Chapter 20

Gu Yanqiu smiled at her, her lips moving soundlessly twice in the same two words everyone else had said: Keep it up.

For some reason, Lin Yuewei couldn’t stop the corners of her mouth from lifting. Fortunately, her mask hid it, and her eyes were swollen today anyway, so the smile wasn’t very obvious.

“Yuewei.” Her roommate nudged her shoulder.

Lin Yuewei stood still. “Mm?”

“What are you looking at? You should go in already.”

“Nothing. Let’s go in.” Lin Yuewei glanced at her roommate, then looked back one last time at the crowd. Her expression changed all at once. In that instant, Gu Yanqiu had somehow vanished.

Where was she?

The fans around Lin Yuewei watched their idol furrow her brows and look left and right. Their protective instincts surged along with their affection and pity. They called out over one another:

“What are you looking for? We’ll help you find it.”

“Did you lose something?”

“Everyone, help look around.”

“No.” Lin Yuewei shook her head. She gave that direction one last look, then went into the building with a pang of disappointment.

Had she seen wrong?

During class, Lin Yuewei zoned out for a moment and was called on by the teacher. She quickly apologized in a low voice. The teacher was usually strict; if a student wasn’t paying attention in class, they would at the very least receive a warning, if not a sharp reprimand. This program might be full of chaotic antics, but the mentors and professional teachers in charge of instruction were completely serious. Their standards were high, and there was no room for the trainees not to cherish this opportunity. This time, though, the teacher let it go with only a brief reminder, telling Lin Yuewei to focus on class. After a moment’s hesitation, the teacher even asked whether she was too tired and needed to rest.

Lin Yuewei immediately realized the teachers probably had seen the rumors online and thought she was distracted by public opinion.

She shook her head. “No need, thank you, Teacher.”

The teacher patted her shoulder lightly in encouragement.

Lin Yuewei steadied herself and, once class and practice were over, didn’t think about it again until lunch in the communal cafeteria.

She was only twenty-one this year. By rights, she shouldn’t have been at the point where her eyesight was failing, and she certainly wouldn’t mistake someone. Who else would be as bizarre as Gu Yanqiu, casually rolling Buddhist prayer beads in her hand at any time, and doing it so beautifully that it didn’t seem like she was putting on airs at all?

Watching her scoop two spoonfuls of air into her mouth in a row, her roommate looked worried. What was she supposed to do? The online backlash had hit her too hard; her mind was starting to go a little strange.

Unable to stand it any longer, the roommate sympathetically slipped a piece of braised pork onto her spoon.

Lin Yuewei ate it without noticing, then lowered her head and spat the bone onto the edge of her tray before continuing to think.

If it wasn’t an illusion, and it really had been Gu Yanqiu, Lin Yuewei couldn’t figure out why. The filming site was several hours from where they lived, and it was still early morning. Had she made a special trip just to see her?

Between the two possibilities, Lin Yuewei would rather believe she hadn’t slept enough last night and had hallucinated.

Her roommate put two stalks of greens on her spoon this time, and Lin Yuewei finally noticed. She blinked at her, smiling flirtatiously. “Thanks.”

Her roommate’s breathing caught, and she lowered her head. “Y-you should eat. Use the time to rest a little; you still have class this afternoon.”

Lin Yuewei looked at the reddening tips of her ears and teased, “Why are you blushing?”

Like an ostrich, her roommate buried her face almost in her tray. “N-no reason.”

Last time, Lin Yuewei had played a same-sex couple with her in a scene; online, they had become a popular CP pairing. In private, the two of them were fairly close too, but only as friends, with the usual intimacy between girls. Lin Yuewei’s eyes darkened slightly. At this rate, things could easily tip into emotional debt territory. She was here to take part in the program. Although she had used a little cunning to take a shortcut, that didn’t mean she would take advantage of someone’s feelings.

Lin Yuewei stuck a straw into her roommate’s drink and handed it over, saying casually, “How long have we been in here? Training day and night; I’m almost losing track of time.”

Her roommate said softly, “More than two months, I guess. Two more months before we can get out.”

Lin Yuewei lowered her voice and sighed. “Two more months before I can see her.”

Her roommate’s ears twitched, and she immediately looked up. “Who?”

Lin Yuewei put on a wistful expression. “The person I have a crush on. She still doesn’t know I like her.”

In her heart, Lin Yuewei thought: Sorry to trouble you, Miss Gu. Please act as my crush for now.

The roommate, who had only just begun to develop a tiny bit of romantic imagination, had the first spark of her little fantasy cut off before it could even be drawn. Fortunately, Lin Yuewei had noticed in time and stamped it out. Generously, and with a touch of envy, the roommate offered her blessing: “I hope you two can be together someday.”

“So do I.” Lin Yuewei smiled and, struck by inspiration, pressed on naturally. “I’ve almost started hallucinating because I miss her too much. Just now, when I was heading to work, I saw someone outside in white sportswear who looked especially like her.”

Lin Yuewei watched her roommate’s expression closely. If she had seen her too, especially since Gu Yanqiu was so beautiful, she definitely would have reacted.

But Lin Yuewei didn’t know her roommate had eyes that let light pass right through. When she had come to work, she had only had one thing on her mind: today’s classes. There were plenty of fans crowding around her too, so how could she have had the spare attention to notice anyone else?

Lin Yuewei got no reaction from her roommate at all.

Had it really been a hallucination?

The light in her eyes dimmed a little, and she let out a soft breath, not even knowing what she was disappointed about.

Just jokingly acting as your crush, and you took it seriously?

A voice in her heart denied it.

***

Gu Yanqiu took the impact on her right shoulder; her left hand clenched reflexively into a fist, her right leg stepped back, her knee bending as her whole body tensed like a leopard preparing to hunt. Only after she clearly saw that it was just a girl carrying a camera did she release her strength, lower her gaze, and step aside. She even reached out with one hand to steady the girl, who was wobbling on her feet. All of that happened in barely a second.

The girl, who had been jostled by the crowded mass of people, apologized again and again. “Sorry, sorry.”

Gu Yanqiu shook her head lightly. “It’s fine. Be careful.”

The girl seemed to remember something, lifted her camera, and looked ahead. There was no one in the frame anymore, and she cried out regretfully, “Ah, they’re already inside.”

Gu Yanqiu followed her gaze and only caught the edge of Lin Yuewei’s clothes.

Did she see me or not?

This time, Gu Yanqiu just happened to be on a business trip to this city. Last time, when she looked up the program information online, she had “accidentally” memorized the filming location. After “accidentally” spending several hours searching, she found Lin Yuewei’s fan support group and even joined the offline cheering chat, where she learned the usual places and times the trainees came and went. Of course, once she figured out the location, she left the group; the next day, she got up early and came over.

She had heard that not every visit would actually let her see the person she was looking for, and even she wasn’t sure what mood had brought her here to try her luck. By the time she realized it, she had already spent an hour waiting along the route Lin Yuewei had to take on her way to “work.”

Maybe she simply wanted Lin Yuewei to draw a little strength from her. No matter how ugly the outside world’s insults were, she was willing to believe in her at a time like this, even if she didn’t know her all that well.

But Gu Yanqiu figured Lin Yuewei wouldn’t care. A self-mocking curve touched her lips as she followed the route most of the fans were taking on their way out.

Her secretary called her.

“Miss Gu.”

“What is it?”

“I just knocked on your room door and found you weren’t there, so I wanted to ask where you went.”

“I’m going back now.” Gu Yanqiu took one last look at the tall building rented by the program, counting window after window and guessing which floor Lin Yuewei would be on.

She suddenly thought this was interesting too. She had never liked anyone before. She didn’t know how others felt, but for her, simply having the feeling of liking someone was already enough to make her happy in a life like this, which was practically a hellish grind.

Gu Yanqiu closed her eyes and inhaled the fresh air here, letting the seed buried deep in her heart slowly push through the soil.

“Should I come pick you up?” Her secretary still hadn’t heard her answer for a long time.

“No need. I’ll take the subway back.” Gu Yanqiu was already dressed in sportswear, with sneakers on her feet. Following the route on her map, she started jogging slowly; a faint smile spread from the corner of her lips. “Prepare the documents I’ll need today. I’ll check them again when I get back.”

“Understood, Miss Gu. You… seem very happy?”

“Mm. Happy.”

“I’ll prepare the documents right away.” The secretary’s smile widened too. He didn’t know what had made Gu Yanqiu happy, but Gu Yanqiu was a good boss. She never exploited him, the pay and benefits were generous, and if Gu Yanqiu was happy, then naturally he was happy too.

The secretary was a recent graduate, twenty-two this year. He had come into the company with several others, originally assigned to different departments according to the company’s arrangements. That day, Gu Yanqiu had come into the conference room and conducted another round of interviews with them. He had stood out from the group and been transferred to become Gu Yanqiu’s secretary. Since he started two months ago, aside from seeing Gu Yanqiu’s businesslike smile at social functions, he had never seen her smile at any other time.

The secretary didn’t know the relationship between Gu Yanqiu and Gu Huai. There were so many people in the world with the surname Gu, and Gu Yanqiu and Gu Huai had no interaction at all in the company. Once, when they happened to meet in the elevator, Gu Yanqiu had politely lowered her head like everyone else and said, “Chairman Gu,” while Gu Huai had walked past without looking at her. He had never even thought in that direction. Throughout the company, aside from a few senior executives and the secretary in charge of receiving Gu Yanqiu, not a single person knew her real identity; they all just treated her as an ordinary department manager.

The head office was a complex organization occupying an entire skyscraper. The height of each floor roughly determined the importance of each department. Gu Yanqiu was on the fifth floor, which was practically the lowest level; most of her work involved going out to handle things, and she rarely got the chance to see Gu Huai. The elevator was the only time, and that time Gu Huai…

Gu Yanqiu misjudged the timing and went back right into the morning rush hour. The subway was packed to the brim. She held the overhead rail, and the smell inside made it impossible to think any further. She had no choice but to focus on holding her breath and keep herself from inhaling too much of the stale air.

“Today at noon you have a lunch appointment. At 2:30 p.m., you’re going to see two factory sites. At 5:30, President Liu from Shengshi has invited you to dinner at Huanyue Hotel, together with several local magnates.”

The secretary followed behind Gu Yanqiu in the descending elevator, reporting her schedule for the day while handing over the materials in his hands. “These are the documents you just told me to organize.”

Gu Yanqiu read as she walked, scanning ten lines at a glance. Her feet seemed to have another pair of eyes; she walked straight as a ruler. The secretary hurried a few steps ahead, opened the car door, and Gu Yanqiu lowered her head and got in. The stack of documents in her hands was already halfway through.

The secretary told the driver the company address, and the car started moving. Gu Yanqiu finished reading the documents and, finding no omissions, set them aside. The secretary handed her the laptop with the network card inserted. Gu Yanqiu placed it on her knees and began replying to work emails. Some were entirely in English, and she actually answered those even faster than the Chinese ones.

This was the secretary’s first job. He didn’t know whether other junior managers were this busy, but in his view, Gu Yanqiu seemed overworked. Aside from sleeping, he had never seen her at a time when she wasn’t working.

Gu Yanqiu closed her eyes. Three seconds later, she opened them again. The secretary reminded her just in time, “Take a break?”

Without looking up, Gu Yanqiu gave a calm mm and kept typing.

“……”

Out of the corner of her eye, Gu Yanqiu caught a patch of shadow. The shadow drew closer and closer; a hand opened before her, holding a small bottle. Gu Yanqiu looked closer. It was eye drops. The very straight-laced male secretary awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “It’s unopened. Please use a drop; it’s good for your eyes.”

Gu Yanqiu narrowed her eyes. It wasn’t just unopened; the packaging itself hadn’t even been opened yet.

“Thank you,” Gu Yanqiu said. “How much was it? I’ll transfer you the money.”

She had run out of the last bottle and forgotten to buy more.

The secretary refused at first, but couldn’t outargue Gu Yanqiu and obediently accepted the transfer. Gu Yanqiu put in the eye drops, then closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat. The scenery on both sides sped by. When she opened her eyes again, the world in front of her looked much brighter. Her first glance happened to fall outside the window, where a familiar complex of buildings came into view; she couldn’t help pausing.

The secretary followed her line of sight and suddenly exclaimed, then quickly pulled out his phone to take a picture.

“Isn’t that the place where the actor trainees my girlfriend talks about work? She told me before to come take some candid shots for her; I almost forgot.” His face lit up with excitement. Then he turned and saw Gu Yanqiu’s expressionless face, and his smile froze. “Um, I was just saying that casually. I didn’t mean I’d actually go take pictures.”

Gu Yanqiu said, “If you want to go, then go. Didn’t we have nothing scheduled for the afternoon of the day after tomorrow? We haven’t bought tickets yet; we can leave later.”

“???”

The secretary thought she was being considerate, and he was touched. “Miss Gu, don’t worry. My girlfriend said they still have an early shift. I’ll come over in the morning to wait. It definitely won’t affect normal work.”

Gu Yanqiu’s expression didn’t change. “Come in the afternoon.”

The secretary was about to say more, but Gu Yanqiu had already looked away and back at the laptop screen, clearly unwilling to continue the subject.

“……”

Two more days passed. During those two days, Lin Yuewei received pity from most of the other trainees and special treatment from the teachers. She kept her usual composure; she did what she was supposed to do and carried on as normal, except that when she was coming and going from work, she would often subconsciously search the crowd for a certain figure. Her roommate asked, “Are you hallucinating again?”

Lin Yuewei stuffed a potato chip into her sweet, naive roommate’s mouth and told her to shut up.

Her roommate spat it out and screamed, “You’re still stuffing chips into me? I weighed myself this morning; I’m ninety-three jin. The teacher said I’ve gotten fat.”

Lin Yuewei ruffled her hair and flopped onto the bed, looking thoroughly uninterested in joking around.

Her roommate glanced at the camera in the corner, then dragged Lin Yuewei to a blind spot in the bathroom where the filming couldn’t catch them. Lin Yuewei was forced down onto the toilet lid and lazily lifted her eyelids. “What is it?”

Her roommate cupped Lin Yuewei’s face in both hands and asked with concern, “Are you troubled by love?”

Lin Yuewei: “……”

“I’ve already noticed. You’ve been spacing out a lot these past two days.”

Lin Yuewei clicked her tongue. “When have I been spacing out? If I spaced out, it was because I was getting into character.”

Her roommate said, “Does dreaming count as getting into character too?”

Lin Yuewei jumped, nearly springing up. Her roommate pushed her back down at once. “Why are you nervous? I haven’t even said what you dreamed about.”

“What did I dream about? Did I talk in my sleep?” Lin Yuewei’s nerves tightened. She could control her waking self, but not her sleeping self. If she had really said something in her sleep…

Her roommate thought about it. “You did talk in your sleep, actually.”

“What did I say?”

“You said Namo Amitabha.” Her roommate asked, “Are you Buddhist?”

“……” Lin Yuewei didn’t know what to say. She decided to leave the bathroom, but her roommate tugged her back again. “I’ve got some gossip for you. Want to hear it?”

Why did there always have to be people around her who wanted to tell her gossip? Did she look like someone who cared about gossip? Lin Yuewei didn’t want to hear it, but to keep up her persona without breaking character, she sat still and said, “Go ahead.”

Her roommate made her swear not to tell anyone. Lin Yuewei swore perfunctorily, then heard her whisper in her ear, “Among the fifty girls here, three of them make up two couples.”

Lin Yuewei was shocked. “！！！”

Her roommate nodded, confirming that her guess was right. “And they all know about each other’s relationships.”

Lin Yuewei felt her worldview take a massive hit. She had seen things like one woman serving two women in novels and TV dramas; she knew it existed in real life too, but she had never expected it to be around her, and in a show like this, no less.

“Who are they?”

Her roommate named the three girls, earning another round of shock from Lin Yuewei.

The two of them gossiped in the bathroom for a long time, until the other two people in the dorm came back. This sudden burst of gossip disrupted the thoughts Lin Yuewei had been trapped in for the past two days. The next morning, on her way to “work,” she happened to see the center of the gossip itself—the girl with one woman on each arm. She had thin brows and narrow eyes, and among the fifty girls, her looks ranked in the lower middle.

Filled with this strange, curious gossip, Lin Yuewei completely forgot about Gu Yanqiu for the time being.

That morning, after finishing her official work, Gu Yanqiu made an impromptu trip to the commercial district and came back carrying two bags. She ran into the secretary in the hallway, who greeted her, “Miss Gu, what did you go buy?”

Gu Yanqiu didn’t answer. She directly took out her key card, opened her room door, and went inside.

“……”

At 3:30 in the afternoon, the secretary came to knock on Gu Yanqiu’s door and remind her that it was time to go wait for the trainees to get off work.

“G, G, G…” The door opened from inside, and the secretary’s eyes widened so much that his jaw nearly dropped to the floor on the spot. Gu Yanqiu, who usually wore either formal clothes or casual sportswear, had, for the first time ever, changed into a long dress. The secretary swore he had never seen this outfit before.

Gu Yanqiu was already naturally refined and exceptionally poised; she looked good enough to stand out even in formal wear. Now she was even more eye-catching. With light makeup on, Gu Yanqiu lifted her chin slightly and said coolly, “What are you standing there for?”

The moment she spoke, the secretary wilted. She was like a human iceberg standing in front of him, and the temperature around him seemed to drop several degrees at once. He bent slightly at the waist, hurried a few steps forward, and went to press the elevator button.

Gu Yanqiu lowered her eyes and looked at the gift she was carrying for Lin Yuewei, and a faint curve rose at the corner of her mouth.

Author’s note:

Today’s lucky draw: leave a comment and you get one Miss Gu.

Our beauty Gu is finally about to start peacocking. Will the chase be this smooth? Ha-ha-ha-ha.

For those who guessed who fell first before, did you… guess right?