CH 58

In the eye of the storm, Xiang Wan sat across from Yu Zhou, looking a bit lost. It wasn’t until Yu Zhou muted herself from the stream that Xiang Wan spoke softly to Yu Zhou in the background, “I’m sorry, I should have checked the situation.”

“No, no, no,” Yu Zhou quickly shook her head, “It’s my fault for forgetting to mute myself. You’ve never streamed before, how would you know? We’ve only listened to live streaming once or twice before. Forget it, I just don’t have that kind of awareness to mute and unmute.”

Yu Zhou was overwhelmed as she felt guilty. Because Xiang Wan was sitting on the dark grey sofa, dressed in white pajamas, like an elegant white magnolia.

But this white magnolia didn’t know what kind of controversy she would undergo because Yu Zhou forgot to mute herself.

Yu Zhou had prepared herself mentally before opening the forum, finding almost 200 comments had already been posted so far.

But it wasn’t so bad after all. Most of them just agreed, saying they heard Xiang Wan too, proving that the original poster didn’t have an illusion.

Xiang Wan had starred in a few dramas and her voice was out of nowhere and distinctive.

Which makes people hard to forget after hearing her voice.

The subsequent comments speculated about why her voice had appeared, especially since it was late at night and they were talking about eating peaches. It was hard not to guess the relationship between her and the other party.

Within this crew, she had only been rumored with Su Chang who showed up in her weibo post wearing pajamas.

But after a few months of back-and-forth arguing, some listeners became disinterested in the gossip. It doesn’t matter how they were suggested, as long as they didn’t announce anything official, two girls could always be best friends.

Yu Zhou was almost relieved until she came across a comment that read:

“Xiang Wan is pretty good at this XD.”

Such a simple sentence contained so much information.

It seemed to be implying that Xiang Wan intentionally made a noise, intentionally appearing in the highly anticipated live streaming room as if she was in a popular CV’s home at night, asking her if she wanted to eat peaches.

Or maybe it didn’t imply anything at all.

The “XD” displayed the tone of the commenter, which seemed to be slightly smiling and full of superiority, like a god who knew the truth but refused to reveal it.

Yu Zhou was sensitive to the semantics of words, so her scalp tingled at the comment.

Sure enough, this led to a change in the direction of the subsequent comments.

Some people said, “Aren’t they both CVs? Don’t they know what the live streaming is for? It’s not necessary to ask at this time.”

Others said, “Well, not targeting this situation, but if I saw my friend working on a live stream, I definitely wouldn’t just talk next to them.”

“Why not just use eye contact and gestures to ask if they want to eat peaches?”

“Ah, well, we can’t really say she did it on purpose, can we?”

“But you can’t prove that she didn’t do it on purpose, can you?”

The discussion then spiraled out of control with people bringing up some hearsay and gossip, saying that Xiang Wan had allegedly said her clothes were bought by Su Chang and that she used Su Chang’s meal card in the cafeteria without any pretense.

Yu Zhou raised her head amidst the chaos of the internet, seeing Xiang Wan quietly reading a book beside her. She habitually raised her hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.

Yu Zhou suddenly felt that Xiang Wan had changed a lot since she first arrived. She used to be mischievous, teasing Yu Zhou from time to time, rolling around on the bed and feigning tears with no expression, clutching her chest and whimpering.

But after a few months, she had become more subdued, as if she had adapted to the rules of survival in this society.

She must have sensed that the rules of this society were not all that great, but she had no choice.

Even her approach to studying was akin to clutching onto a life raft.

Yu Zhou was very upset, the kind of upset that made her grit her teeth. She logged into the account she had prepared earlier to fight her own battles and was about to wage war.

But her tone was aggressive, so she appeared particularly like an obsessive fan once she got involved in the situation, and then…

Xiang Wan was even more brutally attacked.

The saying goes, “Fans behave badly and the idol picks up the bill,” which is also a rule of the online community.

If she explained it to Xiang Wan, she probably wouldn’t quite understand it all and even asked why she had to pay for the actions of strangers.

Yu Zhou felt so disappointed that she began to think that planning for Xiang Wan’s voice acting career was a mistake. She sat on the couch dejectedly, suddenly reminded of Su Chang.

Back then she had acted impulsively without any basic knowledge of voice acting before urging Xiang Wan to become a CV, going so far as to plan out her network image. This now seemed incredibly hasty and absurd.

Why didn’t she consult a professional opinion? Oh, it was inconvenient because back then they were like strangers.

So, why did she know nothing about Su Chang’s work and industry environment during the years when they were closest?

What had she been through and had she faced the same online vitriol?

Had she always been loved by everyone, or had she been misunderstood and magnified by everyone?

She always complained that Su Chang was not in touch with reality and couldn’t understand her dilemma of choosing between the big conference room or the small one for work, but she had never thought about understanding Su Chang either.

In love, it’s like we’re holding two magnifying glasses – one magnifying our partner and the other magnifying ourselves. We magnify our partner’s qualities and flaws so that their qualities can make us ecstatic while their flaws can make us feel despondent. We also magnify our self-esteem and the echoes of our joy as well as sorrow within us.

Sometimes, we can’t see ourselves clearly, and sometimes, we can’t see our partner clearly either.

Yu Zhou sighed as she looked at the half-peach on the coffee table. She had no appetite to eat it.

She had to find something to do, or else she would be tormented by the voices in her head.

But she had nothing to do, Xiang Wan was so well-behaved that she didn’t even leave her a bag of garbage.

She asked Xiang Wan, “Are you hungry?”

Say you are, then I can go to cook instant noodles for you.*

Yu Zhou felt really upset.

But Xiang Wan smiled as she said, “No, I still have half a peach left for you.”

Yu Zhou felt like crying.

She quickly lowered her head and raised her eyebrows as if using a stick to prop up her eyelids. She felt better after a while, but she couldn’t resist looking at her phone again.

There was still chaos in the comments section with people saying all sorts of things, some of which went too much. Some accused Xiang Wan of taking shortcuts to get the roles she had through Su Chang and Peng Xiangzhi and being manipulative.

The person who was fighting with Yu Zhou just now still kept replying to her and even mentioned a sensitive point:

“Xiang Wan did not include her age on a training course’s student list, only her, how old is she exactly? What’s the matter with her that she didn’t even dare to show her age?”

Yu Zhou started sweating at that, yes, she didn’t dare to write the age, she knew full well that if Xiang Wan included her age, people would find out she dropped out of school at 18.

Yu Zhou was always anxious about Xiang Wan’s past and origins.

Later on, some netizens felt it was too much and stepped in to mediate the situation, saying that Xiang Wan just said a word, there was no need to escalate it so much. Gradually, the issue subsided.

Yu Zhou noticed that some of Su Chang’s fans, who had previously refused to admit Xiang Wan as the “sister-in-law”, were now speaking up for her. Xiang Wan also had some genuine supporters besides Yu Zhou.

Yu Zhou remembered their usernames. Xiang Wan might not see them, but Yu Zhou would remember them for her, just like how she helped Xiang Wan block the malicious commenters.

Yu Zhou calmed down and exited the post before preparing to browse other posts to refresh her mind.

But what she saw left her dumbfounded. She truly realized the meme “The joys and sorrows of humanity are not interconnected”.

The fans of Su Chang and Xiang Wan’s ship were celebrating together, building a tower of comments and saying they will prepare a banquet for netizens later.

As Yu Zhou clicked into the forum, she saw their excited faces and the many interesting images they had edited, causing her to burst out laughing.

She felt helpless and at a loss, both angry and laughing like a demon.

The online world was an odd and vibrant place, full of wonders. Even Yu Zhou, a person who had watched the development of the internet as a modern-day observer, didn’t quite understand it all.

In that forum thread, they mentioned the CP of Su Chang and Xiang Wan, which was known as “Chang Wan”.

Yu Zhou left the forum before opening Weibo, typing “Chang Wan” into the search bar.

Goodness gracious, there were already thousands of fans gathered there! Yu Zhou’s first reaction was, are they real people? Did someone buy followers for the super topic?

But clearly, that wasn’t the case. The super topic was bustling with activity, like a small family belonging to those fans.

The profile picture was the two photos of Su Chang and Xiang Wan, with the CP fans photoshopping them together to look truly pleasing to the eye.

Yu Zhou scrolled down, seeing the fans affectionately calling them Changchang and Wanwan as if they were precious little babies nestled in their hearts.

They were discussing how to be good to them, how to protect their friendship and how to not cause trouble for them when they were indulging in shipping.

Yu Zhou couldn’t fully understand it, but honestly, it stirred up some emotions inside her. She was a sentimental person who believed that kindness had no specific form or rule. As long as it was well-meaning and didn’t have any objectively malicious consequences, it deserved to be cherished.

However…there were still aspects that she needed to adapt to.

For example, when she saw a fan-fic.

Fueled by her inexplicable competitiveness of wanting to compare her writing skills to the author’s, she clicked on the story. Strangely, it was upside down.

She turned her phone upside down.

…almost blinding herself.

In an instant, her face turned red, not knowing how to come to terms with the fact that Su Chang and Xiang Wan, who sat in front of her moments ago, were now depicted in such a scenario in someone else’s imagination.

Yu Zhou wanted to shout through a megaphone: Hey! Weren’t you just saying that it was just a friendship?

The mouth rejected it but the body was honest!

Disgusted, Yu Zhou put down her phone and didn’t dare look at Xiang Wan again, her face burning as she darted into the restroom.

– God of the Showerhead, cleanse me, wash me, save me, my mind is too impure.

Yu Zhou felt that she would never be able to face those two for the rest of her life.