Chapter 11

*Moon-Chasing Diary*
“At least the boy she once loved with all her heart wasn’t swallowed by the river of ‘time’—wasn’t twisted beyond recognition.”
— *Moon-Chasing Diary*
-
At Huitai’s anniversary event, the roof collapsed. Qin Sang, as the spokesperson, didn’t appear. It was clear that renewal was a dead letter. The so-called beautiful story of rare kindred spirits ultimately lost to the catalyst of real profit.
She felt regret—not regret at losing an endorsement, but regret that she had let down Madam Cai Shuyu’s past appreciation.
Sister Wen was busy with PR. Their cooperation with Huitai had been too tight. Negotiations breaking down was one thing; damaging reputation was another. Outsiders didn’t know the twists and turns. If she didn’t control the narrative, people with ulterior motives would easily steer public opinion.
Half an hour ago, she’d still been discussing details with Huitai’s representative. Then the other party took a call and returned with a troubled expression, politely saying, “Sorry. Today’s event has been canceled. As for cooperation… you may have to wait and discuss it personally with our Chairman Cai.”
Sister Wen sensed trouble. Sure enough, when she returned, only Xiaoxiao was waiting in the lounge. Seeing her, Xiaoxiao looked like the sky had fallen and obediently confessed the whole thing.
She waited in the lounge until now. Only now did Qin Sang return—and she wasn’t alone.
Sister Wen demanded coldly, “You’d better give me a reasonable explanation. Why did Huitai suddenly decide not to renew with us?”
“This matter—” Xie Yuncheng hadn’t left yet. The cause was related to him; he didn’t dodge it.
Qin Sang cut in. “I’ll explain this to you later.”
Sister Wen looked at her with a complicated expression, frowning. She couldn’t erupt. She could only endure, forcing her anger down and barely maintaining reason. With a smile that wasn’t a smile, she spoke politely: “Mr. Xie, Sang-sang and I have some private matters to discuss. Would it be convenient for you to let us talk alone?”
Xie Yuncheng glanced sideways. Qin Sang smiled and waved at him, mouthing: “It’s fine.”
He paused and answered, “Okay.”
Sister Wen, headache pounding, lifted a hand and waved. “Xiaoxiao, take Mr. Xie out for some air first.”
Xiaoxiao hurried forward. “Mr. Xie, let’s go.”
_
Sister Wen and Qin Sang shut the door to talk. The lounge wasn’t well soundproofed; occasionally you could hear two lines of argument. Of course, it was all Sister Wen’s one-sided roaring and scolding.
She was clearly furious. Sister Wen opened her mouth and cursed: “Are you crazy? At this moment you offend the wrong people—Huitai’s people? Do you think you have too many endorsements?”
Even through the door, Xiaoxiao shivered from the shouting. She secretly lifted her eyes to peek. The man beside her stood tall and straight. The edge of his black jacket pressed at his shoulder and neck. His shoulders were square enough to hold the jacket’s shape. A black baseball cap sat on his head, brim low. He was tall; from her angle, she could only see a slice of his cold-white jawline—smooth and clear. His Adam’s apple moved slowly as he swallowed.
So handsome, Xiaoxiao thought. She’d seen plenty of male artists—handsome, trying to act cool, giving off thick mature-man hormones. Not one could compare to Sang-sang’s high school classmate.
Maybe because of his profession, he carried a contradictory beauty: worldly, yet not vulgar. Cold and proud with distance—yet that very restrained “asexual” chill was oddly captivating.
Sister Wen’s voice wasn’t low. The lounge was quiet. Almost every time she cursed, Xie Yuncheng’s brow would crease once.
“Are they going to be okay like this?” he asked.
Xiaoxiao came back to herself from the “beauty impact.” Hearing the commotion inside, she shook her head, unconcerned. “It’s fine. Sister Wen is always like this. Once she’s done venting, she’ll be fine.”
Xie Yuncheng looked surprised. “Always?”
“Yeah. Sang-sang often gets into trouble. Sister Wen has no choice,” Xiaoxiao smiled. “But don’t be fooled by how often they argue—they’re actually very close. Two years ago Sister Wen’s husband got lung cancer. By the time they found it, it was already late stage. Sang-sang gave Sister Wen a long leave so she could stay with her lover through the last stretch of his life.”
“After her husband passed, for a long time Sister Wen couldn’t pull herself out of the shadow. Sang-sang even pushed off all work, took Sister Wen traveling around the world to clear her mind.”
Because the workload dropped sharply—everything that could be declined was declined—Qin Sang had been much less active in public these past two years.
Mentioning it made Xiaoxiao angry. “And you don’t know how some garbage paparazzi spread rumors that Sang-sang was pregnant, going to hospitals often, reducing her work just to ‘rest and raise the baby.’ They have no bottom line. Shameless.”
Then she sighed. “But no matter how the public guessed, Sang-sang never chose to tell the real reason. She said she didn’t want to drag someone else’s pain into the public eye, to be commented on and judged by people who didn’t matter. Sang-sang is genuinely a good person, but some people always use the worst malice to speculate about her and question that everything she has comes from shady sources.”
“Pah, bullshit,” Xiaoxiao said indignantly. “Everything Sang-sang has now, she earned by herself. When she first debuted, she even got blacklisted for years because she offended a scumbag.”
Just thinking about it made Xiaoxiao grit her teeth. “That scumbag was lawless. He harassed Sang-sang with money, tried to force her into ‘unspoken rules.’ Back then Sang-sang’s temper was fierce—one beer bottle and she split his head open.”
Of course, the price of impulse was industry-wide blacklist. Negotiated collaborations and endorsements all vanished. That year, she’d been the most likely to win an award—but because of the incident she was removed from nominations.
Curses and doubts never stopped. Enough spit from enough people could drown her. Because of it, Qin Sang developed severe anxiety—night after night unable to sleep. It got so serious she nearly… couldn’t go on.
“That time was really hard,” Xiaoxiao said. Thinking back, those days felt like a nightmare you couldn’t wake from—endless. Pitch-black all around. Silent. Not a single thread of dawn in sight.
Xie Yuncheng fell silent, eyes heavy. A scene flashed before him: the meeting room blinds half open, the faint light that fell in like a blade cleaving the dark—yet also soft, like a layer of gauze, brushing gently over a girl’s face.
“I don’t have many strengths. My bones are just a bit hard. What I want, what I have—I earned it properly, fighting for it myself.”
Her beauty was blazing. Her words struck like stone. Pride in her bones, like plum blossoms defying snow.
Xie Yuncheng stayed silent, playing the role of listener. Only at that moment did something ripple in his eyes—like a leaf falling by accident, making small ripples in a still pond.
-
Inside the lounge, after Sister Wen vented, she finally calmed down. She exhaled twice and even had time to drink water to wet her throat.
“Speak. What exactly happened?”
Qin Sang took the cup, smiling ingratiatingly. “See injustice, draw the sword, help out—can you accept that explanation?”
Sister Wen rolled her eyes. “Sticking your neck out for someone? That doesn’t sound like you.”
In recent years Qin Sang’s temper had restrained a lot. Most of the time she was approachable. Even if she saw something she disliked, she wouldn’t force her way into it, much less tear someone’s face off to their face. For it to get to this point was rare.
Sister Wen was sharp. “It has to do with Mr. Xie, doesn’t it?”
Qin Sang didn’t deny it. She honestly recounted the whole process. Sister Wen’s anger flared again. “That kind of person deserves to be cursed. Good. He had it coming. A little money and he thinks he can cover the sky with one hand—what’s wrong with him?”
“That’s what I thought too,” Qin Sang echoed. “How can someone change this much? I remember he wasn’t like this before. He used to be a bit arrogant, sure, but not this bad.”
She remembered that the study rep used to be somewhat flattering to the strong and stepping on the weak, but overall he wasn’t terrible. He was even helpful to classmates. If anyone asked him a question they didn’t understand, he was usually willing to explain. Not like now—eyes on the top of his head, arrogant, treating everyone as beneath him.
“So money really can rot a person’s soul,” Qin Sang sighed. “And time can turn someone unrecognizable.”
But…
Why hadn’t Xie Yuncheng changed?
These ten years, whenever she occasionally thought of the past, she’d still imagine what he looked like now. She was curious whether he was still radiant the way he was in her memory, or if he’d already dulled into dust, becoming just another grain among the masses.
Would he, like others, sigh “time toys with people” upon seeing her, amazed that his old classmate had become a glittering star? Or had life ground him down too, leaving him indifferent to everything?
She had even imagined countless reunion scenes. Maybe on some street, some place—people passing by. They’d spot each other in the crowd and look from afar. She’d smile at him, calm and generous, and he would nod politely.
Or maybe he didn’t even remember that she existed, a classmate for three years. After all, in high school they’d never had an intersection. Perhaps they’d brush shoulders in a crowd, her steps hurried—he wouldn’t even pause.
But she’d never imagined that fate wasn’t a carefully written script. There was no “NG, take two.” All her carefully calculated scenarios were excluded.
They separated at the end of midsummer. Back then, she didn’t have time—didn’t even have the chance—to properly say goodbye.
Then, in that crisp autumn, stepping on withered yellow leaves, they turned and ran toward their separate stations in life.
She never expected that ten years later, the train of time would whistle past summer fields again—and he would step on the tail end of summer and appear before her once more, just as always: clean and bright, like a clear evening breeze passing through the secular dusk without picking up a trace of smoke and fire.
…
Sister Wen waved a hand in front of her eyes. “What are you thinking about?”
Qin Sang shook her head. “Nothing. Just… I feel pretty lucky.”
Sister Wen laughed in anger. “You lost the endorsement and you’re still lucky?”
Qin Sang thought a moment. “A blessing in disguise.”
She’d never drawn a good lot, never received even a thread of destiny’s favor—yet she still felt lucky.
At least the boy she once loved with all her heart wasn’t swallowed by the river of “time,” wasn’t twisted beyond recognition.