Huayu 2014: From Traffic Stars to Superstars

Chapter 85 Star Rain

On May 29th, Beijing experienced a moderate rain.

The rain started in the early morning and pattered against the windowpane of Zhang Ruonan's apartment, continuing until nearly midnight.

The spire of the China World Trade Center Phase 3 was hidden in the gray-white rain curtain, as blurry as a sketch soaked with water.

Gao Huan is in Bangkok.

He was squatting down eating a boxed lunch under the shadow of shipping containers at an abandoned dock on the Mekong River.

A 37-degree hot wind blew across the river, creating fine ripples on the surface of the rice. He took a couple of bites and put down his chopsticks, having no appetite. He then unscrewed a bottle of ice water and gulped down most of it.

In the distance, Dante Lam was gesturing to the action director, but his voice was distorted by the heat and couldn't be heard clearly.

It was so hot that even the air felt sticky, clinging to the skin and impossible to shake off.

Yangyang Jin's news came around this time. She posted a screenshot of the real-time sales page for magazines on Maoyan Professional Edition, where numbers jumped around in a series of eye-catching positions.

She then typed a line with a string of exclamation marks: "Brother Huan! Over 100,000 copies sold in one hour! Sales exceeding 2.3 million! This is amazing!"

Gao Huan stared at the string of numbers, his mouth still full of the last mouthful of water, unable to swallow.

One hundred thousand copies, two million three hundred thousand.

He recalled that a month ago, when Yangyang Jin mentioned the cover of "Marie Claire" to him, she said: "A top-tier women's magazine with two people on the cover, you and Sister Lin together, will have a lot of exposure, but the sales are hard to say."

A double cover might not be well-received by fans, since it's not just you alone, and Sister Lin's fanbase isn't particularly strong; she's basically relying on you to carry the sales. What if you can't outsell Lu Han and the others?

At the time, he was leaning back on the sofa in the RV, flipping through the script of "Operation Mekong". Without even looking up, he said, "Sell as many as we can. It's not like I make a living from magazines."

Yangyang Jin pursed her lips at the time, and the unspoken half of what she said was probably, "You're not in a hurry, but I am."

But they really did give it to them.

One hundred thousand copies, in one hour—this isn't about "selling as many as you can," it's about lifting the ceiling and stepping on it.

He put his phone on his lap and ate a couple more bites of rice.

Yangyang Jin followed up with more news, this time with an unrestrained tone: "Lu Han's ELLE magazine only sold 10,000 copies in the first five hours of the year, while GQ's March issue sold 7,000 copies in one hour."

You are now killing ten times more.

"A tenfold kill, Huan Ge! Do you know what that means? You single-handedly broke the record set by the top stars in the Chinese entertainment industry!"

Gao Huan looked at the line of text, a slight smile playing on his lips, and replied with a single word: "Mm."

Yangyang Jin replied with a string of exclamation marks, followed by: "That's it? You should at least get excited and give me some feedback."

"I'm so excited."

He typed, then thought for a moment, deleted the word "very" and replaced it with "quite", then deleted it again, and finally sent only one word: "Okay".

Yangyang Jinfa sent a cat rolling its eyes emoji, followed by a line of small text: "Fine, whatever makes you happy. Anyway, the internet is already in an uproar, I'll keep an eye on it for you, you just focus on filming."

Gao Huan locked the screen, put his phone in his pocket, stood up, dusted off his pants, and walked back to the film set.

The Bangkok sun was so hot that his back felt burning. He squinted at the light and hummed something under his breath. The tune wasn't quite right, but it sounded like the intro to "Your Song".

The internet is absolutely in an uproar.

Douban's Group 8 was the first to erupt in discussion.

A post was pushed to the top of the homepage, and the poster's title was quite impressive: [Breaking News! Joy Star bought out Marie Claire magazine, and Lu Wei and Meigeni were all emotionally overwhelmed.]

The main post included a sales comparison chart. Next to Gao Huan's data, Lu Han's and Wu Yifan's data for the same period were highlighted in red. Lu Han's sales of ELLE exceeded 10,000 in five hours at the start of the year, and his sales of GQ March issue exceeded 7,000 in one hour. Wu Yifan's previous claim of "exceeding 10,000 in one minute" for Harper's Bazaar was also dug up and recalculated.

At the bottom is a screenshot of the June issue of Marie Claire, accompanied by the headline: "100,000 copies sold in one hour, sales exceeding 2.3 million. A killer deal."

Comments were scrolling by incredibly fast.

In the front row, Happy Stars are claiming their achievements: "Happy Stars forever! We are Happy Stars, and Gao Huan will always be Happy Stars!"

'

The row of people below corrected him, "Happy Star! Remember that! Brother Huan's star!"

Then someone chimed in: "Who cares? They're Gao Huan's fans anyway."

One hundred thousand copies, in just one hour—we never expected it to be so successful.

We were saying before that the double-issue cover might not sell well, but the ladies are all really determined to make it work.

One comment that went viral was: "I know some people will say it's fake sales" and "Pay-to-win fans are ignorant."

But I want to say that 100,000 people, one book each, totaling 2.3 million, this is a result of real money being poured in.

If you think this is fake, then have your brother try it too.

"If it weren't for our brother Huan strictly forbidding us from buying more than one book each, our grades would definitely be even better."

Soon, someone from the reeds came down to the field.

Lu Han's fans caused an uproar in the super topic. Some posted, "Don't argue at a time like this, it's beneath you." But others couldn't resist and went to Gao Huan's square to spread data: "Lu Han has set a Guinness World Record. In terms of popularity, national recognition, and casual audience, the real top star is judged by comprehensive influence. Magazine sales are only one dimension."

Huanlexing didn't argue with her in the comments section. Instead, she posted a screenshot of Maoyan's data with the caption: "Oh, and then?"

Then they continue to publish their battle reports, without responding, refuting, or explaining.

Megnie's reaction was even stronger.

Wu Yifan has just been officially announced as the cover star of the July issue of VOGUEC, becoming the first Chinese male star to grace the cover of VOGUEC. Fans are currently in a state of excitement, exclaiming, "Wu Yifan is so amazing!"

The press release that was originally posted in the square saying "Gao Huan and Lu Han can't even get close to the VC threshold" turned into a battle report from Marie Claire. It felt like someone had poured a bucket of lukewarm water over your head—not hot, but disgusting.

Meghan's biggest fans couldn't sit still any longer. They posted a long article in the supertopic, with relatively restrained wording, but the sourness was palpable even through the screen: "VC is the number one fashion magazine. What is Gao Huan's double cover in Marie Claire? Two people sharing a magazine's pages, no matter how much they sell, it's still sales for both of them. How dare he boast about carrying the show alone?"

Less than ten minutes after the message was sent, someone from Happy Star replied with a picture of the cover of the June issue of "Marie Claire".

Li Linlin occupies the left half, and Gao Huan occupies the right half, each on its own page, with even the page numbers separated.

The caption read: "Double cover, single cover, sales are calculated separately. If you don't understand, you can look it up first."

Megni was quite taken aback by this remark, and then turned around to list Wu Yifan's "achievements":

Front row seat at fashion week shows, global ambassador for a high-end luxury brand, collaboration project with an international director, and fluent English interview segments.

It filled the entire screen, creating a very impressive display, but someone commented below, "So how many copies of his magazine can he sell?"

No one replied.

Silence itself is an answer.

Fans from both sides chatted back and forth in the square for the entire afternoon.

Reed and Megney, unusually, stood on the same side—both questioning the purchasing power of Joy Star.

Some people said, "What's so great about boosting sales figures?" Others said, "The magazine must have stockpiled a lot of inventory for fans to rush to buy." Still others said, "Gao Huan's fans are just a bunch of money-spending fans who have been tortured by others and have never seen anything like this before."

Huanlexing didn't really get involved in the online battles; they focused on building up data and posting order screenshots. Occasionally, someone would reply, "100,000 real people, one book per person, and you're saying this is fake? Then let your brother fake one and see?" The tone wasn't harsh, but the certainty in their voice was more hurtful than any profanity.

Zhang Yixing's fans, "Beike" and "Xingmi," didn't participate much throughout the event.

Zhang Yixing and Gao Huan had a good relationship on "Go Fighting!" In the first episode, Gao Huan didn't kill him during the hunting battle, and in the second episode, when they were fighting for the key, Zhang Yixing voluntarily shared one with Gao Huan.

The two interacted frequently on the show, and later fans edited their interactions into a "Xinghuan Brothers" CP-style video, which garnered a considerable number of views.

There's no real conflict between Xingmi and Huanlexing. Someone even posted in Gao Huan's supertopic saying, "Xing-gege is such a nice person, and your fans are so nice too," and Huanlexing replied with a row of "thank you," their tone as gentle as if they were just visiting each other.

At 6 PM, a Weibo post went viral.

A random blogger posted a screenshot with a brief caption: "Let me show you what true top-tier popularity looks like. Pay attention to the comments section."

The screenshot is the pinned cover photo under the official Weibo account of "Marie Claire," which already has over three million comments.

The top-ranked comment at the front of the page was a long post written by a fan with the ID "Xinghe Weihuan": "I fell in love with Gao Huan in the fall of 2014. At that time, 'Gu Jian Qi Tan' had just started airing, and I had just started university. Four of us were crammed into one dormitory room."

After the lights were turned off at night, I was lying on my bed watching a drama on my phone. When Baili Tusu appeared, I sat up straight in bed, startling my roommate on the lower bunk.

I asked, "Who is this?" She said, "I don't know, search it yourself."

I searched online and read all the information I could find that night. Then I went to his supertopic and joined his fan group. There weren't many girls in the group back then. We discussed what to call our fan group. Some people said "Carnival," some said "Joy," and finally I said "Happy Star." He's a star in the sky, and we're the people on earth watching over him.

"And then what? Later I watched him go from 'Ancient Sword' to 'The Coffin in the Mountain' to 'The Left Ear' to the Spring Festival Gala."

You may not know that when he filmed "The Coffin in the Mountain," the budget was 1.7 million yuan, but the box office was 600 million yuan. But I do know that it was because he invested his own money in that 1.7 million yuan. He gambled all his personal savings.

You may not know that he practiced until dark every day during the training for "Brotherhood of Blades", but I do know because someone filmed him practicing his sword after work.

You may not know that he spent nearly two months learning Thai and practicing sign language in Bangkok for the film "Operation Mekong," but I do know that he once casually mentioned in a live stream that he was learning sign language, and his fans were all wondering why he was learning it.

Later, he released "Your Song," and I listened to the line "The world keeps changing, and people keep flowing" for an entire night.

"I bought a copy of 'Marie Claire' today; I originally wanted to buy three."

"I'm not bragging about sales figures, and I don't care about being a top influencer or not."

I just want to say that liking him is something that makes me proud.

You might think that following celebrities is a waste of time, but for me, he was the brightest star in my youth.

He deserves it.

That evening, the comment received over 100,000 likes and was shared over 50,000 times, followed by tens of thousands of replies.

Some people said, "I cried," some said, "Don't cry, sister, that's when I started liking him too," and some said, "So you came up with the name 'Happy Star,' thank you."

Gao Huan was sitting on the sofa in his hotel room when he saw this comment.

In Bangkok at dusk, with the curtains open, the setting sun streamed in through the window, bathing the room in a warm orange hue.

He held his phone up to his face, the screen's light reflecting off his face and making his beauty mark stand out clearly.

He read the entire comment, word by word.

When he saw the sentence, "He is a star in the sky, and we are the people on the ground watching over him," he blinked, but quickly returned to normal.

He didn't reply. He just gave it a like.

Just one like, no text, no emoji.

Less than two minutes later, the comment section exploded again.

Someone in the supertopic posted a screenshot of the like and captioned it: "Brother Huan liked it! He saw the comment 'Starry River for Joy'!" In an instant, thousands of replies flooded in. Some people posted a series of crying emojis, some said, "I cried. I wasn't crying at first, but I cried when I saw Brother Huan like it," some said, "It's good that he saw it, it's good that he saw it," and some said nothing but posted a row of exclamation marks.

The fan named "Xinghe Weihuan" posted a message on his Weibo account with only one line: "He liked it, I'm so happy."

Liu Haocun sat on her dormitory bed, the light from her phone screen reflecting on her face.

She didn't cry, but her eyes were wet. She remembered when she suggested the name "Happy Star" in the fan group that year. There were only a few dozen people in the group, and everyone discussed it all night before finally deciding on this name.

Back then, no one could have imagined that two years later, her name would be written into a song by the person she liked, and would be seen by everyone in the sales report of "Marie Claire".

She pressed her phone to her chest and took a deep breath. She had an early class tomorrow, but she probably wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.

BJ, East Fourth Ring Road.

Zhang Ruonan sat at the desk in the living room, with an open copy of "Marie Claire" magazine in front of her. She turned to the page with Gao Huan. In the cover photo, he was wearing only a dark suit jacket, his hair was combed back, his jawline was sharp, and his eyes were calm and determined.

She stared at it for a long time, then gently touched the face on the cover with her finger before pulling her hand back as if she had been burned.

She opened her phone, scrolled to the comment "Starry Night for Joy," read it once, then read it again, and finally gave it a like.

She didn't comment, but only forwarded the screenshot that Gao Huan had liked, adding the caption: "Waiting for the day when I can stand in front of him too."

Hengdian.

Naza had just finished work and was sitting on the sofa in the RV, her makeup still on, holding her phone in her hand.

She saw the comment and the like.

She stared at the like for a long time, then smiled. There was an indescribable emotion in that smile—a little jealousy, a little sourness, and a hint of regret.

She remembered that Gao Huan had shown her the layout of Marie Claire magazine in the RV that day, saying, "This cover should be pretty good." She replied, "More than just good," and he just smiled without saying anything.

Now she knows that behind that "not bad" was 100,000 copies of the magazine that were sold out in an hour, the comment among millions of comments that made her eyes well up with tears, and the like he gave without saying anything.

She locked the screen, placed her phone on her lap, and looked out the car window at the night view of Hengdian. She thought to herself, he probably doesn't know how worthwhile I am.

In an apartment building in Beijing.

Meng Ziyi nestled on the sofa, hugging a cushion, her phone resting on her lap, the screen displaying the comment page.

She wasn't just a fan, but she read the long post and remained silent for a long time afterward.

She remembered waiting for him inside that gift box in Bangkok, crouching there, feeling stuffy, anxious, yet full of anticipation.

At that time, she asked herself what her place was in his heart.

Now she has the answer—not first, but not forgotten either.

She sent Gao Huan a message: "I saw you liked it. That comment was really well written."

After sending the message, she didn't wait for his reply. She put her phone aside and continued watching TV, but the corners of her mouth remained turned up.

Bangkok.

Gao Huan put his phone on the coffee table, stood up, and walked to the window. The Bangkok night breeze blew in through the cracks in the window, carrying the moisture from the Mekong River and the lingering smell of gunpowder.

He stood there for a moment, then took out his phone, opened WeChat, and found Yangyang Jin's chat window: "Help me arrange a meeting with 'Xinghe Weihuan,' I want to meet her."

Yangyang Jin replied quickly: "Time and place?"

"After I go back to China next month, either Beijing or Shanghai is fine. You can arrange it."

"Okay, I'll contact them."

Gao Huan locked the screen, put the phone in his pocket, and turned to walk back to his room.

There's another rain scene tomorrow. Dante Lam said he'll be filming a long take in artificial rain, which will be quite challenging, so he needs to conserve his energy.

Before turning off the lights, he glanced out the window.

He couldn't see many stars in the Bangkok night sky, but he knew that somewhere far away, people were holding up his light boards, posting on his social media, listening to his songs, and waiting for his next move.

Not everyone can become a star.

But they were willing to be his stars.