The buzzing of a garbage truck passing by downstairs broke the absolute silence of the late night.
After calmly typing the words “lack of moral integrity” into the document, Shi Bei froze completely for a while.
She stared at the screen, an indescribable look of stunned shock on her face.
Didn’t this mean that what she had to do next was to constantly praise Kong Lingrou’s high moral character around her?
How could a strategy that looked so simple turn out to be so unimaginably, terrifyingly difficult when actually put into practice?
Shi Bei propped herself up on the desk with difficulty, stood up, and took a moment to calm down. Then, with an expression of agony, she opened her phone and temporarily searched for “how to praise someone’s virtues,” trying her best to memorize phrases.
As the sky gradually brightened, Shi Bei looked weary after memorizing a large collection of essay-style phrasing.
She had finished memorizing it, but just imagining the scene of using these compliments on Kong Lingrou made her blood run cold and her skin crawl.
Why were there always so many painful things in life that one was forced to do?
She knew she ought to go to sleep, but going to sleep in such a miserable mood would surely bring nightmares.
So she opened the work she hadn’t finished last time, looking through the logs line by line to troubleshoot where the problem in her code actually lay.
Her phone suddenly lit up.
A pop-up window notification jumped out.
Shi Bei glanced at it; it was a social media update from Kong Lingyu.
She casually saved the code she had just typed and turned off the small tool that monitored Kong Lingyu’s social updates across all platforms and pushed real-time pop-up alerts to her phone.
Earlier, in order to indirectly gather information about Kong Lingrou, she had created an automated script that could sync Kong Lingyu’s updated social media posts to her local storage and trigger a real-time pop-up reminder.
At the very beginning, to track down Kong Lingrou’s whereabouts, she had written countless scripts to scrape data off the internet, created alt accounts, pretended to be acquaintances, and used every method available to check for and collect clues line by line from anyone who might still be in contact with her.
It had taken her over two years to confirm that none of their former classmates knew about Kong Lingrou’s recent situation.
In their private school, where everyone had advanced through the grades together since kindergarten, this was an extremely unusual situation.
Generally speaking, only peripheral figures like Shi Bei—who never belonged and never fit in—would vanish silently from the sight of a tight-knit circle of childhood friends without a trace.
Back then, she had even suspected whether something catastrophic had happened to Kong Lingrou’s family, digging up and analyzing all the online data on the entire Kong family multiple times.
Shi Bei opened a memo on her phone, hesitating over whether to delete it.
Inside was a compilation of Kong Lingyu’s personal updates that had been filtered, merged, and placed onto a timeline after fetching the data. After all, having spent so much time making it, she hesitated for a few seconds when it came to deleting it.
Yet keeping it served no purpose anymore.
She had already met the real-world Kong Lingyu and no longer needed to rely on fragmented social media updates to deduce and analyze her as a person.
It wasn’t as if she could pretend to be a fan and package the information to send to Kong Lingyu herself.
It would be bad if she was mistaken for a creep.
She tapped delete.
Her phone screen switched to the browser, where she searched for a few more good phrases praising others’ virtues and pasted them into her memo to supplement her vocabulary repository.
Perhaps because she had searched for Takahashi Rin earlier, the recommended searches at the bottom of the website unexpectedly included the trending search term “Takahashi Rin Relationship.”
Before Shi Bei’s brain could register any thoughts, her finger clicked on it first.
As it turned out, what popped up wasn’t any romance announcement; it was simply her attending a promotional event for a movie she starred in, giving a short statement about her ideal type.
In the video, Takahashi Rin wore a khaki-colored short dress, holding a microphone on a stage flooded with flashing cameras. Wearing a picture-perfect smile on her exquisite face, she said: “I always like people who stand firm in being themselves and aren’t easily swayed in their actions by the people or environment around them.”
Shi Bei thought to herself that this condition was quite broad; many people among her fan base could probably fit the description.
Under the non-stop flashing lights, a reporter below continued questioning: “Miss Takahashi, this is your first time starring in a work directed by Director Tachibana. May I ask if you have any special feelings about participating in a百合 (Girls’ Love) production for the first time?”
Takahashi Rin on the screen showed a serious, thoughtful expression for a few seconds, then smiled subtly, her clear phrasing adding an indescribable touch of composure to her sweet smile.
“I indeed put quite a lot of effort into shaping the character Chihiro, because her personality is very different from mine; she’s a very stubborn yet adorable child… Well, as for Girls’ Love works, whether it’s the genre itself that contains a richer surge of delicate and beautiful emotions, or if it’s because it’s Director Tachibana’s work that makes it so, I don’t really know. However, I’ve always believed that love has never existed solely between two different genders…”
Shi Bei calculated the duration of the progress bar and discovered that, excluding the reporter’s question at the beginning, she had actually spent a full minute and forty-two seconds answering just this one question regarding the character’s sexual orientation.
Not only was her phrasing unlike her usual empty, official responses, but even her smile seemed somewhat more sincere.
Could it be that she actually liked girls, too…
Would she speak so at length during other stage interviews as well?
Early in the morning, Shi Bei inexplicably felt a bit stifled in her chest.
She got up to fetch a bag of bread.
Sitting back down at her desk and eating her flavorless breakfast, she couldn’t help picking up her phone again to rewatch Takahashi Rin’s interview video.
The words she spoke regarding her ideal type were extremely vague, yet exceptionally precise when used to describe Kong Lingrou.
Furthermore, listening to it again, her description could be directly summarized as “a very stubborn person.”
How did that warrant being liked as an ideal type?
Unless it was because such a specific person already existed in the first place, resulting in an answer that concealed all that person’s details and only extracted a certain trait.
Although Kong Lingyu had said that when she investigated the people Kong Lingrou had liked, she had ruled out everyone from high school, could her judgment really be trusted?
That story about the birthday was very suspicious to begin with.
It was very likely that Kong Lingrou had failed in a romantic relationship with someone; the gloominess was real, but she simply didn’t want to tell her younger sister the truth. Coincidentally, she didn’t want to celebrate her sister’s birthday either, so she strung the two matters together and made up a story to brush her off.
Most of the time, Kong Lingrou only spoke the truth, but she would also tell lies nonchalantly to quickly achieve a goal, no matter how small.
The more Shi Bei thought about it, the more reasonable her deduction felt.
To begin with, Kong Lingrou’s behavior of joining a band was unusual. Without extraordinary feelings or interests involved, she would absolutely never be willing to do something so troublesome.
Shi Bei chewed on the bread, which was as coarse yet soft as scrap paper, lost in wild thoughts for a long time.
She felt exhausted from her brain’s uncontrollable spinning.
Catching sight of the lecture notes on the desk out of the corner of her eye, she casually picked them up and read the content for a bit.
She hadn’t gone to class in a long time, and added to the fact that it wasn’t her own major, there were suddenly several points she didn’t quite understand.
Just as she subconsciously opened her computer to look them up, she remembered Kong Lingyu.
Back then, to prevent her from seeing all the various materials she had gathered and the things stored in her folders, she had been in a hurry to let her leave first. In fact, she should have kept her around to chat a bit longer.
At the very least, she should have probed to find out what kind of person Takahashi Rin was.
And how her relationship with Kong Lingrou actually was.
Therefore, using the excuse of not understanding the lecture notes, Shi Bei sent a message for help to Kong Lingyu, asking her to come over to her place again when she was free.
Unexpectedly, less than two hours after the message went out, she received a reply.
We’re already at your doorstep!
Shi Bei was taken aback, quickly getting up and limping over to the entryway.
Opening the door, she froze once more upon seeing the person beside Kong Lingyu.
“Why did you come too?”
“I was free today.” Kong Lingrou smiled slightly. “Not welcome?”
“No…”
The smile Shi Bei managed to force out was bone-dry.
“When you sent the message, my sister and I were eating outside. Uncle… I mean, my sister’s dad came to Tokyo on a business trip recently and even invited my dad along; it was kind of a business talk setup.” Only Kong Lingyu would explain things to her seriously: “We were feeling bored sitting there, so when we saw your message, we used it as an excuse to leave early.”
“Oh.”
Looking at Kong Lingrou dressed in casual clothes, Shi Bei’s eyes suddenly lit up. Thinking she had found a suitable opportunity, she said, “You come over to help me as soon as you’re free? You’re so good—truly a gentle, friendly, and helpful person.”
Kong Lingrou looked at her in astonishment.
Then she raised her hand to touch her own forehead, saying in a tone completely flat of emotion, “That wild mushroom soup after the rain on the table was indeed dangerous. I seem to be starting to hallucinate.”
Shi Bei: “…”
Her first active attempt at flatteringly playing up to her had failed so effortlessly.
Kong Lingyu let out a few hearty laughs, stepped inside, and asked, “Did you mark them?”
“What?”
“The places in the lecture notes you didn’t understand—did you mark them?”
With that interruption, Shi Bei had completely forgotten she had called her over using studying as a pretense.
Given that Kong Lingrou herself was also here…
It seemed studying was the only option.
Grudgingly, Shi Bei picked up the lecture notes and sat by the edge of the bed.
“Not yet.”
Kong Lingyu opened her digital notes on her tablet, reviewing her lecture notes while summarizing the content heard in class earlier. Kong Lingrou also participated semi-actively in their study session, taking responsibility for correcting Kong Lingyu whenever she started talking nonsense.
Even though she hadn’t attended the classes, she was extremely familiar with the knowledge within the exam scope.
While listening to Kong Lingyu’s explanations, Shi Bei was still agonizing over the relationship between Kong Lingrou and Takahashi Rin, her brain running on a dual-track mode.
Occasionally raising her eyes, she stole a few glances at Kong Lingrou sitting beside Kong Lingyu.
She noticed that for the dinner gathering, Kong Lingrou had only worn a T-shirt and jeans, dressing seemingly even more casually than when she usually came to teach her Japanese, and she had even left halfway through the dinner with her sister…
In her willful and uninhibited demeanor, one couldn’t tell at all that she was someone who had been brought along by her family from a very young age to learn all kinds of business etiquette.
A thought suddenly flashed into her mind.
Forming a band with others was indeed a troublesome matter, but coming over to help her review lessons on a day off just because of a plea for help… was equally troublesome.
If Kong Lingrou hadn’t lied…
The person she had liked, whose birthday was July 11th…
Is it possible that it was really her?
Even if that “once upon a time” had been very, very brief… so brief that she hadn’t noticed it in the slightest.
This thought had actually been there from the very beginning; even when she laughed it off back then, it hadn’t been completely dismissed. Now it popped up again, overestimating her own importance.
“I’ve written this entire section in my notes. You can just look at my notes; I’ll send them directly to you.”
“Okay.”
Shi Bei picked up her phone and opened the digital notes shared by Kong Lingyu.
Looking at the definitions of technical terms, she accidentally tapped the flashlight while switching to the dictionary app.
Because her mind was wandering, she didn’t notice it for a long time.
Noticing it, Kong Lingyu gave her a reminder.
“Your flashlight is on.”
Shi Bei was a step slow in reacting: “Oh.”
Flustered, she turned it off.
“Bei Bei just feels these business cases are too dark.” Kong Lingrou tilted her head to look at her, a smile on her face as she teased, “She needs to shine a beam of light on herself before she can continue studying.”
Shi Bei: “…………”
Impossible. Whenever this person found even the slightest opportunity to mock her, she did it—no matter how you looked at it, she didn’t seem like someone who had ever secretly had a crush on her…