Beloved

One hot search after another, each just as damning as the last.

#Li Lan’s Variety Show Was Pure Staging#

#How Much Profit Does Foreign LGBT Identity Bring?#

#How Despicable Is a Straight Woman Pretending to Be a Lesbian?#

Then another trending topic shot straight to the top.

#Li Lan’s Daughter#

/It’s said Li Lan has a daughter. Someone once photographed them out together. Didn’t Li Lan say she likes women? Then why does she have a child?/

It was a post from a blogger, and below it were several blurred photos.

Anyone familiar with Li Lan could tell the woman in the pictures was holding Xiao Bao. There was a photo from every stage of life; Xiao Bao had been carried from childhood all the way to now.

The comment section exploded almost instantly, piling up tens of thousands of insults.

[One hammer after another. What excuse do Li Lan’s fans still have?]

[She even has a daughter and still went on TV to fool the audience. What a shameless family.]

[This whole “deep love” persona is the easiest thing to fake. She’s the fastest-falling celebrity I’ve ever seen.]

The entire internet turned on Li Lan. Yu Ling and Qi Yao reposted the Weibo one after another.

Qi Yao/repost: No wonder she was acting like that on the show... You can’t judge a book by its cover.

Yu Ling: Mm.

A few minor celebrities Li Lan didn’t even know also reposted it.

With the wall already falling, everyone pushed harder; the online abuse against Li Lan only grew more vicious.

Qi Yao’s and Yu Ling’s fans jumped in and cursed even louder.

[Li Lan: Slut, you’re the one acting superior, aren’t you? Why the hell did you insinuate things about our brother on the show? What the hell were you implying about your mother?]

[Yu Ling is so pitiful; to think she debuted and ran into someone like this.]

[Is Li Lan bad luck for everyone around her? As soon as she goes on a variety show, something happens. Poor Lingling is going to get dragged into this and misunderstood.]

Qian Cancan, panicking, called Zhu Qing. “How did Xiao Bao’s photos get posted? Xiao Bao clearly isn’t her biological child!”

Li Lan’s newly formed fan group had been battered to pieces; all kinds of explanations were drowned out in the organized smear campaign.

Zhu Qing was just about to comfort her when she heard Qian Cancan’s words and asked suspiciously, “How do you know Xiao Bao isn’t her biological child?”

Qian Cancan looked speechless. “Look at Li Lan’s build, and look at her work schedule. How could Xiao Bao possibly be her biological child?”

Zhu Qing: “...Am I the only one who didn’t notice?”

Qian Cancan said, “What?”

“Nothing. This hot search was intentional,” Zhu Qing said.

Qian Cancan was even more confused. “People are already dumping filth on both of you. Why would you blacken yourselves too?”

Zhu Qing only smiled and said nothing. “Let Qian Chu explain it to you. Keep watching the hot search; there’s still more to come.”

After hanging up, Qian Chu, standing nearby, pressed her lips together. “She may not necessarily come looking for me.”

“Don’t worry. She loves gossip. She’ll go,” Zhu Qing said with an inscrutable expression.

That night, Qian Cancan fought the trolls on the trending topic until dawn. By the end, outnumbered and cursed into a rage, she still couldn’t help sending Qian Chu a message.

[Why did you put Xiao Bao’s business out there?]

The moment her phone rang, Qian Chu snatched it up.

Seeing that Qian Cancan had finally messaged her, Qian Chu nearly cried from excitement.

[It’s a chain reaction. If Xiao Bao’s scandal is fake, then they’ll start questioning whether the other scandals are fake too. Besides, Manager Lan guessed that since they were able to dig up the contract marriage, they must also have evidence about Xiao Bao. It’s better if we release it ourselves and catch them off guard.]

Qian Cancan didn’t understand.

[How can netizens be that stupid? The year Xiao Bao was born, Li Lan was walking runways every month. How could she have been pregnant and given birth?]

Qian Chu steadied herself and answered seriously.

[We handled Xiao Bao’s age in a deliberately vague way; they can’t infer it.]

Qian Cancan was truly done for. She had never seen tactics like this before; online bullying was terrifying. She didn’t even dare look at her phone anymore.

[Then when exactly are you going to clarify this?]

Qian Chu told her to stay calm.

[Soon.]

And that “soon” dragged on until three days later.

Twenty-four hours was the key window for suppressing a hot search, but three days had passed, and the internet was already flooded with statements calling Li Lan disgusting, accusing her of deceiving fans, and saying she was a straight woman pretending to be gay—saying she deserved to be struck by lightning.

At that point, a clarification from Li Lan’s studio finally drew everyone’s attention.

Li Lan’s studio posted:

[In view of the recent discussion regarding Li Lan, all of it is false information. We hereby clarify as follows:

1. Li Lan and Zhu Qing knew each other before marriage and both had a solid emotional foundation.

2. The contents of the agreement are real; the interpretation of the agreement is false. The agreement is divided into two parts, one a marriage agreement and one a divorce agreement. The drafted divorce agreement is as follows; combining the two is intended to protect Zhu Qing’s rights and interests during the marriage.

3. Li Lan’s daughter is not her biological child, but the orphan of a friend. The adoption procedures and related documents are as follows.

4. Regarding the long-term online violence against Li Lan and her family in this incident, we have already entrusted lawyers to collect evidence. We will not accept any apologies, and we will pursue legal action against all participants in the violence to the end.]

Flash back three days earlier.

Leaning against the doorway, Zhu Qing said she had a way to solve the current problem.

Everyone looked at her.

Li Lan’s expression was a mix of guilt and embarrassment; the things she had kept hidden had suddenly been exposed to the public like a thunderclap.

What would Zhu Qing think?

How would Zhu Qing see her?

Before she lost her memory, Zhu Qing had already intended to divorce her. Would she think Li Lan had schemed to deceive her all along?

Would Zhu Qing hate her from now on?

None of these questions left Li Lan any time to think.

There was no expression on Zhu Qing’s face. She was silent, as if she were talking about something completely unrelated to her.

“I remember there was a divorce agreement between us,” Zhu Qing said quietly. “There should be the law firm’s stamp on it, right? It can match the ‘one year later’ in the marriage agreement.”

Qian Chu’s voice came through from the computer. “What good is a divorce agreement?”

Zhu Qing said calmly, “It can prove that this marriage and these agreements were meant to protect my rights and interests. A contract marriage doesn’t mean two people had no feelings and only an agreement; on the contrary, it can also represent Li Lan’s transfer of assets. If I’m not mistaken, Li Lan didn’t have a prenuptial property notarization, did she? After marriage, Li Lan’s income is presumed to be our marital joint income, right?”

Li Lan shot to her feet in excitement. “Of course!”

Zhu Qing gave a faint nod. “Then that’s enough.”

Qian Chu suddenly understood. “I get it. As long as this agreement is favorable to Zhu Qing, it can prove that the two of you had feelings!”

Everyone had been thrown off by the word “agreement,” only thinking about how to deny and cover things up; nobody had thought there was nothing wrong with the agreement itself.

Li Lan said “good” three times in a row and walked over to Zhu Qing. She wanted to say something, but hesitated.

Zhu Qing cut her off. “There’s one more thing. I need your cooperation.”

Li Lan froze, then immediately said okay.

Zhu Qing lifted her eyes and, for the first time since the incident, looked directly into Li Lan’s eyes.

From those always-composed eyes, she could see caution; the faint shadows beneath them revealed the exhaustion of someone who had been running on empty for days.

Zhu Qing sighed. “I’ve always had one question. This time, I hope you won’t hide it from me again.”

The two began talking about private matters, and after hesitating for two seconds, the director took the initiative to leave.

Qian Chu absolutely refused to hang up; she insisted on eavesdropping.

Li Lan didn’t bother with her. “Ask.”

Zhu Qing spoke softly, with a touch of melancholy and helplessness. “Between you and me, was there anything in the past? I mean, before that agreement.”

Li Lan had already said that she and Zhu Qing met through the university; the two of them went from body to heart. Li Lan had also repeatedly shown that she had fallen for Zhu Qing at first sight, which was why Zhu Qing had never doubted Li Lan’s feelings and didn’t want to dwell on the agreement.

Deep down, Zhu Qing had a faint hope: that Li Lan signing the marriage agreement with her might really have been because... she had liked her for a long time already.

A trace of hesitation and panic flickered through Li Lan’s eyes.

She met Zhu Qing’s gaze and, after a difficult pause, finally spoke.

“Yes.”

—

Below the studio’s clarification post were several photos.

The first was a campus photo of Zhu Qing.

On the grass, Zhu Qing wore a simple green tracksuit. She looked full of youthful energy, like a sweating matcha ice cream.

She was half-lounging on the lawn, flipping through a stack of printed materials; perhaps she had grown tired from reading and would occasionally lift her head to look at the clouds.

The sunlight cast a soft shadow across her profile, and in the lower left corner of the photo was half of Li Lan’s face.

It was a candid shot, recording Zhu Qing’s life during her university years.

This proved that Li Lan and Zhu Qing had known each other long before the marriage.

The second was a collage, with a banquet group photo above and a video screenshot below.

The group photo was what Zhu Qing had thought was her “first meeting” with Li Lan. She had gone over to ask Li Lan for a photo together. Qian Cancan had taken the picture, and the two of them were smiling sweetly at the camera.

The screenshot below was a so-called “bed photo” that showed nothing at all: a vlog Li Lan had recorded the morning after she and Zhu Qing spent a spring night together. The date was visible, along with Zhu Qing’s half-exposed head. The recording time in the video matched the banquet photo exactly.

The third was also a collage; the top showed Xiao Bao’s adoption information, and the bottom showed Li Lan’s various activities in the year Xiao Bao was born.

The last one was also specially reposted by Li Lan.

[Divorce Agreement.jpg]

[My feelings for her began very early. That year, I returned home on tour with the SY theater troupe, and one of our stops was Xiao Qing’s university. It was winter. My hair had been dyed blond, and my face was covered in thick “wound makeup.” I was bullied by the white girls in the theater company; I was locked in a storage room in the back courtyard of the auditorium, wearing nothing but a thin white long dress. It was my costume for the performance.]

[Outside, the water was freezing over. I was coughing uncontrollably from the cold; my chest hurt terribly, and I felt like I was about to die.]

[That was when Xiao Qing found me. That year, she had just started her first year of university. She heard my faint cries, smashed the glass, and jumped in to save me. She took off her down jacket; it was a short light-green one with a little kitten on it. When she draped it over me, I felt warmth I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was the warmth of someone from the same homeland.]

[She thought I was a foreigner and told me not to be afraid. Many people came after that; they criticized the expensive glass that Zhu Qing had broken. Xiao Qing ignored their words and insisted on getting justice for me.]

[Justice? That word rarely appeared in my life. She held my hand, trying hard to stay calm, but the trembling at the ends of her sentences still exposed her anger and indignation. She said the storage room was full of garbage, and I was clearly already made up and about to go on stage. Why was I in there?]

[She questioned the theater director: the play had already started, so why had no one noticed someone was missing?]

[The school didn’t want to get involved in internal matters within the troupe and refused to stand up for Xiao Qing, so she stood at the entrance of the busy auditorium and refused to leave.]

[In the end, the troupe leader apologized to me. I, with my ridiculous greasepaint and cheap blond hair from years of perming and dyeing, wrapped in the down jacket she had given me, accepted the first respect of my life.]

[Back then I had no money and no ability to stay. Only later did I hear that the broken glass Xiao Qing had smashed needed two thousand yuan in compensation.]

[From that moment on, day and night, I longed to return home. I wanted to come back to the country; I wanted to see her; I wanted to give her a comfortable life. She paid two thousand yuan for me, so I would repay her with two million, two hundred million.]

[Fortunately, Xiao Qing was my little lucky star. After returning to Europe, I became famous with my first runway show, my career soared, and a brilliant future unfolded before me; yet I was thinking of coming back every moment.]

[After returning to China, I wasn’t sure whether Xiao Qing would fall in love with me. I didn’t want to bring any shackles to her. I promised that if she wanted to leave after one year, I would leave with nothing, and I would use the contents of the divorce agreement to give her every protection I could.]

[This is how I love her. My love for her was meticulously planned long ago; step by step, it was never exactly aboveboard, but it can withstand any questioning.]

Only after Li Lan posted the message did Zhu Qing see these words.

She had never imagined that the roots of her connection with Li Lan went back so far.

Zhu Qing remembered Li Lan. Their first meeting was outside the auditorium, where Li Lan had stepped out after getting her makeup and styling done, draped in an oversized padded coat to get some air.

At the time, Zhu Qing had been playing with a kitten. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed someone watching her for a long time, so she smiled and walked over to say hello.

Zhu Qing had thought Li Lan was a foreigner. Her English was excellent, and she had never been nervous talking to foreigners, so the two of them chatted at length.

The other woman’s voice was a little hoarse, as if she had caught a cold, but she had a very good temper and a witty way of speaking. Those eyes behind the colored contacts were beautiful. Zhu Qing even felt that the contacts were hiding how pretty she was; without them, her eyes must have been even more beautiful.

That was why Zhu Qing had been puzzled when Li Lan’s figure never appeared after the play began, and had gone out to look for her.

Now, Zhu Qing could no longer remember Li Lan’s original appearance clearly. She only remembered that she was a very thin, very tall woman, looking pitiful and beautiful and lonely.

And Zhu Qing had never once thought of repayment.

After reading all of this, Zhu Qing ignored the phone calls flooding in. She quietly logged into an account she hadn’t used in years, attached several diagnosis documents from a top-tier hospital stating her memory impairment, and reposted Li Lan’s words.

[Zhu Qing: I saw your love.

You were never one-sided. You were the love of my life, the one I fell for at first sight even after losing my memory.

I will fall in love with you over and over again, countless times.

You are my beloved.]

————————!!————————

The foreshadowing has been tied up. If you forgot, check Chapter 3, where Zhu Qing said their university often invited all kinds of celebrities; also Chapter 6, where Li Lan said her first meeting with Zhu Qing was during her university days.

Later, Li Lan also mentioned that their meeting at the banquet wasn’t the first time; I forgot which chapter, but it was mentioned more than once [dog-head holding a rose]

(You never would’ve guessed, right? Hahahahahaha [rabbit head with ears up])

(PS: I hate overtime)