Upon hearing Yan Qiao suggest calling the police, Quentin paused for a moment. He had almost forgotten. The police in China were different from those abroad. When you encounter bad people, call 110 for the police…this was a well known proverb that Chinese people heard from childhood.
But calling the police just based on a guess seemed like making a mountain out of a molehill. What if the person was just in a bad mood for a moment?
“The matter of calling the police can wait. Let’s understand the situation first.”
Quentin paused briefly. Thinking of the girl’s voice he had intermittently overheard during the phone call, he turned to look at Yan Qiao and asked for advice: “Generally speaking, how do you handle situations like this where a fan gets scammed buying tickets online?”
Although Quentin had held many concerts and participated in countless stage performances before, he did not have personal experience dealing with logistical matters like fans buying tickets.
Moreover, the scalper market abroad was very large and specialized. The “legalization of the secondary market” was also one of the biggest differences compared to domestically.
Platforms like StubHub, Vivid Seats, Viagogo, etc., were all legal and massive secondary ticket markets. Tickets for popular concerts had extremely exaggerated markups on these platforms, often several times or even dozens of times the original price.
Just the matter of tickets alone contained many twists and turns. These complex matters were naturally impossible for artists to handle personally.
Artists just needed to focus wholeheartedly on preparing their performances. The work of battling wits and courage with scalpers fell to the company.
Quentin had asked the right person. Yan Qiao indeed had a deep understanding of the scalper market. As a trainee once heavily cultivated by BKL, he had idolized several seniors from the company and also treated the idols on stage as targets to pursue and strive for.
Because of this, he was very familiar with matters of grabbing tickets and finding scalpers to buy tickets. After all, BKL would not leave concert tickets for trainees. For the concerts of seniors, the little trainees, as juniors in the same company, also had to buy tickets themselves.
He frowned subconsciously and hesitated: “This kind of problem… One can only take responsibility for oneself, right?”
The scalper market in China had long been a grey area. The authorities never advocated for it. When fans actively sought out scalpers to buy tickets, it meant this transaction was mutually consensual and had nothing to do with the official side.
Yan Qiao was not sure which side the “you” in Quentin’s words referred to. He thought for a moment and added: “First, confirm whether the other party was intentionally scamming, and whether the scam amount meets the standard for filing a case. If it was intentional fraud, you can search online to see if there are other victims like yourself. More people reporting to the police makes it more likely to be taken seriously, and the chance of recovering the ticket money is also greater…”
“But that girl probably doesn’t fall into this category, right?”
Quentin looked outside the door: “We’ll know by going and asking.”
Yan Qiao looked back and forth and coughed lightly: “You go, or I go?”
“…Of course we go together.” Quentin cast a look of trust. “But I’m not good at comforting people. You’ll take the lead later.”
“I…”
Yan Qiao did not have time to answer before he saw Quentin step forward, push open the glass door, and walk out holding the cardboard box.
He really wanted to say he was not good at comforting people either, but he did have some awareness of his own face. At least from his past limited social experience, dealing with girls was always easier than dealing with guys.
Probably because his looks were a favorable buff in girls’ eyes, but a crisis debuff in guys’ eyes.
While convincing himself internally, Yan Qiao followed Quentin.
The two did not bring the cardboard box with them. Not only was it heavy, but it could also easily lead people to mistake them for beverage sellers.
When Yan Qiao followed Quentin and stopped beside the girl who looked like a student, he was just about to open his mouth to greet her when he saw her turn her head to look over. Her dim, lifeless eyes suddenly froze the moment they landed on Quentin.
The next second, as if seeing some inconceivable scene, complex emotions like shock, bewilderment, confusion, and panic jumbled together on the girl’s face, just like a palette.
The key was, even though her emotions were this chaotic, she still could not suppress the amazement filling her eyes.
Yan Qiao suddenly realized. What social experience, what favorable buff? How could he forget that the person standing with him was Quentin?!
Before, when he stood with other guys, girls’ attention always landed on him first.
Now, standing with Quentin, there was no need to think. Quentin’s priority was definitely higher than his. Wasn’t it also because of Quentin’s looks that he himself had first noticed this green-eyed young man in the floral shirt?
The lethality of this face, in front of the opposite sex, especially idol-chasing girls, was absolutely a special attack, a sure-kill move…
Look, this little girl still had not even noticed him up to now.
Quentin, not good at comforting, faced the girl’s ever-changing expressions and was silent for two seconds: “…Are you okay?”
The girl came back to her senses: “You, you’re Quentin?!”
Quentin nodded. He lowered his gaze to the phone dangling precariously in her hand. He casually raised his hand, and gently nudged it with his index finger, pushing the phone back inside from beyond the railing.
“Careful, don’t drop it.”
The girl murmured: “Oh, mm… okay.”
Yan Qiao: “…”
Indeed not good at comforting people, but Quentin just needed to stand there, and it was already enough.
The girl struggled to pull herself away from the shock of facing a “god-like face” up close. Even though she had seen this face countless times online, the moment she actually met him in person, all her previous mental preparation and immunity completely collapsed.
…Not relying on makeup or styling, not depending on angles, not needing atmosphere. Just purely handsome.
It turned out looking at handsome guys really could improve one’s mood. At least now she could no longer muster the previous feelings of “the whole world is against me, I hate this world.”
“You… why are you here?” She asked quietly, putting on a straight face and pretending to be casual. “It’s already ten. Don’t you need to rehearse?”
Quentin also answered very naturally: “We just finished rehearsing. We came out to buy water. And you, what are you doing here?”
“I… nothing much.”
The girl’s tone was gloomy: “I originally came to see your public performance, but ended up getting stood up. The money was all spent for nothing…”
She had traveled 1500kms from her hometown to Yanhai. She rushed over overnight alone, suppressing the depression and unwillingness in her heart with anticipation and expectation.
Yet it seemed she was destined to be this unfortunate. Even a stranger online was against her.
After the call hung up, the emotions rebounding from the bottom of her heart were so gloomy it felt like they would swallow her whole…Why was life always so unhappy? The whole world was against her. And no one cared whether she was happy or not.
That online friend who had chatted pleasantly just yesterday did not know how much she needed this ticket, nor did she know how unhappy her life was.
Of course, even if she went to confide in that online friend, the other party would definitely just think she was playing the pity card and making up stories. After all, nowadays everyone complains endlessly about their family background. No one would be curious about the experiences behind someone as unremarkable as her.
When it came to playing the victim, she could not compare to those worse off. And when it came to staying strong and upward in adversity, she lacked such beautiful qualities.
Thinking this way, living really seemed quite meaningless.
Right now, she could not even muster the energy to pour out her troubles to the young man before her. Even she found it meaningless. He probably would not be interested either.
Actually, she also wanted to say a few more words to Quentin, but what should she say… She had actually been able to encounter Quentin by chance. Sigh, could this chance encounter have overdrawn all her luck for this lifetime? Since when was she such a lucky person?
The girl hesitated for a long time, then looked up at Quentin again. She asked tentatively, a bit embarrassed: “Um… could you give me an autograph?”
“…”
Honestly speaking, it was a bit unexpected.
Quentin had spent a long time organizing some words of comfort, almost to the point of asking the system to cheat online. In the end, they were completely unneeded. The young lady had no intention of using him as a tree hole.
He nodded and looked at the girl’s phone, then at her bag: “Sign where? Do you have a pen?”
“Ah, just, just sign on my phone case. Pen… I have a pen here. Is a highlighter okay?”
“It’s okay.”
Under the girl’s nervous and expectant gaze, Quentin skillfully wrote his signature, then handed the phone back.
He could see the happiness and reluctance in the girl’s eyes, so he took the initiative to ask: “Do you want a photo together?”
The girl’s eyes widened: “…Yes!”
Quentin turned his head to look at Yan Qiao, who had consciously been acting as an invisible person beside them: “Come join us.”
The girl also looked over and echoed: “Mm mm, come join.”
Yan Qiao: “…”
So calm. So this little girl had seen him all along?
“Click!”
The crisp sound of the shutter froze this selfie, taken with no regard for flattering angles, onto the screen. The girl holding the phone smiled with a somewhat unpracticed pursed-lip smile. The two young men in baseball caps standing behind her looked toward the lens together.
Yan Qiao watched her finish taking the photo. It was clear that this little girl’s state was countless times better than it had been just a few minutes ago.
Although the reason for her happiness had little to do with him, it still allowed him to breathe a sigh of relief internally.
“Is just an autograph and a photo enough?”
Yan Qiao glanced at the acrylic charm on the girl’s bag, the corner of his mouth curling up. Under the girl’s blank stare, he smiled lazily: “Isn’t that a chibi figure of Cheng Shaozhi on your bag? How about I help you ask Cheng Shaozhi for an autograph later?”
The girl: “…”
The girl silently adjusted the angle of her satchel: “No need…”
She quickly glanced at Quentin, then at Yan Qiao, and declared seriously: “Starting today, I am Quentin’s fan!”
“When your group debuts later, I can also be a fan of the whole group.” She emphasized. “This time I’ll like it for a long, long time!”
Although she was prone to getting interested and also prone to losing interest quickly, and her idol-chasing was always a three-minute passion. As long as the star could not provide her with positive emotional value, she would not hesitate to climb over the wall to the next one.
But this time seemed a little different. She felt that as long as she still had this group photo in her phone, she would always remember this day’s surprise that had consumed all her good luck.
She was so happy. The money was not spent in vain. She was not as unlucky and miserable as she had imagined herself to be.
“I’ll go now. You guys hurry back to rehearse.”
The girl retreated a few steps. Before turning around and running off, she firmly clenched her fist: “We’ll meet again in the future. Next time I will definitely snatch a ticket!”
“…”
Yan Qiao watched the girl’s retreating figure, raised his hand, and patted Quentin’s shoulder: “And you said you’re not good at comforting. How many words did you say just now? You directly ‘comforted’ someone else’s fan into shifting her affection. Impressive, impressive.”
Quentin acted as if he had not heard Yan Qiao’s teasing. His eyes stared straight ahead, seemingly watching the unfamiliar girl’s retreating figure, yet also appearing to just be lost in thought.
Just two minutes ago, the moment that group photo was taken, the system’s jubilant voice suddenly rang out in Quentin’s mind;
[Congratulations Host!! Unlocked a new progress bar!!!]
[Congratulations Host!! Main Character No. 4’s progress bar rose by 1%, 2%, 3%…]
[Wow Host, the progress bar of Main Character No.4 directly shot up to 20%!!!]
[Congratulations Host for unlocking the related plot of Main Character No. 4! Due to the Host’s excessively high unlocking efficiency, you may choose to view the plot now, or browse the plot through dreams!]
[Please make your choice~!]
