That evening, Ioan had a mission. He had to take a photo with Julien.
Ioan had justified himself: "The assistants in the company demanded it, it has nothing to do with me."
He was planning to use that as an excuse to take a family photo with his brother. With the Julien's panda pajama, their family of two was definitely a cute one.
He found Julien in the dining room and looked at him expectantly: "Little One, later can we take a picture together and post it on the Internet? My workmates are looking forward to it."
Julien placed his thumb and forefinger at the base of a wine glass and started swirling. Then he raised an eyebrow: "How popular are you on Weibo?"
Ioan choked on Julien's words and a bit of turmoil churned in his heart: "I had around one million followers."
Julien didn't mind, especially since it was for planting a seed of doubt to take root in people's hearts: "Okay, tag my account along with it."
He finally tasted the rich and powerful 'California Cabernet'. Swirling caused alcohol to evaporate which delivered the aroma compounds in wine to his nose. Julien found blackberry, cedar and vanilla - all at the same time. Large part of his wine enjoyment was in the ability to smell it.
Soon, the family photo was posted. A handsome alpha, a beautiful omega. The photo immediately attracted the attention of countless people.
[Drooling On You: Who is this omega?]
[Cuddly Wuddly: Oh my god! What species is that omega? I've never seen one like that before! Isn't he cute?]
[Wake Awake: He looks like the pet of a rich tyrant!]
[Not Funny At All: Isn't that profile of that omega with post-debut scandals?]
Nothing too outrageous had come out yet, but this was only the beginning. Julien knew the entertainment circle's methods and changes all too well.
He logged onto his Weibo.
He hadn't been active on Weibo for the past few days, but his ancount had broken through the ten thousands because of rumors.
He made a post saying that he was going to have a livestream. He picked a streaming site with relatively high user traffic and opened up a room. When he was satisfied with the number, he started his stream.
Julien sat in front of the computer and greeted the audience: "Hello, everyone. Can you guys see me?"
Just as he finished, the person from downstairs started to act:
"Big Brother gave a sports car x1."
"Big Brother gave a mansion x1."
"Big Brother gave a yacht x1."
This wasn't just once, but ten times each. Suddenly, the reward information bar was entirely filled with news about 'Big Brother'.
Julien explained to the audience: "It's just my brother messing around. Big brother, don't fuss."
Ioan's hands shook. He was exposed. He immediately exited the livestream room to change the account.
The people in the livestream room weren't very many, but coupled with the traffic brought by the website itself and gifts from Ioan, there were more than three thousand immediate clicks and more than ten hundred people online watching. For a new streamer, this was a pretty good number already.
Julien picked up an old guitar. Thankfully, he knew how to play a few basic chords. He took a gulp of water to moisten his throat and winked to the camera: "Actually it's a children's lullaby song for all the 'babies' here."
As he started singing, he had a slight smile on his face and his instrument-like vocal cords vibrated with ease:
Let me softly tell you a bedtime story
Once upon a time, there was a long haired princess
She secretly fell in love with a frog
The frog sang for her every day
Both the king and queen disapproved of him
But the princess said 'he is my lover'
She can't say goodbye to him like that
Who would know that the little frog became a prince
And ran away from the palace with the princess
They eloped to a place where no one distrubed them
In the parts without lyrics, he was just humming lowly as he pleased. The entire livestream room fell into a brief silence. His voice almost perfectly blended with the sound of the guitar as he continued lightly singing:
From then on, two people happily lived together
This is a fairy tale about him and her
Next time I will tell you another bedtime story
The moon is sleepy tonight
And it's whispering 'goodnight' to you
Shortly after that without waiting for audience reaction, he ended the livestream.
Putting down his mouse, Julien started to twirl a pen around his fingers.
Twirling pen was one of his nervous ticks when he was focused on something. In accordance to Julien's wishes, the major forums and social media platforms didn't get overly involved, and there was just a wave of praise for his singing skills.
He was waiting for the protagonist to make his next move.
He knew perfectly well who was behind it from the very beginning.
He was already thinking about how he should deal with him. He was trying to provoke a reaction.
He had promised to protect Ioan, and he would do it thoroughly. He didn't want him to be swept up in any unnecessary drama.
When he was a kid he believed that people become stars when they die. Even after arriving in this world, he still looked up at the stars to search for his loved ones. It was no longer the same world. His parents naturally couldn't see him anymore. But once they were stars, you can spend years and years together... hundreds... thousands. If anything could take the sting out of saying goodbye, that was it, even if the people who love him weren't in the same sky, they were still together every night.
The love that Ioan had for him brought him an unfamiliar warmth. He also wasn't all alone anymore and he had never been so confident as he is now.