Lu Man Has Followed You!

Liu Xing Yu was laying on her bed in her apartment, staring at the worn down walls that surrounded her closely. Although the apartment was not in good condition at all, it was cheap to rent and was all StarTime was willing to provide for her. Seeing as her contract had stated that they would provide her with accommodation in accordance to the revenue she brought in, legally, StarTime couldn't be held accountable for providing her such bad conditions to live in.

The ventilation was practically non-existent, the heating system was bad during the winter, and there was no air-conditioning during the summer… Even in the bathroom, there wasn't always hot water available, and the flushing system had failed on Xing Yu a few times in the past. All this were things that Xing Yu didn't mind. What did bother her was the fact that the apartment complex was located in a very bad neighbourhood. Because of that, she had worked out often at home and slowly honed her fighting abilities so that she could defend herself, and she now didn't have to worry about walking through the area alone. But if possible, Xing Yu would rather just move out. She was confident in her strength and abilities, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

All her problems now could only be solved with money, however. Xing Yu had always been itching to get a part-time job to pay for all her expenses, but she would be going against her contract. At the time of signing, Xing Yu had still been innocent to the way the entertainment world worked.

She had skimmed through her contract and saw the terms, but she had thought that none of it would be a problem as long as her career progressed. Who would've thought that her progress would be halted by her own company! She had been naive, and despite already having her past experiences as examples, she had still believed that people could be trusted! But now, five years later… she was disillusioned and finally understood the way this industry worked. Perhaps outside, one could still assume the best of everyone— though this wasn't something she planned on doing. But to do so in show business would be begging to be backstabbed!

Inside, she did feel a little bittersweet at the loss of what she felt was her innocence. But she knew that she was now stronger. After all, it was how she had managed to endure everything the past five and a half years, and now she only had half a year until her contract was over. If she did well for Scarlet Moon, she could be able to attract the interest of bigger companies that had the power to go against StarTime, so this role was extremely crucial to her future success!

It was no wonder that she was taking it so seriously. She had always given everything her all, but she was especially intense for this role. In her hands was the script for Scarlet Moon. Reading through the different scenes and picturing them in her mind, she could only feel awe at the fantastic plot. It was a certainty that this film would hit big, and Xing Yu knew that with the movie's success, her fame would be catapulted as well regardless of her performance! But doing well determined whether or not she would be known for being a good actress, or a bad one moving forward, so Xing Yu was going to spend the next week preparing for her role intensely.

Ding!

She was broken out of her thoughts by her phone notification. It had been dead ever since earlier today when she had been on set, and finally turned on after she remembered to charge it.

Ding! Ding!

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Suddenly, the alert sound came in in torrents, causing Xing Yu's eyes to widen in bewilderment. What the heck was happening? She reached for her phone unsurely, having no idea what was going on. When her eyes landed on the screen and scanned through the words, she felt even more perplexed.

[Prince Lu Man has followed you!]

Why would Mo Rui Han's assistant follow her? Wait, that wasn't right. Why would LU MAN follow her? Although Xing Yu typically viewed him as Mo Rui Han's right-hand man, Lu Man was incredibly influential, and everyone knew that him. Despite having a wide social network, those that he followed one Weibo were considered part of his inner circle, and were very few. Naturally, him following her caught the attention of all his fans!

[LuManFan1989 has followed you!]

[XiaoLu0182 has followed you!]

[Full Road* has followed you!]

[Prince Lu Man Updates has followed you!]

[Prince's Fan Club has followed you!]

[Lu Man Take Me has followed you!]

Xing Yu's thumb moved even quicker as she scrolled across the notifications. Eventually, so many people had followed her at once that the notification no longer displayed an individual name and showed numbers instead. Accessing her Weibo, she was shocked to find that within the span of a few hours, her following had grown from 100k to 419k!

Curiously, she scrolled around to look at some of her mentions, as well as a thread that had been created titled [Who is the Mysterious Girl Our Prince Lu Man Followed?]

[Wah! Xing Yu Big Sis, you are so pretty! It's no wonder our Lu Man followed you! Are you close with him?]

[Xing Yu~ Any friend of our Prince is a friend of ours! Followed to support!]

[I was just curious to see who Lu Man had followed but oh my god! A GODDESS!!!!]

[Looking at her post history she looks like a nice person too! Simple! I like!]

[How are we only hearing about a goddess like her NOW? Anyone know what she does?]

[Her bio says actress!]

[GOOD GOOD GOOD!!! SOMEONE AS BEAUTIFUL AS HER SHOULD BE ON SCREEN FOR OUR EYES!]

[I haven't seen her in any films though!]

In response to the sudden influx of new followers, many of Xing Yu's original fans came online to respond to the bombardment of questions.

[Aiya commenter above~ It's because you haven't looked hard enough! But it's okay, we will help you! Our Shooting Star** has been in a few films before! She only had minor roles though, but if you want to see her you can search her name plus the following films! There should be her scenes uploaded!] This commenter proceeded to include a few of the works Xing Yu had been in before.

[!!! Looks like our Little Star might finally be getting some attention! IT'S ABOUT TIME!!! @Prince Lu Man thank you for helping our Xing Yu!]

[We are thankful to Prince Lu Man for this!!! But just a question… is there something going on between you two?]

[ARE THEY DATING FOR REAL???]

[That could be possible right? She definitely suits our Prince Lu Man!] Perhaps because Lu Man was not in the entertainment industry and was neither an actor nor an idol, his fans were a lot less obsessive when it came to him dating. In fact, they had always been avid shippers of him and his other female friends, living vicariously through them.

"There's no way that's possible right?" Said Xing Yu out loud. Although she was indeed surprised, she adjusted in no time. After all, this was no doubt a good thing that happened. Still, she couldn't help but ponder over what this could mean. She had spoken to Mo Rui Han but only briefly greeted him. Even she knew what a special occurrence it was for Lu Man to follow someone on his Weibo, so her interest was truly piqued.

Nonetheless, she clicked on his username and followed him back.

—

IN SEVEN SEAS APARTMENT BUILDING

The walls were a nice off-white colour and the ground was completely covered in high quality dark wood. The apartment was extremely large and, being at the top floor of the apartment, was like a loft, with a smaller second floor. All the furniture were in monochrome colours, and the interesting thing was that there were no doors or rooms at all. The different sections of the house were separated with dividers or by a change in wall texture. Despite the high price-tag on all the items within the house, nothing felt too over-the-top or exaggerated. Everything was luxurious yet tasteful, and that included the well-dressed man currently sitting in his office chair.

Mo Rui Han had finally returned home at night after shooting his scenes and returning to the office building for work. He had yet to change out of his crisp black suit as he had been working at his own office at home.

However, after trying to focus for awhile, Mo Rui Han had abruptly pushed aside his papers. He had stared at his phone for a while, and then, as if he couldn't control his own actions, grabbed his phone. Mo Rui Han launched his Weibo app for the first time since he created an account, as he always let his publicity team handle it.

Long slender fingers danced across the screen as he keyed in three characters. Although the man was expressionless as always, there was a slight urgency to his actions, his eyes carrying an eager light.

However, as his eyes flitted across the screen, his face froze and his eye twitched. Slowly, the light in his eyes grew dimmer as his face got more and more black. As he read through different posts by netizens, a dark energy began to seep out from him. He scoffed.

Just WHO and WHO were dating?

Skimming through the rest of the posts and replies, he narrowed his eyes and scrolled back up to Liu Xing Yu's profile. The man's gaze paused at her profile photo of her with a dog, and a sliver of a smile slid back onto his cold face. His thumb instinctively went towards the follow button and pressed down.

Not even ten seconds later, he received a notification from the app.

[Liu Xing Yu has followed you!]

His mood immediately lifted and he placed his phone away. He instead turned his gaze to the windows that stretched from the ceiling to the floor, and stared out at the city below him. His mind replayed his encounter with her today, and how she had spoken to him and smiled at him, and his heart began to beat harder just at the thought of her.

So much had happened within a day. Just yesterday he had still felt like he was missing a piece of his heart, and today he had finally found it again. He couldn't control the happiness that erupted within him, and, in a move that was completely unlike his usual self at all, he leaned his head back and chuckled softly, completely overwhelmed by a flurry of emotions. Soon, all he could think about was her, and how 9 years ago, his life had been completely changed.