The Villainous Cannon Fodder Takes the Lead in the Dating Show Rat Race

Yan Xizhou had no talent for songwriting. It was all thanks to his siren-like voice that music producers in the industry competed to write lyrics and compose songs for him, and tickets to his concerts were impossible to get.

Feng Qinyu had an ocean of songwriting talent and a desert for vocal ability. He insisted on pairing the best songs with his painfully off-key voice, never letting anyone else perform his compositions. His instrumental CDs repeatedly broke sales records.

For years, the two ruled the music scene without ever crossing paths.

Both fanbases saw the other as their biggest rival on the way to the top. They had been at each other’s throats since the two debuted in the same year, until each became a king in his own right.

The internet’s biggest entertainment platform launched an SSS-rated dating reality show. Online voters would pick the most unforgettable single heartthrobs and play matchmaker for them.

Yan Xizhou and Feng Qinyu both received invitations after their vote counts soared.

But the day before leaving for the filming location, Yan Xizhou recovered memories of his past life. It turned out he had transmigrated into a novel from a popular web-fiction site, titled After Becoming the Sweetest Couple on a Dating Show with a Top-Tier Star, I Became Famous.

Yan Xizhou was a cannon-fodder character in the novel. He clashed with the protagonist, a shou, over their similar roles on the dating show. When his personal music producer switched muses, Yan held a grudge, grew jealous of the protagonist’s talent and popularity, and tripped him up at every turn. In the end, Yan was repeatedly humiliated and made a fool of, ruining his reputation. The once-glorious king of the music scene never recovered.

Meanwhile, the partner assigned to Yan in the show’s outline, Feng Qinyu, was the novel’s biggest villain. On the surface, he was a king of the music scene, but behind the scenes he was a domineering CEO, just like the protagonist’s gong. After coveting the protagonist, he was driven into bankruptcy by the gong and forced to write songs against his will to pay off his debts.

In the original novel, the two had no chemistry as a couple and became the first pair voted off the show.

Thinking of how the novel’s background notes said his company would terminate his contract, leaving him unable to afford the royalties on his old songs, and thus unable to hold concerts or perform new music in public ever again...

Yan Xizhou cried, “No way!” He’d die of grief if he had no new songs to sing!

He absolutely could not fall here.

Yan Xizhou had to preserve his appeal to music producers. He would not bring this on himself. He’d play his part on this dating show and keep his career going!

But the more he played along, the more it seemed he and Feng Qinyu had gone viral by accident?

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For viewers of The Stars’ Sweet Romance, at first they were just there to watch handsome men from the entertainment industry pair up and fall in love.

The sweet, doting romance between top-tier star Yu Fengjing and Shen Xingxiu, a singer-songwriter who shot to fame overnight, had them grinning like proud aunties.

If Yu Fengjing and Shen Xingxiu were a dream couple in a fluffy romance, then Feng Qinyu and Yan Xizhou were the definition of a reluctant, bickering couple forced to play along.

They kept instinctively tripping each other up during games.

During their love-song duet, one sang with deep emotion while the other sounded as if he had just lost his spouse.

When they teamed up to solve a mystery, their acting only came alive when they were trying to fool each other...

Fake. It was just too fake.

And yet their popularity votes were sky-high. They held the top spot from the very first episode, setting a record for the fakest, most reluctant couple in the entire entertainment industry. The show’s ratings exploded, and the whole internet was betting on which of them would fall first.

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A fan who had shipped themself into a frenzy wrote an impassioned essay:

At first I thought the production team was just pairing two kings of the music scene, Yan Xizhou and Feng Qinyu, for a short-lived couple destined to be sacrificed for the ratings. They could probably only afford to pay each of them for one episode.

But I was wrong. So, so wrong!

Help, this couple is just too good! They’re perfect together, an absolute match made in heaven! What kind of bickering enemies are they?

Waaah, look at the way Feng Qinyu’s eyes smolder after he fails to fool his darling! The sexual tension is off the charts! Am I allowed to watch this without paying? How can they be so fake and so real at the same time, like they’re both holding the other’s heart and betting on who’ll fall first and lose? Come on, one-week couple! This is all an act, but they’re both strong, meeting at the summit. Investing in them is a sure thing!

Come on, come on! Everyone vote for the one-week couple! Make them keep playing along until they’re madly in love! Aaaaah!

Theme: The right kind of love inspires people to grow.