Starting Life Over
Perhaps she was just too exhausted, but Xing Yue nearly fell asleep slumped over the steering wheel. It was only when dawn approached that the cold woke her.
The car windows were coated with a thin layer of morning dew. It didn’t bring any refreshing feelings of nature; all she felt was cold, her fingernails turning a dark purplish hue.
Driving back, Xing Yue found a roadside stall and sat down for breakfast. A basket of steamed meat dumplings, dipped in peanut sauce. She kept her head low. The morning sunlight stabbed at her eyes painfully, the glare irritating them into a film of moisture.
There weren’t many customers yet. The owner noticed Xing Yue’s abnormal state, turned around, and brought over a pair of sunglasses. “Here, put these on. They’ll block the light.”
He took Xing Yue for a snake with an eye condition. Ocular diseases weren’t uncommon in this world, but photosensitivity was more specific. If even the gentle light of morning felt irritating, it meant an acquired rupture of the nictitating membrane—
Commonly caused by major family upheaval, being parted from a loved one by death, extreme heartbreak, overwhelming grief, or intense emotional agitation. Whatever the reason, it was a pitiful sight.
Seeing that Xing Yue didn’t take them, the owner assumed she was disdainful. He smiled warmly. “The sunglasses are new, never used. My daughter’s a college student. Whenever she’s home on break, she fiddles with these little things and takes them to the night market to sell. See? This is her latest batch of stock. Sells great! Young people love this style.”
Xing Yue held her hand over her eyes and shook her head. “Thank you…”
She still didn’t take them. With one hand shielding her eyes, the other picked up dumplings, coating them in layer after layer of peanut sauce. Yet when they reached her mouth, they were still utterly tasteless.
The owner didn’t understand, but out of politeness, didn’t press the issue. He quietly placed the sunglasses on the table and busied himself with other tasks.
Xing Yue wanted to finish this meal as if nothing were wrong, but her eyes’ condition wouldn’t allow it. Her vision began overlapping, as if a thousand crows were flying past. She blinked forcefully, and her eyes only hurt more—more agonizing, to the point she couldn’t even make out the dumplings.
Realizing that her eyes were truly sick, a wave of bitterness washed through Xing Yue’s nose. She lowered her head in silence. In the end, she put on the sunglasses. The dimmed visual light brought her some relief. Yet even with them on, she still couldn’t use her eyes like a normal person.
For snakes with a ruptured nictitating membrane, sunglasses could only serve as light shields for protection; they couldn’t heal you. On the contrary, the material of the lenses caused those with eye conditions to lose color differentiation.
This meant that with the sunglasses on, Xing Yue’s world was reduced to only black and white. She could see no other colors. Taking them off, she could see colors the same as anyone else, but would have to endure the agony of sunlight scorching her eyes. She couldn’t have both.
She looked at the black-and-white dumplings, the black-and-white trees, the black-and-white sky, and was unexpectedly calm. Perhaps her world was always meant to be like this: no sun, no moon, no stars. Day and night, nothing but an overcast sky of dark clouds…
Before leaving, Xing Yue paid three times the market price for the sunglasses, along with the cost of breakfast.
When she arrived home, an unfamiliar car was parked at the door. The person who’d come was Luo Zhi.
She let her in, poured a glass of water with mechanical movements—calm, yet wooden.
Luo Zhi brought out several contracts, advising gently, “Reconsider this. According to standard procedure, terminating on your end, plus the new agreement you signed, means you’d have to pay penalties not only to your original studio, but also to New Shadow Entertainment. The cost isn’t ordinary. The Chairperson’s wish is for you to reconsider. Don’t end up at this age with nothing, and even saddled with debt.”
When she said the last sentence, her tone was pointedly heavier. Those were the Chairperson’s exact words; she was just the messenger.
If it had been Qiao Rui at her door, Xing Yue might have actually listened a little. But the one who’d come was Luo Zhi, so she wouldn’t even bother hearing it. She couldn’t tell if Madam Bu truly wanted to persuade her to stay, or was deliberately provoking her.
“Alright. Give me a deadline. I’ll gather the funds.” Xing Yue’s voice held no superfluous emotion, only a request for a time limit.
Her calm demeanor surprised Luo Zhi, who emphasized, “Are you sure you want to breach the contract? It’s no small sum. The company won’t go easy on you just because of your past relationship with Miss Bu.”
“Is that so?” Xing Yue replied indifferently. “I never exercised any special privileges because of Miss Bu’s favor, anyway…”
Don’t act as if being with Bu Yao meant she’d enjoyed many perks, earned much glory, or that she’d want to use their past relationship to beg the company for leniency.
She had never even hoped for such a thing. Whatever the process was, so be it. Whatever the penalty, so be it.
She had never partaken of the Bu family’s benefits, so how could she expect others to be merciful for the Bu family’s sake?
Luo Zhi’s expression was complicated, thinking Xing Yue had gone mad to make such a choice. Watching Xing Yue sign one compensation agreement after another, her brows furrowed deeply.
The total was 9.2 million. After Luo Zhi left, Xing Yue began tallying her current assets.
Her savings were around two million. The house and car could probably sell for 5.7 million. Fortunately, the house had appreciated; only the car was a depreciating loss. This small duplex villa could net a small profit. Add in some jewelry, bags, and luxury watches—that was another five hundred thousand. The red camellias in the courtyard could sell for about eighty or ninety thousand.
Even after emptying everything she had, Xing Yue would still owe a considerable amount. Nine hundred thousand—for an internet personality, even just a minor one, that could be earned back with maybe half a year of hard work.
But after terminating her contract, Xing Yue’s account would be reclaimed by the company. If she wanted to return to her old ways of making money, let alone the difficulty of building an account from scratch, with Xing Yue’s current reputation and the internet awash with abuse, the moment she opened a new account, she’d probably just be cyberbullied—forget about earning a single cent.
Xing Yue could only switch to a different line of work. And for ordinary jobs, a decent monthly salary might be ten or twenty thousand, a modest one just three or four thousand. She had to ask: just how long would it take an average working stiff to earn nine hundred thousand?
Xing Yue fell silent. She let out a long sigh, had a brief, shallow moment of despair, and then began looking for an agent to help sell the house and car.
Although the difficulty of earning money had increased, it wasn’t entirely impossible. Paying off the penalty was only a matter of time. She was just upset about all those years of effort she’d put into her life.
Suddenly, the sound of a key turning in the lock came from the door. Xing Yue instinctively followed the sound. Before she could make anything out, an enormous force wrapped around her tightly, nearly suffocating her. Her sunglasses clattered to the floor.
“Wuwuwu… waaah… wuwuwuwu…” Bo Wuxue cried like a husky, all howls and no tears. She clutched Xing Yue fiercely. “A’Yue, they’re so mean! Don’t play with them anymore, wuwuwu…”
Bo Wuxue had only found out about all these rotten events this morning; she’d been out having fun last night.
Waking up to the Hot Search had made her dizzy with rage. She’d hired plenty of online ghostwriters to try to turn the tide, but the matter had already been fermenting for a day and a night, and the effect was minimal.
She’d jumped into the fray herself, donning alternate accounts to furiously trade insults with netizens. After battling hundreds of rounds, she was ultimately outnumbered and deleted the app in a rage.
Those people—complete strangers to Xing Yue—heard a single audio clip and viciously attacked her, acting as if they wanted to throw her into a frying pan. They hadn’t spent any money supporting her career, so what right did they have? Seeing those hideous, unbearable insults made her sick.
If even she couldn’t bear to look, she couldn’t imagine how Xing Yue felt reading those words. It must be more painful than being torn to shreds.
Xing Yue hugged Bo Wuxue back, even comforting her instead. “It’s nothing. Stop howling.”
Truthfully, more than being cyberbullied, what she cared about was whether she could still properly admire Bo Wuxue’s eyes in the future. It would be such a shame not to be able to see that Fish Master Cyan-colored irises.
Bo Wuxue kept hiccuping, still not done ranting. “And don’t you pay any more attention to Bu Yao! Without the Bu Family, there wouldn’t be so much damn trouble! I knew that Old Witch had no good intentions. That whole family is rotten! Rotten to the core! You block Bu Yao right now, and never contact her again!”
If she’d known, she would have never held that engagement banquet. It was because of that banquet that Xing Yue and Bu Yao had met again. If it weren’t for all this mess, Xing Yue would still be a highly popular cover singer, with tons of fans, liked by so many, financially secure and thriving, living a perfectly good life.
Bo Wuxue clung to Xing Yue, wailing again, even as she recommended a new job. “Come be a model for my lingerie line! My target customers are all women. With a figure like yours, they’d shower you with compliments every day. I’ll split the factory profits with you, fifty-fifty. It’s just, uh… you might have to show everything except the nips. Can you handle that, my precious~?”
“I can’t handle that,” Xing Yue couldn’t help a low laugh, pushing away the head leaning on her. Teased by Bo Wuxue’s antics, she was laughing outright and even played along, throwing the joke back in a good mood. “I want the kind where I show the nips. Do you have that kind of business? If not, I’m not considering it.”
Life wasn’t entirely terrible after all. Thank goodness she still had Bo Wuxue. From childhood to now, Bo Wuxue had always been an angel-like presence in her life.
After a bit of roughhousing, they returned to serious matters. Bo Wuxue suggested, “A’Yue, a friend of mine just opened a new bar. They’re short a resident singer. Base pay of thirty thousand a month, ten songs a day. Extra pay if you go over. Want to give it a try?”
She couldn’t bring Xing Yue to her family’s company; her father wouldn’t agree, afraid of straining relations with Ji Wenyan. Her family and the Bu family were damned family friends!
But as luck would have it, her friend had just opened this place, so she could ask her friend to look after Xing Yue.
“Alright.”
Xing Yue agreed almost without a second thought.
The compensation wasn’t bad—could even be called very good. She urgently needed to earn money to pay off the debt and start life over…
