A top idol getting married is huge news!
Reporter Zhou hurriedly snapped photos of Jiang Li walking out of the civil affairs bureau, his hands shaking with excitement, nearly ruining the shots by pressing the shutter too hard.
How could he not be excited? The reason he could recognize that fuzzy ball as the current top star Jiang Li wasn’t because of his solid paparazzi skills.
It was because his daughter, still in elementary school, was a Jiang Li fan. The milk they bought at home was all endorsed by Jiang Li, he saw that head of blue hair on the bottle every single day. Reporter Zhou decided he’d buy a few more boxes of milk when he got home.
As he looked over the photos he’d taken, he tried to recall which actress Jiang Li was close with.
Unfortunately, after racking his brain, he couldn’t think of anyone. Jiang Li’s career had gone smoothly since his debut, debuting on a talent show at sixteen, blowing up with a TV drama at seventeen, and pulling in five billion in box office at eighteen.
In contrast to his thriving career, Jiang Li’s reputation with the public was notoriously poor. Forget a close actress friend, he didn’t even have a single friend within the industry.
Reporter Zhou genuinely couldn’t figure out who someone with Jiang Li’s temperament would end up marrying.
Just as he was puzzling over it, he suddenly noticed there was another person ahead of Jiang Li. When he got a clear look at who it was, he held his breath.
Jiang Li hadn’t noticed the reporter secretly photographing him. To avoid Duan Zhihan, who’d left first, he made his way out of the civil affairs bureau slowly, weaving through all sorts of cars on the road.
He didn’t like this outdated mode of transportation, the speed limit in the city, under forty kilometers per hour, was outrageously slow.
Having finished his critique, the little robot prepared to get into his own beat-up little car and head home, but looking up, he spotted Duan Zhihan ahead, staring in one direction.
Why hasn’t this human left yet?!
Slower even than his own beat-up car, by all rights he should’ve been long gone by now. And not only that.
Duan Zhihan was standing right in front of his car door. If he wanted to open it, he’d have to walk right past the man, clearly blocking the door on purpose, mooching a ride in the most obvious way.
He just wanted to start his new life and never see Duan Zhihan again, so he asked irritably, “What are you doing blocking this?”
“Blocking what?” Duan Zhihan replied lazily. “Can you tell me?”
Jiang Li had never met such a shameless human before. He was about to tell his driver to move to a different spot when a car pulled up beside Duan Zhihan.
The tall, imposing man got straight into the car, not forgetting to turn back and ask, “Does waiting for a ride count as obstructing traffic too?”
Turns out he’d just been waiting for his car.
Jiang Li stiffly shut his mouth, walking away from the car with an expressionless face, one strand of his blue hair bent out of shape.
He and Duan Zhihan were already strangers to each other now, so why would the man get into his car? The boy let out a breath of relief and got into his own beat-up little car.
In the car behind him, Duan Zhihan watched Jiang Li get in safely before telling his driver they could go.
He’d originally planned to accompany Jiang Li home, but since the boy wasn’t willing, he had to let it go. He knew he couldn’t rush things, he needed to slowly coax Jiang Li out of his shell.
But some things had to be done immediately.
Duan Zhihan let the smile fade from his peach-blossom eyes and dialed an out-of-town number.
Xue Yu’s cheerful voice came through the phone. “Teacher Duan, I post on my WeChat Moments and you never comment, I thought you’d blocked me. After all these years of friendship, I’m heartbroken.”
“Don’t go online.”
If it had been anyone else saying this, Xue Yu wouldn’t have believed it, but he and Duan Zhihan had known each other for seven or eight years, having become friends when they were both nobodies, and he knew Duan Zhihan’s whole heart was devoted to acting.
If not for that, he wouldn’t have spent three quiet years in obscurity before becoming famous overnight, winning three major domestic awards by age twenty-four.
“And also, the frequency of your Moments posts, I’m afraid my hand would break if I tried to comment on all of them.” Duan Zhihan dropped the joking tone. “I need you to look into someone for me.”
Xue Yu sat up straight. He ran an investigation company in Yucheng, and Duan Zhihan was technically a major shareholder, when he was short on funds to start the company, Duan Zhihan had been the one to help him out, so he agreed without a second thought. “Who is it?”
“Jiang Li’s biological father.”
Xue Yu was baffled by the name. “Why are you looking into Jiang Li’s biological father?”
He didn’t have much fondness for Jiang Li, his cousin, who’d just started kindergarten, insisted on finishing Jiang Li’s TV drama before going to bed every night. Probably every parent held some deep resentment toward Jiang Li.
But why on earth would he be looking into Jiang Li’s biological father, out of nowhere?
Having worked in this line of investigation for years, Xue Yu had seen plenty of hidden family secrets, and a theory popped into his head.
Could these two have been mixed up as babies at birth? No, the age gap was five years, that didn’t add up either. Maybe Jiang Li was Duan Zhihan’s father’s illegitimate child?
Wealthy family feuds really were dramatic and bizarre, no wonder Jiang Li always looked at Duan Zhihan with such displeasure. That would explain everything.
“Don’t overthink it.” Duan Zhihan ruthlessly shattered his theory. “He’s my spouse.”
Xue Yu was stunned by Duan Zhihan’s words. What kind of person was Duan Zhihan? Someone who’d received love letters by the armful since childhood, and he’d married a nineteen-year-old kid?
If the two fanbases found out about this, they’d probably be, well, stunned speechless.
Reporter Zhou worked at an ordinary newspaper in Yancheng, usually covering things like elderly people crossing the street or community charity events. The last time he’d photographed a celebrity had been a month ago.
He returned home and couldn’t sit still, alternating between sitting and standing, feeling like the camera in his hands was scalding hot, his heart pounding wildly, because the other person he’d photographed was Duan Zhihan.
Although he wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, it seemed like Duan Zhihan had been looking at the camera.
Reason told him he should release the photos quickly before some other magazine beat him to it, but this news was simply too enormous—Weibo crashing would be a minor thing, the entire internet would be shaken.
While other reporters worried that nobody cared about their news, Reporter Zhou worried that too many people would care about his, he wasn’t ready to stand at the center of the storm.
Reporter Zhou decided to test the waters on Weibo first, using an anonymous account to post:
What would happen if Jiang Li and Duan Zhihan got married?
Within two minutes, comments started rolling in. He clicked them open right away, glued to his computer.
“The blogger’s got some nerve”
“Careful, both fanbases might come assassinate you”
“Already bought a wreath for the blogger”
Sure enough, the post blew up, though to be precise, it blew up from all the mockery. The comments easily surpassed a thousand.
Everyone knew that Jiang Li’s and Duan Zhihan’s fans fought minor skirmishes every three days and major wars every five[1]sān tiān yī xiǎo chǎo wǔ tiān yī dà chǎo (三天一小吵五天一大吵) Idiom, a set phrase describing a relationship (romantic or, as here, between rival fandoms) marked by constant, … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3145825_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3145825_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });—Jiang Li’s fans mocked Duan Zhihan for lacking commercial appeal, while Duan Zhihan’s fans laughed at Jiang Li for having no real work to his name.
Even though the two had plenty of photos together, in one, Duan Zhihan had gently wrapped an arm around Jiang Li’s waist in a crowd, passersby who craved fan fiction about the pair went crazy for it, but no one dared actually write any.
So this post was practically a dance party on both fanbases’ blood pressure, the comment count climbing from five thousand to ten thousand to twenty thousand.
“First day on Weibo? There’s no way they’d ever get married. I heard some news, Duan Zhihan put Jiang Li in the hospital today.”
“The person above has some connections, huh”
“Damn it, old dog Duan isn’t even human, I’m just saying it here, they won’t get married even if the world ends”
“If those two get married I’ll livestream myself washing my hair while standing on my head”
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