When Shi Nanbei asked that question, Zhao Xunyin didn’t know why, but she couldn’t help finding it funny. Sometimes, she really wondered—was Shi Nanbei truly twenty-one? Because half the time, she acted like a child.
Sometimes like an angel.
Sometimes like a little devil.
Either way, she was irresistibly lovable.
“There are only my own films and dramas here,” Zhao Xunyin said. “No one else’s. Do you really want to watch one of mine?”
Shi Nanbei answered solemnly, “I want to watch yours. Only yours—my wife’s.” She tugged at Zhao Xunyin’s finger, swinging it back and forth playfully. “Please? Pretty please, my dear wife?”
Zhao Xunyin could never resist Shi Nanbei whenever she acted cutesy. She reached out and pinched the girl’s cheek, her tone softer than she realized. “Alright, alright. Which one do you want to watch?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Shi Nanbei blurted, “Win-Win! That one!”
Zhao Xunyin froze for a second. For some reason, her mind drifted to what Shi Nanbei’s grandmother had once told her—that when Shi Nanbei was in junior high, she had been obsessed with one of Zhao Xunyin’s films.
“At that time, you had just won your first Best Actress award,” Grandma had said. “What was that movie called again? Ah, I can’t recall. You played a wandering swordswoman who fell in love with a prince, and in the end, she died in a mountain valley so he could ascend the throne. Nanbei was still in middle school then—she cried her eyes out over that film. She even quoted the swordswoman’s lines in her Chinese essays.”
So, Shi Nanbei had loved Ren Feng that much. Zhao Xunyin looked at her little wife’s bright face, feeling both proud and strangely sour inside.
Sour, yes—but unable to deny her anything, Zhao Xunyin still dug out the DVD of Win-Win, a film she’d made over a decade ago, and played it just for her. Shi Nanbei was so delighted she jumped up and planted a kiss on Zhao Xunyin’s cheek, insisting they watch it together—“to fulfill my dream,” she said with sparkling eyes.
“Ren Feng was too good. I can’t stand that she had to die.”
Ten years ago, before filming Win-Win, Zhao Xunyin’s reputation in the industry wasn’t particularly good. She was beautiful—too beautiful, in a way that was both an advantage and a curse. In the film world, beauty could make you memorable, but it could also make directors and audiences dismiss you as nothing more than a decorative vase.
For three years after her debut, Zhao Xunyin had been typecast that way. Win-Win became her turning point. It grossed 600 million yuan and earned her the Best Actress Award of the year, solidifying her status and making her the youngest Film Queen in the industry. The director who had taken a chance on her laughed in his sleep that year—and immediately decided Zhao Xunyin would be his go-to leading lady.
The movie opened with a three-minute continuous shot—Zhao Xunyin, dressed in crimson, walking barefoot along a cliff. Shi Nanbei had watched this movie more than ten times in private; she knew every shot by heart.
In the film, Zhao Xunyin’s character, Ren Feng, was a swordswoman raised in isolation on a lonely mountain. She trained and studied under her master until his death, after which she lived alone—until one day, she saved a prince being hunted by assassins.
“Were you really barefoot when you shot this scene?” Shi Nanbei asked as the camera lingered on a close-up of Ren Feng’s smooth, pale toes. Ren Feng stood silently on a tree branch, watching the prince below being chased through the forest.
“I was,” Zhao Xunyin replied. She still remembered those shooting days vividly.
“You’re amazing,” Shi Nanbei sighed in genuine admiration.
Zhao Xunyin chuckled and nestled closer with her on the sofa as they continued watching.
On screen, the prince was cornered, about to be killed. Just then, as if sensing something, he looked up—meeting the gaze of Ren Feng, watching from the shadows above.
Shi Nanbei remembered reading a review that said Ren Feng eventually fell in love with the prince, only to die for him far away from her mountain—frozen, buried, and forgotten.
The critic wrote: If that day at the foot of the mountain, the prince hadn’t looked up and seen her, perhaps Ren Feng would never have saved him, never fallen for him, never been used and abandoned.
Then, she might have remained the detached, indifferent girl who looked at the world from afar.
But fate had other plans. The prince had looked up—and saw the girl in red standing above, poised and composed, eyes as clear as a spring and as cold as ice.
Curled up in Zhao Xunyin’s warm arms, Shi Nanbei sighed softly. “Ren Feng shouldn’t have fallen for that jerk.”
That same prince, after being saved, had lived under Ren Feng’s care like a pet—yet in the end, he repaid her kindness with betrayal. He played on her feelings, step by step, until she became the perfect blade for him to wield.
The girl, naïve to the world, did everything simply because it pleased the one she loved. Until one day, that man asked for her heart’s blood to save his childhood sweetheart.
Ren Feng’s face remained calm. She only said one word—“Alright”—and drove her sword into her own chest.
She never looked at the prince who had become emperor, never asked him why. She simply ended her life, just as she had said when she first saved him:
“I saved you only because it made me happy.”
Perhaps, in the end, giving up her life for him was simply because it made her happy, too.
The movie lasted only ninety-eight minutes, but the twenty-two-year-old Zhao Xunyin had poured her soul into the role. With its success, a new era began in cinema—the Zhao Xunyin Era.
By the time the credits rolled, Shi Nanbei had already soaked several tissues with tears. Zhao Xunyin laughed softly as she wiped her tears. “Why so sad over a movie?”
“Ren Feng shouldn’t have loved that jerk!” Shi Nanbei cried, still grieving. “She was too good for him! She was like a fairy from the mountain—she shouldn’t have come down at all!”
Hearing that, Zhao Xunyin burst out laughing.
Shi Nanbei, who’d been crying pitifully, looked up in disbelief. Seeing Ren Feng herself laughing so heartlessly only made her pout harder.
“What are you laughing at? I’m being serious!”
“Nothing,” Zhao Xunyin chuckled. “It’s just, no one’s ever called me a fairy before.”
She truly hadn’t heard it once in her career. Her fans called her “Sister Zhao,” “Zhao Xunyin,” or sometimes boldly, “wife.” But “fairy”? Only this girl had ever said it.
Fairy, huh. She was thirty-four. And this little brat was always teasing her for being old.
In truth, Ren Feng was a complex character—both an innocent girl and a merciless killer. Win-Win referred to how both the prince and Ren Feng ultimately “won” what they desired.
The prince gained his throne.
Ren Feng gained the experience of love.
In a twisted way, they both won.
Shi Nanbei wiped her tears, her watery eyes lifting to Zhao Xunyin. “I didn’t mean you were a fairy—I meant Ren Feng was.” She sniffled. “Our Ren Feng was the best girl in the world.”
Zhao Xunyin smiled faintly, gazing down at the girl in her arms. A thought flickered through her mind. Then, slipping seamlessly into character, she brushed Shi Nanbei’s hair aside, her voice low and magnetic—suddenly becoming Ren Feng once more.
“Tell me, young lady, why do you cry?”
Shi Nanbei looked up, eyes dazed. In that moment, Zhao Xunyin’s face overlapped perfectly with the image of Ren Feng in her memory. Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I, I think I’ve fallen for someone.”
Zhao Xunyin’s lips curved into a cool smile, though her gaze was filled with warmth. “Oh? And who is it that you’ve fallen for? Tell me. If he loves you back, I shall only kill him. But if he doesn’t, I’ll kill his whole family. Would that please you?”
It was a ridiculous line—yet when Zhao Xunyin said it, it somehow sounded devastatingly enchanting.
Poor Shi Nanbei didn’t stand a chance. Completely captivated, she blurted without thinking, “But the person I love is you.”
Zhao Xunyin smiled. Her fingers tilted Shi Nanbei’s chin up; her eyes glimmered darkly as she slowly leaned in, following the pull of her heart—until her lips met Shi Nanbei’s soft, trembling ones.
“Mmh.” Shi Nanbei froze for only a second before instinctively wrapping her arms around Zhao Xunyin’s neck, deepening the kiss.
She didn’t know how long it lasted. All she knew was that her whole body was burning, her breath unsteady, her mind hazy. Zhao Xunyin’s warmth was overwhelming. When they finally broke for air, Shi Nanbei leaned close to her ear and whispered, voice trembling with desire.
“Let’s do it.”
At first, Zhao Xunyin didn’t catch her meaning. She murmured an absent “Mm?” before it hit her. She pulled back sharply. “What did you say?”
Shi Nanbei stared at Zhao Xunyin’s flawless face—then remembered Ren Feng’s calm acceptance before her death. Something bold surged up inside her. She grabbed Zhao Xunyin and pulled her down again, their hair tangling together, breath mingling.
With surprising courage, she declared,
“I’ve wanted to sleep with you for a long time!”
After all, Zhao Xunyin wasn’t just any actress—she was the number-one woman every lesbian wanted to sleep with.
Honestly, for Shi Nanbei to have held herself back this long, ever since their very first meeting, was already impressive enough. But now, under these circumstances—well, who could blame her for finally losing control?