That One Rich Fan of Mine

Lin Xizhou had heard countless confessions since he was a child.

Sappy, deep, hysterical…He wouldn’t say he was immune to confessions, but he had already trained himself to have a firm heart and go along with the flow. But at that moment, the logical side of his brain disappeared, and he could feel Ji Beiling’s breathing, so ambiguous that he couldn’t resist.

Lin Xizhou admired Ji Beiling like an immortal statue on a pedestal.

Now, as Ji Beiling walked down from his pedestal step by step, came to him and became a flesh and blood man, Lin Xizhou, who was also often placed on the pedestal by others, experienced for the first time the delicacy and satisfaction of an idol turned friend. 

He enjoyed the secret mutual follow between Ji Beiling and him on Weibo, enjoyed the praises from other fans of Custard Cream Pineapple Bun’s deep pocket, and treasured everything that connected him with Ji Beiling.

Later, he got to know the BLK team members and gradually became familiar with the people around Ji Beiling. He knew Ji Beiling’s little habits and that the older man had never shared his cake with the other team members…He used to feel like he was dreaming, but now he was particularly awake. Because he knew that he had integrated into Ji Beiling’s life—but this didn’t satisfy him.

Everywhere he travelled, he wanted to buy something for Ji Beiling. It was not because the other man was his favourite player, but because Ji Beiling, who must be exhausted from daily training, would always reply to his messages, even if it was hours past midnight. He used to only know about Ji Beiling’s hard work, but now he really felt it. When the older man replied to him in voice messages, he could clearly hear how tired the other man was just from his voice. As he listened, he couldn’t help thinking, Ah, would buying this bring a smile to his face?

Knowing that Ji Beiling was domineering in the team, he and others even secretly created a group chat on QQ. They talked about anything and everything every day, but the person he was most interested in was excluded from the group chat. Today, North God was teaching people a lesson again. Tomorrow, he was in a bad mood again and unleashed his rage in the practice matches. Lin Xizhou wanted to stretch out his hand to provide Ji Beiling comfort, even at the cost of everything.

As time went by, Lin Xizhou saw his own changes more and more clearly. With an ignorant and unspeakable mind, he would hide in the quilt when chatting with Ji Beiling until late at night and struggle to fall asleep once they were done.

However, his restless feeling didn’t spurt and break out of their shell for several days. However, it didn’t matter, because Ji Beiling had already broken the shell from the outside.

The air was almost condensed. Lin Xizhou didn’t know what to say for a long time. He just felt that his heart was about to explode.

He stared ahead with a sudden look of shock on his face. 

“Ah!!! Bighead, why are you here!!!”

Taking advantage of Ji Beiling’s distraction, Lin Xizhou bent down and slipped out from under Ji Beiling’s arm, and then rushed out of the door.

The figure dressed in the team’s uniform almost leapt into a dash. Before Ji Beiling could react, the younger man had disappeared, leaving Ji Beiling, the trophy and the ambiguous air lingering in the room.

…??? 

Ji Beiling: It was a pity he didn’t run track during school.

When he picked up the trophy, his mind flashed back to Lin Xizhou’s fleeing back. He couldn’t resist shaking his head and smiling at the trophy.

How could his little fan be so childish? However, he was not only talking about Lin Xizhou but also himself from the time spent with Lin Xizhou.

Ji Beiling reluctantly and joyfully returned to the lounge, surrounded by his team members. First, they held him and screamed, and then gossiped about why he had disappeared. 

Ji Beiling could not reveal he was about to kabedon the other like an overbearing president in a little dark room. He surveyed the area but didn’t see Lin Xizhou anywhere.

“Where is Lin Xizhou?”

Bighead pointed to the door. “He just ran in, took something and rushed out. That big celebrity must be really busy.”

Little Dream looked puzzled. “Didn’t Little Porridge tell us yesterday that we were going to have a celebration party with hotpot?” 

Orange immediately gave Little Dream a panicked look.

Ji Beiling raised his eyebrows with interest.

“Oh? What celebration party? What hotpot? Why wasn’t I aware of this?”

“Did you guys create another group chat behind my back?” 

The four members: “…”

Orange calmly took out his phone, opened the WeChat app and put it in front of Ji Beiling.

“Look, North God. We really didn’t.”

There was really no group chat of them in the WeChat chat history, but Ji Beiling was not so easy to fool. He ordered Orange to open another messaging app. 

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.

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“Tbe rqfjx jr lo sbe tjnf remmffvfv…” 

Little Dream carelessly blurted out his inner thoughts. As soon as he finished, his teammates looked at him as if he was a dead man.

Ji Beiling placed the trophy in Little Dream’s arms and gave him a head pat.

“The takeout for next month will be on you.”

At this time, Lin Xizhou was in the cafe outside the venue. 

Lin Xiting sat opposite him, eating ice cream. She was fully armed with a BLK sticker on her face and a glowing BLK sign placed on top of her head.

Lin Xizhou revealed the confession bomb dropped by Ji Beiling, from which he hadn’t come back to reality yet. He didn’t even hear Lin Xiting’s multiple callings.

“Brother? Brother!!!”

She moved closer and shouted right next to his ear, which shattered her brother’s illusion and brought him back to the present. 

“What, what’s the matter?” He asked nervously.

She dangled her phone. “Glutinous Rice said that the BLK team members want us to join them for dinner. They are going back to the gaming house for hotpot. Are you joining?”

In fact, Lin Xizhou and the others agreed on this a few days ago. Considering that it was unsafe for Lin Xizhou to eat outside, they planned to go back and have hotpot together.

It would look bad if he cancelled on them because of Ji Beiling… 

He blinked slowly and clenched his fist tightly. “Yes.”

She nodded, “Then let’s go. We can take the bus from the back door.”

With that, she skillfully began to remove the stickers on her face and the glowing sign on her head, then she took out a few fan banners to organize her bag.

He glanced in a trance and found those were Glutinous Rice’s fan banners. Grabbing one, he immediately frowned. 

“Why did you have Glutinous Rice’s merch?”

She awkwardly grabbed the fan banner from her brother’s hands and quickly stuffed it back into her bag.

Have Glutinous Rice’s merch? Questioning how popular Glutinous Rice had gotten, which was all thanks to her hard work?

In fact, in the beginning, she saw that there were too few fans for her student, who was preparing for his high school entrance examination. There was not even a person raising his fan banner in the audience. With itchy hands, she couldn’t resist the urge to create an account for this, which accidentally transformed into Glutinous Rice’s biggest fan. 

Even she herself couldn’t really explain the details. Suddenly, everyone seemed to follow her lead—her ID, which was ‘Glutinous Rice Study Well’, made everyone else call her Xi-jie. Now she was behind the scenes for Glutinous Rice’s National Support Association…

She only had herself to blame for idolizing too much. She accidentally…acted too nosy…

But of course, this thing could never be found out by Glutinous Rice, the little cub. Once everything was back in her bag, she laughed in front of her brother.

“Glutinous Rice doesn’t have a single fan. Helping him become an actor for one hundred yuan each.” 

Her brother looked at her suspiciously. For a moment, he forgot that he still had an account to settle as he thought about Glutinous Rice’s face, which could be regarded as the type his sister went for—was his foolish sister idolizing again?

The two, disguised as staff, went to the back entrance of the stadium and into BLK’s van.

The team members were already in the van. They saw them enter and greeted them warmly.

“Little Porridge, come quickly. I’ve reserved a spot for you.” 

Lin Xizhou walked by Ji Beiling, who was sitting on an aisle seat, saw him coming and gave him a faint smile. Lin Xizhou got the hibijibis as he hurried to the back, letting his sister in first, so she had the window seat before he took a seat after her.

Sitting behind the man, he could see the back of Ji Beiling’s head, whose hair was fine and soft, unlike the aloof and proud owner himself.

The competition venue was only a short twenty minutes away from BLK’s gaming house.

The gaming house’s dining room was already decorated for celebration, hung with ribbons and balloons, as the members were sprayed by the confetti as soon as they walked in. 

The BLK members had a small table with a water-filled pot already boiling.

Bighead took the hotpot base given by Lin Xizhou, excitedly put it into the water, plus a large dollop of red oil.

The water bubbled, the steam was dense, slightly obscuring everyone, and the spicy fragrance was everywhere.

The table was full of all kinds of meat, so many that Lin Xizhou wondered if he prepared more than they could humanly eat. 

When it was time to start putting in the meat, he learned that he was overthinking it. Bighead and Little Dream seemed to be two hungry tigers that were trapped in a cage for several days, as they waved the hot pot strainer spoon and emptied plate after plate of meat into the pot, and then scooped them out soon after. Each person was fighting with their own strainer spoon, as chopsticks had no place on this battlefield

He had never eaten such a bold and exaggerated hotpot. He was really dumbfounded for a few seconds.

Looking at Ji Beiling sitting next to him, who gracefully picked up a piece of tripe with his chopsticks, dipped it accurately in the broth for eight seconds, pulled it out and nibbled it slowly.

Seeing that Lin Xizhou didn’t move his chopsticks, Ji Beiling was very thoughtful and helped the younger man snatch a large portion of food from the hungry ghouls. 

A whole big pot, one side weighed their strainer spoon like they were engaged in an intense battle, and the other side was quiet and peaceful, dining with exquisite etiquette. This meal was giving Lin Xizhou an existential crisis.

Lin Xiting sat next to Glutinous Rice, who stopped eating after two bites.

She was so self-conscious that she put down her chopsticks. She whispered, “What are you doing? Are you behaving like North God? Stop acting so abnormally.”

Glutinous Rice’s voice was firm. “No, if I eat too much, my face will break out.” 

Lin Xiting: “…”

She flattened her lips and patted Glutinous Rice on the shoulder. “At your age, acne is part of growing up and a normal phenomenon in adolescence. Don’t stop eating because you want to maintain your image. What if you don’t grow up tall and strong?”

Glutinous Rice blinked. “How tall should a guy be?”

Lin Xiting blurted out, “At least one hundred and eighty centimetres?” 

Glutinous Rice, who didn’t eat a lot, happened to be two centimetres away from that height. He heard the news like he was faced against his mortal enemy, as he immediately joined the meat fighting faction between Bighead and others.

Lin Xiting, frightened by Glutinous Rice’s sudden and fierce action, silently shrank aside.

So nice to be young.

It would be better for her to eat some vegetables. 

After the hotpot meal, everyone drank a lot of wine and lay dizzily on their chairs. Everyone was slightly drunk.

Ji Beiling, who had a high alcohol tolerance, supported Lin Xizhou, who drank a lot because of others, upstairs to have a rest before the younger man embarrassed himself further.

Lin Xiting was not drunk because of a lady’s privilege. The staff came and asked if she wanted to spend the night. She hesitated. Glutinous Rice, who was passed out next to her, instantly woke up and grabbed her by the sleeve. He gave her a pitiful puppy look.

The staff coughed awkwardly, and Lin Xiting could only nod. The female staff immediately ran away to prepare things. 

After Glutinous Rice dyed his hair back to black, he still looked very handsome and confident, but his face looked smaller.

His eyes were foggy with drunkenness, and his eyelashes were long, which made Lin Xiting super jealous.

“Ah, this skin. These eyelashes.” Lin Xiting couldn’t resist the urge to pinch Glutinous Rice’s smooth skin. “And you’re afraid of acne? Urgh, are you trying to make me mad?”

Glutinous Rice grabbed her hand in a daze. 

“My…My name is Li, Nuo, Ming, not Li Glutinous Rice (Nuo Mi)…”

Lin Xiting as the person in charge of his Support Association, naturally, knew. She pinched Glutinous Rice’s face again with a smile.

“I know, little kid.”

Glutinous Rice hiccupped and stared at Lin Xiting. 

“Next-next year I’ll win the championship. Just-just you wait!”

Lin Xiting sighed, took back her hand and patted the boy’s head.

“Yes, I’ll wait. Now go to bed, junior high student.”

The staff came to take her to her room, because the staff were not in the villa with the team members, a guide was needed. 

After Lin Xiting left, Glutinous Rice opened his eyes.

He studied his hand, where Lin Xiting’s warmth lingered.

A silly and satisfied smile reflexively appeared on his face.

Villa floor, Ji Beiling’s room… 

Ji Beiling was the only member in his own room. He put Lin Xizhou on his bed and examined the red-faced youth hugging the quilt and curled into a shrimp.

The older man removed the younger man’s shoes. Lin Xizhou, who wasn’t very interested in where he was, lifted the quilt and buried himself into the soft blanket.

At any other ordinary time, Ji Beiling would scold Bighead even at the most trivial thing, like dropping a potato chip on the ground. At the moment, Ji Beiling was not unhappy, instead, joy filled his face.

He lowered his head and listened to Lin Xizhou’s drunken mumbling. 

“Coincid-coincidence my ass…”

“It was all my hard work…”

Ji Beiling leaned closer to the sleeping man’s ear and whispered, “Then are you going to work harder?”

Lin Xizhou’s nose twitched, and he sniffed the air like a small animal. 

“You-you smell like Ji Beiling…”

Ji Beiling propped his chin and said, “Because I am Ji Beiling.”

Lin Xizhou was semi-conscious. He patted Ji Beiling in the face. “Young man, you’ve done a good job in the final!”

Ji Beiling held Lin Xizhou’s hand and asked, “Is there any reward for my good deed?” 

Lin Xizhou waved his other hand and answered bluntly, “I-I’ll reward you another fifty hundred thousand when I get back!”

Ji Beiling seized the opportunity to grab Lin Xizhou’s other hand.

With two hands held hostage by Ji Beiling, his delicate-pink fingers twitched, and they were adorable.

Ji Beiling gazed at Lin Xizhou’s misty eyes and closed the distance between their faces, enough that they could feel each other’s hot breath. 

The logical part of the brain in Lin Xizhou’s head was flying around the sky and slowly regained some sense. He subconsciously licked his dry lips, but he didn’t know that this action immediately added fuel to the fire inside Ji Beiling’s heart.

Ji Beiling’s voice was filled with traces of a smile. “What if I don’t want fifty hundred thousand? Shall I choose the reward myself?”

Lin Xizhou blankly stared at Ji Beiling, whose facial features were getting closer and closer.

Until a soft and warm contact came from his lips. 

Gently, lovingly, and devotedly.

A soft and unquestionable kiss.

The real Custard Cream Pineapple Bun has something to say:

Glutinous rice: I’m still too young 

Translator has something to add:

Teo: *Fire work*