Time rewound to a few hours earlier—the entrance of the Golden Hundred Film Festival.
That woman in the water-colored gown called “Zhong Qing” had entered alongside a venerable old master called “Medea.”
To most of the people present, Zhong Qing might have been an unfamiliar face. But the elder named “Medea” was not.
Legendary French director, recipient of the international film world’s Lifetime Achievement honor, an artistic genius acclaimed the world over… any single one of those titles alone was enough to leave people speechless.
So it was only natural that the moment she appeared, she became the focal point of every gaze and every flashbulb.
—And perhaps that same law applied to “Zhong Qing.”
A graduate of a top-tier institution, the youngest chief director in the history of the French Royal Theatre.
Medea’s one and only acknowledged student.
A newcomer whose debut work had won an international film festival’s Best New Artist Award.
All of this made everyone present gaze eagerly at the young woman in the water-colored gown, with the air of appraising tomorrow’s star.
On the ceremony screen played a courtyard scene arranged in classic Golden Age style. In dappled sunlight, a pearl tumbled down in a hurry, its radiance spilling out in layered refractions to light up the vast world.
Within the pearl’s dancing, daylight gained a body—like a spring of water, a brushstroke of satin, flowing beneath the passage of time.
At the very bottom, the signature: Zhong Qing, 《Baroque Round Table》.
No people. No forms. A conceptual silent play of overlapping light and shadow.
“So artsy,” Zhou Siyou heard someone beside her murmur in awe. “So artsy it’s incomprehensible.”
In that venue, she was far from the only one who couldn’t make sense of it.
But when the baroque pearl fell onto the round table on screen and the display went dark… thunderous applause erupted below all the same.
The applause probably wasn’t for the silent play itself. It was for Zhong Qing and Medea.
For the beautiful “art” of two women who had already made their names.
Clapping along with the current, Zhou Siyou sneered inwardly: ‘Art.’ What an empty, hollow word.
In this playground where traffic and money were the main course, “art” was the emptiest pair of words in the language—weightless, drifting, without substance.
Here, dreamers full of passion and empty of pocket were a dime a dozen. In the end, they either starved slow, or came to their senses with a sigh and learned to network, letting their fingers soak up the stink of money.
Most people betrayed their original intentions.
Yet Zhong Qing, of all people, had actually taken an artistic vision and loaded it as her first bullet after debut.
And it had struck the bullseye dead center.
“International film festival, Best New Artist Award”—what a sweet-sounding gunshot.
In this dazzling den of decadence, both Zhong Qing and her work were as quiet as a passing wind.
Once the pretty formalities were spoken, the Golden Hundred awards ceremony’s screen dimmed and brightened again.
Shots cut one after another, film clips played in rotation, and the host drew out her syllables to milk the suspense.
Zhou Siyou sat in the venue, chin propped in her hand, watching the faces on stage—some overjoyed, some crushed—her own expression listless, her gaze drifting.
That pearl bouncing up and down off the baroque round table refused to leave her mind.
Not until the giant screen abruptly cut to a face far too familiar, and the people around her all turned to look, did Zhou Siyou lift her eyes as if waking from a dream.
On the screen, a woman in sunset-red robes fell from the clouds, blood seeping from pale lips that moved and murmured, voicing a resentment toward the world that spared no one.
Yet her eyes were smiling.
There was something resolute in it—a ferocity that seized the heart.
A line of small text beneath the screen. Best Newcomer Award, Nominee—Zhou Siyou, 《All Evils》.
Zhou Siyou had always been confident in her own acting and her own looks—besides, this was a clip hand-picked by the organizers.
Hearing so many in the venue gasp in low admiration—applauding, even—Zhou Siyou wasn’t surprised.
Others knew her role tonight was written as nothing more than a placeholder, and cast a few pitying glances her way.
Her agent, Fang Ming, for one.
Honestly, Zhou Siyou under the spotlight truly was stunning—almost impossible to look away from.
High nose, deep-set eyes, vermillion lips, bright white teeth. Eyes like cold stars, carrying a sharp, valiant edge—and… a trace of untamed, roguish wildness.
The entertainment industry was a place where fengshui mattered. Before Zhou Siyou’s debut, Fang Ming had taken her birth characters and a photo and secretly consulted a mystifying old woman back in her hometown for a fortune reading.
Every result came back as the worst possible draw.
Bad fate, bad conduct, bad temperament—all too flamboyant. Everyone’s instinctive reaction upon meeting her would be guardedness, not admiration.
Someone like that could never make a good star.
Hearing the reading, Fang Ming’s vision had gone dark with panic.
The old woman just smiled her mystifying smile again. “Well now. Even a Heaven-Blighted Lone Star has a Heaven-Blighted Lone Star’s path.”
—And Zhou Siyou had indeed carved out a path of her own.
Most rising young actresses were gentle and sunny; Zhou Siyou always wore a world-weary, razor-edged look.
As if a statue of a war god had suddenly appeared among a crowd of jade-cream porcelain dolls.
And it made audiences sick to death of the same old faces sit up and take notice.
…What a pity. Right now, as Fang Ming watched her artist, there was only one phrase in her heart: what a waste.
In the venue, gazes of every shade converged, and Zhou Siyou remained unmoved.
Only, driven by some subconscious impulse, she tilted her face slightly, stealing an unobtrusive glance at the front rows—at Zhong Qing’s expression.
Unsurprisingly, Zhong Qing sat ramrod straight, hands resting on her knees, no extraneous movement at all.
Zhou Siyou pressed her lips together.
Seeing her flicker with disappointment, Yu Ning beside her smiled as though she’d gotten exactly what she wanted, all provocation.
“Smart, I’ll give you that—can’t cozy up to Medea, so you switch to gazing pathetically at Zhong Qing,” Yu Ning said, lowering her voice. “But relax. No way she’ll remember the name of a placeholder extra.”
At that very moment, as if on cue, the host announced the winner.
“Let’s put our hands together for—Yu Ning—!!”
Yu Ning’s smile deepened.
She tipped her chin at Zhou Siyou and pointed in Zhong Qing’s direction.
In her seat, Zhong Qing looked over along with the rest of the audience, applauding in congratulation for the winner, Yu Ning.
Time snapped back to this moment.
Inside the Bentley.
After saying “I’m in a great mood,” Zhou Siyou paid her agent no more attention and just poked at her phone, scrolling Weibo.
“…Zhou Siyou?”
Seeing her go silent for so long, Fang Ming shot her a glance, her expression shading into alarm and dread, watching her closely—terrified that one slip, and this Ancestor would stun the world again by jumping into a brawl with somebody.
Fang Ming sniffled. “Siyou… it’s honestly not hard to see why Yu Ning targets you. You’re too flashy—the bird that sticks its head out gets shot.” Then she lowered her voice. “And there’s another reason. Zhong Qing has a new script lined up in the mainland. Her showing up at the festival was probably about getting a measure of the domestic actors—scouting around. Yu Ning must have… decided to treat you as her sworn imaginary rival.”
Zhou Siyou’s scrolling hand paused; she raised her eyes, finally offering a response. “Zhong Qing’s new script? What genre?”
“How would I know!” Facing Zhou Siyou’s barrage of questions, Fang Ming’s face crumpled. “She didn’t invite us, either. The script hasn’t even been announced yet, but plenty of people are already waiting. Odds are it won’t be your turn.”
The script hadn’t been announced, the genre’s direction still hazy, yet so many were already craning their necks for it—Medea’s fame. Who wouldn’t want a piece of it?
“Not my turn?” Zhou Siyou kept her eyes on her screen without looking up, sounding almost anxious. “She didn’t invite me. Can’t you, as my agent, go fight for it?”
Fang Ming sighed. “If it could be fought for, I’d have fought already. No response.”
“Then I’ll go fight for it myself.”
“…Going yourself would be even more beneath you.” Fang Ming paused—then her eyes went wide. “Wait. Zhou Siyou. Since when are you this ambitious?”
She pulled out her phone. “Did you spot the business opportunity ages ago? So at the venue, when you were pining desperately after Zhong Qing, and before the event even ended you eagerly went and followed her Weibo—was that for this too?”
“Hah?” At Fang Ming’s words, Zhou Siyou repeated, syllable by syllable, as if she couldn’t believe her ears, “Me. Desperately. Pining. After. Zhong Qing?”
“Aren’t you?” Fang Ming shot back, thrusting out her phone. “The GIFs got dug up too. One from the red carpet, two from inside the venue. Netizens say your eyes were glued to her—that you’re wishfully climbing the high branches.”
Zhou Siyou leaned over for a peek, then rolled her eyes. “If they’ve got that much spare time to dig up photos, they should go herd cattle back home. This generation of netizens truly has nothing better to do.”
For maybe the several-hundredth time, Fang Ming admonished her: “Ancestor. Ancestor. Say that kind of thing in the car all you like—never in front of a camera.”
Zhou Siyou’s eyes narrowed.
But before she could speak again, her phone buzzed once.
Zhou Siyou followed the sound and looked down at the screen. Her expression barely changed; she just suddenly said, in complete seriousness, “Fang Ming.”
Fang Ming drew out her reply. “Yeees?”
The smile on Zhou Siyou’s face was only half a smile. “What if I told you that Zhong Qing and I aren’t ‘wishful thinking on one side,’ but ‘mutual affection on both’?”
Fang Ming snorted in disdain. “Spare me some of that confidence, would you?”
In response, Zhou Siyou scoffed right back and smugly raised her phone, flashing the screen.
—Weibo notification, new follower:
Zhongqing_Belle
“Head Agent Fang. She followed me back.”
Zhou Siyou asked again, her smile all teeth and no warmth, “Is this still one-sided wishful thinking?”
[T/N: Zhongqing (钟情) literally means “devotion” or “to be deeply in love.” Her online handle “Zhongqing_Belle” is a play on her name and its literal meaning. ]
