35: Chapter 35 Lu Han's late-night post caused a sensation on Weibo and Douyin.

Late at night.

A guest room in a guesthouse in Dali.

Smoke curled in the air. Brother Cai leaned against the back of his chair, holding a half-burned cigarette between his fingers.

A-Li scrolled through his phone screen, raised his head, and asked, "Brother, Yan Yu's live stream was too fierce. Are we still going to compete?"

Compete?

Brother Cai pinched out the burning tip and threw it into the trash can.

He stood up, walked to the window, and pushed it open.

Cold wind poured in.

"With what?" Brother Cai turned around, his gaze sweeping over the four brothers in the room. "If that person is a KING, while he was training in the basement, we were still playing with mud on the streets."

"An all-A report card crushes a decade of textbooks," he sighed. "This kind of gap cannot be made up for by sweat alone. That's a gift from the heavens, forcefully shoved into one's mouth."

Xiao Liu scratched his scalp. "Then why are we going to Nu River?"

"To be students." Brother Cai's eyes burned brightly. "To pay respects to the bosses and witness a living legend."

Relief.

No jealousy, only awe.

True dancers, when facing the king standing at the peak, would only lower their arrogant heads.

Two in the morning.

The internet should have fallen into deep sleep.

An invisible giant hand suddenly stirred up this pool of deep water.

Yanjing. A high-end apartment.

Lu Han was wearing oversized pajamas, sitting cross-legged on the sofa.

The TV screen rebroadcast Yan Yu's compilation video.

A glass of red wine was placed on the coffee table.

He picked up his mobile device and opened Weibo.

Inside the input bar, the cursor blinked.

Five years.

That rainy night back then, the crisp sound of a wooden guitar snapping still lingered in his dreams.

He had been a Chinese member of that group and witnessed with his own eyes the collapse of royal power.

Now, a single spark starts a prairie fire.

His fingertips lightly touched the virtual keyboard. He typed out five Chinese characters.

[Wind blows across Kunming.]

Click. Send.

No pictures, no hashtags.

Clean and simple.

In less than ten seconds.

This post was captured by fans.

One minute.

Reposts, comments, and likes broke ten thousand.

Five minutes.

Airdropped to the top of the trending search list!

Closely followed by [Exploded] behind the entry.

Why?

Because the poster's identity was too special.

Lu Han.

Domestic top-tier male star.

The absolute lead vocalist of the former XO group!

He had withdrawn from the group and returned to China to develop for a long time, never publicly speaking a single word of criticism about his former agency.

Tonight, at this moment, in this setting.

He suddenly mentioned Kunming!

That was precisely the place where Su Chen first appeared!

A massive earthquake on the internet.

The comment section erupted explosively:

[Holy shit! Is this considered solid proof from an official eyewitness?!]

[Brother Lu is awesome! To speak up at this juncture, what kind of pressure is he enduring!]

[Lu Han is a real man. Back then, he announced his relationship when his popularity was at its peak, and now he posts on Weibo to support Su Chen while standing at the tip of the storm. He really... I'm crying to death.]

[The wind blows across Kunming, blowing away five years of grievances and blowing back that vanished king!]

[Do the current fans of XO still have the face to shout? Your former teammate has come out to take a side!]

[Back then, they must have had a very good relationship. Watching God Su being driven away with his own eyes, Lu Han must have felt completely stifled inside.]

[How are these just five words? This is an army of thousands!]

[Tears in my eyes, Chinese brotherhood, screwing over South Korea's capital!]

[The fewer the words, the bigger the deal. SM Entertainment's transnational statement can now be used to wipe asses!]

[Pure passerby, this plot is a hundred times more burning than Boruto!]

[...]

Weibo Headquarters.

Programmer Lao Wang was drooling while lying on his workstation. In his dream, he was preparing to hold hands with Teacher Cang.

The phone rang. A life-threatening consecutive call.

Lao Wang bounced up and grabbed the landline.

"Brother Wang! It exploded! The server exploded again!"

Lao Wang grabbed his hair fiercely.

"Which celebrity cheated in the middle of the night?! Or who secretly had a baby again?!"

"It's not cheating! Lu Han posted on Weibo!"

"What did he post? Announcing a relationship?"

"The wind blows across Kunming!"

"What the hell kind of sensitive word is this?! What did Kunming do to you?!"

"Lu Han is the former lead vocalist of XO! He is backing up that thirteenth person! Now the trending search list is all red, and the data has directly increased by three hundred times!"

Lao Wang scrambled and rushed to the server room.

"Unplug the cables! Add bandwidth! Hurry, hurry, hurry! Don't these star-chasers sleep?!"

It wasn't just Weibo that was miserable.

Just one minute after Lu Han posted on Weibo.

Douyin synchronized this news.

Unlike Weibo, which only allows comments, Douyin directly exploded.

The entire Douyin was paralyzed directly for ten minutes.

Last time Lu Han announced his relationship, Weibo went straight into paralysis, which also gave Weibo the experience of upgrading and maintaining its servers.

But Douyin didn't.

From the appearance of Douyin until now, this kind of thing had never happened.

Causing everyone's Douyin to be paralyzed for ten minutes.

People lying on their beds playing on their phones at night were all dumbfounded.

What's the situation?

Is there a war?

But soon after people could enter Douyin, they saw the number one spot on Douyin's trending search list.

After discovering that it was a message posted by Lu Han.

Everyone completely exploded.

[Holy shit, shit, shit, shit!!!!]

[Oh my god! It's Lu Han again?! Last time Weibo exploded because of him, and this time Douyin exploded, still because of him!]

[Hahaha, not just Douyin, Weibo just exploded too, except it recovered in less than two minutes!~]

[Weibo still has experience, Douyin is no good in this aspect!~]

[I really couldn't imagine, hasn't Lu Han always never talked about his former agency? Why is he directly confronting them today.]

[What direct confrontation, isn't this just casually saying a sentence? You guys shouldn't overinterpret it, it definitely has nothing to do with Su Chen, our XO doesn't have a thirteenth person (dog head)]

[Your trolling isn't convincing, drag him out and castrate him.]

[Oh my god, even someone with such a good temper as Lu Han has gone public, doesn't this precisely show that SM Entertainment has a problem?]

[Where are those people whitewashing for SM Entertainment? Why aren't they coming out to jump around?]

[Come out and bark like dogs!!!]

[...]

In less than an hour, Lu Han's single Weibo post had over thirty million reposts, and comments exceeded seventy million!

A text-only Douyin video garnered five million likes, three million reposts, and comments exceeding the limit within an hour, directly turning completely blank.

One in the morning.

Netizens were high as a kite and couldn't sleep at all.

Wang Wenjian, who had already ended his stream, couldn't help but go online once more.

"Holy shit, brothers, I am seriously speechless. I was already ready to sleep, and I got blasted awake by a huge piece of gossip!"

Wang Wenjian was still wearing pajamas, his face full of excitement. "This time even Lu Han has come out to subtly hint at it. Su Chen being the thirteenth person is definitely certain now!"

"Brothers, this time I stand with Su Chen. It can't possibly be wrong!"

[Charge, charge, charge!~]

[Lu Han is a real man!]

[I used to be really indifferent to boy bands, but now seeing Lu Han, I've decided to stan him!]

[Back then, he gave up his identity for the Trainees from our side. They really should do something, otherwise it's too heartbreaking!]

[We are in China, what the hell do we have to fear from them? Charge straight ahead!!!]

[...]

Seoul. Gangnam District. The top-floor conference room of the SM Entertainment headquarters building.

"Bang!"

President Kim Young-min fiercely smashed a Ru kiln teacup against the wall.

Broken porcelain pieces flew everywhere.

"Sibal!"

Kim Young-min ripped his tie apart and kicked over the boss's chair with one foot.

Secretary Lee Sang-hyeok cowered in the corner, his legs shaking like a sifting sieve.

"President Kim, public opinion over in China has gotten out of control again."

Lee Sang-hyeok swallowed his saliva.

"Lu Han posted on Weibo. Just five words."

"How big of waves can five words make? Where is the Public Relations Department? Buy internet trolls! Remove the trending searches! Black out that entry for me!"

"We can't remove it."

Lee Sang-hyeok pulled up the tablet data and handed it over with both hands.

"Weibo refused to cooperate. The marketing accounts we bought get banned one by one as soon as they post. Now the likes on Lu Han's Weibo post have already broken three million."

Kim Young-min stared at the data on the tablet.

His blood pressure skyrocketed.

"This is betrayal! Naked betrayal!"

Kim Young-min slammed both fists onto the desk.

"Blacklist him! Call our partners in China and completely ban Lu Han!"

Lee Sang-hyeok was close to crying.

"President Kim, Lu Han is a top-tier star in China now. Our hands can't reach over there."

"A-shibal! Then make sure none of our artists can accept any endorsements in China from now on. I refuse to believe we can't deal with these people!"

"A-shibal, shibal!"