Chapter 45: Exchanging Secrets Part 2

She spoke rapidly: “Liu Song, hurry and take this bucket—I’m about to lose it.”

Xi Xi’s laughter floated up from below. Yan Muyu inwardly cursed her for being heartless.

Suddenly, Qiu Chao felt like laughing. She touched the spot where Yan Muyu’s fingertip had brushed moments ago.

It burned so hot that her desire surged anew.

She felt closer to her now.

Qiu Chao worked more efficiently than Yan Muyu. By the time Yan Muyu hauled up a fresh bucket of water, Qiu Chao was already making the bed.

When she spotted Yan Muyu, she naturally handed over one corner of the sheet.

【Yan Muyu won’t take it, right?】

【I think she’s really treating her differently.】

【When are these two gonna have a heart-to-heart?】

【I asked Director Shen last time, and she claimed she had no idea. Yeah, right.】

But Yan Muyu took it. She asked, “What do you think of this room?”

Qiu Chao: “Better than ours, at least it’s presentable.”

Yan Muyu: “Want to switch?”

Their teamwork in fitting the duvet cover was seamless, showing no sign of the ten years they’d spent apart.

Qiu Chao: “Can we?”

She let out a laugh. “Can Young Boss Yan pull some strings?”

Yan Muyu shrugged. “Sorry, I’m just a figurehead these days…”

With the bedding sorted, Qiu Chao glanced at the discs on the floor and asked Yan Muyu, “What do we do with these?”

Yan Muyu: “The director said whatever.”

She checked the time on her phone, then dug the DVD player out from a pile of junk outside. “I want to see what’s on them.”

There were too many, though, and Yan Muyu knew Qiu Chao had a full day ahead tomorrow. “You should head to bed.”

Qiu Chao shook her head. “I want to watch too.”

She had just showered, the usual sharp, aggressive glamour softened away. She even looked a bit like the girl next door.

Steam still clung to her faintly, just like on some distant day years ago, as she sat right beside Yan Muyu.

Yan Muyu didn’t refuse.

She knew Qiu Chao wouldn’t leave anyway, so she simply started trying the discs one by one.

The machine was ancient, probably broken. It had barely read the first one when static crackled out.

Yan Muyu: “Forget it. The heavens don’t want us watching.”

Qiu Chao leaned in, popped off the back panel, swept back her long hair—and the scent of roses hit Yan Muyu full in the face again.

Yan Muyu: “You know how to fix it?”

Qiu Chao: “Of course.”

Her tone was light and cheerful. Her fingers hooked a wire, she brushed dust from one side with paper, then reinserted the chip.

The motions flowed smoothly, like those of a seasoned pro.

Yan Muyu whistled.

Qiu Chao smiled. “Should be good now.”

She hit start and slid in the disc. The boxy old TV flickered to life.

It was a cartoon.

Probably because Qiu Chao was so deft, Yan Muyu asked, “How come I’ve never heard you mention you could do this before?”

Qiu Chao: “You never asked.”

She glanced at Yan Muyu, her gaze drifting to the pile of discs. “Back then, these were what I watched the most.”

Yan Muyu: “Back then…”

Qiu Chao: “Before I met you.”

She paused. “Before I got into this line of work.”

That past was a tiny news blurb tucked in the corner of some yellowed paper, utterly insignificant in a massive city like S City.

A murder case might buzz in one neighborhood, and crimes of passion were commonplace.

The pointing fingers, the pitying words, the self-serving “care.”

Those had been one of the conditions when Qiu Chao signed her fake dating contract with Yan Kai.

Even if it wasn’t outright scandalous, Qiu Chao still didn’t want it exposed.

She’d rather be tangled in her own romantic gossip than let others judge her mother’s choices.

The past was so distant now that Qiu Chao was starting to forget what that dead woman had even looked like.

Only when she visited the grave and saw the photo did it hit her—how beautiful she had once been.

Now, the speakers played such soulful music, evoking the quiver of violin strings, mirroring the fluttering waves in Qiu Chao’s heart.

She thought: I can’t hold back anymore. I want to tell Yan Muyu.

But her curiosity about me is only just starting—won’t this be too soon?

As Qiu Chao wrestled with it, Yan Muyu said, “I’ve heard about it.”

She paused, unsure where to begin.

Yan Muyu was great at comforting people, but Qiu Chao right now didn’t fall into that category, and the topic was a bit too shocking.

Back when she’d first seen it, Yan Muyu had been stunned.

Yan Kai had been in the study then, and he hadn’t cared if she saw the files.

The background check was a thick stack, detailing every relationship in Qiu Chao’s life.

Yan Muyu hadn’t read it all—just the top clipping from an old newspaper had floored her.

She’d asked Yan Kai, “Is this real?”

He’d nodded.

But time had passed, and only now did Yan Muyu connect the keywords.

Audio store owner, crime of passion, remarriage, stepdaughter…

She looked at Qiu Chao and started, “If you…”

Qiu Chao: “I used to watch discs late at night. A lot weren’t even in Chinese.”

Ignoring the interruption, she kept her head down, sorting the scattered discs on the floor, stacking them and swapping them into the DVD player one by one.

Her hair ends were still damp; Qiu Chao had only given them a quick blow-dry and clipped back the stray bits with a big hairpin, revealing her smooth forehead.

From Yan Muyu’s angle—and the audience’s from the side camera—Qiu Chao’s profile looked exquisitely refined in the light.

She loaded a disc into the tray, and Yan Muyu pushed it in.

After more static, another ’90s Hong Kong flick started, with dated sound effects and familiar music.

Yan Muyu: “Is that why you wanted to make movies?”

They’d had plenty of time back then to talk about stuff like this, but they never had—instead, it was all about food and fun spots.

The poised starlet who seemed too mature for twenty acted her age at home, and Qiu Chao had her playful side too.

The Yan Family had money to burn, and Yan Muyu knew how to spend it.

Renting out an entire amusement park wasn’t extravagant.

Trampolines they’d missed as kids became adult fun; one bounce sent them tumbling into a heap.

The massive slide plunged into a rotating drum—blue, yellow, green…

Colors flashed by in a blur before Qiu Chao’s eyes as she hurtled through the enclosed space alone.

When daylight appeared, she tumbled into a pit of foam balls. Yan Muyu pulled her up, and they went again.

Everything was fun back then, pure joy—no deep life thoughts, no melancholy.

This was the first time Yan Muyu had asked something like that, and even she was surprised at how mundane it sounded.

Qiu Chao shook her head. “I don’t have dreams that big.”

She laughed softly and settled with Yan Muyu on the freshly laid rattan mat, leaning against the bed to watch the old movie playing on the tiny screen.

Qiu Chao: “You know.”

“I just wanted to make money.”

Moths fluttered against the gauze screen outside, the cicadas now silent.

Downstairs, Liu Song started singing again, with Ding Yingxue cheering her on for another round of “Bridge in Front of the Door.”

Utterly childish.

Up in the attic, the two sat in the tidied room, watching the blurry film advance, the DVD player’s red light blinking steadily.

Yan Muyu murmured an acknowledgment. “Anything else?”

Sometimes she was oblivious, sometimes piercingly perceptive—like she understood Qiu Chao inside out in that moment.

Qiu Chao looked up instinctively, meeting Yan Muyu’s gaze.

It was unusually gentle.

Those eyes held a tolerance Qiu Chao hadn’t seen in ages; the youthful wildness had faded, and in her vision, Yan Muyu looked just like she had at their first meeting.

Qiu Chao’s face flushed in an instant. She jerked her head down, pretending to pick a disc.

“Nothing else.”

She didn’t realize how hollow her voice sounded.

Yan Muyu chuckled. “Really?”

Qiu Chao: “Really.”

She fell silent, and for a moment the only sounds were the whirring static from the DVD player and snippets of movie dialogue.

It was some Hong Kong-style campus rom-com, laced with absurd humor.

A guy on a motorcycle chased after his female classmate, roses scattering across the ground as he watched her back recede in annoyance.

Then she turned around.

A total cliché of a romance flick.

But love always followed its scripts. Everyone loved the teasing push-and-pull of the flirtation phase but lost interest once the couple settled into everyday bliss.

They dismissed it as ordinary.

Yan Muyu savored the sparks; Qiu Chao cherished the long haul.

Just like right now, as Qiu Chao stealthily lifted her gaze only to find Yan Muyu still watching her.

Yan Muyu seemed convinced there was more to it but didn’t press the issue. Instead, she casually plucked the new disc from Qiu Chao’s hand.

“Got any films from other countries?”

“The previous owner of this place wasn’t running a bootleg DVD operation, was they?”

Yan Muyu paid no mind to Qiu Chao’s reddening cheeks. As she pried open the disc case, she added, “I heard from my brother once that you got into filmmaking because of someone you liked.”

She paused to think. “The male lead from your debut movie?”

【Isn’t he married?】

【His kid was even on one of those baby reality shows.】

【My brain’s frozen on the image of Yan Muyu sliding that disc tray in with her finger—who even said that? Now I feel kinda pervy.】

【First love???】

Qiu Chao: “No.”

Yan Muyu: “It’s fine. At our age, who cares about stuff like that? First love or not, so what?”

Qiu Chao: “My first love wasn’t him!”

Her voice suddenly spiked in volume, startling Yan Muyu. And right at that moment, the freshly loaded disc began to play.

A blinding field of white filled the screen.

Yan Muyu: “Holy shit.”

Qiu Chao let out a sharp scream.

Yan Muyu fumbled frantically for the TV remote before finally yanking the power cord out of the wall.

She whirled on Qiu Chao. “You screamed way too loud!”

Qiu Chao’s cheeks bloomed crimson. She huffed. “That was way too explicit.”

Yan Muyu snorted with laughter. “This? Explicit?”

The live stream viewers couldn’t make out what the DVD player was showing.

The footage was already blurry and low-res, and the camera angles only captured the machine’s harsh white glow.

But the pair’s reactions made it all too easy to guess.

【Hahahahaha wtf, is that a porn disc?!?】

【No way, childhood flashbacks—video rental shops totally stocked these back in the day.】

【This is gold. Never imagined seeing porn disc antics on a variety show lmao.】

【Qiu Chao, your face is beet red!!】

【Yan Muyu’s got total pro vibes.】

【Young Boss Yan’s eyes tho… cough cough.】

Qiu Chao stammered, “Not explicit enough for you?”

Yan Muyu let out an “Oh,” shoving her hands into her pants pockets as she leaned down toward Qiu Chao. “You say you’ve watched tons of discs before. Does this one make the cut?”

It was blatant teasing. Qiu Chao shot her a glare, her eyes shimmering with allure.

Yan Muyu’s lips curved into a smug grin.

The next instant, Qiu Chao seized her by the collar, wrinkling the T-shirt beyond repair.

Yan Muyu: “What the—? Artist assaulting her manager?”

Qiu Chao flicked a glance at the room’s cameras. In one swift motion, she snatched up a disc and cracked it hard against Yan Muyu’s forehead. Then, in a flash, she sank her teeth into Yan Muyu’s collarbone.

Yan Muyu yelped in pain.

The spot still bore the faint mark from the last time Qiu Chao had nibbled it there.

This bite dug deeper—fearless now.

Yan Muyu: “You…!”

Qiu Chao pressed down on Yan Muyu’s shoulder and rose gracefully to her feet. “I’ve watched countless films, Little Yan. You’ve bedded countless lovers.”

Her voice was soft, but the words rang loud and clear in Yan Muyu’s ears.

“We’re a perfect match.”