But What Can I Do? I Like Her.
Lu Ye?
Shen Yuchu set down her water glass, her beautiful brows furrowing slightly. Just as Lin Que was about to remind her, she beat her to it: “I remember now. The one you misunderstood as being our mother’s reincarnation back then.”
Lin Que: “…”
“There are times when you’re allowed to have amnesia.”
“Then I’m sorry, but my memory happens to be exceptionally good.” Shen Yuchu laughed, her plan successful. As she raised her glass to drink, her peripheral vision flickered toward Lin Que’s laptop screen. “It’s been twelve years, hasn’t it? Have you two stayed in touch since she moved away?”
Lin Que looked at her and countered with a sharp, direct question: “She’s the one who occasionally keeps in touch with you, isn’t she? My dear ‘sister’?”
Shen Yuchu felt a prickle of discomfort at that particular address, but she didn’t deny it.
After Lu Ye and her daughter moved away, contact in the form of actual conversation was rare. However, every year on Lin Que’s birthday, Lu Ye’s gift and blessings would arrive exactly on time.
They weren’t necessarily expensive, but one could tell they were prepared with heart. Shen Yuchu figured that, in a way, the connection had never truly been broken. “So, you’re planning to help her with this favor?”
“Yes.”
Lin Que snapped the laptop shut and put on her headphones. “I haven’t seen Youyou in a very long time.”
Shen Yuchu’s frown deepened. She stood up and leaned closer. Before she could speak, the sound of a bass guitar and chaotic cheering erupted from the phone, followed by a remarkably bright voice: “Hello everyone, we are FEVER!”
“I am the lead singer, LURING.”
“Next, let’s go together—’ see sea’!”
Shen Yuchu froze for a moment.
Lin Que lifted her eyelids, glanced at her, and generously turned the phone screen so she could see.
The video was recorded by an audience member at a music festival. The quality was poor, and the frame was shaky, but the emotion conveyed by the music—the arrangement wasn’t complex, yet it was incredibly vivid.
Some musicians tell stories with music; Lu Ling used notes to paint pictures.
A sunny day, summer break; girls escaping from the shackles of school begin a long-planned runaway, their destination: the seaside.
Clean shirts, ice cubes clinking against glass, dark cola bubbles sizzling and dancing.
A green field, a dazed puppy, and a rabbit; a girl approaching while taking small sips of cola.
Small animals scattering—clearly she intended to scare them, but in the end, the girls were the ones startled. Their friends didn’t offer comfort; instead, they joined the “smiling puppy” squad, laughing along as they watched her.
Running, the seaside, waves scattered like fallen pearls.
The ocean seemed to become one of them, gently joining this “game of chase.” Sunlight scattered across the water’s surface. Perhaps a girl accidentally tripped over a stone, or perhaps she simply fell—Splash!
They collapsed onto the beach together. The waves, the gentle waves, kissed them softly.
The holiday was over.
“LURING,” Lin Que said, opening her eyes and turning off the screen. She looked at Shen Yuchu. “The name suits her well, doesn’t it?”
In the span of a single song, they had both been lured into the world she had constructed.
Shen Yuchu sat back up and nodded, saying casually, “She certainly has talent.”
“She’s different from when she was a kid. She’s gro—”
“No.”
Lin Que interrupted her. She stared at the person on the screen and said seriously, word by word: “She was very smart even as a child. When it comes to music, she is a genius.”
Shen Yuchu’s heart sank, but she still followed Lin Que’s lead and nodded, teasing half-jokingly, “So, are you going to save this frustrated, dejected genius?”
Lin Que frowned and shot her a look.
Shen Yuchu paused.
She knew she had misunderstood, yet she couldn’t bring herself to ask for clarification. In that moment, more than curiosity, she felt an indescribable sense of being stung—or rather, a sense of betrayal.
But a second later, she forced herself to ignore that feeling.
“I don’t have a Messiah complex,” Lin Que said softly, her tone light. “Lu Ling has never been someone who needs saving. A human life is less than a hundred years, but it’s long enough. In such a long life, who can truly save anyone else?”
“But I think,” Lin Que said calmly, “when Ms. Lu sent me that email, she must have thought about it a lot. Asking for help is never an easy thing to do. She has always been a proud and strong-willed person.”
“Then—”
“If she still wants to sing, and,” Lin Que answered, “and if she doesn’t mind that the person helping is me, I am more than willing.”
Shen Yuchu frowned. “Hm?”
Lin Que gave a light shrug, her tone relaxed. “Zhaozhao, have you really never noticed?”
“…Ever since we first met at age three, I was the person she hated most.”
Behind the camera, Lu Ling’s eyes lowered, her hand gripping the equipment, tightening unconsciously.
A large shadow gently blocked her, hiding her crimson ear-tips for her.
In her peripheral vision, a black silk ribbon tied in a butterfly bow was draped conspicuously across Lin Que’s neck. Lin Que leaned back against the sofa, her fingers openly playing with the tie while her gaze remained fixed directly on the lens of the livestream equipment.
Under her mask, Lu Ling’s mouth thinned into a line.
She didn’t have amnesia. She remembered everything.
Can a vampire erase the traces they leave on a human, yet fail to erase the traces a human leaves on them?
Was it an inability, or—
The lights, the cameras, and even the comments in the livestream room were all focused on Lin Que.
“But I can’t help it,”
In the darkness, Lu Ling’s pupils dilated for an instant. Lin Que’s voice wasn’t loud, but it was enough for her to hear every word: “I like her very much.”
The comments in the livestream room scrolled frantically, and the hashtag #LinQueFirstLove shot to the top of the trending searches.
Xie Qizhi looked at Lin Que. This topic was a bit sensitive. Just as she was about to smooth things over, Ren Hui beat her to it, pressing: “And now? Are you two still in touch?”
Lu Ling’s breath hitched.
Lin Que didn’t answer the question directly. Instead, she changed the subject, as if remembering something. Facing away from Lu Ling and toward the light, she made a long-overdue confession: “Before, a long time ago, when I was fifteen.”
“A scout from S Company’s music department handed me a business card.” It was something from many years ago, and Lin Que spoke with a peaceful, gentle expression. Lu Ling knew that she was saying this specifically for her to hear.
“That person told me that as long as I agreed, I could be on the cover of a magazine the following month.”
Chu Man was also somewhat surprised and said, “That’s basically hinting that if you went, you were guaranteed to debut.”
Lin Que didn’t act coy; she nodded openly and honestly. “Yes, because I’m beautiful.”
Chu Man: “…”
Annoying, but impossible to argue with.
“I thought of her then,” Lin Que said. Lu Ling held her breath completely. “She liked to sing. Although she rarely showed that side of herself in front of me, it wasn’t as if she didn’t leave any clues.”
“We hadn’t been in touch for three years at that point, but a mutual friend of ours had never lost contact with her. Well… ‘So she just doesn’t want to see me,’ is what I thought at the time. So, I said yes to the scout.”
“I knew she would definitely buy that magazine. I had to make sure she saw me.”
Any normal person could feel how perverse that statement was, delivered with a perfect smile. But being as experienced as she was, Xie Qizhi quickly found an entry point and picked up the thread: “But didn’t you debut as an actress?”
“I’m actually tone-deaf. The hopeless kind.” Lin Que beamed. “After a year of training, there was still zero progress. They gave up on me.”
“Hahaha, right, right! Do you remember that New Year’s Eve gala? The pitch-correction engineer almost went crazy…”
Lu Ling’s tightly clenched hands relaxed.
Was it embarrassing?
No, it was an inexplicable sense of relief and lightness.
So that magazine wasn’t an accident; it was someone’s calculated scheme.
The twenty-four-year-old standing here was the evidence that the scheme had succeeded.
Fortunately, she knew;
Fortunately, only she knew.
The “Truth or Dare” segment of NEXT carried out the show’s motto of “Fate is in heaven’s hands”—who got picked was decided by spinning a wine bottle, and whether it was Truth or Dare depended on the guest being blindfolded and spinning the big wheel that had appeared during the room missions (though this time, the proportions for each option were normal).
Chu Man got a Dare.
The people present had to complete a task she specified.
Xie Qizhi: “This is basically King’s Game!”
Chu Man stood up, her gaze slowly sweeping over everyone present.
Lin Que sat on one side of the sofa, looking up at her just like Xie Qizhi. Finally, Chu Man’s gaze settled on Mo Li.
Mo Li sat in a separate armchair, her long legs crossed. She leaned one hand on the armrest, her hair in a slicked-back high ponytail. Her back was straight, her entire posture elegant. The corners of her eyes slanted upward slightly as she glanced back at Chu Man.
【Is this what a supermodel looks like?】
【I’d believe it if you said Mo Li was shooting a high-fashion editorial right now.】
【Such a perfectly rounded head, such superior bone structure.】
“Alright, I’ve made my choice!”
Chu Man looked away, hands on her hips, and stepped out of the camera’s frame. She returned a moment later, holding a large bowl of fried rice in her left hand and four small bowls in her right.
“Task Target: Everyone. Task Name: Operation Clean Plate.”
Lin Que tilted her head slightly, seeing no problem with it. She really was a bit hungry—from morning until now, she had only had a few spoonfuls of porridge, specifically the bits that had survived in a certain someone’s bowl.
She took a bite and looked at Xie Qizhi, her eyes lighting up instantly. “It’s delicious! Why isn’t there a hint of fishiness at all?”
Xie Qizhi smiled mysteriously, putting a finger to her lips. “That’s a secret.”
Lu Ling’s eyes flickered as she adjusted the camera, bringing Mo Li into the frame.
Mo Li shot a faint glance at Xie Qizhi and turned her face away slightly.
“Here,” Chu Man handed a small bowl of rice to Mo Li. “You barely ate anything for lunch or dinner—”
Before Mo Li could speak, Chu Man looked at her, then glanced toward Lin Que, expressing genuine bafflement: “What on earth are you two made of?”
“Especially you. You drank one bottle of water and ate half an apple all day, and yet you still have the energy to fight a battle of wits against the black-hearted director and her cold-blooded crew. How are you even alive?”
The “black-hearted director” and “cold-blooded crew” burst into loud laughter.
Clack—
After the laughter subsided, Mo Li finally set down her bowl. Lu Ling sharply pivoted the camera.
This movement naturally didn’t escape Lin Que’s eyes. She lowered her head, the corners of her mouth curling up.
Mo Li breathed a sigh of relief and looked down at everyone. Before she spoke, a smirk played on her lips, and her eyes sparkled with a hint of mischief: “Sorry, I can’t complete this challenge. Unlike the rest of you, my work hasn’t been suspended yet.”
“Hey!”
The three of them looked at her in unison.
The production crew, who had just stopped laughing, broke out into another round of teasing.