My Boyfriend is the Heartthrob, and I’m Just a Passerby.

A blurry, smiling face flashed through Ye Jishu’s mind.

Where had he seen it before?

As his actions paused, unable to confirm the thought, the game screen suddenly changed.

The eyeball on the operating table twitched for a moment.

Ye Jishu’s gaze shifted upward.

[Is the mission starting? Or…]

The in-game voice chat fell into dead silence.

The eyeball stopped moving.

But in the next moment—

The operational machinery abruptly shook, emitting sharp, ear-piercing explosions of sound.

Roars and cries blended together, suddenly bursting through the headphones.

At the same time, the previously steady green line on the screen jolted erratically, like a chaotic heartbeat.

The fluorescent green waves trembled and aligned themselves into several lines of text in Ye Jishu’s vision.

He squinted, straining to make out the message.

Finally, from the distorted lines, he managed to piece together a few words:

[I]

[Save]

[Save me…]

“Ah!”

Suddenly, Bai Feng’s terrified scream rang out in the headset.

“The tubes—where they’re connected—”

In full view of everyone.

The tubes connected to the old desktop computer began to overflow with filthy, dark red blood.

Following the conspicuous trail of blood, the source of the connection was finally revealed.

It was a massive laboratory rat.

The creature had long since died.

Its decayed flesh exposed writhing maggots beneath.

Muscles twitched faintly under weak electrical currents, and the wires connected to its brain projected its consciousness outward.

[It hurts!]

[It hurts so much…!!]

Not far away, Bo Zhehan let out a panicked gasp.

This grotesque scene triggered memories of the faceless girl on that rainy night.

The others might not realize it, but as the second son of the game company—and someone determined to establish his persona as a skilled gamer in front of fans—he had played this game’s demo in advance.

But… in his memory, there was no such scene!!

This was the tortured wail of a ghost, screaming and crying with distorted, corrupted electrical noises screeching in the background.

Could it really be just a game side quest?

Yet a growing intuition spread through his chest, denying that possibility.

The temperature in the lab plummeted, as if plunging into an icy abyss.

Everyone was stunned, blankly watching the events unfold before them.

【Did you see it too? That game streaming incident?】

【I know! It’s about that rat!】

【So creepy… Isn’t this part not supposed to exist in the game?】

【Even though it just released, other streamers have been playing it, so it can’t be intentional. Everyone’s confirmed it—it really doesn’t have this mission.】

【It’s terrifying…】

Ye Jishu put his phone down.

From the moment he saw the rat, the atmosphere of the game stream had turned unnervingly strange.

Though they continued joking and acting unaffected, the tension lingered, unshakable.

When the stream finally ended, it was pure relief.

Afterward, everyone exchanged friend requests with each other, but Ye Jishu didn’t join in.

He simply shut off his gaming phone.

An hour had passed since the livestream ended.

In that brief time, the situation had already gone viral.

Most people were focused on discussing the [rat.]

The eyeball might have belonged to a lab rat as well.

Could the tube connecting the rotting corpse have been what the rat was trying to convey?

The buzz was spreading rapidly online.
But this kind of macabre popularity wasn’t what the streaming platform wanted.

After all, the project’s goal was to promote the streamers, not let the game itself overshadow them. News of such morbid incidents would only generate short-lived interest, so they needed to redirect public attention.

[Bai Feng has followed you. Teacher, you just need to follow back. That’s all. The company’s suggestion is to keep it simple, so…]

So many words.

Ye Jishu distilled the essential meaning.

If he didn’t need to do anything else beyond following back, then it didn’t matter. He was Ye Jishu, but yjs wasn’t his life. He had no intention of tying this account to his real life.

[Okay.] He replied.

The other party seemed surprised by how readily he agreed and took a moment before responding:

[Understood. Then, Teacher yjs…]

It was followed by polite expressions of gratitude.

Ye Jishu extracted the key details:

The payment would be issued on schedule, calculated per livestream session. He wouldn’t need to take any additional actions.

That was enough for him.

He followed Bai Feng back and then turned off his phone.

After hesitating for a few seconds, Ye Jishu finally opened the forum.

In truth, he already had a vague suspicion in his mind.

But when it came to verifying it, an inexplicable hesitation welled up, preventing him from checking right away.

Now, however, his screen lingered on the private message window, staring at an avatar.

The last message from Wen Yuhe remained frozen on the screen:

[The suspicion has been confirmed.]

The avatar matched the scene he’d witnessed in the game.

There were only minor differences, but when viewed as a whole, they were almost identical.

Why?

Did the game plagiarize?

If so, that would expose them to legal risks—a huge gamble for a newly released game.

But no, that wasn’t likely.

Ye Jishu paused.

He clicked on the avatar, zooming in, and noticed something in the corner.

It was a student ID.

Though a bit smudged around the edges, the name [Wen Yuhe] was clearly visible.

It was a photo taken by Wen Yuhe himself.

Which meant it couldn’t possibly be just a random stock image.

At that moment, the enlarged photo suddenly disappeared.

A new message from Wen Yuhe pushed his touch interaction aside—an uncanny coincidence in timing.

[I watched the livestream everyone’s talking about.]

[That voice… it’s you, isn’t it?]

[I assume you’ve realized it too—that image matches my avatar almost exactly.]

[…speaking of which,  Yan Mei isn’t around anymore, right? After such an unexpected incident, I’m really scared. If possible, can I come to you?]

It was just a line of text displayed on the phone.

Yet, Ye Jishu could easily imagine the unnervingly clear, cheerful face of the sender—behind their drooping eyelids lay a frenzied excitement.

[I helped you with Professor Chen before, didn’t I? Now that I’m in trouble, it would be great if you could help me in return.]

[I’m coming to see you now.]

As his eyes scanned the last line of text, a faint click of the door lock being turned came from the entrance.

The next moment, a creak echoed as the door slowly opened.

Ye Jishu looked up, only to see a figure abruptly appear in the doorway.

“…”

Under his gaze, Bo Zhehan stood there, gasping for air, his face etched with fear.

His breath was uneven as he panted out, “That was terrifying! I couldn’t even sleep at the hotel. That mechanical noise is still echoing in my head…”

Bo Zhehan had hurriedly gotten a driver to take him back.

The school was quite a distance from the city center, where his studio was located. The journey was long.

To make matters worse, it was evening rush hour. Stuck in traffic, he had never felt a stronger desire to just disappear.

He was terrified of being even slightly late and missing the dormitory’s curfew.

Why?

Having experienced one supernatural event, his instincts told him that staying near Ye Jishu was the safest option.

At least around him, that rule seemed universal.

It was like how the faceless girl only affected him, while Ye Jishu wasn’t even able to see her, bringing some sense of normalcy back to the world.

When Bo Zhehan was escorted out of that shelter, he inadvertently noticed the faceless girl again. Just like him, she was surrounded by people in quarantine suits. They were examining her with devices, their expressions grim.

[I wonder if she’s been let out yet.]

During the day, Bo Zhehan had someone investigate her whereabouts.

Like him, she had returned to school.

She was about ten hours late but hadn’t undergone any of the treatment he’d imagined.

All the abnormalities had been glossed over, and she seemed just as normal as ever—a regular student, just like before.

And all of this started when Ye Jishu encountered her. The terrible circumstances seemed to have been resolved.

[No matter the reason, Ye Jishu is definitely important.]

Bo Zhehan was well aware of his admiration for strength.

When faced with danger, it was only natural to gravitate toward the safest place.

[Doesn’t this mean I must find Ye Jishu as soon as possible?]

That was the only thought running through Bo Zhehan’s mind.

However—

As he finished speaking, Ye Jishu merely stared at him in silence.

“…?”

Seeing this, Bo Zhehan looked puzzled.

Why was he staring at him? Did he say something wrong? Or was it because he’d been too chatty during the livestream earlier?

Desperate to figure it out, he stared back at Ye Jishu, trying to decipher the reason.

But soon, he realized something.

Ye Jishu’s gaze wasn’t focused on him at all. It was fixed beyond him, over his shoulder…

[Why does this feel so eerily familiar?]

No, no, no!

Bo Zhehan’s body stiffened, cold sweat breaking out across his back.

Because at that moment, he heard it. The same sharp, piercing cry from before.

Only this time, it wasn’t distinctly feminine.

It was a cacophony of shrill screams, like nails scraping across a blackboard—jarring and grating, reminiscent of some kind of rodent.

Before, he had been brave enough to approach the source.

Now, he was so paralyzed with fear that even the slightest noise made him feel like his sanity was slipping.

Despite his terror, he dared not turn around.

“Why are you standing at the door?”

As his thoughts spiraled, a voice suddenly came from behind him.

Bo Zhehan froze for a moment.

Then, he turned around—and saw a familiar face.

“…Wen Yuhe?”

The name slipped out of his mouth.

They were both wealthy, after all. Their circles were small, so it was inevitable they’d know each other.

[This is a living person,] he thought.

There was no trace of anything monstrous about him.

The strange sounds earlier must have been a result of his overstressed and hypersensitive nerves.

The reason Ye Jishu had been looking behind him earlier was probably just because Wen Yuhe was there.

Being near Ye Jishu really was the safest place.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Bo Zhehan was just about to turn back and ask Ye Jishu how he knew Wen Yuhe when he saw it—

The right side of Wen Yuhe’s face suddenly split open, revealing rows of rodent-like teeth, sharp and dense, moving with each breath he took.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Wen Yuhe asked with a smile.