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Join the ServerIt wasn’t Su Xuan’s fault. He hadn’t anticipated his rise to fame, nor had he deliberately concealed his personal information. Consequently, the moment he shot to popularity, his details were inevitably dug up.
While many people did call him, it wasn’t to the extent of stalker fans; rather, they called to verify if he was truly Su Xuan.
Moreover, Liu Pangpang was a blabbermouth who couldn’t keep good news to himself. Many former collaborators now approached Liu Pangpang to discuss renewing their partnerships with Su Xuan.
When Liu Pangpang encountered resources he particularly favored, and the other party wished to speak directly with Su Xuan, he would readily provide Su Xuan’s phone number.
Su Xuan had been so harassed lately that he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Yet, he couldn’t simply ignore all calls, so he resorted to using the excuse of ‘stalker fans’ to brush them off.
However, this particular call had disrupted Su Xuan’s sleep. He got up, washed up, and casually scrolled through his Weibo feed.
Su Xuan froze, utterly stunned—his Weibo had reached ten million followers.
He widened his eyes and refreshed the page several times. The follower count had already increased by another ten thousand.
Su Xuan murmured, dazed, ‘What new bug is this?’
Good heavens—had Liu Pangpang finally lost his mind and started selling houses to buy him followers?
Su Xuan had no idea what earth-shattering reactions were unfolding online regarding him and Shen Chao.
Last night, the fifteen-minute behind-the-scenes footage from the Quadrangle Courtyard drama had landed like a massive nuclear bomb, and Star Culture had silently, implicitly allowed it to detonate.
Shen Chao had reposted this footage, adding nothing but a tag for Su Xuan.
What triggered the final chain reaction was Song Xiao.
She reposted the footage, subtly adding a [Cute] emoji, and followed Su Xuan.
With two of the most popular accounts on the entire network reposting one after another, coupled with Star Culture’s obvious indulgence, Su Xuan’s follower count surged wildly as if it had consumed a magical growth elixir.
The wild CP fans, who had been suppressed and stifled for so long, were now completely unleashed.
Su Xuan watched as his name and Shen Chao’s were intimately linked across his entire screen. There were comments like ‘kswl’ (I’m shipping them so hard), ‘They are szd’ (They are real), ‘Wuwuwu, oh my god, this kiss is too beautiful,’ and ‘I’m swooning, I’m swooning! I grant permission for Teacher Su and my husband Shen Chao to date for one month!’
There were also numerous fan arts, exquisitely drawn, depicting the two kissing.
In every illustration, Su Xuan leaned on Shen Chao’s shoulder, eyes closed in sleep, while Shen Chao turned his head to deeply and intently kiss him. Despite the varied art styles, the same sense of youthful innocence was continuously conveyed.
Su Xuan’s hand, holding his phone, subtly tightened. He found the video that had started it all—
—[‘The Quadrangle Courtyard,’ Fifteen-Minute Extended Behind-the-Scenes: Su Xuan: I have your first adult kiss and your first love.]
The top comment on this behind-the-scenes video had already been reposted thirty thousand times: [When Shen Chao kissed Su Xuan like that, I really felt like they were dating.]
Su Xuan’s thumb hovered over the screen for two seconds. His eyes reflected the cover image of the two leaning against each other at the video’s start, his face devoid of discernible emotion.
His fingers curled a few times before he finally chose to tap on the fifteen-minute behind-the-scenes footage, which had already garnered millions of reposts.
He knew exactly what this footage was—it was the behind-the-scenes of Su Xuan’s final scene, the very scene after which he had completely fallen and confessed to Shen Chao.
Su Xuan clicked it open for a second, then closed it at lightning speed.
Damn it, the official Weibo had added background music!
As if the visual impact wasn’t enough, there was background music too. Su Xuan couldn’t handle it after just one glance.
Director Liu was a director with many ideas. This particular behind-the-scenes clip, released by the official Weibo, was from when Su Xuan was about to wrap up filming. The scene had already been shot, and even though Su Xuan felt a stir for Shen Chao, he was an adult and knew how to handle his emotions.
Shen Chao was too distant and too young for him; he wasn’t suitable. Shen Chao was aloof and silent, yet a radiance seemed to reside within him, continuously drawing Su Xuan’s gaze.
Su Xuan dared not look too long, fearing he would fall deeper, fearing his affection would slip out, fearing that after encountering such a wonderful person, he would be unable to love anyone else in the future.
He and Shen Chao were creatures from different worlds; Su Xuan would never have confessed normally.
After filming his final scene, Su Xuan leaned in a corner, dozing off—Director Liu was truly merciless; he had been filming night scenes until very late. Su Xuan felt Shen Chao sit beside him, and then—a school uniform, carrying Shen Chao’s scent, was draped over him.
Su Xuan’s fingers twitched. He subtly reached out a finger, hooked the school uniform, and clutched a small portion in his palm.
Shen Chao and he had done far more intimate and ambiguous things, but only within the confines of the script. Su Xuan was still a person who could manage to be professional; acting was acting, and his face wouldn’t even flush.
Outside of the drama, they always maintained a certain distance—a distance unlike that between friends, not similar to colleagues, and certainly not that of a same-s*x couple. Su Xuan found his normal relationships tainted by the ambiguity trapped within the script.
He couldn’t view Shen Chao with an ordinary heart. A casual glimpse of Shen Chao’s profile, head bowed over a script, would send his heart racing.
The distance between Su Xuan and Shen Chao was known to no one, yet it was agonizingly palpable—the one-sided distance of a secret crush.
For instance, Su Xuan was now feigning sleep, leaning on Shen Chao’s shoulder, covered by Shen Chao’s clothes. It was far less entwined than their on-screen interactions, yet Su Xuan’s heart couldn’t help but pound faster, his palms sweating.
Su Xuan squinted open a tiny slit of an eye. Shen Chao’s upper body was almost bare. He was tilting his head back, drinking water, his expression very calm—not the suppressed, desperate feeling of the mute character in the drama, but simply Shen Chao. He exuded a youthful, composed handsomeness, occasionally tinged with coldness.
Even with Su Xuan leaning on him, Shen Chao sat perfectly straight, as if Su Xuan wasn’t resting on his shoulder at all.
‘He’s so handsome,’ Su Xuan’s heart thumped wildly.
Su Xuan didn’t hear the director call ‘Action.’ He only saw Shen Chao furrow his brow slightly in confusion, then turn his head. Sunlight filtered through Shen Chao’s long, thick eyelashes, falling on Su Xuan’s face, which trembled slightly as he feigned sleep.
He heard Shen Chao lean closer, his breathing drawing near—
—and then Shen Chao placed a very light kiss on his brow.
Su Xuan’s wildly pounding heart instantly leaped out of its chest. All the unspoken ambiguity transcended distance. His hand, clutching the school uniform, tightened abruptly, and his feigning eyes snapped open.
He grabbed Shen Chao’s hand. Su Xuan wasn’t typically impulsive, but in that moment, his joy was uncontrollable: ‘I like you, Shen…’
Director Liu, beaming, clapped the slate: ‘Cut! Excellent, excellent! Shen Chao’s acting in this scene was great!’
Su Xuan froze, his movements halted. It was as if the air had been sucked out of him, his breathing suspended. He slowly turned his head to look.
Director Liu met Su Xuan’s blank stare, smiling with oblivious satisfaction. ‘The way you two leaned against each other just now felt so good. I wanted to film a flashback scene for Third Young Master before his death, and I needed your unguarded expression, so I didn’t tell you to let Shen Chao kiss you. Your reaction was quick, too, immediately confessing…’
Su Xuan’s smile was a bit strained. He slowly released Shen Chao’s wrist. ‘Of course, I saw you guys filming, so I had to cooperate.’
Su Xuan was utterly mortified. He lowered his head, took two deep breaths, and slapped his own face a few times. Su Xuan abruptly stood up, wanting to leave, but couldn’t; Shen Chao had grabbed his wrist.
Su Xuan turned to find Shen Chao gazing at him. ‘What did you just say you liked?’
Director Liu was too far away to hear that the name Su Xuan spoke wasn’t the mute character’s, but Shen Chao’s, indicating Su Xuan was out of character.
But Shen Chao was too close, the kissing distance so intimate that he heard his own name appended to Su Xuan’s ‘I like you,’ so stark and unambiguous, leaving no room for evasion or explanation.
‘I like…’ Su Xuan uttered these three words, then found himself unable to continue. He lowered his trembling long eyelashes, struggling to pull his wrist from Shen Chao’s hand. He still wanted to evade, yet a part of him hoped.
There were tears in Su Xuan’s eyes, but he smiled. ‘I’ll tell you, no rush.’
Ultimately, Su Xuan did formally confess to Shen Chao. For someone as perceptive as Shen Chao, Su Xuan felt that being secretive was pointless. He chose to tell Shen Chao openly and formally.
It didn’t matter if he was rejected; even a rejected affection was something grandly memorable and beautiful. This fifteen-minute clip included Su Xuan’s final scene and the behind-the-scenes footage of him taking a farewell photo with Shen Chao after wrapping up filming.
After Su Xuan wrapped, it was customary for the crew to take a group photo before he left.
Su Xuan stood beside Shen Chao in the crowd, maintaining a practiced smile. By then, he had already confessed, preserving his last shred of dignity as ‘Teacher Su,’ smilingly comforting Shen Chao not to mind too much. Finally, he stood next to Shen Chao and finished taking the picture.
In reality, Su Xuan’s palms were covered in cold sweat as he stood beside Shen Chao, his head bowed, feeling his knees turn soft with embarrassment. Su Xuan’s hand would occasionally brush against Shen Chao’s, but Shen Chao didn’t look at him, gently moving away.
Su Xuan silently and smilingly moved a little further away. By the time the group photo was finished, Su Xuan’s eyes were red-rimmed.
Su Xuan had confessed his uncontrollable feelings to Shen Chao, and he had never regretted it. Even now, Su Xuan found Shen Chao’s kiss incredibly beautiful.
He felt it was worth it.
The official Weibo’s line, ‘I have his first adult kiss and his first love,’ was something Su Xuan had jokingly said in an interview before he even liked Shen Chao. Thinking about it now, Su Xuan felt quite emotional.
At that time, he didn’t like Shen Chao, so he dared to say all sorts of audacious things to him. Later, when he fell in love, he became extremely cautious. When Shen Chao heard him say that, his gaze towards Su Xuan was already very… focused.
Shen Chao had stared at him for a long time; he probably didn’t like such jokes even then. ‘Ah,’ Su Xuan sighed, ‘why didn’t I realize he was a straight man?’
Shen Chao had very seriously rejected him. Su Xuan bore no resentment; wishing that everyone he liked would like him back was a teenage fantasy, and Su Xuan had long passed that age.
But at the same time, he felt mortified, because his confession had caused embarrassment for the person he liked—Shen Chao was straight, and he didn’t like boys. So when Su Xuan saw all these moments paired with highly emotional, first-love-esque background music, extended and slowed down into fifteen minutes, it truly felt like being publicly executed, like being caught by his parents blowing a condom into a balloon.
Su Xuan was so ashamed his toes curled, and he bounced around the room.
‘Ahhh!’ He buried himself in his quilt and pillows, flailing his limbs wildly on the bed. Su Xuan was genuinely mortified, his face a little red, but then he couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Hehehe!’
Many, many people were completely unaware of Su Xuan’s feelings, and only knew fragments of their story, yet they all found Shen Chao’s kiss in that moment, and Su Xuan’s utterly sincere ‘I like you,’ particularly moving.
Su Xuan felt a sense of validation. His affection wasn’t some monstrous or taboo thing. He was just an ordinary boy who was the first to fall for this person when no one else knew Shen Chao.
Now, this ordinary boy had ten million followers, Su Xuan thought. Shen Chao’s followers were almost a hundred million; he and Shen Chao were still separated by ninety million people who liked him.
‘Ah, that’s terrifying.’
But Su Xuan thought, he should still be able to get a little closer.
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