Chapter 1: “Golden Hair”

Every time she kissed Kong Liyuan, Fu Tingli felt that Kong Liyuan was undoubtedly a work of art.

A raging, colossal blizzard that could be interpreted as utter madness, descending on a land where temperatures never dipped below ninety-six degrees Fahrenheit.

From that moment on, it turned everything upside down.

~~~

“You’re not obsessed with Kong Liyuan to the point of madness?”

A stranger’s voice pierced the howl outside the subway car. “How come when Kong Liyuan finally comes to Shanghai to shoot a film, you won’t even go see her in person…”

Another voice replied, “It’s all because that dog of a boss won’t approve the leave!”

The fragmented conversation seeped into her ears, laced with resentment. Fu Tingli, who had only caught half of it, slipped on her earbuds. The noise faded into the distance as she drowsily gripped the overhead strap.

Her cold made her feel like a not-so-fresh fish, dangling coldly from the subway handhold, drawing in stale oxygen amid the packed crowd.

With a soft plop, something landed nearby.

She looked down. It was a brand-new magazine. The woman on the cover had cascades of seaweed-black curls, elegant white pearl earrings, and high-contrast features lit by blue shadows into a hypnotic depth.

A flash of light streaked past outside the car, casting the woman’s soft contours like a noble, affectionate ancient Greek sculpture.

A young guy in a baseball cap nearby caught sight of the magazine cover and let out a shout in Shanghainese.

“Whoa, Kong Liyuan.”

Fu Tingli lifted her bleary eyes. In the crowd, a flustered stranger of a woman pushed through, picked up the magazine with a look of heartache, and muttered, “This is brand new.” Her wide sleeve blotted out Kong Liyuan’s face completely.

The subway pulled into the station right then. Fu Tingli looked away as the doors banged open, revealing a billboard straight ahead. There stood Kong Liyuan, wearing the blue scarf she endorsed, her brows slightly raised. She seized every passerby on that ad with the deep, smoldering charm and innocent laziness in her eyes—never fading.

Like a vortex woven from contradictions.

The melody in her earbuds paused for a second. Fu Tingli slowly released the strap and shuffled along with the surging crowd toward the exit.

In an instant, the crowd blurred the woman’s sharp features on the billboard, along with that breathtaking beauty, into a hazy, distant mist.

By the time she reached the mall, her old classmate Li Weili, who had asked to meet, still hadn’t arrived. Ever since her mother’s failed investment led to bankruptcy and debts—and after Fu Tingli had pulled out her funding and left the studio—Li Weili was the only old classmate still willing to reach out.

Fu Tingli stopped at a pharmacy, sniffed her ice-block-stuffed nose, and bought a pack of cold medicine. She grabbed a bottle of water from the supermarket, then paused at checkout.

She stared at the endorser on the mineral water bottle for a good while.

“Want to switch brands?” the round-glasses cashier asked. “Don’t like Kong Liyuan, miss?”

Fu Tingli glanced at the shelves. Every row of bottled water featured Kong Liyuan’s half-body portrait on the packaging.

“It’s not that I don’t like her,” she said as she paid.

The mall surged with people like a tide, as if an invisible taut net hung in the air, tightening her already labored breaths.

At the agreed-upon shop, she still asked the owner for a cup of hot water to dissolve her cold meds and set the mineral water—with Kong Liyuan’s portrait—aside.

Fu Tingli sat curled in her seat, eyes closed, big coat wrapped tight around her. Her legs tucked under the chair legs, hands jammed in her icy pockets for warmth.

Through the gaps in her music, the sound of someone across the way scrolling short videos forced its way into her ears:

“If you could swap lives with anyone, who would it be? My answer is obviously Kong Liyuan!

“Her mom is the late white moonlight of showbiz, her classic youthful roles still popping up in all those beauty compilation videos. Her dad is a film emperor, and their love story is still the stuff of entertainment circle legend.

“Then Kong Liyuan herself—with her bold, deep-featured movie-star face—made her debut at six in the classic film Life. But just when everyone thought she’d become a child star, she dove into her studies instead. At twenty-four, she graduated with a master’s in management from the University of California, reentered the spotlight that same year, and stunned audiences with a single shot in her debut film. At twenty-five, she led Winter Storm to a newcomer award and officially entered the film world. That year, she sparked a nationwide craze for blue scarves. At twenty-six, she became the undisputed top star with the suspense thriller Paradox. At twenty-seven, she played dual roles in Memory Beginning and earned a Film Queen nomination. Now at twenty-eight—just four years into her career—she’s the superstar whose ads blanket half of China, a household name—”

The sped-up marketing voice cut off abruptly. Fu Tingli felt herself yanked downward hard.

Her wired earbuds had come loose. She jolted awake, her chilled, stiff fingers cradling the cup.

Lifting her eyes, she saw Li Weili already seated across from her.

“What’re you listening to?”

Fu Tingli’s teeth were chattering from the cold. “Just some random songs.”

Li Weili watched her. “Long time no see.”

Fu Tingli sipped her cold medicine, her slim shoulders hunching deeper into the chair. “Long time no see.”

Li Weili got to the point. “The company’s film project is about to start shooting. The crew needs an on-set sculpture consultant. You in?”

Fu Tingli was a bit surprised. “Why think of me all of a sudden?”

“No one else in the circle would touch it.” Li Weili paused. “Pay’s not great either.

“It’s called ‘sculpture consultant,’ but really it’s just overseeing the set. Might also double as a hand double for the female lead sculptor. Of course, the lead actress is genuinely into sculpture—picked this script and studied it for months—so she might not need one.

“The sculpture team lead for the art department is some big-shot from an institute studio, hired at top dollar. She doesn’t trust actors and can’t spare herself or her students full-time on set without slowing her studio. So it’s basically an arts assistant gig with a fancy title.”

Anyone with experience—even a college student—could handle it. But Li Weili thought of Fu Tingli.

She knew that even though Fu Tingli had never acted like a spoiled young miss back in the day, she had that quiet pride and stubbornness deep down.

After hearing her out, Fu Tingli didn’t answer right away. She just sat quietly sipping her medicine from the cup.

As if considering—or lost in thought.

Li Weili’s gaze stayed on her. Probably because her mom was from Xinjiang, Fu Tingli had full, prominent bones and deep eye contours. Her hair was casually pinned up behind, with longer stray strands falling along her neck and face. The mole on her cheek peeked through her pale skin and the wisps of hair; her slightly pursed lips held no color.

In Li Weili’s memory, Fu Tingli’s beauty wasn’t subtle or gentle. It should have been bright and fiery.

She remembered high school military training. The instructor called on Fu Tingli for a performance. Without a hint of shyness, even in baggy fatigues that still showed off her slim waist and long legs, she sang “Can’t Let Go” amid cheers and rhythmic claps.

Under the clear moon and sparse stars, she was vibrant, bold, and full of life. With her good family background and no airs, Fu Tingli had all the boys fresh from junior high head over heels.

Back in high school, everyone knew about the stunning new freshman in first year. The instructor always dragged her to the front for posture drills, and even under the gaze of multiple squads, she stood ramrod straight without flinching.

Li Weili still remembered sharply the first time she spoke to Fu Tingli.

Back then, a few jerk boys in class bullied her. She couldn’t meet the eyes of those guys clustered in the hallway, just kept her head down on her way to the bathroom.

She would never forget that feeling. The corridor was bright and straight, but to her, those stares and laughs turned it into a path that grew heavier and sank lower with every step.

Of course, she’d always remember bumping into a soft body at the door, the clatter of things falling, the clear-jointed hand that steadied her, and that pleasant osmanthus scent.

She struggled to stand with the person’s help. Looking up, that face opened right up to her.

Half her profile was splattered with paint, red liquid trickling slowly from the corner of her amber eyes, streaking her pale, slender neck—like blood.

It stained the sunlight red. And yet, right before heading out, Fu Tingli—with paint smeared across her face—waved her red hand in front of Li Weili when she didn’t speak.

“Why aren’t you saying anything? I didn’t bump you, did I?”

She asked with genuine curiosity, but her bright eyes made it look gorgeous and bold.

Li Weili realized this was Fu Tingli from their class. She didn’t know what to say to someone like her and just ducked inside. When she came out, Fu Tingli was still waiting at the door.

Paint still uncleaned from her face, as if waiting for her. As Li Weili passed, Fu Tingli grabbed her hand, eyes crinkling into crescents.

“Li Weili, let me draw you a little bird.”

Only after following Fu Tingli into the art room and taking off her school shirt did she see the messy ballpoint scrawls on her back: big letters spelling “Pig Sis.”

She stared blankly. She’d been wearing that shirt all day; no one had said a word. Six periods left till dismissal, and no spare clothes.

But that day, under the slanting sunset, Fu Tingli casually wiped her face, took her shirt, and with a few strokes drew a red flying bird over the marks.

After finishing, she shrugged off her own paint-splattered white shirt, standing in just her tank top with her back to Li Weili, delicate butterfly bones protruding slightly from her slim frame.

She turned back to look at her. It was probably because Li Weili’s expression had frozen in a daze that Fu Tingli thought she was too scared to return to the classroom like this—after all, the red flying bird emblem on her school uniform was just too distinctive. Then she smiled again, her eyes curving into crescents.

“It’s fine. We’re both wearing them.”

The red paint was still smeared across her face, like aimless wisps of fiery clouds, light yet exuberant.

“If it doesn’t wash off, I’ll just compensate you for it.”

After their first year of high school ended, Fu Tingli went to the United States.

Later, when Li Weili went abroad to study and faced some hardships in that foreign land, with no one to pull her out of her misery, she somehow got in touch with Fu Tingli, whom she’d only been classmates with for a year. She added her contact info but found it hard to open up about her predicament. It was Fu Tingli who took the initiative to invite her out, pulling up in front of her one sticky, rainy night in a vintage white sports car.

When Fu Tingli got out, she ran over, her bright blue trench coat fluttering like ocean waves in the air, her freshly dyed golden hair tousled by the misty rain-laden wind.

California’s breeze swept through her soft, carefree golden locks, infusing the honest, relaxed vitality of her life right into her eyes.

That day, Fu Tingli hugged her in the wind, like that vivid red flying bird entangled in paint.

“Long time no see, old classmate.”

Perhaps because Li Weili had been feeling so unfamiliar and uneasy upon first arriving in America, she always thought that the innate softness radiating from Fu Tingli back then had somehow grown even more intense. It was so potent that after Fu Tingli took her home for hotpot and then drove her around California a few times, it was enough to completely dispel all that anxiety and helplessness.

She still believed that those moist, bright eyes of Fu Tingli’s should always brim with vibrant emotions, that the bold, aggressive life force she exuded would never fade, and that it deserved the longest possible shelf life.

She shouldn’t be like this now—like a sculpture sharing its existence with moss, nearly drowned in sickness and exhaustion.

“So, who’s the lead actress?”

A hoarse, muffled voice interrupted Li Weili’s train of thought. She stared blankly at the sickly pale Fu Tingli before her.

“The lead is Kong Liyuan. You just got back to the country, so you might not know her yet—”

“How could I not know her?” Fu Tingli shifted her curled-up legs and glanced up at the 3D screen outside the coffee shop window. She let out a laugh.

“She’s everywhere.”

~~~

After parting ways with Li Weili, Fu Tingli staggered into the bathroom stall and vomited until the world spun. Somehow, she ended up feeling freezing cold all over and passed out under the mall’s air conditioning.

When she woke, it was already evening. She clutched her cold medicine in a daze as she walked out. Night had fallen like a heavy curtain against her chest, making it hard to breathe.

The frigid winter night carried frigid snowflakes, drifting down in lazy swirls. Shanghai wasn’t a city that saw much snow, so those who noticed it let out sharp cries of surprise.

As Fu Tingli passed that 3D screen, the snow had thickened enough that she huddled under her coat to shield herself from it. She was unusually sensitive to the cold and hated getting snowed on.

A woman in a thick puffer jacket walked by, phone to her ear, and ducked under the shelter beside her.

“Didn’t you say Kong Liyuan would definitely show up in Shanghai for the fan ad event? I’ve been staking out all day and haven’t seen a glimpse of her—”

As she spoke, the woman pulled a cigarette from her pocket and patted herself down for a lighter. That’s when she noticed a pair of pretty, gentle eyes watching her.

She looked back. “Got a light?”

She didn’t really expect this young woman, who looked like a minor celebrity, to have a lighter on her.

But Fu Tingli handed one over without hesitation.

“Here.”

Surprised, the woman took it, lit her cigarette, and exhaled a plume of smoke. Those clear eyes inexplicably held her gaze, and she pulled out her pack again.

“Want one?”

Fu Tingli took it and leaned in familiarly to light it off the woman’s cigarette, but she didn’t inhale.

“This brand’s rare in Shanghai.”

It was as if lighting a cigarette could borrow its thin veil of smoke to ward off the chill.

“Brought it back from a business trip last time. Cheap, but not bad.” The woman in the thick jacket stared at Fu Tingli for a good while.

On the massive screen, the female star in a flimsy slip dress shone brightly. Outside it, the girl in a thick, soft brown coat and black hoodie had snow dusting her shoulders. In the swirling smoke, she held her cigarette, her pale face under the black hood lit in flickering patterns by passing car headlights.

She stood there, right between Kong Liyuan’s red lips.

The stark contrast of white and red, cold and heat, seemed to merge into one—an oil painting of shifting light and shadow, creating a bizarre visual effect.

If only this girl really were a little celebrity, thought the woman in the thick jacket. She could write an article about it. But once the snow let up, she left.

The cigarette burned down to Fu Tingli’s fingers, but she didn’t notice the burn.

The yellowish-green glow of passing headlights swept from far to near, from a massive halo converging into a tiny point, sliding across her profile.

She couldn’t help but cough. She unlocked her phone. The sharp, thin edge of the car lights was like an icy soft blade, slicing open the winter of the world.

It glided over the photo she’d just opened: a woman leaning back in the passenger seat, wearing Fu Tingli’s oversized T-shirt, smoking a cigarette, immersed in the twilight, gazing calmly at the indigo coastline beyond the car window.

Just before that moment was captured,

Fu Tingli had reached out to fix the woman’s wind-tousled hair. Her slender fingers lingered in those strands as she asked curiously, “Do you only smoke this brand?”

The woman turned her head, looked at her for a moment against the headrest, her face pressed to Fu Tingli’s palm, her lashes trembling faintly in the curling smoke.

“Take a picture of me.”

The memory of California cut off abruptly. Snowflakes melted on Fu Tingli’s shoulders as the male voice in her earbuds looped that line over the retro melody:

/California Dreamin’

California dreaming

on such a winter’s day

On such a winter’s day/

The woman who’d just been staking out Kong Liyuan news had no idea that right beside her, the photo album Fu Tingli was scrolling through held thirty-eight such pictures.

All from that wild, free summer four years ago on the other side of the Pacific—from that white old car driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco, from that Kong Liyuan who hadn’t yet debuted to stun the world…

The Kong Liyuan only Fu Tingli had ever seen.