The moment Qi Ke stepped out of the elevator, she received a call from Sister Ming.
She was on the warpath, coming aggressively to call her to account.
Qi Ke had just wheedled a pair of canvas shoes out of Zhong Yi downstairs. She stepped onto the dark red patterned carpet, which muffled her footsteps. She tugged at the corners of her mouth, her fingertip sliding across the screen to answer.
“Where are you?” Sister Ming’s voice was surprisingly friendly.
“Huh?” Qi Ke feigned surprise. “Didn’t I have my assistant tell you I was coming back first? The plane ticket was charged to the company’s account, wasn’t it? You didn’t know?”
Sister Ming: “…”
“You’re the bane of my existence!” After a long moment, Sister Ming finally squeezed out the words through gritted teeth. The anger she’d been holding in was like a punch landing on cotton, making her even more furious. “I can’t get through to Yushi’s phone. Where is she?”
Qi Ke counted the room numbers in her head.
1802
1804
1806
She stopped walking.
Qi Ke took the room key card out of her bag.
“In my bed.” With a click, the sensor light in the entryway automatically turned on. Qi Ke walked in softly and turned to close the door. She heard Sister Ming gasp, then added, “It’s the hotel where the banquet was held. I booked a room while I was on the plane. A deluxe presidential suite.”
Sister Ming lowered her voice. “The media is still there! What if you get photographed?”
“Good besties, let alone sleeping in the same room, even sleeping in the same bed is just a sign of deep sisterly affection, right?” Qi Ke wasn’t in a hurry to go in. She leaned against the door, peering inside by the dim, fragmented yellow light of the entryway.
The suite was large, and the light was faint. Swallowed by the darkness, she couldn’t really see anything.
But the thought that there was a bed inside, with her little captain lying on it, waiting for her, made her chest, which had been empty for so long, swell up like never before. She no longer had to face the void, and the wind would no longer blow in.
While Qi Ke was being sentimental on her end, Sister Ming on the other end was: “…………”
Could you please stop tarnishing the good names of “besties” and “deep sisterly affection”?! If this continued, she’d forget how to even write the word “bestie”!
“Alright.” Qi Ke kicked off her shoes, interrupting Sister Ming’s train of thought. “It’s a bit cruel to say this. But Sister Ming, you’re not thinking that Yushi and I will never go public, are you?”
Sister Ming’s voice trembled, “Wait until I resign…”
“I wish I could go public right now.”
Sister Ming: “…” She knew it!
Who was Qi Ke? She was the young miss of the Qi family, who had gotten everything she wanted since she was a child. An innate nobility and dominance were in her bones. Once something was stamped as hers, it was hers, and she wanted the whole world to know.
Sister Ming was puzzled, “Then how did you manage to keep from going public when you were dating Yushi before?”
Qi Ke said as if it were obvious, “Didn’t I have Zhong Yi?”
Sister Ming: “?”
Qi Ke smiled.
If Zhong Yi were present, she would definitely recall the fear of being dominated by force-fed public displays of affection back then.
Back then, Qi Ke had no one to show her affection to, and only Zhong Yi knew. Every time Song Yushi went on stage, Qi Ke, in the audience, would always hook an arm around Zhong Yi’s shoulder. To their CP fans, this was “so-called evidence of tenderness spied upon, which was actually just one ten-thousandth of the truth.”
But in reality, Qi Ke would whisper in Zhong Yi’s ear—
“Look, my girlfriend.”
See her? That dazzling Song Yushi on stage, the one with the sweetest smile under the spotlight, the one who emerged from thousands of people, shining brightly—that’s her girlfriend.
She was insufferably smug.
Zhong Yi would reply perfunctorily, “I see her, I see her.”
Only to be shot a glare. “Don’t stare so much. She’s someone else’s girlfriend, what’s with you staring at her all the time?”
Zhong Yi: “?”
So why on earth did she have to stumble upon their relationship that day!
“Hello—” Seeing that Qi Ke had gone silent, Sister Ming thought she was about to hang up and quickly spoke, interrupting Qi Ke’s thoughts. Qi Ke came back to her senses and stopped scaring Sister Ming. “Anyway, we won’t be going public anytime soon.”
Sister Ming breathed a sigh of relief. “Then let’s avoid suspicion.”
Qi Ke thought she had misheard. “…What?”
“I’ve applied to the company. We’re not going to hype the CP anymore. To uncouple, you have to avoid suspicion,” Sister Ming explained.
“No,” Qi Ke refused decisively.
Sister Ming patiently explained, “I don’t know if you browse your CP’s Super Topic, but between CPs, there’s that… sexual tension, you understand?”
Qi Ke understood. “Then the Captain and I have top-notch sexual tension.”
“Your little ambiguous interactions, exchanging glances, and all that—CP fans look at it all with a microscope. Now that you’ve really gotten back together, there’s a ton of evidence of your love. Sooner or later, they’ll dig it all up!”
“Oh?”
She was even a little expectant.
Sister Ming heard it in her tone. “…”
Sister Ming was at her wit’s end and adopted her manager’s tone. “This is a decision I’ve made for both of your career plans. You can be willful, but you can’t drag Yushi into being willful with you. Let’s leave it at that. In a couple of days, the cohabitation reality show has an offline fan meeting. Avoid suspicion first, and I’ll see how the CP fans react.”
Qi Ke tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Fine.”
Before hanging up, Sister Ming added worriedly, “Yushi hasn’t fully recovered these past few days. Check if she still has a fever, and don’t… don’t go too far.”
After saying that, she quickly hung up.
Qi Ke brought the phone to her eyes and looked at it, baffled. Walking barefoot towards the inner room, she complained about Sister Ming in her head: Really, what does she take me for? Am I that thirsty? Do I pounce on Song Yushi the moment I see her? I’m a very reserved and noble woman, only little girls would—
Her internal complaints came to an abrupt halt.
From the pushed-open bedroom door, a faint, warm light spilled out. And in that light, Song Yushi was leaning against the headboard, quietly flipping through a magazine.
The sound of the pages turning was clear.
It was as beautiful as a dream.
Serene, gentle, with a light rain drifting outside the window.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Qi Ke pounced onto the bed with a cry, rolled over, and hugged Song Yushi’s waist. She nuzzled against her through the thin quilt, taking advantage of the situation while acting cute. “Captain, you’re so soft.”
Song Yushi was caught off guard and barely managed to steady her. Hearing her words, she pinched her waist.
Qi Ke’s waist was sensitive. Crying “don’t tease,” she shrank back and looked up at Song Yushi.
Song Yushi had just taken a shower and was mostly sober. Looking at the huge presidential suite, she belatedly realized she had been tricked by Qi Ke again.
On second thought, she was her own girlfriend, so being tricked was fine.
She had originally planned to go straight to sleep, but after tossing and turning in bed for half an hour without falling asleep, she had no choice but to sit up and read a magazine. She flipped page after page, but barely read a few words. The thought hidden in her heart grew larger and larger: When on earth is Qi Ke coming back?
Now that she was back, they were both speechless.
Song Yushi also gazed back at Qi Ke in silence. The hand on her waist didn’t pull back, but slowly caressed her, like a spark unhurriedly starting a prairie fire.
It was tingly and numbing.
Qi Ke took Song Yushi’s other hand and played with it in her palm. She lowered her eyes, counting the lines on Song Yushi’s palm as she whispered, “I was very well-behaved.”
“Downstairs just now, I only drank coke and only talked to Zhong Yi. Someone asked me to dance, but I didn’t go. I was especially low-key. I know this is what I should do as a girlfriend, but I just want you to praise me.”
Qi Ke raised her eyes, her doe-like eyes gentle, obedient, and lovely.
Song Yushi squeezed her waist. “I praise you.”
Qi Ke was not satisfied. “Just a verbal compliment?”
Song Yushi looked at her quietly for a moment. The hand on her waist applied some force, pulling her into her arms. She leaned down, and a kiss landed softly on Qi Ke’s forehead.
The faint scent of peach-flavored shower gel wafted over.
It was an addictive scent.
“Just the forehead?” Qi Ke was still not satisfied. She turned and wrapped her arms around Song Yushi’s waist, whining softly, “I was so good, how is this little bit of praise enough?”
Song Yushi fell silent again for a moment.
In that silence, Qi Ke listened to Song Yushi’s heartbeat, counting each beat. It was more flustered than she let on. Just as she was thinking maybe she shouldn’t make things difficult for Song Yushi and just put her thoughts into action, she heard Song Yushi speak: “Let’s play a game.”
“…What?”
“Red light, green light. Have you played?”
“One, you can’t move; two, you can’t laugh; three, you can’t show your front teeth?”
“Mhm.”
“Then let’s start!”
Qi Ke buried her face in Song Yushi’s embrace, inhaling the peach scent, and concentrated on playing this game she didn’t know the reason for. Suddenly, Song Yushi moved.
Qi Ke: “You—”
“I lose,” Song Yushi interrupted her. The hand on her waist lifted the hem of her clothes, pressing against her warm skin. She said in a low voice, “Because my heart moved when I saw you.”
Qi Ke was stunned for two seconds, then broke into a smile. “Captain, where did you learn such a cheesy pickup line?”
Song Yushi had seen it online and was using it to flirt for the first time. She was very inexperienced. Hearing Qi Ke’s comment, she couldn’t keep a straight face and tried to push her away, only to be held even tighter.
Qi Ke pressed down on her, kissing her lips, her lovey-dovey voice muffled by the kiss. “So cheesy.”
Song Yushi narrowed her eyes slightly.
“I love it,” Qi Ke said again.
Sister Ming’s order was immediately put into practice on stage. The online reaction to 《30 Days of Cohabitation Life》 was overwhelmingly positive. The three CPs had the audience shipping them to death, so an offline fan meeting was scheduled.
And so, the CP of Song Yushi and Qi Ke, who were being all lovey-dovey in bed, had to become professional actors the moment they got on stage: zero interaction, zero eye contact, zero physical contact, specializing in acting like they weren’t familiar with each other.
Qi Ke’s acting was a bit poor.
Her gaze still couldn’t help but drift towards Song Yushi.
One glance: Song Yushi was cued by the host to pop a balloon, with a penalty if it burst. The little captain held back her strength and didn’t pop a single one. Qi Ke felt a sense of shared honor.
Another glance: The little captain was playing Pictionary with Chen Sheng, and they had zero chemistry. Qi Ke silently gave a thumbs-up.
And another glance.
Their eyes met.
Time seemed to freeze in that instant. A giant pink bubble enveloped her and Song Yushi. It was clearly the most ordinary of their countless shared glances, but in the context of avoiding suspicion, it felt like a gaze that spanned ten thousand years.
That was the only interaction between Qi Ke and Song Yushi at the fan meeting, but it wasn’t the only thing to ship.
【No interaction at all? Isn’t it too obvious they’re avoiding suspicion? Could it be that their private relationship was discovered by the company, and the company is forcing them to do this? Sister Ming, you have no heart.】
【Wuwuwu Keke kept looking at the little captain. Right now, I just want to request the song 《The Truth is Fake》. Everything sung is fake, but every line is true.】
【I’m shipping this gorgeous eye contact so hard! Mangosteen Entertainment, if you dare to break up my CP again, you’ll be acquired by Keke tomorrow!】
【The company is too naive, right? I got into this ship for the BE aesthetics. You think a little bit of avoiding suspicion can defeat me? Dream on! Qi Yu has been locked up, and I’ve thrown the key into the sea!】
Late at night, at Mangosteen Entertainment, in Song Yushi’s personal studio.
Sister Ming browsed the CP Super Topic, facepalming.
She was wrong, she was so wrong. CP fans could ship anything and everything, no matter how ridiculous. They could even ship a BE as a “bed ending.” What was avoiding suspicion? To CP fans, being in the same frame was a wedding scene, and making eye contact meant they’d already done it!
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