.

I didn’t know him well, but I vaguely remembered that he drove long-haul trucks for a living.

Because my father had gotten into his accident while driving a big truck, people in that line of work always left a deep impression on me.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I lowered my head and watched as Gu Xiaojing held my foot, gently placed a bandage on it, and kneaded the sore sole of my foot while he was at it.

At work, I had to run around in high heels. I wasn’t used to wearing them, so the backs of my feet were easily rubbed raw until they bled.

If it weren’t for work, I probably would have worn flats forever.

Gu Xiaojing had gone from massaging me clumsily at first to becoming more and more skilled now. Though I’d never been to a massage parlor, I felt like his control over the pressure was better than any professional’s.

He didn’t have a job because, in an act of rebellion, he had eloped with me.

Not only had his family cut off his cards, they had also blacklisted him within the industry. No matter how impressive his résumé was, he had no way to build a career.

At first, Gu Xiaojing went to work as a waiter, selling his physical labor for a bit of pay.

But after he started working, I realized my quality of life had dropped dramatically.

Before, even if the ingredients were simple, there had been hearty breakfasts, his figure waiting without fail outside my office to take me home after work, rain or shine, dinners ready the moment I got back, and our small home kept warm and tidy…

Most jobs that traded physical labor for wages had long hours. Sometimes I would already be home from work, and he still wouldn’t be back.

That night, I calculated my salary. It wasn’t much.

But after setting aside the startup fund I was saving, the remaining money was enough to cover our living expenses and rent.

So I told him to quit his job and let me support him instead.

I said, “Your job takes up too much of your time. We already don’t get much time together each day, and now it’s even less.”

“I want to eat the food you make every day. I want our little home to always feel warm. But all of that requires someone to give up their own time to maintain it.”

“Ah Jing, if I could, I would want to be the one who gives that up. But my supervisor said that if I work one more month, I’ll get a raise. By then, we’ll be able to move out of this place.”

“We’re both working hard for our future. We’re just doing it in different ways.”

Gu Xiaojing was so moved by my words that his eyes filled with tears, and he kissed me with absolute devotion.

The next day, he quit his job and prepared a relatively lavish dinner for me.

I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.

No one knew better than I did that doing meaningless physical labor for a long time only wore down a person’s will and made them sink deeper and deeper into self-doubt.

Not to mention, he was a young master who had never suffered hardship before.

He could last one month, but what about two? Three? Four?

He wouldn’t be able to hold on.

One day, he would come to his senses and realize that a life of comfort was worth more than suffering for love.

I didn’t know how long it would take for someone with his brain to give up. I only knew that before I left this chaotic, lawless place, he couldn’t leave.

He had to stay with me. He had to be my support, my shield against the vulgar gazes of those filthy men.

Only once I succeeded would he be free to choose.

Whether to continue being the canary in my cage, or to spread his wings and fly far away.