47. Long Time No See ah, Cheng Shiyu.

《Silent》 is one of Luo Yue’s favorite movies, without a doubt.

The image of a fourteen-year-old girl carrying her backpack, walking aimlessly along the railway tracks, made her revisit countless times in the late hours of the night, tossing and turning, tears streaming down her face.

It was so much like her that year.

Many years ago, she often walked along the seaside with her backpack, measuring the length of the Moon Island coastline with her footsteps.

Just like the girl in the movie.

A girl’s love is silent, tears are silent, and even hatred is silent.

In connection, Luo Yue also admires the director Zhong Ling very much.

After looking up information, Luo Yue found out that Zhong Ling is very young, not even twenty-five yet, but she won the Best Director award at international film festivals.

This achievement alone is enough to shock anyone, and with such fame, she was once hailed as a genius girl.

Luo Yue has seen many of her movies, and she even knows that her new movie 《Treading The Wind》 is about workplace bullying.

Young in age but bold in spirit, unafraid to expose the dark side of reality, unafraid to offend anyone, daring to shoot anything.

And this theme has long been anticipated by many.

Luo Yue chose the most meaningful movie to her, and decided to give Qin Zhaoyi a ring at the end and then confess.

But she didn’t expect Qin Zhaoyi to leave in a panic.

Even the room where the movie was shown was specially requested by Luo Yue from her classmate.

They weren’t very close; they only knew each other in junior high school, where Luo Yue often gave him copies of her work.

She wasn’t good at making requests, but she still asked for the best room.

Pink wallpaper, dim yellow lights, full of atmosphere.

Luo Yue even rehearsed in her mind several times, sweating in her palm when she took out the ladies’ rings.

The rings were also carefully selected by her.

The inner circle of the ring was specially engraved with words.

Qin Zhaoyi’s ring had “LY” engraved on it, and hers had “QX,” which was Qin Zhaoyi’s WeChat name.

She always felt that someone as meticulous as Qin Zhaoyi wouldn’t just randomly choose a WeChat name.

There must be some special meaning behind it.

Either “QX” represented someone very important to her.

Or “QX” was an abbreviation for something very important.

So, after much thought, Luo Yue used “QX.”

The carefully prepared scene didn’t come in handy, and the specially prepared ring didn’t get sent out.

Even, it wasn’t seen by anyone.

Luo Yue stood still for a while, then collapsed back into the soft sofa.

The movie 《Silent》 started playing again.

There was a line in the opening credits: Special Invited Screenwriter: Sicily.

And below that was: Director: Zhong Ling.

As the movie played frame by frame, Qin Zhaoyi’s expression when she received the call kept looping in Luo Yue’s mind.

From confusion to shock, then to panic and confusion.

It must be someone very important to her.

And coincidentally, just as the movie finished playing, the BGM ended, and the room fell silent.

Luo Yue heard Zhong Yu say on the phone, “Check the hot search.”

Qin Zhaoyi used to say that she had a director friend.

Hurriedly, Luo Yue opened the hot search and almost all the trending topics were about Zhong Ling.

Zhong Yu, Zhong Ling.

Both surnamed Zhong.

Could there be such a coincidence in this world?

Luo Yue had read some interviews with Zhong Ling before, where she only mentioned one friend: Sicily.

She talked about Sicily’s talent, quirks in creation, and their nearly twenty-year friendship, a presence integrated into each other’s lives.

Luo Yue pulled the movie to its conclusion, coincidentally the last line.

[Thanks to my best friend Sicily, I’ll always love you]

At this point, Luo Yue understood everything.

Qin Zhaoyi is Sicily.

QX is the initials of Qin Zhaoyi and Sicily ^[1]Xi Xi Li.

After a long time, Luo Yue collected her wandering thoughts, turned off the movie, and put away the rings.

Then she went out and hailed a taxi back to Moon Island.

She didn’t choose to go home but went to Yan Ci’s coffee shop.

On the way, she scrolled through Weibo and saw the continuous ferment of public opinion online, as if there was a puppeteer behind it all.

Zhong Ling’s name occupied dozens of top trending topics.

It had evolved from the initial #Zhong Ling workplace harassment# to the standalone #Zhong Ling# topic.

Even two or three consecutive ones were explosive, surpassing the countless popular stars in the entertainment industry.

Luo Yue clicked into several topics and roughly understood the ins and outs.

One was about Zhong Ling filming anti-workplace bullying, but she ignored the actresses’ disgust and acted inappropriately towards them, constituting workplace harassment; the other was the exposure of Zhong Ling and her girlfriend’s explicit video, which, due to Weibo’s censorship requirements, had been pixelated.

Even with the pixels, some things could still be vaguely seen.

It was utterly shameless.

And the online reputation was almost entirely one-sided, mainly because Zhong Ling became famous at a young age and had always been held high on a pedestal.

So now people had a kind of “so she’s just an ordinary person” feeling, stepping on her corpse, wishing to crush her into powder and bury her in the ground.

There were scattered comments defending homosexuality as innocent, but almost all the comments on the vast square were criticizing Zhong Ling.

They scolded her for filming explicit videos recklessly and for sexually harassing Lu Xinyan on set.

The 《Treading The Wind》 crew had also stopped production on the eve of completion.

But Zhong Ling’s side had yet to respond; journalists from various parties had contacted Zhong Ling and her assistant, but they hadn’t been able to reach them.

At the same time, a new hot search quietly emerged.

#Sicily Zhong Ling unspoken rules ^[2]exchanging s*xual favors for resources#

Qin Zhaoyi drove to Yan Ci’s coffee shop to pick up Zhong Yu, then rushed back to Jiayi.

By the time Zhong Yu got into her car, she had calmed down, but her eyes were still swollen and red, indicating she had been crying for a long time, even her voice was hoarse from crying.

After getting in the car, Zhong Yu called her parents.

But her father was still overseas negotiating cooperation, and her mother was also overseas performing.

One was in the southern hemisphere, the other in the northern hemisphere, and even their time zones didn’t match up.

But when they heard about Zhong Ling’s disappearance, they were both shocked and tacitly said, “Impossible, your sister isn’t as clueless as you.”

The conversation then turned back to Zhong Yu, asking her where she had been these days, who she had met, and when she would finish her vacation and return to work at the art gallery.

Zhong Yu hung up the phone angrily.

It might be because Zhong Ling, though stubborn since childhood, had never caused any trouble.

So her parents believed everything would be fine.

However, Qin Zhaoyi felt a tension deep in her heart, sensing that things were not so simple.

Everyone has their Achilles’ heel, and Zhong Ling’s was that untouchable love affair.

Now it had even made it to the hot searches.

Along with it, Lu Xinyan was also implicated.

The most ridiculous claim was that Zhong Ling had sexually harassed Lu Xinyan, even though just a few days ago Zhong Ling had called her and mentioned how much she admired this actress and how well they got along.

Qin Zhaoyi knew Zhong Ling’s character very well—if she liked someone, she liked them; if she admired someone, she admired them—she never hid her feelings.

Moreover, once Zhong Ling started filming, her entire focus was on her work, leaving no room for romantic distractions.

As for the other matters on the hot search, only Zhong Ling herself would know the truth.

But the problem was, Zhong Ling hadn’t responded.

She had disappeared.

When Qin Zhaoyi arrived in Jiayi in the afternoon, she first went to Zhong Ling’s house, where the security guard mentioned that he hadn’t seen Miss Zhong for three or four days.

When Qin Zhaoyi went upstairs and tried to enter the password, it was incorrect.

After five failed attempts, the lock would be disabled for two hours.

Qin Zhaoyi tried three of Zhong Ling’s usual passwords, all of which were incorrect.

Zhong Yu softly said from the side, “Let me try.”

Qin Zhaoyi stepped aside, and Zhong Yu entered a series of numbers, successfully opening the door.

Qin Zhaoyi asked, “What’s the password?”

Zhong Yu bit her lip, “The number of days she shut herself in the house two years ago.”

Qin Zhaoyi was speechless.

The year Zhong Ling had her heartbreak, she locked herself in her house for a whole month, hiding in her bedroom with the curtains drawn. She would have food deliveries left at her door, nibbling at them randomly. The entire place had a damp, decaying smell.

No one knew what she did in there. Later, when Qin Zhaoyi cautiously asked her about it, Zhong Ling, who had been chatting cheerfully, suddenly went silent. After a long pause, she gave a light laugh and said, “Just daydreaming.”

It was Qin Zhaoyi who couldn’t stand it anymore and barged into her home, yanking open her curtains to let the sunlight pour in and dumping a bucket of water on her bed.

In the past, Zhong Ling would have jumped up and yelled like a monkey.

But that day, she just lay on the bed, smiling up at Qin Zhaoyi, soaking wet, her arms spread out like a ghastly corpse.

Zhong Ling was quite pleased with that description.

Qin Zhaoyi stood by the bed and said, “You want to fall apart, right? Then I’ll fall apart with you.”

So she closed the curtains again, and the two of them huddled in the damp room, their senses magnified in the darkness, able to hear the sound of insects crawling.

Qin Zhaoyi said, “Listen, even the insects are living seriously.”

They stayed in that room for a whole day before Zhong Ling finally got up as if nothing had happened.

She took a shower, then dragged Qin Zhaoyi to a salon to get a haircut.

After that, they never mentioned that period again.

Feeling heavy-hearted, Qin Zhaoyi entered Zhong Ling’s home. The furnishings were the same as always, even extraordinarily clean.

There was no trace of anyone living there.

Qin Zhaoyi pushed open Zhong Ling’s bedroom door. The room was spotless, the glass so clean it reflected the glow of the setting sun, and the bed sheets were freshly changed, without a single crease.

It didn’t feel like Zhong Ling at all.

The more pristine it was, the more frightening it felt.

It was as if she had silently said goodbye to the world.

The hot search had blown up so much that even Qin Zhaoyi’s mother called to ask what had happened to Zhong Ling.

Qin Zhaoyi sighed, “I don’t know.”

“Where is Zhong Ling?” her mother asked with concern. “I called her, but her phone is off. She must be having a hard time.”

Qin Zhaoyi sighed again, “I can’t reach her.”

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the line before her mother said, “They’re cursing you online as well.”

Zhong Yu handed her phone to Qin Zhaoyi. The top trending topic had already changed to #Sicily and Zhong Ling Unspoken Rules#.

It seemed like a well-orchestrated media attack, with various marketing accounts jumping in, some without any evidence, just saying: “I heard from someone,” “A big shot said,” “My friend told me.”

Qin Zhaoyi quickly ended the call with her mother.

She took Zhong Yu’s phone and carefully read through the online accusations. It claimed that she and Zhong Ling had groped a minor celebrity after a dinner party a year ago, and after the party, they took the person to a hotel. It emphasized that the person was a girl, which went unnoticed at the time but was now revealed as evidence of their preference for women.

Suddenly, everyone was kicking them while they were down.

The post even included a GIF and a timeline.

At first, Qin Zhaoyi couldn’t remember who the person was, but after seeing the post, she recalled. It was when Zhong Ling was preparing her new movie and went to the film academy to find actors.

A girl had just volunteered to play the second female lead. Zhong Ling saw that she was very young, just a freshman in college, with bright, clear eyes. She thought the girl was more suited for the third female lead in her film. So, Zhong Ling discussed it with her, and since it was mealtime, she treated the girl to dinner. The girl insisted on drinking, so Zhong Ling had a few glasses with her. Unexpectedly, the girl couldn’t hold her liquor and got tipsy after just a few drinks. Being the considerate person she was, Zhong Ling took her back to school. However, since it was past curfew, they had to check into a nearby hotel.

That night, they used Qin Zhaoyi’s ID to check in. Now, that girl had become a rising star in the entertainment industry among the post-2000 generation.

But since the photos were too blurry, it was impossible to identify who it was.

Qin Zhaoyi logged into her long-unused main account and responded with just two words: “Nonsense.”

Along with a meme that said: “See you all in court.”

Zhong Yu hurriedly called out to her, “Sister Yi, look.”

She handed over a note.

[Smart Miss Qin Zhaoyi, I believe you will find me.

Give me some time, I want to rest too.

The trashy entertainment industry is not worth staying in.

This time, I want to be cool.

Like you.

Damn this world.]

Qin Zhaoyi: “…”

The ship docked at Moon Island at dusk, the golden light of the setting sun shimmering on the sea’s surface.

The salty sea breeze made the woman walking leisurely on the deck sneeze.

After disembarking, she observed the surrounding scenery.

It was indeed beautiful.

The fine sand sparkled as it was blown by the wind, as if countless specks of gold were shining.

Before she could move forward, she heard a man shouting from a distance, “Are you coming home?”

The woman sitting on the rocks had a straight posture, her shoulder-length hair fluttering in the wind. She was casually throwing stones she found into the sea, making them skip before they sank.

Her voice was slightly hoarse with a tinge of melancholy, “No.”

“Why?” the man asked. “Skipping dinner too? Planning to become a poet sitting here?”

The woman propped herself up on the rocks with one hand and jumped down with agility. “Mind your own business.”

The man turned and shook his head in exasperation, reminding her as he left, “Come home early.”

The woman paid no attention to him and walked on.

Cheng Shiyu kicked the fine sand under her feet, lost in thought, ignoring Cheng Shijing.

Moon Island at dusk held countless secrets.

Including hers.

She was contemplating the courage needed to leave Moon Island overnight.

The setting sun stretched her shadow across the beach, and the rolling tide wet her ankles, soaking her feet.

Suddenly, a pair of feet stepped on hers.

The white sneakers were dirtied, seemingly on purpose.

Cheng Shiyu looked up impatiently.

At that moment, the woman who had just walked slowly off the ship smiled, tears glistening in her eyes.

“Long time no see, Cheng Shiyu.”

Author’s note:

Welcome to Moon Island, Zhong Jie.

The strongest support has arrived.