Yao Shen is stunned silent for a full minute.

Xin Hulei takes advantage of his confusion to take control of the situation. He shoulders past the makeup artists and light technicians and starts adjusting Yao Shen\'s costume, pulling it closer together over his chest.

"In reality, Yan Shuyi wouldn\'t be so overly modest, and would just bathe himself naked, it\'s a natural state of being and he wouldn\'t be so self-conscious," Yan Shuyi admonishes, as he tightens Xin Hulei\'s robe\'s neckline but rolls up his sleeves.

Finally, Yao Shen regains the function of speech. "Did you just call me a slut?"

"No," Xin Hulei says, not pausing in his adjustments to the costume. "I called your rendition of Yan Shuyi a slut, there\'s a difference."

Yao Shen remains still as Xin Hulei ties the skirts of the thin inner robes around his legs like makeshift shorts.

"Practical, casual, the kind of person Yan Shuyi was," Xin Hulei says, inspecting his work with a critical gaze. "His elegance and refinement came from within, it didn\'t take any artifice or conscious effort on his part, and yet his intoxicating beauty was obvious to everyone who laid eyes on him."

Yao Shen looks up at him dumbly, blinking in utter bafflement.

"You understand that Yan Shuyi is a fictional character, right?" Yao Shen asks, enunciating each word carefully. "It\'s very important to me that you say yes."

The corner of Xin Hulei\'s lips curls up almost imperceptibly, in the faintest shadow of amusement. "Of course."

Yao Shen doesn\'t think anything is a matter of course when it comes to Xin Hulei. "Then please stop talking as if the two of you were classmates!"

Xin Hulei\'s lips tick up another fraction. "We definitely weren\'t classmates."

Wait.

Yao Shen turns his head sideways like a faulty antenna being adjusted for better reception.

He narrows his eyes at Xin Hulei.

Could it be that the events of the novel aren\'t that fictional?

Xin Hulei did say some stories were better left untold, which is a bizarre thing to say about a run-of-the-mill xianxia love story in which the whole world, and possibly the heavens, is against the protagonists.

There\'s probably ten new ones just like it being written as they speak.

Why would Xin Hulei have such strong feelings about the characters in \'Shizun, this disciple will have to kill you\', while apparently hating that it exists at all?

Unless he lived through it.

Yao Shen\'s mind reels. No, that\'s impossible, maybe some of it is true, but surely not all of it.

He\'s so flustered that he doesn\'t notice the director approaching them. "Yao laoshi, can we take it from the top?"

It takes Yao Shen another two takes to get his head back in the game enough to shoot the scene to both Xin Hulei\'s and the director\'s standards.

---

Later that day, and back at his hotel room, Yao Shen decides it\'s high time he does a little digging into \'Shizun this disciple will have to kill you\', and its mysterious author.

The more he thinks about it, the more he\'s convinced there\'s something to Xin Hulei\'s odd investment in his portrayal of Yan Shuyi.

And not only Yan Shuyi -- he has something to say about nearly every character, as if he knows them intimately.

What kind of demon king obsesses over the character in a random xianxia novel?

It\'s already pretty odd that Xin Hulei is a demon king and an actor at the same time. Yao Shen still hasn\'t managed to figure out how the two things are related -- but admittedly, he also hasn\'t been trying very hard.

Perhaps now is the time to change that.

This could be the thing that finally helps him gain some ground with Xin Hulei. He doesn\'t know how he\'s going to use this information to his favor, but Yao Shen is sure he\'ll find a way.

Eventually.

The System is oddly quiet, but then again, he does have the habit of speaking up at the oddest time and only when it\'s most obnoxious.

The identity of the novel\'s author is a complete mystery, like many others they write under a pseudonym. Except theirs is the unusual, \'Shishi\', 10 10, as if they couldn\'t even bother to come up with something more creative.

The oddest part is that besides writing \'Shizun this disciple will have to kill you\', Shishi doesn\'t seem to have an online presence to speak of. They have declined all requests for interviews, don\'t have any social media accounts to interact with fans, and have never published anything else either.

Somehow, eleven years ago, \'Shizun this disciple will have to kill you\', showed up fully written in one of the most popular webnovel platforms, and just exploded from there.

Shishi has never replied to a single comment, or shared their thoughts about each chapter.

The only thing of note is the last line of the prologue, which seems a bit out of place.

"Demons will kill you with the same smile they kiss you."