The response – a flurry of favourites and followers (he now has 38,000 and counting) – left him completely baffled but secretly delighted.
It took the unusual step of confirming the private medical visit following the flurry of speculation on social media about her health.
Another year, another flurry of newsmakers, all jostling for the ultimate accolade: to be voted the Guardian's person of the year.
Flurry dug deeper and found another key difference: compared to the average smartphone owner, those on Xiaomi were much more likely to be aged between 18 and 34, and much less likely to be aged over 35.
The final passage, however, is also a flawless rendering of the real-life miracle of snowfall, a few light taps upon the window ushering in a flurry of some of the most beautiful prose ever printed.
Since then, amid a flurry of media reports and opinion pieces by observers across the spectrum, the public correspondence between the two women has taken an increasingly fraught turn.
A second later she's disappeared, darting away to join the flurry as a group of cyclists disembark across the car park.
Adam Bogdan kept them afloat in the opening half-hour, conjuring a flurry of superb interceptions and saves to thwart Callum Wilson and Matt Ritchie, but the visitors had still caved in by the time the contest has stretched to the interval.
The first clear clues emerged with a study in January 2014 by analytics company Flurry, which found Xiaomi users spend more time on their devices than those of any other brand – including Apple's iPhone.
A Peter Whittingham shot midway through the second half that flirted with Adam Federici's left post was about as close as the visitors got to leaving Berkshire with the advantage on an evening on which Reading dominated and came close to scoring during a late flurry.
This was meant to be Joshua's toughest test since he turned pro shortly after winning gold at the 2012 Olympics but he won at a canter, pinning Johnson to the ropes early on and flooring his opponent once at the end of the first round with a flurry of thudding head and body shots, before doing the same again in the second.
