“At least this is a better plan than what you thought of before. I mean, seriously, what were you thinking? Fight for a divorce lawsuit and then use every means possible to get full custody of the child. If that wasn’t enough, you’ll then use every legal loophole possible to forcibly seize all of Han Feixu’s financial assets and properties. Even you must admit that your previous plan was way too sinister.”

The ‘plan’ that Jiang Linyan mentioned is the one Ye Mingxin had told her about before Han Feixu had lost her memory. They were at a bar, half-drunk and half-conscious, and even now, Jiang Lingyan was not quite sure if she was actually serious or not, but the desperation, despair, and panic in Ye Mingxin’s eyes back then could not be faked.

Naturally, Ye Mingxin herself realized just how cruel and despicable she is. She closed her eyes, “I didn’t have any other choice.”

Indeed, unless one was driven into a corner or at the end of their rope, who would do such a cruel thing to the person they love the most? Jiang Linayan sighed, “Anyway, I’ve said what I needed to say. You can figure out the rest. Do as you see fit.”

As Jiang Lingyan left, Ye Mingxin looked out the window at the brightly lit hotel above her. The bright neon lights hanging outside the hotel flashed different colors every other second as they lit up the dark sky. She leaned her head against the back of her chair, her feather-like eyelashes fluttering downwards as she looked at her phone. Under the colorful lights of the hotel, she sent a voice message to Han Feixu.

The cast and crew were both exhausted from the day’s activities. By the time Han Feixu returned to her room, the other actors had already left. So Han Feixu also got ready for bed, turning off most of the room’s lights save for the lamp beside her bed.

She took a quick shower and changed into a pair of silk pajamas. She then eagerly jumped onto the comfortable bed, stretching her body before closing her eyes and preparing to go to sleep. Then her phone vibrated.

She opened her eyes quickly and turned over to grab her phone. She turned on the screen to find that Ye Mingxin had sent her a voice message.

Ye Mingxin never sends her voice messages and even her regular Wechat messages were always concise and to the point. Curiously, she clicked on the voice message and held the phone close to her ear.

Her voice sounded a bit low, with her unique tinge of coldness to it, but to Han Feixu’s ears, there also seemed to be an illusion of gentleness and concern in her voice.

“Good night, Little Xu.”

Just four simple words, yet it was enough to make Han Feixu’s face flush red.

So gentle and nice-sounding….

Too many things have happened to her recently that she had forgotten that Ye Mingxin was her goddess, her idol! But this one little voice message from Ye Mingxin helped remind her why she idolized Ye Mingxin in the first place.

Yup, that’s right, she became a fan of Ye Mingxin, her goddess, because of this fairy-like voice!

She has completely forgotten how she used to constantly gush over Ye Mingxin’s beautiful face to Shen Sangluo = =

After giggling in her bed for a long time, she remembered she hasn’t replied yet so she sternly pressed on the microphone button and replied,

“Good night and sweet dreams.”

Inside the speeding car, Ye Mingxin smiled at the reply she received from Han Feixu. Then to borrow Han Feixu’s words, she hopes that tonight Han Fexiu will arrive in her dreams and bestow upon her a peaceful sleep.

The night passed by quickly and in the crack of dawn, before it was even five o’clock, the camera crew and her assistant knocked on her door. This time her “waking up in the morning” shots would not be faked.

Yesterday, Han Feixu had said that selling roast duck was the easiest job. Today, she was slapped in the face by her own words. She had to wake up before five in the morning and get to the vegetable market by half past five. Then her work officially started at six where she began selling roasted duck rolls. (See pictures of duck rolls HERE)

Han Feixu had always believed that only vegetable sellers had to get up so early, but it turns out that selling roast duck is just as hard and not easy at all…

Another day passed without any mishap, but Han Feixu was almost recognized today. A young girl had come up to buy roast duck and while she waited for the duck to be prepared, she kept staring intensely at Han Feixu’s face. After a while, she asked with suspicion in her voice, “Are you Han Feixu?”

Han Feixu’s action of weighing the duck froze for a moment. She straightened up immediately and then snorted derisively, “What r ye talkin’ about, ya? Which Xu? I don’t know ‘er, which village is she from, ah?”

The young girl: “…..” Oh, it doesn’t seem to be her.

Although nothing had happened to Han Feixu and her partner, the other teams were not so lucky. Qi Qing and Han Yiren’s fake medicine business was very successful, so successful that they were avidly reported by a group of people to the police. The policemen who came to arrest them were either very old or very young, in short, they were the type of policemen who were stubborn enough that they didn’t listen to their excuses and directly arrested them. Only after much explaining and the involvement of some legal teams, did the police finally realize they were actors filming for a show.

The show’s program team personally came forward to explain that the fake medicines were just vitamin tablets and there were no side effects if you ingested them. Furthermore, they explained that after the show they would edit out the scenes of the crowd buying the medicine. If they can’t be edited out, then they will put a cute little mosaic over the faces of the buyers.

The problem of the elderly being easily deceived into buying fake medicine and drugs is a common problem in society. The program team had chosen to assign this mission precisely because it was such a hot-button issue. Their goal for doing so was to 1) let the actors figure out and play the role of a fake drug dealer and 2) to serve as an educational PSA and warning to the public. Qi Qing and Han Yiren are not professional con artists, yet they were able to deceive so many people. Although it seems rather funny on the surface, if a professional con artist who does not care for what happens to their customers deceived your old father, can you still laugh?

Then after they went through all that trouble to explain and smooth out the problem here, something went wrong on Chi Qiu’s side of things.

Because Chi Qiu…was recognized.

Han Feixu was taking advantage of the relatively empty vegetable market to take a sip of water and quench her thirst when she heard the news. She had almost sprayed her water all over the store window as she turned her head in amazement, “She was recognized?!!”

The cameraman had also just received the news, “I’ve heard she was recognized by a die-hard fan of hers. Apparently the other girl was a 16-17 year-old teenage girl. She insisted on taking off Teacher Chi’s sunglasses and Teacher Chi couldn’t fight back. She tried to stay out of the fan’s reach, but wasn’t able to avoid her in time.

How miserable.

For her first and only time in her life as a beggar, she was easily recognized in the middle of a crowded street. It was simply a public sentence!

Nie Kaiyuan stared dumbfoundedly for a few seconds, “She was recognized…then what happened?”

“Then Teacher Chi just started running, and my god can she run! Her speed could be compared to those professional track and field athletes. Those long legs of hers are like a flamingo’s, and my colleague couldn’t keep up with her at all! But luckily that meant the little girl couldn’t keep up either.”

Han Feixu stayed silent and then said, “You mean to say, that after Chi Qiu was recognized, she just…ran off?”

“En.”

“Then where did she go?”

“We have no idea.”

“….Have you found her yet?”

“No, Director Jiang is currently leading a search party to find her.”

“….”

At around four o’clock, everyone returned to the hotel lobby. Chi Qiu had also returned. As it turned out, she hadn’t run very far and simply had run behind one of those big trucks that deliver supplies to supermarkets. Poor Chi Qiu was lost without a phone and was afraid to ask for help. So she could only hunker down into her dark corner of the street and wait for someone to come find her.

This time, even Han Feixu couldn’t laugh at such a miserable story = =

Finally, the director team gave the teams their points. The points were made up of several categories based on their acting, the degree to which they completed their mission, and how well they cooperated with their partners. After counting all the points, the team with the highest score was naturally Han Feixu and Nie Kiayuan.

They deserved the win as they are the only group in the entire cast that didn’t have any accidents in the past two days.

As for the highest personal score, the winner was actually Han Yiren.

Because when she was reported to the police and arrested, she didn’t immediately stand up and say she wasn’t an actor or that they were filming for a show. She knew that if she did so that it would cause a riot with the crowd, so instead she quietly followed the police to the station and explained everything to them. She both avoided trouble for the show and kept the image of her role intact by doing so.

Although all of them had different missions and stages, there was only one audience and that was the ordinary people. In the eyes of the masses, she was simply a fake medicine seller from beginning to end. Even until the very end, no one had a clue she was anything else. Even in the face of danger, she did not let her acting slip. From this, one has to admit that her acting is quite formidable.

The group with the lowest score was undoubtedly Chi Qiu and Zhang Tonghui’s team. They were recognized and then they abandoned their mission. Surprisingly, Chi Qiu had accepted these facts rather calmly. After all, she still had another chance to come back in the next round. Furthermore, the personal lowest score wasn’t actually Chi Qiu, but Lu Ersi who had ruined countless rice-selling transactions these past two days with her made-up stories.

Lu Ersi’s eyes were red, and Han Feixu, who was standing a distance from her, couldn’t tell if Lu Ersi was actually crying or not this time.

After the ending scenes were filmed, the cameras were turned off. However, no one made to leave yet as the deputy director handed the speakerphone to Jiang Lingyan.

In the past two days, Jiang Lingyan barely said a word to anyone. Although she was the one who set the rules for the show and designed each round, she acted like a bystander and only calmly watched each outcome unfold.

Jiang Lingyan smiled as she looked over the eight actors, “I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re probably thinking, ‘Ah, Skin-Flayer Jiang has reached a new record high in her schemes.’”

No one said anything, although everyone did think exactly what she said = =

“I hope you don’t forget what our original intention was for this show. Choosing the protagonists for this movie is the ultimate goal of this show. Since this is the case, the final champion must of course meet all the standards we want for a good actor and for a good protagonist. Appearance, voice, emotions, intelligence, good morals, and social responsibility, especially your social responsibility, all of these qualities must be excellent if you wish to be the protagonist.”

Jiang Lingyan titled her head, a playful air to her movements that contradicted the terrifying words she said next, “I just want to tell everyone that there is no such thing as ‘most difficult’ here, only that things will get even more difficult from now on. Alrightly, I’ll see everyone at the same time next week. I’ve prepared even more interesting games and rules for everyone that I believe you’ll enjoy.”

Usually, the actors are supposed to clap after the director’s speech but none of the eight people moved even as the silence stretched on. They only stared at each other quietly, feeling empathy with one another as fellow victims undergoing the same suffering.

---

Once Han Feixu returned home, she couldn’t wait to directly lie down and go to sleep, but before she even reached her bed, her stomach protested first.

She sat alone at the dinner table as Auntie Li brought her supper. Han Feixu was originally very hungry, but after eating a bite, she lost her appetite.

No matter how good the food smelled, eating alone made her lose her taste buds. She listlessly poked the grains of rice in her bowl as she suddenly started missing Yiyi’s company.

Yiyi, your mother can’t even eat because she misses her child too much….

Although the longing in Han Feixu’s heart didn’t bring Yiyi back, it did bring Yiyi’s other mother to her.

Ye Mingxin washed her hands before sitting down at the table to accompany her. With someone to eat with her, Han Feixu was able to eat half a bowl and drank her soup one spoonful at the time. Then Ye Mingxin said, “Dad’s back in the city.”

Han Feixu blinked, “Really?”

“He called me this morning and said he arrived today. He said that when we have the time we should go back for a visit.”

“Go back where?”

“To Grandfather’s house.”

The grandfather Ye Mingxin is talking about is Yiyi’s paternal great-grandfather. However, Han Feixu didn’t want to go, “It’s all right, the elder is not in good health. If I go, what will I do if something happens to them because of their worry for me.”

Grandparents aside, she also didn’t want to deal with Ye Mingxin’s second uncle’s family. When Ye Mingxin gave a brief introduction of her second uncle’s family, her words were objective and impartial. However, later that day Lan Zhu told her the truth and so now Ye Mingxin’s second uncle’s family in Han Feixu’s eyes were living demons and monsters.

Ye Mingxin actually didn’t want to go back either, but both of her parents personally came back to Beijing and called her several times to go home for a visit. At this point, it would be improper for her to say no.

“What if we don’t go and instead invite them out for a meal. It might be a little troublesome on grandmother’s side of things, but if you leave it to mom, she might have a way to bring grandmother here.”

Han Feixu’s drinking soup movements slowed down. After drinking three more sips of her soup, several minutes had passed before she silently put her spoon down in her bowl. Then she raised her head and said honestly, “I think….I shouldn’t go, it’s better if you go by yourself.”

Ye Mingxin was originally leaning forward, but after hearing Han Feixu’s words, she straightened and stared quietly at Han Feixu. Their surroundings were already pretty quiet, but now Han Feixu felt like she was sitting on pins and needles as the other party stared at her.

She braced herself and opened her mouth: “I….” But she was interrupted before she could finish.

“I don’t want a divorce.”

Han Feixu looked up dumbfoundedly. Although she already had an inkling that this would happen, she was still surprised to hear this sentence come from Ye Mingxin’s mouth.

“If you say the reason we should divorce is because ‘we had already decided to divorce in the first place’, then my reason is simply that I don’t want a divorce.”

Ye Mingxin’s tone was cold, yet serious. Han Feixu wouldn’t be able to brush her words aside as a joke anymore. After a short pause, she continued, “I believe you can see it too, I still love you. Before I agreed to the divorce only as a compromise, but now I have changed my mind. I don’t want to compromise anymore.”

Han Feixu’s eyes widened and she couldn’t even stammer out a sentence, “B-But….”

Ye Mingxin finished her words for her, “But you don’t love me, right?”

Han Feixu’s mouth was half-opened. She always felt that if she said those words out loud it would hurt Ye Mingxin. However, she couldn’t avoid the truth because she was afraid of hurting the other’s feelings.

“Y-Yes, so what’s the point of such a marriage? If you forcibly keep the two of us together, in the end, we’ll both be unhappy.”

Ye Mingxin’s lips curled upwards, “It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter?!!” Han Feixu repeated her words dumbfoundedly.

‘Yes, it doesn’t matter,” Ye Mingxin said confidently as she leaned back in her chair, “I will chase you once again, make you fall in love with me again, and then we can start a new life together again.”

Han Feixu didn’t feel restless or angry at her words, she just felt that the whole thing was unbelievable, “You do realize that amnesia is a type of disease, right?”

Ye Mingxin nodded.

“And it’s not a terminally ill or untreatable disease either. So you do understand that it will be cured someday?”

Ye Mingxin absorbed her words and pursed her lips, “Even if you remember again, I will still say the same thing to you, ‘I don’t want a divorce.’”

Han Feixu couldn’t understand, “Why?”

“Because I didn’t want a divorce in the first place!”

Ye Mingxin’s tone changed, and she realized she had lost her temper. She lowered her head slightly, closing her eyes as she suppressed the rising emotions in her heart. She raised her head again, “I don’t want to compromise anymore. I have never regretted marrying you. What I regret the most is agreeing to the divorce. You are the love of my life, so why should I let you go? Once you leave, where should I go? You are the center of my life, if you leave, how am I supposed to live afterward?”

Han Feixu stared at her blankly. After a long time, she finally opened her mouth and softly said, “There is no one who can’t leave another*.” (*T/N: 没有人，离不开一个人, saying that a people leave/can live without each other all the time )

Just like her. She thought she couldn’t live without her parents, that if they left her, her sky would fall and everything would be over, but in the end, she is still here, alive and well.

Ye Mingxin looked into Han Feixu’s eyes and saw the seriousness in them as she said those words. She slowly closed off her expression, then half a moment later, she laughed in a self-deprecating manner.

“You don’t even know what you mean to me.”

Ye Mingxin stood up, turned around, and walked upstairs leaving Han Feixu behind. Han Feixu sat in her chair and didn’t move for a long time. She put her hands in her lap and bowed her head. No one knew what she was thinking about.

Auntie Li, who stood behind the kitchen door, let out a sigh of relief when the movements outside stopped and put back the half-peeled clove of garlic.

Aiyo, when will these days end?

—You don’t even know what you mean to me. 

Han Feixu’s nose felt sour and her eyes were quickly covered in a mist. She didn’t know what was wrong with her, but when she heard these words, she felt like she had been kicked by someone. And whenever she thought of that cold yet sad expression Ye Mingxin made before she left, it was like she was kicked three or four times continuously. In her heart, all she felt was pain.

Perhaps, this is this body’s memories.

Han Feixu slowly made her way up the stairs and found herself standing between their two rooms. After hesitating for a long time, she still knocked on Ye Mingxin’s door.

Rationally, she understood she shouldn’t knock on this door, but emotionally, she couldn’t control herself. After contemplating it for a long while, she finally realized that what she felt was called heartache. When Ye Mingxin feels sad, her own body feels distressed and her heart aches. So she allowed her body to bring her over here, even though she had no idea what she should say after knocking on the door.

The door opened and Ye Mingxin stood in front of her with a cold expression. Han Feixu’s brain buffered for a long time before she finally thought of an idea and took out a Snickers bar from her pocket, “Yiyi gave this to me. She said it was to help me replenish my energy. I’ve been reluctant to eat it these past two days, so I’ll give it to you instead.”

She reached forward and grabbed Ye Mingxin’s hand, placing the Snickers in her palm. Ye Mingxin looked down at the chocolate bar in her hand. She didn’t say anything for a while before she raised her eyes again, “I know, since I bought this for Yiyi to give to you. I told her to give it to you when you dropped her off at school.”

Han Feixu: “….”

Oh, that makes sense.

Although the atmosphere was awkward, Han Feixu continued as she smiled dryly, “What a coincidence then. After passing through so many hands, it finally returns back to you.”

In the summer, the temperature is very high and the Snickers had melted already, but Ye Mingxin didn’t mind. She placed the chocolate in her pocket and looked at Han Feixu again. She felt a bit amused and a bit helpless at the Han Feixu in front of her who had messed up her opening remarks so badly.

Han Feixu is still the same as before. When she should act cold-heartedly, it softens instead and when she should act soft-hearted, she hardens her heart instead.

She sighed quietly and stretched out her arms. She wrapped her arms around Han Feixu’s waist and hugged her into her embrace. Han Feixu’s waist is very thin. So usually when she hugs her, Ye Mingxin always puts her arms around Han Feixu’s shoulder blades instead.

Meanwhile, Han Feixu was shocked by the sudden movement. She stood stiffly in the other’s embrace, her nose clogging up with a faint smell of mimosa and white roses. This was the scent of Ye Mingxin’s hair.

She didn’t dare to move at all, even as Ye Mingxin’s hair fell from her shoulders and brushed against her arms. The hair felt soft and smooth against her skin, and she felt a little itchy, a little numb, as the tips of her hair lightly tickled against her skin.

Ye Mingxin hugged her tightly for a while before she finally relaxed her hold. She pressed her head against Han Feixu’s shoulders, next to her ear. Her warm breath fell on the side of Han Feixu’s neck, causing her neck to breakout into small goosebumps.

“Give me one more chance, please.”

Unlike the tough and indifferent tone she had used earlier, Ye Mingxin’s current words were soft and gentle, full of a light delicateness. If one listened carefully, there was even a light hint of seductiveness to her tone as well. Han Feixu only thought about how her neck felt so itchy, so she turned her head to the side, “This, can you get up first….”

After so many years, Ye Mingxin was very familiar with every sensitive spot on Han Feixu’s body. The corners of her lips curled upwards and she leaned forward, her breaths now landing about two centimeters right below Han Feixu’s ears, “Why are you still so sensitive?”

The light tingling sensation that started in her ears spread directly to her brain and heart. Han Feixu jumped back, as if she was shocked by an electric taser, and Ye Mingxin let her go. Han Feixu quickly backed away two steps, but the numbing electric tingling did not recede and her brain blanked for a while before she shuffled awkwardly, “Since the chocolate has been given, I’m going to leave now!”

With that said, Han Feixu turned around to leave while Ye Mingxin watched her while leaning against the door frame. Suddenly, she stretched out a hand and easily grabbed the back collar of Han Feixu’s shirt.

She didn’t turn her around as she knew Han Feixu would just panic if she faced her directly. The fingers on her collar moved downwards until they wrapped around Han Feixu’s ring finger and pinky.

She gently squeezed those two fingers and said in a much lower voice, “I’m serious, please give me another chance, Little Xu.”

“This time, I will try my best to be your best friend, closest relative, and lover. Just like how you are the center of my life, I also want to be the center of yours. Give me a chance to try again, okay?”

She couldn’t see Han Feixu’s expression, the fingers in her grip tense for a moment and then relaxed. Ye Mingxin’s heart almost jumped into her throat, as she understood that this was Han Feixu’s signal that she had made her decision.

Han Feixu had struggled over it for a long time, but in the end, she couldn’t resist Ye Mingxin’s humble and begging appearance. There was a sticky and slippery feeling in her hand and she realized that this was the sweat from Ye Mingxin’s hand. She turned around and looked into Ye Mingxin’s eyes silently.

“Okay….”

Almost immediately, a brilliant and blinding smile appeared on Ye Mingxin’s face. As she held Han Feixu’s hand, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss on the corner of her mouth, “Thank you.”

Han Feixu’s eyes widened comically, “I-I only agreed to give you a chance! I didn’t agree to let you get handsy* with me! You can’t use your mouth either!” (T/N: 动手动脚 is an idiom who’s literal meaning is ‘to  move one’s hands and feet’, but in this context it means getting handsy with someone. Han Feixu is also using a bit of a pun by saying Ye Mingxin can’t ‘use her mouth’ either along with her hands and feet)

If Han Feixu was covered in fur, every single strand of her hair would have puffed up into a big ball of fluff right about now.

Ye Mingxin smiled lightly, “Okay.”

Although she said that, Han Feixu didn’t believe her one bit. She had a faint feeling in her heart that Ye Mingxin was not as upright and noble as she seemed. She must have secretly done a lot of shady and underhanded things before. Thus, in order to protect her virtue from such a person, she swiftly ran back to her room as quickly as she could.

---

T/N:

Ah, these two are just so cute~~ Let the wife-chasing begin!

Also Han Feixu giving Ye Mingxin a snickers bar reminds me of those superbowl ads, you know the one that goes “You’re not you when you’re hungry” with people like Betty White and Marlyin Monroe.