Chapter Text
Mobei-jun took another look at the clock, annoyed.
It was near closing time. He couldn’t believe Shang Qinguha was so late. Was he even going to show up?
But eventually he did.
“Hi!” said Shang Qinguha, finally sitting down across the table.
Mobei-jun glared at him. “Why are you so late?”
Shang Qinguha looked guilty. “I was held back at work! I told them I had a thing, I pleaded but they wouldn’t let me go! They might have really fired me!”
Then you’d lose your coveted position as a ‘glorified maid’ as you put it, is that what you’re saying, thought Mobei-jun, sullen.
He felt he had the right to be sour about it. He had literally offered jobs to Shang Qinguha before, and each time Shang Qinguha vehemently refused.
“Anyway, I brought you this!” Shang Qinguha said, handing him a headband with cat ears on it.
This again?
“This one’s black, I thought it’d fit you better,” said Shang Qinguha after seeing the look on his face.
Mobei-jun put on the headband. Shang Qinguha took pictures.
“That was great!” said Shang Qinguha. Then, cautiously: “You know, you could keep it there for the day. It really fits you, I don’t think anyone would think it’s weird...”
Mobei-jun took off the headband and handed it back to Shang Qinguha, who seemed a bit put out.
Mobei-jun wanted him to be cheerful again. He asked, “How were you?”
Shang Qinguha immediately brightened. He started talking about his website, and recommended a recent movie he thought Mobei-jun might like. Mobei-jun nodded along.
A few moments later, a voice quietly said behind him: “Wrap it up, please, your time is up.”
“Have a nice day!” said Shang Qinguha, walking away with the headband and the autographed paper.
Mobei-jun picked up his pen. He reluctantly turned his attention to the next person in line waiting for an autograph.
At least it was near closing time.
HuanHua was a typical rookie idol agency. It was short on both capital and planning, and easily swayed by a single word from its CEO. However, thanks to Luo Binghe, who had practically carried the company on his own, the agency’s other idols had managed to gain at least a bit of recognition.
If there was such a thing as a perfect idol star, it was Luo Binghe.
Luo Binghe was cool, but he was also soft. He was gentle, yet carried a shadowed side as well.
He could sing, dance, act, even talk well.
Luo Binghe was very generous with fanservice towards his fans, or as he called them, his "wives".
He was also careful to never show favoritism to any one wife above another, always keeping a slight distance even as he regaled them with fanservice after fanservice.
Luo Binghe's only sin was having a side piece, an older man that he’d apparently known from childhood.
But even there, so far he'd been extremely successful in keeping him completely hidden, which was the next best thing you could do besides never getting married or actually dating your most popular RPS partner.
(Which, in this case, was Mobei-jun - and thanks but no thanks.)
He was, in short, the best possible imaginary boyfriend one could hope for, although possibly not the best boyfriend to his actual partner.
But Mobei-jun never met the guy, so for all he knew he was perfectly content to be the side piece to thousands of wives.
The other idols from the HuanHua agency were not quite as popular.
Zhuzhi-lang carried himself more like an indie sing-a-song writer than an idol star - he’d only made a contract with HHG because he was Luo Binghe’s cousin, and the agency had been dying for another Luo Binghe.
He’d been forced to carry himself like Luo Binghe for years until one by one, the people responsible for pushing that strategy started quietly disappearing or retiring in disgrace. Mobei-jun had his suspicions and watched himself when he was with Zhuzhi-lang.
Sha Hualing the child-star-turned-singer had roughly two groups of fans - teenage girls and adult men. She tolerated the former and loathed the latter, and not just because the girls spent more money.
As a child star she’d been a heavenly angel, and now she was a cute-sexy demoness - or so the gimmick went. A disturbing number of her fans had shared their sex fantasies about the change. A popular photo manip series about kidnapping her as a teenager was so popular that it showed up on autocomplete.
Sha Hualing also hated the other type of adult male fans, the loving fathers who had grown fond of her thanks to their children, because she didn’t like fathers in general as a concept.
As a person, Mobei-jun disliked Sha Hualing, but he had to admit he sometimes found her all too relatable.
Mobei-jun had a ‘cool, aloof, and proud’ character. As such he got away with making near zero effort in playing a character, which infuriated Sha Hualing. His brand of ‘fan service’ was occasionally deigning to look down at the camera lens of the fans. He was actually warned against smiling too often, for fear of ‘breaking character’. All of this suited him very well and made him the envy of other idols.
He did, however, concede on the animal ear headbands, after a twenty minute lecture from Shang Qinguha about ‘gap moe’.
He tended to listen to Shang Qinguha on those things; he had been the one to come up with Mobei-jun’s character.
It happened on one of their early meetings. Mobei-jun was stretching his legs after rehearsal when he caught a fan with a camera passing by, muttering something about his ‘character’ under his breath.
Once caught, Shang Qinguha had denied ever saying anything until Mobei-jun had accused him of industrial espionage.
“It’s nothing like that! I’m your fan! You know I’m your fan!” he’d said, flailing.
“I just think your agency shouldn’t be forcing you to act like someone like Luo Binghe, it doesn’t suit you at all!”
Mobei-jun was intrigued. It was exactly true that the agency wanted most of its solo idols to follow the Luo Binghe model of success. He was doubtful about its efficacy, but he didn’t have enough basis to argue against a strategy that had worked so well for Luo Binghe.
“What’s my character, then?” he asked.
“You should be colder,” said Shang Qinguha immediately. “You should play to your type. You should be distant. You should be proud. You should be scary. There’s no reason to try to be dere, people will fill that in on their own.”
Mobei-jun considered this. “Wait here,” he said, and ordered a nearby staff to bring them chairs.
For the next thirty minutes, Shang Qinguha eagerly explained his visions for Mobei-jun’s character, complete with an impromptu lecture about human psychology that Mobei-jun repeated almost verbatim to the people at his agency.
After that, they met after every performance to go through his week, fine tuning Mobei-jun’s look and character. Once Shang Qinguha felt it was established enough, they began experimenting with things like ‘gap moe’ and ‘backstory reveal’. These always worked: Shang Qinguha was a genius at reading the mind of the public.
It took a few days, but Mobei-jun managed to find a copy of the recommended film and made time to watch it.
It was pretty good. He might have liked it better, if he hadn’t been joined by his fellow colleagues.
“Your boyfriend’s so pretentious! I can’t believe how many weird movies we watched because of him,” said Sha Hualing in between chewing on the popcorn she kept stocked up in the rec room just for occasions like this.
She continued, “I bet he never had any friends at school, I bet he thought he was better than everyone. You think he really thought he’d go to Tsinghua?”
“Hey,” said Zhuzhi-lang. He didn’t like making fun of people’s names.
“He could have actually went there,” said Mobei-jun. Ever since his life had been much improved thanks to Shang Qinguha, Sha Hualing kept trashing on him. It was transparent and annoying.
Sha Hualing rolled her eyes. “Sure, sure.”
Shang Qinguha was the first person to follow him from performance to performance, taking hundreds of pictures and uploading the best ones online. When Mobei-jun first came across his online prescence he also had a moment of thinking, go to Tsinghua, sure you will.
It didn’t take long for him to realize Shang Qinguha was one of the smartest people he’d ever met.
After the first few meetings, he began throwing job offers at Shang Qinguha. Are you really satisfied just being a fan? Is that all you want? Don’t you want to do something more?
Shang Qinguha had vehemently denied all offers, insisting with a flushed face that he was more than happy just being a fan, that he really, truly wasn’t hoping to be anything else.
It perplexed Mobei-jun. What did Shang Qinguha get out of this? Why did he keep trying to help him out, follow him everywhere, seemingly spend all of his free time promoting him, all without being paid for it?
“He’s not doing it for free,” Luo Binghe had attempted to explain. “Our fans all get their devotion awarded. They’re personally recognized, they get our gratitude. They get to love freely without any pain of rejection, and they’re loved in return.”
Luo Binghe was weird about these things. He insisted that he truly loved all of his wives and the occasional husbands equally - the ones he recognized, at least. Mobei-jun wondered if he continued that facade with his actual boyfriend.
“And doesn’t he sell your photos?” said Zhuzhi-lang.
This he understood to be a valuable point. The next day, Mobei-jun made an official announcement that he was banning all sales of his photos from unofficial sources.
On his next performance, Shang Qinguha showed up later than usual, with a significantly smaller camera. So that was it, thought Mobei-jun with dark satisfaction.
A few weeks later, Shang Qinguha still showed up late, but he had an enormous camera again.
“I’m so sorry I keep being late! I had to pick up some extra shifts,” he said umprompted. He then launched into a rambling monologue about how he could afford to be late now, since more and more people were recognizing Mobei-jun’s charms and taking their own pictures!, a great future lay ahead of him, soon he’d only be doing the final performances, it was only a matter of time...
“That reminds me! Isn’t it your birthday, soon? Are you planning anything?” asked Shang Qinguha in what he must have thought was a seamless segue.
Mobei-jun had been staring at his face while he talked. Shang Qinguha’s skin looked rough. He had distinct dark circles under his eyes.
“No,” he said, mentally cancelling several events. The next day he made a statement that he was refusing all types of gifts for his birthday. Fair’s fair.
Another weird factor in their relationship - thanks to those enormous cameras, Shang Qinguha stared into Mobei-jun’s face in high definition at least once every week. Meanwhile because of those cameras Mobei-jun could barely recognize him on the stage
Mobei-jun greatly preferred looking at Shang Qinguha’s face to having it hidden behind the camera, but for Shang Qinguha that was a sign of trouble.
One time, on a whim, Mobei-jun looked directly at Shang Qinguha’s camera lens and winked at him. Shang Qinguha dropped his camera. It was on a strap and didn’t fall to the ground, but he still fumbled around for several seconds, his face flushed so bright it was visible from the stage.
A very enjoyable experience for Mobei-jun, but that week Shang Qinguha had to post a long apology on his social media about missing the later half of the performance. Apparently people had actually complained about it.
After that, Mobei-jun restrained himself.
“You think his parents thought he’d go to Tsinghua?” Sha Hualing was still talking.
“God, his parents are probably insufferable people,” she continued, giving him a side glance. Maybe she wanted him to feel bad about it.
“I can’t hear the lines,” he said out loud. Zhuzhi-lang wordlessly picked up the remote and turned on subtitles.
In truth, Mobei-jun found himself liking the thought of Shang Qinguha having doting parents who absolutely expected him to go to one of the top schools in the world.
It was a nice image.
Shang Qinguha was such a relentlessly positive, social person. He also seemed unafraid to show his weakness to the people around him. It made sense that he must have grown up in a loving household.
Shang Qinguha was almost certainly not a Tsinghua graduate. Mobei-jun knew he was in some low-level contract job where he was always being lent out to other departments. He also occasionally mentioned ‘selling a piece’. Mobei-jun was pretty sure that meant he was an artist - a typical ‘starving artist’ with a side job to support himself.
In fact, he was fairly certain Shang Qinguha was a songwriter who had a close business relationship with another idol agency. How else would he know so much about the idol industry, yet insist in only supporting him from an unofficial position?
Shang Qinguha’s parents were probably too nice to him and didn’t mind that their son was wasting his talents.
Because he absolutely was wasting his talents, stuck in that low level job. What could Mobei-jun say to get him to work for him and him alone?
Thinking of Shang Qinguha made him miss a whole scene of the film. Mobei-jun picked up the remote and went back five minutes, ignoring the protests from others.
An hour later, the story wasn’t concluded, but the film seemed to end. The screen blacked out. All of them kept their eyes on screen in case there was something else.
The credits went up.
Sha Hualing punched a cushion in frustration. “See? Pretentious!”
Mobei-jun nevertheless watched the credit in full. In truth, he was also wondering what Shang Qinguha had gotten out of the film.
He had enjoyed it well enough despite the interruptions, but why did Shang Qinghua think he would like it?
He could usually guess the reasons behind Shang Qinguha’s recommendations, but sometimes he threw a curveball. Did Shang Qinguha like this type of endings? Did he think Mobei-jun would? Or had he recommended it despite the ending?
If Shang Qinguha had been here, he’d be talking nonstop about the film, about why he enjoyed it, which scenes he loved in particular. Instead of nonsensical rants from Sha Hualing he could be listening to Shang Qinguha enthuse about which character in the film had reminded of Mobei-jun.
Why couldn’t he have that?
Why couldn’t he have that?
That was a good question.
Time and time again, Shang Qinguha had proven himself to be trustworthy. In their three years of acquaintance, he’d had a dozen opportunities to sell out a piece of Mobei-jun’s private life, make a profit out of it - and he had never taken them. To Mobei-jun’s best knowledge he wasn’t even selling any of his photos after he’d forbidden it.
Shang Qinguha was so upfront about his insider knowledge of the industry. He often told him gossip that’d appear in the entertainment news later that week. The first few times Mobei-jun lost his temper in front of him or did something regrettable in front of Shang Qinguha’s camera, he spent the rest of the week browsing through tabloids, half resigned. But even when Shang Qinguha looked visibly overworked - which was nearly all the time, now - he had never sold him out.
At some point Mobei-jun had stopped watching himself in front of Shang Qinguha.
Was there any reason he couldn’t have Shang Qinguha come with him to watch a movie, to talk about it afterwards while having dinner at a nice place?
No. No, there wasn’t.
At first his plans were simple, but then he began to get into it.
Shang Qinguha seemed to like movies, so why not make a day of it? Mobei-jun had a connection with a few studios, back from when he was a child actor. He could probably sneak Shang Qinguha into a film studio, get someone to give them a brief tour.
Maybe he could bring him into one of those fake historical castles, rent some old clothes and let Shang Qinguha take pictures like they were acting out a historical drama.
Then they’d watch a film - Mobei-jun would rent a screen. Shang Qinguha could talk to his heart’s content if he wanted, or keep quiet and watch the film in absolute silence if that was what he preferred.
Afterwards they’d eat out at a nice restaurant nearby. Mobei-jun toyed with the idea of going to that tourist spot of a restaurant at the top of the city’s skyscraper, but it’d take too long to get there. Besides, what he really wanted was to talk with Shang Qinguha with nobody else around. It’d be better to rent a room.
He could always take him to a skyscraper later.
Two days later, he saw Shang Qinguha waiting for his outdoor performance, admiring the stage that had been built overnight.
Shang Qinguha startled at his approach, then, seeing it was Mobei-jun, relaxed minutely.
“Aaah, Dawang! You startled me!” said Shang Qinguha. “What is it? Do you need anything?”
Mobei-jun got right to the point.
He pointed at the nearby station. “Come to that station on Saturday, 8 AM.”
There was a pause. Shang Qinguha said, “The metro station?”
He sounded puZhuzhi-langed. There weren’t a lot of stations around, he had no reason to be confused.
Mobei-jun nodded. “Bring your camera,” he added.
Shang Qinguha paused again. “At eight in the morning?”
“Yes,” said Mobei-jun, slightly frustrated. He had assumed Shang Qinguha would be a lot more receptive to the offer.
No, wait, of course - he was a fool. He hadn’t told him where they were going.
“We’re going to the XYZ Studios,” said Mobei-jun. There.
“This Saturday? At eight in the morning?” Shang Qinguha repeated with a cute frown.
Mobei-jun nodded patiently.
“Am I - are we going to stay until lunch? Because, I - ”
“Until the evening, it’s a whole day,” said Mobei-jun.
Shang Qinguha gaped.
He looked up at Mobei-jun, smiling sheepiSha Hualingy.
“Dawang, I’m really grateful you chose me! But I’m afraid I can’t make it this Saturday... But if you want, I could find some other people you could take with you!”
Mobei-jun stared at Shang Qinguha. He hadn’t expected outright refusal.
“You can’t make it on Saturday.”
“I can’t! I’m so, so sorry -”
“What about Sunday?”
“I- I can’t on Sunday either, I-”
“Then next weekend.”
Shang Qinguha gave Mobei-jun a pleading look.
“Dawang, I’m really sorry, but I can’t make it next week either.”
Mobei-jun forgot about restraining himself and glared. Shang Qinguha cowered.
“I’m really sorry! I'm just so busy, I-”
“What is it that you’re busy with?” What other engagements could he have on weekends that wasn’t Mobei-jun?
“I have some really important things I have to do, Dawang!
What was with those vague non-answers? Mobei-jun was really annoyed now. “What’s your excuse?”
“I -”
Shang Qinguha stopped, like he hadn’t thought of what to say before opening his mouth.
“- I can have things I need to do,” he blurted out. “It’s the weekend! I can’t just give up the whole day at a moment’s notice! It’s the only time I have to go somewhere, or meet people, or -”
Mobei-jun said, coldly, “What people?”
Shang Qinguha stopped talking.
He opened and closed his mouth without saying anything. His face reddened.
It only served to make Mobei-jun feel even worse.
Who was important enough that Shang Qinguha would ditch him without even thinking? Why was Shang Qinguha keeping it a secret?
A moment passed without Shang Qinguha saying anything.
“What people,” he repeated.
“No one,” said Shang Qinguha in a small voice. He looked down at the floor, avoiding Mobei-jun’s eyes.
Mobei-jun had had enough. He shoved Shang Qinguha to the side as he walked past him.
He might have stumbled to the ground, Mobei-jun didn’t give a shit. He walked away.
He heard a cracking sound. Shang Qinguha couldn’t have somehow hit the metal decorations on the makeshift stage, right? That couldn’t be his head cracking? Heart beating fast, Mobei-jun turned to look back. Shang Qinguha’s head was nowhere near the stage. He was also looking at Mobei-jun’s direction - their eyes met. Cursing himself, Mobei-jun immediately turned back and sped up. He was done making a fool of himself.
During the performance, he was fully prepared to ignore Shang Qinguha, to not spare him a moment’s glance until Shang Qinguha explained himself.
But Shang Qinguha one-up ed him by going home before the show. Mobei-jun seethed.
Shang Qinguha didn’t come to his next performance, or the one after that. Mobei-jun’s anger turned into worry. Was he sick? Had he hit his head after all?
Less than two weeks after they fought, Mobei-jun clicked on Shang Qinguha’s fanpage while waiting backstage just like any other day, only to find the main image replaced with a text.
[ - Closed -
Thank you for your support!! ]
“What the fuck,” exclaimed Mobei-jun. A junior staff walking nearby almost fell over in fright.
In disbelief, he went to Shang Qinguha’s social media account, where he found the same announcement, along with a post saying he ‘won’t be coming back to this account, so I won’t be replying to any messages anymore.’
What the hell?
Zhuzhi-lang, who was nearby, walked over in curiosity. He took a look at the screen and winced.
Mobei-jun bristled. “Fuck off,” he said.
Zhuzhi-lang gave him a sympathetic look.
“You should talk with him, maybe he’s got some personal reasons,” he said.
Mobei-jun glared at him. Thanks for stating the obvious.
Mobei-jun thought for a while and realized that he had no way to contact Shang Qinguha without his online accounts.
The next few days passed in a blur of rage and denial. People started avoiding him.
Eventually Mobei-jun swallowed his pride and began asking around for Shang Qinguha. He started with the other agencies, and the songwriters he knew.
Nobody had ever heard of the guy, except as one of Mobei-jun’s fans.
In case he was using a different name, Mobei-jun tried providing a visual. It was unexpectedly difficult.
For one, he didn’t have any picture of Shang Qinguha. Mobei-jun went back to the website just in case, but found nothing but pictures of himself. He himself of course never had any reason to take a picture of someone who came to see him almost every day.
Mobei-jun resorted to describing Shang Qinguha, which also didn’t work out.
Shang Qinguha was of average height, average weight, average hair length. He didn’t wear glasses but sometimes did. He sometimes had dimples and sometimes didn’t. The things Mobei-jun noticed - like the way his nose creased when he laughed, or the tiny mole on the side of his neck - weren’t the type of things people usually noted about casual acquaintances.
Mobei-jun snapped one day and started methodically going through every single fan account he could think of, trying to find something, anything, even just the back of his head. But everyone was so fucking careful about cutting the non-celebs out of the pictures.
A few days later, Luo Binghe found him lounging in the cafeteria, eating a pound of ice cream straight from the carton.
Luo Binghe said, “There you are. I heard you were terrorizing everyone in the office.” He eyed the open carton with distaste.
Mobei-jun did not want to discuss his relationship woes with anyone, least of all with Luo Binghe, the guy who treated every conversation as an opportunity to brag about his own successful relationship. “Heard you rented a park last week,” he said, vaguely remembering an intern crying about it as she tried to make the reservation happen.
Luo Binghe’s expression turned dreamy. “A bamboo garden,” he corrected.
Mobei-jun nodded and went back to his ice cream.
To his dismay Luo Binghe settled down on a nearby chair. “Didn’t you have plans?” he asked.
If Luo Binghe was determined to discuss this it’d be best to get it over with. Reluctantly, Mobei-jun summarised the events.
When he finished, Luo Binghe gave him a look of earnest sympathy that he had never received from him before.
"Mobei-jun. Let me give you some advice as your longtime colleague,” he said, putting a friendly hand on Mobei-jun’s shoulder. Mobei-jun waited to see where this was going
“Right now, you may be feeling like you have been suddenly thrown into an abyss. You’re stuck in the bottom, you can’t even see the light coming from the top. Anything you try to get out of it feels useless. You may feel like you would never be able to face the person who threw you into this abyss ever again, let alone get him back.”
Overdramatic, but sadly not far from truth. Mobei-jun nodded grimly.
“I want you to know: none of us can help you on this,” said Luo Binghe.
“You’re completely on your own. And every moment you waste is another moment for some bastard to try to get close to him.”
“Thanks,” Mobei-jun said flatly.
Luo Binghe raised one finger, silencing him.
“But I can give you one advice. Your first priority should be catching him.
You might feel like what you need to do first is become a better version of yourself, to try and impress him.
Don’t.
The first step - the first thing to do above all else - is to catch him and tie him down to you. Otherwise everything else is useless.
You have to secure him before anything else, and then work on getting your feelings across. That’s the order to do it. Don’t waste time trying to redeem yourself in his eyes before that.”
Mobei-jun was bewildered.
For one thing, he hadn’t even been thinking of ‘becoming a better version of yourself’. Shang Qinguha always made it very clear that he thought Mobei-jun was the best possible version of himself. They had worked together for three years to ensure that.
He also hadn’t been worried about impressing Shang Qinguha or making Shang Qinguha like him. Shang Qinguha made no secret of how much he admired Mobei-jun. His social media posts about Mobei-jun’s face alone could fill a book. He had also done more than enough to prove his devotion - Mobei-jun had done a lot to test it, but Shang Qinguha stuck by his side for the past three years.
For once in his life, he could be absolutely sure that someone was fond of him. The last two years had been like nothing he had ever experienced before.
Finally: why would he need to “redeem himself”?
Finding and catching Shang Qinguha was the only thing he was planning on doing, so Luo Binghe’s advice was redundant.
“Thanks,” he said anyway. Luo Binghe added a few words of encouragement and left the room.
Left alone, Mobei-jun thought over the advice. Something about it bothered him.
It sounded like Luo Binghe’s guy had thrown Luo Binghe into emotional turmoil by refusing him, causing Luo Binghe to go through many trials and errors to win his heart. Eventually Luo Binghe became better, so now he liked him. This made sense.
Shang Qinguha, however, already liked him. Mobei-jun had been sure of this.
So why was this happening?
Was it his weekend plan guy? Did he want Shang Qinguha to stop following around another guy? But for that to work Shang Qinguha would have to value that relationship over their own, which brought it back to the first question. Why was this happening?
Did Shang Qinguha stop liking him?
But wouldn’t he have said something if Mobei-jun did something he didn’t like? Shang Qinguha was always excited to provide feedback on his character.
Unless he fell out of love so quickly, that he no longer cared about helping Mobei-jun at all.
Mobei-jun suddenly felt like he was transferred to three years ago - or any time before that, when he hadn’t even known there could be someone like Shang Qinguha -
That can’t be it, he told himself. I’d have known. That can’t be it.
“What makes you think he ever liked you in the first place?” said Sha Hualing. She’d been gloating ever since finding out Mobei-jun had ‘broken up with his boyfriend’.
Mobei-jun ignored this obviously stupid question, so Sha Hualing continued to poke him.
"Fans are fans. What they're in love with is the fantasy. Of course he loved his fantasy, he crafted it himself! As you always said.”
“Aren’t you embarrassed to be so openly jealous?” snapped Mobei-jun.
Even this didn’t stop Sha Hualing. For once she had the upper ground.
“I just feel sorry for you,” she said sweetly. “I could have told you this would happen someday! You’re so naive sometimes!
Did you think that he really liked you, just because he liked your image? Because he liked that you’re cold and rough?
That’s as if I thought my fans were in love with me, just because they like it when -
- here Sha Hualing suddenly smiled her TV smile, bashful and eager at the same time, thoroughly disturbing Mobei-jun -
- I’m all, ‘This Ling-er is so delighted to meet all of you! Oh no, this Ling-er is grateful for all of your love and attention, whatever form it takes! This Ling-er looks up to all of her fans, especially an old man like you, you’re all so wise and worldly~ ’
You’ve seen my guys, you think that’s true love?”
Mobei-jun was indeed familiar with that subsection of Sha Hualing’s fans.
“In the end, there’s no difference between your fans and my fans. They just want different things out of their fantasy.” Sha Hualing concluded with a smug smile.
Mobei-jun was silent, but not for the reasons Sha Hualing intended.
Sha Hualing’s sudden turn from open disgust to a shy smile had reminded him of something.
It was similar to how sometimes - especially on that last day they fought - Shang Qinguha’s face would go blank when facing him, before forming into a sheepish smile.
Mobei-jun felt as if someone had woke him up by throwing him in ice cold water. He found himself thinking back to all of his interactions with Shang Qinguha.
He felt faint.
How had Sha Hualing had described her fans?
Lonely men, alienated from their real families, searching for something - anything - that would give them meaning in life.
Obsessed with an illusion of unconditional love and kindness.
Too self-absorbed to realize that they were being given a paper-thin act to keep them happy.
They’re in love with the fantasy they built up in their minds, she had said, because none of them can connect with a real person - and I bet none of them ever will!