Between the distance it was filmed from and the rapid movement, the video was horribly blurry throughout. His face never came into focus from beginning to end. If it hadn't been him standing there just beforehand, you might have thought the footage had been spliced in.
The comments had already erupted.
"This is way too fake. He sucked that badly at first, then suddenly turned on cheats? It's edited, right?"
"I was there. It really wasn't edited. The difference between before and after was just that huge."
"Has anyone considered that he was pretending at first?"
"I wouldn't say pretending, but his athletic talent really is heaven-defying."
"His face was blurry the entire time, but that smash alone deserves ten rewatches."
Song Shi'an tucked his phone back into his pocket. Whatever else, showing off really did feel great. He was just an ordinary guy; there was no way he wouldn't enjoy all that praise.
But enjoying it was one thing. His real problems still weighed heavily on him. Where was he going to scrape together the rest of the money in two months? Just thinking about it gave him a headache.
He mulled over all sorts of things on the way back, completely forgetting that he wasn't wearing a mask.
His mask had been soaked through with sweat while he was playing, and it had gotten even wetter after he washed his face, so he simply walked back with his face uncovered.
Some people gave him a second look along the way, and some secretly raised their phones, but he didn't pay them any attention.
Honestly, after playing ball for an entire class, his wet hair was plastered to his scalp, and his face was still flushed from exercise. He must have looked a complete mess.
Any photos taken of him in that state were bound to be ugly.
Yet what was happening on the campus confession page was the complete opposite of what he imagined.
The page's latest submission came with a candid shot of him walking out of the gym.
The evening sunlight was just right, falling across him at an angle. The wind pressed his white T-shirt lightly against his waist, revealing a stretch of his shoulders and back, their contours sharply defined after exercise.
That post-workout surge of hormones practically leaped out of the photo, and the comments had already fallen.
"He just finished playing ball?? I'm dead."
"I only knew he was good-looking before. I had no idea his proportions were this incredible too."
"Did any of you save that video on D Station? That smash, that leap, that waist. I've watched it over a dozen times."
"+1 to the comment above. Sexual tension really is mysterious. Some people are good-looking but don't have it. He does, and he has it in spades."
Song Shi'an returned to his dorm, knowing nothing about any of this.
He tossed his backpack onto his chair, grabbed a towel and a change of clothes, and went to shower.
When he came out, drying his hair with his towel, he found Chi Xun alone in the dorm, curled up in his chair with his phone in hand, in exactly the same position as before Song Shi'an went to shower.
Song Shi'an had figured it out: Chi Xun was a total homebody. Whenever he didn't have class, he stayed in the dorm following his idol and boosting his stats.
"It's already passed two hundred thousand likes." Chi Xun didn't even look up.
"So let it. It's not like I'm making a cent." Song Shi'an sat down in his own chair, drying his hair.
Chi Xun put down his phone and pushed up his glasses. "Who says you can't? Start an account now, and people will crawl straight over through the internet. You could gain hundreds of thousands of followers in minutes."
Song Shi'an calmly said, "Forget it. I don't have the energy," while the little figure inside him was already on its knees, tears streaming down its face.
I want to start an account too! But the system won't let me! It claimed that only officially verified actors could open one. In other words, he had to draw traffic in his capacity as an actor.
When he had registered that D Station account last time, he hadn't shown his face in any of the videos he posted. They were purely everyday recordings of his life, which was why the system hadn't judged him to be dabbling in the entertainment industry.
Who could understand the pain of watching all that traffic slip right through his fingers?
Seeing that his expression wasn't quite right, Chi Xun assumed he didn't want to get involved in this sort of thing and stopped trying to persuade him.
He turned his phone around to show Song Shi'an the screen. "Seriously, though, even if this video is blurry, that smash of yours really was cool."
Song Shi'an glanced at the view count. It was already over eight hundred thousand.
Bullet comments continued drifting across the screen one after another, all asking who this person was.
He leaned back in his chair and covered his face with the towel.
No amount of traffic could be turned into cash. He should just stick to attending class, delivering takeout, and walking dogs.
That evening, Aspiration to Reach the Clouds aired its fifteenth episode.
As usual, Chi Xun set his laptop on his desk and sat cross-legged in his chair.
Jiang Ye passed behind him, glanced at Heir Apparent Xiao being surrounded by pursuers on-screen, and casually remarked, "Why is this heir apparent getting chased in every episode?" Then Chi Xun hit him in the face with a throw pillow.
"What do you know! This is a political intrigue drama!"
Song Shi'an had just sat down on the edge of his bed and glanced at how far the plot had progressed on-screen.
This episode depicted the heir apparent being driven into a corner, with Ying Qi protecting him as they broke out through a side gate.
According to the script, Ying Qi would be written out after this scene. He remembered spending an entire afternoon filming it. The props team had stuffed fake-blood packs inside his costume, and when the arrows struck, the packs burst, splashing his face.
It had taken five or six takes to get it right, and his back had gone stiff from lying on the ground.
"Heir Apparent Xiao's in danger!" Chi Xun clutched his can of cola, his knuckles white.
"It's fine. It'll be over in a minute," Song Shi'an said.
"No spoilers!!!"
Song Shi'an shut his mouth.
Two minutes later, Ying Qi took three arrows in succession on-screen, large dark patches spreading across his black clothes.
He dropped to one knee and used the last of his strength to plant his sword in the ground, supporting his body as he shielded the heir apparent.
The camera pushed in on his face. His gold-thread mask slipped off the bridge of his nose, revealing a face spattered with blood beneath.
His lips moved as he spoke his final line, then he closed his eyes.
The slow motion stretched out his fall, the hem of his robe fanning out in the wind.
"Don't die!!!" Chi Xun let out an anguished cry, crushing the can in his hand.
"What are you yelling about!" Jiang Ye poked his head down from the top bunk.
Chi Xun ignored him completely and turned to glare at Song Shi'an. "You just died like that? Three arrows? Does the director even have a heart!"
Song Shi'an smiled.
"But seriously," Chi Xun pushed up his glasses, switching from grief and indignation to analytical mode, "that death scene really was shot well. From the mask slipping off to him hitting the ground, it was a full thirty-seven seconds of slow motion. Every frame could be screenshotted for wallpaper. Battle-damaged beauty, that sense of brokenness dialed all the way up. I almost climbed the wall to another fandom."
"Don't like your Xu Che anymore?" Song Shi'an deliberately teased him.
"I do. That's different, okay?" Chi Xun declared righteously. "Xu Che is an idol transitioning into acting. I'm a career fan of his. With you, it's purely a face fan thing."
"Got it. I make a living off my face."
"Don't you?"
Song Shi'an discovered that he actually couldn't argue with that.
Sure enough, "battle-damaged Ying Qi" shot up the trending searches that very night.
Those thirty-seven seconds of slow motion were cut into countless short videos, paired with all kinds of background music, and spread like wildfire across the major platforms.
Some said that sense of brokenness was incredible. Others said this shot had mastered the aesthetics of battle-damaged beauty. Still others dug up every previous scene of Ying Qi wearing his mask, taking screenshots frame by frame to compare with him after the mask came off.
Song Shi'an scrolled a couple of times before putting his phone down. He still had to get up early for class tomorrow.
He had just lain down when the system in his mind suddenly popped up a line of text.