After that, filming began.

A week wasn’t long, but it wasn’t short either—long enough to turn a topic of nationwide heated discussion into something obscure, to completely consign a precarious relationship to a dead valley, and to grind a vibrant person down until they had no temper left.

It was early December, early winter. Media came in a grand flourish for the several big names. The congratulatory gifts and flower baskets delivered to the scene piled up—two-thirds bearing Long Qi’s name. She didn’t know who they were all from—some fans, some investors, some friends of friends. Anyway, after the media released news that she had “broken up with her first love boyfriend and started work alone and dimly,” more male “friends” appeared in these past few days than she’d met in the previous half year. All were figures with profit connections, all handled by Lao Ping. She didn’t know how he handled them, but judging from the momentum of the opening ceremony, they were probably all being kept “ambiguous.”

Filming started directly after the ceremony, so early in the morning she was dragged to the dressing room for styling. She sat there like a corpse, eyes closed, propping up her forehead. The previous week—busy during the day, drunk at night. If not drunk, then insomnia. The consequences were glaringly obvious in her swollen face and dark circles.

No one occupied Wu Jiakui’s seat beside her. Listening to the makeup artists chat, she had a previously scheduled fashion show engagement and had taken leave to fly abroad.

“Why can she take leave but I can’t?”

The lifeless words emerged, startling the hairstylist behind her into stopping. Lao Ping was sending messages nearby, not even looking at her directly: “Because you have dozens more scenes than her. She doesn’t need to waste time here. You do.”

Still sulking.

The female assistant came to her side, asking softly: “Are you on your period? This afternoon’s first scene is a sea scene—you’ll be in cold water.”

“No.”

A while later, her eyes slowly opened.

…

That afternoon’s scene was shot at a nearby dock. The “stowaway” she played jumped ship in coastal waters to evade pursuing enemies, relying on an abandoned tire to “drift” all the way to the dock.

It was high tide. The temperature was low. Seagulls circled the dock in vast flocks. Various crew departments prepared safety measures. She waited at the edge of the deck at the bow, draped in a blanket, looking at the lighthouse along the shore. The sea wind in cold winter carried a salty taste, blowing until her face hurt. Later, after a prompt from the assistant director, the first take began.

Professional personnel stood by in the sea. Lao Ping also came aboard to supervise. She wore thin, dirty clothes and went into the sea against the wind. The camera boom followed closely filming. After entering the water, there was a ringing in her ears. Her chest cavity was squeezed by seawater until she couldn’t breathe. She vaguely heard a “cut” from the boat. Only then did several pairs of hands drag her up. The moment she was hauled out, the sea wind blew on her—even colder, bone-chillingly cold. The assistant wrapped a large blanket around her. The director glanced at her from behind the monitor and said: “Next take.”

The next take was spent completely soaked in the sea.

Because the high tide was dangerous and filming was difficult, just the scene of climbing from the sea onto the dock was repeated several times. Later, even her skin turned bluish. The wound on her abdomen also began to hurt. She didn’t dare cough forcefully. Lao Ping seemed to be deliberately testing her—he just stood behind the monitor watching, watching to see when she’d cave and show him some weakness. It seemed that once she showed weakness, he could greet the director and let this scene pass quickly. This made her even more stubborn. She didn’t exchange a single word with Lao Ping. Later, this scene soaked in the sea for a full two hours before it passed. She huddled shivering in the nanny van, water from her hair dripping onto the blanket drop by drop. The assistant helped her check the wound on her abdomen.

“It’s all turned white… I think we should tell Uncle Ping and go to a nearby hospital later. It’ll be bad if it gets infected.”

“It’s fine.”

“Let me tell Uncle Ping.”

“Is there a pharmacy nearby?” She looked at the steaming tea cup in her hands.

The female assistant rustled around organizing miscellaneous items, thinking: “Yes, there’s one at the crossroads.”

“Help me buy something from the pharmacy later.”

“What?”

As soon as the words fell, someone knocked on the car door. She didn’t continue. At the car window was a female staff member who looked like an assistant. The assistant got out to talk with her. The other person had no intention of getting in the car. She stayed inside with the heat on. Less than half a minute later, the car door opened again. The assistant came in carrying a thermos: “From Mr. Zang Xipu’s assistant. Sent over a pot of black date ginger tea, said she saw you were soaked badly by seawater, so thought to send it over for you to warm up.”

The assistant poured the tea from the bottle into a cup, then added: “I grew up watching Zang Xipu’s movies. Originally thought he’d be a tough guy in person like in his films, didn’t expect him to be especially kind. Last time Uncle Ping had me bring coffee for a dozen people back to the hotel. I ran into him in the elevator and he had his assistant help share the load. Looks like his good reputation in the industry is well-founded.”

“What did you want me to buy?” The assistant finished pouring tea and looked up.

“Pregnancy test.”

Long Qi had waited too long—waited until the assistant snapped back to reality before saying this flatly.

The assistant was stunned.

In the hotel room after work, Lao Ping went to handle other matters. The assistant was in her own room preparing things needed for tomorrow’s schedule. She leaned by the window with the gauze curtain half-drawn. An ashtray sat on the windowsill with six cigarette butts lying crisscross inside. The seventh cigarette flicked between her fingers, ash slowly falling. Her phone screen was lit, showing in the memo the date of her last period—a month and a half ago.

During this time, she’d slept with Jin Yiken several times.

All were safe, except for that one time when he just came back and treated Lao Ping to dinner then drank with Ban Wei. Drunken disorder—whether they took precautions or not, she didn’t remember.

The wind outside the window blew her hair. She pressed the cigarette butt into the ashtray, picked up the pregnancy test from the coffee table, and headed to the bathroom.

While waiting for the results, the pregnancy test sat on the washbasin counter. She paced slowly beside it, thinking through several possibilities. She had already opened Si Bolin’s number in her phone contacts, thinking about how to persuade him to contact Jin Yiken. She thought about using the first child she’d aborted for Jin Yiken as an excuse, then guessed what Jin Yiken’s reaction would be, whether he’d return to the country for this. After a minute passed, she looked at the pregnancy test again.

…

Only one line in the observation window.

Only then did she let out a soft, bitter laugh, sweeping back the hair from her forehead.

“What was I expecting…”

Ironic, and well-deserved.

Later, on a free day, taking advantage of the wound checkup appointment, she also registered for gynecology. The doctor said it was caused by excessive mental stress, told her not to drink alcohol anymore and to rest more, avoid spicy foods, avoid raw and cold foods, absolutely no staying up late. Then prescribed several Chinese herbal medicines for regulation.

The assistant helped her collect the medicine. She sat on a rest chair in the medicine collection hall, wearing a mask and hat, wrapped in a thick scarf, half her face buried tightly. People came and went around her. She looked at her phone with its constantly ringing message alerts.

It had been exactly half a month since the breakup.

Fans stopped asking, the public stopped being curious, media were too lazy to follow up.

She’d thought that finally no one could tear open the wound, but just when the topic’s heat dropped out of the top ten, it surged back to the top three because of an “accidental” comment. This time what made the rankings was the three characters “Jin Yiken.”

Jin Yiken—real, thorny, those three characters.

It originated from an emotional blogger with millions of followers who launched an activity, calling on fans to leave photos of high-attractiveness men and women they’d seen in real life in the comments section. One account’s comment rose to the top hot comment, with nearly ten thousand likes.

That account posted Jin Yiken’s photo.

He sat in a terminal waiting area, head lowered, face tired.

The medicine collection hall’s system call repeated mechanically. She sat quietly, looking without a word. Her fingers were stiff and cold. A surging emotion rushed to her heart—was it longing or resentment? Tangled together, impossible to distinguish. The comments section was lively. The account that posted the photo, “CC Tea Egg,” commented: Saw him in the terminal waiting area, super stylish and cool, but didn’t speak the whole time, looked very gloomy probably in a bad mood. To get a frontal photo I sat beside him for half an hour. When he looked up, my heart exploded!! My hands shook, thought I was discovered so only got this shot… Really the most captivating young man I’ve ever seen!!!

Following that were several highly-liked replies. One reply involved information disclosure and was pushed to the top.

K Bun Head: Jin Yiken, former heartthrob of Beifan High School, heartthrob of Zhongyu University, currently studying abroad in England, physics genius who’s been in authoritative academic journals, rich second generation, ex-girlfriend: Long Qi.

I’m the Top: Did the poster not see recent gossip? You photographed the actual person!

Baby Fat Not Fat: Holy shit so handsome!

It’s Quanquan: I think I collected that year’s newspaper just because there was an award-winning boy who was incredibly handsome! Me—it seems like it was him!

Moyaziiiii: The clarity of this photo beats how many paparazzi photos, previously saw blurry images and thought he should be pretty handsome, clear now it’s simply…

One Bite Sweet and Sour One Mouthful of Flowers_KImooo: Fuck, suddenly want to ship this CP, but they already broke up? Oh my this toxic CP.

Fan Little Tsundere: Dear wives don’t think about it, he already got an absolute beauty like Long Qi in high school, think about those terrifying standards.

Peachwood South: Suggest the poster release all photos of this brother to benefit the masses, blurry is fine, I’ll slowly savor.

Mooswww: Requesting science on their high school story, my curiosity is literally exploding!

@Long Qi @Long Qi @Long Qi

Summoning the main lady herself!

Aiya Can’t Eat So Annoyed: Aloof absolute beauty delinquent girl x genius bad-tempered boy, the character setup is already done, obediently collecting all the ladies’ fanfiction.

…

Later, several more long paragraphs of comments appeared. She looked at them.

…

__coco Summer: Attended Beifan, only have a deep impression of him, a very interesting boy, very well-raised, very opinionated and capable himself. Not exaggerating—more than half the girls in school had some thoughts about him, but he never lacked girlfriends around him. Just didn’t expect he’d end up with Long Qi. At the time it caused quite a stir at school, everyone said he’d been honey-trapped. Such an excellent boy, now looking so haggard, completely unexpected… As for Long Qi, hard to evaluate, reputation not great, but haven’t heard of any specific incidents either. Had contact with her in person, not so demonic, speaks very little, eyes and nose very beautiful, making eye contact really is fatal, but also really hard to chat with. Even if you toss her a conversation topic she won’t acknowledge you—that type. There is indeed a sense of distance. My female friends don’t like her much, but I think she’s received too much unwarranted malice and just doesn’t hold much goodwill toward this cold environment.

lzzzzzzxj replied to @__coco Summer: Same floor as above, which year were you? As a fellow girl I quite like Long Qi. Previously a girl from our school had her bag snatched on the subway. Without a word she kicked that thief. I witnessed the whole thing. Bad reputation probably refers to the high school military training incident and later online chat incident. When clarified, both were misunderstandings.

__coco Summer replied to @lzzzzzzxj: I know the military training incident was rumor. Heard about the online chat incident too—that was also a misunderstanding?

lzzzzzzxj replied to @__coco Summer: Yeah, another girl did it, used Long Qi’s photo to scam money from online friends. Result was the male netizen tracked down the school and found the actual person didn’t match the photo, got so angry he smashed up the classroom. Long Qi was just collateral damage. This was all clarified later. That girl even hid and wouldn’t admit it. The school dumped all the punishment on Long Qi. Words can kill—reputation got bad. I think it’s especially unfair. Plus that guy was sleazy. Later when he saw Long Qi and discovered there really was such a great beauty, he even staked out the school gate waiting for her. At the time people at school watched it like a joke, not one person helped her. I don’t know how it was resolved later.

Chaifu Sky replied to @lzzzzzzxj: Bro’s from the same year, I’ll tell you how it was resolved. That guy was stubborn, said he had connections and wasn’t afraid of police. Jin Yiken directly contacted people outside school to beat him severely. Turned out that guy had been harassing female students for more than a day or two. The people contacted had a grudge against this guy. After beating him everyone scattered, then called the police. Police came and saw this beaten guy had a record, directly dragged him away. Combined with the school-smashing account, dealt with together. Know what Jin Yiken was doing when this guy was being beaten? Right across the street at the soup dumpling shop accompanying Long Qi eating wontons. Afterward borrowed my phone, called 110. Yeah, I was sitting at the table next to them.

Chaifu Sky replied to @lzzzzzzxj: So this thing between Long Qi and Jin Yiken, everyone says it’s a seductress entangling a rich young master. In this bro’s view, it’s Long Qi who fell into Jin Yiken’s hands. In terms of being bad, really Jin has deep cunning. Can stir up trouble while keeping himself completely clean, left three years of good impressions for all of Beifan. Actually his connections are wild, he’s quite disdainful.

lzzzzzzxj replied to @Chaifu Sky: Damn, so romantic.

…

Many more follow-up comments came after. By the time she finished reading them all, the mask was already soaked by her exhaled hot breath. The female assistant returned with the medicine, carefully urging her to return to the crew. She didn’t move.

The online chat incident was when she faced the most severe verbal condemnation from the whole school, but only now did she learn this matter was handled by Jin Yiken. Jin Yiken had also teased her about being collateral damage at the time. While eating wontons he’d even gone on the forum to watch the thread. After she discovered it, she kicked him and threw a steamer of soup dumplings at him. That kick left him with two weeks of bruising, ruined a limited edition jacket.

She only knew now.

And how many more things didn’t she know?

The emotions bottled up for half a month finally collapsed. Tears fell onto the screen. The female assistant beside her was at a loss. Her head buried in the scarf, tears falling drop by drop. Then she called Jin Yiken’s “abandoned” number. Still voicemail. She couldn’t speak, but was unwilling to give up. Listening to the silence on that end, she cried.

Half an hour later, her emotions finally stabilized. The female assistant reminded her again. She still didn’t respond. Eyes red, she made a call to Si Bolin.

After Si Bolin answered, her voice hoarse, she asked: “The day you saved me, why were you coincidentally at the Yiming Bay complex entrance?”

“…”

As if recalling this matter, Si Bolin didn’t reply immediately.

She sniffled: “Jin Yiken said your family never accepted that his family bought the villa at 68 Langzhu Mansion first, and his family wouldn’t yield. So later, every time his family purchased property externally, your family would buy one floor higher—feng shui suppression.”

…

“So he figured it out. Got smart.”

“So it’s true—you’re also a Yiming Bay property owner.”

“What are you scheming?”

“Today I had a follow-up at the hospital. That scar on my stomach—it’s infected again.”

“Mm.” Unmoved by wind from any direction.

“That knife—you can repay me now,” she replied. “I want to rent your place. However high the monthly rent, I’ll pay.”

…

After hanging up with Si Bolin, she sent Ban Wei a message.

—I want that car.