Early morning, 6:30.
Shenzhen Bay No. 1, Building T5, Study.
The winter solstice had just passed, the nights long and the days short.
Outside the window, it was still pitch black.
Inside the spacious study, the main lights were off, only a warm-toned, eye-protecting desk lamp was lit.
The central air conditioning was turned off, making the room slightly damp and cold.
Liu Qingning sat on an expensive ergonomic chair, still wearing her loungewear from last night.
She seed to have maintained this posture for a very long ti.
Her hands and feet were icy cold, yet she felt no sensation.
On the computer screen before her was a dense interface of IDE code lines.
The cursor blinked on the last line.
Staying up late was nothing unusual for her.
From participating in Professor Wang Chang's research team in university to later founding Century Zhixue.
To get an algorithm running, to optimize a model, she often worked through the night.
The exhaustion back then was fulfilling, the sense of achievent watching the progress bar slowly fill.
But never had any night been as agonizing as this one.
The work that used to calm her down quickly was now completely ineffective.
Her brain was functioning, but her logic was a tangled ss.
Though cute and sweet in appearance, Liu Qingning was, at her core, an extrely hardcore science student.
She was accustod to deconstructing the world with logic, deducing the future with plans and formulas.
Encounter a problem, analyze the problem, solve the problem.
This was her mode of thinking.
Therefore, for these past days, she had been constructing a "self-deception" logical model.
As long as I work hard enough, as long as I gain real power within Qingning Technology, as long as I beco strong enough,
I can catch up to his pace, fulfill our promise of "eting at the peak,"
I might have the ability to compete for him.
But this program that had been running for so long was utterly shattered yesterday afternoon by that Moonlight Trust.
Systerror.
Her so-called efforts, her so-called maneuvering of personnel within the company, fighting for a voice.
In their eyes, it was nothing more than child's play.
They even directly packaged the entire company's control rights, placed it on a platter, and handed it to her.
Qingning Technology.
Though it bore her na, it was a skyscraper jointly built by Tang Song, Jin ixiao, and others.
She was like a laughable thief, attempting to steal the sword from the giant's hand.
And with this... she still wanted to et Tang Song at the peak?
Utterly ridiculous.
This wasn't just the shattering of self-esteem; it was the collapse of emotional logic.
Her disguise and self-deception had developed a fundantal Fatal Bug.
And no matter how she debugged it, she couldn't fix it.
She was forced to confront the core of this Bug—
What kind of person was Tang Song, really?
In her past mories and database, he had always been that silly Little Song who needed her care.
That boy with a clean smile riding a bicycle.
But the data had long been unequal.
While she buried her head in books and research.
Starting from his high school graduation in 2016, he and Jin ixiao had already supported each other, carving a path through the bloody capital battlefield of Wall Street.
In 2017, he took Su Yu's hand and elevated a down-and-out idol into a world superstar.
There was also Tang Yi Precision and the unfathomable Ouyang Xianyue.
And all these years, Tang Song had never discussed these things with her.
Perhaps he was protecting her. Or perhaps he was isolating her.
Those won, each one more outstanding, more powerful than her, had each participated earlier in his magnificent life.
They were more suitable for the present Tang Song than she was.
"I'm a Bug too."
Liu Qingning looked at the blinking cursor on the screen, murmuring to herself.
Loneliness, mixed with the chill of the winter morning, seeped bit by bit into her bones.
Right at that mont.
"Buzz—"
The phone placed by the desk suddenly lit up.
Simultaneously, a notification popped up on the WeChat desktop client.
[Su Yu: [Picture]]
Liu Qingning's body stiffened slightly.
Su Yu, who was about to go on a date with Tang Song in Paris.
She pressed her dry, cracked lips together, a trace of stubbornness and wariness instinctively appearing on her face.
After a long silence.
She finally reached out, grasped the mouse, and clicked open the chat window.
It was a photo.
The main subject was an open lyric notebook.
On it, written in black ink, were lines of elegant yet forceful handwriting.
Liu Qingning's fingers tightened slightly, her gaze falling.
Qingning, seeing these words is like seeing .
It's raining in Paris right now, while Shencheng should be about to see dawn.
It's been a while since we formally t, but I've never spoken to you directly about the story between and Tang Song.
I know you've investigated privately, but that's just a corner of the story.
I drank a lot tonight.
Alcohol makes people honest, and also makes them lose their sense of proportion.
So I want to tell you that story, the one that belongs only to him and .
In the spring of 2017, for , the world was a silent film that had lost its sound and color.
Back then, I was betrayed by my teammates, besieged by the entire internet, treated by my company as a discardable pawn.
Every day I woke up, my phone was filled with insults, contract terminations, warnings.
I stood at the edge of a cliff; just a little more wind, and I would have jumped.
On that very day.
He suddenly appeared in Anzhu Park.
Handed a cherry blossom branch, played a guitar piece, then dragged off to have breakfast.
He was like a domineering, unreasonable beam of light, without asking, without comforting, forcefully splitting open my darkness.
Clearing the skies, bringing endless sunshine.
......
To repay him, and to be worthy of him.
I struggled desperately, I gave up all willfulness, gave up fragility, gave up emotions.
Polished myself inch by inch into the "suitable version" in his eyes.
I strived to beco his perfect female star.
Not noisy, not out of control, not dragging anyone down.
He beca my god.
My faith.
The only reason I continued living.
I thought, as long as I was obedient enough, as long as I stood high enough, I could get closer to him.
But, no.
That Christmas Eve in 2018, which was also my birthday.
I wore my most beautiful dress, mustered my courage, knocked on his door, wanting to give myself to him as a gift.
In the end, he just talked to about work for four hours.
That night, he didn't even hug .
The next day, he disappeared from my life.
Just like when he first appeared, without warning.
Later, he still supported tirelessly with resources.
Roles, endorsents, opportunities, never missing.
But in life...
I couldn't see him privately.
ssages were rarely replied to.
All contact had clear boundaries.
I was like a doll he had personally carved to perfection, then forgotten in the farthest corner of the display cabinet.
The lights were bright.
But no one ever ca close again.
Liu Qingning's pupils dilated slightly.
How was this possible? That was Su Yu!
The woman all n in the world dread of.
Tang Song actually...
She continued reading down, the text becoming denser, between the lines exuding a thick sense of humility and madness, and a loneliness that pierced through the paper.
Saying it out loud, you might not believe it.
Before June 2023, the most intimate physical contact between us was rely holding hands.
That's all.
Many nights, lying in unfamiliar hotel rooms, I couldn't help but doubt whether I truly existed in his world.
Or was I just a character in his ga.
....
To make him look at more, I used almost every thod I could think of.
I insisted on sending him invitations to every concert, every premiere.
I deliberately created scandals, trying to use public opinion to force his hand.
In movies and TV shows, I played roles he might like.
Jin ixiao. You.
I was like a kept bird trapped in a cage.
Even if it hurt, even if I bled.
I just wanted him to know, I was still here.
......
But no matter how high I stood.
No matter how hard I tried to get close.
He always remained in place, calm and distant.
On the paper, there were several obvious creases.
The ink had smudged in so places, as if wet by water.
Those were tear stains.
Liu Qingning's hand holding the mouse began to tremble violently.
The expression on her face shifted from blankness to shock, finally morphing into an indescribable complexity.
How could this be? Why was it like this?
This was completely different from her assumptions.
Su Yu's words weren't adorned with flowery language, only straightforward pain.
That page full of "yearning but not obtaining."
Was far, far more painful and desperate than her current state.
She tried to put herself in Su Yu's shoes, feeling like she would absolutely go crazy.
This letter.
Let her see a scarred Su Yu for the first ti.
And also glimpse a completely different Tang Song.
She sat there in a daze, her mind in turmoil, her worldview teetering between collapse and reconstruction.
She didn't know how much ti had passed.
"Buzz—"
The phone vibrated again, breaking the dead silence.
[Su Yu: [Picture]]
Another photo of the lyric notebook.
Different from the previous one, this ti the handwriting was more hurried, the ink not yet dry, the pen strokes even tearing the paper.
Conveying the writer's currently uncalm heartbeat.
What I described above is the Tang Song in my eyes.
And the Tang Song in their eyes.
But that is not the Tang Song that belongs to you.
To understand him.
I once went alone to Jing County, walked that dirt road leading to the township, sat by the track of your high school for an entire afternoon.
I once tried, inch by inch, to touch his past, understand his friends, explore those preferences I never participated in.
In the end, I discovered that Tang Song himself was a fractured puzzle.
He wasn't a single, stable existence, but rather like two worlds folded into different dinsions.
So, Qingning, please close your eyes.
Discard all his achievents in his career, look directly at the boy who walked through your youth with you.
If you truly love him, I think your intuition will definitely tell you the answer.
The him you see is the real him.
Even if it's logically unexplainable, even if it sounds utterly unscientific, even absurd.
But this is the fact.
Whether you're willing to believe it or not.
You can imagine it as two intersecting parallel worlds.
The two states of him coexist.
And the one with you is the one whose joys and sorrows are tied to your words.
In this mode.
He is warm, hardworking, even a bit clumsy.
From his perspective, you are still that most outstanding Bai Yueguang.
You got into a university in the Imperial Capital, full of ambition, with a new life, new friends, a broader world.
While he was behind, desperately chasing your footsteps, afraid that with one misstep, he might lose you.
Later, the distance grew farther, the gap in reality seed to widen.
Even if you had your own helplessness and plans, for him back then, it might have felt like a long, silent "being cut off and left behind."
And his current achievents, instead, seem more like a miracle born to avoid this tragedy.
Qingning, from beginning to end.
I never cared how high his comrcial achievents were, nor how much power he held, nor his appearance.
I just loved him.
So I envy you.
Envy you to the point of madness.
I was like a despicable voyeur, silently observing his every move towards you.
I once intervened in the financing of Century Zhixue, later secretly facilitated your move to Shencheng.
All to confirm whether that Tang Song I couldn't reach truly existed.
The result filled with despair.
He truly existed.
But he was very, very far from .
I want to break free.
I want to transform from a ticulously designed "ga character," "female star," into soone who truly stands by his side.
Even if the ending doesn't belong to .
......
Liu Qingning's hand holding the mouse trembled uncontrollably and violently.
Her vision blurred again and again by welling tears, which she stubbornly wiped away each ti.
She didn't doubt Su Yu's words.
Nor did she have the mind to ponder over them.
mories began flashing wildly.
She rembered those late-night phone calls during university.
She chattered endlessly on the phone about the neon lights of the Imperial Capital, the future of artificial intelligence, the wave of big data, about those obscure high-end terms.
She was full of ambition, the world seemingly spread out at her feet.
She encouraged him to learn C , to learn data structures.
And Tang Song on the other end of the line always listened quietly.
Clumsily trying to find topics, then falling silent because he couldn't get a word in.
Gradually, silence outweighed responses.
She rembered his first ti coming to the Imperial Capital.
Standing on the edge of her social circle, cautiously watching the gatherings, topics, and classmates she had long grown accustod to.
She also rembered that day, the Beginning of Winter in 2022, before she left the Imperial Capital.
In his rented room, eating the dumplings he cooked.
He lowered his head and said, "Qingning, I wish you a bright future, may you realize your dreams soon."
At the ti, she took those words for granted.
Now they felt like a delayed thorn, piercing her heart fiercely.
The mories continued, unstoppable.
That Tang Song who, because she casually said "I want to eat Zhabing," would ride his bike all over half the county;
That Tang Song who, when she suddenly got her period, blushed, steeled himself, and went to the convenience store to buy sanitary pads;
That Tang Song who, in the library, while she was asleep, carefully draped his coat over her, then just stared at her foolishly.
....
Outside the window, a faint light had appeared at so point.
The sea surface of Shencheng Bay gradually awakened in the dawn light.
"Buzz buzz buzz—" The phone vibrated again.
[Su Yu sent a voice call invitation.]
Liu Qingning looked at that na and profile picture, took a deep breath, and clicked to answer.
She didn't speak. She even held her breath.
The computer speakers were also quiet, only the faint hum of electrical noise and the distant sound of Paris rain.
That rain sound, spanning seven ti zones, sounded particularly lonely.
After a mont.
Su Yu's sowhat hoarse, lazily drunken voice ca through the receiver, "Qingning, this is a song I wrote a long ti ago, never released. It's the song I would sing to him, in my fantasy, if I were you, if I could possess his entire youth."
Then ca a soft, unaccompanied singing.
No backing track, no vocal tuning.
Only Su Yu's voice, hailed as heavenly, stripped of all technique and embellishnt, carrying a narrative quality that seed to pierce through ti and space.
Flowing slowly through the Shencheng morning.
The wind rolls up the phoenix tree flowers, falling into the evening glow.
The bicycle creaks and creaks, reluctant to go ho.
You crumpled the corner of your shirt, hiding words unspoken.
Was it that sentence, the answer that made my face blush.
The wind and sand from the north blew into midsumr.
Under the mottled tree shade, thoughts grew wildly, sprouting.
Gently tapped by ti...
.......
France, Paris.
Late night.
The rain outside the window grew heavier, pattering loudly against the floor-to-ceiling windows, blurring the distant Eiffel Tower.
Su Yu sat cross-legged on a soft, long-haired rug.
Her seaweed-like thick black hair cascaded over her shoulders and back.
A few strands, damp with sweat and the sll of alcohol, clung intermittently to her flushed cheeks, exuding a breathtakingly disheveled beauty.
Her eyes were closed, her cheeks showing an intoxicating red, her long eyelashes still trembling slightly with the vibrations of her song.
Her voice grew softer, gentler, like a dream:
"The cicadas' song grows hoarse, the phoenix trees rustle."
"Years speak not, ti paints the picture."
The singing slowly ended.
The lingering notes seed to entwine within the Paris rain, also echoing in the Shencheng dawn.
Slow to fade.
After a brief silence.
Su Yu chuckled lightly, her voice seemingly returning to its usual laziness, "It's dawn over in Shencheng, right? Rember to eat breakfast, have so hot porridge, don't ruin your stomach. Breakfast, half of life."
"Take care of yourself, Qingning."
"Hanging up."
"Beep—"
The call ended.
Su Yu's hand dropped, the phone sliding onto the rug.
She sat there, motionless for a long ti.
After a long while.
She reached out, grabbed the wine bottle, and directly took two big gulps from the mouth.
A bit too hurried.
Purple-red wine trickled down her swan-like neck, over her delicate collarbone, staining the jade-white skin of her chest crimson.
Red and white, black and purple.
Under the dim yellow light, interweaving into a decadent, broken, bewitching beauty.
"Cough, cough..."
She choked slightly, tears glistening at the corners of her eyes, but she didn't bother to wipe them.
Drunkenness surged like a tide.
She picked up the phone from the rug again.
With blurred vision, she unlocked the screen, tapped into the WeChat contact saved as [Song].
Her finger scrolled up.
The screen's light illuminated her dazed amber eyes.
The chat history was filled with her intermittent ssages, photos, shares.
Intermittent, densely packed.
Like a personal diary.
And he had hardly ever replied.
Over the years, this had been the norm.
She was long accustod to it, long numb.
But tonight, on this night just after comforting her "rival in love," this loneliness felt like a bone-deep parasite, gnawing and corroding her heart.
"Heh..."
Su Yu let out a low laugh.
She pressed the voice ssage button.
Her body leaned back, sinking into the soft sofa.
She pressed the phone against her burning cheek.
In a tone mixed with heavy drunkenness, coquettishness, grievance, even a hint of a sob, she murmured:
"Tang Song..."
"Why aren't you here yet..."
"Please... co quickly, okay..."
"I miss you... really miss you..."
Her finger released.
The voice ssage whooshed out, sent.
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