Xie Wanxing woke up at noon the next day.

Although the curtains were drawn in the room, the sunlight still seeped in through the cracks, casting a hazy glow inside.

He stared at the ceiling for a while before snapping out of it.

He had stayed up late yesterday, initially angered by the trending topic. Later, since he couldn’t sleep anyway, he decided to distract himself and visited his favorite forum for cheesy melodramas.

This place was always filled with all sorts of melodramatic love stories, twists, and turns, and nobody cared about what was true or false.

But he had only scrolled a few posts when he saw a row of bold black titles—”What to do if you’ve developed feelings for a friend with benefits?”

Xie Wanxing stared at this title for ten seconds and couldn’t resist clicking on it.

The OP got straight to the point, saying she seemed to have developed feelings for her friend with benefits. She got angry when she saw her FWB’s ex, and felt jealous when she saw her FWB being ambiguous with others. She knew she shouldn’t, after all, they were just FWBs. At the beginning, they were only interested in each other’s bodies, but now she couldn’t control herself.

After reading, Xie Wanxing’s heart skipped a beat, seriously suspecting that his phone had become sentient and posted this himself.

He scrolled down, and there were many replies to this post, most of them advising the OP to stop in her tracks.

“OP, be more rational. The last thing you want in a FWB relationship is catching feelings. Just by looking at him, you can tell he’s a playboy. If he finds out you’ve fallen for him, he might cut ties with you in no time.”

“Agreed with the above. As someone with experience, I advise you, turning a FWB into something serious is unreliable. We’re all free spirits, who can control who? I’ve also had a thing with a FWB before, but guess what? I caught him red-handed having a threesome with twin sisters.”

By the time he reached this comment, the tone suddenly changed dramatically, with everyone saying they didn’t need this kind of drama, and asking the one who caught the cheater to tell the whole story.

However, Xie Wanxing’s face darkened as he read on, losing all interest in browsing the forum. He closed his phone and lay straight on the bed, ready to sleep.

… Only to find himself wide awake until five in the morning.

Now that he finally woke up, he glanced at his phone and found it was already noon. No wonder the sunlight was so strong.

He lingered on the bed for a while before reluctantly getting up to brush his teeth and wash his face. He walked to the living room, intending to ask Wang Xiaoming to order takeout.

But his assistant, Wang Xiaoming, was nowhere to be found, and there was only the handsome and imposing Mr. Fu in the living room.

Xie Wanxing was stunned for a moment. “How did you get here?”

Fu Wenshan pursed his lips. He had come over early in the morning to see Xie Wanxing’s reaction to yesterday’s gossip.

But Wang Xiaoming said Xie Wanxing was still asleep.

Clearly, he was carefree, with such good sleep quality.

“It’s nothing. Since you’re free today, I thought I’d come and see you,” Fu Wenshan said lightly. “You’re up so late, do you want lunch?”

Xie Wanxing’s stomach conveniently rumbled a few times. He felt a bit embarrassed but nodded honestly, “Yes, please.”

Fu Wenshan chuckled and went to cook without saying anything.

Neither of them mentioned yesterday’s trending topic. Even though it was scratching at their hearts, neither knew how to broach the subject.

They could only silently pretend nothing had happened.

When Fu Wenshan was cooking spaghetti for Xie Wanxing, the smile had vanished from his face completely.

He thought Xie Wanxing would at least be somewhat affected by the rumors, but Xie Wanxing was eating and sleeping well, completely unaffected. It was only he who had rushed over early in the morning.

Xie Wanxing stared blankly at Fu Wenshan’s back.

Fu Wenshan had an excellent figure, broad shoulders, narrow waist, and long legs, with smooth muscle lines. He was the epitome of looking slim in clothes and muscular when bare-chested.

In the past, when Xie Wanxing had purely lusted after Fu Wenshan’s body, he had often looked at his back, thinking all sorts of lewd thoughts.

But today, he found himself wondering if Fu Wenshan had ever cooked for Yao Ren.

He must have, right? Otherwise, why would Yao Ren know that Fu Wenshan was good at cooking?

After a few seconds of daze, Xie Wanxing opened his phone, intending to check if the heat of that stupid trending topic had subsided. If it hadn’t, he would personally handle the PR to suppress it.

But when he logged into his Weibo alternate account, he found that the situation had completely changed.

Yesterday, Weibo was full of ecstatic screams, but today, it was all about the public enjoying the spectacle.

The marketing accounts that were pushing the CP ship yesterday had all gone silent, as if they hadn’t been the ones screaming yesterday.

Instead, another batch of entertainment bloggers had started to expose the truth.

It turned out that Yao Ren had voluntarily broken his contract and gone solo, which was completely different from what he had claimed in the interview.

Moreover, his solo debut was also very suspicious, allegedly being related to a high-ranking executive in the company at the time. This part wasn’t elaborated upon, but in the screenshots that were released, Yao Ren was seen with his arm around the same middle-aged man, looking very intimate.

The spectators weren’t stupid. With a little bit of connecting the dots, they understood the relationship between the two.

After Yao Ren’s solo debut, the originally planned four-member group disbanded, and Fu Wenshan also terminated his contract with the company and moved to Canyu.

At this point, there was still some room for maneuvering, as it could be spun as a decision made by the company.

But soon, he was attacked by one of his former teammates.

Apart from Yao Ren and Fu Wenshan, there were two other people in the dormitory at the time. The four of them were supposed to debut together as a group.

However, while Yao Ren and Fu Wenshan debuted, the other two chose to leave the entertainment industry. One became a music teacher in his hometown, and the other switched careers to open a hotpot restaurant.

The one who came out to criticize Yao Ren was the one who opened the hot pot restaurant, named Han Bin.

Han Bin also had tens of thousands of followers on Weibo. He directly tagged Yao Ren and said, “Don’t just remember how good Fu-ge was to you, remember how ungrateful you were. Not only did you go solo, but you also took Fu-ge’s composed songs and released them as your own original songs. Have you forgotten?”

He didn’t just say this without evidence. In an instant, he posted a video showing Fu Wenshan distributing scores to them, saying, “I just wrote this. See if it’s okay for you guys.”

The three people on the sofa in the video took the scores and casually hummed along. Although their voices were low, the melody was clearly discernible.

Han Bin asked, “Fu-ge, what’s the name of this song?”

Fu Wenshan also sat down on the sofa and replied without looking up, “It’s called ‘In the Clouds’.”

The theme song of Yao Ren’s first album was “In the Clouds,” and he didn’t even change the name.

This Weibo post was like dropping a bomb into deep water, causing a thousand waves to rise.

Yao Ren’s name was once again trending, but this time accompanied by the phrase “Ungrateful.”

His Weibo was flooded with a large number of Fu Wenshan’s fans, cursing him until he closed the comments. The casual fans who were hyped up yesterday were nowhere to be seen, leaving only the onlookers enjoying the show.

The CP that Yao Ren tried to stir up had completely backfired.

No one wanted to eat this poisonous food anymore, and they started to sympathize with Fu Wenshan for having such a vampire teammate.

Fu Wenshan didn’t respond much. His studio only posted a photo of him recording a song, with the caption: “Thank you all for your concern, but talent cannot be stolen. @Fu Wenshan is diligently preparing for his new album, hoping to meet everyone soon.”

Xie Wanxing could tell at a glance that the direction had changed so quickly today, clearly orchestrated by Jiang Han. The marketing accounts that were helping Yao Ren yesterday had all shut up, yet the trending topic about Yao Ren’s ingratitude remained high.

This storm didn’t even cause a ripple; it was silently extinguished.

But Xie Wanxing wasn’t particularly happy about it.

After Fu Wenshan finished cooking lunch and brought it to the table, he noticed Xie Wanxing looking at him with a complex expression.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, puzzled.

Xie Wanxing picked up a fork and rolled a bite of pasta but didn’t eat it. “I saw the trending topic about Yao Ren,” he said, glancing at Fu Wenshan. Then he asked, “Was it because he stole your songs that you had a falling out with him?”

Fu Wenshan was stunned. He didn’t expect Xie Wanxing to ask about this.

He looked at Xie Wanxing with some resentment. Shouldn’t this person ask him first whether there was anything going on between him and Yao Ren?

But after hesitating for a moment, he decided to tell the truth. “No, I didn’t even know he took my songs at first. It was mainly because he quietly went to cozy up to the big shots and went solo. He swore to me that the four of us would debut together and become the most powerful group, but…”

Fu Wenshan chuckled sarcastically, very ironic.

Indeed.

As Xie Wanxing looked at the delicately plated pasta in the dish, he completely lost his appetite.

Fu Wenshan’s main concern wasn’t the song that was taken away from him but rather that Yao Ren had betrayed him, betrayed all of them.

He didn’t need to ask further; he already knew what kind of history Fu Wenshan and Yao Ren had back then.

As young teammates who spent day and night together, they developed feelings for each other. But one of them betrayed this relationship for the sake of money.

It was cheesy and melodramatic, even too cliché for gossip forums.

But Xie Wanxing silently thought, if Yao Ren hadn’t been so foolish back then, hadn’t betrayed Fu Wenshan, hadn’t stolen that song…

Perhaps everything would be different today.

Perhaps Yao Ren and Fu Wenshan would have long become openly acknowledged lovers, and there would be no need to stir up this CP anymore.