The meeting ran straight through until one in the afternoon. It was only at half past one that the script and creative team finally got to eat their boxed lunches in the conference room.

Each box contained four dishes, a soup, and a dessert — all meticulously prepared, high-end cuisine, the elite tier of boxed meals. Word had it that Director Wei had come by and was treating everyone.

The conference room buzzed with admiration, everyone praising how generous this producer was.

Perhaps due to Li Shican’s warning beforehand, and the fact that Director Wei’s gaze had already unsettled her at first glance, Ruan Yu didn’t participate much in the conversation. She rubbed at her aching neck and kept her head down, eating.

She was nearly finished when her phone buzzed once.

Assuming it was Xu Huaisong home from working late, she immediately pulled out her phone — but found it was a message from Li Shican: Are you still on the seventh floor?

She replied with a single “yes” and received nothing back. A little while later, she saw producer Zheng Shan’s secretary arrive carrying a full spread of milk teas, saying they were a treat for the entire script and creative team.

Everyone started thanking the producer again. Only Ruan Yu picked up her phone and sent a message to Li Shican: Thank you — you didn’t have to.

Li Shican replied: Don’t mention it.

Then added: Director Wei and a few directors spent the morning reviewing a batch of new actress candidates. They’ll be coming down to your conference room soon and want your team to weigh in with some feedback as well.

Soft Jade: What kind of feedback?

Li Shican: Have them pull script pages and read a couple of lines. It’s basically just a performance for show — putting on a display to impress the newcomers. The actual decision on who gets cast doesn’t hinge on any of this.

Thinking of Sun Miaohan, Ruan Yu asked: Did you happen to see a girl named Sun Miaohan up on the nineteenth floor?

Li Shican: Didn’t notice. I spent the whole morning in the lounge with the air conditioning.

Ruan Yu didn’t ask why.

Why a major celebrity like him would come in person to negotiate a contract. Why he was idle enough to sit in a lounge with the air conditioning on the nineteenth floor instead of taking care of other things.

She gripped her phone and was quiet for a moment, then continued: I know that girl. If we run into each other in front of everyone later, would that be awkward? I don’t really know the rules of the entertainment industry.

Ruan Yu knew she had no say in the casting decisions, but some of the purely new candidates might have their own ideas about things. At such a critical juncture in the casting process, if Sun Miaohan happened to cross paths with her and then got selected, there would be no telling later whether people might whisper that she’d gotten in through connections.

That sort of unfair accusation was better to avoid altogether.

Li Shican: Then go wait in the restroom or the break room. I’ll let you know when they’re coming down.

Armed with the “intelligence,” Ruan Yu slipped away to the break room at the far end of the seventh-floor corridor when the people from the nineteenth floor came down — and it was precisely at that moment that she received a message from Xu Huaisong: I’m home. Is the meeting over?

Ruan Yu set her cup on the coffee machine on the counter and typed back: There’s still the second half. Taking a break in the break room right now.

The moment she sent it, a video call request came in from Xu Huaisong.

She turned and stepped to the doorway, peeked in the direction of the conference room, and saw that the actors had arrived — it was crowded and lively over there — while the corridor itself was empty. So she quietly shut the break room door, answered the video call, and held up her phone, already complaining: “My neck is absolutely killing me from all these meetings.”

On the other end, Xu Huaisong was in the process of taking off his suit jacket. San Francisco summers were only in the low teens at night — one couldn’t dress lightly until getting home.

He smiled slightly and said: “Wait until I’m back.”

“Back for what?”

“A professional massage.”

Hearing the rather down-to-earth phrasing, Ruan Yu let out a snort of laughter, rubbing her neck as she said: “By the time you’re back, what good will it do? I’ll just do some neck-rolling exercises myself.”

And so she began rotating her neck up, down, left, and right.

But somehow she caught something wrong and let out a sharp, pained: “Ow!”

“What happened?” Xu Huaisong’s tone sharpened with concern.

“I twisted it wrong and it hurts…”

Ruan Yu had barely finished saying this with a grimace when she suddenly heard a sound behind her — a click — and the door was flung open.

She turned around in surprise to find Li Shican standing there, frozen stiff and wide-eyed, coming face to face across an ocean with Xu Huaisong in her raised phone screen, who was also mildly caught off guard.

A quiet encounter — and yet one that shook heaven and earth. An international summit of the most unexpectedly dramatic kind.

How has something this embarrassing been walked in on again…

Every cell in Ruan Yu’s body cringed. The hand holding up the phone didn’t know whether to lower it or keep it there.

These two men — couldn’t either of them rescue her?

But neither of them rescued her. The two stared at each other in silence, as though they were gazing into the face of some rare and precious revolutionary fellowship.

She had no choice but to hold her position, let out an awkward little laugh, and say to Li Shican: “Sorry about that — I’ve taken over the break room. Did you need it?”

He came back to himself and shook his head, explaining: “No, I heard a sound from nearby and thought something had happened to you…”

What could possibly happen? Ruan Yu blinked, and then it connected — his earlier warning about Director Wei, the sound of her pained cry just now, the tightly closed break room door. She understood.

Before she could say anything, Li Shican had already given a slight nod toward Xu Huaisong on the phone screen: “Sorry to interrupt.” Then he stepped back out and pulled the door closed behind him.

Ruan Yu turned back around, steadied the phone, and looked at Xu Huaisong.

His expression wasn’t exactly unpleasant, but it was hardly pleasant either.

He didn’t bring up what had just happened. After a brief pause, he said: “I’ll be back next Friday. I’ll come by your place in the evening.”

It was only Monday now, and next Friday was nearly two weeks away. But Ruan Yu was so absorbed in the script work that she didn’t really notice the time dragging by.

Before she knew it, August had arrived. On Friday evening at nine o’clock, she finished yet another script meeting at Huan Shi and, having missed the last bus, had no choice but to take a cab home.

Xu Huaisong happened to call just then, saying he had gotten off the expressway and would arrive in about an hour. When he heard she was alone in a taxi, he told her not to hang up.

The two of them stayed on the line the whole way. Half an hour later, Ruan Yu stepped out of the cab with her phone at five percent battery.

She told Xu Huaisong on the other end: “We’re seeing each other soon — I don’t need to be clingy with you over the phone anymore. I’m heading into the apartment building now. You can focus on driving.”

Xu Huaisong made a sound of acknowledgment and hung up.

Ruan Yu turned into the apartment lobby and saw the elevator doors just about to close. She quickened her pace and pressed the up button — and was just about to say “sorry to trouble you” to whoever was inside when she opened her mouth and stopped cold.

Standing in the elevator were a man and a woman she recognized.

Huan Shi’s director, Wei Jin, and Sun Miaohan.

Sun Miaohan saw her and her eyes went wide in an instant, her expression visibly frightened.

Wei Jin, however, didn’t seem to recognize her at all. He leaned back against the handrail, one arm casually draped around Sun Miaohan’s waist, the other hand touching his lips, eyes half-lidded, the picture of relaxed ease.

After that split-second pause, Ruan Yu gripped her bag and walked stiffly inside, quietly positioned herself in the corner of the elevator, and also pretended not to recognize either of them.

In the small, enclosed space, the atmosphere congealed into something suffocating.

Or perhaps only Ruan Yu felt it that way. Because out of the corner of her eye, she caught Wei Jin tilting his head to the side and pressing his nose into the top of Sun Miaohan’s head, inhaling — as though completely unbothered by the presence of anyone else.

It wasn’t until a chime rang and the elevator stopped at the fifteenth floor — Sun Miaohan’s floor — that Ruan Yu realized she had completely forgotten to press her own floor button.

Wei Jin guided Sun Miaohan out.

Ruan Yu reached up and pressed “12.” Then, just as the doors began to close, she caught sight of Sun Miaohan — walking with stiff, halting steps — turning to look back at her.

Their eyes met for no more than a single moment before the elevator doors eased shut and descended to the twelfth floor.

Ruan Yu stepped out of the elevator and fumbled through her bag for her keys, her hands trembling as she unlocked the front door.

In the darkness, the look Sun Miaohan had given her floated before her eyes, again and again.

If she’d read it correctly — that look, lit up by the motion-sensor light in the corridor — it had meant fear. And a plea for help.

She drifted through the motions of switching on the living room light, then stood with her back against the front door for a long time, and finally pulled out her phone and called Li Shican, her voice carrying the faintest tremor as she said: “Hello?”

On the other end, Li Shican immediately picked up on something wrong in her voice. “What is it, Senior?”

“That time you told me to stay away from Director Wei — what exactly was the reason?”

Li Shican went quiet for a moment. “Did something happen to you?”

“No, not to me…” Ruan Yu swallowed against the dryness in her throat. “Can you explain it to me in more detail — is it about casting couch situations, or something else?”

“It’s not just casting couch situations. Ones where both parties are willing are far too common in the industry to single out. I’ve heard some rumors that he has a tendency toward violence…” Li Shican seemed to find the next part difficult to say. “In that way. It’s more like… a particular inclination.”

Ruan Yu’s breath caught.

“Word is he ruined a female entertainer before, but her family didn’t have the resources or means to pursue it, and he buried it with money.” He paused there. “What’s really going on? Tell me.”

“I… I saw Director Wei go into Sun Miaohan’s apartment. She didn’t look like she was there willingly…”

Li Shican went silent. After a while, he said: “Don’t get involved in this. There’s nothing you can do.”

“Is there any way you could—”

“I don’t have a way.” Li Shican let out a slow breath. “Senior, I can burst into a break room for you, but I can’t wade into this kind of murky water for an actress I don’t even know. That sort of terrible thing is just an isolated incident — the odds of anything really happening are low. Just pretend you didn’t see anything, okay?”

He had barely finished saying this when Ruan Yu’s phone died from the depleted battery and shut itself off automatically.

But she had heard everything she needed to hear.

Ruan Yu curled her hand into a fist, her fingernails pressing slowly into her palm, as Sun Miaohan’s expression swept through her mind over and over again.

That look — like a person drowning, reaching for the very last thing to hold onto.

The seconds ticked by.

Li Shican said he had no way.

And Xu Huaisong was still nearly twenty minutes away. Not to mention he might not have the right standing or means to do anything either — and by the time he arrived, everything would have already been decided. What would be the use?

Ruan Yu closed her eyes.

Pretend she hadn’t seen it.

Could she really pretend she hadn’t seen it?

She clenched her jaw. When she opened her eyes again, her gaze drifted without intention to the ceiling — to that white smoke alarm.

Ruan Yu’s eyes flickered, just for an instant.

She remembered — a while back during her video call with Xu Huaisong, he had mentioned it: once that alarm was triggered, the alert would go off throughout the entire building.

She stood still for half a minute.

Then Ruan Yu turned and ran into the kitchen.

Author’s Note: Jinjiang seems to be glitching a bit lately — many people are saying they haven’t seen updates. I haven’t missed a single update since this novel started. Sometimes it posts before midnight, sometimes after, but I would never stop without reason. If this happens again, try clicking through from the novel’s You’re My Belated Happiness – Chapter directory page instead.