That magazine interview had been edited into a video and posted on Weibo. After all, print media still couldn't match the reach and influence of electronic media.
The comments below were quite something.
"Fellow lemon sisters, I'm so jealous. I want to be Chunchun's girlfriend too."
"Washed-up nobody, stay home and pick at your stinky feet. Stop mentioning Xie Jianyuan all day. Please leave my little brother alone and walk on your own, thanks."
"Hello to the clucking wild chicken upstairs. When Xu Chun was famous, who knows where your fave was cooling his heels? How do you have the nerve to say Xu Chun's riding his coattails?"
"I have a half-baked idea. I want to join a heretical ship for three seconds and ship Xie Jianyuan x Xu Chun."
"Get lost. The Chun-Bai couple is locked in. Obviously, Brother Chun didn't pick Bai Lingling because he didn't want to cause her trouble. What's wrong with you, making up some ridiculous heretical ship?"
"Hahaha, I'm dying laughing. Xu Chun and Xie Jianyuan? You might as well say Voldemort and Lin Daiyu. You'll ship two people who have nothing to do with each other."
"...Actually, the Voldemort-Daiyu ship is kind of shippable."
"Actors bring ruin to the country. The trending searches are full of these celebrities' trivial crap all day."
"If you don't want to see it, why did you click on it? Get out, thanks."
After the last fiasco, it stayed on the trending searches for a full day or two. Fans of every side brawled, arguing nonstop and building enormous comment threads.
That afternoon, Xu Chun was scheduled to make an appearance at a brand's new product launch. A minor accident occurred while he was interacting with the fans below the stage and handing out gifts.
A girl suddenly climbed onto the stage while security wasn't looking, threw her arms around Xu Chun in a bear hug and, in her excitement, tried to kiss him.
Startled, Xu Chun instinctively turned his head aside. By then, the staff had also noticed something was wrong and hurried onto the stage with security, who grabbed the girl by the arms and dragged her off.
The fans below erupted into a confused commotion, curses and shouts mingling together.
The host hurried to calm the agitated fans. Su Li stood below the stage with a dark expression, and as soon as the event ended, she went to settle accounts with the organizers. She suspected they had staged the fiasco for publicity, but they denied it, admitting only that they had made a mistake with security and saying nothing had been deliberately arranged.
"Looks like a crazy fan." Su Li frowned at Xu Chun. This was one of the downsides of his rising popularity. "Be more careful from now on, got it?"
This kind of crazed, irrational fan was more common among fans of boy and girl groups. They got too emotionally invested in following stars and treated their idols as their own possessions. Once they lost their reason, they could become rather extreme.
After Xu Chun got into the van, he found it a little stuffy inside and opened the window a crack.
The new young assistant handed Xu Chun a bottle of green tea. He smiled, took it and thanked her.
He thought of something and wondered how she knew what he liked to drink. But then he figured she might have noticed last time that he didn't like coffee and asked Su Li about it. As his assistant, she needed to know his preferences, after all. With that thought, he felt reassured.
By the time the van was about to stop, Xu Chun had nearly finished the green tea. He held the bottle, planning to throw it in a trash can when he got out, but suddenly heard the young assistant say in a barely audible voice, "...Give it to me."
Only then did Xu Chun take a close look at the girl named Luo Yao. Her looks were plain and unremarkable, and she always seemed timid and withdrawn. At a glance, she was the type to be ostracized wherever she went, and that was probably how she'd developed such a timid personality.
He sighed inwardly, then smiled at her and handed her the bottle. "Throw it in the trash for me."
Luo Yao carefully took it, looked up and gave Xu Chun a quick glance, then said softly, "Okay."
Su Li was looking at the navigation beside them, cursing the driver for not knowing the way.
Xu Chun watched the scene and smiled helplessly. He was about to speak up and rescue the driver, who was sweating with anxiety, when his phone suddenly rang. He answered it.
"Hello?"
There was a pause of a few seconds, and then Xie Jianyuan's low, pleasant voice sounded. "Brother Chun? Where are you now?"
Xu Chun said, "On my way to a photo shoot. What's up?"
"Nothing. I saw that news online and was a little worried, so I called you."
Xu Chun froze. "What news?" Those paparazzi reporters couldn't be that fast, could they? After a moment's hesitation, he reconsidered. Those paparazzi reporters really were that fast.
He opened Weibo and checked the trending searches. Sure enough, a video of him being harassed just now was already up there.
The video was extremely clear, capturing practically every subtle expression on Xu Chun's face.
Naturally, the fan comments below were uniformly full of concern.
"What the hell was security doing? Any crazy woman can get close to him?"
"Aaaah, watching that scared me to death. If anything happens to my little brother, I'm gonna lose it."
"Isn't that a bit much? She only hugged him, didn't she? She didn't even kiss him, and even if she had, Xu Chun wouldn't have lost out."
"My poor pretty little brother. People making snide comments here, be decent human beings."
"..."
Xu Chun skimmed through them, then gave a complicated hum. "I'm fine. The organizers are handling that fan."
Xu Chun noticed that Su Li had already pricked up her ears to listen to his side of the conversation. She had probably sensed something was off, so he exchanged a few more words and quickly hung up.
"Who was that?" Su Li asked.
"A friend."
Su Li said nothing more. After a few minutes of silence, she suddenly remembered something and checked the calendar on her phone. "It's February eighth today. Come to think of it, your birthday is on the seventeenth of next month, isn't it?"
At the mention of his birthday, something stirred faintly in Xu Chun's heart. In his previous life, he had spent his birthday around this time with Jiang Xiuyan. The thought made him feel sick, his stomach turning as if he'd eaten expired food.
"What plans do you have for your birthday?"
A faint smile touched Xu Chun's lips. "I'm planning to spend it with my family."