Chapter 16: Guess Who I am!

Yan Yaoxuan stood in front of Shen Jintai’s room, hesitating whether to knock on the door. Shen Jintai still had feelings for his older brothers, despite him washing his tattoo now. He speculated that right now Shen Jintai was most likely in a period of vacillation. At this critical moment, should he wait and see the change, or should he contribute to it?

No matter what feelings Shen Jintai has for his older brother, one thing was certain, Shen Jintai does not have him in his eyes.

The light above his head was shining, and the person he had a crush on lived on the other side of this door, but he didn’t dare go in.

Yan Qiuchi: “Having trouble falling asleep? Why are you standing there?”

Yan Yaoxuan turned his head in panic and saw Yan Qiuchi, neatly dressed, looking at him.

Yan Yaoxuan: “It’s nothing… Are you going to go out?”

Yan Qiuchi nodded and looked at him sternly: “Lao er*, what do you want to do now?”

*Lao er = Refer to the second oldest in the family. Funnily enough it’s also slang referring to one’s manhood (but he’s not using it in that sense here).

The relationship between the two brothers is often muddled. Yan Qiuchi said: “Stop thinking about it. If you are bored, you can come work for the company. I’ll arrange an internship for you.”

Yan Yaoxuan’s was about to speak but he swallowed his words.

His older brother was like a father, especially since their actual father was busy all day long and hardly had time to see them. Yan Qiuchi acted in his place, playing the role of half of a father. While they were only a few years apart, he was born to fear his older brother. Yan Qiuchi was strict on him, and if he got fiercer, Yan Yaoxuan wouldn’t dare fight back.

Seeing that Yan Yaoxuan remained silent, Yan Qiuchi looked even more harsh: “Did you hear what I said?”

“I heard it.” Yan Yaoxuan’s voice was cat-like.

Yan Qiuchi suddenly received a call from Father Yan. He didn’t have time to deal with this any longer, so he simply said: “You know everything I want to say. Don’t make me discipline you.”

Yan Yaoxuan saw his brother head downstairs. He curled his lip unconvincingly, but still honestly returned to his own room.

Autumn was approaching, and the night was much cooler in the evening. The trees outside were shaded, and there were faint insects buzzing around at night. The driver had drove the car up to the courtyard. Yan Qiuchi opened the car door. Just as he about to get in, he looked upstairs.

The lights in Shen Jintai’s room were on, the curtains were not drawn. Half of his figure could be vaguely seen, shaking slightly. He was unsure of what he was doing*.

*Clarity: in case you missed it, the implication here is Yan Qiuchi saw half of Shen Jintai figure moving in a way that could a bit suggestive (aka perhaps he’s masturbating). This is basically trying to highlight the deeper and deeper misunderstanding that Yan Qiuchi has for him (poor Shen Jintai, can’t catch a break).

—

Shen Jintai was doing some exercises while swiping Weibo.

In his previous life, he was never a high trafficked celebrity. He had to run his own Weibo that didn’t have many fans. There certainly wasn’t any hot-blooded* girls. It was calm and everyone got along. Occasionally he would send out chicken soup* and posts literary photos. His followers were less than half a million. Now he had more than three million fans.

*Hot-blooded = passionate.
*Chicken soup = motivational posts. It main purpose is to give positive energy. More meaningful post can be enlightening, thought-provoking, or heart-warming. After reading, you would feel warm as if you had chicken soup.

In recent days, the phenomenon of his fans returning had been particularly obvious. Every time he logs into Weibo, it always caught him by surprise.

Now that he was a traffic star, he needed to start learning about the business. He looked at his followers list and found that he had an official fan club, but he was not running it. He called and asked Xiao Tang.

“I’m in charge of the group,” Xiao Tang said: “Are you going to start distributing materials? Sister Lan said not to make a move now. After you join the crew, we can cooperate with your Weibo account and promote it together.”

Shen Jintai: “I haven’t paid attention to these things for a few years so I’m not familiar with them anymore. Let me ask you, do I still have a few official support groups?”

Xiao Tang: “Yes, but there aren’t many people in the groups now. Let me send you the largest group. There are more active users there.”

Shen Jintai: “Okay.”

“Brother Jin, if you want to join the group, remember to open an alt account.” Xiao Tang reminded.

Shen Jintai replied: “Of course, I still have this wisdom. I’ll only lurk and won’t post.”

Shen Jintai himself was not mixed in the fan circle so his knowledge of fan circles was limited. However, when he read the novel <Everyone Loves Bai Yueguang>, he gained a little insight.

The vicious cannon fodder Shen Jintai, at the beginning of the novel, relied on being rich and powerful to supress Bai Qingquan. He also use various tricks. One of them was to make his fervent* powder pretend to be moonlight powder and act as undercover agents among Bai Qingquan’s fans.

*脑残粉 – Remnant Fans – specific term for this type of fan. Its slang refers to those who are extremely obsessed with celebrities and different brands and pursue so crazy that they lose their personal sanity. Such a person will violently attack any remarks that are not conducive to the celebrity or brand they are pursuing, and even hurt the innocent. I’ll be using Remnant Powder when referring to them however in this context fervent fits much better.

Black is powder, powder is black*. Before this, he didn’t know the fan circle could turn out to be so dangerous as to have a spy war!

*Black is powder, powder is black = this term is referring to the action mentioned above. Black fans pretend to be fans of something else.

However, these are common happenings in the fan circle. Every star will encounter it. He would have his remnant powder listen for news from the moonlight powder. Likewise, the moonlight powder most likely had their own remnant powder lurking in his fan base. This was the natural ecological chain of the fan circle, and no star could avoid it.

Xiao Tang quickly sent him the support group. The group name was “Gold Powder Family”.

He applied for an alt account and since Xiao Tang was one of the administrators, he was quickly approved.

Shen Jintai waited in the room for a long time, but no one spoke. Can this be called fucking active?!

He looked at the group owner and the administrator, and he was surprised to find it was a remnant powder! One of the administrators, “Black Moonlight”, was Bai Qingquan’s remnant powder! They have infiltrated into the management team!

He knew that this fan was a remnant powder was because this fan had appeared many times in the novel.

Bai Qingquan was the protagonist that’s the epitome of beauty and kindness. Although <Everyone Loves Bai Yueguang> was an entertainment industry novel, it still provided details of all the intrigues of the showbiz world. The fairy Bai Qingquan couldn’t compete for fame and fortune against vicious cannon folders like Shen Jintai. There were too many cannon fodders who opposed him. If Bai Qingquan was constantly bullied, it would be too suffocating for the readers. It would not conform to <Everyone Loves Bai Yueguang> style. This was a heart throbbing sweet fluffy novel!

To make readers enjoy reading the novel, the author created cute supporting characters to help. “Black Moonlight” was one of these cute supporting roles. In the original novel, she was the messenger of justice and Bai Qingquan’s true love fan. Because she didn’t like Shen Jintai treatment of her cooking*, she pretended to a gold powder and lurk in Shen Jintai’s support group. Several of gold powder’s “machinations” were leaked by her several times.

*蒸煮 – Translated means cooking. I think it’s slang to reference the object/thing one’s a fan of (in this case it’s Bai Qingquan).

Because of this, in the early stage of the novel, Shen Jintai was repeatedly slapped in the face. His gold powder tricks failed and it was all thanks to this “Black Moonlight”.

Readers left comments, praising her as the “Lone Hero Black Moonlight”. Among the warriors who broke into the golden powder, she was the one with the highest rank.

It was impossible to influence this kind of fan. The fact was she hated Shen Jintai with a passion yet still infiltrated his fan group and stayed there watching his fans rainbow fart* every day. One can only imagine her feelings of depression and irritability. Yet she remained dedicated, and her meritorious performance made her feel full of accomplishment as a spy. This kind of fan will keep moving forward and never look back.

*彩虹屁 – Rainbow fart. Slang means that fans will constantly tout their idols, even if their idol farted to them it’ll be all rainbows that comes out. 

Well it didn’t matter. Since he knows now, he can simply kick her out.

“Huh?” Xiao Tang was surprised: “Black Moonlight is our key member. She has never given up in the past few years. Do you really want to kick her out?”

“Kick.” Shen Jintai said, “She is a black powder.”

“Ah?!” Xiao Tang was shocked.

Xiao Tang felt really hurt. He had a very good relationship with this “Black Moonlight”. They even talked a few days ago. At that time, she told him that she would wait for Brother Jintai to make a comeback! He couldn’t see how she was black at all!

“Did you also arrange remnant fans to infiltrate Bai Qingquan’s fan group? Do you know who they are? Can you send me their information?” Shen Jintai asked Xiaotang.

Xiao Tang, who’s emotions are still in turmoiled, answer: “Originally, there was, but…”

Shen Jintai had a bad premonition about what he was going to say.

Xiao Tang: “But the past two years they’re almost all gone. Most have been countered by the Moonlight powder.”

Make no mistake, fandom is war.

—

Bai Qingquan had been busy lately. After participating in a platform event for a luxury brand, he was so tired his eyes were fighting to keep awake. After returning to the hotel, he took a petal bath, swiped his phone while drinking red wine, and went to his super talk* to watch the rainbow fart from his fans. Most of his rainbow farts were either, praising his beauty and accomplishments, or “I feel sorry for my brother, it’s so hard”. He was very pleased when reading them.

*看了 – Super talk slang for super topics. People with common interests gather together to form a circle, similar to interests tribes on QQ, for their idol. Only in this environment of Weibo, fans can communicate with celebrities and idols. This feature is designed to strengthen the communication between celebrities and fans.
*QQ = instant messaging software. I assuming it’s similar to Facebook Messenger.

He admired a photo that was taken by a sister today. He was very good-looking in it. Satisfied, Bai Qingquan went to check the Weibo hot search again.

As a result, he saw the statement issued by Zheng Siqi’s company from a glance. After mixing in the entertainment industry for a long time, you can see the doorway all at once*. It turns out that hot search was not bought by Shen Jintai, but by Zheng Siqi.

*一下子就能看出门道来 – I think this just a metaphor for saying because of his experience he can easily see through the everything.

Looking at such a clean and cold little handsome boy, who would’ve expected he’d was also so good at hyping. He shouldn’t underestimate newcomers these days. On the contrary, he wronged Shen Jintai. The rumors broke out for a day but Zheng Siqi has clarified it. Yet Shen Jintai had remained silent. Bai Qingquan logged into the his alt account, and planned to go to Shen Jintai’s fan group to take a look.

That’s right, he himself registered an alt account, specifically to spy on the movement of the gold powder.

As a result, he just logged in, and a message popped up, “You have been removed from the group chat by the group owner.”

…

……

!!

!!!!

What the fuck!

The author has something to say:

Spy Bai: Where was horse’s feet* exposed? Did I not kiss brother Jin’s ass enough? Is my rainbow fart not real enough?!

*Horse’s feet (露出马脚 ) = bare the horse’s feet. It’s metaphorically revealing the hidden truth or inadvertently leaking out inside information.

Kinky Thoughts: LMAO that ending!! I did not see that coming hahahaha. I cackled way too long for it.

I was struggling to translate this chapter because “fan/powder” was mentioned so much here. Sometimes I used powder and other times I use fan. It gets a bit confusing (I know… I had to translate it). For clarity and just a behind the scenes of my translating thought process: I kept powder when it’s in reference to a fandom (Gold Powder/Moonlight Powder ect.) or specific terms (Black Powder, Remnant Powder ect.). I think it makes the translation flows well. For all other mentions, I use fan instead (like Fan Circle, or reference to just being a fan) or in the case where powder just sounds weird. The goal of my translation is to make sentences flow smoothly. Either way fan/powder means the same thing, so I go with whatever sounds best for the translation.