That One Rich Fan of Mine

The New Year was approaching.

The community where the Ji family lived is usually deserted, but now it has become more lively because of the holiday. The Ji family also posted antithetical couplets, displayed Chinese characters for blessing, and hung lanterns. Today was considered the busiest time of the year.

After the family of three had dinner together, Father Ji returned to the study to clean today’s experimental data. Mother Ji was chatting with her younger sister on the phone with Ji Beiling by her side. He opened WeChat, frowned, and hesitated for a while before sending the message.

Northland: [Are you those users with scrambled usernames who have been donating on my live stream these days?] 

Since he told Lin Xizhou not to donate when he was at the Lin’s, Custard Cream Pineapple Bun hadn’t appeared in his live stream. Instead, a large number of accounts with gibberish usernames that had been very liberal with their money appeared, which caused Ji Beiling to be suspicious.

Lin Xizhou received the message when he was waiting backstage for the dress rehearsal of the Strawberry Channel’s New Year’s Gala.

This year, as always, he was invited to the party, but it was for a chorus with two other celebrities—none of them were very familiar with each other. The three of them sat and chatted awkwardly backstage. They randomly talked about weight loss foods for dinner and late-night snacks—a conversation that was meaningless and hollow. Lin Xizhou’s eyes lit up when he saw a new message from Ji Beiling.

But after reading the content clearly, he didn’t really want to reply.

These bot-like alt accounts were, of course, accounts he bought to throw gifts, but he had already planned to never admit it even if it killed him. He paused, looking at the phone keyboard for a long time, before responding.

Zhou Not Porridge: [Of course not. I have been busy with rehearsals these days, so I didn’t have time to watch your live stream.]

How about that! What could Ji Beiling do if he didn’t admit it? Check his IP? Lin Xizhou blew his cheeks like a pufferfish. He had met no one who was unhappy about receiving money.

Ji Beiling saw Lin Xizhou’s confident reply, laughed for two seconds, and then asked. 

Northland: [Spring Festival Gala?]

Zhou Not Porridge: [Yes, on the Strawberry Channel. You can check their Weibo. I am very handsome if I say so myself.]

Ji Beiling glanced at the chat log, curious, and opened Weibo. He entered Lin Xizhou’s name in the search box.

The Weibo searched by date and popularity—on the top of the search was Lin Xizhou’s latest picture. 

The younger boy was wearing a white sweater and denim jacket, giving him a refreshing and clean appearance. Holding a small hand warmer in his hand, he stood in the background and looked up at the lights. His face was divided into light and dark: half of his face blended into the shadow and only his eyelashes’ tips were touched by the lights.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

Ji Beiling only used his Weibo to stay on top of gaming news. He followed very few people, just like a dead account. After this sudden search, Weibo immediately recommended a lot of information about Lin Xizhou.

Al Dflilcu’r rmgffc rtbkfv j ofk qjufr bo Olc Wlhtbe’r qtbabr bo njglber rlhfr.

Lf jmmlvfcajiis milmxfv j yeaabc jcv obiibkfv j vbhfc wbgf. 

Al Dflilcu kjr cba ojwliljg klat Qflyb jcv vlvc’a xcbk ktja tf milmxfv. Lf rmgbiifv atgbeut atfw jcv obecv atja jii bo atfw kfgf Qflyb jmmbecar klat Olc Wlhtbe’r cjwf. Pc atf fcv, tf vlvc’a ecobiibk jcs bo atfw.

There was a Weibo user called ‘Is Little Porridge Flourishing Today’ that was very active. She posted more than a dozen Weibo posts already today and they were all [Ahhhh, my Porridge looks superb and cute today! His adorable face and small eyelashes are like a kitten QQQ] and so on. Ji Beiling was getting goosebumps all over.

Why did he feel that these adjectives that were used to describe Lin Xizhou…were not too far off.

Ji Beiling casually scrolled through this fan’s homepage and saw that she posted a receipt of her purchase of Lin Xizhou’s magazine. She bought 1,220 copies in one go—the number of copies matched Lin Xizhou’s birthday. After calculating the price, Ji Beiling concluded. Lin Xizhou probably learned how to chase idols from his own fans. 

Besides these emotional expressions and beautiful pictures, this fan’s Weibo also had the same swearing as a certain someone—Ji Beiling grew up reading troll comments and was awed by the fancy cursing from this Weibo user.

Probably just cursing…this ‘ZhenXi’ CP fan?

He raised his eyebrows. He had also heard about the CP marketing method. Their team even has their own official CPs. Of course, he was in most of them, which he had little opinion about.

Lin Xizhou also has it? 

He found the ‘ZhenXi’ CP fan on Weibo and saw that there was a pinned post called ‘Sweet Collection’. Inside was a recording of Lin Xizhou gazing at the other party and laughing. He checked the time, thought back a little, and realized that this interview was on the second day after BLK took the championship—according to his deduction, this smile was probably an unrestrainable silly smile of a BLK fan, right?

Satisfied with his subtle superiority, Ji Beiling was about to close Weibo when he suddenly spotted a ‘ZhenXi’ CP fan who posted a new message on Weibo saying that she had shipped and kowtowed to a new cult.

What is this cult she was talking about?

These young idol-chasing females used too many technical terms. Ji Beiling didn’t think much about it as he closed Weibo. 

Lin Xizhou sent him a photo of the rehearsal scene, which contained the shelves and speakers behind the stage, the same background as his latest photo.

For Ji Beiling, it finally sunk in that his own fan was a celebrity.

The funniest thing he wondered was if his teammates learned that his local tyrant fan was actually ‘Chu Jingtian’ who they worshipped for a period of time, how would they react?

Mother Ji finished talking with her siblings and patted Ji Beiling’s arm. 

“Beiling, go prepare some fruit. Your sister-in-law’s family will be here soon.”

When Ji Beiling heard ‘sister-in-law’s family’, he felt an incoming headache.

The two children in her family were extremely loud. The eldest daughter, being in her second year of high school, idolized many cookie-cutter celebrities and posted on her Moments every day. The younger son also loved gaming. Every time they met, the younger child would cling to him like the kid wanted to become a part of him.

Even Ji Beiling, with his intense aura and expressionless face, couldn’t faze his parents. 

Just as he was bringing out the perfectly sliced fruit, he heard a lively crowd entering the house.

Qi Qingqing and Qi Qingyang practically dashed to their cousin like in a one hundred meter race.

Qi Qingyang took out his phone. “Brother Beiling!!! Let’s play Honor of Kings!!”

Qi Qingqing interrupted, “Brother Beiling, check this out! Could you tell me if this is your team’s merchandise?” 

Ji Beiling put the plate down, ignored Qi Qingyang, who wanted to play games together and picked up Qi Qingqing’s phone. It was a magnified picture of a corner of a backpack. There were two key chains attached to the zipper: a pom-pom keychain and the BLK team’s limited souvenir after winning this year’s championship.

He returned the phone to Qi Qingqing, who was eagerly expecting his answer.

“Yes, why?”

Qi Qingqing said in a very exaggerated and incredibly disbelieving tone, “Do you know I found a cult?!” 

Ji Beiling: ?

Was that the same cult he just saw?

Qi Qingyang impatiently bumped his shoulders against his sister’s. “Sis, could you take that elsewhere? Don’t bother our North God with your boring celebrity things.”

She turned her head and glared at him vigorously, then said with a very meaningful smile, “What do you know. This is closely related to Brother Beiling!” 

He sneered, “What does your idol garbage have anything to do with Brother Beiling!”

She waved her phone with the screen on and said confidently, “After a few days of research between my friends and me, we found that Little Porridge—my current life’s core, Lin Xizhou—likes the BLK team very much. If not, why would there be a BLK keychain on his backpack? I blame us for not noticing it sooner!”

“Also, that one time when they did an interview at his apartment, I spotted BLK teammates’ garage kits on his cabinet! Especially Brother Beiling! Although the picture was very blurry, it looked like he had a whole army of you!”

“Furthermore, he posted something on Weibo on August 14th that no one understood, but I get it now. August 14th is Brother Beiling’s birthday! The picture was of a small cake. On top of the cake was a trophy made with chocolate. He was wishing for Brother Beiling to win this year’s championship!” 

She spoke like a machine gun, one breath expelling a never-ending string of words. After showing and talking about a bunch of evidence in detail, she concluded, “So, I officially moved on from ZhenXi!”

Finally, she turned her lit-up eyes toward Ji Beiling to ask.

“Brother Beiling, do you know our Little Porridge? You should get acquainted with him!”

Ji Beiling calmly pushed her head away. 

Acquainted.

And more familiar than you.

“Spend less time on Weibo, or it will rot your brain.” Ji Beiling replied coldly.

Qi Qingyang echoed, “Hear that, spend less time on Weibo!” 

Qi Qingqing stomped her feet and exclaimed, “I finally know someone in a CP that I support, so I won’t let go of my sweets this easily, no matter what. Brother Beiling, go follow my Little Porridge back right now!”

Ji Beiling, who was pestered by Qi Qingyang’s hands and feet to play the mobile game, was taken aback when he heard these words. He repeated, “Follow back?”

Qi Qingqing had an ‘I-can’t-believe-you’ expression. “Brother Beiling, don’t you know that our Little Porridge has been following you on Weibo?!”

Ji Beiling frowned. He himself hadn’t logged on to his main account for a while now. How would he know who had been following him. 

Qi Qingqing yelled, “No, I won’t accept it! Follow him back now, or our Little Porridge will be sad.”

With a child hanging off of him, Ji Beiling felt that his headache had changed into a migraine. He took out his phone and logged on to his main account. Without checking who he was following, he searched Lin Xizhou and clicked ‘follow’.

The icons of mutual appeared in the lower-left corner of the page. Qi Qingqing held her phone to announce her achievements with her friends. Meanwhile, Qi Qingyang immediately placed his phone into Ji Beiling’s hands.

The screen of Ji Beiling’s phone went dark. 

He didn’t know the large consequences of his simple action.

This account only had six posts and followed only Weibo Assistant. Now, the number has increased to two.

Lin Xizhou, who was singing at the rehearsal site, didn’t know what had happened.

The real Custard Cream Pineapple Bun has something to say: 

North God Fans: Damn. Celebrities even purchased a follow back from North God, garbage Sina!!

Lin Xizhou Fans: Who is this? …We smell something good!