Chapter 68: There Must Be Some Mistake Part 2

Humans, at their core, stopped loving once the moment passed. Emotions that intense were rare.

Such passion was a double-edged sword, easy to wield but quicker to cut both ways. Without fuel to sustain it, it left both sides scarred, never speaking again.

Yan Muyu had seen it all too often.

She’d dated before, but she steered clear of that kind of love. She was afraid of getting too deep, trapped forever without peace even in death.

Liu Song sighed. “But I don’t know how to tell Sister Xi.”

Yan Muyu clarified lazily, “You mean about your first love being Li Xi?”

Her tone was casual, blending with the rain pattering outside. It carried the damp chill of the storm, effortlessly melting away invisible barriers.

Liu Song flushed. “You all figured it out, huh.”

Yan Muyu shrugged. “Of course. So Sister Xi must have too.”

Liu Song trailed off. “I just…”

Yan Muyu cut in directly. “Why not just tell Xi Xi you like her?”

The blunt question hit Liu Song like a bomb, leaving her speechless for a long moment.

Undeterred, Yan Muyu kept going. “Xi Xi probably knows already. Instead of worrying when she’ll get married again, why not tell her straight up that you like her?”

Liu Song stammered, “But what if she stops being my manager?”

Yan Muyu grinned. “Wouldn’t that be even better? She could be your wife instead.”

The word “wife” was so bold it turned Liu Song’s face beet red.

Liu Song protested, “I… I can’t imagine… Sister Xi not being my manager.”

Yan Muyu’s voice stayed even. “So you’ll keep dragging your feet, then watch some new admirer sweep Xi Xi off her feet? She stays your manager, but becomes someone else’s bedmate.”

The words were delivered flatly, but they struck Liu Song like a cruel prophecy of a painful future.

Liu Song whispered, “But Sister Xi… she doesn’t like women.”

Yan Muyu let out another “oh.” “That’s tricky.”

Liu Song hung her head, looking utterly pitiful.

Yan Muyu softened. “But how do you know for sure she only likes men?”

Liu Song murmured, “Everyone says straight girls don’t just…”

Yan Muyu chuckled. “With anyone else, I’d tell you to shock yourself out of it cold turkey.”

She laughed lightly. “Some play around, sure. But deep down, they crave that conventional ending—the kind society accepts.”

Yan Muyu fiddled with the ring toss mini-game on her phone case, nailing shot after shot. But this time, Liu Song didn’t watch in awe.

She looked thoroughly dejected. Yan Muyu added, “But Xi Xi’s different. She really cares about you.”

Yan Muyu prodded, “Even Li Xi’s helping nudge things along for you. Why not seize the momentum?”

In the background, Li Xi was still playing the piano, switching to a new melody—probably picking something fitting for the Fish Lantern Festival.

Liu Song shook her head. “I don’t dare. I’m scared it’ll ruin everything for good.”

Yan Muyu waved it off. “So what? If it falls apart, come to my company. Rekindle with Li Xi, drop a duet album, and make Xi Xi green with envy.”

Liu Song: …

She still looked hesitant. Yan Muyu patted her shoulder. “You really think Xi Xi doesn’t know how you feel?”

Yan Muyu reassured her. “Just confess. She’ll handle the rest.”

She had no intention of dragging the talk out. Standing up, she headed to wash her face.

Unfortunately, her path took her past Xi Xi’s room. She pushed the door open and called out, “How much longer on Liu Song’s contract? Want me to snag her for my company?”

Xi Xi chucked a face mask at her. “Get lost.”

Unfazed, Xi Xi handed the mask to Li Xi. “Try it. Thousands per sheet—worth as much as one of your songs.”

Li Xi snorted. “Beat it.”

Yan Muyu’s advice to Liu Song flowed effortlessly, but when it came to her own life, that clear-eyed detachment vanished.

She felt mired in a thick fog.

Qiu Chao was the hazy flower glimpsed through it, stirring a vague flutter in her chest.

Qiu Chao’s deliberate seductions left Yan Muyu cold. It was those rare unguarded glimpses that hooked her.

Did a ruthlessly ambitious woman like Qiu Chao ever have a innocent first love like that?

How novel.

After heading upstairs, Yan Muyu first peeked at Qiu Chao. She was sleeping soundly, undisturbed by the door creak.

Yan Muyu stepped out to make a call.

It was past midnight, with zero regard for the time difference.

The number had taken several people to track down.

The woman who answered sounded like she was at some entertainment spot. “Yeah?”

Yan Muyu got straight to it. “Got a question.”

The woman balked. “Not lending.”

Yan Muyu laughed. “Wen Miao, it’s Yan Muyu.”

There was a “holy shit” from the other end. Silence stretched, then the background noise shifted from clamor to quiet—probably stepping out of the bar into an alley.

Finally, Wen Miao asked, “How’d you get my number?”

Yan Muyu replied, “Took asking a bunch of people.”

Wen Miao whistled. “Wanna get back together?”

Yan Muyu shot back, “You think?”

Wen Miao persisted. “Wait, you’re still hung up on that old stuff? No helping it—I just have that kink.”

Yan Muyu clarified, “Not hung up. Said I’m asking something. Not for money.”

They hadn’t talked in years—no numbers exchanged, just occasional likes on social media.

Wen Miao had emigrated ages ago, cycling through partners faster than Yan Muyu, though her recent posts suggested she’d settled down.

Wen Miao teased, “I don’t remember owing you. If it’s about me cheating back then, you’re way too petty. That was ages ago.”

The woman talked like a firecracker, rapid-fire, leaving no room for Yan Muyu to get a word in.

Yan Muyu: …

She took a deep breath. “I’m not mad.”

Wen Miao went, “Oh.”

Yan Muyu pressed. “Remember my birthday in high school? The karaoke night.”

Wen Miao deflected. “Ask Qiu Siyuan. I was probably busy exploring my body that period.”

Yan Muyu asked pointedly, “You cheated on me back then?”

Wen Miao owned it. “Yeah, but you wouldn’t get mad anyway. Why dig up old dirt?”

Yan Muyu probed, “Nothing weird happen that day?”

Wen Miao groaned. “God, that was years ago. I’ve dated who-knows-how-many since. You want me to remember?”

She continued, “Karaoke and whatever. You were out of it, right? Your singing was trash anyway—made people wanna die listening.”

Wen Miao’s mouth ran nonstop, and Yan Muyu still couldn’t fathom how they’d ever clicked.

How did this motormouth have the gall to trash her singing?

Wen Miao griped verbally but knew Yan Muyu wouldn’t call internationally for nothing.

After a thoughtful hum, she said, “There was probably some girl I didn’t know. When I got there, she was leaving and nearly bowled me over.”

Wen Miao and Yan Muyu had been two peas in a pod—skipping class, shirking studies.

Now a makeup artist, Wen Miao embodied color in extremes.

Qiu Siyuan had once quipped that Wen Miao was an evolved, full-spectrum feather duster.

Yan Muyu’s heart skipped. She demanded, “Remember what she looked like?”

Wen Miao shrugged it off. “My memory’s shit. Only recall ’cause the girl in the bathroom was a pro—still think about it sometimes.”

Yan Muyu: …

Deep breath. “Can we not keep bringing that up?”

Wen Miao laughed. “Why not? Dating you was all Plato otherwise—such a buzzkill. I was flooding over here.”

Talking to her inevitably veered explicit, like phone sex, even though Yan Muyu was straight-laced.

Anyone less proper than Wen Miao looked prim by comparison.

Yan Muyu insisted, “You really remember nothing?”

Wen Miao sighed. “Didn’t look like a kid, anyway. Pretty mature. Don’t make me rack my brain—I thought we’d chat something fun. Lame.”

Her voice was syrupy and coquettish, pure artificial saccharin forced out like it was wrung from a rag. It grated on Yan Muyu, feeling cloyingly sweet, and the memory of this woman’s shameless cheating at mahjong back in high school only made her more irritated. She let out an indifferent “Oh.”

Wen Miao said, “All good then? I’m hanging up.”

Yan Muyu hummed in response.

She leaned against the railing, watching the lights downstairs flicker out as the film crew finally packed up and left.

Yan Muyu stood there lost in thought amid the dimness, her mind drifting to the past—to Qiu Chao’s expression every time she mentioned her first love.

The truth was plain as day. Qiu Chao had worked at that KTV. The files on Yan Muyu’s phone were from that very year, and the timelines lined up perfectly.

Even Uncle Zhao had mentioned back then that something had gone down that day, though Yan Muyu hadn’t paid it much mind at the time. She certainly wouldn’t have dug into her sister-in-law’s business so thoroughly.

She found it hard to deny how much it bothered her now.

Hard to deny the real motive behind her suggestion to Qiu Chao that they “give it a try.”

It flew in the face of every principle she lived by—a reckless gamble.

One more step forward, and there would be no turning back, no salvation.

Yan Muyu thought: Better to ask Qiu Chao herself.

All this roundabout scheming—wasn’t it just to avoid facing those eyes of hers?

Afraid that once the dust settled—even knowing some things were long in the past—she would still drown in guilt.

Still choose to make amends out of that guilt, only for Qiu Chao to seize the advantage and hold it over her forever.

A deal where she’d lose everything, with nothing to show for it.

Yan Muyu was just turning to head back to her room when her phone rang.

It was Lou Haiyan.

The female assistant’s voice came through the line, laced with excitement.

“Young Boss Yan, Boss Yan just woke up.”

Yan Muyu said, “What?”

Her hand fell from the doorknob. She spun on her heel and hurried downstairs, already instructing Lou Haiyan to arrange a car as she went.

Fortunately, the rain had stopped by then. Yan Muyu didn’t wait for dawn. She climbed straight into the car and headed back.

She called Qiu Siyuan first, asking the program team to handle tomorrow’s live stream, then dialed Lin Yumian.

Then she asked Lou Haiyan, “Have you told Yan Tianxing?”

Lou Haiyan replied, “Not yet, Young Boss Yan. Boss Yan’s condition is still very unstable. Actually, you could…”

Yan Muyu cut her off. “No need. I’ll go see him.”

Yan Muyu could scarcely put her current feelings into words. Truth be told, she was frightened by her own state of mind.

It was nothing like her attitude toward her ex-girlfriends. Qiu Chao was different—too different.

No matter whether she kept her distance or drew closer, Yan Muyu felt a prickling numbness, like countless tiny needles.

Not the sharp choke of a fish bone in the throat. Not the stab of a splinter from rough wood.

It was finer, denser—like the fog drifting through the midnight mountain woods right now, damp and oppressively heavy.

She didn’t know how to face it.

How could she possibly measure up to the heroic figure of a first love in Qiu Chao’s eyes?

There must be some mistake.