It was only when she heard all of this that Ruan Yu grew both baffled and anxious, and hurried home.

Taking advantage of the traffic jam, she pulled up Her Eyes Smile and began reading. She had only skimmed a few pages at random before she found several instances of overlap.

The New Year’s Eve fireworks scene, for instance — the other author’s plot, dialogue, and even the male lead’s inner monologue aligned completely with what she had written.

Then there was another passage that was even more jaw-dropping. The other story described a scene in which the female lead left campus one weekend, carrying a pot of “Little Farmer canned planter flowers.”

That had been a popular type of DIY potted plant at Su Shi No. 1 High School back in the day — you grew a different plant in each tin can, chrysanthemums, watermelons, all sorts. Ruan Yu’s had been a modified version that grew sunflowers and lavender side by side.

She’d spotted that detail in her diary and used it as material to lend the story a period feel. She hadn’t expected the other author to have written the same detail — also sunflowers and lavender.

Examples like these were too numerous to count. And since the other story was a short piece with a fast pace and plot elements packed densely together, all of this had been published before her own work. The other author was simply a newcomer with no exposure, so she simply hadn’t come across it before.

What in the world.

Liu Mao had been watching her expression in the rearview mirror, and it was growing progressively worse. During a red light, he turned and asked, “Miss Ruan, is there anything I can help with?”

Ruan Yu looked up and shook her head immediately.

Liu Mao probably had a general sense of her profession, but she had always kept a low profile about it — she hadn’t even told her own parents her pen name, so of course she wasn’t going to casually explain it to someone she’d met for the first time on a blind date.

Besides, things hadn’t reached the point where she needed a lawyer.

So she said, “I can handle it myself for now. Thank you.”

Ruan Yu got out of the car at the foot of her apartment building, thanked Liu Mao again, and hurried upstairs.

In just over an hour of driving, the chaos had spread far beyond the forum. Her novel’s comment section and her work account — which had over two hundred thousand followers — had both come under siege in turn.

Insults and accusations poured in. Her readers had no ground to stand on against such a thorough and damning comparison chart, and more than a few were demanding an explanation themselves.

One loyal fan had offered a point in her favor: the other author still hadn’t appeared — maybe this was just Wen Xiang operating under a second account?

The web fiction world had a practice called “test-posting” — you’d publish something under a side account first, and if it didn’t take off, you’d quietly abandon it. But Ruan Yu clearly hadn’t done anything of the sort.

The situation kept escalating, and everyone was waiting for her to speak.

She went through the other author’s work carefully amid the storm of rumors, then spent a moment pulling herself together — fingers raking through her hair — and decided to contact the author first.

The other person’s pen name was “Xie Shiren.” Their Weibo page was a new account with only a handful of ghost followers. The most recent post had been published four days earlier, on Sunday evening: Back to school again, not happy about it.

Probably a middle schooler.

Ruan Yu sent them a message, but received no reply for a long time.

Then it occurred to her — today was Thursday. If the other person was a boarding student, they might very well not have access to their phone right now.

She was exhausted in body and spirit. She kicked off her heels and flopped down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling light with unfocused eyes while words from the online assault drifted before her — dripping with venom —

Plagiarist, stop playing dead. Come out and say something.

This kind of garbage is actually on the top charts? Get out of Jinjiang.

Smooth how she slipped that in — her earlier books were probably stolen too, right?

Many of those saying these things had no prior grudge against her. They had simply looked at the comparison chart and reached their own verdict. So rather than the fury of being smeared, what she felt more urgently was the need to understand: how on earth could two stories overlap like this?

Friday evening, when classes let out, the gates of Su Shi No. 1 High School were swarming with students. Xu Huaishi stood at the bus stop and took out her phone, idly logging into her Jinjiang account.

A little over a month ago, she had discovered a heartbreaking story on an old feature phone.

The male lead — her brother — had apparently harbored a secret crush on a girl from another class all through high school, and had been so pathetically timid about it that he’d left for overseas without ever confessing.

It was the kind of story that made bystanders weep on his behalf. She hadn’t been able to help herself — she’d registered an account on the fiction site she normally used for reading, and written a short story based on what she’d found. It wasn’t like she was launching a writing career or anything. She simply had an overwhelming urge to get it out, with no one around her she could tell, and she’d been worried a public forum would spread too wide and her brother might find out — which was why she’d chosen Jinjiang, that beloved refuge for women’s literature.

But Xu Huaishi quickly came to realize she had made a mistake.

Because she had gone viral. Her comment section had exploded with thousands of new entries within two days, and the flood of information informed her that she had been plagiarized by a writer with a modest following.

Xu Huaishi stood there stunned, unable to process it for a good while. Once she came back to herself, she quickly tracked down the other writer’s novel and read through it in a rush, then found the writer’s Weibo page and, in a surge of outrage, prepared to demand an explanation.

“Wen Xiang’s” profile had a pinned post at the top — a response: No plagiarism has occurred. Regarding the overlapping elements between “I Really Want to Whisper in Your Ear” and “Her Eyes Smile,” I have already reached out to the author “Xie Shiren” for clarification and am awaiting a reply. I will provide a further statement once I have a better understanding of the situation. (God knows this story about a secret crush is drawn from my own personal experience in school… 😂)

The parenthetical comment wasn’t enough to convince most people, so below it she had attached a video — footage of the outline document on her computer, showing its most recent modification date, which pre-dated the publication of Her Eyes Smile.

The video showed the document’s timestamp and, in a continuous uncut recording, scrolled through the visible contents of the file — which made it a considerably more convincing piece of evidence than a screenshot alone could have been.

Unsurprisingly, the replies beneath this post were noticeably more measured in tone.

Xu Huaishi paused at that, and tapped into the private messages.

The message from “Wen Xiang” opened with a brief explanation of the situation. The final few lines read: “I Really Want to Whisper in Your Ear is entirely my own original concept, and I had absolutely no intention of causing offense to your work. That said, I cannot deny the objective existence of the overlapping elements between the two stories. I am reaching out to you to seek clarification, and I look forward to your reply.”

Recalling that line on the profile page — my own personal experience — Xu Huaishi turned back to Wen Xiang’s novel with renewed skepticism, and that was when she noticed something wrong.

When she had adapted the text messages into her story, she had cut out certain plot elements — but a few of those omitted details had nonetheless appeared in Wen Xiang’s writing.

What did that mean?

In the early summer warmth, a sudden chill ran up her spine, and goosebumps prickled across her skin for no apparent reason.

A boy’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Xu Huaishi, why are you just standing there? The number nineteen bus has gone past three times already.”

She looked up to find Zhao Yi crossing the street toward her from the other side — close-cropped hair, the lollipop in his mouth somehow managing to project all the attitude of a cigarette, all-around air of a young street tough.

Xu Huaishi was in a foul mood and was about to brush him off when a flash of inspiration struck. She smiled sweetly. “Zhao, what a coincidence!”

“Huh.” Zhao Yi heard the unusual term of address and raised an eyebrow, crossing over in a few quick strides. “Sun’s rising in the west. What do you want? Nobody’s this nice without an ulterior motive.”

She laughed lightly, lowering her voice behind her hand. “You’ve got connections everywhere. I want to ask you something — do you have any back-channel way to track down someone’s real identity if you have their Weibo? Nothing illegal. I just need a name.”

Zhao Yi shook his head with the gravity of a wise elder. “Young lady, looking up someone’s name is also illegal.”

She paused, deflated — then watched as he leaned in close and said, “But it’ll cost you.”

Xu Huaishi hesitated for a moment, then steeled herself. “How much?”

He made an “okay” sign. “Thirty thousand yuan.”

“…”

She turned to leave. Zhao Yi grabbed her by the arm, and she turned back to find him grinning, showing a full row of white teeth. “Friendship rate. One cup of bubble tea.”

An hour later, at a bubble tea shop by the street, Zhao Yi answered a call, gave a few brief responses, then said, “Thanks, uncle. I’ll treat you to crayfish sometime.”

He hung up, snapped his fingers, tore a strip off a menu, and scrawled two characters in a crooked hand before pushing it across the table.

“Ruan Yu?” Xu Huaishi turned the name over twice and thought for a moment. “Zhao, do me one more favor — come back to school with me.”

“What for?”

She pointed at the menu strip. “The school history museum. I want to check if this person is one of our seniors.”

Xu Huaishi remembered: the last draft message in the phone’s drafts folder had been dated the day before her brother left for overseas. It read: One last look. It’s the photo of you in the school history museum. Goodbye.

So she thought: if there really was a coincidence in this world so close to miraculous — if Wen Xiang’s claim of “personal experience” wasn’t a lie — then there would be a photograph of Ruan Yu in there.

The two of them made up an excuse about forgotten homework and set off toward the school history museum in the last glow of the setting sun.

The museum was already closed for the day, but Zhao Yi had a certain shameless tenacity that proved useful — he planted himself at the entrance and put on such an extended performance for the custodian that Xu Huaishi was able to seize the moment, slip inside, and bolt straight for the second floor.

The building was empty and still. Evening light filtered through the glass windows and lit the corridors, while the trees outside cast dappled shadows across the floor. She lightened her footsteps, held her breath, and wound her way through the halls until she finally reached the wall dedicated to outstanding graduates from each graduating year.

The school had been founded nearly fifty years ago, and the history museum had stood for twenty of those years — by now the wall was packed wall-to-wall with photographs.

She fixed her gaze on the section for the class of 2007, raised her index finger, and moved it slowly along the rows one by one. Her heartbeat began to quicken.

Nervousness. The thrill of trespassing. And excitement.

A seventeen-year-old girl, at the end of the day, would rather believe in a secret buried by ten years of time than in something as ugly as plagiarism — her instincts leaned that way, somewhere below conscious thought.

But in the very next moment, the sound of footsteps echoed in the corridor behind her — leather soles against the floor — and a middle-aged man’s voice rang out, sharp with irritation. “Which class are you from? School’s out — what are you doing in here?”

Xu Huaishi let out a startled yelp. With no time to look more carefully at the photographs, she spun around and ran, stumbling and scrambling down the other staircase.

The man came charging after her. She nearly tripped on the way down, and when she burst into the ground floor lobby, there was already someone blocking the front entrance. She doubled back, cornered, until a familiar voice called out from the direction of the women’s restroom: “In here!”

She flung herself through the door, spotted Zhao Yi through the window, ripped her school bag off her shoulder and hurled it at him, then planted both hands on the windowsill and jumped.

Zhao Yi caught her firmly, slung her bag over his shoulder, grabbed her by the arm and sprinted for the small grove of trees behind the school history museum.

The two of them vanished in an instant, leaving the custodian behind, cursing and stamping his feet.

Once it was clear they’d lost him, Zhao Yi stopped and dropped onto the grass, catching his breath as he spoke. “Xu Huaishi… you have a long-lost relative in that school history museum, and it had to be tonight? Put in an application on Monday and come back properly — it’s not like your relative’s going anywhere, is it?”

Xu Huaishi was panting too, and it took a while before she could get words out. “I can’t figure this out, my whole weekend is going to be ruined!”

She flopped down onto the grass beside him, beside herself with frustration. “I was so close!”

“And I’m still not getting dragged into another life-or-death stunt for you!”

Xu Huaishi knew perfectly well you didn’t go poking the hornet’s nest twice in one night — there was absolutely no chance of getting back into the school history museum now. And asking her brother directly was out of the question. If he found out she’d taken his private messages and turned them into a story she’d posted online, that would be worse than a disciplinary notice and a written self-criticism combined.

So what — she was really going to have to suffer through an entire weekend like this?

She kicked her legs against the ground in agitation, then suddenly remembered something. “Wait—”

Proving Ruan Yu’s identity didn’t have to start from the text messages. She could look for clues in Wen Xiang’s novel.

She remembered a passage she’d glimpsed at the bus stop earlier: in the novel, the male lead “He Shiqian” would spend his free time playing piano in the school’s arts building, and the female lead “Lin Xisheng” had once written a row of English letters on the wall of the practice room he used most often — lxsxhhsq.

Meaning: “Lin Xisheng likes He Shiqian.”

Which meant…

The sun had sunk entirely below the horizon. She pushed herself up from the ground, glanced toward the domed arts building disappearing into the gathering dark, and said, “Zhao — has the wall inside our arts building been repainted in the last few years?”

Zhao Yi had no idea where her mind had gone now. “The school’s too stingy for that. Probably not.”

“Then are we risking our lives one more time?”

“…”

Fifteen minutes later, on the spiral staircase of the arts building, Xu Huaishi crouched low and scrolled through her phone. “Found it — the novel says room 401. The wall behind the piano!”

She looked up and nudged Zhao Yi, urging him to lead the way, repeating, “401, 401!”

Zhao Yi frowned and lowered his voice. “401 is a painting studio. There’s no piano in there.”

“Huh?” Xu Huaishi blinked.

Was the room number invented to avoid being too on-the-nose? Did that mean they’d have to check every room one by one?

“Think harder, quick!” Zhao Yi whispered.

Think harder. Think.

Xu Huaishi pressed her hands to her head and racked her brain. A moment later, a spark went off. “Do you know which practice room has a view of the second window on the fourth floor of the main teaching building?”

She remembered — her brother had written in one of the messages that from his practice room, he could see that girl leaning over the railing outside the classroom door, sunbathing.

“The westernmost one — 301!” Zhao Yi answered without hesitation.

“That’s the one. Let’s go!”

The two of them crept low along the corridor to the far end of the third floor.

Room 301 was locked. Zhao Yi sighed. “You got a hairpin? One of the thin ones.”

Xu Huaishi pulled one from her hair, then held up her phone to light his way.

Five minutes later, the door clicked open. She rushed in with her phone’s flashlight and squeezed behind the piano in a state of barely contained excitement.

She was slight enough to just barely fit. The concentrated white beam of light scattered out and illuminated the old, faintly yellowed white wall before her. Though several patches of the plaster had flaked away, there in the center, a row of English letters written in correction fluid still stood out with perfect clarity.

— ryxhxhs.

Zhao Yi, stuck outside and unable to squeeze through, squinted at the letters and sounded them out: “R… Y… X… H… X… H… S…”

“…”

Xu Huaishi turned to shoot him a look, then turned back, and felt her eyes go hot with something dangerously close to tears.

She reached out and let her index finger rest gently against the rough surface of the wall — careful, as though afraid of breaking something — and whispered softly:

“It’s… Ruan… Yu… likes… Xu… Huai… song.”