“Hey, look over there—is that Song Jin?”
“Don’t say it, you’re right! The one next to her looks like Wen Yu…”
“Huh? No way. If that’s Song Jin and Wen Yu, then who is that kid in the middle? They couldn’t have had a baby together, could they?”
Faint voices drifted from behind. Hearing the content, Song Jin instinctively straightened her back and glanced up at Wen Yu.
Wen Yu: ?
Wen Yu tilted her head in confusion. At first, she didn’t understand the look, but she reacted quickly, holding out the strawberry candied hawthorn in her hand toward Song Jin.
Now it was Song Jin’s turn to be confused.
She asked, “Huh?”
Wen Yu replied, “Huh?”
Wen Yu’s eyes, visible above her mask, blinked blankly. She looked a bit dazed. “Didn’t you want to try the strawberry one? Here.”
Song Jin didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It turned out Wen Yu thought she had bought two different flavors just because she wanted to eat both at once.
Before Song Jin could respond, the sound of footsteps approached from behind. A girl spoke up excitedly—judging by the voice, she was one of the people discussing them earlier: “Um, excuse me, are you Wen Yu?”
The girl kept her voice very low; basically, no one except the four of them could hear her, so there was no worry about attracting a crowd.
Under Song Jin’s shocked gaze, Wen Yu nodded.
Seeing the smile on the girl’s face grow wider and wider, Wen Yu raised her index finger to her lips in a “shh” gesture, signaling her not to get too excited. The girl cooperated immediately, mimicking a “lips zipped” motion. She leaned in and whispered, “Ahhh, Goddess! I’m your fan! I love every one of your stages and dramas so much, ahhh—” As she spoke, she couldn’t help but hop in place a few times. With her white shawl, she looked exactly like a little rabbit that had just spotted a carrot.
“Thank you for your support. I will keep working hard,” Wen Yu said. Her tone was a bit stiff, but her expression was sincere; she clearly wasn’t used to handling these kinds of situations.
The girl nodded frantically. Then, remembering something, she whipped her head around to scan the surroundings. After confirming no one was watching, she whispered, “Goddess, my friends and I all especially love you. Could we get an autograph?”
“Oh, okay… but I don’t have a pen on me…” Wen Yu said, looking troubled.
But as soon as the words left her mouth, Song Jin immediately pulled a pen out of her inner pocket and thrust it in front of her.
Since the girl was a fan of Wen Yu and hadn’t mentioned her, Song Jin kept her back turned. She didn’t even speak when handing over the pen, afraid the girl would recognize her voice.
However, from that one simple action, the girl caught sight of her hand as she followed the movement of the pen: “Song Jin?!”
Song Jin’s reaction was even bigger than the girl’s, her voice pitching up toward the sky: “What?! How did you recognize me?!”
The girl raised her eyebrows triumphantly, the golden hairpins on her head swaying slightly. “You used this same type of pen at your last fan meeting. Plus, you’re wearing two rings on your left hand in the exact same positions Song Jin usually wears them.”
Hearing this, Song Jin instinctively looked down. The pen was a common mirror-finish pen, and the rings were just two ordinary plain bands, but they were indeed the ones she frequently used.
“Goddess, wahhh! You’re my goddess too! I love listening to you sing so much~” the girl whined playfully, pink hearts practically springing from her eyes.
“Oh—so you only love listening to me sing? You don’t love watching me dance or act?” Song Jin’s habit of teasing people flared up again, and she drawled the words to needle her.
the girl giggled. “I love it all! I love it so much! By the way, Goddess, can you give me an autograph too? My friends and I love you so much!”
As she spoke, she pulled out some small photo cards she had prepared earlier and handed them out like flyers—three for each of them. Song Jin picked them up and was amused. The photo of her featured dazzling gold hair, a look from several years ago.
“Hey, are you two filming here? So, is the cast for Daybreak really the two of you? Oh, and who is this little kid?”
“Yes, we are the leads. The kid is a relative,” Song Jin replied, mixing truth with fiction to avoid unnecessary trouble.
She signed quickly with a flowing script, finishing in a few strokes. She didn’t even put the cap back on; instead, she turned the pen tip toward herself and handed the warm pen over diagonally. When Wen Yu got it, she wrote stroke by stroke, her handwriting as neat and upright as a student’s.
“Aren’t your two friends coming over to chat?” Song Jin handed the cards back, her gaze shifting to the two figures whispering together behind the girl. Seeing Song Jin look their way, the two immediately spun 180 degrees in a panic, leaving Song Jin with a view of nothing but two lonely-looking backsides.
How should she put it? They really didn’t look like fans.
The girl waved her hand dismissively and explained, “They’re a bit cowardly; they really don’t dare come over. Don’t worry, Goddesses, I’ll deliver these safely to them!”
Feeling the girl’s burning gaze, Song Jin nodded understandingly. “Alright then. You guys have fun, and we’ll go on our way?”
“Okay! Goodbye, Goddess!”
“Okay, bye.” Song Jin gave her a wink. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the other two girls turning back to peek again, so she raised her hand high to wave goodbye to them as well. Wen Yu took Yang Yang’s hand again, nodded to the fans, and led the two of them aimlessly toward another area.
Halfway there, Wen Yu finally processed what had happened and clicked her tongue. “I didn’t expect people who like both of us simultaneously actually existed.”
Song Jin couldn’t help but glance at her, thinking, There’s a lot more you haven’t expected. Beneath her mask, the corners of her mouth curled up, and she said in a low tone, “To each their own. It’s normal.”
“It’s normal,” Wen Yu repeated. Her pace was slow, and her shadow on the ground was short, making her look like a round little dumpling.
The hand she was holding pulled down slightly. Song Jin looked down at the boy and asked, “What’s wrong, young man? Did you see something else you want?”
Xu Yang shook his head. “Sister, I want to go back.”
“Huh? So soon? We haven’t even started playing yet.” Song Jin glanced at the surrounding buildings, feeling a bit reluctant to leave.
“There are too many people here, and…” As he spoke, Xu Yang gestured for Song Jin to crouch down. Once she did, he leaned into her ear and whispered, “And it feels like someone is watching us from behind…”
Hearing this, Song Jin stood up and silently scanned the direction Xu Yang had indicated. Sure enough, she saw a woman acting suspiciously while holding a phone. The moment their eyes met, the woman turned away awkwardly, pretending to be a regular passerby.
Song Jin exchanged a look with Wen Yu. She gently patted Xu Yang’s head and said softly, “In that case, let’s head back first.”
“I’ll follow your lead,” Wen Yu nodded, tightening her grip on Xu Yang’s hand.
As the sun set, dusk quickly gave way to twilight. The silver-gray moon replaced the sun, hanging once more among the branches, signaling the end of the day’s work.
After seeing Wen Yu off, Song Jin took the elevator back to the 12th floor. She changed into her slippers at the entrance, picked up the box the delivery girl had left on the shoe cabinet, swiped her room card, and pushed the door open.
A major characteristic of winter in Qing City was that while it was cold outside, it was even colder inside. Song Jin shuddered involuntarily as she entered. She fumbled to turn on the lights, her plush slippers sinking into the shag carpet like she was walking on clouds. She set the box on the table and curled up on the sofa to start scrolling through Weibo.
Initially, her alt account only followed people related to her—like her main account, her studio, big fans, and fansites. However, ever since she discovered that her dreams were based on fanfiction about her and Wen Yu, Song Jin had also followed Wen Yu and their CP (Couple) Super Topic. Under Du Bing’s guidance, she had successfully infiltrated their ranks.
After scrolling for a while, Song Jin felt a bit bored. She suddenly remembered the Super Topic she hadn’t opened in days and clicked into it on a whim.
After all, she and Wen Yu had never collaborated before, so for a “crack-ship” CP, the fan count wasn’t particularly high or low—the two Super Topics combined had about a hundred thousand followers, not counting the overlap.
However, there was one thing that made her happy:
The follower count for their “Jin Zhi Yu Ye” (Jin’s Branch and Yu’s Leaf) was double that of the rival “Quan Wen Bei Song” (The Whole Text Recites Song/Warmth Backing Song).
Hehe.
Song Jin happily scrolled through the “home base.” After switching to the “Hot” tab, she scrolled past a familiar ID and some even more familiar photos.
The poster was named “Goldfish Memory Over Eight Seconds,” and there was a red ‘V’ badge in the bottom left of the profile picture. Song Jin remembered her; she had produced several popular fanfictions that required horizontal flipping to read.
This time, the caption she posted was just one sentence: “I’ve moved the Civil Affairs Bureau here!” The nine-grid photo layout was something Song Jin knew all too well—weren’t those the photo cards the two of them had just signed this morning?!
The image of that girl immediately surfaced in Song Jin’s mind: long hair, big eyes, hair ties and hairpins woven into her bun, and two deep dimples when she smiled. She wasn’t tall and looked quite quirky and cute, like a little sister from next door.
Song Jin swallowed hard. It was truly difficult to connect that lively, cute girl with the woman who produced five pieces of “hardcore content” in three days.
With trembling hands, she tapped into the comment section to see what others were saying.
[Floor 88: ? This edit looks so real. Pretend to hold a giveaway in the comments and then give it to me!]
Goldfish Memory Over Eight Seconds: Get out.
Floor 79: Wow, it really does look real. But next time you edit, you should change Wen-wen’s pen to black. Only Song-song uses a mirror pen; it would look more authentic that way. Or is the idea of them sharing a pen also a shipping point?
Goldfish Memory Over Eight Seconds: How do I explain to you guys that this is actually real…
Floor 52: Whatever, I’ll eat whatever is served. (Munch munch munch)
Goldfish Memory Over Eight Seconds: Heroine, please spare the cards!
Floor 22: Mommy, did you meet them in Qing City? Ahhh, I knew my ship was real!!
Goldfish Memory Over Eight Seconds: Thank heavens, you’re the only one in all these floors who believes me. Wuuu, I’m going to give you an extra treat!
Song Jin scrolled all the way down. Just as she was about to finish reading the thread, her phone screen suddenly dimmed, and a call jumped out. She looked at the profile picture and felt a sudden wave of guilt, as if she had been caught doing something bad.
She hesitated for two seconds before finally hitting the answer button.
“Hello? Are you free right now?” Wen Yu’s clear, soothing voice came through from the other end of the phone.