43: Chapter 43 An old photograph, a group photo of thirteen people.

11:30 PM.

The Chinese internet showed no signs of sleeping.

On the Douban K-pop gossip group, the view count for that post with a Seoul IP address broke two million within one minute.

The server suffered from unbearable lagging, and while the page kept refreshing, it remained stuck on the original poster's title: "Releasing this will get someone killed."

All the replies were urging them on.

[Original poster, don't be afraid! All of China's netizens will back you up!]

[If it's solid proof, just post it directly! If SM Entertainment dares to cross borders to deal with you, we'll flatten their official website!]

[Post it quickly! What on earth is it!]

[Hurry up and tell us! I'm about to become the King of Impatience!]

[I know you guys are impatient, but don't rush just yet—let me be impatient first.]

[...]

Aside from those desperate to know the truth, the fans who had previously attacked Su Chen also followed along.

[What could they possibly have? It's probably just some ancient data photoshopped to look like evidence.]

[Exactly, people actually believe such a simple scam. Remember your IDs—when you get old, I'll sell you health supplements.]

[Right now, neither Huang Zitao nor Zhang Yixing has ever mentioned a person named Su Chen, and that whole thing about Lu Han is just your delusion. I really don't know what you're still struggling for.]

[XO will always only have twelve people! Anyone claiming there are thirteen is a heretic!!!]

[Delusional disorder, diagnosis complete!]

[...]

Netizens descended into chaos once more.

The argument grew fiercely out of hand.

Douban's official website, already heavily overwhelmed, began lagging again.

This website was bearing a volume of traffic it was never meant to handle.

...

Seoul.

Inside a shabby rented apartment.

The computer screen emitted an eerie blue light.

A young girl sat in front of the computer, her hands tapping away at the keyboard. Standing behind her was an elderly Korean woman.

"Auntie, do we really have to post this?" the girl turned her head to ask in Korean.

The elderly woman's eyes were cloudy, yet they radiated stubborn resolve.

"Post it. That Chinese boy back then was the kindest Trainee I've ever seen. He helped me a lot around the company, and I watched him step by step climb to the position of ACE. But just because he was Chinese, the company threw him out like garbage, and now they even want to erase his name. Heavens are watching."

The girl nodded.

She clicked upload.

...

11:35 PM.

Douban's page suddenly refreshed successfully.

The main post updated with a massive block of text, along with a slowly loading image.

The text was an account written by the original poster, carrying a stiff machine-translated flavor, yet it captivated everyone's attention.

[Hello everyone. I am posting on behalf of my grandmother.]

[My grandmother used to be the cafeteria worker on the second floor of the SM Entertainment Trainee building. She worked there for twelve years and was fired five years ago.]

[After seeing the news from China today, grandmother asked me to release this.]

[That Chinese boy is named Su Chen. Grandmother doesn't understand what a C-position or debuting is. She only remembers that the boy trained the latest every day, ate the most, yet always shared the only two pork ribs in his bowl with the younger kids in his group.]

[The company's upper management destroyed all the training footage. But they forgot that the cafeteria didn't have surveillance cameras installed. They certainly never expected that an old cafeteria worker back then would use a second-hand Nokia to casually snap photos of these kids eating.]

[I have kept this evidence for him for five years.]

After reading this text, the gazes of all the netizens locked fiercely onto the photo below that had finally loaded.

The pixel count was very low, and the image quality was rough.

The picture carried the grainy texture unique to older cell phones, and the edges were slightly yellowish.

It was a somewhat crowded basement cafeteria.

Under the dim fluorescent lights stood a long stainless steel dining table.

Thirteen people.

Twelve un-debuted XO members, wearing gray training clothes soaked in sweat, sat clustered around both sides of the long table.

Right in the middle, at the head of the long table,

sat a man.

Even with the blurry quality, his profile with its extremely striking facial features remained as sharp as if chiseled by a blade.

His signature slightly curly locks clung to his forehead.

That was Su Chen.

Holding a pair of metal chopsticks, he was reaching across the table to place a piece of fried pork cutlet from his lunchbox into the bowl of a delicate-looking, bright-eyed boy sitting next to him.

That boy was Lu Han back then.

On the other side of Su Chen, a young Zhang Yixing was holding his bowl, watching the scene with a goofy grin.

Sitting opposite them, Huang Zitao had his mouth stuffed full and was reaching out to snatch the meat from Lu Han's bowl.

A full thirteen people.

None of the stage glamour, none of the hypocritical packaging under the spotlights.

Only sweat, exhaustion, and the profound brotherhood of flesh and blood huddling together for warmth in the dark.

This was not just a photograph.

This was the most authentic youth of twelve top idols and the spiritual pillar behind them.

Time seemed to freeze at that exact moment.

Tens of millions of people across the entire internet looking at this photo were instantly struck speechless.

...

Shanghai, e-sports room.

Wang Wenjian held a cup of water, staring at the photo on the screen.

He stared at it for a full half-minute.

"Thud."

He slammed the cup down heavily onto the desk.

Wang Wenjian's eyes turned red. Pointing at Su Chen on the screen, his voice grew hoarse: "Look at his eyes. He's looking at these juniors as if they were his own younger brothers. Is this fucking con artist a liar? Is this fucking bastard an amateur!"

...

Nu River, winding mountain road.

The Buick business van stopped by the roadside.

Yan Yu adjusted her phone screen to maximum brightness. She zoomed in on the photo, and zoomed in even further.

Her gaze swept across every young face in the photograph.

Thirteen people.

Not a single one missing.

Irrefutable evidence.

"Fuck!" Brother Cai sat in the driver's seat, slamming a fist hard against the steering wheel as tears streamed down his face. "Turns out they had it so rough back then. Turns out they were this close. Those bastards at SM Entertainment, how could they have the heart to cut him out!"

A-Li sat in the back seat, weeping uncontrollably.

...

Dali Buyu Inn.

The long-haired owner sat at the front desk, looking at the photo on his phone.

He raised his head to look at the wooden guitar with the broken string hanging on the wall.

"So that night, the scrapped song you sang was meant for them," the owner muttered to himself, picking up the bottle of strong liquor on the table and taking a large, fierce gulp.

...

The internet completely exploded.

If Lu Han's five-word Weibo post and Huang Zitao's black-screen WeChat request previously were still just hidden messages and wordplay,

then this photo was a physical-grade nuclear bomb!

It blew SM Entertainment's transnational statement straight into dust!

Those extreme fandom fans who had been clamoring that "there are only twelve people" and "our idols don't know him" had their faces thoroughly slapped swollen by this yellowish photo at that very moment.

Even they fell silent.

Because in the photo, the idols they worshipped every day were sitting obediently next to Su Chen, looking like a flock of fledgling chicks under the protection of an older brother.

[I cried out loud. This genuinely made me cry.]

[This imagery is far too lethal. God Su back then not only taught them Dancing, but also shared his only meat with them. He gave his entire heart to this group!]

[What does it mean that an elder brother is like a father? This is what it means! Why did the three returned sons never dare to deny him despite being cursed by the entire internet? Because without him, they wouldn't be where they are today!]

[Can a photo be faked?! With this pixel quality, this lighting, and these natural postures, an AI couldn't generate this even if it calculated for ten thousand years!]

[Where is Kim Young-min?! Where is the transnational statement?! Come out and take a walk! Come out and explain who this person sitting in the C-position and picking meat for Lu Han is!]

[Brutal. The company destroyed all high-definition footage, only to lose to a cafeteria auntie's second-hand Nokia. This fucking karma is real!]

[Heaven has eyes! The truth will never be erased!]

[Those haters claiming Su Chen was clout-chasing, get out here and kowtow!]

[...]

This post, like a hurricane, spread outward from Douban at an astonishing speed.

Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Baidu Tieba.

Every corner of the internet was reposting this group photo of the thirteen people.

Some people even added tragic background music to the photo, turning it into a short video that broke one million views within minutes.