Nan Chu finished her cigarette and came back inside. It was already confirmed — a cosmetics allergy. Yan Dai was waving a finger in Xi Gu’s face, jabbing at her in a sharp, shrill voice: “You have to compensate me! I can’t work for the next few days — if the director holds me liable for lost filming time, what am I supposed to do?!”

Although Shen Guanzong had no fondness for Yan Dai, he kept his face carefully neutral and stepped in to smooth things over with a thin smile: “Xiao Dai, we’re all from the same company — making a scene like this just gives other people something to laugh at.”

Yan Dai stamped her foot and pouted. “Guanzong-ge! But my face…”

The sentence died halfway through. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Nan Chu walking in. The latter was leaning lazily against the doorframe, watching her. Yan Dai’s throat caught and she swallowed the rest of her words whole.

It was inexplicable — Yan Dai was a little afraid of Nan Chu, and a little envious of her. That tangled feeling was something even she herself couldn’t quite put into words.

Nan Chu had only joined the company at the start of the year, a full year after Yan Dai. They were both minor, unknown actresses — but Nan Chu had a mother who was a award-winning actress. Even though the industry said the mother and daughter had a terrible relationship, it was still better than having nothing, the way the rest of them did.

Nan Chu had appeared in ads and print campaigns alongside her mother, Nan Yueru, at age six — a child star from the beginning. In her mid-teens she had taken on a few film roles, though with very little exposure. The actresses in the crew sometimes gossiped about Nan Chu’s past; Yan Dai had resented Nan Chu for a long time and occasionally couldn’t help venting with a few quick words.

But whenever she watched Nan Chu walk past her with that utterly unbothered, breezy expression — it made her both furious and anxious. How could a woman simply not care about her own reputation?

Just like her mother.

Loose and shameless, both of them.

Nan Yueru’s reputation wasn’t actually so terrible — only that at twenty-six she had stepped away from the industry for a year and given birth to Nan Chu, and to this day had never publicly revealed who Nan Chu’s father was.

In those days, entertainment gossip magazines and weekly tabloids had combed through every man in the industry who could conceivably be Nan Chu’s birth father. Within a few years, one after another had either come out, or gotten married and had children.

To this day, it remained one of the great unsolved mysteries of the entertainment world.

Nan Chu leaned against the doorway and gave Yan Dai a mild look.

Yan Dai immediately deflated, turned her face away, and said sullenly: “You go talk to the director. I’m not going.”

Nan Chu smiled faintly. “Fine.”

Back at the set, Nan Chu arranged a leave of absence for Yan Dai, pushing all her scenes back by three days. The director grumbled with a hint of irritation: “She’s always the one with the most trouble.”

A couple of days later, those words found their way to Yan Dai’s ears — but after passing through so many mouths, the meaning had warped completely. Somehow it became:

Yan Dai’s face had broken out in an allergic reaction and she couldn’t film, dragging out the schedule. The director had flown into a rage and cut Yan Dai’s scenes, giving the extra screen time to Nan Chu — and on top of that, he had berated Yan Dai, calling her a troublesome woman.

And word had it the whole thing was started by Nan Chu’s assistant.

In everyone’s eyes, the normally steady and composed director must have been bewitched by Nan Chu, that little schemer — how else could he have said such things in a moment of anger?

After all, this was a woman who openly discussed erotic literature with the director. What shameless thing was beyond her?

So it was that Nan Chu became the target of everyone’s resentment — a calculating woman playing the victim.

When word reached Shen Guanzong, he exploded. His hair practically stood on end. He came within inches of strangling Xi Gu before Nan Chu scooped the girl out of his grasp, calmly flipping through her book. “If you actually kill her, you’ll be the one lugging the bags.”

Xi Gu was small but surprisingly strong — she could haul several suitcases at once without breaking a sweat.

Shen Guanzong released Xi Gu’s collar and made a silent throat-slitting gesture.

Xi Gu quickly covered her eyes.

Nan Chu patted the girl’s head and said in warning: “Shen Jingbing—”

“You keep protecting her, and in a few days they’ll be spreading rumors that you two are in a relationship!”

Shen Guanzong stormed off.

Xi Gu looked at Nan Chu and found her already back to reading her book.

Unable to resist, she leaned over. “What are you reading?”

Nan Chu held the book upright and showed her the cover.

“Jin… Jin… Jin Ping Mei.“

“Mm-hm.”

Xi Gu studied her — serene expression, composed and unruffled, as if a screen separated her from the outside world. Somehow a forbidden classic took on the air of a Xu Zhimo poem in her hands.

On the fourth day, Ran Dongyang — last year’s Best Supporting Actor winner, playing the second male lead and Yan Dai’s rumored romantic partner — arrived on set, and the full cast was finally assembled.

Yan Dai had just finished filming the last scene of the night and was walking out of the studio when she spotted two silhouettes sitting side by side under the canopy.

Ran Dongyang leaned back in his chair. “How have you been lately?”

Nan Chu looked down at her script, her voice even. “Pretty good. Eating well, sleeping well.”

The two had collaborated on a film a few years back.

Ran Dongyang leaned forward and reached out to ruffle Nan Chu’s head. She dodged it without a flicker of expression, and his hand hung awkwardly in midair. He laughed it off. “What’s gotten into you? It’s like you’re a different person.”

Nan Chu didn’t look up, just let out a cold, quiet little laugh.

Ran Dongyang dragged his chair closer to hers. “Back then you weren’t one to talk much, but you were at least soft around the edges. What happened — a few years apart and the little rose has grown thorns?”

Nan Chu ignored him, set the script down on the table with a light smack, and circled a passage with her pen. Without warmth, she said: “After this section you walk off and I’ll pull you back — you can let the emotion come through more in that bit.”

Ran Dongyang rested his hand behind his head, lounging back in the chair. “You know, you really are the type whose personality gets in the way — not the kind of girl that’s easy to like.”

Nan Chu looked up and gave him a cold stare.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a shape lurking behind a large Chinese scholar tree several meters away, skulking with poorly concealed intentions.

Ran Dongyang dropped the smile and sat up straight, propping his hand on the table. “Don’t look at me like that. Back then…”

Nan Chu suddenly smiled at him — a slow, deliberate curl of her lips. She beckoned with one finger. Her fingers were slender, pale as jade.

A summer night, deep and dark. The studio was gradually winding down. The faint white moonlight spilled over her, and Nan Chu’s skin was so fair it seemed to glow from within.

Ran Dongyang’s feelings twisted into something complicated and unbearable.

And yet, as if compelled by some force beyond himself, he leaned in.

The next second — bang — his head was seized from behind, and his forehead slammed hard into the edge of the table.

“Son of a—!”

When he lifted his head again, a bump was already rising above his brow, shaped like a horn.

Ran Dongyang hissed and winced. By now, Nan Chu had already gathered her things and stood up. With her script tucked against her chest and a long black dress tracing her graceful figure, the way she looked down at him was as cool and aloof as a black swan.

She bent toward him. In the darkness, a man’s presence tends to hold sway — but the darkness seemed only to make the woman in front of him more formidable.

Nan Chu was slight — small-boned, narrow figure, long tapered eyes, light brows, a quiet mouth. She almost never lost her temper, and there was very little that could stir her emotions.

But when she truly did lose her temper, the sharpness in her cut through everything.

Like now.

Those brows and eyes especially.

“If you ever bring up the past again — I’ll make you regret ever knowing me.”

Back at the hotel, Nan Chu came out of the shower wrapped in a towel, and the phone on the bed buzzed.

An unread WeChat notification lay on the screen.

She glanced at it, then dropped the towel without ceremony. The girl’s pale, slender body was fully exposed, her silhouette reflected in the wide floor-length mirror.

Nan Chu was fair-skinned — slender arms, a pair of evenly proportioned, straight legs — alabaster skin, a figure so delicate it could be gathered in one palm.

As the verse went: Snow-white skin gleaming in the bronze mirror, poised like a jade tree before a phoenix tower.

She changed into a dark-colored dress, then picked up her phone and opened the screen. The WeChat notification expanded.

From someone named Lin Qi.

Lin Qi was a prodigious young violinist Nan Chu had met while modeling in Milan. Nineteen years old.

“I have a violin recital on Saturday. You have to come.”

A moment later, another message: “You HAVE to come. I’ll have someone bring the tickets to you tomorrow!”

Nan Chu replied: “I’ll be there late.”

The next day, Nan Chu finished her morning scenes and sat under the canopy wielding a small handheld fan, a Buddhist sutra open on her lap.

One look at her like that and Shen Guanzong arrived steaming, ready for a confrontation. “Was the bump on Ran Dongyang’s head your doing?”

Nan Chu admitted it freely. “Yep.”

Shen Guanzong had known it. He was furious, nostrils flaring skyward. “If you really can’t stand him, can’t you just put up with it?”

Nan Chu shook her head. “He talked filth at me. I couldn’t.”

“……Hey, you can put up with everything else just fine — how is it the one thing you can’t put up with is this?” Shen Guanzong crossed his arms, eyes blazing, stabbing a finger at her. “I’ll cover for you on this one, but don’t go stirring up more trouble. You already know you’re a target — don’t give people ammunition.”

Fair enough. When Nan Chu was fifteen or sixteen she’d acted in a production, and the criticism of her acting alone had followed her for years. On top of that, her previous management team had zero PR sense and loved manufacturing romance rumors. It hadn’t been easy for Nan Chu to get to where she was today. She posted something on social media and there wasn’t a single decent comment to be found, so Shen Guanzong had eventually disabled her comment section altogether.

Her detractors promptly migrated to Shen Guanzong’s own social media accounts and took it out on him there.

“Nan Chu, get out of the entertainment industry.”

“Nan Chu, you filthy woman, used-up trash.”

“Your whole family should drop dead.”

……

Sometimes Shen Guanzong looked at Nan Chu and felt sorry for her. She’d started working so young, shouldering so much — yet you almost never heard her complain. Work that was assigned to her she carried out with full effort, never looking for credit or asking for compensation.

But she wasn’t submissive either.

She had a pride that belonged to her alone. She didn’t bow her head — not to the world, not to convention. The director had said she reminded him of a black swan: noble and independent.

Though Shen Guanzong had missed the second half of that comment.

The director had added: a black swan that arrives riding a Thomas the Tank Engine.

The sunlight draped itself over her slight figure.

Shen Guanzong sighed and sat down beside her, glancing at the sutra in her hands. “Hey — did the Buddha tell you when you’re going to get famous?”

Nan Chu didn’t look up. “All phenomena are but illusions.”

“Illusions, my backside.” Shen Guanzong rolled his eyes. “Your reputation is already a complete disaster, and you’ve got the nerve to sit here reading this. You might as well just shave your head and enter a monastery.”

Nan Chu turned a page, tilted her head in thought for a moment, then said: “Good idea.”

“Hopeless.” Shen Guanzong walked away shaking his head.

That evening, Xi Gu came in carrying an envelope. “Nan Chu, someone just dropped this off for you.”

Nan Chu glanced at it and nodded. “Mm. Thanks.”

The sun was vicious. Xi Gu was standing directly under it, dabbing at her sweat with a tissue. “He was really handsome — wearing a military uniform, so cool-looking, but way too cold. Made me shiver.”

She gave a little demonstrative shudder for good measure.

Nan Chu set down her book and looked up. “Military uniform?”

Xi Gu nodded. “Really handsome. I asked him to wait a moment, but he wouldn’t — just turned and left.”

“Is he still around?”

“I just saw him heading toward the little convenience store.”

Sometimes a face will suddenly surface in your mind, and even though you know it’s impossible, you can’t stop yourself from going to check. And as experience proves, a woman’s sixth sense is right ninety-nine times out of a hundred.

Sure enough — when she pushed out through the studio gates, she spotted a familiar, straight-backed figure in the distance. In her memory: those peach-blossom eyes with their upturned corners that always seemed on the verge of a smile; deep-set brows and eyes that, when serious, could make anyone’s blood run cold; while that strong, angular profile — in the sunlight — was softened to something rarely seen.

The lines of his body were clean and fluid. Not a fraction too much, not a fraction too little.

He held a bottle of water he’d just finished, screwed the cap back on, and casually tossed it through the open window of the car behind him. He’d just pulled open the driver’s door when —

As if pushed by some unseen force, it slammed back shut.

The man had a habitual frown. His brows drew together into a hard furrow — suppressed impatience and irritation written across his face.

Then a voice came from behind him: “Lin Luxiao, where do you think you’re going?”