Chapter 16: 16

Jiang Xun: “…”

Ten years ago, Jiang Xun was a smug middle school boy who pretended to smoke a cigarette-shaped biscuit every day. He would also look up at the sky at a 45° every day, as if he had deep thoughts about the world’s current affairs. 

When he posted this on Weibo, Jiang Xun was arguing with his family about going to an e-sports youth training camp. The thirteen-year-old was persistent and stubborn, but he was somewhat confused when faced with doubts from the people around him.

He didn’t remember if he felt lonely back then, but he was troubled with something, that’s for sure. 

This Weibo post was so old that even Jiang Xun himself forgot.

Everyone had a shameful period they wished to bury in the past. But not everyone had the fortune of airing this shameful secret for public consumption.

Gu Wei went down to dig very thoroughly if he was able to unearth this piece of black history. 

There was no further action on Gu Wei’s side, and the screenshots of likes were widely spread by night-owl netizens on various social platforms. Seeing how viral this screenshot had been, there were signs of something getting very bad.

Gu Wei might be controversial, but that just made him infamous. His fans spread this to their followers, and so on, and so forth. With that sort of virality, it was no wonder this screenshot, which might as well Jiang Xun’s scene of social suicide, was known to the entire Weibo platform.

Sure enough, 20 minutes later, the famous professional player Jiang Xun and third-tier idol Gu Wei went up to the hot search together once again— 

#LonelyJiangXun#

This kind of hot search made people want to click it at first sight.

Five minutes later, the tag “new” next to the hot search changed to “hot”1as in, hot news.

Jiang Ying was still laughing so hard he started to sound like a squealing pig in the face of slaughter. How he was still able to breathe was a mystery. 

“I told you – multiple times!! – to stay away from him! But you were stubborn and kept saying that he’s a fan so you have to protect him!!” Jiang Ying’s squeals now sounded more like a goose’s quacking, “you had protected him from me, now look what he had done to you! Truly, he’s a little white-eyed wolf!2white-eyed wolf = ungrateful person who backstab their savior” Jiang Ying managed to say so in between all his laughter. 

This disrespectful little brother still dared to continue laughing at his big brother’s troubles. His laughter evolved again from a goose’s quacking to a chicken’s crowing. 

Jiang Ying made the living room sound like a zoo.

Jiang Xun: “…”

Was it an offense to pin someone into a corner and bully him by calling him “his little bride”?

But the trouble wasn’t over yet. This was just the beginning.

Jiang Xun’s teammates were all experts at pulling all-nighters. After seeing a hot search involving their captain, they dropped their previous business like a hot potato and immediately rushed over to see the shitshow going down. All of them dropped a like to that shameful post and added a doge meme in the comment section. These backstabbing3read: acts of true friendship lol actions were immediately noticed by the netizens who were keeping an eye to the whole mess. 

It was one o’clock in the morning, and Jiang Xun’s cell phone kept buzzing with notification. TMW’s QQ4a very popular Chinese chatting platform groupchat was very lively. The four little shitheads lined up neatly to send late night “greetings” to their captain. 

[TMW-SK]: @TMW-Xun, is God Xun lonely? SmokingCigarette.jpg

[TMW-BigPineapple]: @TMW-Xun, is God Xun lonely? SmokingCigarette.jpg

[TMW-Kumachan5the hanzi is 熊仔, which directly translates into “bear boy”. I used this instead to follow the previous translator’s work. ]: @TMW-Xun, is God Xun lonely? SmokingCigarette.jpg

[TMW-West]: @TMW-Xun, is God Xun lonely? SmokingCigarette.jpg

None of them cared whether or not Jiang Xun saw their greetings. They were all content to chat amongst themselves.

[TMW-SK]: Captain, your aloof and handsome persona is shattered. It’s over. In future pre-match trash talk sessions, can the almighty Jiang Xun’s intimidation factor still work on our enemy?

[TMW-SK]: As expected of our dearest captain, he knew the vicissitudes of life since little. He was already familiar with loneliness in primary school. 

[TMW-SK]: BeanGrowth.jpg

[TMW-Kumachan]: Hahahahahahaha, this is either your diehard fan or your biggest enemy. He’s too fierce, with only one like he managed to expose our God Xun’s shameful background. Now everyone knows that the God Xun who trashed them in the game was actually a snooty lil’ brat ten years ago.

[TMW-BigPineapple]: Gu Wei? I remember, isn’t this the little star who was bullied by the captain last time? They even went to the hot search together at that time. He’s definitely doing this for revenge lol. Though damn, this trick is kinda too cruel.

[TMW-BigPineapple]: I think he had watched Jiang Xun’s game multiple times before. Is he a fan? Could it be that he wanted your attention so badly he dared to do something like this? Hahahahahahahaha

[TMW-West]: Guys, why do I feel like this is an act of true love?

[TMW-Kumachan]: What does Xi6he’s referring to West; while his username is written in English in the original, the word west is 西 “Xī”–ge mean? 

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[TMW-West]: Based on our brotherhood with Jiang Xun, will we waste our precious time to dig into his Weibo from ten years ago in the middle of the night?

[TMW-Kumachan]: Reasonable.

The hand speed of these professional players was used to this kind of activity – gossiping in the chat. All of them pushed their hand speed to the limit, typing like crazy until the group [unread] notification hit 999+. 

[TMW-Xun]: Noisy.

[System notification: TMW-Xun has left the group chat.]

[TMW-SK]: He ran away! The big boss ran away like a coward hahahahaha!

[TMW-West]: My fellow brothers, listen to me. My totally-always-correct-hunch, which had been honed for several decades, told me something: these two have something to do with each other!

[TMW-SK]: Xi-ge, even you can see this?

[TMW-West]: Yeah, wanna take a bet on this? 

Jiang Xun ignored those shitheads and opened the chat interface with Gu Wei instead. It was quiet, as if the culprit himself didn’t realize that he had provoked a storm.

Netizens on Weibo also exploded. Jiang Xun’s Weibo from ten years ago was reposted tens of thousands of times in less than an hour, with nearly ten thousand comments about all kinds of things—

Netizen 1: God Xun, that third-tier star is trying to rub against your heat7rubbing heat = leech fame again. But this time, he succeeded. 

Netizen 2: The professional player I was a fan of turned out to be like this ten years ago. Male god, don’t be lonely! As a fan, I will accompany you~ 

Netizen 3: I’m Gu Wei’s little hedgehog8the name of Gu Wei’s fandom. Hedgehog is 刺猬 “cìwèi“, it’s a homophone to Gu Wei’s 未 “wèi”. Weiwei definitely didn’t mean it. It must have been an accident. Weiwei finished work very late tonight. He’s probably already asleep by this time. He’ll definitely apologize to you tomorrow. We will apologize to Jiang Xun on Weiwei’s behalf first! Kneeling.jpg 

Netizen 4: Upstairs9previous commenter, don’t try to whitewash this! A slip on the hand can go as far as digging a ten-years-old post? Just how long is this hand of his? Your family’s Gu Wei is a scheming man. After the variety show’s hot mess had passed, he was worried he would be forgotten, so he came here to explore Jiang Xun’s dark history. 

Netizen 5: That’s right, Gu Wei just can’t deal with his nemesis fair and square, so he’s taking it out on his big brother instead.

Netizen 6: It’s been ten years, have you found the ‘lonely you’? SurprisedDoraemon.jpg

Netizen 7: Fuck, why did I check the hot search before going to bed?? Now I’m too excited to sleep, and I have to work tomorrow! 

Jiang Xun’s girlfriend fans10fans who self-proclaimed as JX’s girlfriend, this also applies to many relations, like wife, mother, big sister, their male counterparts, etc. Fun fact! You can be a girl and claim yourself as a husband fan/gege fans/etc. It’s just for fun anyways, gender accuracy is not important. It’s about the vibes you’re going for. were confessing their love, while his technique fans were laughing wildly. 

Gu Wei’s jiejie fans were protecting their precious cub from attacks, while his anti-fans were dancing in glee attacking Gu Wei.

There were also many passersby who only checked the situation just for shit and giggles. Their main additions were many, many laughter and reaction meme posts flooding everywhere on Weibo.

Meanwhile, the culprit who stirred up this bloodbath was lying on his bed, sleeping peacefully while holding his phone in one hand and his bolster in the other hand.

Outside of Gu Wei’s room, there were two people pressed against the door, trying to hear any signal of activity from outside.

“Is he still asleep?” Shi Xinyan whispered.

“It seems so, but the lights are still turned on,” Chi Yunkai laid on the ground and looked through the crack below the door, “I knew it.”

“Let him sleep,” Shi Xinyan said, “if we wake him up now, he won’t be able to go back to sleep tonight.” 

The leader Fu Zhi might be in his 20s, but he lived like a middle-aged man. He slept early, normally as soon as he reached the dorm after work. As for the lead vocalist Luo Chenxuan, he was trying to sleep in his room. But he was thirsty, so he came out to fetch water. While going back to his room, he passed by the door of Gu Wei’s room. He was half-asleep though, so he didn’t see the two people lying on the ground.

Luo Chenxuan tripped over someone’s leg, and the cup of hot water he cradled splashed onto the two people’s buttocks.

Chi Yunkai: “?!”

Shi Xinyan: “Fuck! That’s hot!” 

Inside his room, Gu Wei’s cell phone vibrated twice. He was in deep sleep thanks to his insomnia medication, so he only frowned in dissatisfaction in response. His sleep-addled limbs let go and pushed the phone until it fell to the floor below.

The screen of the phone lighted up, displaying the latest message received—

[One Hundred Thousand Volts]: See you tomorrow.

This hot search brought 100,000 points of fun to the boring life of netizens. The popularity of this topic remained at an all-time high until the next morning.

The early morning alarm clock woke Gu Wei from his sleep. Gu Wei rubbed his eyes, feeling that he had slept peacefully for a long time.

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1as in, hot news2white-eyed wolf = ungrateful person who backstab their savior3read: acts of true friendship lol4a very popular Chinese chatting platform5the hanzi is 熊仔, which directly translates into “bear boy”. I used this instead to follow the previous translator’s work. 6he’s referring to West; while his username is written in English in the original, the word west is 西 “Xī”7rubbing heat = leech fame8the name of Gu Wei’s fandom. Hedgehog is 刺猬 “cìwèi“, it’s a homophone to Gu Wei’s 未 “wèi”9previous commenter10fans who self-proclaimed as JX’s girlfriend, this also applies to many relations, like wife, mother, big sister, their male counterparts, etc. Fun fact! You can be a girl and claim yourself as a husband fan/gege fans/etc. It’s just for fun anyways, gender accuracy is not important. It’s about the vibes you’re going for.

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