WAM CH7

7:30 AM.

Right at the peak of the morning commute.

Shao Si was jolted out of his groggy slumber by the sound of someone knocking on his door.

Accompanying the knocking was a familiar, desperate roar.

“Dad! Dad, hurry up and open the door!”

“Something terrible has happened! Are you still sleeping? Stop sleeping, wake up right now!”

Shao Si subconsciously pulled the quilt up, covering his head so the noise would quiet down a bit.

“Someone’s really going to die—!”

Just as Li Guangzong had almost shouted his throat raw, the haughty front door finally opened for him.

—He saw incredibly clearly that the red-hot, massive star whose career was at its absolute peak under his management was leaning against the doorframe, looking completely unawake and carrying a bit of morning crankiness. His entire person seemed like a capitalized “APATHY.”

It seemed this grand master had no idea that things had already exploded outside.

Li Guangzong slipped into the house as fast as he could, then closed the door and demanded, “Why was your phone turned off when I called?”

Shao Si scratched his hair, turned into the kitchen to pour a glass of water, and then sat down on the sofa. “Am I supposed to leave my phone on so radiation can freely damage every inch of my skin?”

Li Guangzong was so angry he puffed out his cheeks and glared. “…Keep making things up. When I called the first time, it was clearly on. You hung up on me, and when I dialed again, it was turned off.”

Shao Si thought about it. “What do you want me to say? Must you force me to admit that I just didn’t want to answer the phone?”

Congratulations, Li Guangzong has achieved the daily “Angered to Death” achievement [1/1].

While Shao Si was drinking water, Li Guangzong ran around pulling all the curtains shut on the surrounding windows.

Only then did he stand in front of Shao Si, squat down, and place his hands on his shoulders: “Listen to me, something very serious has happened.”

Shao Si remained expressionless, still immersed in the irritation of having his sweet dreams ruined.

Yesterday, he had a meal of Malatang with Chi Zijun, then happily came home to sleep.

Chi Zijun, who had gone in and out of the dance practice room and participated in variety shows with him several years ago, had now successfully transitioned into a Malatang shop owner. Wearing an apron over his chest and rolling up his sleeves, he used a strainer to boil fish balls for him in a large pot, scooping them up at the perfect time, and skillfully ladling chili oil over them.

The aroma was incredible.

As Shao Si thought about it, he realized he wasn’t just irritated—he was also a little hungry.

“The vast number of netizens have been chasing shadows and created a scandal for you—don’t look at me like that, I didn’t do it, and it has nothing to do with the company. It really was just netizens with nothing better to do who cooked this up for you. Maybe you were destined to suffer this calamity,” Li Guangzong finished. He pulled out his phone, quickly tapped open the Weibo trending search rankings, and then flipped the screen around to face Shao Si. “Look for yourself. The top one. The one that’s exploded.”

Shao Si took the phone and discovered that the top search only contained two names—the baffling combination of him and Gu Yanzhou. The two names were side by side, separated only by a single space.

The second and third trending searches were their individual names.

Shao Si truly couldn’t fathom what could possibly string the two of them together. He rubbed his chin and set his water glass aside. “The media discovered he didn’t follow me back? And then the two of us exploded?”

Li Guangzong really didn’t know how to explain it to him, only saying, “Actually, your imagination could be a little richer.”

Hearing this, Shao Si raised an eyebrow. He casually clicked on the link, only to be stunned by the screen completely filled with the word ‘marriage’.

[Shocking Exclusive: Gu Yanzhou and Shao Si Suspected to be Married! Let this Editor Take You Into the Private World of the Two Best Actors!]

Below were some top comments:

— Oh my god, Gu Yanzhou and Shao Si got married! Rings! Couple tattoos! Honeymoon! Holy shit, I actually feel a tiny bit romantic!

— Married???

— I only ever dared to silently fantasize about them in my head, and they actually secretly got married! They even wear rings! That ring is so pretty!

— Both of my husbands are married, but sadly neither to me. Are all handsome men going gay these days?

Shao Si raised his head. With an expressionless face, he enunciated clearly to Li Guangzong: “…I’m married?”

Li Guangzong: “…Who knows.”

Shao Si clicked into that well-illustrated headline article and read it with furrowed brows.

Lead paragraph: “Speaking of these two, they are known by absolutely everyone in the circle. If a netizen hadn’t accidentally noticed that the two of them once wore identical rings, this shocking truth of their hidden marriage might have never surfaced. [/Image Link]”

The picture was a promotional photo from an opening event Shao Si attended around May two years ago. An enthusiastic netizen had specifically circled a ring he was wearing on his hand at the time with a red marker.

Yet, coincidentally, in a photo snapped by paparazzi of Gu Yanzhou on the street in March of the same year, the ring on his right ring finger was strikingly identical.

The netizen who first dug up these two pictures was named ‘Yanran Yixiao’, a couple fan (CP fan) of Gu Yanzhou and Shao Si.

Perhaps even she hadn’t expected that digging up these two pictures would ignite such massive enthusiasm among netizens. In less than a dozen hours, other netizens had successively dug up more ‘hard evidence’. It turned this marriage from a hard-to-verify rumor into a ‘truth’ that couldn’t be washed clean no matter what.

‘Yanran Yixiao’ stated that she only secretly fell in love with this CP because, during the Golden Dragon Awards ceremony when Gu Yanzhou presented an award to Shao Si, the image of the two standing together looked too perfect. So she liked to collect photos of the two from various periods, cut them out, and Photoshop them together to create so-called ‘group photos’ to satisfy her own fantasies and benefit other CP fans.

She absolutely never expected that this would lead her to discover such a secret.

As for the ring, an event from two years ago, Shao Si didn’t remember it clearly. But he could be certain that all his accessories for attending various events were handled solely by his stylist.

And the other ‘hard evidence’ was even more ridiculous.

“This couple tattoo… I can confirm that the thing on Gu Yanzhou’s lower back is indeed a tattoo,” Shao Si enlarged the image and compared it carefully. “But this one of me is completely just my underwear band accidentally showing. Do these people not have brains?”

Li Guangzong: “…Who knows.”

Shao Si continued reading, his finger tapping lightly on the armrest of the sofa. “Three years ago I vacationed in Sweden, and Gu Yanzhou happened to be attending an event in Sweden at the same time, so rounded up, that equates to me going on a honeymoon with him. They even calculated that we must have gotten our marriage certificate a few months before the honeymoon, or that we just secretly got the certificate in Sweden… This imagination really isn’t bad, quite rich.”

Li Guangzong looked away. “Actually, if I wasn’t your manager, after reading that report… I almost would have believed it.”

Shao Si: “Don’t suddenly say stupid things like that and make me start doubting your IQ.”

“Should we think on the bright side then?” Li Guangzong said. “Look at the comments. There are still many people who believe you guys are just hyping up fake gay romance and didn’t get married. Dad, look, don’t you feel a bit gratified?”

“There really might be something wrong with your brain.” Just as Shao Si was about to exit the page, his hand slipped and accidentally liked the post.

Shao Si: “…”

Li Guangzong: “…………??!”

“What are you doing!!!! ヾ(｀Д´) Are you trying to die!!!!” Li Guangzong scrambled to snatch the phone back, hurriedly unliked the post, and then double-checked to confirm who he was logged in as…

Fuck his life, he was logged into Shao Si’s Weibo account.

Shao Si’s Weibo was basically managed entirely by him now. His main responsibility was regularly posting some things to prevent the account from growing weeds, and occasionally sending warmth to fans in the comments, like dropping a birthday blessing if a little fan happened to have a birthday that day.

So… he didn’t know since when, but whenever he logged into Weibo, it defaulted to Shao Si’s account.

However, unliking it at this point was useless. Sharp-eyed netizens had long since taken screenshots as proof, and a new trending topic was rapidly rising: Shao Si liked.

Faced with Li Guangzong’s immensely resentful glare, Shao Si simply spread his hands, showing thirty percent apology: “My hand slipped.”

Because Shao Si’s hand slipped, the situation was hyped to its highest peak. The topic that had burned for more than half the night not only didn’t cool down, but grew even hotter.

— The Young Master liked it, is this a tacit admission?

— Hype!!!! Absolute hype!!!!

— Those screaming hype upstairs, fuck off! Who brews a hype stunt for three whole years? This is clearly true love!

…

For this kind of thing, netizens held all sorts of stances. Fans turning into haters, bystanders turning into fans—it was an endless stream.

Of course, there were also many rational fans tagging the two, wanting to hear what the parties involved had to say.

After calling the company, Li Guangzong called Gu Yanzhou’s manager. He was as busy as a spinning top, not even having time to rest and take a sip of water.

“Brother Chen! Hello, it’s like this, I’m sure you already know about the Weibo situation, and I wanted to discuss a countermeasure with you.” Li Guangzong was already annoyed. The company wanted to use this incident to hype Shao Si up, but that depended on whether Best Actor Gu was willing. Therefore, he could only approach Gu Yanzhou’s manager, Chen Yang, to test the waters regarding their attitude. “I wonder how you intend to clarify this?”

Chen Yang had also been bombarded by various calls since early morning. He secretly glanced at Gu Yanzhou, turned on the speakerphone, and said, “…Let’s resolve this cleanly and decisively. Find evidence, explain those fabricated photos, state our position, and issue a lawyer’s letter demanding an end to the rumor-mongering.”

Since his debut, Gu Yanzhou hadn’t had many scandals. The previous one with Yang Yinyin was also a unilateral hype stunt by the actress’s company as a disguised promotion for their new drama.

“Alright,” Li Guangzong thought much the same way. He turned around and discovered that Shao Si had already made himself a breakfast.

Thus, Gu Yanzhou and Chen Yang clearly heard this snippet of conversation through the phone:

“Dad, you still have the mood to eat? When did you fry this egg? You really have a big heart… Instead of eating, why don’t you hurry up and solve that ‘like’ your hand slipped on earlier! You’re really going to anger me to death.”

“If you’re hungry, there’s another bag of instant noodles in the kitchen.”

“…I! AM! NOT! HUNGRY! You better just shut up!”