After a D-List Celebrity and Their A-List Ex-Partner Join a Travel Reality Show - Chapter 16

He Lan looked at these messages, quickly searching his mind for what he could have possibly done. However, after scanning his recent activity, he still could not recall what he had liked.

Confirming to himself that he had done nothing wrong, He Lan felt a bit more confident and sent a message:

【He the Handsome Guy: What did I like? I did not do anything over here.】

After replying, He Lan efficiently put his phone away and went to sleep.

On the other side of the planet, Zhong Wei was already furious. Seeing that He Lan had finally replied, his fingers tapped furiously on the keyboard:

【Aaa Shilan Entertainment Zhong Wei: Do not you dare say you did not like it! You did not like it? Then was that “begging for reconciliation” comment something I liked with my own finger!】

Nearby, the young assistant saw him absolutely livid and, after a moment’s hesitation, spoke up: “Brother Zhong Wei, please do not be angry.”

“I am not angry?” Zhong Wei immediately looked at the assistant, his eyes blazing like torches.

The assistant trembled in fear, lowered his head, slowly backed away, and exited the office. After closing the door, the assistant gently patted his chest. Being an overworked intern these days was truly difficult.

Zhong Wei paced back and forth in his office, occasionally picking up his phone to check, but He Lan never sent another message. The company had been very busy for the past two days, and he was basically living at the office. Just when his work had finally reached a stopping point and he wanted to go home early to keep his cat company, he had not even picked up his car keys before this mess happened.

He checked the time; it was past 1:00 AM. In Tromsø, that would be past 7:00 PM. Since He Lan had not sent a message, he was likely asleep. He was running around like a headless chicken over here, while his artist was sound asleep. He felt a bit unbalanced.

Just as Zhong Wei was about to bombard He Lan with calls, an unknown number called him. He looked at it, subconsciously assuming it was a spam call. Since he was already in a bad mood and looking for somewhere to vent, he answered the phone and started cursing without a word: “You, it is 1:00 AM, I am trying to sleep!”

Before the person on the other end could say a word, they were completely stunned by the outburst. When Zhong Wei finished venting and saw the line had not hung up, he snapped: “Do you have something to say? Have you not heard enough?”

The other side waited a moment, confirmed that the person on the line had quieted down, and asked: “Zhong Wei?”

Upon hearing that familiar voice, Zhong Wei’s expression froze. He was silent for a moment: “Shi, Shi Yong?”

Confirming that it was indeed Zhong Wei on the other side, Shi Yong breathed a sigh of relief. The next instant, he immediately cursed: “Are you sick? I am!”

After a round of verbal sparring, both sides finally quieted down. Zhong Wei’s mouth was dry, so he picked up his water glass, downed half of it in one gulp, and got to the point: “Have you seen the trending topics?”

Shi Yong rolled his eyes on the other end of the line: “Nonsense, the whole country has seen them!”

Zhong Wei was choked up by his words. He walked over to the sofa and sat down: “No matter what, this time it is our side’s fault.”

Years ago, when He Lan and Shen Shiqin were together, they could not stand each other. Back then, they both tried to stop the two from being together; logically, they should have been on the same side. But Shi Yong treated Shen Shiqin like a precious treasure and insisted that He Lan was not good enough for him.

Could one endure that? Of course not. So, the two people who should have been allies not only disliked each other’s artists but also disliked each other intensely. After their respective artists had a falling out, they immediately blocked and deleted each other’s contact information, vowing never to communicate again.

Thinking of this, Zhong Wei irritably pulled a cigarette from his pocket. He had just lit it when he heard a “tsk” from the phone. Zhong Wei inhaled some air, held the lit cigarette in his mouth, and asked: “Are you bored?”

On the other end of the phone, Shi Yong frowned in disgust: “Do not smoke. The smell is coming through the phone line into my nose.”

“Do not start with me.” Before Zhong Wei could finish, he recalled something, stubbed out the cigarette, and tossed it into the ashtray.

Hearing the incomplete sentence, Shi Yong asked: “What do you plan to do?”

“What can we do?” Zhong Wei rubbed his temples. “Looking at the bright side, it is just a liked comment, is it not?”

Shi Yong laughed in anger: “Right, you just happened to like a comment, and it just happened to be ‘begging for reconciliation’.”

Zhong Wei sensed his disapproval and said: “The company has already handled the PR.”

Actually, he also found it strange. He Lan liked that comment yesterday, and it had not gone viral then. It was only after the “Let’s Go!” production team released the first episode’s preview today that the like almost immediately blew up. It should have been an easy thing to solve, but when you clicked on the top trending topic, every piece of content was talking about what sort of illicit things these two had been up to.

Whether someone was targeting He Lan or Shen Shiqin on purpose, these trends were definitely being manipulated behind the scenes. He Lan was just a washed-up actor who had retreated from the limelight; even with the connection to Shen Shiqin, the Best Actor, they could not have stirred up such a massive storm on their own.

Zhong Wei said: “I have arranged for the team to cancel the like and delete related screenshot sources. Tomorrow morning, I will have He Lan post a clarification on Weibo.”

“You guys do not need to respond to any related questions for now. Staying silent is the best choice at the moment.”

Shi Yong thought for a while, and after checking that Shen Shiqin had not answered his earlier calls, replied: “Fine.”

In his dreams, something was coiling around him from below. Heat and cold intertwined. One moment he was falling into a frozen lake in Tromsø, and the next, he was thrown into a fireplace.

The object continued to coil until it climbed up to He Lan’s neck. Suddenly, as if his fate was being throttled, he snapped his eyes open!

Who is ambushing me? Where is Shen Shiqin?

He Lan vigilantly looked around and finally realized what that object in his nightmare was. He Lan moved his arm, which was feeling a bit numb from being pressed on, but failed. He lowered his head and looked at the octopus hanging off him.

The octopus had one arm wrapped tightly around his neck, making it hard to breathe, and its leg was draped over his waist, unmoving. Shen Shiqin had his head buried in He Lan’s chest, restlessly rubbing against him occasionally.

He Lan reached out and gently gripped Shen Shiqin’s wrist, trying to remove the arm from his neck. However, as soon as he moved, the owner of the arm impatiently tightened his grip.

After several attempts, He Lan finally gave up.

By the moonlight shining through the window, he looked down at Shen Shiqin. The moonlight on Shen Shiqin’s cheeks no longer showed the flushed red of a fever from before sleep, just a slight paleness. Perhaps he was still not feeling well, as his lips were slightly parted while breathing.

He Lan stared at this slice of moonlight close at hand. The moonlight in Norway was different; it was not like the moonlight he saw on his balcony at home every night when he could not sleep. It was the same moon, but perhaps because the room was too warm, the moonlight also seemed to cast a layer of warmth.

He laboriously pulled out the only arm that was not being used as a pillow corner and placed the back of his hand on Shen Shiqin’s forehead. It was no longer hot; the medicine had taken effect, and the fever had likely broken.

The phone screen on the side suddenly lit up. He Lan picked it up and found it was another message from Zhong Wei. Since he was no longer sleepy, he unlocked the screen and obediently read the messages Zhong Wei had sent him one by one.

After reading them all, He Lan clicked on the screenshot Zhong Wei had sent. It was the comment he had liked that day. The words “My name is He Lan, do not you forget” were highlighted by netizens in a red circle.

Oh, right. He Lan remembered. Now he remembered everything. That night, he could not sleep, so he went out for a walk around the lake. He was looking at the trending topics while resting on a bench halfway through. But he clearly remembered liking a comment from someone whose username was something like “Big Stool” or “Small Stool.” How did he end up using his main account to accidentally like a comment “begging for reconciliation”?

The message sent to Zhong Wei still sat at his righteous reply: “I did not do anything.”

He Lan looked down at Shen Shiqin, who was sleeping quietly in his arms. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, and he slowly closed his eyes, as if giving up on struggling.

After a long time, He Lan opened his eyes and replied silently:

【He the Handsome Guy: Brother Zhong Wei, if I said it was a slip of the finger, would you believe me?】

Zhong Wei was not asleep yet. Seeing this reply, his mouth twitched slightly.

【Aaa Shilan Entertainment Zhong Wei: If I said I am about to have a heart attack from anger, would you believe me?】

【He the Handsome Guy: I did not mean to. I originally wanted to like that “Big Stool” comment that said I was handsome.】

【He the Handsome Guy: Did you take your emergency heart medication?】

【Aaa Shilan Entertainment Zhong Wei: Ancestor, I owe you and that Big Stool so much.】

【He the Handsome Guy: Is there anything I need to do? I am being very obedient here. I will do whatever you say.】

Seeing the husky avatar He Lan had changed to at some unknown time, a husky sticking its tongue out at the camera Zhong Wei felt even more stifled. He really wanted to change the “Handsome” in He Lan’s nickname to “Stupid.”

【Aaa Shilan Entertainment Zhong Wei: Post a clarification on Weibo tomorrow. You know the drill, right? After all, you have not done this kind of thing less often in the past. But this time is different from before. Take it easy and do not argue with others.】

He Lan naturally knew this time was different. It was not like he had not used his main account to like things before, and over time, people stopped paying much attention. But now it was different. Someone who had disappeared from the public eye for three years returned and stayed on the trending list for several days. But in reality, it was not because of the name “He Lan,” but because of the name “Shen Shiqin” that preceded it.

In the eyes of the public, the two were at odds, and any meeting would inevitably cause a massive uproar. The facts were just that; the topic had hung on the trending list for two days without repeating. No matter how much they avoided suspicion in front of the cameras, netizens would always piece together the “truth” they wanted to see from the smallest clues. Now that netizens had discovered this comment he had liked, there was even more to talk about.

He Lan logged into his social media account and checked the entertainment trends. Zhong Wei’s efficiency was high; all the trending topics unfavorable to him and Shen Shiqin had already been pulled down. However, there were still a few left that showed a trend of being pushed back up. Since he could not sleep anyway, he clicked through them one by one to see what kind of stories the media had fabricated.

His body was really starting to go numb from Shen Shiqin’s weight, so He Lan shifted his body to the inner side of the bed.

But it was useless. Because as He Lan moved inward, Shen Shiqin also followed him inward. Whenever he moved his upper body, Shen Shiqin’s head was like it was glued on, his head still resting on He Lan’s chest as he followed him.

Forget it.

He Lan gave up and continued reading the news about them. Just as he was getting more and more into it, a groggy voice suddenly came from his arms: “Not sleeping, what are you looking at?”

The voice was too close; it drifted over almost through his clothes, pressed against his skin.

He Lan gasped and said: “Cannot sleep. Checking the news.”

“So bright.”

Shen Shiqin was not fully awake, but he felt the light coming from somewhere, so he kept his eyes closed and rubbed against the giant warm hug in his dream, trying to block out the light. After saying this, he fell into a deep sleep.

He Lan lowered the screen brightness upon hearing this, and he could clearly feel the tiny, shuffling movements of Shen Shiqin rubbing against his chest. A physiological numbness blossomed where he rubbed. He Lan kept his eyes on the screen, his body stiff, not daring to move an inch.

Confirming that the person was asleep, he returned his attention to his phone. Even with the company’s best public relations efforts, they could not remove all news positive and negative within a few hours. Various kinds of rhetoric emerged one after another on the internet. Watching comments that claimed he was “putting on a show” or “self-directing and acting,” He Lan suppressed the urge to curse back.

A negative trending topic was on the rise. He Lan clicked on it and saw the top comment, pushed by bots, which read:

“I know He Lan, I can testify! They never broke up; they are just using the breakup trend to make money! Three years ago, when they were fighting each other with their main accounts, that was also fake. They were intentionally stirring up hype!”

Below the comment were a stream of people agreeing, but quite a few netizens raised questions. After all, when they were fighting each other with their main accounts back then, they had not shown any mercy and they had not left any way out for their own careers, either.

He Lan looked at those comments which were clearly from bots and haters but did not feel very angry. He knew that trending topics like this, which speculated that they had not broken up, would be torn to shreds by comments in a while. After all, even if his own fans did not have enough firepower, Shen Shiqin’s fans would go all out.

However, he looked at those comments slandering Shen Shiqin and himself. After a few deep breaths, he logged into his main account.

He Lan: “I just cannot stand to hear a single bad word, what are you going to do about it! Haters, get lost! Do not you dare touch me and my wife. Wait, no, my ex-wife for now! Do not you dare come near us!”