Chapter Twelve: From Hater to Fan
Chapter 12
Li Shixin didn’t bother with Liu Xin’s little assistant at all. So young, so inexperienced—how could she think the whole world ought to revolve around her?
Feigning a headache, Li Shixin waved off Guan Lan, who was nearly frantic with worry, and took a cab straight back to the hotel. It had been a long, exhausting day, and he was completely worn out.
When he entered the hotel, he ignored the receptionist’s attempts at small talk and returned directly to his room. This body, he thought, was simply too weak. Though he’d spent the whole day idling about and hardly did anything, the moment he collapsed onto the bed, he felt utterly spent.
Still, when he glanced at the system’s interface and saw the cheer points he’d accumulated throughout the day, he took some comfort in it. At least the day hadn’t been a waste.
Before coming to the Rong store, Li Shixin had cleared out his available cheer points and exchanged them for twenty-one days of life. At the time, he’d had only a few hundred left over, but after a day’s efforts, his cheer points had once more exceeded ten thousand.
Seeing the balance of 18,666 on the system interface, Li Shixin couldn’t help but feel a surge of satisfaction. Eighteen days of life, secured!
But since he still had eighteen days left in the system, he wasn’t in a rush to exchange for more. Instead, he stripped down to his vest and boxers and burrowed under the covers.
Age, after all, was catching up with him—he was no longer the young man he once was. After a day’s work, his whole body ached; gone were the days of burning the midnight oil.
He simply couldn’t keep up anymore...
The quartz clock in the hotel room ticked steadily; it was already eight in the evening. Since crossing over, Li Shixin hadn’t had a single good night’s sleep. Perhaps he’d spent too much time lying in that hospital bed; he’d felt dazed and groggy, and even when he crawled under the covers, he hovered in a state between waking and dreaming.
But as they say, labor brings fulfillment.
After lying in bed for only a short while, Li Shixin drifted off, his dreams returning him to the vibrant years of his youth.
...
The night passed without incident.
At the break of dawn, as the first rays of sunlight streamed into the room and the cheerful melody of the garbage truck’s flute music sounded outside, Li Shixin opened his eyes.
Snuggled in bed, he glanced at the quartz clock on the wall—it was barely six o’clock. He couldn’t help but grimace. Before crossing over, he hadn’t gotten up this early since he’d finished high school!
Worse yet, when he looked down at his neatly arranged, unrumpled comforter, he sighed with resignation.
What was he supposed to do now? What should he fill his day with?
Should he head to the market to haggle with vendors over a sprig of coriander?
Or seize the mildness of the morning and join the elderly ladies in the park for a rousing round of morning exercises?
No, absolutely not.
Li Shixin shook his head vigorously, banishing such absurd ideas from his mind.
Li Shixin, you can’t just give up on yourself! Remember: even if three-quarters of the people in this world would call you grandpa or even great-grandpa at first glance, you must keep the soul of a twenty-three-year-old alive!
You must rally yourself!
Bathed in the morning light, he gave himself a silent pep talk.
Determined not to let his days slip into the monotonous simplicity of true old age, with every day blending into the next, Li Shixin picked up his phone.
He was prepared to do as all young people do—spend half an hour scrolling on his phone while still under the covers.
But just as he fished out his old man’s phone from under the blanket, a string of numbers popped into his mind, stunning him into wakefulness.
Beep!
[Notice] To ensure adequate sleep for system users, the system will automatically mute notifications during sleeping hours.
Beep!
From 8:30 last night to 6:12 this morning, you have accumulated 35,680 cheer points.
Beep!
System upgrade: Prize Draw Mall feature unlocked.
What on earth was going on?!
Hearing this cascade of notifications, Li Shixin ignored the creaking protests from his old bones and shot upright in bed!
What had happened while he was merely sleeping?
Knock, knock, knock.
At that moment, someone knocked on the door.
“Who is it?”
Li Shixin steadied himself and asked in a deep voice.
“Grandpa, it’s me. The front desk!” came a muffled reply from outside.
Suspicious, Li Shixin donned his robe and opened the door a crack. Peering out, he saw it was indeed the front desk girl. She hadn’t slept all night, judging by her dark circles, but her eyes shone with excitement as she looked at him.
Especially when she caught sight of Li Shixin in his robe, she practically hopped with excitement.
“It really is you, grandpa! Oh my goodness, you’re amazing!” she exclaimed, her accent slipping out in her excitement as she grabbed his arm.
Li Shixin scowled, “Young lady… why are you cursing at me so early in the morning?”
But the girl was far too excited to care. She whipped out her massive phone and tapped it open. “I thought you looked familiar! I can’t believe it’s really you, grandpa! You just arrived at the Rong store yesterday, and already you’re caught up in a scandal. You’re definitely going to be famous!”
Li Shixin narrowed his eyes and focused on the phone’s screen, realization dawning.
Displayed on the screen was a trending microblog post with attached photos.
“Exclusive scoop from Star Trends: Dirt on rising idol Liu Xin. Around six o’clock last night, at the set of the TV drama ‘The Last Days of the Forbidden City’ starring Liu Xin, a senior actor in his sixties was pushed to the ground. According to insiders, the argument arose because Liu Xin refused to memorize his lines, which the elder actor objected to. The two quarreled, and when the elder went to Liu Xin’s car to apologize, Liu Xin pushed him away, causing the elder to fall and require hospital treatment…”
Ignoring the awestruck look the front desk girl gave him, Li Shixin snatched the phone from her.
The microblog had been posted around seven the previous evening and had already shot up the trending charts overnight.
It was clearly the same video he’d seen in the hospital the night before.
Back then, there had only been a handful of reposts and comments.
Now, the post had over two thousand reposts and tens of thousands of comments!
Li Shixin scrolled through the comments, the corners of his mouth twitching.
Most of them were obviously from hired trolls: claims that “the old man in the video was clearly faking it,” “trying to ride Liu Xin’s popularity for attention,” “Liu Xin would never do such a thing, he’s being framed!” and so on.
But amid the rabble of paid commenters and brainless fans, there were still some different voices.
“Liu Xin’s acted in more than a few dramas by now. Since last year, he’s done four or five TV shows and two movies. Not once have his lines matched his lip movements on screen! It’s always dubbed in post!”
“I totally believe Liu Xin refused to learn his lines and got into an argument with another actor! I support the old gentleman! Sixty-something years old, pushed from that height—Liu Xin, what kind of animal could do that? Do you not have a father? Or does your mother not have a father?”
“Stupid fans and trolls, just blow up already! Support for the old actor who was hurt—Liu Xin must apologize!”
“I can’t stand Liu Xin, always using hype to stay relevant! Couldn’t make it in Korea, so he comes back here to cash in. I could tolerate you singing and dancing to fool some dumb kids, but acting? Absolutely not. Strongly support the old gentleman standing up for himself!”
“Every time I see this guy on TV, I get chills! Neither masculine nor feminine, wearing more makeup than the actresses. Acting is all about playing it cool, lines are dubbed in post—what makes you so arrogant? Even hitting a man in his sixties? People like this should be banned!”
Aha.
After reading these obvious anti-Liu Xin comments, Li Shixin immediately understood where his thirty thousand cheer points from last night had come from.
So it turned out he had become the rallying point for Liu Xin’s detractors!