Never mind what she’d imagined.

Qiao Qi had imagined three thousand eight hundred different versions of the two of them meeting in real life for the first time—but never this one.

…It was just absurd.

So absurd that her first instinct was to block “7” on the spot.

A few seconds after blocking him, her other phone rang. Qiao Qi, startled by the ringtone erupting out of nowhere in the middle of the night, jolted, flailing the blankets into disarray before finally finding the phone sitting neatly on the nightstand.

Qiao Qi: “…”

See, this was just absurd.

The call was unmistakably from Liang Yan; without a second thought, Qiao Qi grabbed the phone and hung up decisively.

A WeChat message popped up almost simultaneously.

Liang Yan: ???

Liang Yan: Are you telling me I need to come knock on your door myself?

Liang Yan: Or go to the front desk and ask for your room key card?

Qiao Qi typed back a text-message roar.

Qiao Qi: Don’t you dare!!!

Liang Yan: Are you awake?

Liang Yan: Does your head hurt?

Liang Yan: Did they heat up water in your room?

Three casual questions, as if nothing had happened.

But Qiao Qi felt none of the warmth or swoon she might have otherwise.

Instead—

Qiao Qi: Why are you acting like nothing happened?

Liang Yan: …

Liang Yan: When did you find out?

Qiao Qi: When did YOU find out?

Liang Yan: …

Liang Yan: You found out and didn’t come tell me?

Qiao Qi: Did you come find me?

Liang Yan: …

Liang Yan: I’m going to the front desk for a key card right now!

Qiao Qi: If you want to go to time-out, just say so 🙂

Liang Yan: Okay okay, my bad, my bad.

Liang Yan: Wasn’t it because I figured you didn’t know yet? I was worried you couldn’t handle me unilaterally ending our pure and simple online romance.

Qiao Qi: Ha.

Qiao Qi: I never made any disparaging remarks about Liang Yan’s looks.

Qiao Qi: I never said Liang Yan was so handsome it was almost vulgar.

Qiao Qi: [deadpan glare at you.jpg]

Liang Yan: …………..

Liang Yan: Be reasonable here.

Liang Yan: Shouldn’t a man with a girlfriend think that way?

Qiao Qi: Oh.

Qiao Qi: So you weren’t telling the truth.

Qiao Qi: You were just plainly coaxing me.

Qiao Qi: And coaxed the wrong person, at that 🙂

Liang Yan: ………..Open the damn door!

Qiao Qi: Fine, I’ll open it!

Qiao Qi: Who do you think you’re threatening!

Qiao Qi tossed her phone aside and, full of fury, didn’t even bother with shoes, marching straight out of bed toward the door—only to stop halfway, remembering she hadn’t grabbed the phone in question, and turned back for it.

The phone screen was still on WeChat; the moment her thumb touched it, the page jumped to the WeChat friends list.

Qiao Qi hadn’t meant to snoop through his contacts, but the thought that this was his personal phone made her eyes wander upward anyway, and her finger “accidentally” tapped the alphabetical quick-jump bar on the side, sending the page jumping straight to the friend list starting with “L.”

And there, Qiao Qi saw…

Liangou’s Big Sweetheart.

Liangou’s Second Sweetheart.

Liangou’s Third Sweetheart.

And Liangou’s Little Sweetheart.

“…?”

What was this?

Multiple wives and concubines???

Qiao Qi’s eyes went wide in disbelief; she stood frozen for several seconds before clicking into each of their profiles one by one.

In the dead of night, Qiao Qi got a good look at big-eyed sultry beauties, cute little lolitas, and gentle, refined ladies—all on her online-boyfriend’s phone.

Great.

Young Master Liang really did have wide-ranging taste.

None of them looked anything like her.

It took Qiao Qi a good while before she managed to lift her eyes from the phone. She took a deep breath and turned the screen off.

Her fingers, gripping the phone too tightly, had gone white at the tips.

Right at that moment, a knock sounded at the door.

Qiao Qi turned her head toward it.

The living room lights weren’t on; only light spilling from the bedroom lit part of the space.

The light fell from the side, illuminating half her face in cold white, the other half hidden in darkness.

Her eyes looked bright on one side, dim on the other, but both pupils were pure black.

All her emotion buried under a still, calm surface.

The knocking continued.

Each knock seemed to strike straight at Qiao Qi’s heart.

Belatedly, she noticed her hands were trembling—probably from anger.

At that moment, the knocking outside cut off, and immediately a WeChat message popped up.

Liang Yan: ?

Liang Yan: Are you messing with me?

Liang Yan: How old are you?

Liang Yan: Being this childish?

Qiao Qi curled her lip into a cold smile, already thinking of the three words she’d say to this man when she saw him.

She tossed the phone aside without replying, turned, her expression calm, and walked straight to the door to open it.

Outside, Liang Yan had been bracing to stand in the cold night air for a few more minutes, hesitating over whether to go back for a coat, when the door suddenly swung open.

Caught entirely off guard.

Liang Yan immediately looked up from the glow of his phone screen, the light casting up from beneath his chin.

There was nothing eerie or unsettling about it.

If anything, it lent him a subtly striking, different kind of handsomeness.

This was probably the face that had deceived countless girls’ hearts.

Including her own.

Qiao Qi recalled all her past flutters of heartbeat and silently took a deep breath.

The next second, the man across from her frowned first, before she could.

Qiao Qi nearly blew up.

You’re the one frowning?

What right do you have?

“Why aren’t you wearing shoes?” the man said, his eyes sweeping over the pale, thin feet on the floor. His tone carried complaint, but mixed with a faint, subtle indulgence and something almost intimate. He tucked his phone into his pocket and reached to push the door open, the motion practiced and natural.

Like a man about to barge into a young lady’s bedroom in the middle of the night.

He continued, “It’s winter—don’t you remember the time someone on set was practically dying from period cramps—”

Before he finished, a phone came flying straight at him.

It landed square on his collarbone.

Without mercy.

Liang Yan let out a muffled grunt of pain, not quite catching what was happening.

He assumed she was angry about him not revealing himself to her sooner, and without any complaint accepted her every burst of temper, then said, not entirely seriously, “Look at you, such a temper—treating me like this the first time we meet? Careful, or I won’t be the world’s best guy anymore for you—”

“Liang Yan.” Qiao Qi cut him off coldly.

Liang Yan paused, only now realizing Qiao Qi’s expression genuinely looked like real anger.

“You really do have a way with words,” Qiao Qi said next.

Liang Yan frowned. “What exactly is wrong? Because I didn’t tell you? You didn’t tell me either—”

“I didn’t tell you, no!” Qiao Qi said. “But I don’t have three wives and four concubines!”

“Are you messing with me?”

“Explain yourself, clearly, what is this nonsense.”

“Explain what, you know perfectly well what you did.” Qiao Qi cursed out of anger, too tired to argue further, and stuck out her hand. “Give me the phone!”

“Explain yourself to me first.” Liang Yan wasn’t stupid either—if he handed the phone back now, who would he even ask to get it back next time?

Qiao Qi laughed in fury, “Are you seriously trying to weasel out of this with me?”

Liang Yan: “No, I just want to die with a clear conscience.”

Qiao Qi nodded. “Fine, want to die knowing exactly why, is that it?”

She snatched Liang Yan’s phone back once more, pulled up the list of little sweethearts right in front of him, and shoved the phone in his face. “What? Should we call all of them over here too? So you can really die with a clear conscience?”

Liang Yan had still been racking his brain over what on his phone could possibly incriminate him, but the moment he actually looked, he went blank.

That blank expression, to Qiao Qi, was as good as a confession—the last thread holding her together snapped clean.

She couldn’t quite name what she was feeling right now—anger, or disappointment, or some other messy, indescribable emotion.

But the one thing she was certain of: she never wanted to lay eyes on Liang Yan again.

This scumbag!

So Qiao Qi threw the phone back at him again, and just before slamming the door shut, left him with one line: “No need to unblock me.”

Liang Yan, hit with a door-slam that echoed like thunder, took a moment to come back to himself, gripping his phone before finally grinding out three words through his teeth: “Zhou! Jia! Ye!”

No wonder people said he’d just come back from a monastery!

Turned out this whole time it was because someone had used his phone at the bar to pull this garbage?!

Liang Yan felt like he could jump into the Yellow River and still not wash this off. He stood at the door for several seconds before deciding to put his plan to “murder his brother” on hold for now.

The most urgent matter right now was clearing his own name.

“No wait, hear me explain.” The moment Liang Yan snapped back to himself, he started pounding on the door. “Damn it, at least give me a chance to explain!”

Not a chance.

If anything, Qiao Qi would love to give him a chance to dig his own grave deeper.

So she said, flatly, “Get lost.”

The moment Liang Yan heard a response, he knew there was still hope—the body wasn’t cold yet—so he kept struggling.

—He pressed himself against the door, scratching at it with his nails, and started playing pitiful. “Just open the door first, please? This really is a misunderstanding. Didn’t I tell you I have a childhood friend, the really shameless one? A few days ago I went to a bar with him to talk business, and he added those contacts on my phone—I had no idea, never even chatted with them, you can check the message history.”

“And look, he even deliberately hid the Moments feed and deleted the contact-add notifications—I didn’t even know I’d gotten new friends.”

He rambled on and on, and Qiao Qi replied with only five words: “Talking business at a bar?”

Liang Yan: “…We really were talking business, nothing else.”

“Damn it, just open the door first.”

Qiao Qi let out a cold laugh, and this time didn’t even bother staying by the door.

She simply turned on her heel and walked back into the bedroom.

The moment she was back, her phone started blowing up with messages.

Liangou: Damn it.

Liangou: I’m telling the truth!

Liangou: If you don’t believe me I’ll drag that brain-dead Zhou Jiaye over here right now!

Liangou: What nonsense second sweetheart, third sweetheart, little sweetheart? You think I’d dare? Do I even have that kind of energy?!

She stayed silent, as if she’d fallen asleep.

But Liang Yan knew she hadn’t.

Liangou: …Just open the door.

Liangou: It’s really cold out here.

Liangou: My heart’s cold too.

Without a word, Qiao Qi blocked this account too.

The moment Liang Yan saw the red exclamation mark pop up, he choked on a mouthful of figurative blood.

Miss, I didn’t unblock you just so you could conveniently block me again!

But no matter—there were always more solutions than problems.

So he switched over to his main Liang Yan account.

Liang Yan: Dead of winter.

Liang Yan: I’ll wait right here for you.

Liang Yan: I’ll wait until the end of time.

Liang Yan: Never turning back.

Qiao Qi told him to get lost.

Liang Yan: I won’t.

Liang Yan: Even if I become a corpse, I’ll freeze right here outside your door.

Liang Yan: The moment the sun rises, the whole cast and crew will know you abandoned me!

Qiao Qi still told him to get lost.

Liang Yan: Fine.

Liang Yan: I’m leaving.

Liang Yan: I’m going straight to the front desk right now, for a key card.

This time Qiao Qi didn’t tell him to get lost—instead, she sent a short video.

The video showed her tapping the call button and pressing 1, 1, 0, one digit at a time.

She didn’t actually dial it.

But the meaning was clear enough: Go get that card, and the second you do, we’ll meet at the police station.

By the time the sun rose, the whole world would know that Young Master Liang had knocked on his fellow cast member’s hotel room door in the middle of the night.

And gotten hauled off to the police station for it.

Liang Yan: “…”

No one had ever told him that being in a relationship was this hard.

This was seriously worse than the online romance!

Author’s Note: Liang Yan: You all keep pushing us to reveal ourselves day after day—what was there even to push for? This is what you get?

It’s just absurd.