Chapter 37

“You dragged my Older sister out to hang around with some shady crowd?” Su Tan’s eyes locked on Wen Jiu.
His tone wasn’t quite accusatory, but every syllable was edged with ice. For a moment, he really did look a bit like Su Heng.
Still sprawled on the lawn, Ji Yujing twisted free and knocked Su Tan off balance. His core strength wasn’t bad; he sprang to his feet in one go. “What, Haishi’s doing regional discrimination now? I’m a Beicheng young master, and in your mouth I’m suddenly ‘shady crowd’?”
“I’m not discriminating by region,” Su Tan reflexively shot back, then caught himself and clammed up.
Why was he even responding to this guy?!
Ji Yujing had successfully derailed the conversation and no longer had time to explain precisely how he’d failed with Yue Ling or how he’d realized he’d only ever seen her as an older sister, not a love interest.
“You Haishi people are just rough, you start with your fists. Do you have any idea this face of mine looks quite a bit like my older brother? It’s handsome enough to make gods and men alike jealous.”
The fact that young master Ji was still thinking about his own face right now… Wen Jiu turned her head away and physically pinched her lips shut.
Every line out of his mouth landed in a place she hadn’t anticipated. How could someone be this narcissistic?!
“You’re the one discriminating! Since when are we Haishi people rough? I only hit you because I thought you were stringing my Older sister along.”
“And anyway, you say you and your older brother look alike? Well, me and my older brother look alike too. And my older brother is a hundred times more handsome than yours.”
At eighteen, he was easily provoked and just as easily dragged off topic.
Who didn’t have a handsome older brother, apparently?
“When your older brother was still rolling around on set doing bit parts, my older brother was already the head of the whole group, the kind of CEO whose word is law.”
“So what if your older brother is a CEO? My older brother has over a hundred million fans. Does your older brother have fans? Maybe just you.”
Wen Jiu couldn’t hold it in anymore. She clamped a hand over her own mouth.
Shut up, stupid mouth, stop laughing!
She’d definitely called the right person over. Su Tan still hadn’t gotten inside the house.
In the end, a younger brother was just a younger brother. What did he know about true love? At his age he was just copying the worst parts of domineering-trope plotlines, trying to lock people up and call it romance.
“Su Tan, what are you doing?” Su Heng arrived at the perfect moment. At a wave of his hand, the bodyguards moved in and restrained Su Tan.
“You should be pinning him down, not me!” Su Tan shouted, incredulous.
“Shut your mouth and be quiet,” Su Heng said.
Whether it was because night had fallen or not, his voice carried a deeper, darker tone, naturally imposing silence on everyone.
In Haishi’s winter, night came early. The loose, drifting snow hadn’t yet formed proper flakes; by the time it landed, it melted into cold droplets on their clothes.
The dull gray sky behind Su Heng only made his features seem sharper and colder, like a block of ancient ice that had never thawed.
“Send Su Tan to the island,” Su Heng ordered.
Above them, Wen Jiu heard the thrum of helicopter blades. She tipped her head back and saw it for real, a helicopter cutting across the night sky.
Looked like Su Heng had sent it specifically to pick Su Tan up.
“You Su people put your little brother in solitary by shipping him off to an island?” Wen Jiu only wondered this, but Ji Yujing and his filterless mouth just came right out with it.
“Closed training on a private island. Teach him how to behave. And consider it an apology to Second Young Master Ji,” Su Heng replied.
There wasn’t much apology in his tone, but Ji Yujing didn’t care.
He’d agreed to come for Wen Jiu’s sake; whether Su Tan paid for it or not was none of his business.
Wen Jiu nodded in agreement.
Locking up your older sister at eighteen? Yeah, island boot camp sounded about right. Time to rebuild his three views from the ground up.
Anyway, Su Heng was his real older brother, he wasn’t going to actually destroy the kid.
“Is he leaving today?” Wen Jiu asked.
Su Heng glanced over at her. Maybe out of regard for Su Yaoyao, he actually answered, “Does Miss Wen have something to say to Su Tan?”
It sounded like a question, but his tone made it a statement.
Wen Jiu nodded.
“Take him over,” Su Heng said, making a subtle gesture with his hand, his back to the bodyguards.
There was a wide lawn in front of the villa and a tall tree off to one side.
Su Tan was dragged over to the tree. The bodyguards stepped back a short distance, very cooperatively giving them space and not eavesdropping.
Wen Jiu could feel that gloomy look he shot her as he lifted his eyes, but unexpectedly, he stayed put and listened.
The teenager sat cross-legged on the cold, damp grass, completely ignoring how winter drizzle and wind had soaked it through. Tilting his head back, he stared at her under the dark sky, sharp features thrown into relief as he looked straight at her. “What do you want to say?”
He was sitting, so she had to look down. After a moment’s thought, she crouched, bringing herself eye-level with him.
“You’ve been back in the country this whole time and still haven’t seen your sister. Do you even know what she’s like now?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her opening question threw him for a loop.
“Look,” Wen Jiu said, shifting her feet.
From Su Tan’s angle, he could see the villa’s floor-to-ceiling windows, just enough to catch the corner of a curtain… and a little head peeking out from behind it.
It was Su Yaoyao, sneaking a look from inside.
The warm indoor lights framed her face; for one unguarded moment, a pair of glimmering peach-blossom eyes appeared in the gap, then she darted back behind the curtains like a flower sprite peeking out from petals in a forest.
Compared to the first time they’d met, she was still a gentle warmth to everyone around her, but now she didn’t flinch from talking to strangers, and she dared to walk alone on crowded streets.
Still crouched beside Su Tan, Wen Jiu could clearly feel the boy’s spine stiffen.
Fine droplets of rain pattered down, cutting like needles in the cold wind; when it hit him, even his voice came out a little blurred. “I just don’t want her to get hurt.” So he’d kept her caged at his side.
He refused to admit he’d done anything wrong.
Proud boys didn’t like bowing their heads, but faced with a sister who was obviously happier after leaving him, even he had to recognize that maybe she really was better off without him.
And he himself was like a pair of eyes lurking in some dark ravine, watching her carefully, greedily, unable to get close.
“You were scared that once her real sister Lin Yu came home, people would step on Yaoyao and prop Lin Yu up, that they’d bully her and she’d cry alone in secret. But Yaoyao went to see Lin Yu yesterday. She really likes her, and she invested in Lin Yu’s studio.
When Yaoyao was being bullied before, you were still underage. You took on a whole pack of people alone and ended up in the hospital. You thought you were brave, that you were protecting her. But did it ever occur to you that from that day on, she’d be even more afraid to tell anyone she was being bullied?
Because she’s afraid you’ll get hurt again. She puts every consequence on her own shoulders, and the longer that goes on, the less she’s willing to talk.
As for whether what you feel for her is the care between a brother and sister, or if it turned into something else after you learned she wasn’t your real sister, that’s not for me to judge.
But she has things she wants to do now. That means you need to grow up too.”
When you’re actually mature, when you’ve figured out what you really feel, then you can come find her.”
Su Tan wanted to cut her off, but didn’t. He swallowed a breath and said instead, “You’re not afraid that after hearing all this, I’ll get angry and do something worse to her?”
Wen Jiu tilted her head toward him, smiling, eyes narrowed, and pointed lightly in Su Heng’s direction. “Your brother isn’t going to let you do that anymore.”
“I don’t know exactly what this so-called island training looks like, but I’m sure if you don’t change your mindset, your brother will make sure you never come back off that island.”
Su Tan narrowed his eyes. “Are you threatening me?”
Wen Jiu spread her hands. “That’s putting it a bit harshly.”
“Yaoyao, I’ll protect her. You just hurry up and grow. If you’re quick enough, you’ll be back at her side before spring comes.”
“Besides, the fact that you’re sitting here listening to me say all this already proves you’re not the kind of person who’d hurt her, no matter what you claim.”
She didn’t bother reacting to the flicker of shock and embarrassment on his face at having his thoughts read so cleanly. Dusting off her hands, she stood and called the bodyguards back over.
Watching her walk away, the veins on the back of his hand stood out, fingers curling tight. His stubborn voice was swept up by the cold wind and carried to her ears. “While I’m gone, you treat my Older sister better. Don’t let people with filthy thoughts anywhere near her, especially men.”
“I will,” Wen Jiu said, turning back.
The bodyguards escorted Su Tan onto the helicopter. On the ground, that left two bodyguards, one assistant, and three people: Wen Jiu, Ji Yujing, and Su Heng.
“President Su,” Wen Jiu greeted politely.
If Su Heng and Chu Yan stood side by side, she’d still be more inclined to talk to Chu Yan. CEOs or not, Chu Yan’s mind was at least easier to guess.
“Mm. Take care of her.”
Now that even Su Tan had chosen to let go, he certainly wasn’t going to trap Su Yaoyao in Haishi again.
Su Heng headed for the car. His assistant stepped forward instead and addressed Wen Jiu. “Miss Wen, may I have your contact info?”
“These days you’ve worked hard taking care of the young lady. For this period and the expenses to come, President Su said to pay you ten times. He hopes you’ll keep being good to her.”
Wen Jiu had been hesitating about giving out her number. After hearing that, she whipped out her phone. “Should I scan you, or are you scanning me?”
Ji Yujing rolled his eyes nearly into the sky. Su Heng’s assistant, meanwhile, remained perfectly expressionless and professional.
Once Su Heng’s entourage finally left, Ji Yujing seized his chance to settle accounts with Wen Jiu.
“Wen Jiu, I treat you like a cousin, and you treat me like some caveman to experiment on?” The little young master had cooled off in the winter wind long enough that even the purple bruises on his face had gone numb.
“Thank you for your hard work, little young master. Come inside and warm up,” Wen Jiu said at last, opening the door for him.
Grudgingly, and under her not-so-gentle pushing, he went in.
“Change your shoes first, don’t track dirt on the floor.”
Ji Yujing: “?”
“These shoes cost seventy thousand, and they’re brand new!” he snapped, needing the world to know.
Wen Jiu tossed him a brand-new pair of guest slippers from the cabinet. “By the way, Lin Yu says she’s not planning on dating this year. She’s focusing on her career.”
Sulking, he still swapped into the slippers, clomping after her despite the poor fit, bruised face suddenly lighting up. “What else did she say? Did she say what kind of guys she likes?”
“She didn’t.”
Wen Jiu flopped onto the sofa, leaning back comfortably.
Hearing them talk, Su Yaoyao hugged her laptop and slipped upstairs, deciding to come down later.
She and Ji Yujing’s relationship wasn’t clear yet; it was their private business. She didn’t want to eavesdrop and cross any lines.
Ji Yujing was just about to give Wen Jiu an earful for being useless when the too-small slippers tripped him up. Moving too fast, he went sprawling on the two shallow steps leading down into the living room.
Wen Jiu jumped to her feet. “Such a big bow, little young master, you’re too polite.”
She hurried over to help him up; her hands weren’t exactly gentle, and she accidentally poked one of the worst bruises on his face, making him yelp.
“So pitiful. Let me take a photo. Young master, look at the camera.”
Her phone came out lightning-fast. Ji Yujing slapped a hand over his face. “What are you doing?!”
Documenting his humiliation, was that it?!
“Don’t accuse me unfairly. I’m doing this for your own good.
I’ll send it to Lin Yu. Maybe she’ll feel sorry for you.”
Ji Yujing immediately dropped his hand and even angled his head so the most pitiful side of his face was on full display, giving her a perfect shot.
“Did you send it? What did she say?” he asked, scrambling up from the floor, suddenly moving at full speed despite the ill-fitting slippers.
Wen Jiu: [Photo]
Lin Yu: He only had his face going for him, and now he even ruined that. He looks so ugly like this, even his one good point is gone.
Lin Yu: I’ve been thinking. On account of the two hundred million, have him come work for me.
Lin Yu quietly added one line: No salary.
Lin Yu: He looks a bit like retired Film Emperor Ji Yanting. I quite like that face.
Wen Jiu: Got it, I’ll tell him.
Wen Jiu: Oh, and Ji Yanting is his real older brother, of course they look alike.
Lin Yu: !!!
Lin Yu: I might not be a fangirl, but, tell him to report to work tomorrow morning.
Wen Jiu had just been thinking there was no way Lin Yu would fall for just a face. The next second, she saw the incoming messages:
Lin Yu: Once the game is done, I’ll have Ji Yujing be our spokesperson. Walking billboard. No endorsement fee and no salary, he’s the chosen MVP employee.
Wen Jiu: …
This raising-type young lady was a born capitalist.
Wen Jiu lifted her gaze from the screen and cleared her throat.
Ji Yujing was sitting on the sofa, eyes bright and eager, like a husky waiting for dinner.
“Lin Yu says since you’re hurt, she wants you to go recuperate. And since your face happens to fall right on her aesthetic, once you’re healed up you’re to go work at her studio. When the game launches, you’ll be her hand-picked first brand spokesperson.”
Wen Jiu hadn’t added any oil or vinegar, she’d just rearranged the sentences. But that was all it took; young master Ji was more than capable of filling in the rest himself, and in the most dramatic way possible.
“She’s worried about me, so she told me to go recuperate.”
Ji Yujing’s face split into a grin so cheap it was practically free.
“She even wants an unknown nobody like me to be her spokesperson. Her expectations of me are so high, clearly, I’m different in her eyes.”
Wen Jiu covered her eyes. She really couldn’t bear to watch this anymore.
“Young Master, you should go. It’s already dark outside.”
The little deer in Ji Yujing’s heart was just about to be trampled to death by his own imagination. He didn’t care in the slightest that Wen Jiu was kicking him out the moment she was done using him.
“Wen Jiu, it really has to be you.”
The young master was generous. Before leaving, he transferred Wen Jiu one million.
“Ahem, don’t say I’m stingy. This is just half of the red envelope upfront. If Lin Yu and I really end up together, I’ll give you the other half. When we get married, you’ll sit at the main table.”
Afraid of being misunderstood, Ji Yujing hurried to add, “This isn’t money for selling Lin Yu, okay? This is a red envelope I’m happily giving you of my own free will. Lin Yu is priceless. If she ever finds out about the red envelope, you have to explain it for me.”
The young master had never watched melodramatic TV dramas, but he’d heard plenty of wealthy-family gossip. With foresight born of instinct, he spoke first to cover all bases.
Wen Jiu hadn’t expected Ji Yujing to be just as he always was, simple-minded and obscenely rich.
She even felt a little fond of him and didn’t have the heart to shove him out the door.
Fortunately, the young master didn’t dawdle.
Probably because he’d received concern from the girl he liked, he even walked faster than usual.
Just as Wen Jiu was about to close the door, the young master blocked it with his hand. “Wen Jiu, can you push Lin Yu’s WeChat to me?”
Wen Jiu: “……”
So you haven’t even added her on WeChat yet?
“I’ll ask her first. If it’s okay, I’ll send it to you.
If it’s not okay, that’s fine too. You’re about to start working there anyway, you’ll definitely add her then.”
“Makes sense.”
Just thinking about his bright future ahead made Ji Yujing absurdly happy. He swaggered over and got into the car he’d driven over.
Once the door closed, Wen Jiu immediately messaged Lin Yu.
Wen Jiu: Transfer 500,000 yuan.
Wen Jiu: Ji Yujing said this is half of the red envelope, so I’m splitting it with you. He also wants your WeChat, should I forward your contact card to him?
Lin Yu: Sure.
Wen Jiu: He specifically told me to explain this clearly to you, this isn’t money for selling you. You’re priceless. He’s just happy and willingly gave me a red envelope because I introduced you two.
Wen Jiu didn’t hold anything back and explained everything to Lin Yu.
The young master wasn’t a bad person; she’d just help him out a little.
More importantly, he’d really given too much. For the sake of the red envelope, she had to at least speak honestly and put in a few good words.
Lin Yu: If his actions match what he says, I’ll give him a chance.
Wen Jiu: What matters most is how you feel. Lin Yu, you know your life is your own, and the same goes for your feelings. Being happy is the most important thing. Don’t hand over the rest of your life just because you were momentarily moved.
Lin Yu: Okay, I understand. Thank you, Wen Jiu.
Wen Jiu silently apologized to Ji Yujing in her heart.
The young master had indeed given a lot, but the young lady’s lifelong happiness mattered more.
Meanwhile, the young master knew nothing of this. The moment he saw Lin Yu’s WeChat contact card, he added her at lightning speed.
He was completely immersed in overwhelming joy, smiling so hard his face hurt, and he didn’t even care.
With the hidden danger Su Tan posed finally resolved, Wen Jiu let out a sigh of relief and went upstairs to find Su Yaoyao.
Su Yaoyao was submitting her contract application. If it passed, she’d officially become a signed author on the platform.
“So many people left me messages saying they discovered a hidden gem.”
When Su Yaoyao turned and saw Wen Jiu come in, she hugged her tablet and hopped over excitedly. “Look, look, there are so many!”
The few stories Wen Jiu had shown Su Yaoyao before were all viral hits, the kind with two or three hundred thousand comments. Compared to that, seeing only around a hundred comments here felt perfectly normal to her.
In her eyes, this was just what beginners looked like, very reasonable.
Wen Jiu didn’t understand the platform’s traffic. Since Su Yaoyao said it was normal, she assumed it was.
It wasn’t until she casually opened the “New Author Rankings” and saw that first place only had a hundred comments that she finally sensed something was off.
“Yaoyao… you might be about to blow up,” Wen Jiu muttered without thinking.
“Huh?”
Su Yaoyao turned back blankly.
She’d wanted to send red envelopes to her readers, only to realize that unsigned authors didn’t have that permission.
She fell backward onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. “Looks like I’ll have to wait until the editor comes to work tomorrow to find out whether my contract went through.”
Wen Jiu raised the tablet and showed her the data. “Unless something unexpected happens, it should.”
“If it doesn’t work out, I’ll see if I can buy the platform,” Su Yaoyao said while hugging her phone. “My readers seem to really like me. I can’t let them down.”
Wen Jiu and Su Yaoyao spoke at the exact same time.
Wen Jiu suddenly turned her head back, a shocked expression plastered on her face. “Buy the platform?!”
She’d been so focused on watching Su Yaoyao write like a clueless newbie that she’d forgotten,
this was a genuinely rich young lady.
If she passed the contract, she’d be an author.
If she didn’t, she’d be the boss.
Wen Jiu nodded in agreement and gave Su Yaoyao a thumbs-up.
The next day, the two of them ate breakfast at an unhurried pace.
Su Yaoyao never looked at her phone while eating. After she finished and picked it up, she discovered that the Little Green River platform had sent her tons of station messages, internal notifications.
“Wen Jiu, I passed the contract.”
“Yaoyao, that’s amazing.”
Wen Jiu didn’t hold back her praise at all, delivering full emotional support.
Good moods were contagious. One got happy, then the other, and soon the entire villa was filled with laughter.
Su Yaoyao typed extremely fast. Her outline was complete, her comprehension strong, and writing didn’t take her much time at all.
Three and a half hours later, she uploaded twenty thousand words in one go.
Not only was it a mass update, she also sent red envelopes to every reader who left a comment. Each red envelope was set to the maximum amount: 10,000 Little Green River coins, equivalent to 100 yuan per person.
Wen Jiu took a look, there were already 4,000 bookmarks on the story, with 2,000 comments below.
Su Yaoyao recharged one million yuan for herself, planning to give out two hundred thousand just in red envelopes.
“The platform’s lottery wheel limit is way too low. I can only send them one by one. This is exhausting,” she complained.
At first, sending red envelopes was fun, sharing her happiness with her readers.
But after half an hour, combined with the platform constantly asking for verification codes and various delays once too many red envelopes were sent, Su Yaoyao felt more exhausted than when she was typing. She simply couldn’t send out two thousand red envelopes.
Wen Jiu came up with an idea. “Open a Weibo account and let everyone follow you. Weibo giveaways have no limit on participants, and the amount isn’t restricted like on Little Green River.”
“Wow, Jiujiu, you’re so smart!”
Su Yaoyao immediately scrambled off the bed and registered a Weibo account.
Before this, she hadn’t even had an account at all. If Wen Jiu hadn’t explained it to her, she wouldn’t have known what Weibo was. After all, Su Yaoyao didn’t read novels, didn’t watch TV dramas, and had no online entertainment life whatsoever.
Once the account was created, Wen Jiu followed her immediately, and Su Yaoyao followed back.
The new account had no other followers yet, and the novel readers hadn’t migrated over either.
With nothing else to do, Su Yaoyao scrolled through Wen Jiu’s Weibo.
“Jiujiu, is this the Yue Ling you mentioned to me?”
Su Yaoyao remembered Wen Jiu saying she’d introduce Yue Ling to her so she could learn painting from her.
Only then did Wen Jiu realize that Yue Ling also followed her back, which was why Su Yaoyao had found Yue Ling’s profile so quickly.
“So she’s an actress now.”
Su Yaoyao opened the photos. “She looks so gentle, really beautiful.”
Since they were already on Sister Yue Ling’s page, Wen Jiu scrolled through it as well.
She hadn’t expected to see trending topics mixed in among the photos.
“She seems to be on something called the ‘Trending List’,” Su Yaoyao said, turning the phone toward Wen Jiu and reading aloud, “Film Emperor romance exposed, eighteenth-tier Yue Ling.”
After that were four small words: current explosive keyword, along with a red-to-black “HOT” label.
If it were just a public relationship, that would be one thing, but the photos were taken by paparazzi, and the wording deliberately guided readers to believe that Yue Ling had used her body to climb her way into landing the female second lead in Legend of the Bright Pearl and her current female lead role.
The tag said “romance,” but once you clicked in, it became “unscrupulous advancement.”
No one knew whether hired trolls had been deployed, but the comments pushed to the top were full of filth. Not a single one mentioned Yue Ling’s high education or her actual abilities.
The insults used abbreviations and homophones, creating a suffocating wave of malice.
[How could an eighteenth-tier even know Film Emperor Ji? And didn’t he already retire? Maybe she went through a few greasy old bosses before she finally met him.
[Staged photos, obviously. Clout-chasing off Film Emperor Ji. Even retired, he’s still a legendary top star. This nobody is desperate for fame.
[Brother Ji has already retired and people still won’t leave him alone. Don’t go too far. We Ting fans are still alive, not dead, one spit each and we could drown anyone trying to climb using brother Ji.]
[I remember her. Didn’t she get into a dispute with a female star on the same crew before and ride Xie Junyu’s popularity too?]
“I think I need to go to the set,” Wen Jiu said, springing to her feet.
Su Yaoyao wanted to go with her, but Wen Jiu stopped her. “You stay here and happily write your story. I’ll go alone. If anyone attacks you and you feel upset, don’t bottle it up, tell me for sure.”