《Someone Like You, or You》
By Ming Kai Ye He
2026/04/16
Chapter 01
“Qingyan, I’m talking to you.”
“I’m listening.” Liao Qingyan turned her face to look at Zhou Jin, blinking innocently.
She was a girl of lush, dazzling beauty, and with makeup on, she was so striking it took one’s breath away.
Zhou Jin steadied himself. “You can still leave now…” Liao Qingyan flitted between the dessert tables like a butterfly weaving through flowers. He had to quicken his pace to keep up. “I’ll have the driver take you. I’ll come find you later.”
“Why should I leave?” Liao Qingyan stopped and popped a small financier cake into her mouth. She wolfed it down as if she hadn’t eaten in three days.
Zhou Jin looked at her carefree attitude, a flash of frustration rising. “I’m about to propose to Yu Yining. Why do you think you should leave?”
“Go ahead and propose.” Liao Qingyan picked up a drink from the table and took a sip. Then she paused, as if suddenly realizing something. “You’re worried I’ll crash the proposal? Don’t worry, I won’t…”
“Can you be serious for once?” Zhou Jin snatched the cup from her hand and set it on the table, his tone turning three parts solemn.
Having known each other for years, Liao Qingyan had rarely seen Zhou Jin truly angry. But when he tightened his expression, he could be rather intimidating.
“…I am being serious,” Liao Qingyan said quietly, her gaze flicking back to the cup. That sweet wine had been quite good; she hadn’t had her fill.
“I told you on WeChat yesterday that you didn’t need to come today. You knew full well…”
“I know.”
Liao Qingyan’s father had once prospered by relying on the Zhou family. Back then, she was sent to Jicheng Foreign Languages School, where she ended up in the same class as Zhou Jin.
Back then, the two were always seen together, and because the Liao and Zhou families had such close ties, people often mistook them for a couple.
Neither of them clarified, serving as each other’s shield.
Later, the Liao family fell into ruin, drowning in debt, and Liao Qingyan transferred out of JFLS (Jicheng Foreign Languages School).
Her friendship with Zhou Jin, however, remained unaffected, lasting all the way to the present.
The Zhou family had been in business for three generations and held considerable prestige in Jingcheng. Wealth accumulated, circles stratified, barriers erected.
Even at the height of the Liao family’s fortune, they had merely ridden the Zhou family’s coattails, barely touching the edge of that circle. After their decline, they should have had the sense to keep their heads down.
But Liao Qingyan refused. Relying on her good relationship with Zhou Jin, she attended every single gathering, and with exceptional flamboyance.
Everyone has a motive. Liao Qingyan wasn’t using these social circles to polish her image, elevate her status, or leverage greater benefits. That left only one likely purpose: to maintain a presence in Zhou Jin’s life, raise his sunk cost, and angle for a chance to marry into the Zhou family.
Liao Qingyan was beautiful but never put on airs. She was articulate, supportive, and discreet. Someone like that never lacked friends, even within this circle.
But friends came in different kinds. Some were sincere, some played along, and some were simply waiting to see how Liao Qingyan’s story would end. The Zhou and Yu families’ businesses complemented each other, and Zhou Jin had understood from early on that he would most likely marry Yu Yining someday.
What he saw clearly, others saw too.
So they waited for this drama to reach its climax.
“You know all this. So why don’t you think about yourself for once? Qingyan, I don’t want people laughing at you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Then what do you care about?” Zhou Jin’s temper flared. “You’re clearly not comfortable here. What are you after?”
“…You know full well I’m not after marrying into the Zhou family.”
“When did I ever say you were?”
Zhou Jin realized his emotions had gotten the better of him. He pressed his lips together and fell silent.
Liao Qingyan didn’t speak for a moment either.
She put the half-eaten pastry back on the plate, turned around, and leaned her back against the dining table, gazing out into the vast living room.
Even if today’s gathering weren’t centered around a proposal, Yu Yining would still be the undisputed star of the occasion. She could effortlessly become the center of attention wherever she went. Everyone spontaneously gathered around her, arranging themselves according to family background, seniority, closeness to her… Who belonged in the center, who on the margins. Though never spoken aloud, everyone knew exactly where they stood.
Seeing scenes like this always reminded Liao Qingyan of the nature documentaries she’d watched as a child. Those too depicted a rigidly hierarchical society, where untrusted apes weren’t even granted the chance to pick lice off the alpha’s back.
The unspoken rules everyone understood, she sometimes pretended not to grasp, deliberately stirring up inappropriate jokes.
But everyone, as if by unspoken agreement, was exceptionally tolerant. As if to say: Well, it’s just Liao Qingyan.
Her own heedlessness had earned her a get-out-of-jail-free card.
The price tag attached to that card: Keep her around and wait for the show.
For that very reason, if she left, wouldn’t the play collapse? An unfinished, anticlimactic disappointment.
In Western courts or aristocratic mansions, there was a role known as the “court jester.” A servant whose purpose was to entertain the master, whose duty was to amuse monarchs and nobles through buffoonery and wit.
In Liao Qingyan’s eyes, everyone was part of the same performance. Monarchs, nobles, and court jesters were not fundamentally different from one another. Some people probably believed themselves to be the monarchs or the nobles, when in reality, they were the true court jesters.
…But explaining it this way, Zhou Jin probably still wouldn’t understand. He would only become more convinced that she was content playing the “fool,” lacking any drive to better herself.
“Say…” Liao Qingyan began slowly.
Zhou Jin glanced at her sideways.
“Is it raining outside?”
Zhou Jin’s expression, tight as if he were constipated, seemed to say: After all that silence, that’s all you come up with?
“I’ll have the driver take you,” Zhou Jin insisted again.
“Really, don’t bother. Stop worrying about me.” Liao Qingyan raised her arm and retrieved the glass of sweet wine she’d only taken one sip from. “Go handle your own things. Good luck with the proposal.”
She winked at him, replicating the toast pose Leonardo DiCaprio did in the movie 《The Great Gatsby.》
“…” Zhou Jin looked at her with a mix of frustration and disappointment. “Fine. Suit yourself.”
He’d already done his duty by warning her. If she didn’t appreciate it, so be it. He had no more time to waste. The proposal was a grand production, and he needed to get ready for his stage entrance.
Liao Qingyan’s mood remained entirely unaffected. She kept stuffing food into her stomach. She’d come straight from the filming location, missing both lunch and dinner. The pastries were too dainty to be filling.
For one second, she wished the person she wanted to see wouldn’t show up tonight. That way, she could bring herself to leave and go eat a bowl of steaming hot noodle soup at Uncle Chen’s. They closed at 9 p.m., and on a rainy day, they might shut down even earlier. What a shame to miss out.
Lost in thought, she felt someone approach.
Liao Qingyan shot a quick glance, her heart jolting. But once she saw clearly it wasn’t who she feared, she steadied herself.
“I thought Miss Liao wouldn’t be here today.” The man stopped beside her, scanning the dessert table as if nothing appealed to him. Finally, he casually picked up the same pastry she had.
Imitation is often an unconscious act of seeking favor. Many people didn’t notice this.
“Why wouldn’t I come?”
“Because…” The man hesitated, as if he felt being too blunt would be cruel to her.
His name was Ye Weizhou.
Liao Qingyan was slow to remember people. The only reason she’d committed him to memory was that from a certain angle, his profile looked very familiar. His family background was a mystery. He’d studied abroad, seemingly in film, and had returned to China to work as a director. As for what works he’d made, she had no idea. That was far beyond the limits of Liao Qingyan’s curiosity.
Ye Weizhou stood beside her, took a bite of the pastry, and swallowed with some difficulty. He didn’t continue the topic he’d started. Instead, he followed her line of sight toward the door. “Looks like it’s raining.”
“Oh.”
Ye Weizhou showed no sign of embarrassment at being brushed off. He slowly took another bite of the pastry. “About what I mentioned last time, has Miss Liao had a chance to think it over?”
“Haven’t I already refused?”
“I said, Miss Liao needn’t refuse me so quickly. You can take your time to consider.”
“But I’ve already refused.”
“Won’t you reconsider at all?” Ye Weizhou looked at her.
“No. I don’t know how to act. Find someone else.”
“It’s not difficult. We have teachers to train you.”
“I have dyslexia. I can’t memorize lines,” Liao Qingyan made up on the spot.
Through the rain, someone seemed to be approaching the entrance. She narrowed her eyes for a closer look, her thoughts already drifting away.
“According to scientific research, the proportion of people with dyslexia IN Chinese is not particularly high.”
“Then I’m a rare case. Sorry about that…” Liao Qingyan set down the pastry and wine glass, dusting the crumbs from her fingers. She had now clearly made out the newcomer’s silhouette. “Some things just happen to be inconvenient. I’m going to the restroom. Do as you like, Director Ye.”
Only after moving away from the dessert table did Liao Qingyan quicken her pace.
She slipped into the changing room and locked the door behind her.
Her makeup was still intact, though her lipstick had faded slightly. She touched it up in the mirror and smiled to herself.
Such a futile act.
She would likely never, ever enter his line of sight.
After spending some time in the changing room, Liao Qingyan walked back to her original spot.
She scanned the room. Yu Yining remained seated at the center of the sofa set, but another nucleus had quietly formed at the bar counter.
Beside the bar stood an exceptionally tall man with handsome features. He wore a half-worn black lightweight sweater, held a glass of water in his hand, and listened to someone speaking with slightly lowered eyes.
He never seemed to attend any gathering in “formal wear.” It always looked as though he had simply grabbed the first thing from his closet and walked out the door. But with looks and a bearing as outstanding and unparalleled as his, anything he wore became formal wear.
Before he arrived, everything in the room had been nothing but a false stage set. After he arrived, her five senses seemed to finally start working.
The chandelier was too bright, the fragrance in the air was too strong, the laughter of the person currently playing the “court jester” at Yu Yining’s side was too loud…
Every detail began to occupy her thoughts tangibly, affecting her behavior, making her breathing and movements unnatural, violating her principle of “not caring.”
Liao Qingyan casually picked up a drink and sipped it slowly, her gaze flitting again and again, like a dragonfly touching the surface of water, toward the corner of the bar.
This was one thing she did exceptionally well. To this day, not a single person had discovered where her line of sight truly landed.
This shoddy stage play, she could leave anytime she stopped enjoying it.
But she didn’t want Bo Sinian’s name to be linked with hers in any way.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bo Sinian’s hand, the bones of his wrist prominent, set down the glass. He lowered his head another two degrees toward the young woman standing beside him, listening intently.
He was consistently cold in his dealings with others, yet at this moment, he showed a rare glimmer of genuine attentiveness.
The woman looked familiar. Liao Qingyan racked her memory and finally remembered. She had seen her back in high school.
Back then at JFLS, Liao Qingyan had studied there for less than two years.
Bo Sinian was two years ahead of her, so she had only briefly shared the campus with him for one year.
The woman speaking with Bo Sinian now had been in his class back then. The two families were likely old family friends, as they often appeared together.
At the time, Liao Qingyan had casually asked Zhou Jin about her and learned that she wasn’t Bo Sinian’s girlfriend, but the nature of their relationship was similar to that between Yu Yining and Zhou Jin.
The one the family chose, the one he’d eventually marry… Something along those lines.
Liao Qingyan had once asked Zhou Jin if he liked Yu Yining. Zhou Jin had answered that liking or not liking didn’t matter.
She felt that liking mattered quite a lot.
So maybe that was why she’d never become wealthy or strike it rich.
The soft pastry became hard to swallow. Liao Qingyan realized her throat was tightening up.
But it was fine. She probably still had time to get noodles at Uncle Chen’s.
She set down the food and turned around, just as someone holding a bowl of soup but looking sideways to talk collided head-on with her.
The usual Liao Qingyan probably could have dodged it. This time, she was a step too slow.
Rich tomato soup flowed down the white decorative rose on her collar, drenching half her body.
She was the one splashed, yet the person who splashed her let out a shriek.
Liao Qingyan looked down. The color was rather pretty, she thought. It reminded her of the drag queen Farida Kant pouring red wine over a white wedding gown during a drag show. The bride transformed into a vampire.
“Sorry…” The person opposite her set down what they were holding and quickly grabbed tissues to help Liao Qingyan wipe off the mess. “Do you have a change of clothes?”
The small commotion drew everyone’s attention.
Liao Qingyan had a vague sense that among those looks, one came from the bar table.
As if struck precisely by lightning, she murmured, “It’s fine,” and turned to flee the scene in a hurry, heading toward the restroom.
She checked herself in the mirror and confirmed the dress was beyond saving.
The offender had followed her, standing nervously to the side. “Do you want to change? I’ll go ask…”
“It’s fine, don’t bother.” Liao Qingyan didn’t look at her. “It’s okay.”
“Then let me pay for the dry cleaning?”
“Alright. Please, just leave me alone for a moment.”
“Okay…” The woman hesitated, then finally stepped out.
Liao Qingyan was washing her face at the sink when someone else came in.
The one who’d splashed her with tomato soup had done so by accident. But the person entering now was the ringleader of the group clearly waiting to see a good show.
The ringleader pretended to wash her hands while covertly sizing up Liao Qingyan, her tone dripping with feigned sympathy: “Are you okay?”
“I’m not okay.” Liao Qingyan leaned closer to the mirror. “Look, I’m crying.”
The ringleader stared at her. Clearly, this defied her expectations of a stoic, brave-face response.
“…Aren’t you upset?”
“I’m very upset. I think I look so beautiful when I cry. I want to take a nine-grid photo of my tears and post it on my Moments.”
The ringleader muttered “Crazy” with a frown, dried her hands, and left.
Liao Qingyan slipped out of the villa without alerting anyone.
The rain was coming down hard. She regretted it by the time she reached the pavilion. The early spring rain was bitterly cold; getting drenched in this would surely make her sick.
She wasn’t suited for tragic, suffering roles, and even less so when the cost was her health.
Stepping into the pavilion, she pulled out her phone and opened a ride-hailing app.
The wealthy always loved building their villas in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t a single available car nearby.
She left her phone on the ride-hailing page and leaned back against the pavilion’s pillar.
A crackling sound mixed with the pounding rain. She turned her head to listen. It came from a nameless tree in the corner, its broad leaves upturned like palms facing the sky.
A formless, murky emotion was piling up in her chest. She didn’t know what it was. It was just heavy, like the leaden rainclouds had taken up residence where her heart should be. It had been a long time since she’d deliberately analyzed her own feelings. Eventually, she’d grown completely out of practice.
She exhaled, trying to expel those leaden clouds. It didn’t help.
Ten minutes passed. Still no car.
She pulled up Zhou Jin’s name in her contacts, then thought better of it. The proposal was planned for eight o’clock. It was now five past eight. He’d most likely succeeded by now and was taking photos with Yu Yining. It wouldn’t be right to ask him for help at a time like this.
The ride-hailing app had an option to increase the fare for priority dispatch. Liao Qingyan gritted her teeth and was about to select it when two beams of headlights swept toward her.
Backlit, she couldn’t see clearly. She squinted. The car drew close, and when she realized whose car it was, her brain short-circuited for a second.
The window rolled down. A cool male voice, slightly muffled as it cut through the rain and the sound of wipers working, drifted over: “Does Miss Liao need help?”
His tone was so detached it barely formed a question.
Liao Qingyan’s first instinct was to raise her arm to cover the soup stain on her chest. Realizing it was futile, she didn’t.
She reacted much slower than usual. She had never rehearsed for a situation like this.
A corner meant for covert peeking was suddenly illuminated by moonlight. The person hiding in that corner could hardly do anything but stand there at a loss.
Bo Sinian was not what one would call a warm-hearted person. At least, that was what Liao Qingyan knew of him. If anything, most of the time he seemed rather detached.
Another of her closest friends in the circle, besides Zhou Jin, had once brought up the Bo family in conversation and casually remarked, “Don’t you think Bo Sinian is a bit like a hollow man?”
Liao Qingyan had thought to herself, But that’s exactly what makes him so fascinating.
For a hollow man to show compassion, she must look utterly pathetic.
But she would rather remain unseen by him than be seen looking so wretched.
On that dark, rainy night, everything was steeped in a layer of gray-white mist.
Liao Qingyan stared at Bo Sinian through the rain and mist.
After a moment, she let out a soft laugh and spoke in a flippant tone: “If you really want to help, how about sleeping with me?”
She was deliberately offending him. He would surely find her absurd and ungrateful, then drive off in a huff.
Leave quickly. Hurry. Stop looking at me.
The hazard lights blinked in sync with her heartbeat.
After the fifth flash, Bo Sinian’s voice sounded again, so flat it carried not a trace of inflection: “Miss Liao has a fine sense of humor.”
Author’s Note:
At its core, this is a melodramatic, over-the-top Mary Sue story. Please don’t take it too seriously~
I’m writing this on a whim, feeding my own cravings. Wishing you a pleasant reading experience~