FIG CHAPTER 19

“Since the ring couldn’t be given anymore, I had it reworked into something new and gave it to you as an ordinary gift,” Tan Qing said evenly, explaining the true origin of the earrings. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Zhu Lianzhen responded slowly with a quiet sound of acknowledgment.

Once the gift was handed over, Tan Qing left. As soon as he was gone, Zhu Lianzhen hurriedly took off the earrings and examined them closely.

The original look of the ring was no longer discernible.

That guy really was something… If he didn’t want him to mind, then why bring up where it came from in the first place? And now, just to avoid suspicion, he didn’t even dare wear it once.

Zhu Lianzhen closed the box. As the lingering warmth on his face faded, he finally felt the chill of spring and shrank his neck into his collar as he headed back inside.

 

There were no scheduled activities the next day, so everyone slept in, each person waking later than the last. Zhu Lianzhen ended up sleeping until the afternoon. Even he was surprised when he woke up, not realizing how much his body had needed the rest. He hadn’t felt tired at all, despite dancing every day beforehand.

While heading downstairs, he sent a message to Pei Qiao, saying he was going out for a bit and would be back before dark.

During the group training period, they were required to report to their manager before going out to avoid unnecessary trouble.

Pei-jie: Tan Qing happens to be going home to grab something. You two can go together.

Zhu Lianzhen: Why do I have to go with him? I have my own route.

Pei-jie: You just want to see the birthday ads from fans, right? It’s on the way.

Pei-jie: With Tan Qing there, he can remind you of the time. Otherwise, you’ll end up eating out, going clubbing, and then not coming back at all.

Zhu Lianzhen: I’m not Koty!

Unable to defy the manager’s orders, Zhu Lianzhen had no choice but to behave and wait in the car. When he saw Tan Qing come out, he honked the horn repeatedly to get his attention.

Tan Qing got into the passenger seat and even politely asked, “Want me to drive?”

Zhu Lianzhen shook his head and stepped on the accelerator, heading toward the city center. At the gate of the community, he asked, “What are you picking up from home?”

“Personal items.”

“A lot?”

“You only need to wait a few minutes.”

True to his word, it really was just a few minutes. Zhu Lianzhen didn’t even need to shut off the engine before Tan Qing had already gone upstairs and come back down.

Zhu Lianzhen noticed he was holding a white phone—a model from two or three years ago. Right in front of him, Tan Qing powered it on and checked the battery level.

As they passed some commercial buildings, Zhu Lianzhen saw the birthday ad displays fans had arranged. Every promotional image radiated their passion.

He often thought about advising them to spend less on fan support. He didn’t want their genuine intentions to be reduced to something used for bragging. Especially since many students, pressured by their peers, would save on lunch money just to contribute to fundraisers, seeking a sense of identity and collective pride through being fans.

But opportunities for artists to speak out were rare. Even though Zhu Lianzhen had mentioned these concerns to the fan sites that took photos of him at the airport, they hadn’t conveyed his thoughts accurately. Instead, even more fans saw him as “considerate” and “gentle,” and threw themselves even more fervently into extravagant support projects.

So the only thing he could really do was visit the city center at midnight every year on his birthday and personally witness what they had painstakingly prepared. At the very least, it gave him a sense of emotional reassurance.

Zhu Lianzhen took a photo of the poster. Just then, the music in the plaza changed, and the screen transitioned from the static poster to a video.

At the beginning of the video, white text appeared over a black background—Chasing Lights.

It was probably the title.

Then a line of Chinese appeared: Happy Birthday, Zhu Lianzhen.

So it was another birthday fan project, this time in the form of a video. Zhu Lianzhen rolled down the car window and looked up at the screen. What met his eyes was a pale blue sky, with clouds made of crumpled white paper. As upbeat electronic music began to play, a paper-cutout little boy peeked his head out from behind one of the clouds. Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he was blown by a gust of wind and fell straight down into the human world.

It was a stop-motion animation.

The protagonist quickly regained his composure and seemed to begin enjoying the flight, his anxious expression replaced by a smile. The strong wind lifted the red cape on his back, making him look extraordinarily heroic.

The electronic music was cheerful and full of energy. Mid-air, the boy encountered a bird made of paper cutouts, which knocked him off balance and forced him to change course. Then he reached for a balloon that unexpectedly floated by, and slowly drifted toward the ground. Nearly all the scenes were crafted from paper cutouts. The boy continued flying, first crossing a cityscape of towering buildings, then soaring over surging waves, before finally arriving at a barren land.

At this point, the music shifted into a lyrical phase, guided only by gentle piano notes as the boy moved forward. Night fell. He looked tired and lay down on a patch of soft grass to sleep. His dreams transformed the landscape into a pitch-black sky, which slowly swallowed the desolate ground and blended everything into a single, dazzling universe. Tiny bits of stardust sparkled, and the moonlight shone brightly. The boy lay at the center of the starry sky. Everything was clean and pure, like a fairy tale.

The piano rhythm gradually picked up. The sun and moon rotated, and the sky brightened once again. The boy’s dream faded, but when he opened his eyes, he found the ground around him covered in blooming red roses. In the distance, dazzling golden light pierced the horizon, and a gentle breeze stirred his dark brown hair.

Without hesitation, he took flight again, heading toward that bright and unknown place.

…

Zhu Lianzhen was genuinely surprised that fans had created a stop-motion animation to celebrate his birthday.

Stop-motion animation, also known as “frame-by-frame animation,” was, as the name suggested, made by capturing one frame at a time and then stringing them together to create the illusion of continuous movement. The slightly jerky motion was exactly what gave it its unique charm.

Zhu Lianzhen had seen many behind-the-scenes clips of stop-motion films and had always been stunned by the intricate, painstaking process. He couldn’t imagine how much patience the creators had poured into their passion.

Though the animation had only lasted a few minutes, it had a cinematic quality. The creator had probably processed thousands of individual frames, one by one.

To have that kind of patience, they must really like him.

He thought the animation was over, but a few seconds later, another line of text appeared in the center of the black screen—

“You’ll always be my boy, always be my favorite.”

Zhu Lianzhen was momentarily stunned, then suddenly felt a bit embarrassed, remembering that Tan Qing was still sitting beside him.

Just then, Tan Qing commented in a neutral tone, “A fan confession?”

“Fans say a lot of sweet things, but they’re just words,” Zhu Lianzhen replied quietly. “Today it’s ‘I’ll love you forever,’ next month they might already be into someone else… And honestly, if an idol can’t even hold on to their fans for long, then it makes sense for them to move on.”

“But I’ve never seen anyone better at holding on to fans than you.” Tan Qing glanced at him. “They’ll always see you as their boy, always favor you—that kind of feeling. Can’t you understand it?”

“I can’t. I’m a man now.” Having just celebrated his birthday, he had every reason to say it with confidence.

Tan Qing smiled but didn’t say anything more.

Even though Zhu Lianzhen refused to admit it, there was still very little about him that seemed mature. Not only did he carry the same youthful mindset, but even his appearance looked like he’d only just reached adulthood. The fierce, pure light in his eyes hadn’t faded at all.

Tan Qing looked at him just as he had looked at the Zhu Lianzhen from back then.

On the way back, Pei Qiao called Tan Qing again to discuss which script he should choose for his next project. By the end of the call, Tan Qing only said, “Let’s decide after the promotions. I’m not really in the right headspace lately.”

As they stopped at a red light, Zhu Lianzhen was spacing out. When he saw Tan Qing hang up, he asked, “You’re going to act again?”

“Not anytime soon,” Tan Qing replied. “Have you sorted out your schedule for the second half of the year?”

Zhu Lianzhen: “Pei-jie mentioned two shows that want me as a mentor. One’s for street dance, the other’s an idol survival show.”

Tan Qing’s lips curved into a smile. “Last time you were on one of those, you were still a contestant. Must’ve been when you were sixteen or seventeen?”

“Mm.”

“I remember you really blew up the day of the finals.”

At that time, Acemon was already a household name in China, but it was the group people recognized, not necessarily each of its members.

That was, until Zhu Lianzhen participated in a Chinese-foreign co-produced street dance show.

He started drawing buzz from the preliminary rounds. It was hard not to assume a trending idol had joined just to ride the hype of a high-level competition. But the moment the music for his first dance started, everyone saw him differently. His control, power, and the difficulty of his moves were absolutely advanced. He might even have been qualified to battle alongside the top-tier OGs.

After the first episode aired, viewers looked into his background and discovered that he had won the junior division of a world-class street dance competition back in elementary school. That was how he caught the attention of Zuige Entertainment. He had focused on training and academics afterward and hadn’t competed for further honors in the street dance world, but in truth, his skills had continued to improve steadily all along.

The early rounds went smoothly for Zhu Lianzhen, but as more contestants were eliminated, the competition grew fiercer, and he started to feel the pressure. His advantage, however, was his natural stage presence. Once he stood under the lights, his potential felt limitless. He had the skill of a dancer, paired with the visual appeal of an idol, and he breezed through every freestyle round with ease.

After making it into the top five, the dancers he faced were all legends in the street dance scene—any one of them could have been his mentor. Winning the championship was obviously out of reach, but that had never been his goal. He’d entered the competition mainly to make more friends who danced.

But even that didn’t go as planned. Most of the other contestants were adults in their late twenties or thirties. There was a clear generational gap between them and a kid like him. On top of that, Zhu Lianzhen had a hard time hiding his flamboyant personality. After eliminating several strong competitors, he never bothered to act humble, which didn’t sit well with many of the old-school dancers.

As a teenager, Zhu Lianzhen’s logic was simple: why should the winner pretend to be humble? Shouldn’t the one who lost just admit they weren’t good enough?

He didn’t believe his victories were due to luck.

On the day of the finals, Zhu Lianzhen felt the atmosphere had become too serious. As he stepped onstage, a sudden idea struck him, and he raised his hand to signal for the music to stop.

The director thought something had gone wrong, only to see Zhu Lianzhen pick up the mic, smile at the audience, and say, “It’s gotten kind of boring at this point. How about I show you something fun?”

Then he turned to the staff offstage and said, “Can someone get me a blindfold?”

As people began realizing what he intended to do, the entire venue erupted in commotion. The audience was thrilled, but the producers were completely flustered. This was a live broadcast. How could they possibly let him improvise on the spot?

Zhu Lianzhen understood the production team’s concerns, but his tone remained light and cheerful. “Don’t worry. If it goes wrong, I’ll take the blame.”

He took the black blindfold handed to him by the staff, memorized the positions of the backup dancers, then stepped to center stage and covered his eyes.

From that moment on, no one could look away from him.

In the darkness of his vision, he truly became one with the performance. Every move had already become muscle memory. He hit every beat and rhythm with precision, and even the complex transitions were executed cleanly and flawlessly.

He received the highest number of audience votes in the show’s history, and the mentors couldn’t find a single flaw in his performance. In the end, he broke through the competition and won the championship.

“At the time, all the media and newspaper headlines were about you.” Tan Qing kept his eyes on the road for Zhu Lianzhen. “Fu Rong said someone like you would get taught a lesson eventually, but I don’t think you’re someone who can be tamed that easily.”

“Watch your wording. ‘Taught a lesson’ and ‘tamed’ are two very different things, okay? I’m not an animal,” Zhu Lianzhen corrected. “So you guys watched the show too?”

Tan Qing replied calmly, “I was there in person.”

Zhu Lianzhen nearly choked. “Seriously? You never told me.”

Tan Qing nodded. “There were too many people at the venue. I was afraid of being recognized, so I left right after the competition. Forgot to say hi.”

That night, he had stood below the stage the entire time, watching Zhu Lianzhen’s every move like any ordinary spectator, silently taking in all his shining moments—so much so that he forgot they were even teammates.

At the end of the performance, Zhu Lianzhen was supposed to maintain a cool expression, but the cheers from the crowd were overwhelming. Realizing he’d done well, he couldn’t help the rush of joy that bubbled up inside him.

He forgot he was still wearing the blindfold, and purely by instinct, turned toward a certain spot in the audience and smiled, revealing the tips of his canine teeth.

He didn’t know that was exactly where Tan Qing had been standing.