Nalin returned an hour later.

She had changed back into her own clothes. Upon return, she went straight to Ge Yinling’s side to touch up her makeup, never making any direct eye contact with Long Qi. She seemed to be in quite a good mood though. Long Qi finished her water, checked the time, and reviewed the script—none of the remaining scenes involved her. She informed the male student in charge of filming and headed back.

When she reached the mountain path entrance, both cars remained parked in their usual spots, unmoved. But Jin Yiken wasn’t in the car. Only when she approached the roadside did she spot him standing by the guardrail, on a phone call. He looked more energized than before, hands in his pockets, gazing at the scenery below while talking. Long Qi didn’t call out to him but opened the passenger door and got in.

She reached to the back seat for her own clothes and had just pulled her damp shirt up to her arms when the car door clicked open. Jin Yiken had returned without a sound, making her reflexively fling the shirt aside. It landed squarely on his chest, splashing water all over his face. He squinted and tilted his head as she shouted, “I’m changing clothes!”

He made a clicking sound with his tongue.

Long Qi told him to wait outside, but he assumed that old-married-couple attitude of refusing to comply. The car door remained half-open, his body blocking the gap as he said, “Let me in, and I’ll show you something good.”

“What good thing? Something on your body?”

“You want to see? Now?” This old hand smoothly followed her lead, steering the conversation downward with first-rate reaction speed and complete shamelessness. Long Qi rolled her eyes at him.

“Did you take your medicine?” she asked.

“I did.”

“Three times a day—you only took the morning dose.” She grabbed her bag from the back seat, which contained a thermos and medicine box. While unpacking the pills, she crooked her finger at him. He got in the car and shut the door with a bang.

The car interior then became incredibly quiet, even the rustling sound of leaves in the wind cut off by the window glass. Before handing him the medicine, she paused to check the instructions on the box side, confirming whether it was indeed three times daily, two pills each time. Lian Shaozi had prepared this medicine for her. He said, “I remember the last time you had a bad cold, I was the one who fed you the medicine.”

“When was that?”

“Senior year, New Year’s Eve.”

With this keyword, the memory quickly surfaced. Back then, she’d had her first showdown with Dong Xi and caught a severe cold in her dazed and confused state. He’d forcibly taken advantage of her once under the excuse of “feeling terrible about going abroad to study,” and then she’d passed the cold to him. The next morning, not only did he eat her medicine, he complained she’d bought the wrong kind. After getting lectured, that severe cold finally got better under his care.

Back then, she’d been a female high school student with terrible self-care abilities who somehow considered herself incredibly mature. It was a stroke of luck she’d survived intact. She turned to look at Jin Yiken. “So, are you taking it or not?”

He took it.

After taking the medicine, she checked the time. Still half an hour before they’d wrap up. She wasn’t planning to return to the ancestral house and asked, “So where’s the good thing?”

Jin Yiken was putting on his earphones, looking ready to take another nap. He turned on music, turned on the air conditioning, then crooked his finger at her. She extended her hand, and he gripped her wrist, placing it into his own pocket.

Inside, she felt something.

She pulled it out, recognized it at a glance, then tossed it back at him. The still-wrapped condom bounced off his arm. She said, “You changed brands?”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you used to find this size too tight?”

“Your ability to focus on the key point is truly remarkable.”

“So the good thing is this? Why make me take it out?”

“I didn’t want to leave my fingerprints on it.”

Long Qi looked at him. He continued lazily removing the dashcam from the car ceiling and placed it on her lap. “Saved a recording.”

“What is it?”

“Watch it first.”

Then he adjusted his seat to recline back, settling into an emperor-retiring-for-the-night posture, looking like he wouldn’t say another word. She rolled her eyes again and spent a while figuring out the recorder, pulling up a video from an hour ago. Due to the angle, the frame still showed the car hood, but she could hear the car door opening and closing. She drew up her knees, wrapped her arms around them, and leaned against the window glass to watch. Then she heard a female voice speaking softly.

—How long has it been since you and Long Qi did it?

…

The hair on her arms instantly stood on end.

She immediately recognized Nalin’s voice. Her head and neck stiffened at once. Why would this person get in the car, and what gave her the right to inquire about other people’s private lives? These two questions coalesced into a surge of anger that instantly shot from her abdomen straight to the top of her head. She turned to look at Jin Yiken. He was leisurely taking his nap. She continued listening and heard Nalin follow up with a laughing remark: “Your cold is an act.”

“You’re faking it?”

Her hand slapped down on Jin Yiken’s shoulder. He coughed and shot her a glance—a “quietly watch the entire recording before coming to find me” glance. Her chest rose and fell as she continued watching. The frame remained fixed on the unmoving car hood. She heard some breathing sounds, some friction of skin against fabric, ambiguous enough to make her blood boil. Just when she could barely contain herself, she finally heard a small “smack.” The rustling of fabric instantly stopped, as if someone had reacted. She heard Jin Yiken, clearly just woken up and with a trace of morning grumpiness, say, “You woke me up.”

“If you’re awake, why are your eyes still closed?” Nalin asked, very softly. Long Qi could visualize how close the two were. She grabbed Jin Yiken’s hand and dug her nails hard into his palm. He didn’t pull away, letting her dig.

In the recording, she heard him reply methodically, “First, I still want to sleep.”

“Second, I don’t care who you are. Get out of the car now. Within five seconds, and I’ll leave you some basic dignity. I won’t pursue the matter of you waking me up.”

“Do you have to be this strict? Yesterday, I saw you on the balcony, alone, very different from now.”

Nalin’s tone when talking to Jin Yiken really didn’t sound like her usual speaking manner. Especially slow, but truly sultry, with a strong “come sleep with me” sexual suggestion. But Jin Yiken was clearly also an old hand. After five seconds passed, he probably opened his eyes and looked at Nalin, because she heard him say, “You also got my car wet.”

The screen shook slightly. Nalin seemed to have changed positions, her back leaning against the passenger seat backrest, causing the car body to tremble slightly, accompanied by a laugh. “I thought you were the very experienced type who could handle things with mutual understanding.”

“What kind of things?” he asked slowly.

“I’ve already gotten in your car. Do you think I came to test drive it?”

“If I remember correctly, you’re friends with that girl surnamed Ge.”

“Congratulations, you have a good memory. But all social relationships are unimportant. From the second I got in your car until I get out, whatever happens in between, I won’t remember any of it. Those are the game rules. Tell me, how much more direct do I need to be to move a guy like you?” Then, as if leaning closer to Jin Yiken’s ear, she lowered her voice. “Honestly, I really don’t believe you’ve never cheated.”

…

So this is what Nalin was really like.

Long Qi shook her head as she listened, that ball of fire leaping around in her chest, burning strong. The audacity, to so blatantly suggest hooking up with someone else’s boyfriend. She took a breath to calm herself and heard Jin Yiken in the recording reply methodically, “You want to do it in the car? Aren’t you afraid of being seen?”

“That makes it thrilling.”

She heard Jin Yiken laugh once.

Then say, “I’ve dealt with girls like you before.”

…

“Really?” As if confirming her own guess, Nalin’s voice held a trace of delight. “I want to hear about it.”

Jin Yiken didn’t hold back at all either, immediately saying, “Full of superiority, competitive with everyone you meet, thinking a few words whispered in someone’s ear will get them hard, thinking a few lines will get them to hook up with you. Self-proclaimed sharp judgment, thinking you can seduce any man with ease. Actually never encountered a single worthwhile man. Pretty pathetic, not pitiable. You said something quite right—I’m not exactly a righteous person, so girls like you are everywhere around me. You’re neither the most proper nor the sluttiest among them. If I really wanted to cheat, why would I choose you? Because you’re the easiest lay?”

…

The car fell silent. Nalin said nothing.

Jin Yiken wasn’t finished. This time, he seemed to lean closer to Nalin, his voice low and deep.

“The way you’re flirting with me—Long Qi knew how to do this in the first month I was pursuing her. I’ve taken off more clothes from her body than you’ve seen low-quality men. My private life with her would only make someone like you jealous enough to lose sight of your own position. If you’re truly smart, don’t ask, don’t try to find an entry point from me. Open the car door, get out, leave yourself some dignity, and stop living like a cheap sex toy.”

That last line was truly devastating.

Long Qi felt her heart tremble just hearing it. Jin Yiken’s mouth was truly vicious. This was the first time she’d witnessed him say such things to a girl—he knew exactly how to shatter this kind of intruder’s confidence, piercing soul and bone. The recording fell silent for a full half minute. Nalin was as quiet as a mute. Then came the sound of the door opening, followed by a heavy “bang”—a very forceful door slam.

From the dashcam’s view of the car hood, she saw Nalin walk toward the seven-seater van ahead with her arms crossed and get in that vehicle.

“But she came back an hour later.” Long Qi’s focus again landed on the timing.

“She cried for half an hour.”

“How do you know?”

“She got out of the car.”

“You actually made a girl cry,” she fast-forwarded through the recording. “Did she come looking for you again?”

Jin Yiken didn’t respond, acting completely uninvolved, looking quite wicked. Long Qi asked again, “Didn’t you say you’d leave her some dignity? Why show this to me?”

“Do you know how long I spent wiping down the passenger seat?” This sentence carried temper.

“You’re that strict?”

“I’m extremely strict.”

Then Long Qi remembered how good Nalin’s mood had seemed when she returned and thought this person was far too good at acting—two-faced. A surge of anger about the earlier incident with Ge Yinling and Fu Yu’ao welled up again. Gripping the recorder, she prepared to get out of the car to settle scores. Jin Yiken grabbed her arm. “What are we having for lunch?”

“Let me go find her and have it out first.”

“Talk after lunch.”

“She hit on my man without making an appointment with me!”

“You’ll have more energy after eating.”

His temper had subsided by now, assuming a steady-as-a-mountain demeanor. Long Qi’s fire wouldn’t be suppressed—she insisted on getting out. At that moment,

speak of the devil, the devil appears. While she and Jin Yiken were in this tug-of-war, that group finished filming.

One by one, they gradually emerged from the woods. That little bitch Nalin walked beside Ge Yinling, accompanied by two other girls chatting animatedly—the clique formation was rock solid. Jin Yiken finally said, “I just took medicine. The effects are only halfway in. If you want to fight with her right now, how can I take your side?”

This finally persuaded her.

She realized that facing them alone would indeed put her at a disadvantage. She calmed down a bit, forcefully pulling the passenger seat belt while staring at Nalin getting into the van. She said, “Fine! We’ll talk when we get back.”

The car drove all the way, the person holding her breath the entire time.

The car window was open. Jin Yiken rested one hand on the window edge, driving while occasionally observing her, sometimes laughing. She had no idea what was so funny and ignored him the whole way.

After getting out, the oblivious Wu Yishan wanted to invite her and Jin Yiken to lunch together. Nalin acted like nothing had happened, chatting with Ge Yinling and the others—all a bunch of people standing on moral high ground putting on airs. Long Qi didn’t want to look at them for another second. She said she had a headache and felt nauseous, then went upstairs.

As Jin Yiken walked behind her, Nalin turned her head from the crowd again. In three glances, two were fixed on Jin Yiken, as if crying over him once had created some special connection. When Long Qi looked over, she retracted her gaze without a trace.

After returning to the room, he couldn’t hold on and needed a nap.

Meanwhile, the group chat started getting lively again.

One after another, they posted behind-the-scenes photos and videos from the morning’s shoot. Several girls chatted happily. The group photos were almost all centered on Nalin and Ge Yinling’s little clique—not a single one involved Long Qi. She sat on the sofa by the bed, set the group messages to do not disturb, then studied how to transfer the dashcam video to her phone.

Just as she was about to succeed, WeChat dinged.

She received a friend verification request. Opening it, she saw Ge Yinling had unexpectedly sent her a friend request.

But clearly not to actually add her as a friend—just using the verification message to send information.

—Third floor terrace, just the two of us, let’s talk privately.

…

When she reached the third-floor public terrace, Ge Yinling was already waiting there, without her conjoined twin Nalin.

Light rain still drifted through the mountains, the humidity heavy. The person was leaning against the doorframe at the terrace entrance. Long Qi wore a thin blanket, arms crossed, slowly approaching. When Ge Yinling looked up at the sound, she leaned against the opposite doorframe. Their silhouettes faced each other, immersed in the rainy light.

“What crime are you planning to pin on me this time?”

…

Ge Yinling’s hair blew in the wind.

Though she’d initiated the meeting, she still wore an icy expression. Looking at Long Qi who asked this question, she was equally direct, replying coolly, “Fu Yu’ao has no more chances with you, right?”

Long Qi laughed derisively.

“What false impression has he created for you to make you so stubbornly believe I actually have any entanglement with him?”

“Do you want to hear it?”

She looked up.

The terrace floor was damp, fine rain threads hitting the knees not covered by the thin blanket. Ge Yinling stood motionless with arms crossed, saying, “When he was sleeping with me, he called out your name.”

…

“He imagined me in that moment as you. Tell me, for a woman, how disgusting is that?”

…

Good. At this moment, she finally understood why Ge Yinling was so hysterical. Fu Yu’ao had indeed done something excessive enough, selfish enough. Long Qi released her crossed arms and moved closer. “Then where did I go wrong? Where did I, who has been drawing clear boundaries with him from start to finish, go wrong? Why do I need to receive harsher criticism than him?”

“You’re not wrong, but you’re not innocent either.”

“I’m not innocent? You’re completely unreasonable, aren’t you?”

“You haven’t experienced a three-year relationship where you’re constantly being compared to someone living in memory.”

“Then break up with him. Don’t do it. You’re the one enduring and jumping into the fire pit, and in the end you blame it on me? Do you know that in the same three years, the person you were being compared to had it a hundred times worse than you? So miserable she couldn’t even remember she used to be someone with normal social connections who could make friends normally. And you don’t know how excellent you are yourself?”

Ge Yinling didn’t respond, just looked at her, breathing.

Long Qi nodded slightly. “If you called me here just to talk about this, then let’s not waste each other’s time.”

“Xi Jing asked me to pass on a message to you.”

As she was leaving, Ge Yinling finally spoke.

Xi Jing.

Such audacity—as Shao Guo’an’s mistress, she’d actually gotten close to Shao Guo’an’s own niece. But it wasn’t surprising. Ge Yinling probably knew even less than she did. The Valango show campaign that Lian Shaozi orchestrated for Long Qi was still vivid in memory—articles about Xi Jing being outshone were still flying all over the internet. Long Qi stopped and turned back to hear Ge Yinling say, “She has a script she wants to show you. If you’re interested, tell your manager. Your manager knows how to contact her.”

Like an olive branch.

But this approach didn’t quite fit Xi Jing’s style of quietly making big moves. Long Qi didn’t quite understand.

She didn’t respond directly to Ge Yinling, just took it in, walked a few steps, then turned back. “Then let me pass on a message to you too.”

“To me.”

“Yes, you. The person you need to guard against isn’t me. Before giving me ideological education, pay attention to your friend who loves stealing other people’s partners. That thief-crying-thief act of hers doesn’t look like a novice’s work.”

As the words fell, Ge Yinling immediately looked incredulous.

“Are you stooping to such low tactics as sowing discord now, Long Qi?”

“If telling the truth counts as sowing discord, then so be it.”

Ge Yinling nodded. “Now I know why you had such a miserable three years in high school.”

…

She moved closer to Long Qi.

“Someone like you, how could you deserve any true friends? However you lived is your own doing. Don’t constantly push blame onto others. Look for reasons in yourself, Long Qi. One person disliking you, you can find excuses for, but an entire grade disliking you—that’s not common.”

Rain threads drifted.

Staring at Ge Yinling, the icy words and cold attitude all laid out. Then, in this tense moment, a commotion faintly came from downstairs, blocking the retort Long Qi was about to make.

Her phone also rang.

It rang at precisely this moment, disrupting her momentum. Somewhat irritably, she looked—it was Wu’er.

Ge Yinling probably felt she’d won the argument, looking quite at ease. The commotion downstairs grew louder and louder, loud enough that she turned to glance. The conversation atmosphere completely broken, Long Qi took a deep breath and placed the phone to her ear, hearing Wu’er say, “Where are you?”

“What’s up?”

While listening, she walked to the terrace railing and saw a crowd gathered at the building’s base—staff from the inn and several tourists. They seemed to have seen some remarkable figure and were excitedly discussing and taking photos below. Wu’er said, “We came to your place. Where are you?”

A slight start.

“‘We’?”

Looking down a second time, she saw Wu’er on the phone at the front steps, wearing a jacket and carrying a leather bag, looking every inch the female director. She’d arrived so quietly. And clearly she wasn’t alone. On the third look, Long Qi nearly dropped her phone.

Wu Jiakui—this little sprite had also come.

Carrying a platinum bag, wearing black sunglasses, in a vacation dress as expensive as could be, her whole face projecting “big star” indifference. Long Qi had no idea what she was doing here, but she stood there in the porch area with an aura of “princess descending the mountain,” alone yet seeming like an entire royal entourage, unable to hide her “here-to-make-trouble” vibe. Wu’er held two large suitcases, both hers. Following behind was the young lady Fang Xuan, who always went where the action was. Fang Xuan was dressed fashionably. Having just parked, she was the first of the three to look up and spot the third floor, waving with a booming voice, “Why are you just standing there watching? Come down and welcome your aunties!”

Wu Jiakui slowly looked up, pulled down her sunglasses, those eyes gazing up at her, chewing gum, her cheeks moving.

…??

The surrounding commotion was all because the inn staff had encountered a living celebrity like Wu Jiakui. She had quite a few fans, surrounding her for autographs. Wu Yishan’s group had also come downstairs, gathering at the porch entrance to “see the spectacle.” Wu’er waved toward the third floor, explaining, “Jin Yiken told me the environment here is great, so I came to scout locations. Fang Xuan said you still owe her a crawfish meal and insisted on coming!”

…

…