Mu Qinglin watched Zhou Yi safely turn into Red Gate Alley before heading back to the provincial TV station. It was just past eight in the evening. She dropped her things on the desk and went straight to her direct boss Cui Wenjing’s office. She didn’t come out for a long time.
Fu Xiao couldn’t get through to Mu Qinglin’s phone, so she hurried over and grabbed someone to ask, “Where’s Sister Mu?”
The person pointed behind them. “In the director’s office.”
“How long has she been in there?”
“Almost half an hour. Sister Mu went to see the director on her own. Something about wanting to do a special documentary series on mental health for primary and secondary school students.”
“Why a documentary series now?!” Fu Xiao was burning with anxiety.
After waiting a while with no sign of movement, Fu Xiao hurried over and knocked on the door.
Cui Wenjing: “Come in…”
Fu Xiao pushed the door open and said, “Director Cui, urgent emergency! I need you to save my life!”
Cui Wenjing had a round face and looked like a laughing Buddha when he smiled. “I can save the News Center’s life now?”
Fu Xiao: “You can. Only you can!”
Cui Wenjing: “Alright, tell me. How do I save it?”
Fu Xiao raised her hand and pointed at Mu Qinglin, who was sitting to the side looking like none of this concerned her. “Lend her to us for a few days.”
In the break area, Mu Qinglin leaned against the railing, a nearly finished notebook in her hands. “What’s going on?” she asked.
Fu Xiao got straight to the point. “You must have heard about the provincial leaders’ overseas visit.”
Mu Qinglin: “Mm…”
Fu Xiao: “One of the colleagues originally scheduled to accompany the visit ran into some issues and can’t go. Every department is overloaded at year-end, and finding a suitable replacement on short notice is tough. Old Wang had no choice but to send me to you.”
“I can’t go…” Mu Qinglin didn’t hesitate.
Fu Xiao spoke urgently: “Among the younger crowd at the station with good language skills, you have the most experience accompanying overseas visits. You stay composed in big situations. If you don’t go, who will?!”
“That was two years ago…” Mu Qinglin’s expression was flat. “In the past two years, I haven’t even gone anywhere farther than the county towns around Jiangping, let alone abroad. The biggest situation I’ve seen was probably that jumper incident yesterday.”
“You…” Fu Xiao wanted to persuade her but remembered why Mu Qinglin had become this way and bit her tongue.
They stood in silence.
After a long time, Fu Xiao spoke again. “I know some things are hard to forget. But a person can’t stay trapped in the past forever. Mu Qinglin, your dream was never to spend the rest of your life on household gossip and neighborhood disputes. Even if you’ve really changed, the Urban Channel might not keep you around for much longer.”
Fu Xiao reached out and tapped Mu Qinglin’s notebook. “You must have noticed it yourself. Whether on camera or writing copy, your word choices still lean too formal. That creates distance between you and younger audiences without you even realizing it. It does your team no good.
Old Cui sees through it but says nothing because he’s close with Old Wang. Since he agreed to bring you over, he’ll vouch for you. But when he retires, do you think you’ll still get to stay here?
In a work environment like ours, nowhere is a charity. No one will happily keep someone who doesn’t fit in and waste resources.”
Fu Xiao’s words weren’t wrong.
After the Bastard and his crew were arrested last time, Mu Qinglin had already been consciously changing her word choices. An ordinary person wouldn’t notice anything, but she knew very well how uncomfortable it had been.
Several times, her mind would suddenly go blank, unable to think of the right words to make those viewers with the “IQ of a seven-year-old” understand and feel comfortable.
Just those few short minutes had left her palms sweating, a tension she hadn’t even felt during her first on-camera appearance, back when she was on live primetime news.
…
“I know it’s hard for you. Can you do it for Old Wang this time? He’s about to retire, and the ailments from overworking in his younger years are getting worse. Do you want to see him go out there himself?” Fu Xiao continued, carefully watching Mu Qinglin’s expression.
Hearing “for Old Wang,” her eyes flickered noticeably.
Soon, Fu Xiao heard her waver: “How long?”
“A week. We leave tonight.” Fu Xiao spoke so fast, as if a single word of delay would make Mu Qinglin change her mind.
Mu Qinglin simply nodded. “I’ll go home and pack. Handle the travel documents for me. By eleven at the latest, I’ll meet the News Center to help load the equipment.”
Fu Xiao agreed immediately. “No problem!”
Mu Qinglin’s trip was rushed.
Once the visit began, between on-camera appearances, writing copy, and filing reports at top speed, she was often responsible for post-production voiceover work too. Bilingual. At times she was so busy she only slept three or four hours.
The urgency she hadn’t felt in a long time made her uncomfortable. More than that, it was the thrill she kept letting loose while holding herself in check. Once she threw herself into the work, it was hard to think about anything else, including her appointment with Zhou Yi.
At seven in the morning on Wednesday, Yang Ling was eating with Tang Yuanzhou when she suddenly heard footsteps on the stairs. She peeked over and saw Zhou Yi, her hair a mess, stumbling down in a daze.
“Must be a sign of the apocalypse. You’re actually up this early?” Yang Ling was surprised.
Zhou Yi came over and sat down, tilting her head back against the chair. Her eyes were vacant as she said with zero ambition, “Got something to do…”
Yang Ling turned to Tang Yuanzhou without hesitation. “Can’t you give her less work?”
Tang Yuanzhou looked innocent. “With how pathetic she gets? A slightly worse cold and she’s curled up next to the heater like she’s half dead. You can’t kick her into moving. What kind of death wish would I have to give her extra work? What about our reputation?”
“Fair point…” Yang Ling tapped her chopsticks against a bowl and turned back to Zhou Yi. “What is it that managed to dig a lazybones like you out of bed?”
Zhou Yi blinked in slow motion, her mouth barely opening. “Got a date with someone. Going out for a bit.”
Yang Ling looked at Tang Yuanzhou again. “Why are you taking her out on such a cold day?”
In her mind, Zhou Yi only knew the two of them, so any date had to be with one of them.
Tang Yuanzhou stood up. “I’m just going to leave.”
Soon only Yang Ling and Zhou Yi were left at the table.
Yang Ling kicked Zhou Yi’s dog-shaped fleece slippers under the table and asked, “Made a new friend in the alley?”
“The… outside…” The words were right at the tip of her tongue. Zhou Yi smacked her lips for two seconds, sat up, pinched a soup dumpling with her hand, and stuffed it in her mouth. She puffed her cheeks and mumbled for ages, but Yang Ling couldn’t understand a single word.
“Cope. Be a mute for a while, thanks.” Yang Ling gave up trying to reason with her and just begged her to stop talking.
Zhou Yi smiled and nodded, reaching over for another dumpling. Yang Ling smacked her hand away with chopsticks. “Is your hand even clean? Go wash up!”
Zhou Yi gave her pork and cabbage buns a heartbroken look, shoved her hands in her pockets, and went upstairs to wash up.
She was dressed and ready before eight.
Zhou Yi paced at the door for a while, deciding to sketch a few small pieces to fill up her portfolio. Going out now would make her look way too eager. She was very, very reluctant, after all.
But half an hour passed and only a few lines had appeared on the drawing tablet. After an hour, there were actually fewer lines.
“…” Zhou Yi sighed and gave up the struggle.
Ming Kai, whose craftsmanship rivaled Tang Yuanzhou’s, heard her and asked with amusement, “Why the sigh? Late bloom on the teenage angst?”
“That’s impossible.” Zhou Yi refuted seriously and honestly. Teenage girls were either going through body changes or crushing on some boy. She couldn’t possibly have such devious troubles.
Ming Kai nearly laughed until his hand shook. “Why is it impossible? You’re not even nineteen yet. The tail end of your youth is still in your grip.”
Zhou Yi stayed quiet. Whatever the case, she didn’t have that kind of trouble.
“Hey, where are you going? You haven’t drawn a single picture today.” Ming Kai saw Zhou Yi stand up and asked casually.
Zhou Yi pressed her lips together sheepishly. “Just going for a walk. I’ll deal with it when I get back.”
“Don’t go far. Yuanzhou told everyone at the shop to keep an eye on you and not let you go running around in the cold. Said your cold is almost gone.”
“Am I a prisoner?”
“Yep. A prisoner who gets knocked out by a gust of wind.”
“…” Zhou Yi went downstairs and sure enough saw Little Hei’s eyes darting toward her at every opportunity. He nearly followed her into the women’s restroom. Ridiculous.
Zhou Yi sat on the toilet in contemplation.
It was almost nine thirty.
If you had a date with someone, shouldn’t you head out around now?
Any later and the hospital would be closed!
Zhou Yi decided to stop dawdling.
While Little Hei was distracted greeting people, she slipped out with Facai and sat at the foot of the stone lion at the east entrance of the alley, waiting for Mu Qinglin to come.
At ten, Mu Qinglin still hadn’t appeared. No WeChat message either.
Red Gate Alley was already bustling at this hour. Watching the passing crowd, their morning grumpiness gone, Zhou Yi knew it was late.
She rubbed her stiff, freezing hands, pulled out her phone, scrolled up and down through WeChat, and finally stopped on the screen with Mu Qinglin’s contact. Completely clean. Even the subscription accounts hadn’t updated.
Forgot?
Or busy?
If she couldn’t make it, the least she could do was say something. Not like Zhou Yi wanted to go anyway.
Frustrated, Zhou Yi tossed her phone into her pocket and turned to leave.
Not long after, she slowly crept back and sat down again at the foot of the stone lion to keep waiting.
The wind had been strong these past few days. The sky hung heavy and gray, pressing down on everyone.
On the bus taking the accompanying staff back to the provincial TV station after the assignment, Director of the News Center Old Wang, Wang Hejing, stood at the front with a microphone. “Nobody leave when we get there! Dinner’s on me tonight. Let everyone relax properly.”
The bus erupted in applause and cheers.
Mu Qinglin wasn’t interested. She kept her head down, scanning the news on her phone several lines at a time.
Fu Xiao noticed and reached over to cover the screen. “Don’t you ever get tired?”
Mu Qinglin put her phone away. “Tired. Everything aches. My brain’s sluggish. I’m surviving on pure fumes.”
“If you’re tired, why don’t you rest?” Fu Xiao rolled her eyes and kept her voice low. “Shall we drink Old Wang under the table tonight?”
Mu Qinglin: “Let’s not. It was really thoughtful of Old Wang to come all the way to pick us up. Let’s save the drinking for another day…”
The moment drinking came up, the first image in Mu Qinglin’s mind was the very familiar Red Gate Alley.
Thinking of Red Gate Alley naturally led to Zhou Yi.
Thinking of Zhou Yi made her expression crack a little.
“What day is it today?” Mu Qinglin asked Fu Xiao.
Fu Xiao: “Friday. Friday night.”
Mu Qinglin of course knew that. The problem was, it had been a full two days since her appointment with Zhou Yi, and she hadn’t sent her a single WeChat message.
No questions. No anger. Nothing at all. No, wait. Zhou Yi had changed her avatar…
Mu Qinglin clicked open Zhou Yi’s new all-black avatar and said with a bitter smile, “I’m screwed…”
