“Teacher Qiao, your room key.” The front desk staff handed the room card to Qiao Qi just as she was scrolling through Weibo, head down.
The airport incident between her and Liang Yan was still fermenting online. Since Liang Yan hadn’t personally come out to address it this time, passersby latched onto that fact, insisting the two of them must be dating.
Otherwise, why had he responded to every previous rumor but was playing dead this time?
Liang Yan’s die-hard solo fans wouldn’t stand for it, practically pounding the table in outrage: “Doesn’t a previous response count as a response?!” “There’s a limit to how many times you get to deny it — our Young Master Liang doesn’t have all day to keep debunking rumors for you people!”
Qiao Qi’s solo fans weren’t backing down either: “Do you think everyone has as much free time as you?” “I’m begging you, isn’t the real issue here that creep at the airport?” “The state of the world these days, morals in decline.”
Perhaps the general public’s conscience kicked in, and the discourse quickly shifted focus to the airport pervert. Before long, the trending topic shifted from “Qiao Qi Liang Yan Airport” to “Qiao Qi Airport Incident.”
Later, the relevant authorities posted on their official account that the man had been lawfully arrested and would face strict consequences.
Reading this, Qiao Qi paused; she was about to look up and ask if Liang Yan had handled it, when a hand suddenly swept past in front of her.
— Liang Yan took the room card from the front desk staff, glanced at Qiao Qi still absorbed in her phone, leaned in slightly, and closed the distance from her side.
The man’s intensely intrusive presence instantly wrapped around Qiao Qi’s ear; his breath, like a flame with a mind of its own, pressed eagerly against her skin.
Her whole body’s temperature began rising, a flush gradually creeping up beneath her mask.
“What are you looking at?” the man’s voice was low, faintly magnetic.
Qiao Qi felt half her body go weak almost instantly, beyond her control. Without a word, she reached out a hand to steady herself against the marble front desk counter, hesitated for a moment, but didn’t step away from the man’s closeness.
Instead, she slowly lifted her head. Beneath the brim of her hat, her eyes reflected the outline of Liang Yan’s face.
Liang Yan, not hearing her answer, lifted his eyelids, and his gaze landed unsurprisingly right into hers.
Deep, clear black. He could see himself reflected clearly.
This sense of “presence” gave him a rush of pleasure, and the corner of his mouth curved up visibly, “What?”
Qiao Qi glanced at him once more, confirming he’d simply leaned in to ask what she was looking at, then quietly stepped back, putting distance between them.
Her voice was cool, “Nothing.”
She seized the moment while Liang Yan wasn’t paying attention to snatch the room card from his hand, then pushed her suitcase and headed straight for the elevator alone.
Completely ignoring him.
This sudden mood swing had come out of nowhere — what had he done wrong now?
Liang Yan blinked in bewilderment, then happened to glance at the front desk staff, noticing they were smiling in a rather knowing way.
Liang Yan: “?”
The staff member lowered their voice discreetly, “Teacher Liang, you just need to coax a girl a little, that’s all.”
Liang Yan: “…”
Seeing Liang Yan’s expression suddenly turn serious, the staff member assumed they’d said something inappropriate and hurried to apologize —
But before they could get the words out, they saw Liang Yan lower his voice with utmost seriousness and ask, “How do you coax her?”
The staff member choked, struggling for a while before finally managing, “Just… um, buy her things? Works wonders?”
Teacher Liang’s expression didn’t look like he’d learned much of anything.
—
Qiao Qi didn’t pay Liang Yan any more attention. She returned to her room alone and shut herself in the bathroom; by the time she came out, her phone showed three dots of unread messages.
Most were group messages, still from the Misty Pavilion group.
Since they needed to coordinate promotional activities for the show, the group hadn’t been disbanded.
Wu Shuang: I’m so screwed, I have to make up a class, can’t make it to the event.
Guo Lingling: VCR will welcome you.
Xu Ruou: Sorry everyone, I’ve started a new project, I’m out in the mountains, can’t really leave, guess I’ll see you all via VCR too.
At this point, Cheng Yueming spoke up.
Cheng Yueming: @Ming Yan, @Cheng Yanyun, don’t play dead you two, I saw on Weibo you’ve both landed in Shanghai!
Ming Yan: Already checked into the hotel. Don’t forget to reimburse.
Cheng Yueming: …
Cheng Yueming: Where’s my 7?
Ming Yan: Taking a shower.
Cheng Yueming: …?
Wu Shuang: ???
Guo Lingling: ????
Xu Ruou: Wait, is the mountain internet that bad? Why did I suddenly go back to 2G?
Having dropped this bombshell, Liang Yan vanished from the chat.
From there, the group messages exploded. By the time Qiao Qi checked, the story had escalated to her running off overseas with her and Liang Yan’s son, only to return five years later, triumphant, to expose a lousy ex.
————————————
Wu Shuang: Woman, how dare you come back!
Guo Lingling: Ha. How dare you take my son!
Xu Ruou: …Oh my god, I was literally filming this kind of over-the-top drama today!
Qiao Qi finally appeared, wordlessly dropping six dots into the chat.
Cheng Yueming: We’ve practically written an entire TV series and that’s your reaction?
Ming Yan: . . . . . . .
Ming Yan: Extended ellipsis edition, take it!
Cheng Yueming: ?
Cheng Yueming: Your son’s about to call someone else Dad!
Cheng Yueming: Teacher Liang, pat pat his little head, is that all just grass growing there?
Ming Yan: Over my dead body!
Wu Shuang: Ehehehe, so you admit you two had a son together?
Qiao Qi couldn’t take it anymore. She exited the group chat and clicked into her private chat with Liang Yan.
She coldly sent over a [deadpan glare at you.jpg] sticker.
He replied instantly.
Liang Yan: ?
Liang Yan: What’s wrong?
“What’s wrong,” huh?
Qiao Qi felt her vision go dark for a moment; she didn’t even feel like drying her hair anymore.
She didn’t reply to Liang Yan right away — instead, she picked up her other phone and messaged this man’s secondary account.
7: What are you doing?
Liang: Replying to your message.
Hah.
7: What a coincidence.
7: Happen to be on your phone right now?
Liang: Yeah.
Liang: What’s wrong?
W-h-a-t-‘-s w-r-o-n-g?
Copy-paste job, is it?
Scumbag!
Qiao Qi grabbed her other phone and messaged Liang Yan.
Qiao Qi: Can you please not talk nonsense in the group chat?
Qiao Qi: I don’t want to cause unnecessary misunderstandings.
Upon receiving these two messages, Liang Yan had learned his lesson — instead of saying anything careless again, he directly screenshotted Qiao Qi’s messages and forwarded them to the group.
The people in the group, previously chatting up a storm, went dead silent seeing this screenshot.
Qiao Qi remained completely unaware of this, having muted the group.
Liang Yan, meanwhile, breathed a sigh of relief at his own cleverness.
— At least this way, if things came to a reckoning later, he’d have grounds to shift blame.
Excellent!
—
Having reached a dead end with Qiao Qi’s main account, Liang Yan started building up his presence on Qiao Qi’s secondary account instead.
Remembering the front desk staff’s earlier trick for coaxing girls, before messaging Qiao Qi, he went online and ordered a few bags from the top of the sales charts.
Then he ordered several boxes of fresh fruit from a delivery app.
With all that done, he lay back on the couch, leisurely scrolling his phone.
Liangou: [suddenly appears.jpg]
Liangou: [covers face, giggles foolishly.jpg]
Liangou: [wiggles wildly.jpg]
Qiao Qi’s phone buzzed nonstop on the bathroom counter while she blow-dried her hair. She finally set down the hairdryer and picked up her phone, finding that Mr. Liang had already sent over a dozen stickers without holding back.
Unlike before, this time when Qiao Qi received a WeChat message from Mr. Liang, her first instinct was to check whether “Qiao Qi” had received one too.
She shuffled in her slippers to the couch in the living room, picked up the phone she’d tossed there earlier, checked it, and found no message from Liang Yan.
Suddenly the stickers from Mr. Liang seemed a lot cuter, and her mood improved as she replied.
7: …What now.
Liangou: You’re so fierce.
Liangou: Aren’t I your little baby anymore!
7: Qiao Qi is my little baby.
Upon receiving this message, Liang Yan first instinctively held his breath, then slowly raised his hand and placed it solemnly, seriously, over his heart.
…Shit.
Thank god he already knew the truth.
Otherwise, this hoe he’d just swung would’ve buried him another ton deeper.
Relieved, Liang Yan held his phone and replied earnestly, carefully.
Qiao Qi, having settled into watching this play out with amusement, waited for Liang Yan’s reply — based on past patterns, he’d likely mock Qiao Qi in some way.
But when the chat window popped up with a new message, Qiao Qi froze for a second reading it, then blinked in disbelief.
The latest message read:
Liangou: With your good taste, your little baby must be pretty outstanding.
Liangou: Outstanding people can be my little baby too!
Qiao Qi: “…?”
Liangou: Today your little baby seems to have trended alongside Liang Yan.
Liangou: They seem pretty fated, huh.
Qiao Qi couldn’t take it anymore.
7: ?
7: ??
7: ???
Her head was full of question marks.
Liangou: ?
Liangou: What’s wrong?
7: What’s going on with you?
Qiao Qi didn’t realize that in this moment she resembled a small animal whose territory had been invaded; she unconsciously straightened her posture, frowning, staring at her phone screen with serious intensity.
Time passed second by second, her heart pounding beat by beat.
It was agonizing.
Even her breathing grew unconsciously shallow.
Then her phone buzzed, and Qiao Qi received the latest message.
Liangou: Oh, you mean my change in attitude toward Qiao Qi?
Liangou: Ha! I was scrolling Weibo today and saw a video a fan recommended, it was pretty good.
Liangou: Made me remember you’re a fan of hers — since I like you so much, and you like her so much, I guess I’ve just started seeing her through rose-colored glasses.
7: Why didn’t you before?
7: You didn’t like me before?
How does that saying go?
There are countless kinds of logic in the world, and they all collapse in the face of a woman.
Collapsed into a fine powder.
Liang Yan was suffering.
He just wanted to salvage his image a little in Qiao Qi’s mind, so his corpse wouldn’t go too cold later.
Why was it this hard?
Just then, the hotel front desk called, saying the fruit had arrived — did they need someone to deliver it to the room?
Liang Yan immediately gave Qiao Qi’s room number, “Just deliver it to this room.”
Meanwhile, Qiao Qi was still waiting for Liang Yan’s reply, but instead of a message, a knock came at the door.
At this hour, who would be knocking?
Remembering everything that had happened at the airport today, plus the paparazzi photos from the last wrap party, Qiao Qi cautiously went back to her room and threw on a jacket first.
She didn’t open the door right away, instead asking who it was.
“Sorry to disturb you, Teacher Qiao. I’m here to deliver fruit.”
Fruit?
Qiao Qi was momentarily confused, “I didn’t order any fruit.”
The voice said, “Oh, Teacher Liang said it’s for you.”
Teacher Liang… Qiao Qi paused, then immediately reached out and opened the door.
The person outside seemed startled by how abruptly she’d opened it, flinching, then smiling as they held out the fruit.
Qiao Qi didn’t take it, “Liang Yan?”
The person nodded.
Qiao Qi’s gaze circled the fruit in their hands, and the corner of her mouth curled into a cold smile; she didn’t accept it.
No wonder he hadn’t had time to reply to her messages — he’d been busy currying favor with “someone else”!
Qiao Qi’s temper flared, her chest tight with irritation, her tone turning acidic without her control, “No need. Please tell Teacher Liang I don’t like eating fruit late at night.”
With that, she shut the door with a sharp “bang—”
Then she walked straight back to the couch, picked up her private phone, opened WeChat, and efficiently dragged Mr. Liang into the block list again.
—
Meanwhile, Liang Yan stared at the fruit sitting untouched on the coffee table, sinking into deep confusion.
She used to eat fruit pretty often on set — why didn’t she like it anymore?
Thinking about it, Liang Yan’s gaze gradually drifted toward his phone.
Then his eyes lit up.
How foolish of him.
The person in question was right here.
Why not just ask?
So he sprawled comfortably back on the couch, popping cherries into his mouth one after another, and leisurely typed a message to Number 7.
Trying to sneak in through a side door to steal intel.
Liang: What do you like to eat?
The next second, a red exclamation mark popped up on the screen.
Sorry, your message could not be delivered because you have been blocked by the recipient.
…What the hell?
What had he done wrong this time?
Author’s Note: Young Master Liang, a man dancing wildly, and disastrously, on every one of Qiao Qi’s tripwires.