Chapter 12

Gu Zhijing smiled dismissively. "Other people avoid it because it'll make them fat, but I was born unable to gain weight, so it's fine."

Sheng Chi suddenly stopped in his tracks.

Gu Zhijing looked over in confusion, only to be caught off guard when Sheng Chi pinched his cheek.

It was the height of summer.

But Sheng Chi's fingertips were cool.

He did it with a serious expression, and the gesture itself wasn't particularly intimate, yet Gu Zhijing couldn't help holding his breath for a moment.

Like a professional analyst, Sheng Chi gave his soft, pretty cheek two careful pinches, then pinched his chin before saying, "True."

But a faint, almost imperceptible smile was hidden in his eyes. "How do you do it? Teach me sometime when you're free?"

Gu Zhijing couldn't sleep again that night.

Before, it had been because of his family.

Yesterday, it had been because he had argued with Sheng Chi.

Today, he had resolved all of that and made up his mind to make one last stand for a debut spot. There should have been nothing left to worry about.

But the problem was, he fucking couldn't sleep again.

Gu Zhijing tried to count sheep, but as soon as he closed his eyes, he saw the scene outside the office where he had heard Sheng Chi call his name.

Sheng Chi had a naturally deep voice, and he had spoken Gu Zhijing's name calmly and steadily. Yet Gu Zhijing kept replaying it until he heard a trace of sweetness in it.

Then came the image of Sheng Chi leaning close and pinching his cheek.

Gu Zhijing rubbed his face against the blanket without thinking and took a deep breath.

Go to sleep, go to sleep.

One sheep, two sheep, three sheep.

One Brother Chi, two Brother Chis, three Brother Chis-

...Damn it, now I want to sleep even less.

Gu Zhijing sighed inwardly, rolled over in resignation, and pulled out his phone, intending to browse Weibo for a while to pass the time.

But with his head full of Sheng Chi, Sheng Chi, Sheng Chi, he actually typed Sheng Chi's name into the search bar.

He only paused when the page came up.

The first thing he saw was Sheng Chi's official Weibo account.

It was a new account, following zero people, with zero posts. The company had probably set it up for him, and he might not even have the password yet.

Gu Zhijing found it boring and scrolled down to Sheng Chi's supertopic.

A supertopic was easy to create. After all, it only took ten people to apply for a new one.

But getting a supertopic up and running was difficult.

Sheng Chi's supertopic, for example, was unbelievably obscure.

It had over a thousand followers, but only a few dozen had checked in today.

Clearly, survival-show fans who came for the entertainment were ruthless. They enjoyed the content for free and left; hardly anyone had stayed out of genuine affection, ready to support this little idol who looked destined to flop.

Most of the posts in the supertopic didn't follow the proper format. Some were filler, some were casual chatter, declarations of love, recommendations, or calls to boost his rankings. Others had even crawled over from other fandoms to beg for points.

Of course, most were people staking an early claim by buying in.

When Gu Zhijing came across them, his heart stirred slightly.

He had nothing better to do anyway.

He decided to use a phone number he rarely used to register a Weibo alt, then follow the advice of those supposedly veteran fangirls in the supertopic and stake a couple of claims on Sheng Chi before he debuted and became wildly popular.

Maybe one day his Brother Chi would blow up into a major celebrity with a huge following, and when seniority came up, he would be an old fan qualified to say something like, "I knew you before the rumors and gossip."

Gu Zhijing searched as he thought.

If he didn't debut, he would work on fan support for Brother Chi while being a second-term trainee.

If they debuted together-

Then he would be a big fan of his own teammate!

The thought was exciting.

Of course, he would have to keep his identity hidden.

If anyone found out, he would die of social embarrassment on the spot.

Sleepless Gu Zhijing was fired up.

The first step to infiltrating the fandom was to make himself look no different from the other fans.

His fingers flew as he typed a search.

[How do big fandom accounts choose names?]

The search results appeared.

[Please choose a few of the following words and combine them into a new four-character phrase.]

[Sea salt, galaxy, tides, dreams, universe, first love, lost, fantasy, spring day, parade, heart flutter...]

[And just like that, you have a big fan account ID!]

Gu Zhijing: "..."

He rubbed his arm. It was covered in goosebumps.

Almost sickened by the cloying sweetness, Gu Zhijing followed the trail and even found something called a random big fandom account ID generator.

He clicked to generate a name.

[Peach oolong milk cap with added sugar, seventy percent sweet]

Gu Zhijing: "..."

Why had it given him the name of a milk tea?

He pursed his lips as he continued searching.

He could see the pattern behind fandom names now.

They had to be artsy and dreamy, packed with wistful imagery, preferably with a dot on either side of the ID. That was a standard fangirl ID.

Gu Zhijing had learned how.

But he didn't want one that generic.

Otherwise, it would be too easy to mix him up with someone else.

If people asked about him in the future and couldn't even tell which brand of milk tea he was, wouldn't that be infuriating?

Gu Zhijing randomly pieced together invented images in his head as he wandered back to the supertopic to watch people discuss Sheng Chi.

The way young girls followed idols now was different from before. Back then, there had been girlfriend fans everywhere, and idols existed to fulfill their boyfriend fantasies.

Now, whoever won over the mom fans ruled the world. Even someone like Sheng Chi, who swept up mom fans with every performance, could attract fans who called him their baby and Chichizi and treated him like a child.

Gu Zhijing happened across someone calling him Chichi, and the cloying sweetness gave him goosebumps all over.

A moment later, though, he seemed to think of something.

Five minutes later, he came up with an ID he was incredibly satisfied with.

Gu Zhijing was quite pleased with himself.

It definitely had the sappy, wistful quality fans would like.

And it definitely wasn't the sort of thing anyone would associate with him.

Click.

Register new Weibo account.

[ Centrifugal Heart·]

Chapter 13

Sheng Chi couldn't sleep that night either.

He kept replaying what Qi Wang had whispered in his ear in the practice room.

"What does it mean to wear a stud in your right ear? Don't tell me you really don't know?"

"Gu Zhijing is a ho-mo-sex-ual."

Qi Wang had stressed each syllable, his voice tinged with a contemptuous laugh.

Sheng Chi's mind had gone blank, and he had barely thought about it.

He had already been suppressing his anger, and when he heard Qi Wang describe Gu Zhijing in such a vile tone, that pent-up anger burst out, and he immediately lashed out.

Later, when Fei Yue called him in to talk, Sheng Chi was still holding on to that feeling. He didn't want more people to hear such a baseless rumor and cause Gu Zhijing greater harm, so he refused to say anything.

But afterward, he calmed down and thought about it.

Although Qi Wang had said it to get under his skin, it wasn't necessarily entirely false.

Sheng Chi didn't know much about the subject, so he looked up what the earring meant.

Some said it was true, but others said many guys didn't know about it and chose an ear at random. In any case, it was only a possible indication, not hard evidence.

Qi Wang most likely only knew that much too, and had said it just to disgust him.

But after realizing this, Sheng Chi felt no embarrassment, discomfort, or aversion.

His first reaction was concern.

Modern society was not tolerant of minority sexual orientations.

And although an idol being outed as gay wasn't a shameful scandal, some people would inevitably view him with prejudice, which would probably be a major problem for his future career.

With those worries on his mind, when he saw Gu Zhijing outside the office, he had almost instinctively chosen to pinch his cheek to show his closeness.

Sheng Chi really wasn't very good at socializing.

After so many years in the industry, he had learned a lot, but he had never learned how to express his fondness without seeming deliberate.

He was afraid Qi Wang would tell Gu Zhijing one day.

He was also afraid Gu Zhijing would notice the change in his attitude and think he disliked him and was distancing himself.

In fact, whether he was or wasn't,

Sheng Chi didn't mind.

Before he finally fell asleep that night, Sheng Chi found himself remembering the first time he had met Gu Zhijing.

The fresh-faced eighteen-year-old had been wearing a black-and-white headband. Sitting in front of him, he had looked at him with shining eyes and said, "You're my brother from now on. I'll be counting on you to look after me."

In his six years since entering the trainee world,

it was the first time he had received such bright, friendly kindness.

Sheng Chi hadn't said anything at the time.

But in truth, he had already agreed in his heart.

Okay.

I'll be your brother.

From now on, I'll protect you.

Once Gu Zhijing's insomnia started, he couldn't stop, and he stayed up the entire night.

But the all-nighter had been quite productive.

After a whole night of exploring and investigating, he had made his alt indistinguishable from an ordinary fan account.

He had chosen an ID, changed the profile picture to a photo of a pretty internet celebrity he had found online, pinned a meaningless artsy quote, and listed his fandom preferences in a comment on his own post-

Main bias: Sheng Chi. Liked: Gu Zhijing.

His only squick was Qi Wang, with a black × beside the name.

Anyone who saw his alt would say at a glance that he was a fandom veteran.

Gu Zhijing had even thought out his future online fan persona.

An ordinary, utterly unremarkable eighteen-year-old student and girlfriend fan.

After setting up his alt, Gu Zhijing used it to browse some more.

Sheng Chi's supertopic was too full of filler and had little worth seeing, so Gu Zhijing searched for the other trainees as well.

The others were all much the same.

Only Qi Wang's was different.

His supertopic looked as though someone was managing it carefully. Everything had been properly arranged, from the supertopic host to the assistant hosts. Someone was in charge of setting the posting format, the support slogans had already been written, and he even found a fansite master-

Of course, the trainees had no public events, so the fansite master had only posted a simple announcement opening the site.

Gu Zhijing: "..."

He clicked his tongue inwardly.

His instincts told him there was an eighty or ninety percent chance that Qi Wang's family had paid for the fansite master, and they had probably arranged the supertopic too.

Pay-to-win players really were impressive.

Finally, Gu Zhijing wandered into his own supertopic.

His supertopic was also ridiculously obscure, with little worth seeing. No matter how much he looked, even the pretty pictures fans used to promote him were screenshots from the livestream, so blurry that even master photo editors couldn't work with them.

His Weibo hadn't been managed yet either. His profile picture was still a white-background headshot taken by Brother Fei himself, with such a cheap look to it that many people who came after hearing of him couldn't even recognize him in it.

Gu Zhijing sighed silently.

Judging by Leap Entertainment's current management, even if he debuted, he wouldn't necessarily soar to the top. Most likely, he would continue flopping at the bottom as an obscure eighteenth-tier nobody.

But at least, for them right now,

debuting was the only definite goal that could bring them to the edge of their dreams.

Although Gu Zhijing had stayed up all night, he was still in decent spirits. He got up at eight sharp and went to the practice room with Sheng Chi.

The final debut evaluation had no restrictions; the trainees were free to choose their own performance pieces.

The news had already been posted on Weibo and promoted on a small scale.

The debut evaluation was practically a finale night, so naturally, that selling point could attract a crowd of curious onlookers.

So Fei Yue had specifically emphasized that all the trainees had to bring out their very best skills for the debut evaluation.

The practice room was still empty early in the morning.

Gu Zhijing held his tablet, thinking about what to perform.

Sheng Chi sat down beside him and watched him swipe away one unsatisfactory video after another, his brows slightly furrowed. He chuckled. "None of those satisfy you? What kind of direction are you looking for?"

Gu Zhijing propped his cheek on his hand and sighed. "It's the debut evaluation, after all. It's do or die, so I should at least come up with something innovative."

An idea suddenly struck Sheng Chi. "Have you considered rapping?"

Gu Zhijing froze for a moment and turned to him. "Huh?"

"The debut group happens to be short a rapper."

Sheng Chi had asked Brother Fei about this before.

The rap position was actually optional; it mainly depended on whether the group's future debut song had one.