Chapter 33 – Rose
Qiao Huaiyao’s heart gradually calmed in the soothing guitar melody. Without fingerpicks on his fingers, each repetition of plucking the guitar strings brought a slight tingling sensation.
Qiao Huaiyao didn’t continue playing; he lightly tapped the guitar strings with thoughtful fingertips. ‘Click,’ the sound of the shutter button being pressed was clear in the quiet night.
Qiao Huaiyao was startled, and he smiled as he looked up, “Brother?”
“Take a note,” Bai Jinyan put away his phone as if nothing had happened, “It’s getting late, let’s rest now and practice again tomorrow.”
Qiao Huaiyao curved his eyes, “Alright.”
After putting away the guitar, he placed the guitar case in an open area and accidentally bumped into something while reaching for something nearby. As Qiao Huaiyao returned to the inner bedroom, he suddenly paused his steps.
He held onto the door frame with his left hand and turned around, raising his voice, “Brother!”
Bai Jinyan set down the sheet music in his hand, “Hmm?”
Qiao Huaiyao chuckled and waved, “Goodnight.”
Bai Jinyan hesitated for a moment, then laughed, “Goodnight.”
Late at night, Qiao Huaiyao lay in bed, unable to sleep.
There was still early training in the morning, and he had intended to dry his hair and rest early.
However, after putting down his phone and closing his eyes, he still couldn’t fall asleep.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw scenes of practicing the song earlier, Bai Jinyan’s reactions as he snapped out of his daze, and that reddened…
Qiao Huaiyao pursed his lips, finding it increasingly difficult to sleep as he thought more about it.
He gave up on resting completely, flipped over, and picked up his phone to browse Weibo.
Since he was using a secondary account, most of the recommended posts on his homepage were related to Bai Jinyan.
Most of the screenshots and paparazzi photos depicted Bai Jinyan with a cold expression. The few exceptions were just attempts to portray a role, going along with the script. Having seen so many of these images, Qiao Huaiyao’s fingertips curled slightly, feeling somewhat annoyed.
He thought for a moment, then opened the interface to compose a new Weibo post, attaching a picture. Due to Bai Jinyan’s well-known guitar, directly showing it might lead fans to recognize it. So, Qiao Huaiyao took a defocused shot of the guitar strings and uploaded it. The original image wouldn’t be recognizable.
While editing the caption, Qiao Huaiyao typed a sentence, his eyes focused on the phone screen, yet his gaze seemed distant.
After a moment of hesitation, he slowly pressed the keyboard, typing out the phrase, “Will he…?” He paused and erased everything.
Then he retyped, “Does he have a bit of…” Still unsure of what to say, he deleted it again and left the text box empty.
Feeling somewhat helpless, Qiao Huaiyao put down his phone and buried his face in the pillow. After a while, he let out a sigh and decided not to write anything on that post. Instead, he directly posted the picture.
After sending the Weibo, the app automatically refreshed. A new picture post appeared on his homepage. Qiao Huaiyao, with half of his face hidden in the pillow, glanced casually, then suddenly froze.
He clicked on the post. It had been posted by Bai Jinyan just three seconds ago. There was no caption, and the image wasn’t a selfie of Bai Jinyan; it was a picture of himself. Playing the guitar.
But it seemed different from the last one, and Qiao Huaiyao hadn’t even noticed when this picture had been taken.
“My brother isn’t sleeping either?” Qiao Huaiyao looked up, glancing to his left. Their bedrooms were just separated by a wall.
He clicked into the post, intending to leave a comment or repost it, but it showed: [This Weibo post has been deleted.]
Huh? The comments were flooding in by the thousands, yet he couldn’t access it. It didn’t seem like a glitch. He refreshed the page. Bai Jinyan had posted another Weibo.
Qiao Huaiyao thought maybe Bai Jinyan forgot to add something to the previous post. Members could edit their posts, but the editing history was visible, so to erase all traces, they had to delete and repost. That was probably it.
The new post didn’t have the previous picture. It was less clear. Qiao Huaiyao noticed it, and so did the fans in the comment section.
They exclaimed, [Damn! This picture is so blurry, I can’t even see Qiao Qiao’s face! Who is he trying to fool with this blurry picture?!]
[Sis… what’s happening? You got front-row seats and you won’t even call Qiao Qiao your wife?]
[I called Qiao Qiao ‘wife’ in the last post, now Bai Jinyan, this dog, comes and posts before me![
[Seriously, the Weibo’s about to crash, and he won’t even let me comment. Is this reasonable?!]
[…]
[Can anyone save the previous picture? I want to zoom in and see, but when I tried to save it, the picture disappeared… Sob…]
[That picture was so good, it had such an atmosphere! This one’s not bad either, but I can’t see the face.]
[If you dare, show me the original picture! If you dare, put up the original picture!]
[I confess, I’m a psychologist. Bai Jinyan’s psychology right now is to show off but not show us. So he posted this blurry picture.]
[Forget it, let’s scold him, sisters!]
…
After liking a few comments, Qiao Huaiyao switched to his main account.
He reposted Bai Jinyan’s Weibo on his main account and added a comment: “You said goodnight but you’re still not sleeping, @Bai Jinyan.”
The comment section of the repost was lively too.
[We strongly condemn Bai Jinyan for showing off his wife in the middle of the night!]
[Sob, good evening, wife. Indeed, staying up late brings happiness.]
[May I ask, does anyone have a picture of Bai Jinyan? As a hundred-year fan, I’ve seen all his guitar playing videos.]
[Alright, let’s go! Comment about Qiao Qiao under Bai Jinyan’s Weibo, and about Bai Jinyan under Qiao Qiao’s Weibo. We’ve figured out how to play this Weibo game.]
Compared to the fans flooding the comment sections, Bai Jinyan’s replies were few. However, there was a difference. His brother sent him a private message on their messaging app.
Bai Jinyan: [Why aren’t you sleeping yet?]
Qiao Huaiyao replied: [I was just checking Weibo. Why aren’t you sleeping, brother?]
Bai Jinyan didn’t reply quickly this time. The ‘Typing…’ indicator stayed on for a while before Bai Jinyan’s message appeared: [Checking my messages. You should rest soon.]
The reason was flimsy and didn’t make sense. Reading fans’ messages was handled by their assistants. After all, the private messages were often complex and numerous. So, only selected normal messages were shown to them after being filtered.
But Qiao Huaiyao didn’t expose this. He typed: [Thanks for your hard work, brother. (Image of a cat hitting someone’s shoulder.jpg) I’m going to sleep.]
Bai Jinyan sent a goodnight emoji.
Qiao Huaiyao placed his phone face down on the bedside table, blinked a few times, but still couldn’t find any sleepiness. Now, compared to his earlier restlessness, he felt inexplicably calm. He lay there quietly, facing in the direction of Bai Jinyan’s room. Bai Jinyan’s room remained dark; the only source of light came from his phone. He waited until Bai Jinyan replied to his last message. After that, he put down his phone and sat on the edge of the bed, an entire night passing by.
…
On the last day of military training, the stage for the performance had already been set up on the parade ground. In order to give the students enough rehearsal time, the performance was scheduled for after 3 p.m. Qiao Huaiyao was sitting in the backstage rest area, one of the few places that was less crowded. He hadn’t gone out to draw lots; the order of performances depended on what was drawn by Qiu Shufeng’s group.