After I Gave Up on a Couples' Variety Show

Yu Sang awakens and learns that she is the supporting female character meant to serve as a foil in an entertainment-industry novel.

Not only that, but Meng Bojun, the man she impulsively married to appease their elders, is also a foil to the male lead. The two of them are known as the foil couple.

In the story, the female and male leads fall in love on a variety show, play the perfect couple, and win over countless fans, becoming an online sensation.

Yu Sang, on the other hand, has a fiery temper, and her husband ignores her. There is no sweetness between them, only an act, and she ends up being mocked by the whole internet.

And now, as luck would have it, she is going on a variety show with her husband in just two days.

Yu Sang: Let’s just phone it in!

Before the show, her haters say: “Obviously fake! Tear her apart!”

But before the haters can start a fight, Yu Sang tears apart her own umbrella.

During the preview, the host asks why they got married.

Yu Sang says, “Our elders were both pressuring us to marry. We were dealing with the same problem, so we hit it off. We just wanted to be marriage partners and help each other out.”

On the show,

while the other couples are all lovey-dovey, cooking together and making romantic breakfasts or candlelit dinners, Yu Sang and her husband cook a blue-ringed octopus and poisonous mushrooms, nearly poisoning each other.

During a conversation on the show, the other guests gush about their happy future together. Yu Sang and her husband instead discuss what kind of people they like and promise to keep an eye out for each other after they get divorced.

During the beach episode, the other couples enjoy a romantic day together by the sea. Yu Sang and her husband lie around like beached fish, chatting about the handsome men and pretty women nearby.

Before long, they become the most popular couple online.

“The Grim Reaper couple: the CP adults should be shipping.”

“Marriage partners: a new kind of relationship.”

“Redefining CPs: a sensible take on marriage.”

The haters say:

“I came here looking for a fight, but even though they’re a little weird, somehow they’re perfect for each other.”

“They’re all about loving and fighting each other. The more you ship them, the more fun it gets. Their contrast is a real treat.”

“Ship them! No need to worry about them falling from grace, because they never had a foundation to begin with!”

Meng Bojun has had a crush on Yu Sang for over a decade. He impulsively married her, became her marriage partner, and went on a variety show with her.

In the end, as he watches Yu Sang asleep beside him, the corners of his mouth slowly curl upward.

(Slightly revised blurb)

Coming soon: The Corpse Burner at the Crematorium

Yue Ning spent decades killing zombies in the apocalypse before she transmigrated into the body of a graduate student about to finish her degree in a highly advanced society.

Her kind-hearted advisor recommends her for a crematorium job in corpse-burning support: good pay, little work, two days on and five days off, and a stable position.

Yue Ning thinks of her debts and the two cat ancestors she has to support, so she accepts without hesitation.

But aside from being a little unlucky, the job at this crematorium is dangerous and full of unsettling oddities.

On her first day, the old man in the incinerator refuses to burn. He even gets up with a smile and says he’s hungry and wants to try human flesh.

On the second day, a worker carries in a mattress that has been abused by a couple until it can talk, is in heat, and makes lewd advances.

Then there’s the talking pet-shop cat that killed several people. Licking its paws, it climbs into the incinerator by itself and curses as it delivers its last words: it’ll never come back to this world in its next life.

There’s also the computer desk that chased its boss for miles and injured him with an axe before being sent here to be burned. It rants and raves about how its boss made more than a dozen people share one bonus and still didn’t promote it or give it a raise.

And that’s not all. They talk, curse, and keep violently smashing up the crematorium and its incinerators. They beat their coworkers half to death, too. They’re a hundred times more terrifying than the zombies of the apocalypse.

Yue Ning asks, “For a weak, useless employee like me, can I get medical benefits if I’m injured?”

Her coworker stares blankly at the crack running from the floor to the ceiling beneath Yue Ning’s fist.

“Sure. First, take your fist away and let me out. You’re about to punch the building down.”

Theme: A harmonious marriage and a happy family