Bai Ruo and Li Xian

One month after the film aired, netizens were no longer only discussing the acting and the plot; they had also quietly started shipping Qin Qingyan and the female lead of White Whale as a CP. Though the drama never once made explicit that the elder sister Qin Qingyan played had any love for her younger sister, sharp-eyed viewers kept digging up one piece of evidence after another.

A look that was indulgent yet possessive; an unconscious tendency to draw closer; sustained hostility toward the male lead; and so on, and so on. Little by little, people also began paying attention to Qin Qingyan’s private life, hoping to find some hidden sweetness between her and the female lead.

But since the account Qin Qingyan had created, she had only ever posted one Weibo to promote White Whale. The media had also rarely managed to catch her out in private, which only made her seem more mysterious.

In the rented apartment, Su Yan sat on the sofa, smiling so hard her mouth wouldn’t close as she scrolled through the comments. No, not the comments; she was scrolling through the sparks of wildfire that had spread across the internet. Qin Qingyan, however, was in no mood. She stared at the pinned message, and there was nothing there at all.

It was very late before Yan Yue finally sent a message.

[Sorry, something came up. I missed the premiere too. I heard the numbers are very good, and the netizens recognize you too. Congratulations.]

Qin Qingyan replied immediately: It’s fine. When are you coming back?

Yan Yue: In about a year.

Qin Qingyan: Then take care of yourself.

Yan Yue: Mm. You too.

After turning off her phone, Qin Qingyan lay flat on the bed. It felt like they had nothing much to talk about. That made her a little sad.

White Whale had brought Qin Qingyan considerable fame, so it wasn’t long before other directors came offering her scripts; this time, almost all of them wanted her for the female lead.

Among the many scripts, she saw Director Nie’s name. Thinking back to how he had once rejected her and even misunderstood her, Qin Qingyan didn’t want to take it. Because of that, she suddenly thought of something and took the initiative to message Yan Yue, telling her about her dilemma in a clear, reasonable way.

In truth, she had already made up her mind; she just wanted to chat with Yan Yue.

[Director Nie means no harm. Since he’s willing to send you a script, that means he understands what kind of person you are. His work is worth putting aside all personal feelings for.]

Seeing that Yan Yue’s thoughts matched her own, Qin Qingyan felt inexplicably happy.

On this topic, they ended up talking for nearly half an hour. Aside from the first few lines about the film, everything after that was just trivial chatter.

After a month’s rest, Qin Qingyan went back on set to film Director Nie’s new movie. Unlike the possessive, obsessive role in White Whale, this time she played all three of a set of triplet sisters: the eldest was cold and aloof, the second gentle as water, and the youngest both righteous and wicked. But rather than triplets, it was more like three personalities.

The film Three Selves told a story of salvation and being saved. The premise was fresh, but it placed an enormous test on the lead actor’s skill; one could even say the film’s success or failure depended largely on the performance of the lead.

This shoot was also far more exhausting than White Whale had been. Often, repeating a scene several times was considered little; at worst, it could take more than ten takes. At first it was the director who was dissatisfied, and then Qin Qingyan herself became dissatisfied.

Through all that back and forth, a film expected to finish in six months ended up taking nine. On the day filming wrapped, Nie Cong stared at Qin Qingyan for a long time, his heart full of emotion. In the past, he had overlooked a pearl.

That night, Qin Qingyan opened her chat window and found the messages had piled up.

During filming, whenever she felt especially miserable, she would go chat with Yan Yue. Yan Yue always knew exactly how to comfort her. Later, Qin Qingyan thought about it and realized that perhaps it was precisely because she was Yan Yue that even one or two sentences were enough to sweep away all the fatigue from Qin Qingyan’s body.

She had once only wanted to make more films, earn more money, and live a good life. But now she had a goal: to take the crown everyone in the film world wanted and stand on the podium to receive it. To stand beside Yan Yue as a better version of herself, with a better identity.

At the premiere, reporters and audience members asked all kinds of questions of the cast onstage. They answered them one by one.

A young man stood up and asked Qin Qingyan, “Teacher Qin, everyone knows Director Nie only uses capable actors. In such a huge industry as the entertainment industry, he chose you specifically. Is it because your acting is even better than everyone else’s?”

As soon as he spoke, the entire venue fell quiet for a few seconds.

Although the leads onstage still kept smiling, they had already begun to worry about Qin Qingyan. This premiere was being livestreamed; there was no room for even the slightest mistake. If she answered badly, it would become leverage against her.

In the left corner of the audience, a woman wearing a black baseball cap fixed her gaze on the man. Audiences generally only asked about the plot. Whether such a question was out of place or meant to make things difficult was obvious at a glance.

Then she looked toward Qin Qingyan, curious to see how she would answer.

“This question is like saying I’m a sharp sword with a blade, but the true treasure sword is hidden in its sheath, keeping its edge out of sight,” Qin Qingyan said with a smile. “If you recognize my acting, it’s because I have a group of even more capable seniors behind me. It’s thanks to their generous guidance that you get to see the me you see now; what I’ve shown is only about twenty or thirty percent of what they taught me.”

The man seemed not to have expected Qin Qingyan to answer so quickly. Flustered, he tried to think of another question to ask, but the applause breaking out all around the audience forced him to sit back down.

The rest of the interview became much easier. When everything was finally over, Qin Qingyan and Su Yan left through the private passage. As Qin Qingyan pulled open the car door and was about to get in, she unexpectedly found a woman sitting inside, wearing a black hat and black mask.

The moment they saw her, the woman was already looking at them with a smile in her eyes.

Su Yan immediately stepped in front of Qin Qingyan in alarm. Had fans become this crazed now? How had this woman gotten into the car?

Just as she was about to call for security, Qin Qingyan stopped her. Her expression was tight, carrying both nervousness and a faint excitement, and she stared at the woman inside for a long moment.

Su Yan turned back, confused, and looked at her.

The woman in the car then took off her mask, revealing the face Qin Qingyan had been thinking about day and night. Smiling, she greeted the two of them.

“You don’t recognize me this quickly?”

“President Yan! You’re back! Oh my god, do you know, if you hadn’t—mmph…”

Qin Qingyan laughed and covered her mouth, shoving her toward the front seat before she sat down beside Yan Yue herself. The moment she closed the car door, her heartbeat quickened without her meaning to.

“Didn’t you say it would be a year? Why are you back so soon?” Qin Qingyan asked.

They usually talked by message, and she had thought that made them fairly close already. But meeting like this in real life still didn’t feel as natural as chatting on the phone.

“If I hadn’t come back earlier, how could I have made it to the premiere?” Yan Yue said.

Smiling, she looked Qin Qingyan up and down. From the time they had parted after filming White Whale to now, nearly a year had passed; in that year, Qin Qingyan seemed to have changed quite a bit.

Her already delicate face, after makeup, had shed much of its youthful air and revealed a more mature femininity unique to a woman. Her features stood out more now, her angles more defined; she looked much prettier.

“You could’ve told me in advance. I could’ve given you tickets,” Qin Qingyan said.

“Tickets you gave me and tickets I bought to support you are two very different things,” Yan Yue said, leaning back slightly. “You did very well. You have the ability. As long as you don’t pick scripts recklessly, there shouldn’t be any problem with you securing your footing.”

“Don’t worry, President Yan; with me here, that’s impossible,” Su Yan said, turning her head. “Before, we were the ones going around asking others to take roles. Now we’ve got a huge fanbase too; we’re not taking those low-quality scripts that drag down the standard.”

Yan Yue smiled. “Then I’ll leave it to you.”

Su Yan patted her chest and gave a confident promise.

After Three Selves aired, Qin Qingyan did indeed gain the right to refuse roles. The comments were uniformly positive about her acting, and there were also quite a few people deliberately nitpicking, for all sorts of true and false reasons; but none of them attacked her acting.

With this film, she also won several international awards and drew attention from many well-known domestic film critics. In just one year, she had gone from unknown to someone with this level of influence on the strength of only two films. Beyond talent, her own hard work could not be ignored.

Watching her fan count surge upward and break the ten-million mark, Su Yan was delighted.

“Qingyan-jie, you’re only a matter of time away from becoming Golden Ro Award Best Actress. I believe you can take it in one shot!” Su Yan said confidently.

The Golden Ro Award was currently the highest honor in domestic film. It was held once every three years, and actors eligible for nomination had to have at least three years of acting experience.

The judges came from both home and abroad; some were professional critics, and some were well-known film review bloggers online. Aside from recognition of acting ability, an actor’s professional ethics were also essential.

Different flowers appeal to different eyes; to get unanimous recognition from more than eighty percent of the judges was no easy feat. Qin Qingyan’s goal was to work as hard as she could to get close to that award, and if she was lucky, to take the crown.

One day, dressed from head to toe in disguise, she was preparing to go out to the supermarket, with Su Yan accompanying her as they walked and talked. After truly entering the entertainment industry, she had discovered that many actors had so-called personas. A once-beloved actor could seem perfectly wonderful at first, but after learning the truth, all you felt was that you had been blind; even more irritating, that person was still wildly popular.

There weren’t many people on the street, so Su Yan didn’t bother keeping her voice down. After Qin Qingyan became famous, whenever there was any event, she was always followed by a large group of fans, and Su Yan protected her while feeling both exhausted and happy.

On days like this, when nothing much was happening, it instead felt rare.

Qin Qingyan listened to her with a smile, then suddenly slowed her steps. Su Yan looked ahead in confusion. A group of young girls were standing under a huge billboard taking photos; on it was a still from Qin Qingyan’s White Whale days.

Su Yan asked blankly, “What’s wrong?”

Qin Qingyan smiled and shook her head, then kept walking. The scene was exactly the same, only now her state of mind was completely different.

Looking back on the road she had traveled, sometimes she found it unbelievable. If someone had told her back then that in a few years she’d be up on a billboard, and everyone would be fighting to take photos with her, she would have only thought that person was crazy and talking nonsense.

But everything had turned out so unimaginable, so full of twists and turns.

In the end, they still didn’t make it to the supermarket, not because they were recognized by fans, but because they ran into two acquaintances on the way.

In a private room at a restaurant, the four of them had already ordered their dishes. After the server left, they started chatting about recent amusing events.

“Good thing you warned me, Qingyan. Yu Qingyan really is full of little tricks,” Bai Ruo said angrily. “I only acted in a scene with her, and she was already secretly hiring bots to ship me and her as a CP. The netizens all clearly knew my girlfriend is Ah Li, and they were still making a mess of things. I was so scared I posted three gorgeous photos of me and Ah Li in a row; those are all private treasures, and I usually can’t bear to let anyone see them.”

After speaking, she gulped down a large mouthful of water; her anger came fast and went fast too.

Li Xian sat beside her, and after listening to everything Bai Ruo said, the gaze she rested on Bai Ruo was full of love.

“When Qingyan-jie and I were still minor characters, Yu Qingyan leaned on Zheng Chong and stole a lot of our roles. I’ve still remembered that all this time,” Su Yan said.

“Is she still at Huanfeng now?” Li Xian asked.

“No, her contract expired a few months ago and she signed with another company,” Su Yan said.

Bai Ruo thought for a moment, then suddenly slapped the table excitedly and made a bold guess. “I know, I know! It must be your Huanfeng’s Ye Bai being dull and wooden, totally clueless. Once people saw there was no hope, of course they’d have to leave.”

Oddly enough, this guess actually seemed quite reasonable to the other three people at the table.

“Kindred spirits. Come on, let’s drink to our eight拜 friendship with Nongfu Spring!” Su Yan said grandly, rising to her feet and lifting her cup.

Bai Ruo responded just as generously, and the two of them drained their drinks in one go.

What they were drinking was tea, but the tipsiness felt real enough.

Qin Qingyan and Li Xian exchanged helpless looks. Whenever those two got together, they were never boring; that was true, and so was the noise.

When they parted, Qin Qingyan watched the two women leave hand in hand, laughing and joking all the way. A pang of envy rose in her heart. Her own road was still long, but at least there was hope.

After getting into the car, Bai Ruo hummed a tune while buckling her seatbelt. Then she very naturally leaned her head over and pointed at her lips.

Li Xian smiled and kissed her.

Having gotten what she wanted, Bai Ruo was about to leave contentedly, but Li Xian wouldn’t let her go. She held Bai Ruo’s head and tangled with her for a good while before finally releasing her. Bai Ruo’s cheeks were faintly red. Although they had done even more intimate things, every time Li Xian kissed her a little longer, her face would still heat up and turn red.

Maybe it was from holding her breath; it had to be.

“You really did save a lot of private photos,” Li Xian said, staring at her lips for a long moment before lifting her gaze to Bai Ruo’s eyes.

She hadn’t seen a single one of the three photos used to clarify things on Weibo. Fortunately, there was nothing too revealing in them; otherwise, she really wouldn’t have been able to stop herself from hitting her.

Coming out publicly had already caused enough trouble. There were countless ways to clarify things; just boldly throwing out photos like that, it was as if she still hadn’t been scolded enough.

Bai Ruo stuck out her tongue at her, then quickly moved far away. She knew Li Xian really would bully her. As for the method, though… her ears turning red, maybe that wasn’t impossible either.