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Chapter 29: Food for Thought

Jiang Ying cared deeply for these recent, tumultuous developments in his dear brother's life. But after he sent Jiang Xun the compressed package of all the dirt he'd collected on his rival throughout the years, he thought his job was done.

He gave himself a pat on the back and headed back to work.

"Your family's ill-tempered little master has finally left?" asked Jiang Xun's teammate, West, from the other side of the room. "He's been here since this morning, saying he had to wait for you to return so he could scope out the situation for your fiancé."

Jiang Xun was silent for a moment before he asked, "Is everyone back?"

"SK and Kumachan got back in the afternoon, they're good to resume practice. And the rookies didn't really go anywhere over the break," West said. "Hey, Captain, is it true what your little bro said? Your family arranged a marriage for you?"

Jiang Xun nodded.

"Not bad," West said, grinning. "Good-looking? When are you gonna let us take a peek?"

"Later this week," Jiang Xun said. "Very good-looking."

"Whoa! If you're complimenting someone's looks, that must mean something special." West was even more curious now. "Our little Master Jiang's standards are so high. We do collabs with loads of hot streamers and TV hosts, and none of them have ever caught your eye."

After a moment, West continued, "How's the personality? Too good-tempered isn't good, you know. You would definitely bully someone like that."

"Good-tempered, but strong-willed," Jiang Xun said. "You'll see."

Jiang Xun had experienced Gu Wei's temperament first-hand far too many times.

He booted up his computer and logged in to arrange a practice match for their team that weekend. Then he opened up the compressed pack of 'dirt' that Jiang Ying had left him—

Five gigs of dirt on the sweet yet alluring Gu Wei sounded interesting indeed.

Jiang Ying was a huge proponent of the saying, Know your enemy and know yourself. In the .zip file he left Jiang Xun, there were articles from back when Gu Wei had first debuted as well as much more recent ones. Jiang Ying's diligence in collecting dirt on Gu Wei had provided Jiang Xun with an incredibly thorough and complete timeline of Gu Wei's career.

When Jiang Xun opened the .zip file, he found that the most recently added file was titled 'Gu Wei Likes God Xun's Ten-Year-Old Post', and the oldest file was the clip of Gu Wei's disastrous singing that Jiang Ying had sent Jiang Xun not long ago.

Jiang Xun shook his head and sorted the files by chronological order.

Gu Wei and Jiang Ying could be considered controversial stars of the same generation. Jiang Ying was solely controversial because of his bad temper and eagerness to start feuds with anyone he could. One time, Jiang Xun recalled, a female celebrity tried to get Jiang Ying involved in some scandalous affair. Jiang Ying had fought back ruthlessly on his main account and nearly twenty alts.

It really wasn't any surprise for him to be controversial.

Why Gu Wei would be considered a controversial star… that was what Jiang Xun wanted to know.

Jiang Xun and Gu Wei following each other in quick succession once again sent huge waves of controversy through Weibo. Underneath Gu Wei's latest posts, his supporters were out in full force, fighting back against his anti-fans.

@Little Hedgehog's Sunny Doll: @User9786565 Aren't you going to continue? Why have you stopped talking? Now that God Xun has followed our Weiwei back, you have nothing else to say? You don't even need to apologize to Weiwei. Just pack yourself up and get out.

@Little Hedgehog's Hand Warmer: Gu Wei-didi, you're my favorite, and I can't wait for your reality show to air! I'll be rooting for you~

@Handsome Midnight Ape: Just give it up, stop trying to stir the pot. Gu Wei and Jiang Xun worked on a show together. They don't need you randos to define their relationship.

Gu Wei's supporters dismantled all the scathing complaints against him in an orderly fashion. That, in combination with the fact that Jiang Xun had followed him back, quickly dispersed many of the Like the Moon novel fans who had been swept up in the brigade against Gu Wei.

But many people continued to think this was nothing more than a marketing scheme by Gu Wei's team.

"That Sunny Doll is pretty fierce," Mu Yue said, scrolling through Weibo on her own phone and feeling a bit alarmed by the little fan's aggression.

"My little hedgehogs are all very powerful," Gu Wei said.

As he spoke, he tapped into that Sunny Doll user's Weibo page. The status message read Sunny Doll is working hard to bash some heads in, and there was a supertopic group titled—

#FoodForXunWei1

Mu Yue was silent at the sight of that.

Gu Wei made an inquisitive sound.

What was that all about?

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1. The original chapter title is '耐人寻味', which means something is thought-provoking or gives you food for thought. The last two characters, 寻 and 味, are pronounced the same way as the Xun in Jiang Xun and the Wei in Gu Wei. 寻 is the exact same character as the Xun in Jiang Xun; the Wei in Gu Wei is 未, but it's pronounced the same way as 味. So it's an idiom that contains their ship name. Here, the saying '耐人寻味' is written '耐人寻未', where the fourth character '味' is replaced by the '未' in Gu Wei's name. The tag is a play on the original idiom, adjusted to include the characters Xun and Wei from the names Jiang Xun and Gu Wei.