“I just arranged, arranged a marriage for you.”

The person on the other end of the phone was drunk and spoke with slurred words.

“What did you arrange?” Gu Wei rubbed his eyes, fighting off sleep, and turned on his phone screen. It was four-thirty in the morning.

The person on the other end chuckled twice, clearly very drunk, and mumbled, “Son, I just arranged a marriage for you, a wonderful match, definitely the good fortune you’ve accumulated over eight lifetimes.”

Gu Wei pulled back the curtains and looked at the pitch-black sky outside, feeling that he must have done a lot of bad things in those eight lifetimes.

From stealing chickens to setting fires.

At three-thirty in the dead of night, was he being arranged a ghost marriage?

“Dad... please tell me the truth, how much did you drink?”

At four-thirty in the morning, even the chickens were still dreaming; Gu Wei didn’t want to discuss this nonexistent marriage arrangement with a drunkard.

His dad, Gu Cai, was a screenwriter, a maniac when writing scripts, oblivious to the outside world. Now that he asked, it seemed he had finished his current project and remembered he had a son.

“Not much, not much.” Gu Cai slurred, “Just two bottles of liquor, mixed with a bit of beer. Son, I’m happy; I finally found someone to take care of you! You know, my colleague’s son is just like you; he doesn’t like girls either.”

“Dad, wake up a bit.” Gu Wei tugged at the flowers in the vase by his bedside. “I’m a traffic star. Do you understand what that means? If I fall in love, I’ll get canceled.”

He was the main dancer of the popular boy group T.ATW, a third-tier celebrity with decent traffic, but a multitude of haters.

He relied on that little bit of traffic to make a living; dating would be like—

Cutting off his financial resources, killing his parents.

His dad suggesting marriage was no different from driving him to suicide.

“All you have are haters; you were going to flop anyway.” His dad didn’t buy it.

“Haters are still fans; it’s just that I’m not likable.” As a third-tier traffic star, Gu Wei had a clear understanding of himself. “Please tell me honestly, who am I engaged to?”

Gu Wei had ample reason to suspect that this marriage candidate didn’t even exist.

“Umm, I think his name is Xun.” Gu Cai, inebriated, struggled to remember. “He seems like a bit of a slacker; his mom said he plays video games all day and isn’t very ambitious, but he’s a good person.”

He smokes, drinks, and styles his hair, but he’s not a bad boy.

The drunkard’s logic was touching.

“Quickly, cancel it for me.” Gu Wei ruthlessly refused. “We traffic stars don’t have love.”

“Just add each other on WeChat and chat a bit; a beautiful love is waving at you~” Gu Cai’s voice was cut off on the other end of the signal, a line Gu Wei did not hear.

Gu Wei hung up the phone. At four-forty, this sudden “beautiful love” made it impossible for him to fall asleep.

As it approached five o'clock, Gu Wei opened WeChat, found their group chat, and sent a few good morning messages.

[If you love me, please send me money]: Good morning!

[If you love me, please send me money]: Let’s be full of energy today!

It wasn’t even five o’clock yet, so naturally, no one replied in the group.

Gu Wei drank a glass of water, increasingly feeling that he shouldn’t have woken up so early, so he opened his Moments and edited a good morning post, adding a commonly used meme from the group chat, cheers.jpg.

Several of the older brothers in the group were following a certain esports team’s matches, became fans of the esports god Jiang Xun, and even formed a group to watch Jiang Xun’s matches. They often shared Jiang Xun’s various memes in the group chat, and Gu Wei had picked up a lot of memes from them.

Perhaps because he had been single for so long, he even found the memes attractive.

Gu Wei didn’t watch many matches himself, but he had gone to a few with the older brothers in the group and couldn’t say he knew Jiang Xun well, just that he recognized him. However, he quite liked Jiang Xun’s memes and often used them when chatting or posting.

“The early worm gets eaten by the bird, hum.”

Accompanied by the image, Jiang Xun angrily retorting.jpg.

“Little brother.” Someone private messaged him, “Up so early?”

It was Chi Yunkai, another marginal member of the group.

[If you love me, please send me money]: My dad suicidally delivered a marriage, and I can’t sleep.

[Guarding the clouds to see mooncakes]: Then don’t sleep; brother will show you something stimulating.

[If you love me, please send me money]: What kind of stimulation?

Chi Yunkai sent over a screenshot of a trending topic on Weibo.

Gu Wei exited WeChat and opened Weibo. Sure enough, he and Chi Yunkai were trending side by side.

#Gu Wei Variety Show Presence##Chi Yunkai Snatching the C Position#

It was quite exciting, a real brotherly bond solidified.

Gu Wei had also been criticized for snatching the C position, which didn’t pique his curiosity, so he clicked on his trending topic. At the top was a video, edited from the recently aired variety show “Wandering Together.”

This was a variety show Gu Wei had been recording lately.

In the video, the seven guests of the wandering group arrived in the streets of an ancient town in Jiangnan, broke and needed to complete tasks to get food. Gu Wei’s task was to learn embroidery from an old lady in the town.

In this edited clip, he flipped the embroidery piece onto the table and ran out of the studio under the old lady’s surprised gaze.

The post-editing text read: Too difficult, crying.jpg.

After the latest episode aired, this segment was immediately seized by Gu Wei’s haters, who criticized him online for being disrespectful to the elderly. Hardworking netizens forgot the rigors of the 996 work culture and worked overnight to push Gu Wei onto the trending list.

Netizen 1: Look at him; he probably never did any work or suffered as a child. Isn’t embroidery that hard? He won’t even put on a show.

Netizen 2: Pff, he’s just relying on his popularity from the talent show; he’ll flop sooner or later!

Netizen 3: When will T.ATW disband? Our captain Fu Zhi should go solo; I don’t want to see Gu Wei dragging my brother down.

Among the wave of criticism, a few of Gu Wei’s young fans also chimed in.

Netizen 4: It’s probably a filming issue; there might be special circumstances. He’s usually a very polite person. This editing can easily lead to misunderstandings. My brother is very warm; please don’t misunderstand him.

Netizen 5: The little cutie just turned eighteen; he doesn’t understand many things yet. We apologize; please be a bit lenient with Weiwei.

However, this small group of fans defending Gu Wei was immediately overwhelmed by furious netizens criticizing them.

Netizen 7: I’m a bystander, but Gu Wei’s actions are genuinely unlikable. Fans should accept the criticism and not try to whitewash his behavior; it really harms his public image.

Netizen 8: Exactly, not to mention, what was the show’s team thinking when they chose Gu Wei? He really has no variety show presence.

A certain big V’s edited Weibo post was shared and commented on tens of thousands of times, and Gu Wei’s lack of variety show presence trended.

Gu Wei closed the Weibo interface and became fully awake. He got up to wash up; the person in the mirror had red eyes, clearly due to lack of sleep. After washing up and getting dressed, he returned to his bed just in time to receive a call from his manager, Sister Zhao.

“Awake?” Sister Zhao asked briefly. “Did you see the trending topic?”

“Awake, good morning, Sister Zhao.” Gu Wei’s voice had a bit of nasal tone. “I’m sorry.”

The child’s voice was soft, displaying no temper, causing Zhao to hold back her accumulated frustration. “The car is downstairs at the dormitory; hurry down. The magazine cover shoot has been moved up an hour; Mu Yue is waiting for you in the car.”

“Okay, got it. Thank you, Sister Zhao.” Gu Wei quickly tousled his hair in front of the mirror, threw on a jacket, and dashed downstairs.

*

The magazine shooting studio was by the riverside, where a van was parked. Two people wearing sunglasses got out, followed by a group of bodyguards.

“Brother, don’t you have training today?” Jiang Ying took off his sunglasses.

Jiang Xun shook his head. “Nope, we just finished a match last week. The team is going on vacation to Europe tomorrow, and I have a professional player interview here today.”

Jiang Xun, the captain of the FPS game “Rules” star team TMW, had led his team to multiple honors in professional leagues, known for his cunning playstyle and decisive commands, hailed by netizens as “Xun Shen.”

Jiang Xun’s interview location had to pass by the magazine’s studio, where a shoot was currently in progress. He initially planned to pass by without looking, but then heard his younger brother Jiang Ying making a snide remark.

Jiang Xun: “?”

“Three o’clock direction.” Jiang Ying pointed ahead. “See that? That’s my rival; he has even more dirt than I do.”

Jiang Ying had a rival, which Jiang Xun knew, but he was usually busy with team matters, and the entertainment circle’s dramas didn’t concern him much. Since he happened to encounter it today, Jiang Xun turned to look in the direction Jiang Ying was pointing.

Upon seeing, Jiang Xun stopped in his tracks.

The “rival” his brother mentioned was doing a photoshoot for an esports magazine cover. The little star was dressed in camouflage, with two streaks of face paint, leaning against an armored vehicle, holding a prop sniper rifle, surrounded by cameras flashing incessantly.

Jiang Xun’s first impression was that the little star had long eyelashes, which made his originally alluring peach blossom eyes even more charming—good-looking without being gaudy. His lips were exquisite, and the slightly upturned corners of his mouth seemed quite obedient.

The little star looked at the camera, struggling to project an “intense” aura while carrying what looked like a rather heavy prop gun.

In Jiang Xun’s eyes, the little star was not intense at all; rather, he appeared cute yet fierce.

“You’ve made it.” Jiang Xun raised an eyebrow. “A minor can be your rival now?”

“He’s eighteen years and one month, okay?” The irritable younger brother Jiang Ying protested. “We’re all born in the 2000s. He just looks younger and seems obedient; he has more dirt on him than I do.”

Jiang Xun remained noncommittal.

“What’s his name?” Jiang Xun casually asked.

“Gu Wei, ‘Gu’ as in look back, ‘Wei’ as in future.” Jiang Ying said. “I’m going to take pictures now; I was actually placed behind my rival.”

Gu Wei’s eyes were too familiar, reminding Jiang Xun of a match from long ago.

At that time, their team had just achieved seven consecutive victories, and a teammate pointed out someone in the audience for him to see—

“That kid has been here for the last few matches; he keeps staring at you; he must be your fan.”

The kid had a hat and mask on, bundled up snugly, but those beautiful eyes were too striking. Jiang Xun stared at the audience for a long time.

Those eyes, Jiang Xun had never forgotten.

Seeing his brother not moving for a long time, Jiang Ying came back and pointed at Gu Wei, summarizing, “So, brother, remember this face. This is my rival, Jiang Ying’s rival. In the entertainment circle, it’s either he dies or I perish.”

Jiang Xun nodded knowingly. “You can perish.”

Jiang Ying was shocked, pointing at himself with a look of terror. “I perish?”

Who’s your brother?

“Coincidentally, you’ll have to suffer a bit.” Jiang Xun nodded towards Gu Wei. “That little guy seems to be my fan; I protect my fans.”