Creating a Super Topic

Yang Yiyi had only bought the trending topic because she was a little upset. After that, she stopped caring and went straight to sleep.

By the time she woke up the next day, the sun was already high in the sky. Money could make even ghosts turn millstones; she found out that Qu An's side had been handling things yesterday and had directly pushed down all the negative trending topics about Xiao Ming.

Yang Yiyi didn't really understand trending topics, so she didn't know that yesterday's incident had also affected Qu An. She only knew Qu An was protecting Xiao Ming, which made her even angrier.

Then she saw the trending topic Jiang Yuefeng had bought today, and her anger flared up. She immediately turned around and bought a negative trending topic about Jiang Yuefeng.

Jiang Yuefeng's side had originally assumed Qu An was behind it. Only after investigating did they discover it wasn't him, and they were left scrambling to find the person pulling the strings.

Yang Yiyi had never seen a photo of Xiao Ming before. She had only heard that he had ridden Qu An's popularity and stolen her role, so she had already formed a negative impression of him.

So when she scrolled past Xiao Ming, she didn't recognize him at first. She merely muttered, "He's so pretty," but the moment she saw his name, she fell completely silent.

She furiously jabbed at the exit button. "So ugly, so ugly. He doesn't look good at all."

She wasn't going to be fooled by him!

After Xiao Ming entered his own trending topic and scrolled down for a while, he found comments like "I'm shipping it, I'm shipping it, they're so adorable" very strange.

What were they shipping? What was adorable? What did that have to do with this trending topic?

Then he saw that the account that had just said it was shipping them had made a post saying, "Looking for a few fans to create a super topic with me." Only then did he curiously send them a private message to ask.

"What super topic are you creating?"

"A CP super topic for Qu An and Xiao Ming. It'll be called Willow in Shadow, Blossom in Light. Want to join, sis? We still need people."

Xiao Ming couldn't understand what CP meant. He noticed that lots of people liked using abbreviations, like "zqsg," "kswl," and "awsl." He couldn't understand any of them at all.

In a daze, Xiao Ming ended up creating the super topic with them. After a while, the number of followers gradually rose, then stopped when it was close to 500.

Then Xiao Ming was immediately pulled into a group chat called "Willows in Shadow, Flowers in Light, Another Village." Its temporary name was "Mountains and Rivers," taken from the line "Mountains layered, waters winding, I fear there is no road; willows in shadow, flowers in light, another village appears" in Visiting a Village West of the Mountains by the Song Dynasty poet Lu You. The group thought the poem was widely known, so it was the most fitting name and would be easy to remember at a glance.

Because the two of them had only interacted for one day and there weren't even any clear frontal photos of them together, there actually weren't many pictures in the super topic. It was all fans happily shipping them in their own little corner.

Xiao Ming looked for quite a while and even searched Baidu before he finally understood what those words he had seen meant.

On one hand, he sighed that he really had fallen somewhat out of touch with the times. On the other, he marveled at how rich these fans' imaginations were.

In just that short while, someone had already started writing fanfiction. It wasn't long, only a few hundred words, mainly imagining what it had been like when they filmed the commercial.

Although it was completely different from reality, the author was undeniably imaginative.

[Qu An looked at the person before him, his heart pounding uncontrollably. It was as though he had never seen anyone so beautiful before, and he was about to lose himself at once.

But then that beauty suddenly vanished before his eyes. The vast sea stretched endlessly before him, and it felt as though his heart had disappeared along with him.

The splash of water made him realize something was wrong. When he walked closer, he discovered that the person had sunk beneath the sea. He leaped in, drawing closer and closer to him.

Even the vibrant coral could not compare to Xiao Ming's beauty. In the deep ocean, he was like a seductive Mermaid.

There was no oxygen beneath the sea. Xiao Ming seemed about to pass out. Qu An drew close to him, gazed at that beautiful face, and leaned in without hesitation...]

The comments below were all praising the author and telling them to write more. Xiao Ming, meanwhile, couldn't resist wanting to comment that they had filmed by the seaside and had not fallen into the ocean.

[Why aren't you continuing? Is he going to give him oxygen next? I've got plenty of data, hurry up and write! Don't make me beg! Please~]

The author lived up to everyone's expectations and soon commented that the continuation was here. Xiao Ming had only just planned to click in and take a look when Qu An sent him a message.

[I'm really sorry about today. You got dragged into it again. I've already had my agent handle it.]

He seriously typed, "It's okay, it didn't have any effect on me," and was about to send it when he remembered the novel he had read last time and paused, adding a few emojis.

So the message Qu An received looked like this: [It's okay ('▽')♪, it didn't have any effect on me (´∀｀)♡]

Qu An found it amusing and copied him in his reply.

[Okay (•̤̀ᵕ•̤́๑)ᵒᵏᵎᵎᵎᵎ]

Xiao Ming was stunned for a moment when he saw the message, then a smile spread across his lips.

Qu An really was a pretty good person. Starting tomorrow, he would watch Qu An's movies and try to join his fan support club to help out.

Xiao Ming lay down to sleep in peace, beginning to look forward to tomorrow.

Perhaps it was because he would be watching the sunrise tomorrow, or perhaps because of something else. Either way, he was very happy.

Xiao Ming woke up at three in the morning and set off to climb the mountain.

The weather had been good these past few days, and perhaps because a typhoon was approaching, quite a few people had come to climb the mountain and watch the sunrise while the weather was still good.

Xiao Ming happened to be walking one behind the other with an old man. The old man looked to be in good health and still vigorous despite his age, and Xiao Ming even got distracted for a while thinking that he too would climb mountains to watch sunrises when he was old.

By the time he reached halfway up the mountain, he was already a little tired. There was a rest pavilion built nearby, so Xiao Ming went over to rest for a while. The old man was there too.

The old man took a sip of water and stood up as if to continue climbing, but suddenly clutched his chest and collapsed.

Xiao Ming reacted quickly and rushed over. "What's wrong?" He could roughly judge that it was a heart attack, but he didn't dare act recklessly. When he saw the old man pointing at his bag, he immediately searched through it for medicine.

He quickly gave the old man his medicine. Xiao Ming no longer intended to continue climbing, instead planning to send him down the mountain first.

"Rest here for now. I'll call the security booth at the foot of the mountain. I'll take you down to the hospital later for a checkup."

The old man understood his own physical condition and did not refuse. He simply sat there and waited for someone to come up from the foot of the mountain.

Help arrived quickly, and Xiao Ming soon followed them down the mountain with the old man.

On the way to the hospital, the old man was already much better and even started chatting with Xiao Ming. "Young man, not many young people these days are willing to help an old person who has fainted. They're all afraid of being falsely accused. But you weren't afraid."

Xiao Ming hadn't expected him to mention that. He merely smiled. He had heard of elderly people faking accidents for money, as well as people who helped the elderly only to be falsely accused of extortion.

But he had always participated in volunteer activities such as rescue work and aid, especially visiting the elderly. He often came into contact with old people. He wasn't foolish enough to think all elderly people were good people, but he had his own judgment.

"A life is much more important than money."

"Good. Not many young people think like you these days."

Xiao Ming didn't say much more and simply chatted with him for a few more sentences.

By the time they arrived at the hospital, the old man seemed fine, but Xiao Ming still took him for an examination. While they were waiting for the results, the old man's son arrived.

His son wore a suit and looked quite wealthy.

Sure enough, when he heard that Xiao Ming had helped his father, he took out a check to thank him. Xiao Ming declined it and then said goodbye.

This incident was merely a small episode in his journey, like an unexpected interlude in a movie that played for a while and then passed.

But at the time, he didn't know that such interludes often foreshadowed what came next.

By the time he left the hospital, the sun had already risen. Xiao Ming had missed today's sunrise, but he still continued walking in the direction he had come from. At the very least, he had to finish climbing the mountain.

When he returned that evening, Xiao Ming began looking for the movies, television dramas, and variety shows Qu An had appeared in before.

He watched them in chronological order. There happened to be fans in the super topic who had compiled and continuously updated everything in chronological order, with some also sorted by category.

Xiao Ming directly bookmarked both lists. He could simply click the links to jump over and watch.

Qu An had debuted at the age of five. Back then, he had been a tiny little bundle of cuteness and looked adorable.

The young Qu An had not yet become the person he was now, always smiling with such a gentle expression. As a little child, Qu An looked like a quiet kid who didn't like talking. Other than when he was acting, he spent his time alone in behind-the-scenes clips and rarely smiled.

Qu An had not filmed many productions when he was younger, much less appeared on variety shows, and he had not been in the public eye every year.

There had been no news of him online from the ages of seven to eleven. It was only at twelve that he reappeared on screen and resumed acting, so it would not be entirely accurate to say he had acted continuously from childhood to adulthood.

Qu An's mother had announced her retirement from the entertainment industry when Qu An was seven, and Qu An had stopped acting at the same time.

When Qu An reappeared before the public at twelve, he already looked much like he did now. The little young master appeared warm and polite, and he spoke with neither arrogance nor servility on variety shows.

For some reason, Xiao Ming always felt that the young Qu An had been more genuine. Afterward, he seemed as though he wore a beautiful mask.

Xiao Ming started watching at seven in the evening. He had only planned to watch for two hours, but it was already two in the morning when he finished. Fortunately, his schedule was flexible and it didn't affect his later plans. After that, he watched quite a lot more bit by bit.

This city was mostly mountains and rivers. He had taken a sightseeing boat, climbed mountains, eaten local specialties, and visited tourist attractions. Several days had already passed, so Xiao Ming set off for his next destination, a bustling metropolis.

Yue City was the center of the entire province and one of its most prosperous cities. Along with the Capital City, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, Yue City was one of them, with dense crowds, towering buildings, and endless streams of traffic.

Xiao Ming himself was from the Capital City, so he had seen plenty of this sort of prosperity. Still, there were always differences between the north and the south.

Qu An had made the trending topics several more times these past few days, but they were all about his endorsements or other commercial events.

Speaking of endorsements, the Mint Soda commercial Xiao Ming had stepped in to save and filmed with Qu An seemed like it would be released soon.