If The Persona Is Wrong, Everything Else Is In Vain - Chapter 8

“No, this shot isn’t good…”

In a sudden moment of guilt, Lin Luo didn’t dare look him in the eye. Suddenly remembering something, he shot him a glare. “Why should I show you anyway?”

“It’s just some material for social media promotion,” he said, quickly hiding the photo and raising his phone again to start snapping pictures of the surroundings.

Zhou Wan reached out and snatched the phone from him. “Promotion?”

“What are you doing…” Lin Luo reached out to grab it back, only to find Zhou Wan holding the phone high with one hand while firmly hooking his other arm around Lin Luo’s neck. Without giving Lin Luo a single chance to adjust or react, the shutter clicked several times in rapid succession.

After finishing the shoot, Zhou Wan transferred all the photos to himself before tossing the phone back to Lin Luo as if it were a piece of trash. “This is what you call a ‘CP promotion’ photo.”

Lin Luo looked at the dozen or so extra photos on his phone; they were essentially a slow-motion evolution of him transitioning from being dazed to finally getting into the zone.

In nearly every identical pose, he was either rolling his eyes, closing them, making a distorted face, or his face was just a blurry mess, to the point where he had essentially created a collection of “ugly shots” all on his own. After flipping through them, only the last one or two were even presentable.

However, more than the annoyance, what gave him a headache was…

“Hey, you’re planning to post this already?” Lin Luo hurriedly pressed down on Zhou Wan’s phone, stopping his hand just as it was about to hit the send button. “With the photos looking like this, aren’t you going to edit them?”

Zhou Wan looked at him, his matter of fact expression answering for him.

In the group photo, Zhou Wan himself was perfectly prepared, one expression, one pose, almost completely motionless. He hadn’t even blinked. Though he looked a bit stiff, at least he looked like a person.

“What is there to edit? We didn’t bring any staff, we don’t have the equipment,” Zhou Wan said dismissively. Spotting a typo in the caption, he lowered his eyes to re-edit. “I’m naturally beautiful.”

Lin Luo was speechless. Sometimes he really wanted to buy a massive insurance policy for Zhou Wan’s narcissism and name himself the beneficiary, if the day ever came that Zhou Wan wasn’t narcissistic, the man would probably be dead.

He sighed, picked out two photos where he actually looked human, and quickly gave them a micro-adjustment before sending them to Zhou Wan. “Use these.”

Zhou Wan glanced at the pictures and let out a light sneer. “Hypocrite.” His hands didn’t stop, however; he saved the photos to his album and replaced the ones he had previously edited.

The caption: “Escaping the city, free time.”

The moment it was posted, it received an immediate response. The comment section grew rapidly. Rows upon rows of fans were praising Zhou Wan’s handsomeness. Of course, as a CP promotion post, the “shipper” fans weren’t far behind, they followed the scent immediately, even throwing some compliments Lin Luo’s way.

Secretly pleased, Zhou Wan zoomed in on the two photos. After studying them for a while and seeing nothing special, he asked, “What’s the difference between this and the original I took?”

“Look here,” Lin Luo pointed at Zhou Wan’s face, speaking in a serious tone. “In the original photo, your face looked a bit gray. I thought it would look better if I brightened it up.”

Zhou Wan looked closely at the spot he was pointing to. He truly couldn’t see the difference, but he precisely extracted the key phrase from Lin Luo’s words, and that was enough.

“Better?” he squinted his eyes and repeated the word. The sea of flowers was reflected in his eyes, though the expression within remained unreadable.

“Yeah.” Lin Luo suppressed a laugh, continuing to flatter him with a straight face. “Better.”

He seemed to have found a certain knack for getting along with Zhou Wan.

You can’t stroke a fierce, untameable dog against the grain, or it will bare its teeth. But if you smooth its fur one stroke at a time, you’ll end up with a docile, good dog.

In just a few short days, he had found the trick. As for the detours he had taken before… he would just consider it “paying his dues.”

Lin Luo stared at Zhou Wan for a moment, lost in thought. It had been a long time since he felt this sense of guilt.

In the beginning, he was the one who had provoked Zhou Wan for his own benefit. Later, he was also the one who had stopped Zhou Wan’s belated attempts to get closer.

While feelings are complicated and their relationship was never clearly defined and in the adult world, an undefined relationship is just a “situationship” or nothing at all, ultimately, he was the one who had made the mistake first. It was understandable why Zhou Wan would always want to flip the table and bare his teeth.

Only after Zhou Wan walked away did Lin Luo open those two photos and zoom in to look closely.

He hadn’t told the truth. In fact, what he had adjusted wasn’t some invisible “dust” on Zhou Wan’s face.

From the moment he saw those two photos, he had precisely captured that Zhou Wan’s image was “OOC” (Out Of Character) it didn’t match his persona at all.

It sounded mysterious, but by shifting just a tiny bit of something, the entire vibe changed completely. He had instantly restored Zhou Wan’s persona, the gloomy, restrained, beautiful Omega.

This persona could be said to have absolutely nothing to do with Zhou Wan’s true state, but it was the impression Lin Luo had of him the first time they met.

It was also the character persona in The Unsuspected, determined by the Zhou Wan seen through Lin Luo’s eyes.

Lin Luo gave a self-mocking smile. Zhou Wan was right, he was quite a hypocrite.

He pursed his lips and whispered a soft “Sorry” to Zhou Wan’s back.

He lowered his head and posted the caption and photos he had prepared on his main account: “Stolen moments of leisure @ZhouWan.”

Of course, his alt account wasn’t idle either. He posted several “old” stock photos to complete his daily KPI, then went to his main account’s comment section to join the CP fans in stacking the threads.

One user named “Is Lin-Zhou Real Today?” commented: “Wow, such a beautiful place. Did they go together? I’m dying from the sweetness!”

Others followed suit, creating a whole row of “Dying from sweetness!” accompanied by their own private stashes of photos and carefully chosen emoticons. It made Lin Luo feel a warm glow inside.

He swiped through every single comment, unable to keep from laughing out loud.

In reality, “Lin-Zhou” wasn’t the most popular ship on the CP charts, and it was impossible to displace the major, long-established CPs in a short time.

It had only been a few months since they formed this CP, and they hadn’t even released their heavy-hitter work, The Unsuspected.

For now, they could only make appearances at various events, from wedding-themed promos to mall events; they couldn’t be picky. Of course, that was just Lin Luo’s resource level. Zhou Wan’s resources were naturally superior.

While the improvement of Zhou Wan’s personal resources could technically boost the CP’s standing and indirectly help Lin Luo, Zhou Wan was built differently, he mostly attracted “solo stans.” Lin Luo was lucky if he didn’t get a random earful of abuse from them.

Initially, when Lin Luo used his alt account, “Moonfall Night Boat,” to start CP topics, almost no one responded.

It was only when his fans from years ago saw it that they spontaneously organized to help with various promotions, even though some of them didn’t approve of using a BL CP to gain heat.

Even Lin Luo himself hadn’t expected that after disappearing from the screen for several years, there would still be people who recognized him.

Once the CP gained traction, topics about the two leads increased, and they gradually entered the public eye. Some fans praised Lin Luo’s humble attitude and sincere way of doing things, saying it was touching.

In truth, Lin Luo knew very well that it was because he had fans first that he had this chance for a small comeback today. Without them, he wouldn’t be where he is, every one of his fans was a little angel who came to save him.

“Is Lin-Zhou Real Today?” was a fan who had converted from being his solo stan to a CP stan, the second most prominent figure in the circle, right after “Moonfall Night Boat.”

As Lin Luo was browsing the comments, a private message suddenly popped up.

Is Lin-Zhou Real Today?: 【Big brother, big brother! Where are you guys? This is way too beautiful!】

Immediately after, a photo was sent over, followed by: 【Wait, you were right there between them taking a close-up?! How is it so clear?!】

Lin Luo was full of confusion. As a top fan, he was always the one producing the most content, so everyone assumed he was a full time stalker fan who followed the leads to every event.

The signal in the mountains was poor, and the image took forever to load. Lin Luo typed a question mark. Just as he was about to hit send, the photo finally loaded.

Before he even clicked it, just looking at the blurry outline made Lin Luo’s heart sink halfway.

He swallowed hard and tremblingly opened the photo. The moment it appeared clearly, his blood ran cold. It was a complete death sentence, social suicide.

Just now, when he was switching back and forth between his main and alt accounts, his hand had slipped. He had accidentally posted that candid front-facing shot of Zhou Wan on his alt account.

The angle of the photo looked more ambiguous the more he looked at it. Damn that Zhou Wan, why did he have to smile at that exact moment? And why did he have to smile so beautifully? Who was he trying to seduce!

This photo looked exactly like that trend that was popular online a while ago, the “boyfriend’s perspective.”

If it were discovered that this was his alt account, it would be a disaster!

Lin Luo forced himself to stay calm. His mind raced at high speed, going through eight hundred PR plans in a single second of desperation.

He replied: 【In Shuihe Village. They are filming a variety show.】

Then he specifically quoted the second question: 【No, Luo Luo sent it to me.】

【Don’t spread it around.】 He added a “keep it secret” cute emoticon.

Real: 【Ahhh! You’re a dark horse! You… you’re actually on such good terms with Luo Luo! This angle, tsk tsk tsk, I’m shipping it again!】

Lin Luo wiped the sweat from his forehead, let out a sigh of relief, and continued typing: 【Well, I joined the fandom early, hehe.】

He thought for a moment and asked: 【What do you think of this photo?】

Real: 【Beautiful, beautiful, and more beautiful.】

Lin Luo: 【…Don’t you think it doesn’t fit Zhou Wan’s persona?】

Real: 【Persona? Now that you mention it, it seems so. But so what if it doesn’t fit? A real person can’t have only one side. I might join the fandom because of a persona today, but tomorrow I might continue to like him or leave the fandom for other reasons.】

Lin Luo’s heart skipped a beat. Real’s words seemed to untie the knot of his long-standing, almost paranoid obsession with personas.

He glanced at Zhou Wan, who was not far away, impatiently holding his phone with a stern face to photograph flowers, yet with eyes that occasionally flashed with joy. Lin Luo stood frozen, momentarily unsure of what to reply.

He stuffed his phone directly back into his pocket, so he missed Real’s final, crucial piece of information.

“Is it pretty?” Ming Songqin walked over, carrying a basket of camellias in his hand, with a label from the flower farmer selling agricultural products stuck on the side.

Following behind him was Gu Ning, who had a strange expression on his face. The jacket he had thrown several meters away earlier was now neatly worn on him.

Gu Ning glared at Ming Songqin and walked silently to Lin Luo’s side, his face practically screaming that something had definitely happened between those two.

Lin Luo: “?”

Ming Songqin held the camellias out to Lin Luo, shaking them slightly like he was showing off a treasure. “See if these are enough.”

The pink camellias still had dewdrops on them. Ming Songqin scratched his head bashfully. “I’m not very good at picking them, so I bought them directly from the farmer. If it’s not enough, I’ll go buy more.”

The Shuihe area was rich in camellias. For a long time, there had been a local pastry. Camellia Cake. It wasn’t the kind made just with flour, it actually contained camellias. However, it didn’t have a particularly special taste; it was even a bit bitter. Even locals rarely liked it, let alone outsiders, very few even knew about it.

But the type of people who did love it were said to be able to taste a unique fragrance in it. Lin Luo was one of those people.

When he was a child, he was obsessed with that unique fragrance mixed within the bitterness. As soon as the camellias bloomed, he would drag Ming Songqin up the mountain to pick them.

Lin Luo frowned. “Actually, you didn’t have to…”

“Are you guys making Camellia Cakes?” Zhou Wan happened to walk over after finishing his photos and asked as he looked at the basket of flowers.

“You know about them?” Lin Luo and Ming Songqin asked at the same time, casting searching glances at him.

Zhou Wan picked out the freshest flower from the basket and toyed with it in his hand. “Someone gave me one to eat when I was a child.”

“The taste was okay. It had a strange fragrance.”

Lin Luo had loved Camellia Cakes before he was eighteen, but he stopped liking them after that.

That was the year he differentiated into an Alpha, and simultaneously, he lost the ability to taste the unique fragrance of the Camellia Cake.

He heard the village elders say that it was a drawback of the ABO attribute differentiation, everyone would lose some of their innate gifts as the price for evolution.

In the past, Lin Luo only thought they were being stubborn, clinging to the traditional male-female mainstream and trying to use the binary sexes to suppress the ABO system, thus coming up with this nearly superstitious explanation.

He didn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it, and refused to believe it. He was “rebellious” and was going to love the person he liked, regardless of whether that person was an A, B, O, or a man or woman.

But when certain important memories from his childhood began to show gaps one after another, and when his parents paid the price for his “stubbornness,” he started to believe the “elders’ words” just a little bit.