Chapter 31

It felt as if someone had lightly brushed the ends of her hair; a tingling itch rose from her scalp, impossible to ignore.

Lin Yuewei twitched her nose. Her heart gave a heavy thud, and she fell back into the chair, eyes flying open. The familiar ceiling from before she’d gone to sleep came into view.

She stretched, lifted a hand to rub her aching neck, and hissed softly. Only a little over ten minutes had passed since she’d dozed off, so she decided to shift position and go back to sleep.

The air-conditioning had been on for too long, drying out her mouth. She instinctively licked her lips, then froze.

Her fingertips were pressed against the center of her mouth.

***

Gu Yanqiu hurried out of the magazine office and met up with Lin Zhi, who had been waiting outside. Lin Zhi looked at her in confusion.

“Why did you come out so quickly?”

Gu Yanqiu said, “I just took one look and left.”

“Ah,” Lin Zhi said. “That’s good. It’d be bad if someone found out; you might get posted online.”

“Posted online?”

“It means private contact with an idol, intimate behavior; if fans find out, they’ll dig it up and scold you all over Weibo. That kind of person is called a sasaeng fan.” As Lin Zhi imagined Gu Yanqiu being exposed by netizens, the picture was so beautiful he didn’t dare think about it too hard.

For some reason, when Lin Zhi said “intimate behavior,” he noticed Gu Yanqiu’s gaze flicker away.

Lin Zhi: “???”

He said in alarm, “You didn’t really do something, did you?”

Gu Yanqiu strode ahead. “Let’s go.”

Lin Zhi followed behind her, wrestling with himself. He was an upright secretary. If Gu Yanqiu had really done something like that, then even if he wasn’t the instigator, he’d still be an accomplice for passing along the information.

Gu Yanqiu asked, “What do you want to eat? I’ll buy you lunch.”

Lin Zhi’s vision went dark.

She was suddenly treating him to lunch; she must have really done something, right?

Gu Yanqiu pressed the elevator button, then stood with her arms folded in front of the doors, as if deep in thought.

Ding.

Gu Yanqiu stepped inside and called over her shoulder, “Why are you still standing there?”

There were other people in the elevator, so Lin Zhi couldn’t bring it up there. It wasn’t until they were out of the broadcasting building that he said, “Miss Gu, there’s something I don’t know whether I should say.”

Gu Yanqiu gave him a faint sidelong glance. “If I say you shouldn’t, would you stop?”

Lin Zhi: “……”

“Go on.” Gu Yanqiu took out her phone to search for nearby places to eat. Lin Zhi’s lips moved twice before he said, “No matter how much you like Lin Yuewei, you have to remember your identity.”

“What identity?”

“You’re just an ordinary fan,” Lin Zhi said, almost to the point of grief. Since she was his boss, he couldn’t be too harsh; “to put it another way, if you really want something to happen between you two, then you should pursue her openly. Don’t sneak around.”

What kind of person was Gu Yanqiu? A mere company manager. What kind of person was Lin Yuewei? Someone who had assistants and bodyguards with her whenever she went out, someone who could cause a crowd to stir at the slightest thing. For Gu Yanqiu to chase her down would be harder than reaching the heavens.

Lin Zhi hoped Gu Yanqiu would face reality and back off while she still could.

Gu Yanqiu agreed wholeheartedly. “You’re right.”

But she and Lin Yuewei had already agreed on the Three Rules. She couldn’t fall in love with her, let alone pursue her openly; she could only do it secretly.

Lin Zhi: “Huh?” Had he gone deaf and heard wrong?

Gu Yanqiu lifted an eyebrow at him. “I said you’re right. Then tell me, how can I get her?”

Lin Zhi: “……”

Crazy. His boss had really gone completely crazy. She wasn’t just acting like a fangirl anymore; she was fantasizing about actually getting together with her idol. He couldn’t even bring himself to say the word. If Gu Yanqiu had been a man, he would have called her a creepy pervert without hesitation.

Gu Yanqiu smiled. “There’s a Cantonese restaurant nearby with good reviews. Shall we go there?”

“…Okay.”

Over lunch, Lin Zhi tactfully laid out the pros and cons for her, as well as how difficult this would be to pull off. Gu Yanqiu listened quietly and never once offered an opinion.

Gu Yanqiu even had the restaurant serve dessert after the meal. While she used a spoon to scoop up small bites, she said softly to Lin Zhi, “I know what I’m doing. I don’t want you to keep commenting on this. Lin Zhi, have I been too lenient with you lately?”

That single sentence shut Lin Zhi up.

Gu Yanqiu softened the sharpness in her eyes and said gently, “The Hong Kong-style milk tea here is pretty good. Ask them if it can be packed to go; if it can, you can take a cup for your girlfriend.”

Lin Zhi was speechless. “…Thank you, Miss Gu.”

***

Lin Yuewei rubbed her lips with the pad of her finger, set her bag aside, and stood up from the chair. She opened the door; there was no one outside. She put on her mask and walked a few steps out, all the way to the elevator.

The door slowly closed in front of her, and through the narrowing gap she thought she caught a glimpse of a familiar face.

Lin Yuewei took a step back. Why was she here?

“You’re out already? Weren’t you sleeping in the room?” The other elevator, the one going up, stopped on the nineteenth floor as well. Her assistant sister came out carrying a lunch box, and the moment she saw Lin Yuewei standing by the elevator doors, she walked over.

“I came to pick you up,” Lin Yuewei said with a grin, looping an arm through hers. Then she glanced back at the tightly shut elevator door.

When they were out on location, the assistant sister stayed with Lin Yuewei every step of the way; whenever fans gathered around, she had to protect her even more carefully. After spending so much time together, the two of them were close. So when Lin Yuewei said that, the assistant sister believed her and lifted the bag in her hand. “Guess what I bought you?”

“Baked rice.”

“How did you know?”

“Magical powers.”

Lin Yuewei went back to the magazine office for the time being and sat in a desk chair to eat her lunch. The face that had flashed by in the half-open elevator kept drifting through her mind from time to time.

“When you went downstairs to eat just now, did you see a beautiful woman?” she asked the assistant casually.

The assistant said, “…There are quite a lot of pretty girls here.”

Lin Yuewei said, “I mean really beautiful. The kind that, compared with me, would still count as a standard. Did you see one?”

The assistant couldn’t tell whether she should call her narcissistic or self-deprecating. “No. If there had been someone as pretty as you, I would’ve noticed her already.”

Lin Yuewei said, “All right, then it’s nothing.”

Could she have seen wrong again?

She’d been having hallucinations a lot lately. Was there something wrong with her brain?

The assistant asked, “Why are you asking about that?”

Lin Yuewei shook her head. “Nothing. I ran into an acquaintance. Thinking about it now, maybe I was just too tired and got it wrong.”

The assistant clicked her tongue. “An acquaintance that pretty? As expected, pretty people only hang out with pretty people.”

Lin Yuewei took the opening to praise her. “So you’re pretty too.”

Actually confirming it wasn’t hard. Lin Yuewei thought of one person.

Jiang Congbi; Gu Yanqiu’s steadfast admirer.

It was already the end of June. Jiang Congbi had long since submitted her thesis, passed her defense smoothly, and even taken her graduation photos. There was nothing left to stop her from pursuing Gu Yanqiu.

A digression: when Lin Yuewei went back to her school for graduation photos, it made the news. She attended a bona fide prestigious university, and her academic record from those years was published as well; she had won the national scholarship every year, a textbook top student. Many people who had once cursed her online were left speechless, though others took a different tack and said that high education didn’t necessarily match a person’s character, that so-and-so had a doctorate from a famous university and was still trash. In any case, having the halo of a top student from a prestigious school gave fans a little more confidence and gave the antis one less excuse. As the program neared its end, the editing team finally let up on Lin Yuewei and stopped viciously cutting her scenes. Even if the public still had a poor impression of her, it was basically clear that the show wouldn’t be using Lin Yuewei as a sacrifice.

The person behind the trending topic that had previously put Lin Yuewei and Gu Yanqiu on the hot search had been found; it was one of those ten people. That person was unlucky, because she just happened to have a lot of black history. Jiang Congbi had people post online about the foul language she’d used on public platforms in her early years, along with her tattoos, nightclub habits, and casual hookups. The photos were clear enough to recognize her face. The evidence was airtight, and fans unfollowed en masse. She had never been as popular as Lin Yuewei to begin with, and her fans were even less loyal; after all this, her ranking fell off a cliff. Shao Yasi had already squeezed into the top ten and was now in eighth place, with debut looking likely.

There were only half a month left until the grand finale, and Lin Yuewei was so busy she was spinning like a top.

After Jiang Congbi graduated, her father forcibly sent her to work at his company, where she had the title of department manager. The department was especially idle; her subordinates arranged the work neatly and efficiently, so Jiang Congbi’s daily responsibilities were to sign a few documents and then gossip with her girlfriends in the office, or else play games.

The “Game over” prompt rang out in her headphones. Jiang Congbi took off the headset and, furious, tossed her phone to the side.

At that moment, the screen lit up again.

Jiang Congbi saw the caller ID and answered with a radiant smile. “You’re out of jail again?”

Jiang Congbi compared the place where Lin Yuewei trained to a prison; every time she went out to do publicity, she called it “getting out of jail.” Lin Yuewei was too lazy to argue and asked directly, “What has Gu Yanqiu been doing lately?”

Jiang Congbi inwardly went, ohhh, and thought, What’s going on? Lin Yuewei is actually taking the initiative to ask about Gu Yanqiu? Could something have happened while I was away for this period of time?

“Why are you asking about that?” Jiang Congbi probed casually. “What did she do to you?”

Lin Yuewei declared righteously, “Nothing. I’m just, as your best friend, keeping an eye on the progress of your relationship.”

Jiang Congbi almost forgot about that. She immediately put herself in the role of Gu Yanqiu’s pursuer, sat up straight in her chair, and said, “Oh, that. The progress is all right, I guess. You know, she’s not easy to chase.”

“What has she been doing lately?”

How was Jiang Congbi supposed to know? She asked offhandedly, “Have you seen her?”

“I should have,” Lin Yuewei said, biting her lower lip. She was sure it wasn’t a hallucination.

Jiang Congbi had unexpectedly stumbled onto such a juicy gossip and asked excitedly, “Where did you see her?”

“At the Broadcasting Center. I’m still here,” Lin Yuewei said. “I feel like she… forget it. Just help me check whether she came to the Broadcasting Center today.”

“Okay. Is it urgent? Do you want me to tell you her entire schedule lately?”

“…It’s not urgent, no need.” Lin Yuewei thought Jiang Congbi’s way of asking was odd, and her answer sounded odd too. She rubbed at the goosebumps that had suddenly risen on her arms.

The next thing Jiang Congbi said explained the source of that oddness.

Jiang Congbi teased, “Hey, do you think you look like a wife checking whether her husband’s cheating?”