Both sticky notes were in Zhui Ye’s handwriting, the paper equally aged, seemingly written together on the day of the opening ceremony prayers.

Only this one underneath—he had written it behind her back, so she had been completely unaware.

Wu Man pinched the corner of the note, her thoughts falling into a quagmire, utterly chaotic.

Why would he have written her name at that time? They had only met for the second time then.

It couldn’t be explained by filming, because he had written her real name.

Moreover, he was a person who believed in deities. He wouldn’t write it randomly as a joke just for fun. If he wanted to joke around, there would be no need to hide it.

He had so cautiously and carefully stuck it on the back, not wanting people to discover it, seemingly only wanting to keep it as his own personal secret.

Wu Man stuck it back exactly as it was. Facing the bell, she smoothed her hair and tugged at the hem of her clothes, her expression completely at a loss.

The screenwriter walked back after looking around and said matter-of-factly: “Looks like that little novice monk didn’t deceive me. Even ones from ten years ago are still hanging there.”

Wu Man nodded awkwardly: “Yes.”

Seeing her expression, the screenwriter knew she had only just discovered it. She couldn’t help saying: “I guess Zhui Ye is probably a little fan of yours. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about this.”

A fan? That was too absurd… When they first met, he certainly hadn’t given her a pleasant face.

Wu Man covered up by saying: “Probably just his prank.”

The screenwriter frowned slightly: “Although Zhui Ye is young, he doesn’t seem like someone with the bad habit of playing pranks. When he was reading the script back then, he even gave me very constructive suggestions.”

“He revised the script too?”

“Because he got involved in the project quite early, I chatted with him. For instance, that scene at the Chimelong Water Park where Chen Nan pulls Deng Lizhi down into the pool—that action was suggested by him. What I had originally written was so boring.”

“Oh, is that so…”

“And that part…”

The screenwriter mentioned another point. After Wu Man heard it, it was like a small hammer striking the crown of her head—buzzing—heaven and earth spinning for a moment.

—

A few days after returning from Guangzhou, Wu Man unexpectedly received a WeChat message from He Huiyu.

And it was a bombshell.

She said: “I’m getting married.”

Wu Man was extremely shocked: “…Is it that person I saw at the hospital before?”

“It’s him.”

Just three words, without any extra explanation or anything, yet appearing extremely resolute. Wu Man couldn’t help staring at these three words in a daze for a while, feeling a bit envious.

She thought, she herself might never be able to say these three words so decisively.

He Huiyu sent the time and location—by the seaside in Los Angeles, one of the industry’s favorite wedding destinations.

Wu Man couldn’t help thinking of Zhui Ye. He was currently in Los Angeles for training. He would probably go, right? Their relationship had always been good.

She had Zhao Boyu specifically clear the days before and after that date, flying to LA a day early, first taking time to visit the nursing home.

Her mother was still no different from before. Many years ago, that time with the loan sharks, she had been beaten and sent to the hospital with severe cranial brain damage. The doctor said with good care, perhaps the cognitive impairment would slowly disappear, but over these years, she was like a soul wandering in the mortal world—her physical body still present, her spirit flown off to who knows where.

The problem wasn’t with her physical functions, but mental. She seemed unwilling to reconcile with this world.

And her daughter was also included in this world, excluded by her.

“You’re really so irresponsible.”

Wu Man inserted the freshly bought flowers into the vase at the bedside. The flowers were pink roses, her mother’s favorite when she was young.

They also complemented her nickname when she first debuted: The Mortal World’s Rose.

And now, her skin was waxy yellow, her hair sparse, her features drooping. No one could see any shadow of her youthful prime.

Perhaps this was retribution.

—

That evening, Wu Man checked into the oceanview hotel He Huiyu had arranged. Not far from the hotel was the private beach where she would hold her wedding tomorrow.

It was daytime in China. Social media networks had already exploded. He Huiyu’s marriage announcement had caught them completely off guard. She had done excellent confidentiality work this time, only inviting industry insiders, not letting media mix in.

Therefore, all the major marketing accounts could only desperately extrapolate endlessly on the single point that the groom was not Zhui Ye.

And among them, the most frenzied were the Zhui Ye-He Huiyu CP fans.

The supertopic was pushed to first place. Inside, various fan fiction flew about. The core summary was: Genuinely shipping a CP will definitely bring retribution.

Zhui Ye’s solo stans took the opportunity to jump around, crazily cursing the CP fans who had previously attacked back: This is what you get for treating Zhui Ye as a tool and being presumptuous—you deserve this retribution!

The half-dead CP fans struggled on their deathbed saying: Don’t you be so smug either! If the partner isn’t He Huiyu, then who was that ambiguous Weibo post for? Anyway, it’s definitely for some real sister-in-law hiding in the background, not for you!

One sentence KO’d the solo stans. The saying goes: Harm the enemy a thousand, damage yourself eight hundred. The war between fans was just this kind of mutual harm.

The internet was in an uproar, reality remained peaceful and serene.

He Huiyu held a bachelorette party the night before the wedding, booking an entire floor of the hotel’s oceanside bar. Most of the people she invited weren’t very familiar with Wu Man. After all, their relationship before couldn’t be considered harmonious, so their social circles naturally hadn’t merged together either.

And the person who changed their relationship hadn’t come tonight.

Wu Man held a cocktail and surveyed the bar with its dazzling lights, confirming she hadn’t seen wrong—he really hadn’t come.

“Looking for him? He’ll come later.”

He Huiyu made her way through the crowd to Wu Man’s side to greet her, saying knowingly.

Wu Man smelled the alcohol on her and changed the subject: “How much have you drunk? Don’t black out and not be able to get up tomorrow, turning the wedding into a joke.”

She laughed: “My husband wouldn’t get angry anyway.”

“Looks like he pursued you, and you’ve got him completely wrapped around your finger.”

He Huiyu nodded and leaned in to whisper: “I was still flirting with Zhui Ye at that time.” She sipped the drink in her hand and shook her head. “What a pity. I originally thought Zhui Ye was an easy beginner’s village, didn’t expect him to be demon-level difficulty disguised as a beginner’s village.”

Wu Man was curious inside but pretended to guide her casually: “I saw you didn’t pursue him for many days either.”

“For me, a few months is very long, okay? People I take a liking to—none have escaped being won over within a month.”

Wu Man dug out from memory a marketing account report she had once accidentally “slipped” and liked…

“Don’t tell me that time you deliberately pretended to be drunk to have Zhui Ye send you back?!”

“I’m discovering you actually understand me quite well.” He Huiyu laughed awkwardly twice. “That was my first time meeting him. My husband and Zhui Ye are friends. He wanted to pursue me at the time, so he called me to join them for dinner. But I ended up taking a liking to Zhui Ye, haha.”

She found it amusing as she spoke, her chest heaving as she laughed aloud.

“…Your methods are really wild.”

“Actually not really. I really did drink too much and ended up vomiting. If I hadn’t vomited on his precious cassette tape and gotten scared by his dark expression, who knows—I might have been able to force myself on him that night.”

Her tone carried deep regret. But Wu Man knew it was all joking. If there were really other intentions, she would never display them so openly. Just like herself.

Wu Man swirled her wine glass, remembering an old post she had seen on Group of Eight that did indeed mention something about a cassette tape.

She couldn’t help mocking He Huiyu: “Your charm couldn’t compare to a cassette tape?”

“Tsk…” He Huiyu pouted. “He said it was a cassette tape he’d preserved for many years, unique in the whole world. I later wanted to buy one to compensate him, but he told me it was recorded for him by someone, impossible to buy. Do you think I lost to a cassette tape? I lost to the person behind that cassette tape!”

Wu Man’s swirling wine glass stopped: “You mean his heart already had someone in it?”

“I’m guessing.” Someone waved at He Huiyu. She picked up her wine glass and stood up. Before leaving, she patted Wu Man’s shoulder and said meaningfully: “So, don’t blindly fall in. What you fall into might be an abyss.”

The background music in the bar happened to change to “Like That.” Each beat of the chorus struck Wu Man’s eardrums directly, screening out and blurring all surrounding sounds.

Everything gradually lost sound, becoming very quiet.

What she was thinking in her mind and what He Huiyu was hinting at were completely different things.

He Huiyu thought Zhui Ye had an unforgettable white moonlight in his heart. If she got too deep into character, she would be the one hurt. So she advised her to pull back.

If it were before seeing that sticky note, if it were before hearing what the screenwriter told her, she probably would have agreed and then kept her distance.

But now, she had a… very incredible, very inconceivable thought that also felt like it was the answer.

Wu Man set down her wine glass with a “snap.” The surrounding sounds surged back like a tide. Her body trembled with the drumbeat.

She suddenly stood up and ran to the quiet beach outside to send Zhui Ye a message.

“When are you coming?”

The phone went quiet. Wu Man paced back and forth on the beach, never having felt time pass so torturously before.

After a long while, the phone finally vibrated once.

—”Can’t make it. Still in training. I’ll go directly to the ceremony tomorrow.”

Wu Man looked at the reply, unconsciously biting her lip tight. The anxiety in her heart was covered by this sudden sense of loss.

The phone vibrated again.

“You’re looking for me?”

“It’s nothing. Keep up the good work.”

She returned to the bar and stayed for a long time going through the motions before returning to her room to rest.

After coming out from her bath, the room didn’t have the main lights on, but the small neon colored lights from the beach projected light onto the balcony, allowing Wu Man to clearly see the sleeping black ocean surface. The commotion below remained noisy, yet the sea was so quiet. The world divided in two—lively yet lonely.

Such a night was too perfect for a cigarette.

Wu Man decided to indulge herself once more. She went downstairs, walked along the coastline to the convenience store, and bought cigarettes and a lighter.

When checking out, a tall young man in a hoodie with a bottle of sports drink got in line in front of her.

The other person wore the hood up, revealing only a broad and vigorous back, but that familiar aura immediately made Wu Man feel dazed.

That’s impossible… He clearly already said he wasn’t coming.

Perhaps her probing gaze was too intense. The young man suddenly turned his head and locked eyes with Wu Man.

Not having seen him for some days, he seemed to have grown a bit taller. The muscle lines under the hoodie were more beautiful than before. The visible training results were remarkably effective.

Although LA’s winter wasn’t particularly cold, he was still excessively exposing his ankles—the thinnest and most slender part of his entire body, tucked into oversized sneakers, inexplicably creating a kind of loose sexiness.

Zhui Ye didn’t say anything. He grabbed the cigarettes and lighter from her hands and stuffed them into his own, pushing them to the counter together with his own drink, saying in English to check out.

He finished checking out efficiently, grabbed her things, and went out.

“Hey—” Wu Man was stunned for a moment, then caught up to him in a few steps. “Didn’t you say you weren’t coming?”

“Originally wasn’t planning to come.” He stopped walking. The sea breeze lifted the hair on his forehead, revealing the contours of his eyes. His unobstructed pupils flickered with the golden yellow glow from the shore. “But seeing that someone actually took the initiative to message me, what could I do? How could I possibly resist the desire to come see her?”

His temples still carried a bit of sweat dampness. He had clearly just finished training and hadn’t even had time to simply freshen up before rushing over.

The smell of sweat on him didn’t make Wu Man feel unpleasant at all. Instead, it gave her the impulse to want to hug him.

Wu Man uncontrollably extended her hand, then forcibly diverted it, opening her palm: “Give me what you just bought.”

Zhui Ye handed her the bag, pulled out the drink bottle, and while unscrewing the cap asked: “You suddenly looking for me—you have something to ask, right? What is it?”

When it came down to it, Wu Man didn’t dare ask anymore.

Those anxious speculations were like being coated with a layer of glue, stuck in her throat. She cleared her throat and distractedly lit a cigarette.

Zhui Ye wrinkled his nose: “Give me one too.”

Wu Man handed him the lighter and cigarettes together. He ignored the lighter, fingers pulling out a cigarette.

He bit the cigarette between his lips and reached out to pull her in, bringing her toward himself.

Wu Man felt herself become a large-scale human lighter. Under the evening breeze’s care, he used the cigarette butt to lightly touch hers. The fire clustered and ignited, brightening on their nearly touching faces.

He released her, his long legs leaping up onto the embankment, sitting on top.

Wu Man looked up at him.

“Can I ask you why, when revising the script, you changed Chen Nan’s form of address for Deng Lizhi? In the script, he called her Lizhi. It was because you insisted on calling her Elder Sister that the screenwriter made this change.”

Hearing this question, Zhui Ye had just taken a drag and choked.

He coughed a few times before slowly saying: “Calling her Elder Sister sounds more affectionate than Lizhi.”

“Is that so?” Wu Man lowered her head to operate her phone, pulling up a photo from her album and showing it to Zhui Ye. “Then what is this? Don’t tell me you fell for me at first sight and wanted to pledge lifelong commitment at second sight.”

Zhui Ye stared at the photo of the sticky note she had taken, showing panic and helplessness in front of Wu Man for the first time.

Wu Man took a deep breath: “You knew me before this, didn’t you?”