At six in the evening, Xie Yingnian emerged from the bathroom after a shower. The spacious apartment spanning over a hundred square meters beneath her feet was the first property she had ever bought for herself. Later, on her financial advisor’s recommendation, she had purchased several more.
The neighborhood around South Garden had seen repeated upheavals, and property values had plummeted badly. Her advisor had urged her to sell it off quickly, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She was too sentimental.
That was why Shi Cainran still couldn’t wrap her head around it even now. The person she had fixated on wasn’t some piece of driftwood at all, but a root deeply embedded in the same bloody, mangled past that trapped her too—a root she couldn’t claw her way out from. So why had Xie Yingnian walked away so completely and freely this time?
When the movie wrapped production, Xie Yingnian returned to Yanjing. Shi Cainran asked her out to dinner right away.
There were things Shi Cainran knew she should say, but she couldn’t get the words out. She had grown accustomed to being the one others deferred to, and when that other was Xie Yingnian, it wasn’t mere habit—it was simply how things ought to be.
The two ate their meal in heavy silence. Shi Cainran drifted off for a moment and yanked her hand back when it brushed the scalding exterior of the soup tureen. Xie Yingnian didn’t react at all—not even with a stray glance. She ladled herself a bowl of soup with perfect composure and said calmly, “Go rinse it under cold water in the restroom.”
Shi Cainran’s heart felt like rivers surging in reverse, her mind a fragile skiff tossed wildly on the waves. She had no idea how to face this version of Xie Yingnian—so utterly unfamiliar that it stirred a long-buried sense of aggrievement in her.
But she refused to acknowledge it, not even letting a flicker show on her face. She kept her head down and said haughtily, “I don’t need you fussing over me.”
“Mm.” Xie Yingnian carefully picked the bones from her fish and placed the tender flesh into the bowl before her. She ate her vegetables with leisurely precision.
Shi Cainran stole a sidelong glance. That morsel of meat plucked from the fish belly looked so succulent, surely delicious. Back in the old days—the impoverished, desperate days—Xie Yingnian would have clipped it straight to her, keeping only the tough scraps for herself.
The woman lounging by the window wore a short-sleeved shirt over a black slip dress that fell to her knees. Her long hair cascaded freely, with a few strands brushing her cheeks. Gone from her eyes was that obsessive devotion to her ungrateful little sister, and that image of utter compliance toward Shi Cainran felt like a relic from another lifetime.
“Do you like her that much?” Shi Cainran prodded at her untouched vegetables.
She stared at Xie Yingnian and huffed a cold laugh. “I’m on the same show as her—she’s my biggest rival. This industry’s full of underhanded tricks, and a little scandal with you isn’t exactly shameful. Would it kill you to look the other way?”
“We’re broken up. I can’t let pointless rumors drag her down.” Xie Yingnian drained her wine glass. Her features had shed all trace of gentle acquiescence, her voice carrying a bland indifference that lent her an indefinable allure—as if she were innately meant to stand aloof, others orbiting her like satellites.
But that one sentence made Shi Cainran hear the uptick in her tone, an unmistakable special indulgence reserved for that other person.
“My manager called her a rival. I don’t take her seriously—a half-deaf nobody, who knows why she picked this path. I’ll throw her a bone in the contest, though. Ex-sister-in-law and all.”
“Fair competition’s all that’s needed,” Xie Yingnian replied. “You might not beat her.”
Might not? The thought that this was the half-deaf object of her contempt made Shi Cainran’s mouth twist in fury. Compete with me? Zhong Jia didn’t deserve the time of day! She wanted to lash out, but it struck her as too ridiculous. What was this blatant favoritism from Xie Yingnian? Did Shi Cainran really care that much?
A mocking smile curled her lips. “You know me—I’ve taken first place in everything since I was a kid.”
“Mm. Good luck with the show.” Xie Yingnian brushed past the intimacies laced through Shi Cainran’s words.
The dinner dragged on without a shred of enjoyment. They parted ways the moment they stepped out of the restaurant.
Xie Yingnian pulled her car out of the garage. The Maybach ahead, paying at the barrier, looked familiar—it was the one Shi Cainran had climbed into earlier. She followed its taillights onto the avenue. Streetlights gleamed off the license plate at an intersection while she waited at a red light, so she simply searched it online.
No wonder it was familiar. It was He Lifu’s car—splashed across the news headlines.
Her fingertips drummed the steering wheel. How did those two even know each other?
The South Garden house had stood empty for years, but Jujiu’s housekeeping service had kept it immaculate: floors dust-free, windows gleaming like mirrors.
Xie Yingnian padded to the table in her bathrobe, the late sunset spilling through the room. Her long lashes, still damp, lent her downcast gaze an unusual softness. She bent to retrieve her phone from the flashing screen.
The call had rung insistently back in the bathroom, cutting through the hairdryer’s whine—bold and relentless, again and again. Xie Yingnian had guessed the caller and her intent, letting the woman stew for a moment.
“Hello—” She answered, switched to speaker, and sank onto the sofa to flip through a script.
Whether owing to her ties with the director or something else, her film role had been hailed as a comeback, and scripts were flooding in once more.
“Hello my ass!” Zhou Chun snapped, sounding incensed. “I went to your complex looking for you—security said no one’s home and wouldn’t let me past the gate. Where the hell are you?”
“I’m at South Garden.” Xie Yingnian crossed her legs, skimming the hackneyed plot.
Zhou Chun’s retort veered sharply off course. “You’re at South Garden?”
“It’s being renovated over there. Pretty noisy.” Xie Yingnian set the script aside—it wasn’t to her taste—and powered up the TV, pristine despite years of disuse.
The home screen scrolled video recommendations. A familiar face from long ago flashed past. She snatched the remote, rewound to the clip featuring Zhong Jia and Gong Wenyin side by side, and hit play.
“Look at my memory,” Zhou Chun said. “Forgot you mentioned turning that basement into some kind of specialty room last time.”
“Let’s play it by ear.”
Zhou Chun ribbed her for having too much money to burn, then pivoted to nagging about the unrelated music variety gig she’d taken as a flying guest. “You’ve never cared for that stuff.”
Xie Yingnian responded in fits and starts, fast-forwarding to Zhong Jia’s entrance. The resident guest Gong Wenyin spread her arms wide, and Zhong Jia met them with a laughing embrace.
She skipped ahead again. Now the two sat shoulder to shoulder, chatting animatedly.
Xie Yingnian recalled that morning’s WeChat message—
“Seeing each other again. Guess who’s chasing whom this time—you me, or me you?”
She shut off the TV and sent Zhou Chun’s chatter to the background. Her exchanges with the designer were recent; a quick scroll brought them up.
She tapped into the chat and fired off a message: “Stick to the original plan, please. Need two holes drilled in the wall—spacing to match the bed’s width, aligned or slightly above the frame. It’s a wall ornament a friend brought from Europe. Unique design; I love it.”
From her browser, she opened a bookmarked page on a discreet site, logged in, restored the abandoned cart items, and completed the purchase with serene calm.
You chase me, or I chase you.
No real difference. The first means I know you’ll return. The second means I have to admit you’re truly special to me—enough that, weighing all I stand to lose, I’m still willing to take the risk.
“…You’re at a level where you can pick any project. Can’t your titular manager be a little curious?” Zhou Chun must have been on the massive period drama set with Yu Maidong; commands for the aerial wire rig echoed faintly.
She lowered her voice. “This is about Zhong Jia, isn’t it?”
“There’s something I need to confirm. I’ve got to see her face-to-face and ask.” Xie Yingnian gazed at the prayer beads lying on the glass tabletop. She hadn’t worn them much lately, and the agate bead had lost much of its luster.
She had first noticed something off two weeks prior. Out running errands under a blistering sun, dressed lightly, the afternoon had turned windy, leaves whipping through the air. She had braced for illness—her fragile constitution had always been her Achilles’ heel—but she had felt fine right up to today.
Shi Cainran had noticed too. “Sis, your complexion looks way better.”
She had clutched her white porcelain spoon, stirring her seafood porridge haphazardly while propping her cheek on her other hand. It should have been cause for joy, yet her tone had darkened, as if she would rather Xie Yingnian stayed frail and wan.
Xie Yingnian brimmed with questions. She knew full well that even daily workouts couldn’t heal the damage from that long-ago graft. Her stamina and endurance had never recovered, her constitution fundamentally weak.
Racking her brain, only one explanation fit: Someone had done for her what she had once done for Shi Cainran.
And the prime suspect right under her nose had traveled to Jincheng. Zhong Jia had almost certainly visited Wonderful Cloud Temple—otherwise, her limp made no sense.
From the foot of the mountain to the summit stretched endless flights of stone steps, impossible to see the end of. Some walked them, some crawled, some knelt their way up. The valley rang ethereal, birdsong filling the air, drowning out worldly greed until only a single devout heart remained, stumbling toward the compassionate Buddha statue.
Zhong Jia, what did you pray for there?
“Zhong Jia—” The staff member glanced at the girl hurrying over, sizing up her face against Qiao Yingqiu’s for a sideways comparison. She really knew how to wear her looks.
She had none of her birth mother’s syrupy sweetness—just a face that lifted anyone’s spirits, paired with an easygoing personality.
Instrument selection had screwed her over; her go-to pipa was gone. Anyone else would have lost it—after all, these “contestants” were all celebrities with reputations to uphold.
What was the point of a singing competition if you weren’t there to shine? Might as well stay home rotting like salted fish.
In the end, she picked the electric guitar. The live stream’s blind-pick demo had been Zhuang Yue’s new track without lyrics, so her first-round song was another of Zhuang Yue’s older pieces.
The second day of recording for “I Can Do Anything” saw Xie Yingnian taking her seat among the guests. She gazed at the girl rising onto the stage amid the flashing lights on the elevating platform. Zhong Jia wore a white casual suit jacket over a black vest that accentuated her beautiful curves, exposing her taut waist and abdomen. She adjusted the strap of her red guitar, raised the stand microphone that Shi Cainran had used, and curved her sequin-dusted eyes into an easy smile.
As she spoke, her pinkish-purple hair swept out in a graceful arc. Zhong Jia faced the camera to announce the song title, then flashed an “OK” sign to the band instructor with her right hand.
The melody kicked in, and the audience below burst into an uproar.
“What rotten luck. This is Teacher Zhuang’s toughest song to sing,” remarked Lao Siwen beside her. A former idol with massive online buzz now transitioning to acting—but not entirely successfully—he still popped up to perform at galas now and then. He let out a sigh laced with sympathy while humming the tune in high spirits.
Xie Yingnian said nothing, instead repeatedly swinging her arm toward the camera operator on her side to frame the reclusive, award-sweeping film queen who rarely graced variety shows. She lounged in her seat with effortless poise, relaxed enough that one might think she already knew how it would end.
The curved stage featured the waiting area on the left and the judging zone on the right. Shi Cainran occupied the blue seat designated for Ding Zhi, a glowing golden crown on the chair back proclaiming her the top scorer so far.
With her arms folded, Shi Cainran coolly looked down at Zhong Jia, who wore just one in-ear monitor. She had listened to Make-Do Band’s music before; the lead singer’s raspy tone was distinctive, making Zhong Jia’s smoother voice seem less striking by comparison. The sub-vocalist’s parts simply didn’t leave much room for standout moments anyway.
So… she had paid the price for her overconfidence born of ignorance.
As the song wrapped up, the electric atmosphere Zhong Jia had ignited still hung in the air. The hundred professional judges and producer mentors revealed their scores in unison, the number blazing across the screen behind her sending the crowd into a frenzy.
Shi Cainran gripped the hem of her skirt, fighting to keep her composure. When the camera panned over, it captured a radiant smile. She had lost—to Zhong Jia, by a mere 0.7 points.
Backstage, far from the ongoing competition, Zhong Jia set down her guitar and took the phone from A Cha. She fired off a message to Xie Yingnian: Want to meet up?
