When Wu Fangyuan had rushed in this morning, practically in tears while showing Luo Ding the explosion of CP-related content on Weibo, Luo Ding had been stunned. Having never opened a Weibo account in his past life, he had only a vague idea of what fans were like. Sure, he knew about the passionate fangirls and fanboys who would get overly excited, but this level of fervor was beyond what he had ever encountered. The explicit language, the way some fans begged to “lick” him—it all seemed so bizarre.
While Luo Ding accepted his sexual orientation—he was gay, after all—and even had a committed partner in his past life, the public’s perception of same-sex relationships was far from accepting. He and Xu Zhen had been together for decades, but no one outside their closest circle had known. To the public, they were just good friends and business partners. Now, in this life, without a single real-life interaction to back it up, fans were already pairing him with Duan Xiubo. It was unbelievable.
The more he scrolled through the comments, the more he transitioned from a state of shock ( ⊙ o ⊙) to a resigned one = =.
“It’s no big deal, really,” Gu Yaxing, his manager, had said over the phone earlier, sounding completely unbothered by the situation. “Honestly, no celebrity these days avoids dabbling in a bit of fanservice. Fans love it, and it sells. If you play along a little, it’ll only benefit you. Duan Xiubo doesn’t mind, so why should you? It’s good for both of you. This is an opportunity to bring in more fans.”
Luo Ding had no experience with fan-shipping culture, but Gu Yaxing’s words suggested that this kind of phenomenon had been going on for a while. If everyone was so nonchalant about it, then it probably wasn’t worth stressing over. With this in mind, Luo Ding relaxed.
Out of curiosity, he decided to check the original poster’s page, the one who had uploaded the now-viral gif of him and Duan Xiubo. He saw a new post with text that read:
“Hehe, they unfollowed me. Let them. Loli-fans just don’t get it. As a responsible fan, I did what was best for my idol. Brainstorming is fun, but we need to keep things harmonious. If this stuff gets too popular, it might harm their careers.”
Luo Ding scrolled down to the comments and spotted a familiar username: “Alessandro.”
Alessandro’s comment read: “Loli fans… hehe.”
Luo Ding was puzzled. Why did Alessandro seem so familiar? He had noticed this username before, and now that it had caught his eye again, he wondered if there was more to this person. But before he could investigate further, Alessandro’s comment had already been deleted.
“Man, this whole scene is a mess,” Luo Ding muttered to himself, feeling like he was slipping further and further away from the world of “normal” people.
When the final sales figures for Fashion Weekly came in, everyone—including Ji Jiahe, who had been optimistic from the start—was utterly floored.
The sales were four times higher than the average! Four times!
What did that even mean?
Ji Jiahe had made connections with some of the biggest stars in the industry, including top-tier film actors and actresses. Just this year, Fashion Weekly had celebrated its anniversary by featuring a group cover shot of the four most prominent male and female actors in the industry, minus Duan Xiubo. This anniversary edition, complete with bonus posters and exclusive content, had sold out despite being printed in twice the usual amount. Even with such a star-studded lineup, it had taken four days to sell out.
But Luo Ding and Duan Xiubo’s issue had sold out on the first day. Not only that, the magazine had to repeatedly reprint more copies to meet the overwhelming demand, with international orders piling up from overseas fans. The frenzy even led to phone calls from readers demanding a standalone release of Luo Ding’s photo set, creating chaos for Fashion Weekly as they tried to keep up with the unexpected success.
Having just scored two back-to-back victories, Ji Jiahe’s reputation within the company soared, while those who had previously challenged him were now shaking in their boots.
A single issue of the magazine had such a significant impact, not to mention the buzz it generated for Duan Xiubo and Luo Ding, the stars of that issue.
For Duan Xiubo, the effects were unsurprising. As an established leader in the entertainment industry, his cover shoot was characteristically calm and understated. However, his more relaxed and casual demeanor in the inner pages surprised many, showing a side of him that was more approachable than his usual image. The result? Fans who were already obsessed with him fell even harder.
Luo Ding, on the other hand, gained something far more substantial from the experience.
Many of the readers who initially bought the magazine for Duan Xiubo were pleasantly surprised by Luo Ding, who co-starred with him in the inside photo spread. The high-quality scans that circulated online also introduced Luo Ding to a wider audience, including many who typically didn’t follow entertainment gossip. And since Luo Ding was first introduced to the public alongside someone as big as Duan Xiubo, his own status and appeal were instantly elevated.
Those who were captivated by his appearance in the magazine were quick to look into Luo Ding’s past work. They found his popular dance videos, performance clips, and other notable content circulating online. And once they explored his impressive body of work, many of them became instant fans.
Luo Ding had officially won them over.
The influx of new fans into Luo Ding’s fanbase was as simple as that—each new admirer brought with them the excited screams of “Ahhhhh!” marking every milestone in his journey.
And then, there was the international scene.
In Japan, Luo Ding’s fan club had been steadily growing, thanks to videos of his sporadic appearances circulating from mainland China. The fan community remained as enthusiastic as ever. The support structure, made up of both local Japanese fans and Chinese students studying abroad, had already become well-organized. From the moment the news of Luo Ding’s upcoming EP was announced, fans were eagerly awaiting its release.
Luo Ding’s appeal stood out starkly against the typical styles of Japanese idols. The viral dance videos his company uploaded online attracted fans in droves. Even though many of these fans didn’t speak Chinese, and most couldn’t fully grasp the deeper meaning behind his hit song “Goodbye for Now,” they all knew one thing for sure: this idol looked amazing. Handsome—*really* handsome.
For these fans, his good looks were more than enough. As primarily visual creatures, many women in the fandom were drawn to Luo Ding simply because of his appearance. Riding this wave, he skyrocketed in popularity without even needing to attend any events in Japan. His rise saw him consistently placed among the top contenders in various Japanese popularity rankings.
Luo Ding’s charm was unmistakable and transcended language barriers.
This phenomenon was unheard of for domestic Chinese celebrities.
The student-led organizations, along with most of Luo Ding’s fanbase, teamed up with the official Japanese support group and collectively purchased one-tenth of the total print run of *Fashion* magazine. Initially, they thought that this amount would be more than enough, but once they got their hands on the magazines, they realized it was far from sufficient!
The fan frenzy in Japan surpassed even that of China. In a country with one of the most robust anti-piracy measures, buying official merchandise was a given. Even with the added cost of shipping, the magazines were relatively affordable, and almost everyone wanted to own a copy. Once the first batch of magazines was opened and the full-page images inside were shared, the fanbase erupted into yet another wave of excitement.
The support group’s internal order frenzy was nothing short of overwhelming, and the limited stock of magazines quickly became a hot commodity.
Luo Ding’s photos completely overturned the overseas fans’ previous impressions of him. The man who had shown such a dynamic range in Pan Yiming’s music video—sometimes sunny and sometimes brooding—the man who sang with furrowed brows and a melancholic expression, and the man who exuded an unstoppable aura in his dance videos, turned out to have even more facets than they could have imagined.
He could be seductive, fresh, and even boyishly innocent.
The photo inserts that came with the magazine sparked a frenzy of exchanges among fans, but the real highlight, the image that caused the biggest sensation, was the full-page shot of Luo Ding’s bare back in the magazine’s inner pages. This photo became the undeniable focal point of the fan uproar.
The Japanese public, living under high levels of stress, tends to have rigid and demanding standards when it comes to beauty. Men, especially those with a strong sense of traditional masculinity, are often indifferent or even dismissive of the male idols that women adore, viewing them with either ridicule or indifference.
However, changing their minds is surprisingly simple.
You just need to hit their G-spot.
And Luo Ding’s bare-back photo did exactly that—it unquestionably hit the G-spot of many.
The high-quality, carefully edited photos of Luo Ding, which had originally circulated within his fan circles, somehow found their way into mainstream media.
Then, Chinese students studying abroad managed to bypass restrictions and brought even more finely edited images from the mainland onto Japanese networks.
It wasn’t long before these images exploded in popularity, rapidly spreading across Japan’s online communities.
“So handsome!” Many Japanese, whose perceptions of China were still stuck in the past, flooded the comment sections under Luo Ding’s photos, asking, “Is he really Chinese? Is that true?”
“Wow, his style is totally different from the typical Japanese idols!”
“He’s amazing. He gives me the same feeling as watching cherry blossoms in Nara—so glamorous and warm.”
“No, it’s more like the hot springs in Sapporo! Speaking of which, Chinese celebrities really have a high standard of beauty. Look at the guy he’s paired with, he’s a completely different type of handsome!”
As discussions about Duan Xiubo unfolded, people gradually uncovered his significant status in the international film industry. Naturally, as Luo Ding was associated with him, his own reputation skyrocketed in the eyes of the uninformed Japanese public.
While Hong Kong and Taiwan idolized the trends from Japan and Korea, and Japan and Korea looked to Western standards, Luo Ding’s connection with Western styles accelerated his popularity in Japan at an unprecedented rate.
Many Taiwanese people, who closely followed Japanese trends, noticed that a mainland Chinese celebrity had suddenly appeared in numerous Japanese magazines and media outlets. Without having ever heard of him before, they were shocked to find that “Luo Ding” was now being referred to as a “national icon” in Japan.
“How! Really?!” exclaimed the female host, dressed in a pastel pink outfit, on a Taiwanese talk show, her expression filled with shock as she covered her mouth. “Is it possible that mainland China already has artists directly making it big overseas?! How could that be?”
The rapid rise of Luo Ding’s popularity across Taiwan sparked a series of heated discussions on various local talk shows, with his topic trending rapidly. Taiwanese media outlets and entertainment shows found it difficult to believe that a star from mainland China, typically considered an underdeveloped entertainment market, could overshadow long-established local Japanese stars and achieve such remarkable fame in Japan.
This disbelief became a hot topic in the entertainment industry, with many Taiwanese hosts, celebrities, and even academics weighing in on the matter.
Even the professor, who had become a scholar specializing in studying the development of mainland China, shook his head thoughtfully and said, “This is one of the misunderstandings our people on the island have. The entertainment industry in the mainland has actually developed quite a bit. Haven’t you noticed that many of our local stars love going to the mainland for concert tours? The mainland is vast and populous with abundant resources. Just singing and dancing there can earn much more than here on the island.”
The female host continued to look shocked, with powder flaking off her face as she exclaimed, “Really?! Is that true?! So what kind of impression did everyone have of the mainland before the show?” She turned to a row of guests behind her for their reactions.
One guest smiled awkwardly, biting their lip and shyly replied, “Well… it’s just really poor, right? Didn’t Miss Meng mention last time that the toilets on the mainland…are covered with white butts that stretch for several kilometers??”
Another guest covered their face and cutely wriggled, “Oh, come on, don’t say things like that on the show!”
“So,” the female host, still in shock, turned back to the professor, “are those things all false?”
“I wouldn’t know,” the professor shook his head, clearly a bit stunned by their ignorance. With a strained expression, he replied, “But as far as my research goes, there’s no record of bathrooms stretching for kilometers.”
This video clip was shared on domestic forums, sparking widespread laughter.
Netizens commented: “Some of Taiwan’s media outlets sure live up to their reputation for being hilariously ignorant.”
R : Hmmm ???? well…
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