30: Chapter 30: He was locked in the bunker for 24 hours, and when he came out—he had six million followers?

Ala Country, Dubai International Airport, underground bunker.

The air was a mixture of three scents: rust, sweat, and cheap Middle Eastern perfume.

The ventilation vent buzzed in the corner like a dying insect.

Shen Jue leaned against the cold concrete wall; it had been twenty-three hours.

He didn't want to sit; he just couldn't stand up.

His stomach felt hollow and panicked; the last crumbs of compressed biscuits had been digested ten hours ago.

There were twelve single-person rations in total in the bunker, divided among more than forty people.

He broke off half and gave it to the local woman holding a child nearby, then stuffed the remaining half into his own mouth, chewing it away in thirty seconds.

Now, the moment he moved, the world spun.

He turned his head.

A meter and a half away, Cen Ye sat cross-legged, the back of his head against the wall, the three silver rings on his left ear reflecting the faint light from the overhead lamp.

"Brother Ye."

"Hmm."

"Do you think... where is she right now?"

The silver rings swayed.

"That question, you've asked seventeen times tonight."

"You counted?"

"I was bored out of my mind, what else was I supposed to do?"

Shen Jue buried his face in his knees and let out a muffled hum.

The "Sister" he was calling was Jiang Rumu. He had played her younger brother in their last drama, and the title had become a habit he couldn't break.

When the air raid siren sounded, the entire terminal turned into a chaotic mess; pushed and shoved by the fleeing crowd, he had stumbled into this place without really knowing how.

Then, the heavy iron door shut behind him.

"Don't worry about it." Cen Ye's Sichuan-Chongqing accent was languid, carrying the hollowness of starvation. "That guy Li Li, he's decisive."

"You know him?"

"Don't know him." Cen Ye rubbed his earrings. "But when the Prince's text message came through, everyone was stunned, but he was the first one to stand up. Not the kind of standing up that says 'Ah, what do we do?', but the kind where he'd already figured out where to run."

He paused.

"Your sister is safer with him than staying with a bunch of losers like us."

Cen Ye fished something out of his pocket and pushed it over.

A piece of gummy candy. Shen Jue had given it to him on the plane, and he had carried it for a day and a night.

"It's yours."

"You keep it..."

"I don't eat sweets, take it."

Shen Jue took it, didn't unwrap it, and gripped it tightly in his hand.

In the corner, Qi Wanyin sat against the wall with half a bottle of mineral water on her knees.

That was what Shen Jue had given her two hours ago. The water in the bunker had long since been distributed; he had saved his own portion, placed it next to her, said, "Sister Wanyin, your throat shouldn't be dry," and then walked away.

Qi Wanyin unscrewed the cap, took a small sip, and screwed it back on. Her movements were unhurried, no different from how she looked backstage at any music festival.

"Little Juezi."

"Hmm?"

"Thanks."

Shen Jue, Cen Ye, Qi Wanyin. Three people, twenty-three hours, no group chat, no mutual follows, yet they naturally huddled in the same area, sharing water, sharing food, and looking out for one another.

The area in the middle, however, was much livelier.

Yin Ruoying's high heels had long been tossed aside, her bare feet stepping on the thermal blanket, the bright red nail polish striking in the dim light.

She was facing the direction of the production team, launching into her fourth round of berating them.

"Who the hell picked this location? The Middle East? Did your planning department get their brains trampled by camels, or were they clogged up with date paste?"

Director Pei Zhao sat opposite her, his phone connected to the only power bank in the entire bunker, the screen brightness turned to the lowest setting.

"Ruoying, I understand..." He looked up, a professional smile plastered on his face—gentle, perfect, not a single trace of emotion visible.

"Understand my ass! The contract says travel dating! Not battlefield survival! Pay up! Terminate the contract!"

Three meters away, Han Xubai pushed up the gold-rimmed glasses that had slid down to the bridge of his nose.

"Sister Ruoying, Article 7 of the contract appendix, the force majeure clause, covers war..."

"Shut up."

"Alrighty then."

Han Xubai immediately shut up, leaned against the wall, crossed his legs, and looked as if none of this had anything to do with him.

Fang Ruowei leaned against Yin Ruoying and placed her hand on her arm: "Sister Ying, don't be angry, you'll ruin your health..."

Yin Ruoying flicked her off, but couldn't shake her. Fang Ruowei placed it back, with just the right amount of pressure—both caring and impossible to refuse.

Wen Zhuotang curled up in the corner of the back row, the ribbon on her fishtail braid wrinkled. She hugged her canvas bag, her chin buried in her knees, her almond eyes red, not saying a word.

Her position was very clever, directly facing the lens of the cameraman, Lao Zhou.

Lao Zhou hadn't turned off the camera since entering the bunker; he had already changed the battery twice. Although they couldn't livestream, the footage was being recorded.

In the lens, Wen Zhuotang looked small and helpless.

A kind of precisely calculated helplessness.

Gu Zeyan was in the furthest corner, AirPods hanging around his neck, his phone long dead. For twenty-three hours, he hadn't moved, hadn't spoken, and hadn't complained.

As an idol, in such an extreme environment, he was as quiet as a prop.

It was hard to tell if he was truly depressed or just saving power.

11:58 PM.

No one was arguing anymore; they didn't even have the strength to argue.

More than forty people, their pale, blue-tinged faces looking like a school of oxygen-deprived fish under the overhead light.

Shen Jue's stomach gave a sharp cramp, a wave of sour liquid rising to his throat, which he forced himself to swallow back down.

He turned his head and met Cen Ye's gaze.

The two people, starved to the point of being unrecognizable, locked eyes for a second.

Cen Ye pulled out the last piece of chewing gum.

"Break it in half."

"You..."

"Break. It. In. Half."

Shen Jue took it and broke it. The coolness of the mint rushed up; his stomach felt even emptier, but at least there was some taste in his mouth.

That was enough.

12:00 sharp. "Click." A crisp unlocking sound.

Immediately after, a blinding light, like a red-hot blade, slashed in through the crack in the door, stabbing fiercely into everyone's retinas.

Shen Jue's pupils instantly contracted to pinpricks.

The heavy door slowly pushed open.

"Everyone, please evacuate in an orderly fashion..." The voice of a rescue worker came from outside.

Yin Ruoying was the first to rush out, holding her high heels in her hand, barefoot. After running two steps, she stepped on broken glass; she hissed, but continued rushing out on tiptoes, not even looking back.

Fang Ruowei followed closely behind; the moment she stepped out, she tried to pull out her lipstick to touch up her makeup, but her hand was shaking so badly that a streak of red went crooked, outside her lips.

Wen Zhuotang was the last to stand up, walking out slowly. As she passed Lao Zhou's lens, she raised her hand to wipe the corner of her eye.

It was dry there; there wasn't a single tear. But the gesture was perfect.

The main structure of the terminal was still standing, but most of the glass curtain walls were shattered, and the ground was covered in debris. Two large craters had been blasted into the runway in the distance, still emitting black smoke.

Shen Jue stood at the exit, his heart, which had been suspended for a day and a night, finally settled back into his chest.

His luggage was actually still there.

He dug the power bank out of his backpack and jammed it into his phone.

Turning it on.

A white bus was parked at the entrance, the logo of the Red Crescent Society printed on its side.

Shen Jue chose a window seat, with Cen Ye next to him. Qi Wanyin sat in the front row, turned around, and the three-person squad moved onto the bus intact.

The bus started, and Dubai outside the window had changed.

In the front row, Yin Ruoying was still bickering with Director Pei Zhao. "When will the flight routes resume?" "The runway isn't repaired, civil aviation is suspended." "Then how am I supposed to go back? I have appearances next month!"

Director Pei Zhao looked out the window, not turning his head: "I want to go back too."

Four words, wrapped in a laugh, without a hint of warmth.

Shen Jue didn't join the discussion.

The phone finally turned on, and the signal jumped to two bars.

Sixty-seven unread WeChat messages, over four hundred TikTok notifications.

He opened WeChat first; the pinned message was from his mom.

"Son, are you still alive?????"

He replied with four words: Alive, don't worry.

Then, he opened TikTok.

At the top of the screen, the trending list refreshed one by one.

#Jiang Rumu Singing on the Beach# #Say I Love You# #Dating Reality Show Battlefield Livestream# #Li Li Piano#

Shen Jue's finger stopped.

He clicked into Li Li's profile.

The profile picture was still that old ID photo in a shirt.

Follower count — 6.51 million.

Shen Jue's hand hovered over the screen, frozen.

He remembered clearly that before getting on the plane, he had idly searched for this account, and the follower count was... three hundred.

Three hundred. To 6.51 million. Twenty-four hours.

The hand holding the phone began to shake.

It wasn't from hunger.

He turned around abruptly, his voice changing pitch: "Brother Ye! You have to come see this!"

Cen Ye, chewing on the energy bar wrapper, leaned over and glanced at the screen.

"Plop." The wrapper fell from his mouth.

"Holy shit... over six million?"

Qi Wanyin in the front row turned her head: "What's over six million?"

Shen Jue held the phone out to her.

Qi Wanyin looked at the number; two seconds later, she looked down at the mineral water bottle on her knees and slowly spat out three words.

"Interesting."

Shen Jue swallowed hard, his fingers scrolling down uncontrollably.

A pinned livestream clip, with 230 million views.

Below the clip hung a trending topic: #Su Wantang Posts Long Message Late at Night#.

He clicked in.

Su Wantang, blue verified checkmark, a carefully out-of-focus selfie, the corners of her eyes red.

The last paragraph of the caption was bolded: "He promised me that when this song, 'Say I Love You', was finished, he would sing it to me first. Tonight, he sang it to someone else."

Shen Jue looked up at Cen Ye.

The shock on Cen Ye's face had already turned into a different emotion; his eyebrows were knitted, and the corners of his mouth were pressed down hard.

That was the expression of a Sichuanese person being protective.

"Who is this woman?"

"Li Li's ex-girlfriend."

"An ex-girlfriend posting this now..." Cen Ye rubbed his silver rings, enunciating each word, "What do they call this again?"

From the back row, Han Xubai's voice drifted over eerily: "Legally, it's called a defamation dispute; on the internet, well, it's called—"

"Clout chasing." Cen Ye finished for him.

Han Xubai pushed up his glasses, smiled, and didn't refute it.

Shen Jue stared intently at Su Wantang's selfie.

This photo... damn, it was all technique, no tears.

He didn't make a sound, but his hand shook even more violently.

It wasn't because of Su Wantang.

It was because of that number.

6.51 million.

He, Shen Jue, had been acting for four years, starred in two hit dramas, and had 4.2 million followers.

Li Li, played the piano for one night.

6.51 million.

The bus made a turn, and in the distant heat waves, the white silhouette of the Burj Al Arab swayed on the skyline.

His sister, Jiang Rumu, was still in there.

Together with that man who had gained 6.51 million followers in twenty-four hours.

Shen Jue gripped his phone tightly, his knuckles turning white.

Outside the bus window, the sail-like silhouette of the Burj Al Arab had shrunk into a distant speck of light.

The bus turned right again.

The speck of light disappeared completely.