CHAPTER 21: CHAPTER 20: ADD ON WECHAT

That booming voice of Zhou Huaiyi scared the other four people in the dormitory.

Ying Yue adjusted the face mask that she had carelessly stuck on crooked after being startled by Zhou Huaiyi and went over to shake her bed frame, gritting her teeth as she said, "Zhou Huaiyi, are you giving birth or something? Why are you shouting so loudly?"

Yang Qi: "In the middle of the night, you’ll give us nightmares acting like this."

Zhou Huaiyi stuck her head out from the bed curtains, looking apologetic as she nodded and smiled at the four of them, "Sorry, sorry, got too excited..."

After speaking, she quickly withdrew her head, staring at the notification informing her that Xiang Qichen had accepted her friend request, tapped the bed frame a couple of times, and started typing—

[Zhou Luobu: Xiang Qichen, this is Zhou Huaiyi]

About five minutes later, the other side replied: [I know]

Zhou Huaiyi bit her thumb: [How are you doing?]

[Xiang: Why?]

Zhou Huaiyi frowned and thought for a while, hasn’t he seen it yet?

[Zhou Luobu: ...Weibo]

[Xiang: Mhm]

As she was about to type while staring at the "The other party is typing..." prompt on the screen, her phone suddenly vibrated, and a message popped up—

[Xiang: Do you believe it?]

Zhou Huaiyi quickly replied: [Of course not!]

[Xiang: Mhm, just take what you see online with a grain of salt]

[Zhou Luobu: Yeah, got it!]

And with that, the conversation ended.

No more messages popped up on the screen. Zhou Huaiyi didn’t dare to disturb further and casually clicked into his friend circle, savoring it thoroughly.

The shared content was mostly fun anecdotes from everyday life, with occasional promotions of films and TV shows. Selfies were rare, but compared to Weibo, the friend circle reflected much more of life’s essence.

,

Late at night, Xiang Qichen, feeling exhausted after a shower, dragged himself to bed. Even though he was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open, he stubbornly insisted on opening Weibo, scrolling through the comments one by one.

Earlier that evening, after hearing Yang Li mention this issue, he could pretty much imagine the various cutting remarks on Weibo. He thought he was mentally prepared and that seeing them wouldn’t be so bad, yet he found it was a different story when he actually faced them.

Tens of millions of mentions, comments running into millions, all expressing the same doubts and insults, numbing him as he scrolled through.

Xiang Qichen randomly clicked on a fan’s retweet mentioning him, and before he could even scrutinize the content, the ID of the original poster caught his eye, evoking a sense of familiarity—

[Zhou Luobu who eats radishes: You work so hard, you are so excellent, so warm, and make my heart ache, I will never give up on you.]

[Attachment: Xiang Qichen’s bruised eyes]

The original post had already been retweeted over a thousand times, mostly by Xiang Qichen’s fans.

With a feeling in his heart, he clicked into Zhou Luobu’s profile, and when he saw the picture of Zhou Huaiyi’s clear, delicate face, he suddenly laughed, his whole mood seeming to brighten.

Zhou Huaiyi, you really are...

Quite adorable.

——

September 17th, two days before Xiang Qichen’s birthday celebration.

That evening, Kang Xuan boarded a 6 PM flight from R City to Yanchuan.

With the flight lasting two hours, Zhou Huaiyi, having booked the hotel, headed to the airport to pick her up.

On the way, the weather turned rough.

All of a sudden, strong winds rose, with thunder and lightning following. Zhou Huaiyi rolled up the car windows, patting her chest in lingering fear, muttering to herself while looking at the sky, "It seems like there’s going to be a thunderstorm... I wonder if Kang Xuan can land safely up there..."

It wasn’t long after she reached the airport that the rain came pouring down like a bucket of water being emptied, making a racket as it hit the road.

As anticipated, due to the heavy rain, the plane circled over Yanchuan for several laps, only safely landing after a two-hour wait when the rain subsided.

Zhou Huaiyi, waiting eagerly at the arrival gate like waiting for the stars and the moon, saw no sign of Kang Xuan, but instead, a commotion caused by something inside began to rise.

Seeing the camera flashes going off inside, she stretched her neck to look in, suspecting which celebrity’s airport appearance was causing the fuss, only to unexpectedly run into that long-unseen figure.

He was wearing a yellow casual T-shirt, black pants, and white shoes, exuding a fresh and sunny vibe. His bangs fell over his forehead, covering his eyebrows, and he wore a mask, leaving only a pair of clear, slender eyes visible.

Zhou Huaiyi was utterly shocked, having not anticipated that Xiang Qichen would arrive in Yanchuan today in preparation for the birthday celebration in two days.

And by chance, he coincidentally encountered a fan reception at the airport.

She stood outside the barrier, watching him move closer, surrounded by fans.

As he passed in front of her, his gaze seemed to linger on her for just a second, fleetingly.

The next second, Zhou Huaiyi’s phone vibrated and brought her back to reality as she answered.

Kang Xuan: "Zhou Huaiyi! I’ve landed, queuing up to get off the plane. Wait a little longer for me!"

With no choice in the situation, Zhou Huaiyi couldn’t just run after Xiang Qichen and watched as his figure faded away. She sighed and said, "You’re late. Xiang Qichen landed before you, and I just happened to bump into him as he was coming out."

"???" Kang Xuan was incredulous, "Are you sure you aren’t kidding me?"

"He’s still in my line of sight, but I estimate in five seconds he’ll disappear from view." Zhou Huaiyi grumbled, "All because of you, couldn’t you strive a little harder and land before him?"

Kang Xuan snorted, "Ha, if I had that kind of ability, I wouldn’t be here babbling with you right now."

Zhou Huaiyi: "..."