“Long time no see, old classmate.”
Fu Tingli hugged her old friend—who had always looked out for her—her mind drifting in a haze. Li Weili made it sound so simple.
Why did some people remain as open-hearted as ever? Why had she changed so much?
The apartment she hadn’t stepped into for two months was blanketed in dust, enough to blacken two rags and five buckets of clean water.
Mold spots and yellow stains had conspired with the grime in the corners.
By the time Fu Tingli finished cleaning the whole place, her back ached so badly she could barely straighten up. Panting, she collapsed onto the bed and resolved in her heart: This year, I’m definitely moving out of here. No more climbing six flights of stairs every day and coming home filthy.
But that small wish drifted aimlessly with Shanghai’s winds, unrealized even by June.
For now, she had only landed a part-time gig at a training school—temporary work. Every other day, she took the subway across half the city to teach three class periods downtown.
Shanghai had shifted from harsh winter to scorching summer. The subway’s air conditioning went from stuffy warmth to icy chill. Even with an extra part-time job at a convenience store, she still couldn’t afford to escape the damp, stuffy alley.
The portfolios and resumes she sent out hadn’t paved the way back to sculpture either.
One evening, she finished class at ten and dashed into the subway station amid the city’s dazzling nightscape. She barely caught the train as the doors stood open. In her rush, her bag strap caught in the closing doors.
Her legs already aching and weak, she stood frozen as the train rumbled to the next stop before the doors finally released.
In those less-than-two minutes, the subway tracks felt like a time tunnel.
Winds howled, station signs flickered by.
Fu Tingli felt yanked into a dim, murky projection room.
Immersed in a massive slideshow of her last five years, slide after slide.
At the next station, the doors burst open with a thud, and her bag strap fell free.
Crowds brushed past her, exiting and flooding in. She stood rooted, a perfect snapshot of her stalled, mediocre life.
Amid the crush of people, a massive billboard outside caught her eye.
It featured Kong Liyuan’s new endorsement—a fresh model from a domestic phone brand.
The doors closed again, more passengers squeezed in, and Fu Tingli clutched her bag.
The train sped to the next stop, pulling the woman on the billboard—and Fu Tingli’s memories of her—farther away.
She couldn’t even recall the last time she’d seen Kong Liyuan.
Lowering her head, Fu Tingli thought hazily that the saying rang truer than ever: After twenty, everyone gets trapped in the toughest ring of their life’s trials.
Had her twenties started too dramatically, dooming every step afterward to feel like a downhill slide?
But things turned around on her twenty-fifth birthday.
Like the small tremors before a rebound from rock bottom, after two months of submitting resumes, portfolios, and auditioning—perhaps because she no longer fixated solely on pure sculpture—she started getting solid offers.
Landscape design at an architecture firm. Interior decoration at a real estate company. Professional curator at an exhibition agency…
And an invitation to the wrap party for Daytime Blizzard. The WeChat message surprised her—not from Li Weili, but from Wen Yingxiu.
Of course, it wasn’t just Wen Yingxiu. Li Weili, Xia Yue, and a bunch of the art department colleagues were going too.
She, a part-time temp who’d only stuck around for half the shoot, and they still remembered her for the wrap party?
Everything aligned so neatly that day. Besides her class, she had an interview invite from a sculpture workshop.
Between half-heartedly joining a movie crew and an interview tied to her future path, the choice was obvious.
Wen Yingxiu seemed caught off guard by her excuse and asked which studio. Fu Tingli named it. Wen sent a sweating emoji but said nothing more.
Fu Tingli assumed Wen thought the place was subpar—fair enough, it wasn’t on the level of Wen’s own studio. But then Wen added flatly:
【Hit me up after the interview.】
Fu Tingli didn’t overthink it, figuring it was loose ends from the crew. She replied, “Sure.”
Then she responded to Xia Yue and Li Weili’s check-ins.
Xia Yue had wrapped early in the year and now starred as the lead in a major idol drama. Fresh paparazzi shots popped up on Weibo constantly.
Even after deleting her own Weibo, Fu Tingli overheard people buzzing about her everywhere.
Once, while stocking a new shipment of yogurt drinks on the shelf, she spotted Xia Yue’s half-body portrait on the packaging. She froze for a moment.
A coworker sidled over. “Oh, Xia Yue? That campus drama’s blowing up lately. She’s pretty cute. I’m hooked on her variety show too—real down-to-earth, doesn’t rub you the wrong way. Even my mom and sister are obsessed.” She paused. “You a fan?”
Fu Tingli snapped back, curving her eyes into a smile and nodding firmly.
“Yeah, I like her a lot. Such a cute little sister.”
She felt a mix of pride and disorientation, as if that winter incident in 2021 was ancient history.
Back then, Xia Yue had faced a barrage of harsh scrutiny from a poorly edited variety show clip. She’d been slapped with labels like “average” and “flop” without a fair shot.
But by the summer of 2022, the girl who’d once cried until her nose tip reddened had exploded from an April youth web drama and her steady gig on a competitive variety show. Fans and endorsements poured in. She was no longer the insecure newbie battered by the industry’s storms, lacking support.
Meanwhile, last summer’s viral sensation had faded this season, no longer dominating headlines with every scandal.
In this fickle world, flash-in-the-pan fame and overnight success were commonplace—not worth the shock anymore.
Yet Xia Yue still occasionally messaged Fu Tingli with set stories and minor gripes.
She truly saw Fu Tingli as a good friend.
When Fu Tingli said she had an interview and couldn’t make the wrap party, Xia Yue sent a “puppy crying” emoji.
Fu Tingli followed up with a voice note, chuckling. “Hey, Little Teacher Xia, tell everyone ‘happy wrap’ for me~”
Xia Yue replied: 【Mission accepted!】
Fu Tingli set her phone aside, focusing on prepping for the interview. There was no way she’d skip it for a wrap party where she’d just mooch food, feel awkward after dipping out early.
Not even if Kong Liyuan was there.
Not even if it was Kong Liyuan’s birthday too—news Fu Tingli learned purely by chance.
Back in Shanghai, after the wrap party for the Daytime Blizzard crew officially ended, Fu Tingli chose to fill her time with all sorts of mundane, tedious tasks.
That way, once the last grain of sand trickled through, she could suppress the urge to flip the hourglass over.
But she still couldn’t avoid news of Kong Liyuan.
The city was full of her everywhere—or maybe it wasn’t just this city.
Even overseas.
Kong Liyuan’s name had started gaining recognition in international markets at numerous film festivals.
She already carried the titles of global ambassador for so many luxury brands.
And after the promotional photos and first trailer for Daytime Blizzard dropped, countless voices speculated that Kong Liyuan had a strong shot at Best Actress once the film released.
Of course, Fu Tingli knew all this inside and out.
Because the college student who often worked the same shifts as her at the convenience store was a die-hard fan of Kong Liyuan.
This girl, not even twenty yet, had a dimple that made her smile irresistibly sweet. Whenever Kong Liyuan’s name came up, that dimple just wouldn’t stay hidden.
But she insisted she was just a movie buff, not a stan. She said all the Liyuan fans only wanted to be called movie buffs by others.
Movie buff—that felt like a term from the early 2000s.
After all, in the past decade or so, with Weibo and the internet booming, people who chased celebrities had become what others called “fans” or “stans.”
You rarely heard “music buffs” or “movie buffs” anymore.
Fu Tingli’s twenty-fifth birthday passed in a blur of ordinary busyness, with barely a thought spared for it.
That evening, she rushed through an interview, then hurried to the training school for her afternoon class, before heading to the convenience store for the night shift.
She wore a baggy T-shirt topped with the store’s green vest.
Her freshly cut hair was casually pinned up at the back of her head, with a few stray strands falling by her ears, blowing even messier in the wind.
During breaks from stocking shelves, she’d smoothed her hair down several times, but she was still grinning cheerfully. She even had the mood to hum a tune—an upbeat old song, with a few English words floating out lazily.
The Dimple Colleague watched her from the cash register for a good while. “Tingli Sis, why are you so happy today?”
“Am I?” Fu Tingli’s eyes crinkled. “That obvious, huh?”
“Yeah!” The Dimple Colleague grinned mischievously. “How’d it go, Tingli Sis? Did the interview go great?”
“Mm-hmm~” Fu Tingli didn’t deny it, but she didn’t want to jinx it either, so she kept it vague. “Pretty good, I guess.”
“Then it’s basically a done deal!” The Dimple Colleague seemed even more excited than she was. With no customers checking out, she slipped out from behind the register, rummaged through the shelves, and pulled out a cream cake.
She rang it up herself and pushed it toward Fu Tingli, all generous. “This one’s on me—it’s your birthday! No need to stand on ceremony, okay?”
Fu Tingli was a little surprised but didn’t play coy. She accepted it, the curve at the corner of her eye deepening. “Once I lock down the job, dinner’s on me!”
“You got it!” The Dimple Colleague swiftly added a bottle of soda for her too—the label featuring Kong Liyuan’s half-body portrait.
“Thanks.”
Fu Tingli took it without the hesitation she’d felt before. She cupped her hand over Kong Liyuan’s face on the bottle and chugged a big gulp.
“Aw, no need to thank me for this little thing!” The Dimple Colleague waved it off. “But talk about a coincidence—you and Kong Liyuan share a birthday, and I’m a huge fan of hers. Tingli Sis, doesn’t that mean we’re kinda fated?”
“Yeah, pretty fated.” Fu Tingli gripped the half-empty soda bottle.
She felt a pang of guilt. Because of the NDA, she hadn’t told the Dimple Colleague that she’d worked on the Daytime Blizzard crew.
After all, mentioning it might lead to accidental leaks.
“How’s that not fate?”
The Dimple Colleague declared righteously.
Then she checked the time on her phone, and suddenly she was on high alert.
