Part 3
The classmate stammered, “Uh-huh,” his face slightly red, directly handing him his phone.
The classmate’s comforting voice was still audible, but Berlin was happy.
Because this meant that the people online who liked him didn’t like him for no reason; they genuinely thought so.
The existence of negative comments validated the authenticity of the positive ones.
He didn’t enter the entertainment industry because of the people who disliked him, but because these negative comments proved that the people who liked him online did so genuinely.
So everything changed, and yet it didn’t.
In real life, the people who saw Berlin still had unusually high affinity for him without exception.
But online, people who disliked him also appeared, albeit in a small percentage.
What solidified Berlin’s decision was the day he first met his future teammates.
The company decided to launch a boy group called Skye, informing him that there would be five members in total.
Upon first seeing his teammates, Berlin was first amazed by their exceptional appearances, then slightly stunned by their affinity levels.
His teammates greeted him politely but distantly.
Blond and tanned Wu Hengyao: “Hi.”
Affinity: [30]
Hua Yan, with his shoulder-length black hair and alluring features, looked him over appraisingly: “You’re our new teammate?”
Affinity: [25]
Jiang Shuran, with his melodious voice and gentle eyes: “Hello. We’re teammates now.”
Affinity: [40]
Han Yuzhe, lazily leaning against the sofa, his long legs stretched out: “Yo.”
Affinity: [50]
This was the first time Berlin had encountered someone with a normal affinity level since he could see affinity numbers. He stared at the numbers above the four people’s heads for a moment, lost in thought, until their manager patted his shoulder questioningly, urging him, “Xiaolin, what are you thinking about?” Only then did Berlin snap back to reality.
His teammates didn’t understand why his eyes suddenly brightened, nor why his smile seemed so much happier as he looked at them.
Only Berlin himself knew that at this moment, a stone that had been weighing heavily on his heart finally seemed to have settled.
This was precisely why, even though his teammates hadn’t been particularly welcoming initially, Berlin didn’t mind getting along with them and trying to make friends.
He saw a good sign and also wanted to understand why the initial affinity values of his four teammates seemed unaffected and within the normal range.
Berlin initially couldn’t understand because he had witnessed firsthand how the company’s warning about a stalker, when they met him offline, suddenly increased their affinity.
This was his most famous and long-standing hater, who dared to show her face—albeit masked—on a short-video platform, declaring she would go offline to scold him in person and give him a piece of her mind.
The company had warned him well, and so Berlin remembered her appearance.
The hater said she would come, and she did.
Fans at the scene also recognized her and watched her vigilantly, anxiously afraid that she would do something harmful to Berlin.
But upon seeing Berlin in person…she actually blushed.
Berlin wasn’t sure what he was thinking at the time. He just looked back at the affinity numbers above his teammates’ heads, feeling much more reassured.
He still had normal people around him whose affinity levels were not affected.
But…
Two years passed, and Berlin still didn’t understand why, without doing anything special, his teammates’ affinity levels all rose to 99.
The only thing he was sure of was that his teammates’ affinity hadn’t spiked suddenly but had risen gradually over two years.
When he noticed that his teammates’ affinity exceeded 75, Berlin realized something was wrong and consciously maintained a suitable distance from them, but he couldn’t stop the affinity from continuing to rise.
Unknowingly, more passersby gathered near the beach on Heart Island.
Hua Yan remained motionless.
After an unknown amount of time, he slowly walked towards Berlin.
The staff were unloading props from a van, temporarily stacking them in one place.
The parasol and the cardboard boxes were two meters apart. Berlin, who was still nervously watching Hua Yan, clearly saw that Hua Yan, using the visual blind spots created by the objects, moved like a ghost in the shadows.
One second he was under the parasol; the next, he was behind the high stack of cardboard boxes.
He covered the distance of several meters to Berlin in only three steps.
He clearly hadn’t completely lost his mind, carefully avoiding the gazes of the crowd with each step, taking advantage of blind spots in their vision. The onlookers couldn’t see clearly and only thought Hua Yan was moving quickly, not noticing anything amiss.
The surveillance equipment wasn’t something Hua Yan worried about. As long as he didn’t harm anyone, the Supernatural Management Bureau would erase any evidence of his actions; even if someone saw it, it wouldn’t matter.
Humans naturally possess their own “safety logic,” finding reasons and excuses for unnatural phenomena before fully confirming anything.
“My eyes must have played tricks on me,” “I didn’t sleep well last night,” “Too much stress,” “I was distracted.”
Any existence that couldn’t be scientifically explained was subconsciously disbelieved; Hua Yan thought this was a unique characteristic of the weak, a subconscious self-preservation mechanism.
If it’s not believed, it doesn’t exist; if it doesn’t exist, there are no negative effects; there’s no need for fear or panic, allowing for a calm and peaceful life.
On the one hand, Hua Yan found the human way of self-deception amusing; on the other, he felt it was a powerful form of psychological resilience.
It coincided with the primary principle of the Supernatural Management Bureau—to erase all evidence of their existence so ordinary people could live more simply and peacefully.
There was nothing inherently wrong with that.
Of course, erasing all evidence wasn’t simple or easy, but Hua Yan and the Bureau weren’t on the same side, making it difficult for him to empathize. It could even be said that the more trouble he could cause them, the happier he was.
The sky had cleared, and many tourists had gathered near the beach. The staff roped off a small work area to avoid interruptions during filming, but many people still sat on the coastal steps, curiously watching Skye.
The distance wasn’t too close or too far. You couldn’t see clearly with the naked eye, and while you could barely make out who it was with a zoomed-in phone camera, the image quality was very low, like nearsighted vision; the photos were blurry.
Fans consciously kept their distance, but passersby didn’t think much of it, simply viewing the artists’ filming as a novelty. People inherently have a tendency to gossip and watch the excitement; casual conversations were normal.
“Hey, is that Hua Yan in the red shirt?”
“I think so. My colleague is a fan of Skye; their phone wallpaper is him.”
“When did he end up with Berlin? They look pretty close; they’re not filming right now, and they’re talking so closely. I thought that in groups with competition among members, there would be a bit of a strained relationship in private.”
“No, haha. Who told you that? From what I understand, many groups have really close relationships, developing a family-like bond. After all, they eat, live, train, and work together all year round; it’s hard not to develop some feelings…Oh my god, you didn’t say anything, and I didn’t notice, what are those two doing!! From my angle, they’re practically touching each other, are they whispering?”
Passersby who were chatting idly zoomed in on the scene with their phones. The new phones had high-resolution cameras, so they could finally see a little—her eyes widened in shock as she frantically patted her friend’s arm: “Whoa, this is interesting.”
Her friend leaned over, her eyes widening in excitement; she wasn’t a Skye fan but was quite interested in watching.
The camera helped them see the small interaction.
They were filming a beverage commercial, something that the people on the scene had already noticed. They both had a bottle in their hands, but Hua Yan’s seemed to have spilled unexpectedly, the red juice staining his hand.
A staff member walking past Hua Yan noticed it, took out a pack of tissues from their pocket and went over, clearly intending to give them to Hua Yan. But before the staff member reached Hua Yan, Berlin took the tissues first, seemingly waving to the staff member from afar to indicate it was alright, then used a tissue to wipe Hua Yan’s hand, and even took off Hua Yan’s sunglasses and put them on for him.
“The staff member very self-consciously went away haha, not wanting to disturb.”
“Helping wipe the juice and putting on the sunglasses, so sweet, haha, it reminds me of some happy moments from my time chasing after boy bands…”