Chapter 88: Mutual Follows

Gu Liuguang packed up and headed to the usual restaurant in the Mountain Villa. It faced the mountain view, accompanied by the refreshing mountain breeze, giving it a unique flavor.

She checked her phone while replying to messages and eating.

Xiao Yao messaged her, finally believing that she and Lin Shixia were just pure friends. She also complained about the newcomer in the group live who kept slandering Gu Liuguang on her own account, implying that Gu looked unpresentable without beauty filters and that Lin Shixia had been deceived.

Xiao Yao sent the other person’s account to Gu Liuguang. The screenshot showed their latest post, which took veiled barbs at Gu Liuguang for trying to enter the entertainment industry through hype.

BH Juanjuan: When beauty doesn’t match ambition, the crooked path to entering another circle…

The screenshot wasn’t complete, showing only the title and the photo used. The photo was from Gu Liuguang’s live streaming days.

Group lives had very high daily online viewers, and there were plenty of clips about Gu Liuguang. However, she wasn’t great at dancing, so her clips featured more static images.

Group lives always used beauty filters, making it hard to capture ugly shots. A slight mistake would cause frame drops and blurriness, let alone clear ugly photos—most were hazy, ethereal beauty from dropped frames.

Gu Liuguang admired it for a bit and thought the photo made her look much better than in person.

She didn’t take the title to heart at all, since it was just a background character from the original plot who didn’t even have a name.

Xiao Yao seemed furious. With the System’s reminder, Gu Liuguang picked up on it—Xiao Yao had a conflict with this new colleague, which was why she shared this. There was even a hint that she wanted Gu Liuguang to step up and stir things up.

Gu Liuguang felt a bit torn. Xiao Yao had been good to her before and taught her many things to watch out for in group lives. Normally, she wouldn’t mind taking the lead, since Juanjuan really was dragging her name through the mud.

But right now, Lin Shixia felt off somehow, and she didn’t want to stir up extra trouble.

After agonizing over it for a while, Lin Shixia suddenly asked her, “Who are you chatting with?”

Gu Liuguang said, “Xiao Yao.”

Lin Shixia: “That colleague you’re on good terms with?”

Gu Liuguang’s expression shifted from surprise to thought, then realization: “Yeah, her.”

Lin Shixia had sent gifts during group lives, so she remembered.

Lin Shixia asked again, “What are you talking about?”

Gu Liuguang was about to speak when Lin Shixia reached out to her: “Baby, can I take a look?”

Gu Liuguang furrowed her brows. She hesitated for just a moment before hearing Lin Shixia ask somewhat disappointedly, “Can’t I?”

Gu Liuguang handed her the phone, not forgetting to remind her: “Then look quickly.”

Lin Shixia did look quickly. Her expression didn’t change much; only her eyes scanned up and down, her fingers constantly swiping across the screen.

In just two or three minutes, Lin Shixia handed the phone back with a very bright smile on her face: “Does that person your colleague mentioned need my help?”

Gu Liuguang reacted for a second before realizing she meant Juanjuan. She shook her head: “No need to bother with her. I don’t even know her.” She paused for a second, then hesitated before saying, “If it involves you, though, we should handle it.”

Lin Shixia smiled at her: “I saw Little Aunt messaged you too, and Sister Qingying.”

“You all get along so well.”

Gu Liuguang took back her phone and checked WeChat while saying, “Not that well? We’ve only met a few times; we’re not that close.”

On the WeChat interface, the red unread badges that had been there were all gone. Clearly, Lin Shixia had read all the messages in those short few minutes. She even suspected Lin Shixia had deleted a few.

She looked at Lin Shixia suspiciously: “You didn’t delete any messages, did you?”

Lin Shixia nodded in admission, looking very innocent: “Just some messages from bosses. They seemed a bit offensive.”

Gu Liuguang kept looking at her. Lin Shixia sighed helplessly and explained a bit more: “They’re like the ones you used to get, mentioning those really gross demands.”

“I didn’t delete the ones from the bosses who sent you lots of gifts,” Lin Shixia said with curved eyes and brows. “You noted their fan light sign levels and nicknames, which match up on Douyin too. I wouldn’t delete randomly.”

Only then did Gu Liuguang relax. She tapped into the messages to reply one by one: “As long as you don’t delete randomly.”

Lin Shixia: “So can I look at your phone freely?”

Gu Liuguang thought for a moment and nodded: “You can, but I need to use my phone too. If you keep holding it, it’ll be inconvenient for me.”

Lin Shixia smiled: “I won’t keep holding your phone.”

Gu Liuguang thought Lin Shixia was just momentarily curious about her phone and wouldn’t care once things got busy.

After replying to the messages, Gu Liuguang started editing her script, noting down the places to film—the unknown spots and the well-known ones—and which angles would be better.

Writing the script for two or three hours was exhausting, especially since she couldn’t remember some places and had to go see them in person to find the best filming angles.

To showcase Night Moon’s beauty, aerial overview shots were essential, which meant using a drone.

She had only planned to be a streamer before and hadn’t done outdoor shoots, so she lacked outdoor equipment. The rest could be handled with her phone.

After editing for a bit, her eyes grew uncomfortable from staring at her phone too long. She switched to a tablet for portability. After writing about a third, she stopped to rest. Lin Shixia sat beside her, watching.

As soon as Gu Liuguang set down her phone, Lin Shixia reached for it and started fiddling with it. Gu Liuguang was in the middle of a creative burst and didn’t pay attention.

When she put down the tablet, Lin Shixia suggested they go swimming.

Gu Liuguang agreed and reached for her phone on the table, planning to check the comments under yesterday’s video to see if fans wanted to see certain spots.

Her notification bar was always 99+ messages, so Gu Liuguang usually went straight to the latest video from her homepage and opened the comments.

She froze for a second, closed the comments, and reopened them.

She blinked in confusion. The vibe in the comments was weird.

Last time she checked, plenty of Lin Shixia’s fans had clarified things, but most were hostile toward her, accusing her of riding the coattails and speaking harshly.

They nitpicked her looks and career, clearly wanting to draw a clear line between the two.

When she opened the comments today, the vibe had changed dramatically. There were many more casual fans saying things like, “This blogger looks pretty good. Top-tier even without heavy filters.”

There were lots of compliments for her. Fan comments requesting specific Mountain Villa spots got buried under Lin Shixia’s fans and casuals.

The key was, she hadn’t even shown her face in that video.

Even weirder, the nasty comments from Lin Shixia’s fans yesterday seemed auto-deleted or vanished. She scrolled forever without finding them.

In their place were very friendly comments from Lin Shixia’s fans.

[Lin Shixia is also a newbie who just debuted. It’s normal to have friends.]

[Some people jumping to conclusions—don’t you have same-sex friends?]

[They’re just close, hanging out at the Mountain Villa. What’s the big deal?]

[Case closed. It really is Lin Shixia. Just a friends’ gathering. Some people, stay out of celebrities’ lives.]

[Even if they’re together, so what?! Don’t you want a sister-in-law?]

[Liking someone is no crime!!!]

Gu Liuguang couldn’t help laughing by the end. Some comments were hilarious, somehow twisting it to her liking Lin Shixia… She also had no idea why Lin Shixia’s fans were suddenly so friendly.

After thinking it over, she figured these must be Lin Shixia’s rational fans.

She sifted through tons of unrelated videos for keywords from fans or casuals wanting certain shots, marked them all, and pasted them into her notes.

Then she went downstairs to swim with Lin Shixia.

They played in the pool for two hours and took lots of photos in the garden during breaks.

She finally got her wish, openly snapping tons of photos of Lin Shixia.

The endless sea of flowers stretched without end, like something out of an anime.

The Mountain Villa even had lots of elaborate ball gowns—probably something Ye Qingying had anticipated early on for garden shoots. Besides the gowns, they had wigs, shoes, socks, and hair accessories galore.

With a bit of taste, you could change and get great shots quickly.

Gu Liuguang’s phone was the latest model but still no match for a camera. To capture Lin Shixia’s beauty, she gritted her teeth and spent points to buy a System function, pretending she was just using her phone.

Afterward, Lin Shixia wanted to take photos of her.

Gu Liuguang didn’t like photos much and was eager to edit them.

In the end, she just sat in the flower sea, head down editing photos on her phone, letting Lin Shixia snap away beside her.

After quickly editing her nine favorite shots and handing them to the System for fine-tuning, Gu Liuguang waved at Lin Shixia, who was still photographing her. She showed off the photos like a treasure: “How do they look?”

Lin Shixia nodded with a squinty smile. Before Gu Liuguang could speak, she turned her head and kissed her. Her tongue tip slipped flexibly through Gu Liuguang’s parted lips, hooking her dazed tongue, tangling for a bit before pulling back and teasing.

When her tongue tip licked the soft flesh on one side, Gu Liuguang let out an unprepared whimper. She curled her legs sensitively and raised her hands to Lin Shixia’s shoulders, trying to push her away.

The next second, Lin Shixia gripped her hands. The wet kiss grew more intense and deep, as if trying to suck out her soul.

Gu Liuguang’s head felt dizzy and numb, her whole body like it had been electrified. Soon, she went limp in the chair.

Lin Shixia pinned her in the chair, her hand slipping under the skirt hem from ankle to calf, fingers lingering on the lace stockings.

She was so slender, yet felt fleshy to the touch—not like those too-skinny types where it felt like touching bones.

Her fingers kneaded the calf lightly or firmly, as if afraid of losing control, never venturing higher into more intimate areas.

Gu Liuguang felt too weak to breathe, her eyes hazy with desire, seductive. Flushed color spread across her like spilled paint, patch after patch.

Her pale collarbone stained with that hue looked radiant and alluring.

Lin Shixia kissed her collarbone lightly before finally releasing her and straightening her skirt.

Gu Liuguang finally snapped out of it. She frowned at Lin Shixia, wanting to say something, but ended up silent. She bent to pick up her phone, which had slipped into the dirt because her hands were too weak.

She had to admit, kissing Lin Shixia felt pretty good.

Though it sometimes scared her—the feeling of her soul being controlled by Lin Shixia, body out of her control, unable to escape.

Afterward, she felt weak all over and still unsatisfied.

Bluntly put, it was pleasurable, but always felt half-done and hard to endure.

Gu Liuguang stopped analyzing her feelings and sent all the photos to Lin Shixia wearily, letting her handle them however.

She recovered in the garden for a good while before returning to the Mountain Villa with Lin Shixia. On the way, Lin Shixia posted the photos to Weibo as a nine-grid.

Gu Liuguang heard her and checked Weibo too.

After returning to A City last time, she had cautiously canceled most of her accounts. For those with cooldowns, she made side accounts and only logged into those.

The Weibo she was on now was a blank side account, not even with a profile picture—just the default.

Searching Lin Shixia showed the photos she had sent.

She liked the post and followed Lin Shixia.

Lin Shixia watched her operate the phone and asked casually, “Side account?”

Gu Liuguang tensed for a second but stayed calm on the surface: “I don’t use Weibo much.”

Lin Shixia smiled: “Is that so?”

Gu Liuguang hummed. Lin Shixia took her phone and fiddled with something.

When Gu Liuguang got it back, she saw followers +1.

Now two followers total: one Weibo mini-assistant.

Checking the new follower, it was Lin Shixia, who had just followed her.

Gu Liuguang stared blankly at the new follower Lin Shixia for a long moment before turning to her: “What are you doing?”

Lin Shixia didn’t bat an eye and smiled faintly: “Gaining you fans.”

Gu Liuguang looked puzzled.

Lin Shixia explained with a smile: “Baby wants to be a big streamer, right? Everyone on Douyin knows we’re friends anyway. You’ll need a Weibo account sooner or later.”

“Change your name to a common nickname. Then fans will follow my follow to your account, discover it’s you, and your account can gain fans faster, right?”

“That way, even people who don’t watch the streams will get curious and check it out, won’t they?”

Lin Shixia made it sound perfectly reasonable, but Gu Liuguang still felt something was off. Ultimately, she was convinced and quickly changed her profile picture and nickname.

Sure enough, her fan count rose very quickly.

Originally, Gu Liuguang had wanted to tell Lin Shixia that they should keep their distance as much as possible.

But when she thought about the top female streamer achievement that she’d been unable to complete for so long, she could only awkwardly accept Lin Shixia’s suggestion.

After all, everyone just thought they were friends—no one saw them as a couple.

Still, she wouldn’t post any more photos. Pictures taken at the same time and place as Lin Shixia’s would make others overthink things.

This time, Lin Shixia said nothing more. She simply leaned in for a kiss on Gu Liuguang’s lips before hurrying off to change clothes, hop in the car, and head to the set. She also mentioned that she’d bring over the work equipment Gu Liuguang needed when she came by tomorrow.

Once the others had gotten in the car and left, Gu Liuguang finally breathed a sigh of relief and walked back. As she walked, she scrolled through her phone. Eventually, she discovered that Lin Shixia had also posted a photo on Moments.

Lin Shixia: Photo taken by Baby’s bestie [heart][kiss].