What had leaked was just one photo.
In the photo, Jiang Li and Duan Zhihan appeared in front of the civil affairs bureau, the boy wrapped up like a fuzzy ball, holding a small red booklet in his hand. And so the entire internet witnessed how Weibo could crash within three minutes, though the person who posted it didn’t seem nearly as composed as everyone had assumed.
Reporter Zhou sat stiffly in his chair, nervously swallowing.
He handed his phone over, asking the man in front of him cautiously, “Is it okay to post it like this?”
“That’s fine.”
Duan Zhihan glanced at the screen and stood up calmly.
Reporter Zhou watched his retreating figure and let out a breath of relief. He hadn’t planned to post today, but who could refuse when this kind of powerhouse came knocking?
He’d seen plenty of people pay to have stories taken down, but paying someone to release a story, this was his first time seeing that.
The moment Duan Zhihan walked out the door, Xue Yu called. He answered calmly. “Find anything?”
“Jiang Li’s biological father is named Jiang Hong. He used to run a repair shop in Yucheng, but got dragged into gambling by some people and lost the whole shop. His wife ran off too. I heard he’s gambling somewhere in Southeast Asia now.”
“Find out exactly where.”
“I’ll do my best. Gamblers like that are slippery as rabbits, popping up in one hole then another[1]jiǎo tù sān kū (狡兔三窟), Metaphor, from the idiom about a cunning rabbit that keeps several burrows as escape routes, applied here to a debtor who always has another hideout jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3145828_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3145828_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.” Xue Yu’s tone dripped with disdain.
Then, the next second, he switched into gossip mode: “By the way, I saw Jiang Li got framed by someone. Teacher Duan, didn’t you say you don’t go online? Don’t tell me Weibo crashing has nothing to do with you.”
He’d originally planned to help Jiang Li out, smearing some small-time celebrity like Yuan Qing would’ve been easy, but Duan Zhihan had beaten him to it.
If Duan Zhihan hadn’t wanted anyone to know, there was no way that reporter could’ve gotten the story out. It was clearly meant to suppress the buzz.
Xue Yu waited for an answer, but instead heard Duan Zhihan chuckle lightly. “A spouse is different, of course.”
Xue Yu: …
Still, he found it puzzling—Duan Zhihan had a hundred ways to handle this situation, could’ve had every trace of it wiped from the entire internet if he wanted, so why go public with their relationship? Something felt off.
Weibo posted an emergency maintenance notice, and after thirty minutes the platform barely returned to normal.
The entire platform fell into unprecedented activity, despite it being deep in the night, there wasn’t a hint of sleepiness among netizens, and posting volume hit an all-time record.
“I got stuck for about half an hour, and it’s still lagging now, is this what top-star-and-Best-Actor-level buzz looks like?”
“From now on, if someone announces a relationship and Weibo doesn’t crash for at least half an hour, don’t even call them a real celebrity, I’m talking about you, small-fry attention-seekers”
“To be precise, this isn’t a relationship announcement, it’s a marriage! I still can’t believe this is real”
“Who could believe it? If I hadn’t seen the photo, I wouldn’t either”
Passersby naturally spread the word that Jiang Li and Duan Zhihan were together, completely forgetting about Yuan Qing.
“Is my memory malfunctioning? I remember these two being bitter rivals, should I throw my brain in the trash?”
“Don’t throw your brain out just yet! They were indeed rivals, but they’ve also indeed gotten together”
“Rivals turned lovers, what kind of novel plot is this, original slash fiction come to life!”
“You’re not alone, I thought I’d opened Jingjiang Novels instead of Weibo by mistake. Are there any authors writing fanfic about this yet?”
Unlike the passersby’s excitement, the mood among both fanbases right now was complicated, very complicated.
Especially when someone dug up their earlier posts, their faces stung with embarrassment.
“Who said they wouldn’t get married even if the world ended? I don’t think the world’s ended, has it?”
“Where’s the person who was going to livestream a handstand hair wash? I’ve already opened my streaming app”
“And there was someone who was going to wear women’s clothing”
The two fanbases had accumulated deep resentment because of their idols, with spies planted in each other’s fan groups, undercover moles turning around and dissolving the other group out of spite.
This kind of surreal drama was an everyday occurrence for them, to the point they’d set up an “organizational department” specifically to vet the ideological purity of fans.
Even with such tight security, there were still cases of moles rising to become admins, leading to accusations of shamelessness and dirty tricks flying both ways.
Could you imagine the rival fan who fought with you yesterday suddenly becoming your own family today?
So the fans kept up their futile resistance, joining forces to question the authenticity of the photo.
“Was this photoshopped?”
“I feel like it’s definitely fake, what a coincidence to catch a photo right in front of the civil affairs bureau? Even dogs wouldn’t believe that”
“Something really does feel off”
But when passersby asked the fans to provide evidence of photoshopping, the tens of millions of fans fell collectively silent, seamlessly switching topics.
“Being in front of the civil affairs bureau doesn’t prove anything, I go over there often to buy stuff too”
“Speechless, so people can’t even walk past the civil affairs bureau now? Trying so hard to smear our old Duan”
“Who’s smearing who, damn it? I haven’t even mentioned how your idol’s been clinging to us, chasing after our fandom”
“Stop fighting, come on, can’t we present a united front here? From now on, no one should walk near the civil affairs bureau, if you get photographed, just say you’re going to get a marriage license, tell single celebrities to detour”
The two fanbases, cursing at each other, began cooperating, trying to brainwash passersby into believing this photo was completely mundane.
But then one comment appeared that silenced the fans entirely.
“Jiang Li is holding a red booklet, if that’s not a marriage certificate, what is it? Unless it’s a divorce certificate?”
From that point on, the resisting fans all fell, defeated. Whether it was one super topic or the other, everything went dead silent. If there was any sound at all, it was surely the sound of hearts breaking.
Passersby found this alarming.
“Both fandoms are being way too quiet”
“If they don’t explode in silence, they’ll perish in silence[2]bù zài chénmò zhōng bàofā, jiù zài chénmò zhōng mièwáng (不在沉默中爆發，就在沉默中滅亡), Idiom, Lu Xun’s famous line about a silenced people who must either … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3145828_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3145828_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });”
“So can we write fanfic now? I really, damn it, want to write about rivals turning into lovers, I can absolutely handle these two faces”
“Watch your head”
Indeed—
Both fanbases were holding in a breath they couldn’t vent at their idols, forced to swallow it down in their chests, while Duan Zhihan stared at his screen, deep in thought.
No one expected that, at the height of this storm, a newcomer author named Jiang Li’s Little Baby wrote the very first fanfic, telling the story of how the two met from Duan Zhihan’s perspective.
Later, this piece would become a legendary work within the fandom, hailed as “the love letter Duan Zhihan wrote to Jiang Li.”
But at the time, both fanbases just thought this person had a lot of nerve. They rushed to the scene immediately, ready to tear the piece apart in the comments.
After all, fiction always had unrealistic elements, criticizing it was only fair!
To the shock of the fans who’d rushed over, the details in this piece were so solid it was infuriating, completely airtight.
How solid was it? Even Jiang Li’s flight dates on specific days matched up! This had to be some big-name fan writing under a pseudonym, surely it couldn’t actually be Duan Zhihan himself.
The fans who’d come ready to criticize lost their fire. Somehow, a traitor had emerged among their ranks.
After holding their noses and reading through the whole thing, they grudgingly changed their minds, because it felt too real.
Real enough that it felt like watching Duan Zhihan gradually, bit by bit, drawing closer to that ice-blue-haired boy.
“This is actually a little bit shippable”
“Am I the only one who cried?”
“You’re not alone!”
“I don’t know what to say after finishing this, just… may the two of them live happily ever after”
“They’d better live happily ever after, damn it!”
Even the fans started wishing Jiang Li and Duan Zhihan well, while passersby had already been shipping them hard from the start.
Unlike the excited crowd online, Yuan Qing, sitting alone in his room, felt as if he’d been dropped into an ice cellar, sensing that his own career was about to freeze over.
In the car, Ye Cheng’s phone rang several times, and he silenced it each time.
Jiang Li had been unusually obedient today, so he took the opportunity to lecture him more, from how idols who date get “executed” by fans, to the importance of improving his professional skills.
Finally, Ye Cheng added, “You should learn from Duan Zhihan sometime.”
“What’s there to learn from him?”
The once-docile Jiang Li snapped back, “Learn how many positions he knows in bed?” Every single time it nearly broke him apart.
In Ye Cheng’s eyes, Jiang Li was simply jealous. Duan Zhihan was every manager’s dream client, good looks, good acting skills, low-maintenance.
He’d once sent Duan Zhihan a self-recommendation email, only for Duan Zhihan to politely decline, otherwise, he wouldn’t be stuck cleaning up after Jiang Li instead.
Just then, the car pulled up at the apartment building.
Jiang Li got out of the car with an impatient expression, then suddenly seemed to remember something and, before getting out, handed his lemon drink over to Ye Cheng.
Under the moonlight, the boy lowered his thick lashes slightly. Giving away something he liked, who could resist a scene like that? Ye Cheng suddenly felt ashamed of his earlier thoughts.
Duan Zhihan was flawless in every way, sure, everyone who knew him only had praise for him.
But he’d never once heard of Duan Zhihan actually falling for anyone. That kind of sincere affection was rare.
Their Jiang Li was still more lovable.
Ye Cheng took the lemon drink, deeply moved. “Xiao Li, go rest well. I’ll handle the Yuan Qing situation.”
After Jiang Li left, Ye Cheng basked in a warm, fatherly kind of feeling, until he opened his phone and found it flooded with news about Jiang Li and Duan Zhihan’s marriage!
That warm feeling of his vanished without a trace, and looking at the lemon drink in his hand, he finally understood, so this was Jiang Li shutting him up with a gift! And he knew full well how to use kindness to buy silence, too.
Upstairs, the little Jiang robot sneezed.
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