Fang Juexia felt as though his mother were sitting right before him, in that familiar chair.
The door that had never been knocked upon collapsed in an instant.
There was no sound on the other end of the line. Fang Juexia began to regret it—perhaps he shouldn’t have laid everything out so bluntly. At the very least, he should have waited until he was home, by her side. He had only been honest, but how long would it take his mother to truly accept this? How would she sleep tonight?
“Mom…” Fang Juexia called again.
A sound finally came from the other end—a sigh, devoid of strength.
“I understand,” Mrs. Fang forced herself to say, putting on a brave face as she had done for so many years. Pretending had become part of her life. Even when they were truly abandoned, she had to raise her son alone. Yet she never showed her pain in front of Fang Juexia. She was always smiling.
But at this moment, learning of the harm her husband had inflicted on their son, her tears finally broke through. “It’s my fault, Juexia. I’m sorry, son.”
Hearing his mother cry made Fang Juexia even more distressed. “No, Mom, you’re the best mother in the world. You haven’t done anything wrong. I just… didn’t want someone else to force this news upon you.”
“I know. Don’t worry about me.” Fang’s mother fought back her tears. “I understand now. Remember, you will always be the most important person to me. No matter what happens, you must protect yourself. I’m getting old and no longer able to shield you.”
Fang Juexia clutched his phone and slid down the wall to crouch. He’d never been one to express affection easily. The closer he got to home, the more anxious he felt—the more he cared, the harder it became to speak.
Pei Tingsong crouched beside him, gently stroking his hair.
“I love you, Mom.”
“You still have me.”
He finally spoke, sobbing like a child.
“In the future… wait for me to come home, okay?”
Pei Tingsong watched it all unfold. His love for him made him feel as if he were experiencing it himself. He didn’t understand maternal love, nor did he understand paternal love. He had read countless literary works celebrating these bonds, understood the natural dependence on the mother figure during human development, but to him, these were merely recorded words and subjects for contemplation.
But Fang Juexia, whom he cherished most, fought so fiercely to protect his family bonds.
This resonated with him more profoundly than any written word.
After a sleepless night, everyone sprang into action. This was a tough battle to fight. The father’s misconduct was undeniable—he was the very type of addict netizens despised most, making him an easy target for widespread condemnation. They had to stay on high alert.
Fang Juexia even retrieved the steel rod he’d deliberately kept aside, intending it as one piece of evidence.
“But…” Cheng Qiang voiced a faint concern, “isn’t this insufficient proof that his father abandoned his wife and child?”
This was precisely Fang Juexia’s concern.
But what he hadn’t anticipated was receiving an email from his mother at 5:30 a.m.
[Juexia, Mom has thought long and hard and understands the gravity of this situation. It’s true—all these years I’ve been deceiving myself. But you will always be the one I love most, the child I must protect no matter what. These are the medical records from when I was hospitalized after being beaten back then, the paperwork and proof I gathered over the years for the missing person report, the accounts I settled after he took all the family debts, and the photos documenting the injuries—yours and mine. I had hoped to show them to him once he came to his senses, but now it seems we won’t get that chance.
I don’t need you to be strong. I just want you to come home safe and happy.
Fang Juexia sat before his laptop, opening each attachment his mother had sent. Memories of the past surged back in an instant. He felt dissociated—his body was in agony, yet his soul remained calmly analyzing.
He even pointed at the blood-soaked wound in the photo and said to Pei Tingsong, “Look at this. I remember I was only as tall as this table back then. I hid in the corner. After he left, I pulled Mom up, wanting to take her to get medical help.” His profile showed little pain, only a rapt focus on the screen. “She covered her head with her clothes. I held her hand. We spent the night in the emergency room.”
“The nurses in the ER all came to recognize me later.” Fang Juexia turned his head to look at Pei Tingsong and even smiled. “She said I was very handsome, the most handsome little boy she’d ever seen.”
“Stop looking.” Pei Tingsong closed the screen. “Leave this to them.”
Fang Juexia nodded. “It’s fine. I can recall the past calmly now.”
He was far stronger than Pei Tingsong had imagined.
The PR team didn’t suppress the news. To resolve the matter completely, they didn’t delete the exposé post, but they didn’t let it run wild either. In the later stages of the thread, they deployed personnel to directly point out the suspicious nature of the “AIDS” diagnosis. Once one person voiced suspicion, everyone began to doubt, suspecting a coordinated smear campaign. The discussion quickly derailed, shifting focus from the actual illness to accusations of malicious defamation.
Simultaneously, they deployed numerous accounts to disseminate poorly written, illogical smear pieces across the internet. The most extreme claims even alleged Fang Juexia had a terminal illness. Furthermore, they bribed several influential leakers to leak the story prematurely.
[@GossipHolic: Confirmed. The father of a top-tier idol has a history of extreme misconduct that’s been exposed. Someone will definitely exploit this to smear him—just wait and see.]
[@Gossip Factory: Rumors circulating—a certain top-tier idol’s father abandoned his wife and child. Now that his son is famous, he’s come back demanding extortionate alimony. Another real-life soap opera.]
These scandals quickly spread elsewhere, sparking widespread rumors. Many within the fandom circles had heard bits and pieces.
While the facts weren’t too far off, the PR team deliberately blurred the drug use aspect. This was to make Fang Juexia’s subsequent self-disclosure more impactful. On the other hand, they hadn’t yet uncovered the mastermind behind the scandal. An unwritten rule in the industry is to avoid publicly naming the opposing team. But first impressions mattered—Fang Juexia’s victim image needed to reach the public first.
Thus, they temporarily positioned the father who sparked this entire affair as the antagonist.
Fang Juexia wrestled with this decision. If the consequences affected only himself, he might have abandoned such PR tactics. But he wasn’t just Fang Juexia—he was Kaleido’s Fang Juexia, backed by five teammates who had weathered storms alongside him.
He carried too much responsibility.
The team swiftly arranged for marketing copy to be rushed out across major public accounts and Weibo, ensuring they retained the initiative and controlled the narrative. Every piece was crafted by dedicated writers—except for Fang Juexia’s clarification statement, which he penned himself, with the team only assisting with polishing and editing.
By the time the final draft was approved at 11 a.m., Fang Juexia—having stayed up all night—sat at his desk and hand-copied his own clarification statement. He took a photo and posted it on Weibo.
[@Kaleido Fang Juexia: Share Image]
[I sincerely apologize for taking up your time. Here, I wish to be candid about several matters.
First, my father was a long-term addict who regularly used illegal substances. When I was in elementary school, his career prospects were destroyed, causing a drastic change in his personality. Initially, he turned to heavy drinking, frequently beating and verbally abusing my mother and me. Later, he became addicted to illegal drugs, transforming into a completely different person. We endured five years of domestic violence and the shadow of drugs. On the eve of my thirteenth birthday, he absconded with our meager savings—our only means of survival—and all our valuables, abandoning us.
Not long ago, a decade later, he reappeared. He followed me wielding a steel rod, attempting to kidnap me. Fearing he might harm me or my family further, we had him committed to a drug rehabilitation center. His reappearance was unexpected and deeply unsettling. Drugs had long since eroded his humanity, leaving me utterly exhausted. Recently, my company received an exorbitant ransom demand. If we refuse, they threaten to expose the fact that my biological father is a drug addict. But I believe this is already the truth—no need for others to speak. I will handle it myself. He is he, and I am I. I am grateful he gave me life, but from the moment I returned home ten years ago and saw our home nearly emptied, our father-son relationship ceased to exist.
Furthermore, regarding the so-called “hidden disability” circulating online, I wish to address it openly here. I suffer from congenital night blindness, a condition that severely impairs my night vision with little chance of cure. My childhood dream was to become a dancer, but night blindness forever took that possibility away from me. The psychological trauma this inflicted led me to passively conceal my condition. Yet the stage—with its blend of light and shadow—kindled a sliver of hope. However, someone with a high risk of blindness on stage is unfit for debut in any entertainment company. Thus, I hid my night blindness, relying on endless practice to minimize mistakes.
Regarding online rumors about other conditions, including persistent “unwritten rule” allegations, we will take appropriate legal action to protect our reputation. My illness is real—I don’t deny it. Like the birthmark on my face, it’s part of who I am. But labels that don’t belong to me? Please don’t pin them on me. Otherwise, I will deliver those labels to you—along with a legal summons. ]
This handwritten letter contained little emotional flourish, its tone neither humble nor arrogant, the handwriting forceful and penetrating. Yet everyone who read it—whether devoted fans or indifferent bystanders—felt profound shock.
Who could have imagined that today’s most popular male artist was born into such a family? Even more surprising was his decision to step forward and reveal all this publicly.
Besides the handwritten letter in the first image, all subsequent pictures are related evidence. The second is an old photograph of a young Fang Juexia—a birthmark at the corner of his eye, blood at the corner of his mouth. The photo is objective and cold, displaying every danger a child in a dysfunctional family might face: toes smashed bloody, bruises on arms and back, and stitches on his mother’s scalp. Fang Juexia included every piece of proof his mother left him, including medical records from doctors.
As long as it didn’t harm those close to him, Fang Juexia was willing to be the center of attention.
He was willing to use his own wounds to satisfy everyone’s voyeuristic curiosity.
Drug addiction, domestic violence, kidnapping for ransom, top-tier celebrity… These sharp, contradictory keywords instantly grabbed everyone’s attention. The trending topic #FangJuexiaHandwrittenLetter exploded, igniting nationwide discussion.
[@BlackSugarBubbleTea: Holy shit… stalking, kidnapping, domestic violence? This is what his own fucking father did?!]
[@90年代蒸汽波: Before clicking the trending topic, I never imagined it would be this explosive… So fjx’s dad was a drug addict who abused his wife and abandoned his kids, and now he’s back to extort his successful son?! Why doesn’t he just die?! Fuck, this scumbag dad is making me furious through the screen!]
[@brokenheart: I never imagined seeing a celebrity’s childhood photo on trending topics would be like this. So young, so thin… seeing those wounds breaks my heart…]
[@Trash Transfer Station replying to @brokenheart: Who knows if this photo is even real? Maybe they just hired a “child actor,” drew a fake red birthmark, and added some wound makeup effects. What’s the big deal? Playing the victim to whitewash his image isn’t impossible. With a dad who does drugs, what kind of good person could the son be?]
[@I’ll Shark You Pig Today replies to @Trash Transfer Station: Your name is Trash Transfer Station—what kind of good trash could you possibly be?]
[@WhatTimeToSleep replies to @TrashTransferStation: That’s going too far. This clearly shows fjx as a child—no kid looks that much like him. Lacking empathy for others’ suffering isn’t a huge sin, but spitting venom and maliciously slandering someone after seeing their tragedy? That’s truly heartless.]
[@Galaxy’s Sweetest: Reading “Not long ago, our company received an extortion demand for an astronomical sum…” gave me goosebumps. That someone would exploit this trauma to blackmail a popular star is utterly heartless.]
[@PrettyBabyScenery: I’m so heartbroken. You might not know this, but Fang Juexia never uses Weibo. He posted just once for his birthday recently. Then he reposted a World Drug Day message—we had no idea why at the time. Seeing all this now… I can’t even imagine what his childhood was like. It’s unbearable.]
[@DominoNeverGivesUp: Oh my god, night blindness. So he couldn’t see on so many stages before, yet he never messed up. How long must he have practiced to reach that level? No wonder his auditory sensitivity was so sharp on shows—he was already accustomed to it. God, now so many little details make sense. Juexia has been through so much.]
[@StayKind: First HZY was an orphan, now it’s FJX. KCA is truly the most tragic boy band in history, hands down. Is this industry so rotten that they have to expose their own privacy to prove their innocence?]
[@I’m Reading Four Books This Month: I never really liked FJX before—just felt his personality was too quiet, not very likable. Now I feel pretty sorry about that. Seeing all this, the impact of such a family on a child is huge. My dad also gets drunk and lashes out, hitting people. Sigh, maybe I didn’t dislike him—I disliked the part of myself that resembles him.]
[@playplayplayyy: That last line is pretty bold. He didn’t mention some vague lawyer’s letter—he said a legal subpoena. That alone makes me trust him—at least he’s using real legal weapons.]
[@ScrambledEggsWithYakult: It’s pretty messed up that SRDS hid his night blindness before debut. Probably didn’t tell the agency about his dad’s drug use either. Debuting while hiding all that explosive news is seriously irresponsible.]
[@XUZNWDH2 Replies to @ScrambledEggsWithYakult: You know the word “although” but use it blindly. What, does having a drug-addicted father make him unworthy of being human? Is night blindness some highly contagious disease? Will he infect everyone once he joins the company? To put it bluntly, if he knows he has night blindness yet still goes on stage, then if he falls off the stage or even dies, it’s only a burden on himself. And you’re being naive—companies handling public events know these things. You think only you get it? Idols belong on stage by nature, while you belong in the parking lot with your self-serving arguments.
Just as the controversy raged, Star Map Entertainment’s official Weibo announced they’d take measures to protect their artists, revealing lawsuits had already been filed against several rumor-spreading bloggers. The display of legal documents alone conveyed a firm stance.
Fans flooded the comments with reposts supporting the company’s actions. The PR team also released pre-prepared online articles. The first, written from a critical perspective, shifted the focus to whether children should expose their fathers for personal gain. It aggressively promoted blind filial piety and patriarchy, glorifying “domestic violence” while ignoring drug abuse. This piece, however, hit nearly every sensitive nerve on Weibo’s “public sentiment,” quickly sparking widespread sharing. Almost everyone condemned it, and enraged netizens eventually forced the deletion of this lengthy complaint post.
This piece managed to win back netizens who had initially opposed Fang Juexia. While they might dislike celebrities, they despise drug abuse, domestic violence, and extreme patriarchy even more.
Subsequently, the PR team deployed various online influencers and public accounts to publish follow-up articles. Most adopted a more rational perspective in analyzing the incident: some addressed issues within the celebrity’s family of origin, others provided science-based explanations of drug abuse consequences, while entertainment-focused pieces dug up past footage of Fang Juexia’s variety show appearances and his performances on obscure stages. These hindsight compilations were precisely the kind of content audiences craved.
By evening, when public discourse peaked, they had deconstructed one massive scandal into numerous smaller conflicts, each targeting distinct audience segments. Though everyone recognized Fang Juexia as the central figure, no perspective framed him as the true victim. Consequently, sympathy for him emerged from varied angles.
At 10 PM, Pei Tingsong posted a Weibo update, but in a departure from his usual fiery temperament, he offered just one sentence.
[@Kaleido Pei Tingsong: There’s no such thing as domestic violence—only intentional assault. Crime is crime.]
This post quickly trended, garnering widespread support through retweets. Shortly after, several other members of Kaleido also reposted both Pei Tingsong’s and Fang Juexia’s Weibo posts.
[@GiveMeAFishChip: The best thing about the K-pop group is that whenever one member faces trouble, the rest will always speak up for their brother. It’s not adding flowers to brocade, but offering aid in times of need. Hope Brother Juexia can get through this.]
The teammates’ appearances also shifted the focus of public opinion. Besides them, other celebrities came forward—like Zhai Ying, whom Fang Juexia had previously supported; their senior members; friends they’d collaborated with; and even fellow stars they’d only met once.
Whether driven by genuine concern or seeking attention, everyone speaking out against domestic violence and drug abuse contributes to positive public discourse, steering the situation toward a better outcome.
Yet simultaneously, a significant number exploited this opportunity to drag Fang Juexia down. They leveraged collective guilt to smear him relentlessly, resurrecting old rumors about “unspoken rules.” They claimed major companies rigorously vet talent, insisting that someone from Fang Juexia’s family background could only have become an Astar trainee through questionable means.
Such rhetoric gained traction amid the chaotic discourse. Many rivals and haters jumped in, attributing his near-debut with Astar to “unwritten rules” and distorting his eventual departure as being kicked out—allegedly because Astar discovered his family background and his financial backer abandoned him.
The PR team grappled with the “unspoken rules” narrative. To thoroughly dispel the rumors, they approached Fang Juexia, hoping he would recount what happened at Astar. After much hesitation, his final response was that clarifying the “unspoken rules” were rumors was sufficient—there was no need to revisit the past.
Even now, he still refuses to publicly expose Liang Ruo’s past experiences of being drugged, raped, and exploited to distance himself. Even without naming names, it would be easy for people to dig it up.
Destroying someone is too easy.
The PR team had no other option but to suppress these false claims as much as possible. While legal action might seem forceful, the lengthy process would only prolong the damage to the celebrity. Since Fang Juexia refused to speak, they couldn’t force him. At least regarding the matter of his biological father’s drug addiction, they had controlled the narrative and gained the upper hand.
Caught in the eye of the storm, Fang Juexia paid little attention to the unfolding rumors and didn’t sleep. During the day, he continued working according to his scheduled itinerary. By nightfall, he couldn’t hold on any longer. Pei Tingsong pulled him into a small workroom. On the lazy sofa, Pei Tingsong held him as he slept for two hours.
They awoke to Pei Tingsong’s phone ringing. Jiang Miao and the others had brought food over, and they still needed to film a promotional video for a TV station later. Fang Juexia got up too. They found an empty dance practice studio, sat on the floor to eat, just like back when they hadn’t debuted yet.
Fang Juexia looked somewhat haggard. His eye sockets were slightly sunken, the skin over his thin, almost translucent eyelids revealing purplish veins. Dark circles lingered beneath his eyes, streaked with red bloodshot veins from exhaustion.
Ling Yi brought over a bowl of congee, stirred it with a spoon, and handed it to him. “Juexia, eat more. This shrimp congee is especially delicious—packed with shrimp.”
Fang Juexia murmured a quiet thank you, took a bite, and nodded. “Mm, tasty.”
His teammates didn’t offer many words of concern. Instead, they tacitly reverted to their usual dynamic. Fang Juexia was grateful for this—what he feared most was sudden, overwhelming displays of care.
“Thank you,” he said, setting down his bowl and looking at everyone. “And I’m sorry I kept this from you for so long.”
Lu Yuan immediately set down his chopsticks. “Don’t apologize. Are we brothers or not?”
“Juexia, remember your birthday? We all said we hoped you’d rely on us more in the future.” He Ziyan looked at him. “You need to remember those words. It wasn’t just empty talk about supporting you. We knew you were carrying a heavy burden, which is why we said it.”
Jiang Miao, sitting beside him, picked up a shrimp dumpling for him. “Yeah, you forgot. Last time you even told me we’re family.”
“Really?! Did Juexia actually say that?” Ling Yi set down his bowl and hugged him tightly. “Juexia, I really love you so much. Like you’re my own brother. We are family, right?” “ Ling Yi chattered on and on, crying himself to tears, then turned to Fang Juexia for a wipe. ”Yes, stop crying.”
Ling Yi sniffed hard. “Mm!”
“Your sniffling is ruining my appetite,” Pei Tingsong complained.
“Juexia, look at him!”
Jiang Miao flicked Fang Juexia’s bangs and murmured, “Your hair’s grown out again. The stylist should trim it later.”
Fang Juexia gripped his chopsticks so tightly his knuckles turned white.
He had once believed himself utterly unlucky, every step leading toward a tragic, failed ending. So he fought desperately to live—even in utter darkness, he wanted to live “correctly.”
He had once thought he would forever be alone, trapped in inescapable darkness.
But that was the greatest mistake of all.
Everything in this world maintains a relative balance—love and hate, beauty and ugliness, success and failure, misfortune and luck. His life had indeed been a brutal journey, tearing open old wounds with his own hands, each step drenched in blood. Yet he had gained a far more precious treasure.
Lifting his head, Fang Juexia watched his teammates still playing around, a long-forgotten smile touching his lips.
They were the greatest blessing of his life.
Author’s Note: Rumors about hidden rules will be clarified too.
