Chapter 3

After university graduation, Ding Ya’s family hadn’t exactly refrained from pressuring her to find a partner.

Parents were always like this: strictly forbidding dating in high school, yet practically hoping you’d get married the second you graduated from university.

Ding Ya had never had a relationship that went from start to finish properly.

Perhaps the very first crush in her life had come inexplicably. The yet-to-bloom flower bud had been prematurely watered with the rules of adult love and relationships.

Ding Ya’s emotional world had been artificially accelerated. Unless everything fell into place perfectly in one go, nothing could really make her heart stir again.

She hated the sense of deception that the ID “Book Late” brought her.

Back then, on that first, secretly undertaken long trip in her life, Ding Ya had pretended to be a customer in the bustling market for one close-up look. That glance alone was enough to drop her once-pounding heart back to a normal rhythm.

On this night, many years later, Ding Ya held her puppy and stared at the computer screen.

Scrolling with the mouse wheel, the system’s roaming history was tedious and endless, yet it clearly reminded Ding Ya—

She hadn’t been the only one lying back then.

After all, she had also deceived the person she’d virtually married.

Ding Ya met Book Late in a game. It wasn’t the then-popular racing games, bubble shooters, or dancing games, but a dress-up game.

[T/N: “Book Late” (书迟), is a pun on Shu Chi (舒迟), as they share the same pronunciation.]

The other person had needed to trade items and added Ding Ya as a friend.

-[Book Late]: Don’t you use this account anymore?

-[Book Late]: Why are you ignoring me?

-[Book Late]: I miss you so much.

…

This person had no idea why Ding Ya had left.

After getting no response, they stopped sending messages.

Ding Ya saw that the other person’s avatar was gray. The profile picture was still the cartoon character she had asked them to change it to all those years ago.

Matching couple avatars, the kind any 2D/anime friend would call a disaster zone.

It seemed the other person had also abandoned this account for years.

Her mouse hovered over the nudge icon for a long time. Just as she mustered the courage to click it, her phone chimed with a new message.

It was a department message. Even on a Friday night, they wouldn’t leave her alone.

Immediately after, Ying Qixin’s call came through: “Ding Ya, did you see the text from the department head? God, how can they assign tasks so last minute!”

There was the sound of water on her end; she was probably doing laundry. “Little Yang resigned last week. The collaboration project she was handling will probably be split between us. Does the department head never rest?!”

Ding Ya closed the window, logged onto the work software, and resigned herself to involuntary overtime.

Her voice was weak as she put the puppy into its newly unpacked bed. “I’ll organize the materials and send them to you. The process this time is similar to the last project, a co-branded collection… Little Yang’s handover documents are in the email. But next week, someone in charge from the partner company should come to arrange the specific activities.”

Ding Ya worked at an internet company. The app her company operated was well-known in the industry, ranking among the top three for social news and information.

The marketing department had high turnover. There were many assistant roles just under the brand supervisor.

Ding Ya had worked there for several years and could barely be considered a supervisor herself.

But she fully possessed the self-awareness of a corporate drone, always doing what she could without overextending. Sometimes, the interns under her were more fervent and ambitious.

Ying Qixin sighed. “I still wanted to play some games tonight. So annoying.”

Ding Ya: “If we finish what the department head sent, we can still play on the weekend. Forget it, we’ve already seen the message anyway.”

Ying Qixin had noticed not long after becoming colleagues with Ding Ya that this person’s mentality was Zen-like and incredibly laid-back.

She never had a competitive streak. When her work was done, she never worked overtime. Even when her desk was previously right next to the department head’s, she still clocked out on time. When tasks weren’t finished, she was perfectly aware of it herself.

After her promotion, she was very happy leading interns. Probably because she looked young, a male intern who’d come the previous year had even confessed his feelings to her.

But it was the same familiar result: brutally rejected.

Ying Qixin: “Alright, I’ll check the boss’s requests again. Then we’ll probably have a long, long meeting next Monday.”

Ding Ya gave an “Mm” and logged out of QQ as well.

The tide of romantic melancholy that had just surged up was now mostly washed away by work. Ding Ya opened the file again and started looking at the information for the partner company she’d be dealing with this time.

Propping her chin on her hand, Ding Ya murmured: “Wellpond… sounds familiar.”

She clicked open a search. Just then, her university dorm group chat was also sharing links.

After graduation, her roommates had basically all stayed in Bramble City, but they rarely met up. The flavor of random chatter in this group, however, had been passed down.

Someone posted the latest trending topic.

-[Dora’s Papa]: Holy crap! My beloved beauty and fashion blogger’s boyfriend cheated on her with her friend!!!

-[Dora’s Papa]: [Link]

-[I Will Definitely Not Work Overtime Tonight]: Uninterested, my respects, my blessings.

-[Dora’s Papa]: Old Wang, how could you not know about my beloved Sister Qi!! We even watched her vlog together! You even said she was spicy hot!

-[Dora’s Papa]: @Deep-sea Frozen Fish, Little Ya, you know her, right!

Ding Ya was reading the screen while also having to check the group chat to see what the @ mention was about.

Since it wasn’t official work hours anyway, she simply clicked the link her roommate sent.

Her roommate was a content creator on a video platform. Ding Ya wasn’t as in-the-know about the influencer world as she was; normally, she just watched the drama for fun.

Sure enough, lots of people clicking this trailing topic were asking, “Who is this?”

Ding Ya didn’t know either.

Luckily, someone had written a summary.

[-Did You Sleep Well: It’s that Jing Yuqi, the boss of the clothing brand Wellpond. Tonight at Desen New Bar, she caught her boyfriend and her friend messing around [Pic][Pic]. Huge scene. Everyone was dumbfounded. People were about to intervene, but once they heard it was catching a cheater, they all shut up.]

The comments also had supplementary photos, though the pictures looked weird no matter how you looked at them.

In the WeChat group, Shen Mu was still chattering non-stop, perfectly living up to her WeChat handle.

-[Dora’s Papa]: Just like the woman I’m a fan of! She beat that guy up without missing a beat. Even though the other woman was a blogger I used to follow too, this is just too infuriating!!!

-[Dora’s Papa]: Fck, this cheap scumbag is even posting on Weibo to whitewash himself!!!

Ding Ya loved drama as much as the next person, but she’d never been as deeply immersed in gossip as Shen Mu.

She hadn’t expected that the company for her newly assigned project was the same one as the Weibo boss in the drama she was currently reading about. It was unmistakable, no matter how you looked at it.

A fashion blogger with millions of followers was the boss.

Tonight, at a bar, she was ostensibly exposing a mistress but was actually beating up a man.

Her look was eye-searingly painful—flaming red lips and a fur coat, the picture of radiant glamour.

Her manicured nails were a premium version of the Nine Yin White Bone Claw technique, which had directly carved bloody racing stripes onto the scumbag’s face.

And yet, the Weibo comments on posts in this style were all asking where to buy the bag, nail polish, and lipstick.

Ding Ya internally marveled: As expected of a top-tier saleswoman.

While making her spreadsheets, she side-screened to read the scumbag’s Weibo post Shen Mu had sent.

The man was a model. Judging by the photos on his profile, he had the feel of a human lubricant, a male host-type.

Even though Ding Ya hadn’t watched Jing Yuqi’s vlogs, just from those photos of her hand-tearing the scumbag, it felt like a mismatch.

The scumbag had posted a Weibo update, tearfully and snottily explaining why he’d been canoodling with another influencer. His tone smelled like freshly-picked green tea dregs at the peak of a mountain, practically screaming, “She seduced me.”

Finally, he @’d Jing Yuqi to apologize, attaching the words “My Wife,” along with a line like, “I was planning to marry you, how could I possibly be with someone else?”

That wasn’t anything special; it was standard procedure.

The guy, perhaps feeling a bit wronged, also posted a WeChat screenshot containing a photo of Jing Yuqi.

It wasn’t clear where it had been taken, maybe some venue, seemingly of her passionately kissing someone. A hand cupped a face. At first glance, it was quite blush-inducing and heart-racing.

His kicker, the final line, was: You and your business partner aren’t that innocent either.

Wellpond had a business partner?

Ding Ya clicked into the company’s homepage and saw the two words clearly listed under founder—

Shu Chi.

Same sound, different character. It still made Ding Ya’s heart tremble.

Reposts were skyrocketing. The comments section contained onlookers and girls who’d come from other platforms to condemn the scumbag.

After reading a few, Ding Ya found that Jing Yuqi wasn’t just wildly popular on Weibo; she was also massively famous on the Three-character App.

It was just that Ding Ya didn’t pay much attention to this area, so she was rather out of the loop.

In the WeChat group, Shen Mu was like a gossip-hungry bloodhound. Maybe the pressure from her latest rant video going viral was getting to her, because she was furiously spewing opinions now.

[This guy is way too cheap! Saying our Sister Qi has something going on with her business partner! No way, she’s not even a lesbian!]

[Pisses me off! Hate this kind of white lotus rotten man the most!]

The other three in the four-person dorm group didn’t dare utter a word.

After a beat, Ding Ya asked—

[Deep-sea Frozen Fish]: Little Mu, how do you know she isn’t a lesbian? What if she’s bi?

Shen Mu replied instantly.

-[Dora’s Papa]: Little Ya, you don’t get it. Our Sister Qi built her business from nothing. She and Boss Shu used their street-stall money to raise capital. If there was something between them, it wouldn’t be some guy’s turn.

-[Dora’s Papa]: Wuwuwu, I’d actually rather Sister Qi wasn’t so rigid about gender. I wanted to collaborate with her on an exploration vlog ages ago, wuwuwu.

Ding Ya found this person’s sobbing a bit annoying. On the other hand, she took a few more looks at the comments.

Maybe Jing Yuqi truly was a legendary figure among key opinion leaders. And being a shop owner herself, there were quite a few people explaining her background in the comments.

Got rid of the father, kept the child. Self-made. From street-stall girl to millionaire.

Every word carried a shocking, terrifying taste. But people always favor scandalous news; attention was still fixed on that scumbag’s last line.

Quite a few comments asked: Who’s the business partner?

Every circle had its own level of fame. Ding Ya didn’t know much about this industry. Her previous work had dealt more with creative and cultural products.

Today’s unexpected overtime work was purely an accidental handover from a departing colleague. The content was entirely outside Ding Ya’s realm of knowledge. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be assigning it to two brand supervisors.

When Ding Ya bought clothes, she just bought randomly. She never paid attention to shop owners’ personal affairs.

The influencer circle was even more removed from her; she’d rather read the latest manga chapters.

The only online shops she was even slightly aware of were in the 2D/anime niche; some owners of stores selling specific subculture fashion styles left a deeper impression on her.

Ding Ya clicked on the business partner’s Weibo account that someone had tagged in the comments.

@Wellpond_PondBook.

Unfortunately, this person’s Weibo wasn’t much to look at. There weren’t even any personal photos, just work-related updates.

Their follower count was pitiful compared to Jing Yuqi’s.

Ding Ya then found in the topic some photos of Wellpond’s earliest model photos posted by netizens when the brand first entered the platform.

You could tell the photos were old; they were as blurry as if they’d been wrapped in a patina. It wasn’t clear where to find high-def versions.

But at least you could tell the model wasn’t pale. Heavy makeup had been applied, covering up flaws on her face. She could barely be described as having delicate features. The then-popular clothes didn’t look dated even now.

These few photos were much closer to the face Ding Ya had seen back on that desperate, reckless meeting in person.

A bit darker than how she looked today, wearing cheaper clothes. Yet those eyes still gave off a hazy, misty feeling.

No sorrow, no joy. Just the look of a very emotionless model.

Too quiet, making one wish all the more to take a second glance.

To go ask why.

Ding Ya didn’t even have the attention to check the group messages. DingTalk notifications were still flashing. The department head briefly outlined next week’s schedule.

Next week, someone in charge from Wellpond would be coming to the company.

Ding Ya wanted to ask who that person in charge was.

For a company of this size, though not huge, based on current visibility it wasn’t small.

The boss probably didn’t need to come personally.

Is her name Shu Chi?

Not the virtual ID “Book Late.” No longer claiming to be a university student.

Then does she have that kind of relationship with this Jing Yuqi person or not?

Even though the comments below were filled with people cursing the scumbag, and Ding Ya thought the cheating was definitely the guy’s fault, she was still shaken by that final line.

So what am I now?

Lingering feelings?

But did that person and I ever even have feelings?

Besides the virtual network, beyond the virtual sweet talk spanning thousands of miles, apart from those terms of address—husband and wife—that people now feel too embarrassed to use.

Do I, in the end, really have…

Other intentions?

Online, the uproar was relentless, yet Shu Chi was still staring woodenly at the screen.

Staring at the gray avatar that had lit up and then dimmed again, just like the fire in her heart had gone out.

The girl who used to call me “husband” back then, she must be working by now too, right?

Is she married?

Why did she log into this account again?

And the person logging into this account, is it still the same person from back then?

Shu Chi’s train of thought was broken by her vibrating phone. Jing Yuqi’s voice blustered through from the receiver—

“Shu Chi, get on Weibo and help me cuss someone out! That dog-damned cheap guy actually spread a rumor that you and I are a thing! Since when did you and I ever lock lips?!”

Shu Chi: …

Knowing full well how inarticulate Shu Chi was, Jing Yuqi sighed. “Forget it, scan the QR code so I can log into your account… Ah, screw it, my cussing style is too recognizable anyway. Pisses me off. Check your WeChat—I sent you a photo. Who the hell took that, when was it, how come I don’t know about it.”

Shu Chi looked at the photo on her computer WeChat.

Then she glanced at the Weibo screenshot in the group chat, saw the post that man had made.

Helplessly, she asked, “Why would he suspect you and I are together?”

Jing Yuqi: “Who told you you look so much like a heterosexual?”

As her business partner, Jing Yuqi was fiercely protective of Shu Chi. Her praise was also incredibly direct: “I told you ages ago, no one who looks at you thinks you’re straight. How can you still be so clueless?”