Chapter 1: “The Room You Can’t Leave Without XX”

#Ji Jingchuan: Shang Que hasn’t insulted me for three hours^^#

Shang Que had just finished interacting with the other actors of her new drama on Weibo when she opened the trending topics and saw her name listed alongside Ji Jingchuan’s. Her previously upturned lips immediately twisted downward. With a furrowed brow and a look of disdain, she clicked into the topic.

[Unparalleled Ji Jingchuan V: #OST of Flying Petals# Sounds like my grandma sleep-talking in the middle of the night. If the production team has the budget, maybe they could hire a professional to teach Shang Que how to sing properly.]

The comment section was flooded with identical posts of #Ji Jingchuan: Shang Que hasn’t insulted me for three hours^^#, pushing the tweet to the top of the trending list. Netizens continued to fuel the flames, eagerly summoning Shang Que to engage in a war of words.

Flying Petals was a currently popular historical drama. As one of the lead actors, Shang Que had been assigned a short singing part in one of the insert songs. While her singing skills weren’t extraordinary, it definitely wasn’t bad enough to sound like an old lady muttering in her sleep.

Recalling how her grandmother used to elongate her words in a drawn-out, theatrical manner, Shang Que’s face darkened. She furiously typed out a response and quickly posted it.

[Shang Que V: If you have money to spare, maybe get your brain checked first. 0-<]

After sending the comment, she exited Weibo without hesitation, not wanting to see another word. However, just as she was about to put her phone down, the screen suddenly turned white before forcefully redirecting to another interface.

Shang Que immediately tapped the back button several times, gritting her teeth. “I didn’t even shake my phone, and you’re already redirecting me? Why not just steal money straight from my account while you’re at it?”

But before she could curse any further, she realized she had blamed the wrong culprit. After the page finished loading, what appeared on the screen was not a shopping app but a pop-up window.

[Would you like to open Starlight Shines: The Sweet Love of the Top Star’s Ex?]
【Yes】 【Open】

Shang Que: ?

Are these even real Chinese characters?

There was no exit button anywhere on the screen, clearing the app history did nothing, and even the almighty “power off and restart” option had inexplicably failed! After exhausting every possible method she could think of, her patience was completely drained.

Just then, a line of text appeared at the top of the screen.

[Please make a choice within ten seconds, or the link will automatically open.]

So much for having a choice.

Shang Que glanced at the two condescendingly simplistic options. A thought struck her, and she pressed her finger firmly on the character “No” in “Would you like to open?”

In the next second, the document opened on its own.

Shang Que bared her teeth.

Forcing someone to read a recommendation—how despicable!

But what appeared next was even more detestable. The very first paragraph read:

[As the undisputed top star of the entertainment industry, Ji Jingchuan possessed an unparalleled, exquisite face. Talented in both singing and dancing, he was brimming with charm, making countless fangirls swoon over him…]

Shang Que recoiled as if she had seen something filthy. She swiftly grabbed the alcohol spray from her desk and spritzed her phone screen twice.

What a poisonous piece of writing—reading it for even a second longer would surely blind her!

Could this be some kind of fanfiction sent to her phone by one of Ji Jingchuan’s fans, hacking her device?

What a sinister fandom war.

Since she couldn’t exit the page, Shang Que had no choice but to continue reading, all while maintaining an expression of utter disgust. However, as the story progressed, she realized that Ji Jingchuan was not actually the protagonist.

The real leads were Lu Zhixu and Ning Sheng.

These two names were all too familiar to Shang Que. The former was hailed by netizens as the “gold standard of the entertainment industry” with top-tier acting skills and striking looks, and at only twenty-eight, he had already won two Best Actor awards. The latter was one of the four most popular rising actresses, having gained a huge fanbase through modern romance dramas in recent years. Unfortunately, due to company constraints, she had struggled to transition into more serious roles and was now gradually fading from the spotlight.

In this fanfiction, Lu Zhixu and Ning Sheng had been college sweethearts. After entering the entertainment industry, they broke up due to various misunderstandings, though their love for each other never faded. Through participation in a friendship-based variety show, they overcame countless obstacles, reconciled, and rekindled their romance.

And Ji Jingchuan? He was the antagonist.

On the show, he was portrayed as a troublemaker with a terrible personality, constantly picking fights with the leads. Under the dazzling protagonist halo, his already shaky public reputation completely collapsed. Eventually, all his scandals were exposed, and he fell from grace—once a top-tier idol, he became the internet’s most hated celebrity. In the end, a crazed anti-fan ran him over with a car.

[The perpetrator’s car sped away as Ji Jingchuan lay in a pool of blood. The fresh crimson gushed into his windpipe, causing his breathing to rasp like a broken bellows. His lips moved desperately, shouting something silent. His once bright peach blossom eyes were now widened in fury and despair, refusing to close even in death.]

To ensure his downfall felt truly satisfying, the novel meticulously detailed his tragic death. And as his life silently faded, the internet was celebrating the official romance announcement of the leads.

Shang Que suddenly felt an inexplicable tightness in her chest.

Images flashed rapidly in her mind before settling on a singular vision—an endless dark night, a young man lying motionless in a pool of blood.

As if sensing her presence, he turned his head and looked straight at her. His lips quivered, and she heard a hoarse, broken whisper—

With grief and despair, he called out:

“Jiejie (Big Sister)…”

“Ji Jingchuan!”

Shang Que’s heart pounded wildly, as if it would burst through her chest.

Everything she had just read—what she had casually dismissed as fanfiction—now felt terrifyingly vivid, as though it were destined to come true.

Her notoriously difficult younger brother, Ji Jingchuan, would become a public enemy, fall from grace, and die under the wheels of a fanatic’s car.

Ji Jingchuan was her biological younger brother.

Most netizens were unaware of this fact.

Over a decade ago, after their parents’ business marriage ended in divorce, Shang Que followed her mother overseas, severing all ties with the Ji family.

When she returned to the country, the little boy who used to follow behind her, calling her “sister” all the time, had now become one of the top idols in the industry. However, his personality had also turned harsh and rebellious—he had offended nearly everyone in the entertainment circle and constantly found ways to make trouble for her.

A younger brother insulting his elder sister was nothing short of turning the natural order upside down. Since Shang Que was not someone who tolerated being mistreated, she always fought back. Over time, their constant back-and-forth had become an ongoing saga—everyone knew that she and Ji Jingchuan did not get along. They didn’t even need their fans to instigate drama; the two of them had already torn into each other enough.

But no matter how fierce their arguments got online, she had never once thought about wanting Ji Jingchuan dead.

Thinking about the events in the book, Shang Que’s expression turned serious as she looked back at her phone. However, just then, a red error message reading “Unknown Error” suddenly flashed across the screen. She quickly pressed the power and volume buttons to take a screenshot, but the document vanished before she could capture it. The screen reverted to Ji Jingchuan’s post, right at the moment he had replied to a comment a minute ago.

Shang Que didn’t have time to dwell on it—she hurriedly scrolled through her phone, searching frantically. Yet, that inexplicable document had completely disappeared without a trace, as if it had never existed.

Was this some kind of prank? But who would go through the trouble of hacking her phone just to make her read a fanfiction about Lu Zhixu and Ning Sheng?

Shang Que frowned slightly. After a moment, she typed “Xuxu Rucheng” into the search bar and found their couple super-topic.

Lu Zhixu primarily starred in serious dramas and had very few scandals. The only time he had taken on an idol drama was when he had worked with Ning Sheng. Because of this, the two of them had gained a significant number of CP fans, with an endless stream of fanfiction being produced about them.

Shang Que meticulously searched through the fanfiction hub and found plenty of stories—titles like Endless Summer, Gun and Roses, Skin Hunger, and The Room You Can’t Leave Without xx…

Wait, this one needs to be saved.

But among all of them, there was no story called Starry Brilliance: The Sweet Love of a Top-tier Ex. The handful of fanfictions that had slightly tacky titles had completely different content from the document she had just seen.

That made sense. If any fanfiction had depicted Ji Jingchuan’s downfall so brutally, his fans would have already flooded it with backlash.

At this point, it seemed like she had hit a dead end. Shang Que fell into deep thought, absentmindedly tapping her fingers against the screen. Just then, the office door was suddenly pushed open from the outside.

Fu Xingzhi, flipping through a stack of documents, walked in without looking up. “You’ve had enough rest. Let’s finalize your schedule for when you return to work. Regarding variety shows, Friendship Boat has sent you an invitation, but since Ji Jingchuan is also a guest, I assume you wouldn’t—”

The moment she heard that name, Shang Que’s hand trembled.

In that fanfiction, the variety show where the protagonists and Ji Jingchuan reunited was also called Friendship Boat.

She wasn’t sure if this was just a coincidence, but an inexplicable sense of unease crept up again. Almost instinctively, she blurted out, “I’ll take it.”

Fu Xingzhi froze. As her agent, he knew better than anyone how much of a disaster it would be to put Shang Que and Ji Jingchuan together on the same show. After making sure he hadn’t misheard, he adjusted his black-rimmed glasses and said with obvious disapproval, “But Ji Jingchuan is also going to be there. You two better not end up fighting on set.”

Shang Que snapped back to reality and let out a cold laugh. There was an old saying: “Punishing a younger brother should be done early,” but there was nothing saying it couldn’t be done late. She was going to show everyone what true bloodline suppression looked like.

Seeing that she was determined to go, Fu Xingzhi no longer tried to dissuade her. When it came to stirring up trouble, Shang Que was actually on par with Ji Jingchuan. However, she always managed to clean up her own messes, so overall, she was still considered reliable.

He simply gave her a token reminder: “Just don’t let anything go wrong.”

“Of cou—” Before Shang Que could even finish her sentence, she glanced at her phone and smoothly changed her tune. “It seems something already went wrong.”

Fu Xingzhi’s eyelid twitched. Warily, he asked, “What did you do this time?”

“My hand slipped, and I accidentally liked a post.”

“It’s not a post attacking another celebrity, is it?”

“Nope.” Just as Fu Xingzhi started to breathe a sigh of relief, Shang Que chuckled mischievously and added, “It’s just a piece of fanfiction about Lu Zhixu and Ning Sheng. The title is—”

“The Room You Can’t Leave Without xx.”