CH 27.2

After attending a wedding full of tears and laughter, the guests couldn’t help but sigh. After completing today’s mission, they discussed it as they walked back.

Both of the young women expressed that they wanted to get married. Luo Qiuman, as someone who had personally experienced it, could see that Zhang Yunfei was interested in Tao Tao, thus she both openly and secretly motioned to Tao Tao to give it a try.

“Can’t do that oh,” Tao Tao acted coquettishly, “In my heart, Yunfei-ge is just a really nice older brother. He will find a gentler girlfriend.”

The fallen flower blossoms show interest, but the running waters are ruthless,1 Luo Qiuman did not mention this. After returning to Zeng’s house, she sat under the grapevines to cool off in the shade and started scrolling through her phone.

Following which, she seemed to have seen something and exclaimed in surprise: “Xingxing, come over. I want to ask you a question.”

“Ask away.” Qi Xingchen jogged all the way over.

“What does CP mean?”

“It’s the abbreviation of Coupling, meaning a matched pair. It’s often used in fandoms; if the fans really like any two people, they can pair them together as a CP on their own.”

“Oh……” Luo Qiuman puzzled, “Then can two guys be paired as a CP?”

“Of course they can,” Qi XIngchen mused to himself for a moment, deliberating over his wording, “Right now, society is open-minded, and with the freedom to love, regardless if one is homosexual or heterosexual, you can date. If the fans feel that two guys have CP feeling, then just pair them bei.”

Luo Qiuman fell silent for a long time.

“Then……” She spoke, “What does Last Night’s Stars CP2 mean?”

Last Night’s Stars?

He hadn’t seemed to have heard of this CP name before?

Qi Xingchen believed that his sense of logic was not bad, so he began his analysis at Luo Qiuman’s starting point:

First of all, it was currently during the recording period, Qiuman-jie must be concerned about the public opinion of 《Budget Travel》.

So this CP pair must have arisen from the six guests. Last Night’s Stars(ZuoYeXingChen), there was “Ye” and there was “Xing Chen”……

All Qi Xingchen could hear was a buzzing in his head.

……Isn’t this fricking him and Bo Ye?!

Thinking back to when he was scrolling through Weibo the day before yesterday, there were already evil cult3 remarks in the comments section. But at that time, the CP was named “Ye Xing”, how did it suddenly become “Last Night’s Stars”?

Qi Xingchen didn’t know how to face Luo Qiuman’s astonished expression, so he ran back to the room with his tail between his legs and opened the topic list.

Sure enough, under the #Bo Ye# supertopic, which occupied the top spot on the topic list all year round, a short video of him and Bo Ye singing filled the entire screen. It was awash with all sorts of remarks.

In particular, it was the clip of them looking at each other that was edited into a best highlights version by “enthusiastic netizens”. Qi Xingchen opened it and watched it once through.

……Enough said. If he hadn’t known that they were immersed in the mood at the time which was why they had that glance, he would also have felt that this kind of interaction was not very right.

The comment area below had already sunk into ruins：

【F*ck AHHHH who said I was part of an evil cult, kswlkswl4, have y’all seen an evil cult that is this sweet? 】

【Me before opening: Heh, I won’t get involved in CP even if I die; me after opening: How awesome5 (doge head)6】

【Mama AHH I’m going to die from the sweetness, I’m unilaterally announcing that this is Ye Xing’s wedding! 】

【I agree with the level above, but the name “Ye Xing” sounds too ordinary, how about we call them “Last Night’s Stars”, Last night’s stars, last night’s wind.】7

【F*ck, sister, you’re talented! Alright, everyone come in and see the famous scene of Last Night’s Stars! 】

Qi Xingchen looked till his scalp turned numb, only hoping that Bo Ye’s solo fans would quickly come over to control the comments section.

However, the increase in the number of CP fans this time was a bit dramatic. Not only did the solo fans not control it, but they also made Qi Xingchen’s main page more and more lively, and his fans increased by a small amount.

Before going on the programme, he already did not want to use his identity as a “Bo Ye fan” to leech off him. Right now, he did not want all the more to freeload off the CP traffic.

He pondered for a moment, then crafted a Weibo post：

——Qi Xingchen: When I came here to record a programme, we happened to run into the wedding of a fan of Ye-ge. At the very last minute8, we chose a song to wish her well. Wishing the two newlyweds eternal happiness, and to grow old and grey together.

After typing, he hesitated whether he wanted to @Bo Ye, then he thought better of it. If he @ed, it would seem too deliberate. Not saying anything would be easier to clear things up later9.

""

After finishing this, he knew that a large wave of antis were already on their way to curse him out. Locking his phone, he squatted at a corner of the room by himself to close himself off from the rest of the world.

Half an hour later, Luo Qiuman pushed his door open and entered the room: “Whoa, Xingxing, why didn’t you turn on the lights? Growing mushrooms?”

“No, I’m reflecting about life.”

“What of life are you reflecting about, do you also wish to get married? Come quickly, the TV is showing your programme.”

“……Ah?” Qi Xingchen finally came back to life, “The TV is showing my programme? Isn’t 《Budget Travel》 not supposed to be broadcast yet?”

《Budget Travel》 was exclusively produced and broadcasted by Maimang, and the copyright was not sold to any satellite TV station. Even if you wanted to, you could only watch it on MaimangTV and not on TV.10

“The programme you got onto is not any ordinary programme either, ” Luo Qiuman gave a mysterious smile, “Come quickly, Xingxing, this time it’s really amazing!”

With Luo Qiuman calling him, Qi Xingchen was forced to abandon his corner11, dragging his feet as he walked out of the bedroom.

In the living room, Old Zeng’s family and the guests were sitting on the sofa staring at the TV, watching with keen interest.

And the “programme” that Luo Qiuman referred to was broadcasted on many stations. The announcers are serious and dignified––impressively, it was the news broadcast at seven o’clock every day!

In the news footage, on a street in Denmark, he was lying flat on the ground, his umbrella flipping as it was tossed up and down with the movement of his toes.

Because he was two minutes late, the broadcast segment was already nearing the end. Only a brief summary from the anchor was left:

“In the past few days, a video circulated extensively on foreign social media sites. In the video, a young man performed our country’s traditional acrobatics such as umbrella tossing and plate juggling on the streets of Odense. He was unanimously praised by foreign friends and overseas Chinese, and played a role in cultural dissemination and cultural exchange. According to reports……”

Hello everyone, long time no see TT. currently preparing for my finals that is in ~10 days. My sch hols start around mid may, so hopefully I can be more active in tl-ing, especially since I have an internship for the summer (yay!) so I probably won’t be scolded for being online so often. But still no guarantees haha  sorry for making you all wait this long.

Updates on pw: I decided to remove it in the end since I haven’t seen much updates about the website. Also if anyone starts to upload my tl when the english site gets up, and I get DMCA’ed, I’ll just stop translating this and move on to another one of the author’s novels. (and the person will lose their source of $$ so lose-lose I guess) Or I’ll just pick something not from the j/j site. I’ll leave this unlocked until the day I finish this novel! 

Stuff on CP names: y’all CPs are wild in the CN entertainment circle ><. At first people will stick with the usual vanilla mashup of the 2 ppl’s names, but if it gets some traction, you’ll start seeing all the references/idioms/poems show up. Also I’m really sorry about the weird english ver. of QXC and BY’s CP, “Last Night’s Stars”. I really wanted to tl it as “Stars of yesterday/night” or something more romantic, but I also wanted to keep the order of their name characters in the CP name (bc the order of the characters actually indicates dynamics of the ship and ppl WILL FIGHT YOU on it, and this also explains why there are like >1 CP names for the exact same CP, each with their own supertopic and all). Also I wanted to keep “night” and “stars” so that ppl who do not read the footnotes will at least understand where the CP name comes from ><