It was the first time anyone had ever called Su Wanying a fake.
Fake? Her entire brand in the industry had always been bold, vivid, unapologetically glamorous. The word had never once applied to her. It didn’t even fit in the same sentence.
“What exactly am I faking?”
She asked it on reflex, and only realized a beat too late that she had walked straight into the trap Rong Shu had laid for her.
Rong Shu’s fists were clenched at her sides, knuckles trembling with the force of it. The hurt was written all the way up her spine, her back rising and falling in small, unsteady hitches.
That slender, trembling back fell directly within Shen Baizhu’s line of sight.
What she turned toward Su Wanying, however, was something else entirely.
“What aren’t you faking? When filming started on this production, you stood up and said that every person on this set, lead or extra, is part of this story. That you would never look down on any actor working toward their dream. And then you turn around and do exactly that the moment the cameras aren’t rolling. I earned my place here on my own merit. What gives you the right to treat me like this?”
“What gives me the right? What gives me the right!!! Because you made my publicly recognized boyfriend…”
Just at that moment, Rong Shu’s voice cut in, soft and unhurried, barely above a murmur, but it landed with the precision of something aimed.
“Go on then. Finish the sentence. What did your boyfriend do? I’ve had my recorder running since the moment I joined this production.”
“A recording.”
Su Wanying went completely still.
Then the fury came, hot and uncontainable.
Rong Shu looked like she wouldn’t hurt a fly. And this whole time she had been documenting everything.
If this got out, the damage would be real. Rong Shu had a following as a small internet personality, which meant reach. Su Wanying herself was still in the early stages of her leading lady image, with plenty of antifans already looking for ammunition. The ratings on this production would take a hit. Her career trajectory along with it.
Su Wanying’s throat tightened. She had been outmaneuvered by a bed scene stand-in.
A sharp gaze cut across the hallway.
Shen Baizhu’s voice came out quiet but with an edge underneath it. “Teacher Su. New cast members still deserve basic courtesy.”
The subtext was clean and direct. He was calling out exactly what she had been doing.
He hadn’t been able to make out the words from inside the room, but he was an actor, and actors learned to read the unspoken. Micro-expressions, the angle of a gaze, the set of a jaw. He could tell without hearing a syllable who had been picking the fight and who had been holding their ground.
That Rong Shu had stood her ground that’s all, and in front of a top-tier actress with significantly more power and significantly more to lose by making an enemy, took a particular kind of stubborn courage. But the fear underneath it was visible too, the way her body braced even while her words didn’t waver.
Shen Baizhu looked at the scene and felt something he couldn’t name settle uncomfortably in his chest. He didn’t want to watch her look frightened.
Su Wanying felt her stomach drop. The full force of her glare had been visible to Shen Baizhu the entire time.
Two years. Two years she had spent carefully maintaining the image of someone radiant and easy and uncomplicated beside him. And in the span of one night it had cracked open in front of his eyes.
She softened her voice and her expression by several degrees. “Baizhu, I think Rong Shu may have misread the situation. I was just a little jealous, that’s all. But she’s leaving in three days anyway, so there’s nothing to be jealous about really.”
Three days.
The words passed through something in Shen Baizhu’s chest on their way out.
He made a sound of acknowledgment that carried nothing with it.
Rong Shu produced a smile that did not quite reach its full shape. Her eyes, under the harsh overhead light, were noticeably pink at the rims. “Right, Teacher Shen. Teacher Su is actually very kind.”
Su Wanying let out a carefully measured breath.
“Teacher Su,” Shen Baizhu said. “Apologize to her.”
Su Wanying stared at him.
“Unless you’d rather not.”
Su Wanying looked toward Rong Shu with an expression carefully arranged into something gentle, clearly expecting Rong Shu to step in and let her off the hook. Rong Shu said nothing. Just waited.
“I’m sorry, Rong Shu. If you ever need guidance on anything work-related going forward, feel free to come to me. I’ll help however I can.”
Rong Shu’s smile this time was warm and without any visible seams. “It’s nothing, Teacher Su. You’re really very kind.”
She stepped out into the corridor to collect her things. Shen Baizhu’s gaze followed the motion. That slight, graceful silhouette moved away and was gone.
In three days she would disappear just like that.
The thought arrived without invitation and stayed longer than it had any right to.
Su Wanying let the corners of her eyes soften as she turned back to him. “Don’t be upset with me, Baizhu. Come eat something first. Bird’s nest congee while it’s still hot. I went out of my way to three different streets to find it and kept it warm inside my coat the whole way back.”
Afraid he would refuse, she had brought her assistant along. Assistant Chen stood nearby, phone ready to capture the exchange for a candid interaction post.
Su Wanying held the container out toward him, batting her eyes with practiced warmth.
Shen Baizhu had long grown tired of this kind of scripted couple performance. But this production was a Republican-era romance going for an idol drama market, and idol dramas ran on exactly this kind of engineered heat. No PR meant no traction. He accepted the inevitable and reached for the base of the container.
The shutter clicked.
In the same instant, a set of fingers found their way onto his hand. A light, testing touch that began to creep upward.
The moment those restless fingers reached his knuckle, Shen Baizhu made a soft sound of displeasure and let go completely.
The congee tipped. Hot liquid splashed across the front of Su Wanying’s sweater, soaking through to her skin.
“Ah!”
The congee was scalding. It clung to the fabric and burned. But the cold that moved through her in that moment had nothing to do with temperature. She had touched his hand. Just his hand. And he had pulled away without a second thought.
Shen Baizhu held her gaze for two silent beats. He did not apologize.
“I lost my grip.”
Su Wanying swallowed the sting of it and arranged her face into something composed. “The cup was too hot. I couldn’t hold on and I knocked into you by accident. I’m sorry. I have another one. Would you like it? To warm up a little.”
Shen Baizhu caught it then, faint and unmistakable. A trace of rose fragrance still clinging somewhere in the vicinity of his own clothes.