The night gradually grew late.
On the way to the hospital, Lin Qian still could not quite process what was happening.
Earlier, she had called and messaged him, even going so far as to call every number she had for Xu Xingming’s roommates. All she got in return was the news that Xu Xingming had gone out for a full hour and a half and still had not returned to the dorm. His roommates had no idea where he had gone either.
But just now, just moments ago, someone had called to inform her to hurry to the hospital. The reason was that Xu Xingming had been beaten up.
Lin Qian was completely dumbfounded.
If the junior schoolmate had not lied to her, Xu Xingming should have been with Jiang Mian right now. Otherwise, there was no reason for him not to answer her calls.
But if that was the case, how on earth had he ended up being beaten and sent to the hospital?
With a head full of questions, Lin Qian arrived at the hospital.
The moment she stepped into the emergency department and looked up, what she saw was Xu Xingming sitting in a wheelchair, wrapped in bandages like a zongzi[1]Zongzi is a traditional Chinese food made of glutinous rice wrapped tightly in bamboo or reed leaves into a compact shape. Describing someone as being “wrapped like a zongzi” is a common, … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1735273_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1735273_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. Standing beside him was a young couple, clinging to each other and sharing the same cup of milk tea in an overly affectionate manner.
When she saw Lin Qian appear, the girl from the young couple finally let out a breath of relief. “Lin Qian, you’re finally here. If you hadn’t come any later, I really wouldn’t have known what to do. The doctor already explained things while bandaging him just now. The campus heartthrob only has some superficial injuries, no broken bones. Aside from looking a bit unsightly, he’ll be fine after a few days of rest…”
“Oh, thank you for the trouble.”
“It’s nothing, it’s just…”
The girl shot her a subtle look.
“Oh, right, right. You covered the medical fees first, didn’t you? How much was it? I’ll transfer it to you.”
Lin Qian hurriedly raised her phone.
After receiving the transfer, the girl’s lips curved up slightly. Then, as if she suddenly remembered something, she leaned over to Lin Qian’s ear and lowered her voice. “Oh, right, I forgot to tell you earlier. The doctor asked the campus heartthrob how he got hurt. He said he fell. But my boyfriend and I ran into him near the small grove earlier. And besides, the injuries on him really don’t look like they’re from a fall. Even the doctor said they didn’t look like that. It feels more like he was beaten, so…”
The girl gave Lin Qian a meaningful look.
A woman’s intuition told her that there was definitely something going on here. Since she and Lin Qian were on fairly good terms, she wanted to take the opportunity to give her a subtle warning.
Hearing this, a flash of awkwardness quickly crossed Lin Qian’s face. She gave a slight nod to show that she understood.
After the young couple left, Lin Qian sat down beside Xu Xingming, who had his head lowered and remained silent.
“How are you feeling now?”
Xu Xingming did not respond to her question.
“I called you so many times earlier and sent you so many messages, but you didn’t reply to any of them…”
At that, Xu Xingming’s fingers moved slightly.
“It’s so late, the dormitory gates are already closed. What were you doing over by the small grove?”
Xu Xingming turned his head to look at her.
Meeting the man’s cool, composed eyes, completely devoid of guilt, even someone as calculating and worldly as Lin Qian felt an inexplicable surge of anger ignite in her chest.
“Are you hiding something from me? Earlier, a junior told me she saw you downstairs with Jiang Mian…”
Before Lin Qian could finish the rest of her sentence, Xu Xingming’s expression suddenly darkened.
“Are you done yet?”
“Do you want me to grab a loudspeaker and announce it properly for you?”
“What exactly is going on between Jiang Mian and me? Lin Qian, you didn’t used to jump to conclusions like this. Now you hear a bit of gossip and immediately come interrogate me, is that it? I’m in this state and you don’t say a single word out of concern, all you care about is where I went, whether I lied to you, right? If you didn’t want to come to the hospital to see me, fine. You can leave right now!”
“You know that’s not what I meant…”
“Then what do you mean? That I cheated on you with Jiang Mian behind your back? I’ve known her since middle school. If I were interested in her, we would have been together long ago. Would there even be room for you? That’s enough. I feel uncomfortable all over right now and don’t want to talk anymore. If you want to stay, then stay. If you don’t, you can leave right now.”
Hearing words like that, Lin Qian truly felt heartbroken.
Yes, at the beginning she had gotten together with Xu Xingming because of his family background. But after being together for more than a year, it was not as if she had never put genuine feelings into it.
Xu Xingming treating her like this really made her feel utterly chilled to the bone.
She had even once thought that Xu Xingming’s aloof, keep-everyone-at-a-distance demeanor was charming. Now, all she felt was humiliation.
But if she left now, then she and Xu Xingming would truly be finished, and Lin Qian knew that very well.
Because of this, she could only remain silent and continue sitting beside the man.
Jiang Mian…
It was all because of her!
Why did she have to cling on so relentlessly to her and Xu Xingming? In all her years, Lin Qian had never seen someone so shameless and despicable!
Having taken a hit to her pride with Xu Xingming, Lin Qian unhesitatingly pinned the entire blame on Jiang Mian.
She completely forgot that it had never been Jiang Mian who insisted on following behind them. It was Lin Qian herself who, after understanding Jiang Mian’s temperament and knowing full well that Jiang Mian was incapable of seducing her friend’s boyfriend, had deliberately used “friendship” to bind Jiang Mian to her side. All so she could savor the sight of Jiang Mian, whose looks rivaled her own, clearly liking Xu Xingming yet unable to obtain him. Jiang Mian’s forced composure despite the reluctance in her heart, her smiling facade masking her true feelings.
Ever since she was young, Lin Qian had loved this kind of thrill that came from taking things from others, especially from people just as outstanding as herself.
Most importantly, precisely because she knew that Xu Xingming harbored a possessiveness toward Jiang Mian that even he himself had not noticed, Lin Qian could only feel at ease by keeping Jiang Mian right under her nose, observing her at all times.
Now, it seemed she had brought a wolf into her own home.
In Lin Qian’s downcast eyes, a trace of resentment and unwillingness flickered past.
This dispute at the hospital caused Lin Qian and Xu Xingming, for quite a long time afterward, to interact as though something lay between them. It was not that Lin Qian had not tried. Unfortunately, no matter how much effort she put in, Xu Xingming’s expression remained consistently indifferent.
Perhaps she should think of some other approach.
At this stage, she was very satisfied with Xu Xingming as a boyfriend in every aspect and had no intention of replacing him.
Just as Lin Qian was racking her brains over how to eliminate the rift between herself and Xu Xingming, in the blink of an eye, nearly half a month had already passed since Jiang Mian arrived in this peaceful world.
The Song Group building.
“President Song, the preliminary round videos for 《Heart-Pounding Idol》 have already opened for online voting, and the response from netizens has been extremely enthusiastic. There is a female contestant from Yanjing Film Academy who even made it onto the trending searches because of her preliminary video. We have checked the data, and it appears to be spontaneous searches by netizens, with no signs of paid promotional accounts…”
As Song Qichen listened to his subordinate’s report while working, his ears instantly and precisely caught the words Yanjing Film Academy.
This caused the fingers that were writing to pause slightly.
Thinking it over carefully, ever since he took Jiang Mian to the tea tasting event last time, it seemed that he had not seen her for nearly half a month already.
The key point was that because he was busy with work and had no time to look for her, the other party had not shown any intention of contacting him either.
Was this her professional ethics as a kept woman?
Song Qichen silently complained inwardly.
For reasons unknown, he set down his pen and spoke up. “Which contestant? Let me take a look.”
Song Qichen’s sudden interjection caught the subordinate who was giving the report completely off guard. He almost bit his own tongue.
After all, under normal circumstances, their President Song was always working, working, and working. He was practically a money-making machine that had severed all seven emotions and six desires. In this world, aside from making money, which could barely coax a stingy curve at the corner of his lips, he wore a poker face devoid of expression almost all the time.
The subordinate had thought that today would be no different from usual. Once he finished reporting to President Song, he could retire successfully. Who would have thought that President Song would actually speak?
After letting his thoughts run wild for a moment, the subordinate hurriedly held up his tablet and handed it to Song Qichen, already opening the trending topic titled #Heart-Pounding Idol Mudslide Contestant# on the rankings.
The moment the video started playing, Song Qichen saw the very person he had just been complaining about appear right in front of him.
“Hello, mentors. I am contestant number 168, Jiang Mian. Today, the talent I’m bringing to everyone is… splitting bricks with my bare hands!”
“Ha!”
“Is the performance not exciting enough? Then how about I stack the remaining eight bricks together and split them in one go? If that’s still not enough, I can go out and find some more?”
Jiang Mian’s earnest voice kept coming through from the screen.
After watching the entire performance, Song Qichen: “…pfft.”
He casually tapped open the comments below:
[Ahahahaha, what kind of mudslide contestant is this? I’m dying laughing at the way these judges look like they’ve never seen the world before!]
[Who could refuse a contestant giving a proper barehanded brick-splitting performance? Hahaha, I’m picking this young lady to debut!]
[She’s so pretty, but unfortunately her soul is pure goofball!]
[Look at her expression, she’s genuinely taking this performance very seriously. Don’t laugh at her, let me do the laughing hahaha!]
[Am I the only one who wants to know whether those bricks are real or fake? If they’re real, this young lady really has some serious skills. If they’re fake, then she’s got some serious comedic flair. Either way, I like her!]
[Did you watch her post-match interview? She said if there’s another performance next round, she’ll consider smashing a slab on her chest hahaha! No matter what, everyone please vote enthusiastically so she gets the chance to perform chest-smashing-a-stone!]
[Vote, vote, vote.]
…
With the online voting for the preliminary round videos of 《Heart-Pounding Idol》, Jiang Mian became completely and utterly famous. Not only that, she single-handedly pushed the entire talent show beyond its usual audience and into the wider public eye.
So when Jiang Mian woke up this morning, she kept feeling that something was off.
After half a month of adjustment, she had more or less gotten used to this kind of peaceful, stable, carefree life.
Yet today, whether she was going to the track for her morning run or heading to the cafeteria for breakfast, she kept running into boys or girls who gave her strange, leering smiles.
The kind of smiles that made Jiang Mian’s scalp tingle.
By the time she finished breakfast and returned to the dormitory, only to be completely surrounded by her roommates, Jiang Mian, who had not used things like Weibo in many years, finally learned what was going on. It turned out that the preliminary round video she had filmed shortly after transmigrating had been released by the official 《Heart-Pounding Idol》 account. Not only that, she had even gone viral enough to get a trending topic all to herself.
The moment she heard this, Jiang Mian instantly became excited.
As expected, gold shines wherever it goes!
Someone as outstanding as her, no matter which world she was in, was like a high beam cutting through the darkness, dazzling and impossible to ignore.
An idol talent show was nothing more than child’s play to her. She had simply come up with a little trick on a whim and already shocked everyone. Hehe.
‘Come on, let me see how the comments are praising me.’
She happily tapped open the video, and the bullet comments read: [Hahahahaha, what a massive goofball!]
Jiang Mian: “……”
She closed it.
It must be that I opened it the wrong way.
She tapped it open again. The bullet comments read: [We’re all professionally trained. We usually don’t laugh, unless we really can’t hold it in hahahahaha!]
Jiang Mian: “……” can’t laugh.jpg
‘Damn it, you people, do you have any manners?’
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