Lin Cunkang came to attend to Shang Shao’s breakfast early the next morning.
The rain had fallen all night, leaving the sky clear and fresh. Looking out through the balcony, the vast blue sea stretched endlessly before them. The marina was much emptier than before – some yachts had already been sailed out for cruising. Yet the superyacht still lay anchored in the harbor, resembling a white tower on the sea from afar.
Shang Shao had three business meetings that morning. Lin Cunkang was going over the times and schedules with him one by one. Finally, he asked, “Did you have a nice time yesterday?”
“In what regard?”
The old man was getting better at reading between the lines. A single sentence could take on very different flavors depending on how it was interpreted. His tone turned teasing. “So there was indeed a pleasant aspect.”
Shang Shao set down his knife and fork, wiped his hands with a hot towel with slow, meticulous composure, then said calmly, “If you have that much free time to fish for information, why not look someone up for me instead?”
Lin Cunkang assumed an expression of complete readiness to follow orders. Shang Shao gestured for him to fetch an emerald ring from the bedside table in the master bedroom.
Lin Cunkang did as he was told. On the black walnut nightstand lay Shang Shao’s pocket square from the night before, still neatly folded into a square. Resting on top of it was a gemstone ring – a rectangular faceted stone the size of a piece of rock candy, brilliantly fiery, deep and translucent. Clearly, it was worth a fortune. He lifted it together with the pocket square, cradling it in his palm, and brought it to Shang Shao, puzzled. “When did you buy this?”
“Someone threw it up here last night.”
The hotel wasn’t built with vertical walls. Instead, its terraces cascaded outward and downward, layer upon layer, like a cruise ship. Who would have thought that, not long after he’d returned to his room the night before, something would come flying up from the balcony of the executive suite below – slapping loudly onto the solid wood deck outside?
At first, he thought it was a falling coconut, or maybe a frond from the king palm on the outer terrace snapping off. But either of those would have made a much louder noise.
In the brief moment it took to raise a cigarette between his fingers, Shang Shao found himself reluctantly curious. He strolled unhurriedly out of the bedroom, bent down, and picked up the little gleaming green object.
Only when he picked it up did he realize it was a ring. In the moonlight after the rain, the smoke from his cigarette curling into the damp air, he lowered his gaze to examine it for a moment, then removed the silk napkin tied around the band.
The pristine white napkin still bore the hotel’s logo. The little bow knot was slightly damp from the rain on the balcony. He unfolded it – inside, a line of digits written in black marker.
No need to guess. It had to be that woman’s phone number.
“She used this ring as a paperweight?” Uncle Kang asked, incredulous.
Having handled fine jewelry all his life, he could tell at a glance just how valuable the ring was. Using it as a mere weight was nothing short of a travesty.
Shang Shao murmured, “Mm.”
Lin Cunkang, now even more bewildered, hesitated before asking, “Did it not occur to her that she could just call your room’s internal line?”
“I told her.”
“How did you tell her?”
Shang Shao took a sip of black tea, crossed his legs, and said with an air of perfect composure, “Call the internal line.”
Barely a few minutes after she threw the ring, the phone in her room rang – like something out of The Ring. Ying Yin flinched, then picked up the receiver but said nothing, half-expecting some kind of perverse stalker fan on the other end.
The voice that came through was low and cool, “Actually, you could just contact me this way.”
“And then?” Lin Cunkang asked, suppressing a smile, leaning in.
“She said okay, she’d know for next time.”
“Next time?” Lin Cunkang raised an eyebrow.
Shang Shao continued, “I asked her the same thing.”
He had also said, “So you do this sort of thing often.”
“And what did she say?” Lin Cunkang pressed, as if following a TV drama.
What else could Ying Yin say? She had twisted the phone cord tightly in her hand, her voice low and breathless. “It’s the first time.”
She knew perfectly well that the man on the other end wouldn’t believe her. He must have seen every trick in a woman’s book – innocent or wild, straightforward or playing hard to get. He must have seen every kind of feminine charm – pure, seductive, dazzling, sophisticated. Why would he ever believe that a socialite from the glamorous world of high society was giving her number to a man for the first time?
But it was only about returning the shawl anyway.
At the very, very most, there was the faintest thread of defiance against Song Shizhang.
Lin Cunkang tucked the emerald ring into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and asked solicitously, “Need me to do anything?”
“Look up her address and mail the ring to her.”
“Has she already checked out?” Lin Cunkang glanced at the watch on his wrist to confirm the time. “It’s only 7:10.”
“I asked the front desk. She checked out at 4 a.m.”
“All right.” Lin Cunkang nodded. “I’ll take care of it as soon as possible.”
In truth, Lin Cunkang found this task Shang Shao had given him quite simple. After returning yesterday, he had looked up Ying Yin’s acting profile and discovered that she was deeply entangled with the Shang family in all sorts of ways. “She’s the spokesperson for Qili, and she’s good friends with Ke Yu. The two of them collaborated on the Second Young Master’s film Goodbye, Angela…”
Shang Shao cut him off coldly. “Don’t tell anyone about this for now.”
Lin Cunkang understood. Shang Shao didn’t want anyone to know about this chance encounter between him and Miss Ying.
Ying Yin checked out at four in the morning. The car that picked her up wasn’t the company’s Alphard, but another vehicle unfamiliar to her fans.
The driver collected her, and after a journey of just over an hour, she arrived back at the studio makeup room – not a single minute late, but rather half an hour early. The crew’s makeup artists were still yawning in their hotel rooms at that hour.
Since the boss had arrived, her assistant naturally had to be on standby. Ying Yin’s personal assistant was a capable young woman named Cheng Junyi, who had been with her for six years.
Cheng Junyi knew her daily habits inside and out. As always, she handed her a full cup of iced Americano, then fetched an ice pack wrapped in non-woven fabric for her to press against her face to reduce swelling.
Ying Yin held the ice pack to her cheek and heard her mutter in complaint. “Mr. Mai is really something. He knew the director hates actors asking for time off, yet he still insisted on you taking a whole day. If the haters find out, they’ll call you unprofessional again… No, wait,” she realized belatedly, “once the haute couture announcement drops, won’t the whole thing be exposed?”
Exactly.
At 1 PM that afternoon, the announcement would be made – released by her studio, with both she and the brand’s official Weibo reposting. By then, the whole world would know that someone who was supposed to be on set had stepped out to wear a gown and attend a banquet.
She could already picture the fierce war of words between her fans and her haters.
There was a running joke in the industry: female idol fans are all career-oriented, and Ying Yin’s fans were the fighter jets among them. Even though she had already reached the pinnacle among the younger generation of actresses her age, achieving an unprecedented Double Star Triple Award before the age of twenty-seven, it still didn’t matter.
She was too young. That was her misfortune. If she died right now, she’d be a legend. But unfortunately, she was still alive, occasionally making some lousy films, carving flowers out of rotten wood.
Junyi fussed about with small chores, murmuring, “Why does Mr. Mai have to do this…”
Ying Yin didn’t actually blame Mai Anyan. His thinking was purely commercial, and like her, he knew too well which side his bread was buttered on. If Song Shizhang chose to elevate her, how could they refuse such an honor? They might as well wrap themselves in a gold-threaded quilt and have four eunuchs carry her over.
“The dress and jewelry are in the car. Pack them up and deliver them to Mr. Song in person later,” Ying Yin said, downing the iced Americano in one gulp as if it were medicine. “And tell him that one of the rings got lost – the hotel couldn’t find it. Apologize to him.”
“Huh?” Cheng Junyi froze. “It’s really lost? Which one?”
“The five-carat one.”
Junyi wanted to kneel down in despair. But Ying Yin wasn’t worried. She reassured her, “He cares about his reputation. He won’t give you a hard time.”
Just as dawn broke, the production team began to stir.
The director’s surname was Fang. He was one of the representative figures of China’s fifth generation of filmmakers – an old-school academic, meticulous in his ways, and famously strict on set. The film he was shooting was to be his final work. He polished every detail with painstaking care, and the closer they got to wrapping, the more exacting he became.
Ying Yin had asked for time off to attend a tedious banquet, which had already rubbed him the wrong way. Today, she would have to tread softly and give 120 percent.
“Are you ready for the snow fight scene this afternoon?” The director came over after the morning wrap, accompanied by the action choreographer and his team.
Ying Yin nodded. “I’m ready.”
“Don’t go out for a meal and come back thinking you’re some delicate prima donna. Get back into your character’s headspace as soon as possible.”
Junyi had already returned from seeing Song Shizhang. When she heard the director’s words, she wanted to argue, but Ying Yin quietly pressed her hand against the back of hers to stop her.
Junyi fumed inwardly. Since when had her boss ever been unprofessional? The director’s snide remark was completely unfounded.
The action choreographer had a few supporting actors following behind him. He waved at the two of them. “You two, let’s run through the scene one more time, shall we?”
The shooting set had already been arranged. The scene was set in a freezing, snowy wilderness – but since there was no snow in Ning City, it was filmed inside a large ice house. The snow wasn’t thick; beneath it lay hard, gravelly dirt. In this scene, Ying Yin’s character was supposed to fight a supporting actor for a national treasure, then get shot.
The supporting actor was male, built like a mountain, and the script dictated that his character’s combat ability far surpassed the female lead’s. Throughout the entire scene, he would throw punches and kicks, while Ying Yin rolled on the ground, scraped across the floor, and performed desperate, life-or-death fighting moves.
The group had run through the entire sequence before eating. By then, their boxed lunches had long gone cold. With time running short, Junyi used hot water to soften the rice for her, chattering anxiously, “You only slept four hours last night, and now you don’t even get a noon break…”
Ying Yin just smiled. “Don’t make a long face when we go in, or the director will think we’re complaining again.” With that, she set down her chopsticks and boxed lunch, patted her face, and got up to touch up her makeup.
Once inside the shooting area, where the temperature hovered around minus four degrees Celsius, all the crew members bundled up in down jackets and military coats. Only Ying Yin wore a leather jacket, tight pants, and fingerless gloves, her face marked with tiny cuts from the gravel – a perfect picture of the stereotypical tough martial arts heroine from film and television.
“Ying Yin, come here,” the director said, using an uncharacteristically conciliatory tone. “Here’s the thing – no protective gear, and we’re removing all the mats underneath. Just shoot it like that, alright? We want to capture that raw, brutal, hard feel. When your body hits the ground, it needs to have that impact.” He smacked his fist into his palm with a sharp pop. “Fist to flesh, every time.”
Ying Yin hesitated for a very brief moment, then kept her expression neutral. “Alright.”
This deviated from the original plan. Very few people knew about it – not even Junyi, who assumed Ying Yin was wearing protective gear underneath and that the floor was secretly padded with perfectly hidden mats.
No one anticipated that this fight scene would end up being shot seven times.
Director Fang’s eagle-like eyes were fixed on the monitor.
“Again. Too slow getting up.”
“Again. That fall wasn’t right.”
“Run another one.”
“No. Adjust. Use your brain to act!”
“Cut. Your eyes are weak. What are you doing? Sleepwalking?”
“Too much dancing yesterday? No strength left?”
The director’s megaphone was slammed down and swung back and forth from its cable. The entire set fell dead silent.
After every take, the makeup and wardrobe team had to rush in to touch up Ying Yin’s makeup, wipe her leather jacket clean, and brush the mud and snow off her tight pants. As they worked in tense silence, the styling assistant suddenly let out a soft “Huh?” “How did this get torn? Was it torn before?”
Ying Yin pressed her hand reassuringly. “Don’t say anything. Just get me a new pair.”
Only the styling assistant saw the mottled wound on her knee – the skin broken, blood and tissue fluid from beneath the skin congealed into a crust, which Ying Yin wiped away with a wet wipe.
In truth, every move – the blocks, the grappling, the rolling, the kneeling, the throwing -that entire complex sequence of choreography had long been etched into her muscle memory. As one of the few actresses in the entertainment industry today who could truly perform martial arts roles, her physical control was top-tier. If it hadn’t hurt that badly, how could she have been half a beat too slow?
On the eighth take, the director finally let her off the hook, offering just two words: “Barely acceptable.”
Walking off set, Ying Yin’s steps appeared perfectly normal, except for her fingers, which were bright red from the cold. Junyi hurriedly wrapped a down jacket around her shoulders and handed her hot water and a warm towel.
Ying Yin clutched the scalding disposable cup, curling up on a low campstool as wave after wave of shivering slowly subsided from deep within her body.
“Would you like a massage?” Junyi offered.
The moment her hands touched Ying Yin’s shoulders, Ying Yin’s expression changed. “No need!”
Her voice was tight. Her whole body was tense.
Startled, Junyi immediately withdrew her hands.
After nearly two straight hours of non-stop shooting, Ying Yin’s scenes for the day finally came to an end. It was already four in the afternoon, and the weather was beautiful. The moment she stepped out of the ice house, golden sunlight poured over her, making her want nothing more than to lie down right there and fall asleep.
Junyi steadied her from behind, her voice laced with worry. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”
Back in the dressing room, she changed clothes and removed her makeup, then was driven back to the hotel by the Alphard van. Seeing how exhausted Ying Yin was, Junyi tried to cheer her up. “When I saw Mr. Song this morning, I didn’t get a chance to tell you – he didn’t seem upset at all. He said not to worry about it.”
Ying Yin smiled faintly. That little act of defiance had really been like a pebble tossed into a lake – not a single ripple to show for it.
“Oh, right,” Cheng Junyi pulled out her phone. “The edited photos should have been posted by now. Let’s see how your fans are praising you…”
On the trending list, the hashtag #YingYinHauteCouture stood out prominently. Junyi’s cheerful tone came to an abrupt halt.
“What did they say?” Ying Yin opened her eyes.
“N-Nothing,” Junyi hid her phone, her smile stiff. “Just the usual stuff – ‘Marry me,’ ‘My wife is so beautiful,’ things like that.”
She was an honest person by nature, which meant she was terrible at lying.
Ying Yin didn’t bother playing games with her. She unlocked her own phone and logged into her anonymous account to see for herself.
Many marketing accounts had posted the same content – identical captions, clearly bought and paid for in advance. But the comment sections were a complete disaster:
[So tired of this. You actually have the nerve to post this?]
[You think wearing haute couture is more important than making movies now?]
[At last year’s film festival, you said acting would always be your career. Now you’re leaving the set for a promo event. I don’t see an ounce of professionalism from you.]
[If parties are really this important to you, just get married and retire from acting. Why make us suffer?]
[Someone had to say it. This is just ugly.]
A few comments also mentioned Song Shizhang, saying she was obviously trying to become a “boss’s wife.” Those got downvoted over two thousand times by her fans. Bystanders remarked that watching the fans crash out like that was absolutely hilarious.
The phone screen went dark. When it blacked out, the faint glimmer reflected in Ying Yin’s eyes vanished along with it. She closed her eyes and handed the phone back to Junyi. “Cut off the internet for three days.”
This was the psychological composure expected of a mature, sensible, weathered female star – and the wisest course of action to take.
She was no longer that wide-eyed girl fresh into the industry, who, when criticized, had no idea what she’d done wrong and could only grip her phone in bewilderment.
The hotel where the crew was staying wasn’t far away. Ying Yin returned to her room, filled the bathtub with water, and lowered her bruised and reddened body into it. Her knees, shoulder blades, and elbows were all scraped raw – wounds of varying depths streaked with blood.
The pain from the hot water hit her so intensely that she had to hold her breath for a long moment.
Someone must have let it slip. The director found out about her injuries, and after finishing a few dialogue-driven scenes, he mercifully granted her two days off.
Ying Yin spent those two days in a daze, sleeping on and off in her room.
What she didn’t know was that during those days of disconnection from the internet and her phone, a strange call came in every morning and every evening around dinner time. But Junyi strictly followed her boss’s orders and didn’t answer a single one.
It wasn’t until the third day, when the online uproar over the haute couture and her absence from the set had finally died down, that Junyi returned the phone to her and reported, “There’s this person who kept calling – an international number. I think it’s one of those obsessive stalker fans trying to get into your head.”
It wouldn’t have been the first time. Stalker fans always found a way – resourceful, pervasive. This one was just particularly clever, going so far as to buy a non-mainland number, Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan.
Ying Yin wasn’t interested. “And then?”
“I cursed them out,” Junyi said, full of righteous indignation. “Only people close to you know this number, and you’ve never registered it anywhere. Why would some stranger be calling? Even scammers aren’t that persistent. So this morning I sent them a long, nasty text, and then I blocked them.”
Ying Yin let out a small “Pfft,” amused by the young woman’s spirit. But after laughing for a moment, a faint sense of unease crept over her. Wait –
Strange calls, international numbers, exactly two calls at fixed times every day, no excessive disturbance otherwise…
It couldn’t be –
Her expression shifted. She opened the messaging app and widened her eyes, reading every word of Junyi’s rant.
Wonderful. She had called him a perverted stalker, said his twisted affection was something she wanted no part of, and told him he was nothing but a bug living his whole life in a sewer.
“…”
Even if Miss Ying exhausted a lifetime of imagination, she could never picture the man born to sit in a Maybach frowning at a text message like that, questioning everything about his life.
