In March, spring had barely arrived in Lingguan City before the temperature shot up.
Green buds were sprouting everywhere, and in the span of a moment people shed their down jackets for light coats, moving a little lighter through the world.
Wen Xinxian, dressed to the nines, arrived at Danchuan headquarters and strode confidently down the hall toward Song Yingqiu’s office.
The corridor was lined on both sides with luscious bouquets and flower boxes. Wen Xinxian was long past being surprised.
“So many again this year.”
Song Yingqiu’s assistant replied, “Yes, Miss Wen.”
“President Song is in the middle of a magazine interview. Please wait over here.”
Wen Xinxian’s hand, raised to push open the door, froze midair.
She had a spoiled-princess temper; anyone else making her wait would have seen her turn on her heel and leave. But… this was Song Yingqiu.
Besides, today was Song Yingqiu’s birthday, and she and a whole crowd of friends were waiting to celebrate with her.
So Wen Xinxian obediently settled onto the guest sofa, nibbled on the dainty pastries the assistant brought over, and flipped through the internal magazine on the table.
The Song Family was illustrious and deeply rooted, with vast holdings in industry.
But after finishing her studies, Song Yingqiu hadn’t joined the family group. Instead, riding the wave of the times, she had single-handedly founded a new car company called Danchuan.
She’d done everything herself: recruiting technical talent from legacy automakers and researchers, solving core technology and cash-flow problems, turning the tide with strategic plays time and again…
Under Song Yingqiu’s leadership, Danchuan had fought its way out of a battlefield of one or two hundred new car companies, surviving where so many died.
From being dismissed and doubted to the present day, Danchuan had gradually distinguished itself from the red ocean of new automakers, becoming an up-and-coming company that combined a visionary tech philosophy with outstanding products.
The more Wen Xinxian read, the prouder she felt of Song Yingqiu.
The office door opened, and Wen Xinxian shot to her feet at once.
The interview team came pouring out with their equipment.
She ignored them, looking past them instead.
Standing amid that crowd, Song Yingqiu made everyone else invisible at a glance.
But when Wen Xinxian saw Song Yingqiu turned sideways, chatting and smiling with the female reporter, jealousy pricked at her.
“Sister Yingqiu.”
Song Yingqiu looked up at the call.
The composed professional suit she wore for the interview couldn’t hide her natural allure. That pair of peach-blossom eyes needed only the slightest movement to stir up a shimmering, rippling charm.
Knowing full well Song Yingqiu meant nothing by it, Wen Xinxian still felt an itch she couldn’t suppress.
She walked over. “What were you two talking about? You didn’t even see me.”
Song Yingqiu smiled. “Reporter Yu is excellent at her job. I was thinking of inviting her to dinner so we could meet again.”
From anyone else’s mouth that line would have been perfectly ordinary. From Song Yingqiu’s, beyond the pleasure of being recognized, it carried something hazy and indefinable.
It wasn’t just Wen Xinxian’s imagination; even the female reporter inexplicably flushed.
No wonder her colleagues had teased her about coming to interview Song Yingqiu… God knew she was straight!
Was one dinner going to turn her? What about her boyfriend?
But this was an invitation from Song Yingqiu.
While the reporter was still at war with herself, Song Yingqiu held out a business card.
The black card made her fingers look pale as jade.
“However, I already have plans today. Shall we get together another time?”
As Song Yingqiu said it with a smile, the reporter nodded in a daze, pocketed the faintly fragrant card, and left with her team.
Hearing that, Wen Xinxian’s eyes lit up. “Sister Yingqiu, you knew we prepared a birthday surprise for you?”
Otherwise why would she tell a reporter she had no time?
Under Wen Xinxian’s delighted, nervous gaze, Song Yingqiu gave a lazy smile. “The person who was supposed to spend my birthday with me this year is too busy. So I’ll celebrate with all of you instead.”
“Wonderful!”
At being demoted to Song Yingqiu’s plan B, Wen Xinxian felt not a shred of resentment, only the giddy thrill of having snagged a bargain.
She immediately broadcast her successful invitation to their friend group, and it wasn’t until Song Yingqiu went into the lounge to change that she noticed something off.
As well as Wen Xinxian knew Song Yingqiu, compared with her usual habit of gathering a crowd, she always spent her birthday alone.
Wen Xinxian had tried to celebrate Song Yingqiu’s birthday with her for years and was always gently turned down. Only this year, having lost a bet with friends, she’d used the dare as her courage to barge ahead and set up a whole party, betting on the guest of honor to grace it.
Then what did Song Yingqiu mean just now, saying someone was supposed to spend her birthday with her…?
Before Wen Xinxian could puzzle it out, the lounge door opened and Song Yingqiu stepped out.
The crisp, capable white suit was gone. In its place was an ice-blue silk slip dress in a muted tone, its thin straps resting suggestively on her shoulders, the line of her collarbone alluring beside them, a teardrop pendant glittering at its hollow.
An easy blazer in the same shade hung over her arm, and on her feet were low white heels. The slip dress traced her graceful figure to perfection, its hem rippling against her legs like water with every step.
She always knew how to hold the line between work mode and everyday mode. Freed from work hours, she was no longer the decisive, sharp-minded president but a woman with devastating charm.
Who had any rationality left after that? Wen Xinxian wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around the woman in front of her and scream for her big sis to wreck her.
But she didn’t dare.
She only dared to swallow, secretly.
Song Yingqiu paid Wen Xinxian’s expression no mind. Or rather, she had long grown used to being looked at that way, by anyone at all.
They drove off in the car Wen Xinxian had brought, and in a little over half an hour it stopped in front of Drunken Haze.
Drunken Haze was the nightclub Wen Xinxian had whipped into being, and it had been packed since opening night.
Song Yingqiu was a regular.
Walking in front, Song Yingqiu had barely pushed the door open when streamers, champagne, and cheering erupted skyward under flashing blue lights.
Amid waves upon waves of “Happy birthday,” a friend laughed:
“Getting this Buddha of yours to grace us with her presence? Wen Xinxian, that wasn’t easy!”
Song Yingqiu plucked a scrap of colored confetti from her hair and blew it away. “What, am I supposed to have too big an ego now?”
Her voice was lovely, her eyes brimming, and that languid, coolly teasing tone only stirred something hot in quite a few hearts.
The dim lighting couldn’t hide her beauty. Dappled light streamed like water in her eyes, then swept over the bare, cool-white line of her shoulders and back, and for a moment she seemed almost otherworldly.
Childhood friends like Wen Xinxian could still put up a fight, but seeing several people in the dark staring straight at Song Yingqiu without so much as blinking, she couldn’t help cursing inwardly, Vixen, even as she preened over Sister Yingqiu’s boundless charm.
As the star of the night, Song Yingqiu couldn’t escape the toasts. Only when pleasantly buzzed did she set down her glass and laughingly ask for an intermission.
She took out her phone to reply to birthday wishes from those closest to her, lost interest after answering only a few, and instead tapped open her one and only pinned chat.
There was no unread badge to begin with, and when she opened it the history still sat where it had left off.
Yesterday.
When they’d been planning how to spend tonight, the other person had suddenly told her there was a surgery that couldn’t be pushed off, that it would run long, that there was no way to celebrate her birthday together.
Song Yingqiu had, of course, been understanding.
First, she believed work came first. Second, she never lacked for company.
And yet with the noise surging around her now, with so many friends at hand, something still sat wrong in her chest.
She casually snapped a photo of the scene and sent it, typing:
“I still wish I could’ve spent my birthday with you”
“Surgery started yet? Tell me when it’s over”
She didn’t leave the chat. After a few more sips of alcohol, she checked again.
Nothing.
Song Yingqiu pressed the screen dark.
She’d barely set the phone down when someone nearby said:
“Did you hear the tea on Qiu Rui? You know that star who kept milking the whole ‘she looks just like Qiu Rui’ thing? Just got exposed for copying the lower half of her face with plastic surgery!”
“Wait, what tea? What happened?”
The girls nearest huddled together, and before long the gossip was in full swing.
The music had softened by then, and Song Yingqiu, seated close, caught most of it whether she wanted to or not.
A starlet who’d always claimed to be all-natural had her surgical history dug up. Because the informant had leaked covert photos taken during a consultation, the evidence was ironclad, and she was already blowing up the trending lists.
Along with the starlet’s downfall, netizens had also ferreted out the surgeon behind her new face.
“The doctor’s even prettier than the patient. Unreal, unreal.”
“One look at Qiu Rui’s face and you know this doctor isn’t just gorgeous, she’s got insane skills too.”
Fruit fork in hand, Song Yingqiu glanced at their phone screens.
On the screen was the doctor’s profile from a hospital website.
An ID photo on white, objective and faithful, recording a face that was clean and striking, unforgettable at a glance.
Eyes dark and bright and unblinking, fixed on the camera, unsmiling; pale lips naturally pressed together; a cold bearing that matched the white coat to a tee, yet with a rare touch of dashing spirit between the brows, the kind that easily won the trust and affection of other women.
As if she could quietly take in all things and still keep everyone a thousand miles away, distance woven into every line.
Beneath the photo it read:
Shao Yu
Attending Physician of Plastic Surgery, Doctor of Medicine
And beneath that, a pile of honors that shone like halos and made patients trust her without reservation.
Wen Xinxian said, “I just read a post about this. Turns out being an attending at twenty-seven is actually a huge deal? Sigh, one look and you know she’s an academic ace. People from a whole different world from us…”
She glanced at Song Yingqiu. “That doesn’t include you, Sister Yingqiu. You’re an ace too.”
Song Yingqiu had been in a mediocre mood, but hearing someone praise Shao Yu, her brows relaxed. Before she could answer, someone else cut in:
“Totally unrelated fields, though. What does being an ace matter? Society’s a whole different game. An ordinary doctor’s life and Yingqiu’s are worlds apart.”
The flattery dripped from every word, and all it earned was Song Yingqiu’s faint, cool glance, her smile dimming several degrees.
Having tried to please the goddess and stepped on a landmine instead, the speaker slunk off in embarrassment.
Wen Xinxian was baffled. Song Yingqiu had always had a good temper, or rather, she rarely cared about anything. What was wrong?
Carefully, she said, “Sister Yingqiu, don’t be mad.”
