[Author, are you okay? Lu Chiyuan provided her with food, clothing, and education. Just because he thought the male lead's character was questionable and didn't agree to their relationship, he deserved to be killed by them?]

[What kind of cosmic injustice is Lu Chiyuan? Did his existence interfere with the male and female leads showing off their love? The author even said earlier that Lu Chiyuan would get a good ending, and this is it? Since when is a good person being tortured to death considered a good ending? I'm speechless.]

[Damn it, feeding readers shit in the finale, you really outdid yourself. Refund!]

Jiang Chen finished his day's work, stretched comfortably, collapsed onto the sofa, pulled out his phone and opened the novel he was following to pass the time.

Today was the finale. He habitually read the comments first before the text, anticipating a perfect happy ending with joy, only to be stunned for three minutes by a stream of scathing negative reviews.

His mind was left with only one thought: Lu Chiyuan was gone.

Huh?

Jiang Chen slowly formed a question mark in his mind, incredulously clicking on the main text. He skimmed through it rapidly, his fingers flying past the sickeningly sweet content between the male and female leads, searching for plot points related to Lu Chiyuan.

When he read that Lu Chiyuan was kidnapped, and the female lead deliberately provoked the kidnappers over the phone, leading to Lu Chiyuan being tortured to death and thrown into the river, Jiang Chen shot up from his seat. For a moment, he almost doubted his ability to read Chinese.

That was Lu Chiyuan! The head of the Lu family. Someone who was surrounded by attendants wherever he went—how could he be easily kidnapped and die such a hasty death?

This didn't seem like his ending; it was more like the author venting all their malice on him.

Jiang Chen's desire to curse reached its peak at that moment.

He rarely read such strange Mary Sue domineering CEO novels. The only reason he kept following updates without interruption was because Lu Chiyuan, the second male lead, was written with great charisma.

He was calm, restrained, responsible, and dependable.

Jiang Chen was captivated by his personality and had even written character analyses for him, analyzing everything thoroughly and gaining considerable resonance from readers. His posts were even featured by the author. 

Lu Chiyuan still became a tool serving the male and female leads. Not only was he tortured to death, but to enable the female lead to inherit his fortune, the author arranged for his parents to die in a car accident on their way to the police station after receiving news of his death.

All three family members died, giving the female lead, as an adopted daughter, the qualification to inherit the estate. She and the male lead joined forces to swallow up Lu Chiyuan's business empire, living lavishly with his money.

Jiang Chen's expectations were fed to the dogs, his heart feeling as if someone had punched him hard. If he had any less self-control, he would have torn apart the author's comment section right now.

He had followed the series for four months, watching Lu Chiyuan from his entrance to his exit. In his heart, this character was no longer simply a paper figure—he had flesh and blood, and shouldn't have met such an ending.

The harsh, jarring sound of electrical static made Jiang Chen's ears ring. He covered his ears and turned toward the source of the sound, coming face to face with a vortex emitting an eerie green glow. Before he could react to what was happening, his vision went black and he lost consciousness.

When Jiang Chen regained consciousness, not only had the ringing in his ears not disappeared, but there were many more sounds around him. He tried hard to distinguish them but couldn't make out anything clearly.

While he was still confused, a bucket of ice water was poured over his head, shocking him awake with the cold. His whole body became alert.

Jiang Chen was already angry about Lu Chiyuan's ending, and his wet clothes clinging to his body made him shiver. His anger flared up immediately, and he sat up abruptly.

"Are you sick..."

Jiang Chen's voice cut off abruptly. What he saw was not his home.

His own small apartment was just over a hundred square meters with a warm style. But this house—just the main hall was more than a hundred square meters, with a minimalist black and white style that was solemn and cold.

He sat on the ground, surrounded by a circle of people all wearing identical suits and buzz cuts, with sunglasses on their faces and white gloves on their hands, looking exactly like bodyguards from movies.

The one who had poured ice water on Jiang Chen was even more imposing—a mass of muscle bulging beneath his suit. He wasn't wearing sunglasses, and his face bore a centipede-like scar running from his brow bone to his ear, making his already unfriendly face look even more vicious.

Jiang Chen found this feature strangely familiar, but before he could remember, Scarface grabbed his arm, pulled him up and pushed him forward, his voice rough: "Little Jiang, how can a grown man like you fail to watch over one person? This time I can't protect you either. You'll have to explain to Boss Lu yourself."

But one day, when the author needed a scapegoat, the subordinate was promoted, gaining a name and identity from then on. Even his ending got a dedicated page—he died quite miserably.

Jiang Chen touched the back of his head. The severe pain and blood made him understand that he was currently standing at the scene where he would take the blame.

The female lead of the book, Shen Zhiyi, had skipped school to elope with some thugs, refusing to take the college entrance exam no matter what. Lu Chiyuan was so angry that he put down his work and flew back from abroad overnight to drag her home for reflection.

Shen Zhiyi didn't think she was wrong. Instead, she blamed Lu Chiyuan for being dictatorial and not understanding her inner desires at all, throwing tantrums at home with crying, making scenes, and threatening suicide.

Lu Chiyuan was furious and, for the first time, remained unmoved by her tears and tantrums. He arranged for her to take leave and hired tutors while adding security to the villa to ensure Shen Zhiyi wouldn't leave.

Little did he know that there was a traitor among the villa's security. This person encouraged the subordinate to deliver food to Shen Zhiyi, and when the subordinate opened the door for her, took the opportunity to knock him unconscious.

When the subordinate woke up, the female lead had disappeared, and Lu Chiyuan was furious.

The subordinate was purely a victim, but he was tongue-tied by nature. The real culprit pushed him forward to attract Lu Chiyuan's anger. Unable to explain clearly, he took the punishment unfairly. The wound on his head wasn't properly treated, leading to a serious illness that made his already dim brain even more foolish.

But even so, he remained utterly loyal to Lu Chiyuan, serving him faithfully and working tirelessly, becoming a steadfast obstacle on the male and female leads' path to love.

When Jiang Chen first read this, he thought this subordinate was even more tool-like than a tool character—truly a brick for the entire story, moved wherever needed.

Now he had become this brick, and that dedicated page ending flashed quickly through his mind: family bankruptcy, parents' death, and his own imprisonment. He was even bullied and humiliated in prison by people arranged by the male lead, ultimately committing suicide.

Jiang Chen: "..."

Jiang Chen gave the Jin Chuan System a middle finger in his mind.

This damn thing was actually real! He thought it was just the website glitching.

This explosive opening—not even giving him a chance to choose a character?

Jiang Chen wiped the water droplets from his face, thinking about how to resolve the current predicament. When he looked up and met Lu Chiyuan's eyes, his brain immediately short-circuited.

Lu Chiyuan sat on the sofa with his legs slightly apart, his upper body naturally relaxed. Due to Shen Zhiyi's disappearance, he emanated an extremely low pressure, his expression so gloomy it seemed water could drip from it.

When Jiang Chen looked at him, he raised his hand to adjust his tie—a signal that his patience was exhausted. His sharp eyebrows gathered with coldness, and his pair of keen, slightly blue icy eyes seemed like blades, stabbing straight at Jiang Chen.

Jiang Chen's body instinctively felt fear, but Jiang Chen himself, after his initial shock, felt a surge of joy in his heart.

[Baby, my baby, you're even better-looking than I imagined. Wuwuwu, daddy loves you.]

The joyful inner voice drifted by, and Lu Chiyuan, sitting upright on the sofa, stiffened almost imperceptibly, a flash of confusion quickly passing through his eyes as he looked at Jiang Chen.

Jiang Chen was completely unaware. Just thinking about that shit-like ending made his heart ache.

[Baby, daddy will definitely save you and won't let Shen Zhiyi harm you.]

Another strange voice. Lu Chiyuan remained composed, the confusion in his eyes turning to inquiry.

He looked at the face before him—fair and clean, gentle and refined. Those eyes were large and spirited, appearing innocent yet foolish, topped with soft, slightly curly short hair, like a naive little lamb.

The little lamb had been doused with bone-chilling water. His white shirt revealed the texture beneath, and the buttons on his chest weren't properly fastened. In this kneeling position, Lu Chiyuan could see a large expanse of his fair chest, tinged with a slight pink.

He appeared very well-behaved, but the voice coming from within his body was exceptionally bold and unrestrained.

Most importantly, except for Lu Chiyuan, no one else showed any reaction.

Lu Chiyuan maintained his composure, unaffected by these two voices: "How did you help Shen Zhiyi escape?"

To keep watch over Shen Zhiyi, Lu Chiyuan had deployed many people who strictly guarded every corner. None of them had seen Shen Zhiyi, and she wasn't captured on the villa's surveillance either. Shen Zhiyi had simply vanished into thin air from the villa.

Jiang Chen had a deep impression of this plot point, thinking to himself: [Shen Zhiyi never ran away at all. There's a hidden compartment in her walk-in closet, and she's hiding in there.]

Out loud, he said: "Brother Lu, I don't know what happened. I don't remember anything."

Jiang Chen was stunned for two seconds before realizing what he had said. His face carried a confident smile wanting to perform well in front of Lu Chiyuan, but his words were utterly timid, making his expression and speech extremely discordant and quite comical.