Chapter 161.2: A Private Screening for One
Shen Xiu walked out of the cinema and headed straight for the elevator down to the underground parking garage.
“This car… looks kinda familiar to me?”
“Damn it, you idiot. Every luxury car looks familiar to you, doesn’t it?”
“Cut the crap. It’s too dark in here—I can’t see clearly. Turn on your phone flashlight so I can get a better look.”
“Fine, fine, just hurry up. If I miss the movie because of you, I swear I’ll twist your head off.”
As the words fell, a beam of light from a phone flashlight lit up the dim parking lot.
At the same time, the elevator doors opened.
The moment the doors opened, Shen Xiu, bathed in the flashlight’s glow, saw two people standing beside his car—one holding up a flashlight, the other covering their mouth.
Shen Xiu froze in place. “…”
“Holy sh*t!!! That really is the car I saw on the trending list! I even saved a picture of it to my phone—I’ve looked at it so many times! I knew it looked familiar. If it weren’t so dark down here, I would’ve recognized it sooner…”
Before the person could finish, they noticed the tall man standing in front of the elevator, wearing a hoodie and a mask.
The two people shining the flashlight at the car: “…”
Shen Xiu, debating whether to walk over: “…”
Buzz…
With a soft sound, the elevator doors closed behind Shen Xiu.
In the dim underground parking garage, the only light came from the phone flashlight not far ahead. The three of them stared at one another, eyes wide, faces blank.
At that moment, the exact same thought crossed all three minds—
‘Help. This is so awkward.’
The one holding the flashlight, staring at the tall and all-too-familiar figure, felt their scalp go numb from the secondhand embarrassment. Silently, they lowered the phone and turned off the flashlight.
The flashlight switched off, and the underground parking lot sank back into darkness, lit only by a single distant overhead light casting a faint glow.
“Uh, we were just… just looking. Didn’t touch anything…”
The other person, having recovered now that the flashlight was off, quickly chimed in, “Yeah, really. You can trust us, we didn’t do anything…”
With a car like this—and security cameras in an underground garage—only an idiot would actually dare to lay a hand on it.
Hearing them speak first, Shen Xiu, who had been hesitating and unsure how to break the awkward silence, finally let out a quiet sigh of relief and followed their lead, replying, “It’s fine.”
Just looking, after all. It’s not like it would cost him anything.
Still… what’s so interesting about a gray car?
Could it be that gray is more eye-catching than black, which is usually considered low-key?
After turning this over in his head, Shen Xiu convinced himself that that must be the reason.
At that moment, he actually started missing his black car—the most low-profile one—which was still in the shop.
Having said his piece, Shen Xiu only wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. Bracing himself, he began walking toward the two.
As Shen Xiu came closer, the two of them instinctively tensed up, feeling as though the already thin air in the parking garage had become even thinner. They found it hard to breathe, completely forgetting to move, and could only watch wide-eyed as Shen Xiu approached step by step.
Even though they couldn’t see each other’s faces clearly in the dim light, Shen Xiu’s tall figure was clearly visible at that short distance.
Noticing the two still hadn’t moved away, Shen Xiu felt awkward about unlocking the car in front of them—it seemed rude—so he mustered the courage to ask, “Is there… something else?”
The moment they could confirm the car’s model—and, thanks to the light from the elevator earlier, confirm the man’s identity as Shen Xiu himself—the two of them shook their heads in unison and replied loudly, “Nope!”
Shen Xiu: “Then… goodbye?”
Please let this end soon. If this keeps going, I seriously won’t know what else to say!
The two snapped out of their daze and nodded immediately.
“Mhm!”
“Bye!”
As soon as they spoke, one of them grabbed the other by the arm and dragged them toward the elevator.
Watching their figures grow smaller in the dark, Shen Xiu was terrified they might turn back and try to talk to him again. Not wasting a second, he instantly unlocked the car, pulled the door open, and got in.
Once inside, he turned on the headlights and started the engine. As he drove out of the underground garage, the headlights illuminated the two figures walking toward the elevator. Shen Xiu caught sight of their synchronized footsteps and swinging arms—and his hand froze on the steering wheel.
Shen Xiu: “…”
He hadn’t expected that just coming to see a movie, he’d be treated to a walking style identical to Xiang Yueting’s—same arm, same leg movement in perfect unison.
He waited until the two got into the elevator and the doors closed. Then, instead of driving off, he pulled out his phone and quietly sent a message in The Galaxy group chat.
[Group Chat]
Shen Xiu: Just saw someone walking exactly like you. @Xiang Yueting
Xiang Yueting: ?
Jiang Yanxi: ?
…
The chat was instantly flooded with question marks.
Seeing the barrage, Shen Xiu figured they didn’t understand what he meant. So he downloaded a doodle app, drew a stick figure with a round head, animated it with that exact awkward walking motion, turned it into a GIF, and sent it to the group.
[Group Chat]
Shen Xiu: XiangYueting.GIF
Xia Wenhao: …Hahahaha @Xiang Yueting
Shang Yu: Nice drawing. What do you think? @Xiang Yueting
Zhuang Yi: That said… hahaha @Xiang Yueting
Ning Sinian: Hahahaha…
Xiang Yueting: …You guys still remember that? Total social death—it really does last a lifetime!
Shen Xiu, who completely agreed with Xiang Yueting’s sentiment, quietly replied with a single word.
[Group Chat]
Shen Xiu: Mm.
Xiang Yueting: …Shrimp and pork heart!
Song Chengwang: Hahahaha
Mu Zhenchu: Hahahaha
…
Looking at the stream of laughter and Xiang Yueting’s message ‘shrimp and pork heart’, Shen Xiu was momentarily confused.
What did laughing have to do with shrimp and pork heart? Why were they suddenly talking about food?
Baffled, Shen Xiu was about to type and ask—
But just then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the elevator doors open and a crowd of people stepping out.
Startled, he immediately locked his phone, started the car, and drove out of the underground garage.
At 9:30 PM, Shen Xiu returned home to Yulin Banxia.
Even after getting home, he was still hung up on what ‘shrimp and pork heart’ meant.
He opened the group chat, only to find over 99+ new messages had come in while he was driving. Instead of scrolling through them, he opened Baidu directly.
After reading the explanation, Shen Xiu: “…”
So it wasn’t a dish name—it was a homophone joke!
He felt so dumb. Really!
In that moment, Shen Xiu was genuinely grateful to the people who had exited the elevator earlier.
If he’d had time to send that confused message to the group, and everyone saw that he didn’t get the joke…
Just imagining it made him cringe with secondhand embarrassment.
No wonder he so often couldn’t follow what his friends were talking about.
No wonder he always felt out of sync with their humor.
Turns out… he was behind the times!
Determined not to fall behind again, Shen Xiu continued scrolling through Baidu, reading all the trending homophone jokes he hadn’t finished yet…
—
At midnight, a staff member who had earlier seen Shen Xiu leaving the cinema finally got off work and returned home.
Jiang Ling, who works part-time at the cinema during the day and streams casual chat content at night, opened her livestream room and set a photo she had taken of Shen Xiu’s back as he left the cinema as her stream’s background image.
Already in a good mood from seeing Shen Xiu in person that evening, Jiang Ling grew even more cheerful as fans flooded into the stream. She spoke into the mic, full of excitement:
“Welcome to my world, everyone!”
The fans who clicked into the late-night stream had only expected a chill chat session about work and daily life stories. But the moment they entered and saw that all-too-familiar back view in the background, they couldn’t believe their eyes and started spamming the comment feed:
[Shen Xiu?!]
[What?? A new photo of God Xiu? Who took this? Why haven’t I seen it online before?!]
[Even just his back gives off a completely different aura from anyone else. I’m not even a fan and I could recognize him—Shen Xiu is unreal. Even a random snapshot looks like a professionally shot movie poster.]
[Streamer, where did you take this?? Was it just now?? Why was Xiu-baby there, what was he doing?? Ahhh tell me quickly, I want to go have a chance encounter with Xiu-baby too!!]
Watching the stream of comments fly by, Jiang Ling picked out the ones she could catch and started replying:
“That’s right, it’s the one and only Boss Xiu!”
“Yes, it’s a brand-new photo—this is the first time it’s being posted online. It hasn’t been shared anywhere else before because I just took it today. You could say it’s fresh out of the oven—a newly baked Boss Xiu pic!”
“Right? Right?? My Boss Xiu is just that amazing. Even with his face completely covered, that background, that aura, that height—it’s practically impossible to mistake him for anyone else!”
“Boss Xiu went to the movies. The photo was taken a few hours ago, but I only posted it now because I was afraid too many people would rush over and cause a crowd. He’s probably already home by now.”
…
With a fresh Shen Xiu photo making the rounds, the Xiuologists, gossip-loving netizens, and even some moviegoers who’d just left theaters themselves began flooding into the stream.
As more people joined, haters inevitably followed.
They didn’t dare stir up trouble under Shen Xiu’s official Weibo, but in a small-time streamer’s room with only a few tens of thousands of followers? They had no fear.
Especially when Jiang Ling said she was stepping away to grab her food delivery, the comment section immediately turned chaotic.
[Tsk tsk, judging from the decorative mirror in the photo, it is clearly the exit of a movie theater. But it looks completely empty. Did Shen Xiu book out the entire place for himself? So he was the only one walking out after the movie ended?]
[What kind of trash talk is this? Get out.]
[Proof of box office manipulation? Shen Xiu’s been put on too high a pedestal—can’t handle reality so now it’s fake ticket sales to save face?]
[LMAO. Anyone who’s seen the trending topics or tried buying tickets knows Storm doesn’t need any fake box office boost.]
[Exactly! You frog in a well—get out and see the real world. After major theaters released Storm, every single showing has been sold out. Even the added screenings are nearly impossible to get into. I managed to grab tickets for Wednesday at 3 p.m.—wait, don’t I have class then?? Crap!!!]
[Girl, DM me—do we go to the same school? If yes, I’ll pay extra for your ticket!]
[You fans are so fake. Didn’t you notice the streamer went silent? Obviously, we hit the nail on the head and she doesn’t know how to respond.]
Jiang Ling came back with her takeout and had barely sat down in her chair when she saw the screen flooded with messages accusing Shen Xiu of “manipulating box office numbers.” She was instantly furious.
“What do you mean, booking out the whole theater? Faking the numbers? Don’t talk nonsense! Xiu-baby absolutely did not rent out an entire cinema just to inflate the box office for his first movie!”
“Just look at the time stamp on the photo I took—he clearly walked out right after the movie ended, without even the slightest hesitation! He was the first one out of the screening room!”
