After posting, Jiang Li tossed his phone aside.
He remembered he hadn’t watched today’s news broadcast yet, so he dragged over a worn-out little stool and sat in front of the TV to watch the replay.
The TV was replaying today’s space news: “This lander is equipped with eight retro-rockets to reduce speed. Once it reaches Mars, it will collect relevant samples.”
The little robot watched the screen intently. When would humans finally be able to fly beyond the solar system? He really wanted to go back to his home planet.
Meanwhile, just a moment before Jiang Li posted that Weibo update, his fans had still been happily sharing fanfic together.
“I have to shout this out loud, the alpha Best Actor and his sweet omega baby are just too sweet! I saw Jiang Li give birth to the baby”
“This one’s a bit off in terms of characterization, but it’s still pretty good, did you see the latest update? Even the second kid’s been born already”
“I’m rushing over to read it right now! The authors’ typing speed is terrifying, I’ve read eighty thousand words tonight already”
At first, the fanfic had mostly been written passionately by passersby, after all, the two fanbases used to be rivals, and fans still had their own pride.
They enjoyed reading other people’s fics but weren’t willing to write themselves.
But as more and more fanfic kept appearing, both fandoms could no longer resist the loneliness and started writing their own fics.
And this was only the scene on AO3, popular video sites were flooded with all kinds of edited compilations.
Their faces alone were rare enough to find among millions, one strikingly elegant, one beautiful and sharp, more than enough to make anyone’s heart race.
One particular viral edit had comments so dense you couldn’t even see the video without turning them off.
“Suddenly realized they’ve never actually worked together, someone get them a drama and a movie, please”
“Variety shows are a must too! I want to see everything from honeymoon shows to parenting shows, you know what I mean, right?”
“Having kids too, is that also—”
“The person above has some dangerous thoughts, but count me in”
“I’m a total shipper trash, pinning the sharp-tongued rival against a wall and kissing them is just too good, first time I’ve been this obsessed with a pairing”
The whole internet was shipping their OTP, that used to be an exaggeration, but for Jiang Li and Duan Zhihan, it wasn’t an exaggeration at all.
But just as everyone online was riding high with excitement, Jiang Li coldly posted his Weibo update.
It was like a bucket of cold water poured over everyone’s heads, especially the fans who’d been writing fanfic all night, their hearts turned ice cold.
“What did I just see? A divorce certificate?!”
“No way. My fic’s only just gotten started!”
“The color of the certificate does look a bit dark, now that I think about it, it does look more like a divorce certificate, a marriage certificate should be bright red”
“I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to hear it, baby must be joking”
While everyone was struggling to hold onto hope, Jiang Li posted a photo of the brownish-red divorce certificate, and this ironclad evidence left the entire internet with nothing left to say.
“I’d just finished mentally preparing myself for baby’s wedding, happily opened my document to write fanfic, and now they’re telling me they’re already divorced???!”
“This has to be the fastest bad-ending pairing in history, I’ve only been in this fandom for less than seven hours, couldn’t they have faked it a little longer?”
“I’m so unsatisfied, happily went to the civil affairs bureau to get a certificate, and it turned out to be a divorce certificate?”
“Who isn’t”
“Jiang Li, can you even sleep tonight?”
Jiang Li lay sprawled over his desk finishing his report, and slept especially soundly.
The next day, Jiang Li was woken up by the sound of his phone ringing. He shoved the phone under his pillow and rolled over to keep sleeping.
Just as things had finally quieted down for a moment, he let out a satisfied little snore, and then the doorbell rang.
The little robot could only poke his own forehead to power himself on.
Woken up early by Ye Cheng every single day.
Having been forced to power on ahead of schedule, the little robot was thoroughly displeased. He went to open the door with a cold expression. “How many times do you have to ring that damn thing?”
But the person standing outside the door wasn’t Ye Cheng.
Assistant Xiao Su stood outside the door with two dark circles under her eyes. “Sorry to disturb you! I was afraid you’d forgotten about today’s press conference, I couldn’t reach you by phone, so I came up. If it’s not convenient, I’ll go back down right away.”
The blue-haired boy stared at her without saying a word, the wolf-like tuft of hair on his head sticking up in unruly fashion, giving off a cold sort of beauty.
Afraid of upsetting Jiang Li, Xiao Su was startled when the boy suddenly pointed at her face. “Did you go mining yesterday?”
Xiao Su took a beat to realize he was talking about her dark circles. She thought to herself, isn’t this because of you.
Yesterday, more than half the country hadn’t slept well, and the one responsible for it looked perfectly refreshed. Of course, she couldn’t say that out loud.
Xiao Su carefully changed the subject. “Brother Ye asked me to accompany you to this morning’s press conference. He can’t make it today.”
The boy tilted his head slightly. “Did he go mining too?”
Xiao Su: …
“You really care about him,” Xiao Su corrected. “Brother Ye got a ton of calls from business partners yesterday, and today they’ve all dried up completely. He’s having a hard time accepting it.”
Jiang Li didn’t actually care about Ye Cheng, having one less person nagging in his ear meant more peace and quiet, it was just that he wasn’t used to giving orders to human women.
For example, his favorite lemon cake had run out, he could order Ye Cheng to go buy some from another district, but it felt awkward asking a human woman to do the same.
The boy turned to get some water, and Xiao Su volunteered from behind him, “You haven’t had breakfast yet, right? I’ll go make something in the kitchen.”
Although breakfast could be bought elsewhere, Jiang Li was outrageously picky about food, preferring things made at home.
Jiang Li gave a silent nod of approval, and Xiao Su stepped into the house.
This was her first time coming to Jiang Li’s place, normally, he never let anyone come over, probably because of his relationship with Duan Zhihan.
How to describe it? It was nice-looking, sure, but it looked like something out of a sci-fi movie, a space capsule. Even during the day, the curtains stayed tightly drawn, casting a brilliant rose nebula pattern onto the window ledge.
This aesthetic was a bit too sci-fi, wasn’t it!
Sci-fi aside, at five hundred square meters on a single floor, in a capital city where land was worth more than gold, this counted as a mansion for a celebrity.
Xiao Su couldn’t help but scan the things in the house.
Whether it was the balcony or the desk, everything belonged only to Jiang Li, it seemed the two of them really had divorced. She withdrew her gaze with some regret.
Suddenly, she noticed a row of trophies on the bookshelf.
Half were Jiang Li’s trophies, half were Duan Zhihan’s, something this important, and they hadn’t even bothered to move it all out in one go?
She pushed down her curiosity and headed to the kitchen to start cooking, only to open the fridge and find—
Nothing at all.
With the press conference time approaching fast, Xiao Su didn’t know what to do. “There’s nothing in the fridge.”
“Then I just won’t eat.”
The boy’s voice was lazy.
Xiao Su couldn’t possibly let Jiang Li attend an event on an empty stomach, but food bought outside wouldn’t suit his taste, and there wasn’t enough time to go grocery shopping now.
Just as she was torn between the two options, she spotted a delivery ad stuck to the fridge door, probably from wherever Jiang Li usually ordered food.
Xiao Su breathed a sigh of relief. “How about I call the number on the fridge? It says delivery on demand, good prices.”
Jiang Li couldn’t recall ever sticking a phone number on the fridge, but he was too lazy to walk over and check, so he just gave a lazy “mm” from the couch.
In the meeting room, Duan Zhihan’s manager spoke seriously: “The whole thing between you and Jiang Li has gone viral online, it’s really bad for your public image.”
Although he didn’t know the reason behind the marriage in the first place, Jiang Li’s reputation with the public was simply too poor, everyone kept their distance from him.
He knew clearly that an artist like that wouldn’t last long, and that they were fundamentally different kinds of people from Duan Zhihan, divorcing actually made more sense than getting married in the first place.
“Is that so?”
Duan Zhihan calmly flipped through his script.
The manager thought, of course it is. If the two of them hadn’t already divorced, Jiang Li’s manager would surely be trying to tie the two of them together in joint projects.
For Jiang Li, this would be a great opportunity to clean up his image. For Duan Zhihan, who was focused purely on acting, there was absolutely no benefit at all.
“That reporter just exposed it out of nowhere, who’s to say someone wasn’t coaching him from behind the scenes? Otherwise why didn’t they come to us to demand hush money?” the manager mused, deeply suspicious.
Duan Zhihan set down the script in his hand, looking in a good mood. “You’re right.”
“See, even you think so. Jiang Li’s trying to stick to you and not let go.”
The manager was one hundred percent certain this had been orchestrated by Jiang Li’s side, using the photo to douse Yuan Qing’s momentum, that whole team was ruthless.
“Good thing you’re divorced.” He let out a breath. “As long as you keep your distance, the divorce buzz won’t last long either. Shoot a drama and it’ll all pass.”
Just then, Duan Zhihan received a phone call.
The manager stopped talking.
Duan Zhihan had always been an easy artist to manage, he didn’t want there to be a single flaw attached to his name, and in fact, the man had always lived up to that.
Without needing to be told, Duan Zhihan would keep his distance from Jiang Li, wouldn’t let himself get tied down by someone else, he hoped Jiang Li would know when to stop as well.
Duan Zhihan finished the call and walked toward the door of the meeting room, then seemed to remember something and stopped at the doorway.
“I had that photo leaked myself.”
The manager looked up in shock. He didn’t expect Duan Zhihan to have arranged for the photo to be released himself, wasn’t this basically tying himself to Jiang Li on purpose?
His mind still reeling in confusion, he watched Duan Zhihan hurry toward the door and asked, “Where are you going?”
The man was normally composed no matter what, even going to receive an award, he never rushed. There must be something extremely important going on.
The man turned back, and that devastatingly handsome face carried a hint of pride.
“Going to bring my wife breakfast.”
The manager: ??? So it’s actually them chasing after the other side.