At the end of Ginkgo Avenue, Shen Qinghuan stood under the plane tree at the school gate, waiting for Su You.
The evening wind rustled the ginkgo leaves, and a few drifted onto her shoulders. She brushed them off and glanced at her phone.
Su You said she’d be there soon.
In the mouth of the Su family young miss, “soon” usually meant another ten to twenty minutes.
Using this time, Shen Qinghuan leaned against the tree trunk and went over the day’s events in her head.
Passing the audition with unanimous votes and three thousand yuan in hand—good news.
The violin was smashed, and even though the culprit was caught, the compensation wouldn’t amount to much. Yu Heng would surely have issues with her later…
Shen Qinghuan sighed.
Whatever. Take it one step at a time.
A white luxury car turned the corner and pulled up smoothly in front of her.
The window rolled down, and Su You’s face appeared in the night, makeup flawless but her expression tinged with impatience.
Su You glanced at her: “Why is there dust on your clothes? Did someone hit you?”
Shen Qinghuan looked down—it was from leaning against the tree just now. She patted it off and opened the passenger door to get in.
“I watched your performance today.”
Su You started the car, eyes on the road, her tone as if discussing something trivial: “It was alright. Passably listenable.”
Shen Qinghuan fastened her seatbelt and turned her head to smile at her: “Didn’t you say this afternoon you weren’t going to watch the livestream?”
“I said I’d barely glance at it,” Su You corrected.
The car pulled onto the main road, neon lights receding one by one outside the window.
“I booked a French restaurant. Don’t embarrass me like last time when you ran into that Lin Chen unexpectedly.”
Su You gripped the steering wheel, speaking quickly: “By the way, that variety show of yours—after passing the audition, do you have to keep competing?”
Shen Qinghuan nodded: “Mm. After advancing, there’s a training camp with intensive practice—recorded shows plus livestreams. Probably over two months.”
Su You’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
“Two months? Then where will you live?”
“The production company arranges accommodation. Centralized management.”
Su You wrinkled her nose: “Some boot-camp-like miserable place. I don’t know why you insist on throwing yourself into it.”
Shen Qinghuan gave a wry smile.
Afraid that Su You might actually transfer her money, she could only say: “I want to practice performing alongside others.”
“Isn’t competing at school enough?” the young miss Su still didn’t understand.
“You’ve really changed lately, like a different person. The old Shen Qinghuan would never volunteer to suffer like that.”
The old Shen Qinghuan… isn’t coming back.
Shen Qinghuan obviously couldn’t say that to Su You, so she changed the subject: “Youyou, how are Gu Nian and the others doing?”
Su You curled her lip: “You little heartless thing, finally remembering to ask about your friends?”
Laughing and bantering, the car drove out of the Jingda campus.
A few hours later, after finishing the French dinner, Su You drove Shen Qinghuan back to school.
The car stopped at the intersection by the school’s main road. Su You pulled a paper bag from the back seat and stuffed it into Shen Qinghuan’s arms.
“Desserts. The signature items from the downtown branch. You’re too skinny as it is.”
Shen Qinghuan hugged the heavy paper bag: “Thank you, Youyou!”
“I told you not to call me Youyou.” Su You turned her face away and started the car. “Go on, get inside.”
Shen Qinghuan closed the car door and stood by the roadside watching the luxury car disappear into the night before turning to walk toward her dormitory.
She stood by the flower bed downstairs, pulled out her phone, scrolled to her contacts, found Professor Zhou’s number, and dialed.
It rang three times before the other end picked up.
“Professor Zhou, I’m sorry to bother you so late.”
“Qinghuan? It’s fine, go ahead.” Professor Zhou’s voice carried a hint of surprise, but it was kind.
Shen Qinghuan took a deep breath. “Professor Zhou, my violin was smashed by someone today, and it probably won’t be usable until it’s repaired.”
“I’d like to borrow the best violin in the campus practice rooms—the one that’s always locked in the glass cabinet. I’m willing to pay the office a rental fee!”
A good violin was hard to come by, and the collector’s piece in the practice room was the most likely option Shen Qinghuan could think of to borrow.
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the line.
“Ah, that violin…” Professor Zhou paused. “All right, come to my office tomorrow to get the key.”
“That violin really is excellent. What kind of teacher would charge a student? Just use it and practice hard—don’t let it go to waste.”
“Thank you, Professor Zhou.”
After hanging up, Shen Qinghuan held her phone in her hand as the image of that violin surfaced in her mind.
She had seen it before in the original owner’s memories.
At the very back of the practice room stood a separate glass display case, inside which lay a solitary violin. Its body had an amber lacquer finish, entirely hand-carved, made from century-old mahogany.
That violin’s craftsmanship and materials were two grades below the antique violin she had borrowed today, but it would be enough for her.
The original owner had once heard Professor Zhou mention that the violin had been donated specifically to the music academy by an anonymous benefactor, with the stipulation that it be kept in the practice room for students to borrow.
Shen Qinghuan had never thought much of it before.
But after what happened today with Lu Shiyan’s violin, a thought suddenly popped into her head.
Could that anonymous donor be Lu Shiyan? Donated specifically for his ex-fiancée, out of fear that she wouldn’t have a good violin to use at school?
Shen Qinghuan shook her head, casting aside the wild fantasy.
How could things in this world be such a coincidence?
She carried the paper bag upstairs, pushed open the dorm room door, set the desserts on the table, and flopped onto the bed.
The text notification from the show’s production team said that contestants who passed the auditions had to officially enter the camp between tomorrow and the day after, where they would be under unified management in preparation for filming.
Contestants’ phones would be confiscated and returned only at fixed intervals.
Over a month without constant access to her phone… for a modern person, that was practically deadly.
Shen Qinghuan rolled over, facing the wall.
At that moment, the plot of the original novel suddenly surged into her mind.
About a year after the Sheng Yao Dian Feng variety show ended, Father Shen and Mother Shen were in a serious car accident during a business trip.
Father Shen and Mother Shen died on the spot. The eldest brother, Shen Yanzhou, had also been in that car and suffered severe spinal injuries. Though he survived, he was left disabled and needed a cane to walk from then on.
That was a plot point mentioned only in passing in the original book.
In the ending portion of the book, the sweet daily life of Bai Anqi and Lin Chen took up most of the pages.
The the Shen family’s tragedy occupied only a few short lines, like a final punishment for the villainous supporting female character.
Shen Qinghuan clutched the blanket tightly.
She wasn’t the original owner, but she had taken over the original owner’s body.
Father Shen, Mother Shen, and Shen Yanzhou weren’t her family, but they had been good to the original owner.
She couldn’t just watch those things happen and do nothing.
But there was still a year before it happened.
She needed to build a relationship first before she could find a chance to change the plot.
Shen Qinghuan picked up her phone again, sat up, and leaned against the pillow.
She opened her contacts and scrolled to the entry labeled “Mom.”
In her memories, when the female lead had thrown her tantrum and cut ties with her family, she had deleted the numbers of all her relatives and friends.
Only her parents’ numbers—she couldn’t bring herself to delete them in the end, though she never looked at them again either.
Shen Qinghuan’s finger hovered above the screen for a long while, then she switched to the messaging interface.
Better to send a text first, ease into things. Take it slow.
Shen Qinghuan entered the number on the send page. Out of a guilty conscience—after all, she wasn’t the original owner—she thought carefully, pressing one digit at a time.
1, 3, 8…
At the fifth digit, Shen Qinghuan’s finger paused.
These numbers…
Her fingers seemed to know them better than her mind did.
No need to recall, no need to check—she just seemed to naturally know what the next digit was.
As if she’d been made to memorize it by her parents back when she was a toddler, just learning to talk.