Chapter 12: The Seventh Day

Page (1/3)

Walking in from the balcony to the living room, Su Shengxin and Shang Yin even exchanged a friendly farewell.

“I’ll keep thinking about that endorsement I was turned down for,” Su Shengxin said.

Shang Yin did not quite understand what he had meant, but he still played along and nodded. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Mm.”

After returning to his room, Su Shengxin waited a while before following the plan he had just discussed with the public-relations department. He answered his manager’s call, pretending that this was the first he had heard of the matter. Sitting at the desk, he silently opened the photographs and links the other man had sent him. He enlarged the pictures and studied them for a while, then read through the minor influencer’s romantic posts one by one.

They were just as glaring the second time around.

When he finished, he switched back to his messages and saw that his manager had sent him a line:

[The technical team has confirmed it. The photograph is genuine, not photoshopped.]

Su Shengxin forwarded several messages to Shang Yin’s phone and asked:

[Mr. Shang, this photograph is…?]

The incident had happened during the dating show, and Su Shengxin had spent several days pretending that the two of them were blissfully married. He found it irritating that Shang Yin was now making him look foolish.

If the matter was real, then he could only turn the situation to his advantage and take the route of “loving sincerely when in love, and breaking cleanly when it ends.”

But as Shang Yin’s spouse, he had to begin by asking Shang Yin for an explanation, then make his judgment according to the evidence.

Even so, Su Shengxin truly could not imagine what sort of reversal might still occur.

After all this time, Shang Yin had clearly already learned about the scandal between them. A dozen or so seconds after Su Shengxin sent the message, he heard several soft knocks on the door.

Shang Yin’s voice was calm and unhurried, though it still carried its habitual sense of authority.

“Shengxin, it’s fake. May I come in?”

“…” Su Shengxin walked to the door and opened it. “Fake?”

“Don’t panic,” Shang Yin said. “I won’t interfere for now. Ask him yourself. The story is already trending.”

Su Shengxin stared at Shang Yin for seven or eight seconds. Shang Yin’s gaze remained perfectly calm.

Su Shengxin then took his phone into the living room and sat down on the sofa. After composing himself and thinking for a moment, he finally posted another message on Weibo, tagging the beautiful influencer:

[Shang Yin has a tattoo. What is it, and where is it? If you can tell me, I’ll file for divorce tomorrow.]

Shang Yin followed him into the living room and sat in the single armchair beside the long sofa. Completely at ease, he picked up the financial magazine on the coffee table and began reading, waiting patiently.

Su Shengxin turned on the television and selected a geography program that had just begun.

Under the Weibo post, several thousand comments tagged the influencer’s account, demanding that he reveal the answer.

Yet the little influencer, who had previously replied incessantly to netizens, fell silent this time. A full hour passed before he posted again:

[That concerns President Shang’s privacy. I can’t say.]

By then, everyone naturally understood what had happened. They were speechless.

[Clout-chasing scammer!!!]

[Idiot!!!]

[Get lost!!!]

Some people asked:

[Wait. What about the photograph?]

[Was the photograph fake too?]

At almost exactly the same time, a famous financial journalist suddenly posted a piece of surveillance footage on Weibo.

In the recording, Shang Yin was walking along steadily and gracefully while speaking on the phone. Suddenly, the little influencer—who had been following several steps behind him—darted forward and threw both arms around Shang Yin’s arm.

Shang Yin paused for two or three seconds and glanced at him.

The little influencer seemed only then to realize that he had mistaken Shang Yin for someone else. He hurriedly let go, backing away while repeatedly bowing and apologizing. At last, he ran off.

Shang Yin stopped and considered the matter for a few seconds before turning around and walking back toward the room.

The video was accompanied by a screenshot explaining its origin.

It turned out to be a video Shang Yin had just posted to his private social feed, with several words attached:

[Don’t know him. I will love only one person in this life. My lawyers have been notified to collect evidence. I will be reporting this to the police.]

Knowing that Shang Yin was showing off their relationship, Su Shengxin naturally had to play his part as well. He turned off the television and looked at Shang Yin.

“Mr. Shang,” he said, half sincerely and half in character.

“Mm?” Shang Yin’s tone held neither impatience nor mockery.

Su Shengxin said, “…I’m sorry. I drank too much today. My brain wasn’t working.”

“It has nothing to do with you,” Shang Yin said. “You could never have imagined that some people have no bottom line. To them, all that matters is attention, whether it is good or bad. If I curse him, that would be even better. He would gain followers and make money.

“Besides, some people are strange. They despise poverty but not immorality. In their eyes, stealing another person’s husband is some remarkable accomplishment, something worth envying. Even the people who dislike you may secretly support him. Who knows?

“He may even be fantasizing that we would pay him a huge sum to delete his account immediately, simply to protect our reputations.”

Su Shengxin glanced at his phone. “You obtained this surveillance footage right away?”

“Yes,” Shang Yin said. “I didn’t notice any cameras. In fact, if the person filming had hidden around a distant corner with a selfie stick or something similar, I certainly wouldn’t have detected him. But I thought it was strange, so I asked the hotel for the footage.

“This must have happened six months ago, perhaps even longer. Under normal circumstances, the recording should already have been overwritten. Hotels generally don’t keep surveillance footage for more than three months.”

“I understand.”

Even so, Su Shengxin still found it unbelievable.

Did the man really want money that badly?

A subtle flicker passed through Shang Yin’s eyes. Suddenly, he said, “Shengxin, come here.”

“What is it?”

Su Shengxin walked over. Shang Yin leaned his tall body slightly toward him, then seized both of Su Shengxin’s wrists through his sleeves and motioned for him to take two steps forward. He then gestured for Su Shengxin to sit on his lap.

Shang Yin brought the tip of his nose close and lightly inhaled the scent of the chain resting between Su Shengxin’s collarbones.

The chain was a ring. It lay against his skin, hollow in the middle, its intricate pattern revealing glimpses of pale flesh beneath. Shang Yin gently breathed in the fragrance lingering inside the openwork—a faint, delicate scent of bathwater.

After a few seconds, Shang Yin lifted his head and looked into Su Shengxin’s eyes with his dark gaze. Then he turned and glanced around. He happened to see the prop glove from several days earlier lying on the low table beside the sofa.

He put it on his left hand. With the back of his index finger, he gently lifted Su Shengxin’s chin, then slowly followed the line of his Adam’s apple and the curve of his neck, breathing in his scent as he went.

Knowing that they were putting on a show of affection, Su Shengxin could do nothing but raise his neck to make it easier for Shang Yin to continue.

When Shang Yin reached his chin, Su Shengxin even obediently drew his neck back, turning his face directly toward the other man’s lips so that Shang Yin could continue upward—to his lower lip, the seam of his mouth, and then his upper lip.

At such close range, even the lines of his lips were perfectly clear.

Shang Yin lowered his eyes and lingered there for a moment before moving upward once more, passing over the tip of Su Shengxin’s nose and following the straight bridge toward its root, then to the space between his brows, his forehead, and finally the fine down along his hairline.

Throughout the process, Su Shengxin’s legs had begun to tingle. Without realizing it, he tightened them around Shang Yin’s thighs.

A few seconds later, Shang Yin returned. His lips stopped one or two centimeters from the center of his “lover’s” brow.

Su Shengxin was just about to remind him that they still could not make physical contact when Shang Yin raised his left hand. He lightly pressed his index and middle fingers against Su Shengxin’s brow and, through his own fingers, gently placed a kiss there.

The kiss landed on his own fingernails.

Shang Yin caught Su Shengxin by the arm and looked into his eyes.

“Don’t worry, Shengxin. In this life, I desire only you.”

His voice rang like metal and stone. Perhaps because of his identity and position, Shang Yin’s words always carried an unquestionable, undeniable force.

Page (2/3)

The two of them looked at each other’s lips and remembered the several kisses they had exchanged through a sheet of paper that afternoon.

Soft and yielding. Incredibly pleasant.

After a long while, Su Shengxin put his acting skills to work and buried his head deeply in the hollow of Shang Yin’s neck. He held Shang Yin by the shoulders, while Shang Yin clasped him around the waist.

When Su Shengxin returned to his room, he knew that Shang Yin’s lawyer had completed the preliminary evidence collection and would soon report the matter to the police.

The netizens’ attention had clearly shifted elsewhere. They were now asking:

[The Eternal Home of the Gentle Second Male Lead: So where is the tattoo???]

[The Overlord of the Sheep Village: Sweetheart, don’t treat us like strangers!!!]

[My Hair Part Is Getting Wider: Don’t tell us directly, darling. How about this—on the chest muscles, press 1; on the abdominal muscles, press 2; on the private parts, press 3; on the thighs, press 4…]

Many people also dug up evidence that all the so-called “gifts from Shang Yin” displayed on the influencer’s lesser-known account were counterfeits.

[One Suppository a Day: So fake, so fake, so fake, so fake… A powerful tycoon would give someone this?]

[I Just Want to Pinch a Handsome Man’s Buttocks: That isn’t a tourbillon at all. Tourbillons don’t look like that, thank you very much.]

[Cilantro Is Truly Delicious: That Hermes special order is coming apart at the seams…]

[Cool Breeze by the Sea, Cold Bottom: Look at what Brother Shang gives his wife. I’m dying. [Image]]

Su Shengxin opened the picture and discovered that it showed him leaving Shang Yin’s underground garage in a luxury car the previous year.

But that scene really had not been staged. Su Shengxin’s own car had broken down, and public transportation was inconvenient for him, so Shang Yin had graciously instructed his driver to take him home.

Later, people discovered that there was only one car of that model in the entire country. The five digits following the “Beijing A” on its license plate were the Hong Kong stock code of the Shangzhou Group.

It had all been a misunderstanding, yet somehow the car had become a symbol of their marriage.

…

At last, the noisy, chaotic night came to an end.

Unfortunately, everyone still had to rise early on the seventh day of the program.

The end of the first half was extremely important to A Three-Lifetime Promise, yet the producer had scheduled only one activity for the show’s four couples.

The activity would consume a great deal of the guests’ precious time, but the production team considered it worthwhile.

The program was called Weddings Around the World.

Among the guests on A Three-Lifetime Promise, some had already held weddings—grand ones, in certain cases, such as the internationally renowned director and the award-winning actress. Others had never held one, such as the NBA player and the Hong Kong singer.

Given these circumstances, the production team had decided to let those who had never had a wedding experience what one felt like, while allowing those who had already married to experience an entirely different kind of wedding atmosphere.

The theme was Weddings Around the World. The program’s producers had researched weddings in sixteen countries and written the names of those countries on sixteen small square tiles, which were then fastened together.

Once the guests selected their tiles, the producer would reveal the words. The country written on the display board would become that day’s wedding theme.

On the first day of the program, the tile Su Shengxin chose read “Greece.” Accordingly, he and Shang Yin would have to hold another wedding that day, this time following the traditions of a Greek ceremony.

As for the other couples, the internationally renowned director and the award-winning actress had drawn “Argentina,” the NBA player and the Hong Kong singer had drawn “Russia,” and the pianist and principal dancer had drawn “Kenya.”

Page (3/3)