Backing Him Up

There's so much going on beneath the surface of this chapter. The central theme is visibility - who gets to be seen and who gets to look away. He Zheng has spent eight years being invisible to the industry, treated as a tool rather than a person. The internet mob wants to make him even more visible, but only as a target. The Top Supporter makes him visible in a completely different way - not as entertainment or gossip, but as someone worth defending. The hair dryer gift is symbolic too - it's not just a flashy present, it's a shield, something that literally blocks the toxic comments from reaching him. And the surveillance footage He Zheng promises to post? That's about truth versus narrative. Huang Chen constructed a story - the bullied actor, the diva extra - and the internet believed it because it was convenient. The footage will reveal what actually happened. There's also the theme of performance - He Zheng is an actor by profession, but the livestream is where he's most authentic. Meanwhile, Huang Chen is acting - performing victimhood for his fans. The birthday scene adds another layer: the Top Supporter's simple cake and unlit candle represent his emotional starvation, while He Zheng's presence becomes the light. And that final image of the Top Supporter smoking because he's nervous? It humanizes him completely. This isn't a fantasy power fantasy; it's about two imperfect people trying to connect across distance and screens.

Let me just say this: the pacing in these first seven chapters is masterful and I'm not okay. The author doesn't rush anything. He Zheng arrives at the apartment, opens windows, checks the fridge, lights a cigarette—and it could have been filler. But it isn't. Every mundane action is loaded with the weight of eight years of absence. The rotten meat, the spoiled eggs, the tofu riddled with parasite holes—this isn't description for description's sake. It's the physical manifestation of a life that stopped being maintained the moment someone left. Then the livestream scene hits and the pace shifts entirely. It's almost comedic at first—the zero viewers, the beauty filter debate, the guy asking about his nose. But then DirtyBallMommy appears and everything tilts. The gifting spree, the WeChat request, the voice call with the heavy breathing—that's where the tension actually starts building. And the author doesn't resolve it. He just... lets it hang there while He Zheng goes to sleep. Next morning, rain, garbage bags, Aunt Wang, Xiao Wei. Back to slow. Back to quiet. Then the audition scene comes in like a slap—sharp, cold, humiliating. The director's dialogue is so efficiently cruel that you forget to breathe. And the chapter ends with He Zheng accepting a background role and his agent offering dinner, which he declines because he has to stream. The pacing here is doing something really smart: it's making you feel the exhaustion. The story isn't rushing toward drama. It's letting the drama accumulate in the spaces between words.

There's this recurring motif in the text that I can't stop thinking about—bodies giving pieces of themselves away. He Zheng's hair becomes a bracelet. His palm gets pinched to prove reality isn't a dream. His voice carries on a livestream to people who don't know him. The whole story seems obsessed with the idea that connection requires sacrifice, however small. The hair bracelet specifically is loaded with meaning. In Chinese culture, hair has always been tied to identity and intimacy—cutting it was a dramatic act, and weaving it into something wearable is almost ritualistic. He Zheng isn't just giving Wei Zhenye a gift; he's binding himself to someone in the most literal way possible. And that red string? Red is the color of marriage and fate in Chinese tradition. The salesgirl weaving it with "lightning speed—one loop took shape, then the second was done" makes it feel almost fateful, like the universe is tying knots faster than either of them can process. Then there's the contrast with Wei Zhenye's world—business dinners, lazy Susans spinning plates away from people who have no voice, investors who treat human beings as line items. The story keeps juxtaposing these two worlds: the cold, transactional space where He Zheng has no power, and the intimate, almost sacred space where he chooses to give something of himself freely. The livestream sequence adds another layer—He Zheng performing vulnerability for an audience of strangers while his most real moment (the text to Wei Zhenye) becomes public by accident. The author seems to be asking: where does authenticity live in a world that commodifies everything? Even Wei Zhenye's forearm—"taut with muscle, veins visible—powerful but not exaggerated"—when he kicks open that door, is described almost like a symbol of protection entering the frame. Not a hero, just a man who refuses to let someone he cares about be humiliated.

Okay so this whole Xiao Wei thing is quietly devastating and I need to talk about it. He Zheng literally found the guy in a garbage bin eight years ago—eight years—and he can't even remember his face or voice anymore. That line hit me like a truck: "Someone like that once existed in the first half of your twentieth year." That's not just nostalgia, that's grief dressed up as casual observation. He Zheng doesn't cry about it. He just... notes it. Like a fact. And that's somehow worse. Then there's the Top Supporter. This guy spends a fortune just to get added on WeChat, sends hair dryers like he's trying to fill a void, and when He Zheng calls him, all he can do is breathe heavily. The bamboo tattoo, the restricted Moments, the fact that he says "Laser rain" like it's a normal thing—this person is clearly hiding something, or someone. And He Zheng, who should know better than to trust anyone who opens their wallet this wide, just... goes along with it. Not because he's naive, but because he's tired. He's twenty-eight and already done with pretending he has options. The dynamic between them feels like two people who've both been discarded by the world and are now circling each other cautiously. Neither one is safe. Neither one is whole. And I'm already obsessed with where this is going.

The dialogue in this chapter is absolutely fire. Let me just start with He Zheng's line to the trolls: "Who else in your family's still alive? I'm running out of ideas." That's not just a comeback, that's art. He Zheng's voice is so distinct - he can go from deadpan indifference to razor-sharp wit in a single sentence. And the Top Supporter's dialogue is equally memorable. "What kind of dumbass is Huang Chen." Simple, direct, and coming from someone who's usually so composed. The way he types in brackets in the chat versus speaking in his normal voice on the call - it creates this interesting duality. His WeChat messages are efficient and commanding, but his actual voice on the phone is softer, more vulnerable. "I was waiting for you. Can't finish it alone." That line about the birthday cake hit me so hard because it's the Top Supporter's way of saying I wanted you to be part of this. And the back-and-forth about cursing - "Dickhead, Dickhead, Dickhead?" with He Zheng laughing until his chest trembles - it's playful, intimate, and completely natural. The author never lets the dialogue feel staged or forced. Even the director's voice on the phone has a distinct personality - the forced politeness, the simmering anger, the quick retreat when money is mentioned. Every character sounds like themselves.

The stakes in this story are deceptively simple on the surface—it's about two guys who loved each other and missed their chance—but the author layers them so carefully that by the time Wei Zhenye is running through Beijing traffic, you're absolutely convinced that something terrible will happen if he doesn't make it. What does He Zheng stand to lose? Eight years of pretending he doesn't care, a carefully constructed career, the illusion that he's fine on his own. What does Wei Zhenye stand to lose? Everything. Eight years of building a new identity, a company, a life—all of it meaningless if He Zheng rejects him again. The letters were his vulnerability, and He Zheng never opened them. Now he's standing at the door in a ill-fitting suit, having run three kilometers through rush hour, and he can't even take another step. The internal conflict is what kills me though. Wei Zhenye's entire motivation is captured in this passage: "He didn't want to see He Zheng forever pushed to the edges of group photos... He Zheng was proud—his life shouldn't have to be so small." He left because he was powerless. He came back because he finally wasn't. But power doesn't erase eight years of rejection. And He Zheng's conflict—his silence was his rejection, but it was also his protection. He was avoiding Xiao Wei's feelings because he couldn't bear to face his own. The moment he reads those letters and realizes what he's done, the guilt and the love collide, and that's when he sends the message: I'll ask one more time. Where are you now? The tension never drops. Not during the investigation, not during the truth or dare game, not during the run, not during the embrace. It only transforms—from anxiety to relief to something quieter and more dangerous: the fear that this time, they might actually be okay.