When they received Lin Qingye’s message, Guan Chi, Ji Yan, and Shi Si were having a late-night snack together. Guan Chi had even brought his wife along.

All three of their phones buzzed simultaneously. After reading the message, they looked at each other in bewilderment. Shi Si exclaimed in surprise: “What’s going on? Is our captain seriously planning to pursue a career in the entertainment industry? He’s even soliciting votes?”

Ji Yan clicked the link: “…No, it seems like he’s pursuing his ex-girlfriend.”

Guan Chi and Shi Si’s phone pages finally loaded, abruptly displaying a tattoo page. They were stunned, “What’s this about? Who are we voting for?”

Ji Yan had already scrolled down to find Xu Zhinan and showed them: “Who else would we vote for but Pingchuan’s Shining Light?”

As she spoke, she tapped with her index finger and cast a vote for Xu Zhinan.

Guan Chi and Shi Si also voted for her. Guan Chi copied and forwarded the link to his wife, and everyone at the table cast a vote.

Shi Si still looked confused: “Why did the captain suddenly send this to the group? Didn’t they break up a long time ago?”

“They can still get back together even after breaking up,” Ji Yan said.

“They’re back together?!” Shi Si exclaimed in shock. “The captain doesn’t seem like the type to get back together with an ex. He’s going back for seconds?”

Ji Yan recalled hearing Lin Qingye call out “Ah Nan” that night and shook her head: “That’s not quite right either.”

Shi Si inexplicably sighed with relief: “They’re not back together?”

“They’re not back together. From the current situation, it seems the captain wants to get back together, but it’s one-sided.”

Guan Chi: “…”

Shi Si: “…”

Ji Yan: “I ran into Pingchuan’s Shining Light at the hospital today and sent the captain a message. He was having dinner with the production team, but immediately rushed over without a second thought. He’s probably just sent her home after accompanying her for her injection.”

“If he’s already sending her home, they must be back together, right?” Shi Si felt that it was easier to accept they had reconciled than to think Lin Qingye’s desire to reconcile was one-sided and unsuccessful.

“I think there’s still a long way to go,” Ji Yan said. “Pingchuan’s Shining Light has probably been well-protected by her parents since childhood. This is likely the first time she’s seen clearly what kind of jerk the captain is. It won’t be easy for her to forgive him.”

She laughed without conscience, licking her lips, “It’s her first time being deceived, so it needs to leave a deep impression.”

Ji Yan couldn’t quite explain why she felt this way.

She just felt that someone like Xu Zhinan, while appearing soft, was stubborn and had her own set of standards. Falling for Lin Qingye the first time was an accident, but a second time would be nearly impossible.

Shi Si only half-understood her reasoning and asked: “Why did you go to the hospital today?”

“Oh, my leg was hurting a bit from teaching dance,” she replied.

Shi Si: “Are you okay?”

“It’s fine. I originally thought I’d dislocated a bone, but it turns out I just strained a muscle. It’s not a big deal, probably because I haven’t practiced like this for too long.” Ji Yan rubbed her forehead and sighed, “Making money is hard.”

Guan Chi sent a photo of the barbecue stall to the group.

[Guan Chi: Got my wife to vote too. Captain, want to join us for a late-night snack?]

[Lin Qingye: It’s too far for me to come. You all go ahead.]

[Guan Chi: But looking at that vote, Pingchuan’s Shining Light is still quite far behind those ahead of her. Just our few votes won’t help much.]

[Lin Qingye: Mm, I posted it on my Moments.]

Guan Chi nearly spat out his drink, and everyone else leaned in to look. They immediately opened WeChat Moments, and sure enough, the first post was from Lin Qingye.

Lin Qingye’s Moments was just like his Weibo with its millions of followers—he never posted anything.

When they clicked in, there was just a bare voting link.

Lin Qingye’s unprecedented Moments post immediately drew responses from everyone.

Shi Si exclaimed in astonishment: “He’s changed.”

Guan Chi’s wife, unaware of the entanglements, casually asked: “Aren’t you all going to help share it? This Xu Zhinan is like your sister-in-law, right? Looks like she’s almost overtaking sixth place. Honestly, her seventh-place design looks so much better than the sixth-place one.”

In the past, Shi Si had called Xu Zhinan “sister-in-law.”

But that was just a casual address. He couldn’t call her “Pingchuan’s Shining Light” to her face, and using her full name felt strange, so he simply called her sister-in-law.

But he had never truly considered Xu Zhinan as a sister-in-law. She was just their captain’s girlfriend, and the kind that could be replaced at any time.

Now it seemed the situation had completely changed.

“Fuck,” Shi Si stared at the Moments post and cursed under his breath, then said to Ji Yan, “Didn’t we bet in front of her about which girl would confess to the captain first? If the captain finds out, won’t he beat us up?”

Ji Yan snorted a laugh: “Look at your behavior.”

Despite her words, since even Lin Qingye had shared it, they had no reason not to help. They all forwarded the post.

Their group might not have much else, but they had many friends—socially active friends. It could truly create a ripple effect where one tells ten, and ten tell a hundred.

Xu Zhinan knew nothing about all this, already deep in sleep.

Lin Qingye didn’t drive away until he saw her ranking rise to fifth place. The nightlife in the city center of Yancheng, this metropolis, continued bustling until two or three in the morning, making it feel like a completely different city from Xu Zhinan’s neighborhood.

Lin Qingye had no interest in such nightlife and drove directly toward his apartment.

He took a shortcut through narrow streets. At one intersection, about a block from his apartment, a rear-end collision suddenly occurred—two sports cars crashed into each other, a red Aston Martin hitting a yellow Porsche.

The two car owners stood in the middle of the road, presumably waiting for traffic police and insurance personnel to arrive.

With these two cars blocking the middle of the road, it was impossible to drive through.

Since he was already very close to his apartment, needing only to pass through a small alley, Lin Qingye didn’t bother turning around. He simply parked his car in a roadside spot, grabbed his mask and hat, and got out.

The alley was silent and empty. It had rained lightly for half an hour earlier, and raindrops were still dripping from the eaves.

Lin Qingye pulled down his mask and lit a cigarette.

In the pale blue smoke, he suddenly saw that silver-gray-haired woman again, the fortune-teller he had encountered here before.

Her setup was more elaborate than before. Beside the broken wooden table stood a pole with a red flag with yellow borders bearing the words “Fortune Telling and Divination.”

Lin Qingye stood in place for a moment, exhaled smoke, then stepped forward to her table.

The fortune-teller didn’t even look up, immediately saying: “Why have you come again?”

Lin Qingye paused, took the cigarette from his mouth, pointed to the “Fortune Telling and Divination” flag, and said lightly: “What are you doing here? That’s what I came for.”

The fortune-teller laughed, shaking her head: “Young man, with no respect in your heart, a reading would be useless.”

Last time, she had offered a QR code for him to scan for the five-yuan fortune-telling fee.

Lin Qingye took out his wallet from his pocket, pulled out a red hundred-yuan bill, and placed it on her table.

The fortune-teller looked at the money, took it, held it up to the light bulb hanging from the pole to verify its authenticity, then tucked it into her pocket before looking at Lin Qingye.

“I told you last time that your love life is not smooth?” The fortune-teller had been bought with a hundred-yuan bill.

“Yes.”

She flicked the bill with her finger: “I see your career is going very well, with unlimited prospects. No need to worry about that.”

Lin Qingye: “No fortune sticks?”

“No need. You don’t believe in deities; drawing sticks would be useless.” The fortune-teller said ominously, “To resolve the calamity in your love life, it’s simple—you must be sincere.”

Lin Qingye didn’t speak, and she continued: “Not just sincere to the gods and Buddhas, but more importantly, you must be sincere to your fated person. Treating people with a true heart brings lasting relationships—you must understand this.”

“I also told you last time that your inner demons are too heavy, harming others without benefiting yourself. You should find a way to break free.”

Lin Qingye was silent for a moment, then asked: “What if I can’t break free?”

The night was deeply quiet. Lin Qingye, tall with long legs and a disheveled figure, stood before a fortune-telling stall facing an old woman with a wrinkled face, talking mystically—the scene looked quite eerie.

“If you can’t break free, you must still lay everything bare to your fated person. As I said, treating people with a true heart brings lasting relationships.” The fortune-teller fiddled with her fortune stick container, making some noise. “Besides, your fated person is someone with deep blessings and sincere faith, capable of enlightening you.”

Unfortunately, his fated person had no intention of seeing him again.

Lin Qingye laughed self-mockingly and prepared to leave.

“Oh, right.” The fortune-teller called him back, pulling a small paper package wrapped in kraft paper from her sleeve: “Of course, you can also use external help. In consideration of your fate person, I’ll sell you this powder packet today.”

Lin Qingye lowered his gaze and recognized it as the so-called secret formula she had tried to sell him for five hundred yuan last time.

“How much?”

“Fixed price.” She held up one finger, waving it back and forth. “One thousand yuan.”

Lin Qingye snorted a laugh, not entirely serious: “Your prices rise quickly—doubled in just a few days?”

The fortune-teller glared at him reproachfully, pointing her index finger: “That’s great disrespect!”

Her words suddenly reminded Lin Qingye of the past.

After that first night they met at the bar, they added each other on WeChat but didn’t contact each other for a long time. Then one day, he sent Xu Zhinan a message asking where she was.

Xu Zhinan replied: What’s up?

Two minutes later, she sent a location—a temple in the suburbs.

[Lin Qingye: What are you doing there?]

[Xu Zhinan: Getting some Buddhist scriptures from a master.]

Lin Qingye raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised: You believe in that stuff?

[Xu Zhinan: Yes.]

[Xu Zhinan: Did you need something from me?]

Relying on the fact that Xu Zhinan had initially told him she would take responsibility for him, he leisurely replied: Let’s meet today.

[Xu Zhinan: Okay, do you have something to discuss?]

In just this brief exchange, Xu Zhinan had already asked three times what he wanted. He could imagine how nervously she was responding to his messages.

Lin Qingye deliberately teased her: To develop our relationship.

The other end went quiet, and after a while, she finally replied: Okay, shall we go to the library then?

What the hell, going to the library to develop a relationship?

Lin Qingye leaned back, holding up his phone: No.

Xu Zhinan replied in a negotiating tone: Then where would be convenient for you?

Lin Qingye was sitting at his studio desk composing music at the time. He initially wanted to ask her to come directly to the studio, but thinking the young girl would be wary and probably wouldn’t dare, he changed his mind.

[Lin Qingye: Let’s go to the bar. There’s an event this afternoon at one o’clock.]

[Xu Zhinan: Okay, I’ll be there on time.]

The “Wild” stage was beautifully designed, with a round platform and a T-shaped runway in front. That day, the venue had been rented by a modeling event for a runway show.

Since the first floor of the bar had scattered customers during the day, they went directly to the second-floor private room, which was normally closed during the day. A semitransparent curtain shielded it, preventing those below from seeing inside.

Xu Zhinan had no interest in the runway show, and not knowing what to talk about, with Lin Qingye showing no intention of initiating conversation, she took out a Buddhist scripture from her bag and opened it to read.

That was the first time Lin Qingye had seen someone of her age reading Buddhist scriptures. He narrowed his eyes in surprise and asked: “What’s this?”

“The Shurangama Sutra,” she replied earnestly.

“…”

“This thing—” he reached over, picked up the corner of the book, “doesn’t it make you dizzy?”

He tossed the book onto the nearby sofa, and Xu Zhinan’s gaze followed the book closely, like a mother cat watching her kitten being taken away.

“Still hurt?” he asked.

“What?” She was still looking at the scripture on the sofa, not understanding his meaning.

Lin Qingye didn’t elaborate, just laughed, though his laugh was ambiguous, tinged with playfulness and mischief.

Xu Zhinan froze for two seconds, then understood. Her face instantly turned red, like a voice-activated sensor. She lowered her gaze, her black eyelashes trembling lightly. Then she got up, moved to the sofa, and hugged the scripture back into her arms.

“This is great disrespect,” she said, head lowered.

Lin Qingye returned to the present, looked at the fortune-teller, and stepped forward again, taking out his phone: “Where’s your QR code?”

The fortune-teller snorted: “You think buying it makes it not disrespectful?!”

“Are you selling it or not?”

She pulled out the QR code and slapped it down in front of him: “What wouldn’t I sell? Even gods and Buddhas need incense money. The only one losing out is you.”

Seemingly irritated by Lin Qingye’s attitude, the fortune-teller’s demeanor also soured.

As Lin Qingye verified his fingerprint for the transfer, he wondered why, even though he knew this fortune-teller was scamming him, charging five hundred one moment and a thousand the next, and he had no intention of consuming this powder of unknown toxicity, he was still willing to throw away a thousand yuan.

After paying, the fortune-teller took out a ballpoint pen from her pocket and wrote on the kraft paper: Take with warm water, consume in one go, inner demons will break, love will come quickly, heaven and earth efficacious.

She placed the powder packet in Lin Qingye’s palm: “Welcome back next time.”

“…”

Even this shabby stall without a door dared to say “welcome back.”

Having been delayed at this broken-down stall, Lin Qingye arrived home quite late.

He took a shower and walked to the mirror with a towel wrapped around his waist.

The muscle lines on his body were proportionate and smooth, showing strength without being excessively bulging—exactly the type people describe as “slim in clothes, muscular when undressed.”

Water droplets on his shoulders hadn’t been wiped dry and slid down along his sleek, clean lines.

Lin Qingye turned slightly to see the tattoo on the right side of his back near the shoulder blade.

He had applied that ointment four or five more times, and the inflammation had subsided. It had scabbed over a few days ago, but the scab had fallen off recently. It should be fully healed now.

On the protruding shoulder blade was the elegant, flowing script of the characters “Ah Nan.”

He had to admit, Xu Zhinan’s tattooing skill was indeed excellent. Even with just two conventional characters, they possessed an extraordinary beauty under her technique.

Lin Qingye propped one arm on the washbasin. The bangs on his forehead, wet from the shower, hung down as he opened his phone.

Since he posted on his Moments, many people had helped share it, though not really to help but rather out of curiosity, as it was rare to see Lin Qingye actively do something for a girl.

There were already many comments under his post, but he couldn’t be bothered to read those teasing remarks and clicked directly on the link.

Xu Zhinan’s ranking had already risen from seventh to fifth place, just forty votes away from fourth place.

He thought, having “Ah Nan” tattooed on his back couldn’t be considered much of a price to pay.

His Ah Nan might have people queueing up for appointments to get her tattoos in the future. He considered himself lucky.

Because of the injection and cold medicine, Xu Zhinan slept deeply that night, dreamless, until she was awakened the next day by Xu Zhenfan’s successive text messages.

She opened her eyes groggily. Dazzling sunlight poured into the bedroom as she squinted at her phone.

[Xu Zhenfan: Sis!!! You’re in second place now!!!]

[Xu Zhenfan: Your reshares are so damn powerful!! People do have good taste after all. Go go go! Next target is first place!!!]

Xu Zhinan was stunned. She clicked the link, and this time she didn’t even need to scroll down—she found herself right on the first page.

The vote count had grown exponentially compared to the previous night.

Xu Zhinan knew the reach of her Moments. Even with several friends helping to share it, it couldn’t possibly reach this level.

She exited the webpage and clicked back into Moments, scrolling down a bit, and suddenly saw Lin Qingye’s name.

“…”

At the same time, a news alert popped up at the top of her phone screen—

“‘I Come for Music’ new rising star and Golden Melody Award winner Lin Qingye allegedly involved in campus violence, victim comes forward!”

Since the show began airing, Lin Qingye’s fame had expanded at an extremely rapid pace, with followers increasing quickly. Just a few episodes in, the Weibo account that had never posted anything was already approaching ten million followers.

This news immediately sparked heated discussion.

Xu Zhinan clicked on the news, and a video popped up—the same fighting clip that had been discussed when he first won the Golden Melody Award.

Wearing a No. 7 Middle School uniform, his fists came down one after another on the face of the person beneath him. There was blood on the ground from the beaten person’s mouth.

Lin Qingye’s face was indifferent, grim, and fierce, as if he didn’t see the blood at all.