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Became a National Couple with My Ex Side Story · Ye Cheng CP (Part 4): The Power of Love

Cheng Nuo interpreted what he meant—it was probably: "The official show is over, but we’re still here. If you’re up for it, I think we can keep streaming."

But this guy’s brain was spinning too fast from being money-minded, so what came out of his mouth was: "keep making money."

No wonder he’d said earlier that her understanding him wasn’t completely useless.

Cheng Nuo rolled her eyes so hard they practically flew into the sky.

One livestream had already drained every last bit of her energy, and he wanted a second round?

"Keep dreaming if you think there’s gonna be a next time," Cheng Nuo shut him down cold. "You think I did this because I wanted to? If Director Liu hadn’t begged me to help warm things up for Mr. Bian and Yixuan, you think I’d care about a few bucks?"

"But sis, thirty minutes of livestreaming probably makes more than thirty minutes of writing, right?"

"…"

That one kinda hurt.

Cheng Nuo choked on her words and snapped, "People pay for normal streams. Streaming with you for thirty minutes is like riding a roller coaster ten times in a row—it’s not just draining, it’s life-threatening. I’m not shaving years off my life for this! If you want to show off your romance for cash, go find the girl who owns that earring of yours!"

Classic screenwriter logic—making wild leaps out of nowhere.

"That fell off a cameraman the day before yesterday," Duan Ye sighed.

"Don’t lie. We even have a female cameraman on our team?"

"See for yourself." Duan Ye pulled out his phone, opened his chat with Liu Peng, and showed her the message history.

Cheng Nuo took his phone and saw that the same earring photo he’d sent her had also been sent to Liu Peng.

In the chat, Duan Ye had first asked Liu Peng who it belonged to. Liu Peng hadn’t replied right away—probably forwarded it to the group—and then ten minutes later replied: it belonged to a cameraman’s girlfriend. He must’ve had it in his pocket and dropped it. He’d come by to get it later that night.

"Tsk. And here I thought you had some mysterious admirer. Turns out it’s someone else’s girlfriend. What a shame…" Cheng Nuo muttered as she handed the phone back—but midway through, she paused. Something didn’t feel right. Before Duan Ye could take it, she snatched it back and checked the timestamp of his chat with Liu Peng.

Then she pulled out her own phone and compared it to the time she’d received Duan Ye’s message yesterday morning.

Sure enough, she’d only gotten his message after he already knew the earring wasn’t hers.

So why did he still act all mysterious and send that message?

Cheng Nuo looked up. "?"

Duan Ye: "…"

"Care to explain?" she waved the phone in his face.

"I asked, then fell asleep, and forgot."

Cheng Nuo raised an eyebrow and stared at him like, ‘Keep lying, I dare you.’

Duan Ye sighed. "You know what flirting is?"

"."

"I just wanted a reason to talk to you."

"."

"See if maybe we’d hit it off…"

"."

Cheng Nuo stayed stone-faced. No reaction. Duan Ye ran a hand through his hair. "I wanted to rope you in to make money together."

He was hoping to play the fool and secretly score a win—but ended up talking himself into a breakup.

Now Cheng Nuo understood: that "." he sent the other day wasn’t an "okay." It was him being speechless at his own failed plan.

This money-obsessed pretty boy—was money the only thing in his eyes?

Cheng Nuo rubbed her pounding temples, took a deep breath, opened the apartment door, spun him around, and shoved him out.

"Well, let me tell you now—your chance is gone."

*

After kicking him out, Cheng Nuo cleaned up the kitchen, took a shower, and finally relaxed. Then she logged into Weibo to see how people were reacting to that night’s livestream.

A trending hashtag had already popped up: #YeChengCPDogFoodCrusher. Although fans of the couple were joking about how "plastic" her and Duan Ye’s relationship looked—so fake it was hard to digest—no one really seemed to suspect that their romance was staged.

When a few skeptical netizens questioned it, CP fans even shared a video that supposedly proved YeCheng CP was real.

Curious, Cheng Nuo clicked in to watch. It was a comparison video, showing edited clips from early and late episodes of the show.

First comparison:

In an early episode, Duan Ye and Lin Xiao Sheng were playing video games in the living room. She called out to Duan Ye from the kitchen, but he just slouched on the sofa, completely ignoring her. She gave him a major eye roll.

In a later episode, Bian Xu had left for a few days to record white noise for Liang Yixuan. Pan Yu made some passive-aggressive comments, accusing him of "playing hard to get." Cheng Nuo defended Yixuan, scoffing angrily. Duan Ye, in the middle of a game, froze for a second and let his character die. He sighed and snapped at Pan Yu: "Why are you running your mouth? Ruining someone else’s job won’t make yours any better."

Second comparison:

On their first date, Duan Ye brought her to an auto repair shop and then completely ignored her to work on an engine, leaving her sitting there bored.

On a later group date, since Bian Xu and Liang Yixuan weren’t there, the remaining six paired off for a bike ride around a lake. She and Duan Ye shared a tandem bike. After pedaling for a while, she started slacking off. When Duan Ye turned to look, she pretended to be pedaling hard. He just told her to save her strength and pedaled the whole way himself.

Third comparison:

One early night, Duan Ye came downstairs with messy bed hair, ate, then immediately went to play games with Lin Xiao Sheng, leaving her and Liang Yixuan to clean up the dishes.

Later, one night when only she, Duan Ye, and Lin Xiao Sheng were at the villa, Lin finished washing dishes and asked Duan Ye if he wanted to game. Just then, she rushed downstairs holding her laptop, saying she dropped it and it wouldn’t turn on. She asked Duan Ye if it was fixable. He didn’t even reply to Lin—he just grabbed his toolkit and started taking the back cover off her laptop. Lin quietly went upstairs alone.

Fourth comparison:

On their second date, because she had publicly complained that the first date left her sitting on a "cold bench," Duan Ye spitefully took her on a long walk through alleyways. Her feet were so sore she barely survived, only recovering thanks to the foot massage Liang Yixuan got from Bian Xu.

On their final date, she was dragging her sandals along the beach, weakly complaining, "This coastline feels longer than Metro Line 1 in Nanhua." She plopped down in the sand, refusing to move. Duan Ye sighed, picked up her sandals, crouched in front of her, and told her to hop on his back. He carried her to the end.

……

After watching a dozen comparisons, Cheng Nuo suddenly felt a little dazed.

Maybe it was the classic case of not noticing what’s happening when you’re in the middle of it—or maybe she’d been too focused on other people to see it herself—but she hadn’t realized just how much Duan Ye had changed over time.

The video’s comment section was filled with confident declarations that this was "the power of love," and that these changes were ironclad proof YeCheng CP wasn’t fake.

Cheng Nuo sat staring, brainwashed by the clever editing. She was in a daze for a long while until she shook her head to snap out of it, driving the CP fans’ brainwashing out of her mind—only to mentally replay Duan Ye’s words from that night:

"I just needed an excuse to talk to you."

"Wanted to see if we could have a nice chat…"

"So I could rope you into making money with me."

No.

This wasn’t the power of love.

It was the power of money.

After the livestream ended, Cheng Nuo returned to her normal life—staying home most days with her laptop, writing scripts, joining voice meetings, cooking when she had time, ordering takeout when she didn’t. Every now and then, she’d catch a movie by herself. Just living a quiet, simple life.

Duan Ye hadn’t come back to bother her since she turned him down.

Every night before bed, she’d scroll through Weibo, check what was trending, and maybe sneak a peek at Duan Ye’s page. He was capitalizing on the show's recent popularity—posting sponsored content while his account was still hot.

The ad frequency was about one small promo a day, one major one every three days. Strangely enough, none of the fans complained—instead, they were full of sympathy————

「This ad frequency is enough to make people cry. Sweetheart, are you really struggling this much? Mommy’s so worried. Do you even have money left to date properly?」

「You already used up the livestream tips from last time? Can’t even afford food again? Tell Mommy—how much commission do you get per sale? I’ll get your dad, your grandparents, everyone to buy it for you.」

「Fine, fine, I’ll buy it, okay? You can suffer, but your girlfriend can’t! You better use that money to treat her right, you hear me?」

「I hope my broke, miserable son doesn’t get dumped. Let Mommy pay for your love life.」

In short, even though Cheng Nuo never stepped forward publicly, she realized that Duan Ye was still making money off their CP (couple pairing) image.

Interfering with someone's income is like killing their parents. For a rich kid to fall this far just to survive—it was kind of pitiful. Cheng Nuo thought she’d just let him be. Once he got through this rough patch, she’d announce their "peaceful breakup."

Half a month passed like that. One night in mid-December, after dinner, Cheng Nuo habitually checked Duan Ye’s Weibo and was surprised to see that he hadn’t posted any new ads in the past two days.

She clicked her tongue in amusement—Finally done milking the money train, huh? She browsed the trending topics, liked a couple of funny posts, and was just about to log off when a new private message popped up.

It was from someone on a brand’s operations team, asking if she knew where Duan Ye was, and if she could get in touch with him.

At first, Cheng Nuo thought it was a scam. But then they sent her screenshots of texts with Duan Ye, and she realized they were legit.

The brand rep told her they’d been trying to reach Duan Ye since the afternoon. He was supposed to do a livestream product promo that night, but now the stream was about to start with no sign of him, and they were panicking. They’d seen her recent likes and figured she might be online—so in desperation, they messaged her for help.

Cheng Nuo thought, This is a well-known local brand—the commission and pay must be decent. There’s no way Duan Ye would flake on them. She tried calling him.

His phone was off.

According to the rep, it had been working earlier that afternoon. But at some point later, it suddenly went off and stayed that way.

Thinking like a screenwriter and combining that with what she knew of Duan Ye’s habits, Cheng Nuo came up with a theory: he probably fell asleep and missed the calls, then the constant incoming calls drained his phone battery.

And since his alarm was probably set on that same dead phone—it never rang. So he just kept sleeping.

She hesitated a few minutes between minding her own business and sticking her nose in, but when she saw how frantic the brand was—and that they were already looking for a backup guest—she finally gave in. She left home and took a cab to Duan Ye’s auto shop.

When she arrived, the shop’s rolling door was open, lights on inside—but no sign of Duan Ye.

Cheng Nuo got out of the car and walked in, glancing around. She called out cautiously, "Duan Ye?"

No response. Just the whistling of the winter wind in the empty space.

She was about to check the back when she glanced over and saw someone lying in the backseat of a beat-up car.

Cheng Nuo nearly screamed—but then saw it was just Duan Ye sleeping. She clutched her chest to calm down, opened the door to wake him—but then noticed something odd.

His cheeks were flushed bright red.

She paused, reached out to touch his forehead—

Her fingers snapped back. He was burning hot.

"Duan Ye?" Cheng Nuo gently shook his shoulder. "You’ve got a fever!"

He stirred, clearly uncomfortable, cracked one eye open and muttered, "What are you doing here…" before turning away and falling back asleep.

"You can’t stay like this," Cheng Nuo touched his forehead again—he must’ve been running a fever of at least 38 or 39 degrees Celsius. "Come on, get up."

She bent down to pull him up, but just as she grabbed his wrist, he grabbed her hand instead.

Holding her cold fingers, he pressed them against his flaming face like ice. "Don’t move. Just let me cool off for a bit…"

Cheng Nuo froze, hand stiff in place. "This isn’t helping. Come on, get up—I’ll take you to a doctor."

Duan Ye frowned deeply and shook his head. "Jiejie… seeing a doctor costs money…"