Chapter 32

Take thirty-two bites.
Maybe because she’d seen too much about He Mingye these past two days, the dust-sealed memories in her head felt like they’d been locked behind a latch.
Now the latch had been opened, and the memories came flooding back.
After Little Black died, she retired due to injury.
He Mingye went overseas.
It wasn’t even that far.
In a transportation-rich twenty-first century, if someone truly wanted to take a step, anyone could.
But he never came back even once.
And she—like she was throwing a tantrum—deliberately blocked out anything related to him.
The first year he was gone, she thought: if he comes back, then she’ll reluctantly forgive him.
The second year, she thought: it’s fine if he doesn’t come back, as long as he calls. Even a single text would do.
The third year, she thought: she was a generous person. She shouldn’t keep sulking. Being proactive would be fine.
…
Later, she saw his shadow everywhere in the world.
She heard his voice in every corner.
Miao-miao excitedly pushed him on her like a new religion:
“Look, this is my new bias—isn’t he handsome?”
“His vocals are insane. I’ll find you his live stage.”
Onstage, He Mingye shone so brightly he hurt to look at.
Silver hair, black eyes—under the spotlight, he looked like a god.
Miao-miao said, “See? Isn’t he amazing? I’m telling you, he’ll be famous across the whole country sooner or later.”
Ying Tao only gave a muffled “Mm.”
She knew he would.
Because it was He Mingye.
If he wanted to do something, there was nothing he couldn’t do.
She was just a little sad.
That person on the stage felt very far away from her.
He’d become a little unfamiliar.
And a little… frightening.
Later she understood.
That feeling had a name:
Inferiority.
Everyone was moving forward.
But she seemed to have been forced to stay behind—stuck in the past, stuck in that accident.
She’d always thought she’d walked out.
Only to realize she’d been imprisoned in the past the whole time.
…
For the first time in forever, Ying Tao started paying attention to He Mingye’s life over the years.
He had countless fans.
His Weibo and his supertopic were filled with fans clocking in and confessing in every style imaginable.
But he rarely posted.
Other celebrities at least had studios that posted “work” photos now and then, or brand collabs.
But even after all this time, He Mingye’s endorsements were still the same two from two years ago.
And his pinned Weibo was only one post.
11132512520
A string of numbers, inexplicable.
No one had cracked it to this day.
Some said it was his birthday.
Some said it was a password.
The most widely circulated rumor was that the numbers were related to his first love—either the other person’s birthday, or some special anniversary.
There were endless guesses, but He Mingye never responded.
He didn’t care.
He’d always done whatever he wanted, unrestrained.
He was never going to follow other people’s arrangements.
Ying Tao’s finger slipped and hit Follow.
Then she panicked and unfollowed immediately.
Sure, he had so many fans that it was unlikely he’d notice a random nobody account.
But she still felt the awkwardness of being caught spying.
To cover it up, she followed a bunch of other accounts at random—mostly Weibo’s “you might like” suggestions.
She didn’t even look closely.
She tapped Follow on over a dozen accounts in a row, then finally breathed out.
Now it would look more natural, right?
She changed her nickname.
Even swapped her profile picture to a default landscape avatar.
Then, like fans did, she furiously reposted a few support posts.
Her tone was perfunctory beyond belief—like a bot account bought for fake followers.
Only after she finished all that did she feel, as if she’d gained merit, satisfied enough to exit Weibo.
Who would’ve thought that right after she went to sleep, Weibo would explode into chaos.
When she woke up, her phone—set to silent—had been bombarded into near-death.
Miao-miao: What’s wrong with you?
Ying Tao was still half asleep, completely confused.
Miao-miao said, excited: What did you do? Weibo is drowning in discussions about you.
“About me?”
“Yeah.”
Miao-miao couldn’t explain it cleanly, so she tossed a link at her.
“Forget it. Just look yourself.”
Ying Tao clicked into Weibo, skeptical.
Weibo never needed a reason to be early—one gust of wind and it could turn into a citywide storm.
But this time was different.
Her account had somehow been pushed onto the trending list.
Watching drama is one thing.
Becoming the drama yourself is downright horrifying.
She clicked in in a panic and scrolled through the related tags.
Only then did she finally understand what had happened.
It turned out that after she fell asleep last night, the official account of Super Star Sports Meet announced that the new season was about to start filming—
And, in the same breath, released the participant list for the season.
Originally, the show wasn’t that popular.
Season one had only broken out in a small circle; most viewers were converted from various fandoms.
But last summer, an xianxia drama suddenly blew up.
One of its lead actors skyrocketed, and fans and viewers started digging up old content—finding this variety show.
That dragged the little flop show onto the trending list once.
A lot of competition clips spread widely, and the production team decided to strike while it was hot and record season two.
They hadn’t expected the start to go badly.
Two male idol guests crashed their reputations, and the schedule kept getting pushed back.
After the new year, some staff got temporarily reassigned, and only now was the project put back on the calendar.
With past lessons, the guest lineup for season two was even less famous.
They even pulled in a nobody like Ying Tao to fill a slot.
Logically, with a lineup like that, even with pre-written marketing copy and a purchased trending spot, it shouldn’t have stirred much of a wave.
But—
An accident happened.
When she went to sign the contract before, Lu Ziyue had asked her to fill in a Weibo account, saying it would be needed for the official announcement.
So in that long list of names, her name and her Weibo handle were included.
That wasn’t strange.
There were so many contestants on the list.
Most were obscure, sure, but even the obscure ones were more known than a pure outsider like her.
So her name buried in that long list wasn’t obvious.
No one cared. No one noticed.
Except—
He Mingye followed her.
He Mingye’s following list had always been empty, so any new follow was painfully obvious.
Ying Tao clicked into it.
Sure enough, He Mingye’s following count now showed “1.”
And in her own notifications, the new follower was displayed as—
K.
Right now, people everywhere were screaming:
“Who can tell me what’s going on?”
“Who is this person K followed?”
“Does anyone have an answer?”
Even she didn’t understand what was happening.
Why would He Mingye suddenly follow her?
Hardly anyone knew about this little surfing alt of hers.
Did she slip up last night and get caught?
No way.
He had so many fans that his DMs and notifications would be endless.
How could he possibly care about a nobody account following him?
As she was still confused, Weibo had already turned upside down.
Her phone kept getting new follow notifications.
At this point, her heat was higher than the variety show’s own heat.
The trending tag escalated from hot to explosive.
Clips from her past competitions were dug out by all-powerful netizens from the deepest corners of the internet.
It was footage from when she competed in a national youth gymnastics championship—before she retired.
Back then she wasn’t that old.
Her body was still chubby, like a little mochi ball, but her expression was deadly serious.
A lot of people watching the clips got melted by how earnestly straight-faced she was.
“Ahhh she’s so well-behaved.”
“That mochi ball is going to get kissed to death by auntie.”
“How can she be this cute? I’m going to faint.”
Some helpful netizens even came out to explain:
“Don’t let her age fool you—she competed a lot, and she won tons of gold.”
“Back then, a lot of people called her a gymnastics prodigy. Some even said she might become the next gymnastics queen.”
…
“Holy shit, I thought this was some idol survival show contestant—she’s actually a gymnast.”
“She’s insanely good. Such a cute face, but her balance beam is terrifying.”
“I’m crying. Other people were winning gold at seven or eight, and I was still camping in internet cafes playing games at fifteen.”
…
She went viral for no reason, and the heat only rose.
Some observant netizens noticed that her following list had a bunch of celebrities—
But not He Mingye.
Not only that, He Mingye’s fans scrolled through her page and found it was all reposts.
And the person she reposted most often was a male celebrity.
She’d reposted several of his recent updates and showered him with colorful praise.
“So tragic—did K follow the wrong person?”
“I’m dying. Even K has a day where he isn’t welcomed.”
“Does she not like K?”
Some people even tagged He Mingye directly to come look.
“@K she didn’t follow you.”
“Not only didn’t follow you—she’s a fan leader for your rival.”
“Are you mad yet?”
…
Ying Tao didn’t follow the entertainment circle, so she had no idea that the randomly recommended celebrity she followed was He Mingye’s rival.
To be fair, calling him a “rival” wasn’t even quite right.
He Mingye’s status was unshakeable. Face, voice—there was no substitute.
She’d heard they became enemies only because of a small conflict backstage at an event.
It wasn’t huge, but fandoms fought, and the other side unilaterally treated He Mingye as a competitor.
He Mingye didn’t seem to care.
The gap between them was worlds apart.
The only thing you could say was similar was their background.
That young master entered entertainment purely for fun.
If he disliked someone, he’d mouth off.
His temper was similar to He Mingye’s, but He Mingye was even more unrestrained.
His freedom wasn’t an act, and it wasn’t posturing.
Nobody took the feud seriously.
No one expected it to be dragged back into the public eye today and turned into a talking point.
More terrifying still—
It wasn’t only her Weibo that got overrun.
He Mingye’s Weibo got flooded too.
Netizens never minded making trouble.
He was usually proud and distant, like strangers should keep away.
It was rare to see the king of swagger take a hit.
So people piled on, spamming his pinned post.
“@K look at you now.”
Normally, this could have been left to die with cold handling.
The best move was to pretend nothing happened.
That was what she planned: play dead to the end, act like she didn’t see it.
But the next second, her own Weibo comments filled with the same lines.
She frowned, confused—
And then she watched the trending tag update again.
She clicked in.
On the main feed, there was a post from the same account.
Timestamp: two minutes ago.
K: See you tomorrow.