Chapter 1
Chapter 1
I clutched my registration slip as the hospital air-conditioning chilled me. My lower abdomen still seemed to ache.
Three months after being discharged, I had come back for a follow-up examination.
I had not expected to see him here too. Somehow, he seemed to be everywhere. I stared blankly at the giant screen, where an international film festival was being broadcast live. The camera had settled on a young Chinese man holding a golden trophy, his face at once familiar and strange.
Sang Ge, the prodigy director who had debuted at the very top. Over the past two years, his film Springtime had swept every major award at home. Now it had earned him Best Director at an international film festival.
It had been years since a Chinese face stood on that stage. Even the hospital had switched its display to the broadcast ten minutes ago.
The whole country was watching, proud to share in his glory.
Sang Ge was just as I remembered him: radiant, dazzling, impossible to look away from.
“Our films have finally fought their way back onto that stage. I’m so proud I can’t even feel my pain anymore.”
“As if Sang Ge’s talent weren’t enough, he’s better-looking than any A-list actor.”
“Shh. He’s about to speak.”
The people around me could barely contain their excitement, yet they all held their breath for his speech. I tilted my head toward the screen. Beneath the spotlights, Sang Ge did not say a word. He took a phone from his pocket. Only when he raised it to his ear did I believe what I was seeing.
In front of the entire world, during his own acknowledgments, he was making a call.
Then the phone resting on my knee rang.
An unfamiliar number from the United States.
An absurd thought rose in my mind.
People nearby turned toward me too, their disbelief giving way to awkward expressions. “What a coincidence,” someone muttered before facing the screen again.
It was quite a coincidence. For a second, I almost imagined Sang Ge was calling me.
I picked up my phone, my fingertips trembling. The child beside me suddenly flung out an arm and smacked it from my hand. Its ringing had already disturbed half the waiting room, and irritated glances landed on me. Pressing my lips together, I hurriedly bent down to retrieve it.
Just as my fingers were about to touch the phone, the child yanked off my hat. Cold air swept over my bare scalp.
The ringing stopped. A missed call glowed on the screen.
The child’s voice was innocent and cruel. “Miss, why don’t you have any hair? You look scary.”
The polished floor reflected my bluish, hairless scalp. I was bald. I did look frightening. When I raised my head again, the young man on the giant screen had begun his speech, his expression faintly cold.
Surrounded by starlight, standing at the center of the world—that was Sang Ge’s life.
The nurse called my number. “Eighty-six, Ding Guchun. Examination Room Three.”
I answered.
That was mine.
The test results were good. They were the only good news I had received lately.
Back home, I lay on the sofa scrolling through short videos. For half a month after Sang Ge’s award, every platform had been flooded with news about him.
Reporters cornered him at the airport, but he ignored every question.
“Director Sang, who was the person you called in front of the whole world?”
Escorted by bodyguards in black, he looked back and answered only that. Sunglasses hid his eyes, but the curve of his lips was unmistakably mocking.
“The person I hate most.”
Calling the person he hated most during his acceptance speech.
Anyone could tell there was more to it.
Soon, an industry insider claimed that the woman Sang Ge loved and hated in equal measure was the rising actress Jiang Siyu. They had known each other since university, and their supposed history had enough love, hate, and grudges to fill an eighty-episode drama.
I opened my call history and stared at the missed call from the United States.
After leaving the examination room that day, I had tried calling the number several times.
No one ever answered. It was probably a scam call.
Forget it.
“Jiang Siyu has incredible luck,” Sister Liu said indignantly as she drew the curtains open, flooding my eyes with sunlight. “Now that she’s connected to Sang Ge, she’ll have more work than she can handle.”
Another topic had shot onto Weibo’s trending list: Jiang Siyu and Ding Guchun. The page was filled with abuse.
Jiang Siyu had climbed to fame by stepping on me. I debuted in university, first appearing in youth dramas. Somehow, my career veered sideways, and before I knew it, I had become a comedy actress—the kind whose photograph alone made the whole country laugh.
Then, at a private dinner, I rescued Jiang Siyu after someone drugged her. Surveillance footage leaked, and the story was twisted into me delivering a junior actress to an industry bigwig.
People used to call me the nation’s Happy Daughter. After that scandal, they called me a madam.
Throughout the entire uproar, Jiang Siyu never said a word. She did not offer me a single sentence in clarification.
Instead, she shaped herself into the perfect victim, landed several roles, and became famous overnight.
That was also when I learned I was ill. I temporarily withdrew from the industry, but people still cursed me and sent funeral wreaths to my door. Sister Liu felt terrible for me and railed at the viciousness of strangers online. I joked, “It’s fine. The wreaths will save me some money later.”
At the time, I truly believed I was going to die.
Yet somehow I had clung to life until now.
My hair was gone. My body had wasted away. I had almost forgotten how to smile.
But I was alive.
As Jiang Siyu’s popularity grew, her team dragged my name out again for another public flogging.
“Did Ding Guchun think leaving the industry made everything go away? Come out and apologize!”
“Ding Guchun the madam bullied my girl when she was a rookie. Disgusting.”
“Is Ding Guchun even alive?”
Those comments filled Jiang Siyu’s fan forum.
The topic bearing my name kept climbing. Then a red-hot search dropped straight into first place: Sang Ge joins reality show.