Edited by Noks
The moment Lu Xiuhe saw Zuo Zhen on the same flight back to Manyang as him, he almost jumped out of his seat.
After their encounter at last nightâs gala, Lu Xiuhe had pretty much admitted defeat and run away. Later, Zuo Zhen had sent him a lot of messages, all of which were very short, consisting of just one emoticon or a punctuation mark. Lu Xiuhe didnât reply to any of them, even though he had held his cell phone and remained awake until three oâclock in the middle of the night. No matter how he tossed and turned, he couldnât fall asleep, so at last, he grit his teeth and sent a reply: Iâm flying back tomorrow morning. If you have anything else to talk about, bro, weâll chat later.
After sending this, he immediately added: Anything else means matters like borrowing money and such.
Just after he sent that message, he thought he was being pretty stupid. No matter how bad the situation became for Zuo Zhen, he would still be richer than Lu Xiuhe.
After sending the message though, he seemed as if the big stone weighing on his heart had disappeared, and so, while still holding his cellphone, he fell asleep within two minutes.
Upon waking up and finding out that Zuo Zhen hadnât replied, Lu Xiuhe was quite surprised.
Along with this surprise came a slight feeling of discomfort in his heart.
After all, in his eyes, the message he had sent meant telling Zhou Zen to never contact him again.
After Zuo Zhen sat down in his seat on the plane, Lu Xiuhe took out his cellphone and checked it, all the while swearing in his heart. Sure enough, regarding flights from Jincheng to Manyang, there was only one such flight this morning.
After the plane landed, he hurriedly took his luggage and quickly said goodbye to Yu Yan, and then rushed off the airplane. He moved fast, for he was in a hurry to leave, but also, couldnât help looking back. He saw Zuo Zhen, who was wearing a mask, a pair of sunglasses, and a hat, fully decked out, walking slowly behind him, with some strands of distinctive pink hair poking out of the hat next to his ears.
It didnât seem like he was trying to catch up with him.
Lu Xiuheâs dad had said that he would come to pick him up, but he was still stuck on the road right now, so Lu Xiuhe had no way of leaving the airport for a while. He could only stand at the exit of the airport and wait. Turning around in his spot, he found that Zuo Zhen was also nearby. That person had already put on earphones, and was holding his cell phone and chatting with someone. He didnât even glance at Lu Xiuhe.
â¦â¦ It couldnât be that he had imagined Zou Zhenâs favoritism towards himself? So he actually hadnât come to Manyang for him?
Zuo Zhen didnât look up from the beginning to the end, and Lu Xiuhe became more and more convinced that this conjecture made sense. Stars were so busy, and moreover, which one of them would take such pains over an online dating partner?
However, hadnât that female anchor just said yesterday that the Pz group was very popular? Why wasnât there even a person here to pick him up?
Although Zuo Zhen had covered himself up tightly, he was very tall and stood out in the crowd, which had attracted many peopleâs attention. A few girls beside him were already nervously putting their heads together and plotting. n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om
Several times, Lu Xiuhe nearly walked forward to tell Zuo Zhen to go wait in the lobby. However, while he was still hesitating, his dadâs car had already arrived in front of him.
He kept standing still on that spot. Father Lu got out of the car, took his suitcase, and put it in the trunk. All through this, he kept up a stream of talk. âWhy are you in a daze? Get in the car quickly, I still have to go and check out some newly arrived equipment. Thereâs something wrong with two machines, and weâll have to change the hardware.â
Lu Xiuhe stuffily let out an âoh,â looked away, and sat in the passenger seat.
At the moment the car started, he couldnât help but look up and steal a glance at Zuo Zhen through the window.
Zuo Zhen had, at some unknown point, already raised up his head. They looked at each other from afar, their gazes meeting through the window and the sunglasses.
Lu Xiuheâs heart leaped. He quickly looked away and didnât dare to look back again.
â
âHe Zi, hurry up and login, weâre going to team up and play.â
Lu Xiuhe didnât even lift up his head, clicking his mouse very loudly as he refused, âYou guys play ba, Iâm not playing.â
His three roommates exchanged glances with each other.
âHey no, whatâs the matter with you? You havenât even been playing LoL these past few days? Have you given up on gaming la?â
Lu Xiuhe said, âI didnât give up⦠am just burned out for now. I donât want to play.â
âCut it out.â The dorm leader clicked his tongue and said directly, âDid your face-to-face meeting not work out?â
Lu Xiuhe hadnât hidden the matter about his online dating; the whole dormitory knew about it.
Lu Xiuheâs hands paused as he replied, ââ¦could count as that ba.â
âWhatâs the situation? It couldnât be that she used a fake photo??â
âWhat nonsense are you talking about, do you think He Zi is the type of person who cares about appearances?â
âThat canât be certain, you donât know how far these little girls will go now. Even their figures are bs, canât even let us live.â
If it was just about a fake photo, that would be fine, Lu Xiuhe thought. He totally didnât care what Zhenzhen looked like.
âIt didnât work out anyway, let it go,â Lu Xiuhe said.
The dorm leader saw clearly the picture displayed on his computer screen and was stunned. âNo, He Zi, you didnât get water in your brain in the middle of the night ba, what are you doing looking at this ah?â
Lu Xiuhe had opened up the Pz groupâs latest MV, which was for one of their singles.
In the video, the man with pink hair was leaning against a wall, his chin slightly raised, his eyes disdainful and arrogant, and he was rapping smoothly.
âNothing, just looking around.â Lu Xiuhe said, âOkay, you guys play your game and donât mind me.â
After returning to Manyang, Lu Xiuhe had researched a lot of information about the Pz group.
The female anchor really hadnât deceived people; the Pz group was really popular. The number of super fans on Weibo was shocking, and even a small matter like Member Aâs lyrics being two sentences longer than Member Bâs lyrics could be torn apart by fans all the way to making it onto Weiboâs number one hottest trending topic. Only after researching all this did Lu Xiuhe remember that he had also scrolled through a lot of Weibo posts about Pz before, but because those men had all been dressed in garish clothes, he hadnât even bothered to take a second look at the time.
Zuo Zhen was the most popular member in the group, with the number of his Weibo fans able to completely crush those of all the other group members.
Only when he had replayed the MV for the 13th time did he finally realize that the dorm leader was shooting weird looks at him x3.
Lu Xiuhe turned off the computer, turned around, and climbed into bed.
He closed his eyes for ten minutes but couldnât fall asleep. He resigned himself to his fate, took out his cellphone, and rather easily and familiarly, went to Zuo Zhenâs Weibo.
Zuo Zhenâs Weibo was very official; besides some notices and a few selfies, he didnât have anything else posted on it at all. Lu Xiuhe didnât even know how many times he had already looked through it, and he always had to scroll through a hundred or so ads before he could stop browsing it.
As he scrolled down the page, he assured himself that he didnât have any other intentions, he just wanted to become knowledgeable about the current circumstances of idols in China.
After scrolling through quite a bit of the page, he clicked the back button and was about to exit Weibo when his attention was hooked by a trending search topic.
#Pzâs internal discord exposed#
Lu Xiuhe pretty much didnât think about it before clicking into it.
[Entertainment Gossip: #Pzâs internal discord exposed# Itâs said that Pzâs concert in Jincheng will be cancelled next month, because a member of the group who had occupied the C position a lot solely on the virtue of his identity has finally aroused public anger, and the other members couldnât bear it anymore and also placed all their cards on the table.]
Lu Xiuhe didnât really understand the content of this post, so he just read the comments.
âHehe, the group leader has finally capsized. Every time I see him showing off his big face and boldly and self-righteously using his position as the team leader to stand in the C position for a new song, I feel nauseous. That pinkhead is just like a shuttlecock, and only empty-headed fans are able to close their eyes and cheer for him.â
?
Pink hair? Team leader?
The member of the group this person was fucking cursing out was Zuo Zhen??
A nameless fire burned in his heart, and Lu Xiuhe continued to scroll down the comments section while frowning. He found that most of the popular comments were pretty much cursing out Zuo Zhen. Obviously, this was just an obscure Weibo post, and was even one that no one was sure was true or not, but it was being interpreted by this group of people into carrying a hundred different meanings. They brought in their own prejudices against Zuo Zhen and created thousands of voluminous comments, all against him.
Only after scrolling to the end did he see the comments of Zuo Zhenâs fans.
âThis blogger is so disgusting, coming in to slander Zhenzhen specifically. All the comments supporting Zhenzhen have been deleted by antis. Since itâs Spring Festival, thereâs nothing to say, but I can only wish the bloggerâ¦â¦ & %I#@le. :)â
After reading through several hundred such threads, Lu Xiuhe had become so angry that his liver started to hurt.
He suddenly remembered what Zuo Zhen had told him.
Of course, he hadnât gone into any details; Zuo Zhen had never told him what his job was. He had only said that he was usually very busy, and that he had to carve out time for playing games. Most of the time he had used his laptop to play a few matches with Lu Xiuhe was when he had been on the road or during a halftime break.
Zuo Zhen had also said that he had done other jobs before, but the salary he earned at the time couldnât support his seriously ill mother, so he had changed his job. Although the salary he received now wasnât low, he was busy and tired.
He had said that he felt that he was working all the time, and that chatting with Lu Xiuhe had become the most relaxing part of his day.
He had said that he often encountered difficulties created by his colleagues at work, would be attacked both overtly and covertly, and also that he could not defend himself.
He had saidâ¦.
Lu Xiuhe couldnât think about it anymore. He sat up and aggressively opened the most popular comment of one of the antis in the comments section. Then he thought that doing so wouldnât be quite suitable; if his comment got deleted, wouldnât all of the words he typed have been in vain?
So instead, he crisply clicked to forward the post.
[Your Great Lord Lu: Iâve been wondering why the mouths of your group of girls are so toxic? Does Zuo Zhen have the final say in the spot where he stands? Why donât you guys directly tear into the company? If he really was this capable, I would think he would have just gotten the company to directly get your idols kicked out of the group, after which he could finally get get some fucking peace.]
That person replied quickly.
[Idiot, everything I said is based on facts! And you, a big man, even like male idols? Are you disgusting or not ah?]
[Your Great Lord Lu: What facts, send them out ah. If you donât, youâre my son.]
[Your Great Lord Lu: So what if Iâm a man? Why canât a man like Zuo Zhen? Have even fandoms now become sexist too? Also, I looked at your homepage, itâs all just a pile of anti materials. If you run your mouth off, Iâm kindly reminding you that if you forward it more than 500 times, youâll be charged with defamation. Itâs going to be New Yearâs Eve soon, leave yourself a way out ba.]
When it came to quarreling, Lu Xiuhe never lost. He sat up in his bed, desperately poking at the screen of his cellphone, and fought with the antis for 300 rounds. After tearing into them for a whole hour, he successfully attracted the attention of Zuo Zhenâs big fans.
Lu Xiuhe failed to manage to react before he was pulled into the Zuo Zhen national fan support group.
[Welcome, welcome!! Introducing everyone, this is Zhenzhenâs male fan, the hero who has torn into X bitch for an hour!]
It took Lu Xiuhe a long time to understand that the X bitch that the other party was referring to was the top commenter on that thread, and was a Zuo Zhen anti who was famous in this fan circle.
[Holy shit, worshipping right now!]
[Is this the fighting power of the legendary male fan?]
[Lulu, how long have you liked Xiao Zhen ah?]
It was too late to say that he wasnât a fan when he was already in their territory.
Lu Xiuhe braced himself and typedâ
[Your Great Lord Lu: â¦.A few months ba.]
[â¦â¦ Just a few months?]
[Becoming a die-hard fan just after a few months, this is true love ah! Lulu, donât worry, stanning our Zhenzhen canât be wrong!]
Lu Xiuhe was just planning to say something, when the big fan spoke first.
[Lulu, since you have entered the pit of Zhenzhen, you are now a member of the Zuo Family Army. You need to change your avatar and Weibo username. Iâll send you the format, and you can go and change it ba. In the future, if the antis stir up any more trouble, we will inform you in the group.]
Lu Xiuheâs Weibo was just a wasteland. A few years ago, he would still post some trivial things, but now, he basically didnât post anything, and it could almost count as being a throwaway account.
So it didnât matter if he changed his avatar or his username.
Thus, when Zuo Zhen couldnât fall asleep in the middle of the night and opened Lu Xiuheâs Weibo, he saw that the other partyâs username had abruptly changedâ
From âYour Great Lord Luâ to âZuo Family Army_Your Great Lord Luâ.
Super follower of: Zuo Zhen.
The originally chubby penguinâs head in the display photo had also changed in a flash. Instead, it was now a big-headed, pink-haired chibi character, wearing a red cape on its body that had âZhenâ written on it in big letters.
That night, Lu Xiuhe continued attacking antis even in his dreams.
He had just gotten to the âdo you know how hard he works?â part when he heard a harassing telephone ring, which pulled him out of his sleep.
He didnât even open his eyes as he picked up his cellphone and asked, ââ¦Do you know how hard he works?â
Zuo Zhen: ââ¦â
Zuo Zhen was sitting in a dance studio and sweating profusely right now. He leaned against the floor-length mirror and asked anxiously, âLu Xiuhe, did you mean to do it?â
Lu Xiuhe was completely muddled and absolutely not clear on what was going on as he said, âWhat did I mean to do?â
âDid you mean to make sure that I canât forget about you?â Zuo Zhenâs voice was empty and carried a bit of an echo.
At this, Lu Xiuhe was startled, and then scared awake.
â
The author has something to say:
The characters are not based on anyone! Not on anyone! Not on anyone! The fan circle was just me making up stuff! Made it up! Made it up!
â
Juurensha: â¦.LXH, you know joining the fanclub of your ex-boyfriend isnât what someone who doesnât like him at all would do, right? And Iâm pretty sure ZZ went to Manyang just for you, even if he didnât try anything after trying to sit next to you on the plane.
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