The crisp lotus root strips, infused with tangy vinegar, slowly filled her mouth. Xie Yingnian chewed them carefully and only spoke again after swallowing. “This whole thing starts with Reed Shoal Moon.”
Zhong Jia set down her chopsticks. Afraid she might miss a word, she scooted her chair closer, dragging it along with her.
“You’re this eager about the drama between your mom and your stepmom?” Xie Yingnian slipped on a pair of plastic gloves, pulled the plate of blanched mantis shrimp toward herself, and gave Zhong Jia a look that said to hand over her bowl.
If she couldn’t get past this awkward bit, she might as well ignore it. Acting was just high-level cosplay, after all. Zhong Jia comforted herself with that thought as she reached out to grab the bowl she’d left behind. “Are you going to peel shrimp for me?”
The woman, who was sparing with her words, met the blatantly obvious question with silence.
Zhong Jia pressed on. “I don’t have much feeling for Qiao Yingqiu one way or the other, but she is my mom. Being curious about what kind of person she was is basically the same as wondering what genes she passed on to me. No contradiction there, right?”
It was contradictory, though. Zhong Jia realized it the moment the words left her mouth—because she wasn’t actually curious about Zhong Kefei at all. Any lingering blood-tie affection for her deadbeat dad had shattered into dust back when her grandma was critically ill and they couldn’t get any help from him.
So how was she supposed to explain this curiosity? She glanced inexplicably at Xie Yingnian, who was focused on dismantling a shrimp. Maybe the flaw in her explanation was the truth itself, but right now, her mind was subconsciously dodging that line of thought.
“Looking for your roots?” Xie Yingnian summed it up neatly.
Zhong Jia hesitated. “Something like that.”
“You make it sound like your mom and I gave birth to you.”
Zhong Jia: “…”
The logic checked out, but why did it sound so taboo?
Had Xie Yingnian forgotten they were supposed to be playing a couple?
What she’d said at the airport about being slow on the uptake was true—she really was. In verbal sparring, she was a straight-up bronze-league scrub with a massive addiction to it, the kind who tapped out after three rounds, complete with shortness of breath, flushed cheeks, and total embarrassment. What a waste of her effortlessly cool dazed expression.
She froze there for a solid half minute, perched on her stool like a jade flowerpot sculpture—fair, delicate skin with a thin flush of pale pink standing out on her face, like red jade blooming from white.
The shrimp was fresh and cleanly prepared, the shells peeling off easily. Still, Xie Yingnian took the trouble to split one open along the back and check for the vein. Her voice stayed even, any teasing tucked away in the calm tone, impossible to read as malice. Even the smile tugging at her lips could easily be mistaken for indulgence.
A vegetarian, dead set on peeling shrimp for Zhong Jia. Framed by her stunning features under the warm overhead light—like a filter all its own—her big-sister aura only grew stronger.
Plenty of people guessed that Xie Yingnian was the eldest at home. She had a real knack for looking after both elders and juniors.
In the Reed Shoal Moon making-of documentary, she came off as Qiao Yingqiu’s devoted little helper. For one winter rain scene, she’d planned even more thoroughly than the assistants, skipping her lunch break to brew ginger tea over in logistics.
Qiao Yingqiu had hugged her and cried after drinking it. Shorter than Xie Yingnian, she’d nestled right into her arms. The eighteen-year-old girl wore an expression of helpless indulgence, even though she was barely out of her own teens herself.
The crew had comforted her too. Everyone knew Qiao Yingqiu was going through a rough patch back then. Marriage always left its scars on a woman—either trapping her for good or draining her dry for a restart, trading one “Mrs.” for another, never truly her own. A man, on the other hand? Remarry after his wife died, and it was just “continuing the line.” No sacrifices, no changes.
Rumors swirled endlessly about Xie Yingnian’s family background and relatives—a nonstop parade of “my friend says” tall tales. Some claimed working-class roots, others third-generation red elite, still others the illegitimate daughter of some megastar.
Xie Yingnian had never directly addressed any of it. She’d always lived alone, and none of her exes had made it to the cohabitation stage before things fizzled.
“I figured people in bands would be a bit more free-spirited.” Xie Yingnian dropped a perfectly peeled shrimp into Zhong Jia’s bowl, letting the verbally clumsy girl off the hook.
Zhong Jia wasn’t used to being fussed over like this. She really hated troubling others—not peeling shrimp for herself meant saving her favorite dish for last, not laziness. Now she pulled on her own gloves and grabbed one. “That’s just a stereotype.”
Take Wa Si, her roommate and drummer in the Make-Do Band. Explosive instrument, incendiary name. When her solo came up in a show, the drum kit thundered like an explosion—but she herself grinned benevolently, like she worked funeral services.
Fan recaps online all said it felt like listening to the Great Compassion Mantra.
Xie Yingnian said, “Maybe that’s a stereotype you have about Qiao Yingqiu too.”
Her awkward chatting skills were an illusion. On touchy subjects like this, she sidestepped the “mom” label and tossed in a careful “maybe.” Zhong Jia didn’t correct her. With that phrasing, she naturally slipped into the role of detached observer, waiting for Xie Yingnian to go on.
Ten years back, “traffic monetization” wasn’t even a term yet. Otherwise, Qiao Yingqiu might’ve made a real comeback.
Entertainment reporters were the same in any era—most ignored the facts, spinning vague, suggestive lines to paint Qiao Yingqiu as unhinged. It was the crowd-pleasing “mad for love” storyline.
Love got worn down easy in the daily grind of ordinary lives—reduced to half-hearted “likes,” make-do marriages, family registry books.
Women devoured idol dramas, men action flicks. Different tastes, same endpoint: quick hits of drama to fill the void of their own lackluster lives.
Qiao Yingqiu single-handedly fueled half the gossip industry those years. TV shows were fake, action movies fake—but what the paps wrote? That passed for truth.
She’d ditched her career for her “perfect man,” only to pick wrong and lose it all. She withered away in bitter memories, swore off trying again—yet plunged into a new romance on set, this time with a girl.
Love was addictive. Touch it once, and countless folks swore off forever. Someone else’s obsession? No big deal—like munching melon seeds through the nightly soap opera slot, tastes honed episode by episode to crave maximum dog blood.
Even when the actress fell to her death from a balcony, fans romanticized it as a bloodstained rose—tragic, alluring, just the love story they’d imagined.
The shop owner’s music taste ran eclectic—from folk to ancient-style tunes to anime OSTs. Now an old track from years ago played, a husky female voice crooning of clouds rising and falling. Xie Yingnian continued smoothly, “We met… in the movie.”
With her left ear deaf, Zhong Jia had a habit of tilting her head slightly to the right to listen. She did it now, listening intently.
When Xie Yingnian filmed Reed Shoal Moon, Zhou Chun—who these days shared top-agent status with Qin Song—had been a lowly crew member, glued to the production. She’d witnessed firsthand how Xie sank deeper into her role, convincing herself she’d fallen for Qiao Yingqiu.
After wrap, they’d followed Nong Siqing’s advice and split for months—deleted contacts, no contact at all.
Xie Yingnian snapped out of it fast. At eighteen, she’d been too green. Acting meant total immersion back then; easy to blur movie and reality. At worst, she’d just fallen for Qiao’s character—not the woman off-screen.
Qiao Yingqiu had been the same, really. She was experienced enough not to fall for that, but they’d shot right in the trough of her career slump. Vulnerable and raw, her wounded heart got soothed by Xie’s character’s diehard devotion as the plot deepened.
Once they saw it clearly, Qiao Yingqiu took Xie out for a friendly meal. As a film industry senior—struggling herself—she still lent a hand wherever she could.
But the rumors only grew more convincing. They’d shown no real intimacy, yet every interaction got twisted by the public. Qiao tried explaining once—no one bought it. Instead, it got bricked into pap stories, headlines like “Qiao Endures Humiliation in Age-Gap Romance for Xie Yingnian” plastering every entertainment site.
So they stopped bothering. Let ’em speculate. Back then, two women hooking up wouldn’t spark pregnancy panic, no matter how wild.
Qiao Yingqiu’s fatal balcony plunge. The obnoxious funeral crasher Xie couldn’t help kicking… All unexpected twists, piling up until guesses hardened into certainties. Human belief always carried bias.
The mantis shrimp plate was stripped bare—just ginger slices and scallion left. Two-thirds of the shells sat in front of Xie Yingnian; all the meat was in Zhong Jia’s stomach.
Xie Yingnian spun her tale while feeding her, one morsel at a time. Zhong Jia, entranced, obediently opened her mouth each time.
“Ah, have I eaten too much…?”
Zhong Jia felt a little embarrassed. Among her friends, she was the caretaker—even the youngest, she handled flipping and slicing meat at barbecues, barely eating any herself by meal’s end.
“I ordered it for you anyway.”
“Is this because of Qiao Yingqiu?” Zhong Jia thought back on their few meetings. Xie was notorious for her central-AC warmth toward same-sex partners, but Zhong Jia vaguely sensed something special here. Or was she overthinking, reading too much into it?
Xie Yingnian smiled. “Half and half.”
Zhong Jia asked, “What’s the other half?”
“Because I’m Ruan Ting, and you’re my Kong Can.” Xie Yingnian directed the second half of her sentence at Zhong Jia, her possessiveness breaking free from the words to form a tangible gaze. Her fox-like eyes curved upward in a flirtatious slant, even though her tone remained utterly casual.
Zhong Jia’s ear closest to her flushed bright red in an instant as her thoughts turned to tomorrow…
“We start filming tomorrow. Have you memorized your lines?”
It wasn’t just any acting—it involved kissing scenes. Zhong Jia averted her eyes, staring down at the shrimp in her bowl. “Uh, yeah, I have.”
The phrase “falling in love on set” flashed through her mind like a spark. She wondered, I probably won’t, right? It’s not like I’ve been through heartbreak like Qiao Yingqiu, or like Xie Yingnian back then…
That name blocked her thoughts once more. Whether it was similar or not, the answer was plain as day the moment she considered it.
