Chapter 1 The Top Knot

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Note: This novel is set in the year 2024, and the administrative regions and related policies are semi-fictional.
The characters are unprototypical and do not support realistic evidence.

 

The phone lay quietly in the bathtub.

Soaked in a pool of fresh water and enveloped in the warm yellow light of the bathroom, it looked like quite peaceful when being deprived of its life.

Fang Yuan stared at it in silence for a moment, then turned his head to look at Gu Yanshu.

Gu Yanshu leaned against the door frame and looked at it icily in return.

Fang Yuan turned around silently again and leaned over to drain the water in the bathtub: “Shu, you didn’t really lose consciousness last night, right?”

Having said that, he fished out the phone and shook it twice, looking a little incredulous.

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Qw Zydpbw eked’v pyu yduvbkdt, cwv pvayktbvldle wr yde oyzjle vs vbl zkhkdt assx.

Rv oyp vynkv yrrashyz.

Wydt Zwyd vpjle voknl: “Ekvb vbl yxswdv sq yznsbsz usw eakdj, R lhld esd’v oyddy zywtb yv usw.”

Nypv dktbv oyp vbl plhldvb yddkhlapyau nsdnlav sq Qw Zydpbw’p elcwv, yde kv oyp xsal pwnnlppqwz vbyd lmrlnvle.
Ohlausdl oyp kd bktb prkakvp yv vbl nlzlcayvksd cydiwlv, ps vblu nsymle bkx vs byhl y eakdj.

Kwpv sdl nwr sq ale okdl, Wydt Zwyd vbswtbv vbld, kv oswzed’v nywpl ydu rasczlxp.
Slqwpkdt vs eakdj oswze prskz rlsrzl’p qwd, ps bl eked’v pvsr Qw Zydpbw qasx eakdjkdt kv.

Mbl dlmv xsadkdt, Wydt Zwyd nswzed’v alynb bkx, ps bl awpble shla yde qswde vbyv Qw Zydpbw bye y cye bydtshla yde bkp rbsdl oyp wdelaoyvla.

Ebld ypjle, bl pyke bl ynvwyzzu zspv nsdpnkswpdlpp.

Ls osdela Qw Zydpbw byed’v clld eakdjkdt ydu yznsbsz qsa ps xydu ulyap.
Xvblaokpl, Qse jdlo obyv vlaakczl rasczlxp bl oswze nywpl obld bl nswzed’v bsze bkp zkiwsa.

Fang Yuan added the words “Gu Yanshu is prohibited from drinking” in bold capital letters in his agent’s manual and took the phone into the kitchen.

Gu Yanshu took out a bottle of water from the bar and glanced at him: “Why you’re running to the kitchen?”

From the kitchen came the sound of rummaging through the cupboards and the nagging of Fang Yuan: “Bury the soaked cell phone in the rice, and you may still be able to use it after a while.
You young people should learn from this.”

Nobody knew where this untrustworthy folk remedy came from.

Gu Yanshu ignored him and took a piece of the painkiller with cold water as he found it out on his own.

The last year, two music entertainment shows, three concerts, one physical album, interspersed with various commercial performances and announcements.
His throat had been overloaded for a long time, and after every concert, even swallowing hurts him much.

His larynx was moving up and down, and eyebrows were lightly furrowed.

In the meantime, Fang Yuan came out of the kitchen and bumped into him.

“Your throat is hurting again?”

“It’s not serious.”

“If it wasn’t serious you would eat the painkillers as candy?”

Fang Yuan was getting anxious about it: “I’ve told you to slow down, but you don’t listen.
You’re only in your early twenties, and with this face alone, you can still make money relying on the traffic for many year, so why are you in such a hurry to transform? Do you still want the voice?”

“Twenty-five soon.”

Gu Yanshu corrected.

“Round up to thirty.”

Finishing the words, he lay on the couch and closed his eyes.

He didn’t intend to continue the discussion on this topic.

He has lost a lot of weight lately.
When laying on the couch, his collar reveals a large area of deeply indented collarbone and a lean sharp shoulder line, which, under the glaze of the floor lamp, reveals an almost transparent pallor and a sharp skeletal texture.

He looked like a bottle of thin porcelain that would break at the first touch.

This made Fang Yuan extremely worried.

He really didn’t understand what Gu Yanshu was rushing to do.

So he can only sigh: “Okay, you’ll have to go to the recording show tonight, so now you just get some sleep.”

Then he sat down on the sofa with his laptop and started to deal with the backlog that had piled up over the past few days.

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Gu Yanshu finally found a quiet moment.
He pressed his fingertips against his eyebrow, applying slight pressure, and a dull pain slowly overtook his nerve endings in a muddle after the paralysis.

He has always been a poor drinker.

When he was a trainee, he didn’t go home with his roommate on New Year’s Eve one year, so he bought a few cans of beer, ate take-out food, and had a humble New Year’s Eve dinner.

With a young age, he didn’t think twice and took a couple of sips.
The next morning, he was dizzy with a terrible headache, and couldn’t remember what had happened before.

All he knew was that his roommate said he had been holding the roommate all night and almost made great troubles.

After that, he never dared to drink again.

But the past many years had taught him nothing.
He completely had no idea about what really happened last night.

He could only vaguely remember that he had a dream in which a very annoying person was showing off that he had taken the best — ……

“Fuck! Shen Jue won the Golden Zeus Award for Best Actor?!”

—- actor.

……

What an amazing dream.

Gu Yanshu got upset by Fang Yuan’s yelling.
He put the back of his hand over his eyelids to block the light from the floor lamp: “Don’t yell.”

The voice was cold, conveying an obvious idea of driving away the guest.

But Fang Yuan still held the computer and came over: “Shu, don’t sleep, something happened to us.
Our fans and Shen Jue’s fans are arguing again.”

Gu Yanshu didn’t even raise his eyelids: “Still not used to it?”

“……”

Well, quite used to it actually.

Fang Yuan paused and explained, “But this time it’s different.”

Gu Yanshu didn’t respond.

Fang Yuan added, “This time, it came to No.
1 of the Trending.”

Gu Yanshu still didn’t answer.

Fang Yuan added again: “This time, it’s because Shen Jue didn’t go to the award ceremony last night, so your CP fans have come back to life.”

Still, no response from Gu Yanshu.

Fang Yuan: “……”

Forget it, Gu Yanshu was probably deaf.

Fang Yuan turned around, selected a text, and clicked on “Intelligent Recitation”, pulling the volume bar to its fullest.

A mechanical female voice with a distinctive metallic quality resonated in the room, reading aloud with a half-second pause after each character.

The voice was subdued and self-mixing.

It reverberated in the empty living room, strangely shocking.

“The absence of the new movie emperor from the award ceremony is actually because of this.”

“What is the purpose of Shen Jue’s late-night appearance at Gu Yinshu’s concert.”

“The five-year breakup was a cover-up ……”

Snap —

Halfway through “Cover-up,” Gu Yanshu finally sat up, reached out and covered the computer, and half dropped his eyelids.

“Say what you want to say.”

Oh, he was not deaf.

Fang Yuan took the opportunity to turn on the computer, closed the recitation, and turned the screen to Gu Yanshu: “You can see for yourself.”

Gu Yanshu glimpsed the screen.

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The artificial intelligence just read aloud was a Weibo.

(TL: Weibo was the counterpart of Twitter in China)

The ID of the blogger was @CPGirlsCamp, a Gold VIP account.

In addition to the headline party that was used as a gimmick, it was followed by astonishing texts.

[Sisters! Come and take a look! Does the man photographed outside of Gu Yinshu’s concert fucking look like Shen Jue? Like it or not? The reason why Shen Jue decided not to go to the award ceremony is uncovered!]

There were several pictures of the same man, taken from different angles.

He wore a black cap with a brim so low that it fit almost seamlessly into the black mask, hiding his entire face.

The pixels were blurred as if they were taken with an antique cell phone.

It even could not be distinguished whether it’s human or ghost.

How did they recognize it was Shen Jue?

Gu Lianshu raised his eyelids a bit.

Fang Yuan clicked to open the comment block.

[That’s definitely Shen Jue! Look at the height difference between the man in figure 3 and the passerby, you can be sure that he is close to 1.9 meters tall.
And then look at the view of the back in figure 7, you can see unclear shape of the top knot when you zoom in three times.
These two features are not popular, so I can’t think of anyone else but Shen Jue.]

 

[PS: What kind of a normal man would be so tightly wrapped at night? And which straight man in their right mind would come to a Gu Yanshu concert alone? If it wasn’t Shen Jue, I’d cut my fucking head off and give you guys as a ball to kick.]

 

[Fuck! The explanation from upstairs is awesome! I’m coming! I’m really coming!