Starting Over

Maybe she was too exhausted. Xing Yue slumped over the steering wheel and nearly fell asleep, only waking when the cold roused her near dawn.

A thin layer of morning dew covered the car windows, but the scene brought her no sense of freshness. She only felt cold. Even her fingernails had turned dark purple.

On the drive home, Xing Yue stopped at a roadside stall for breakfast. She ordered a basket of Meat Dumplings with peanut butter sauce. She kept her head down, but the morning sunlight still stabbed at her eyes, making them water.

The stall was still quiet. Noticing something wrong, the owner fetched a pair of sunglasses. "Here, put these on. They'll block the light."

He assumed Xing Yue had an eye condition. Such conditions were fairly common among snakes, but sensitivity to light was unusual. If even the gentle morning sun hurt, it meant an acquired Iris Membrane Rupture—

It often followed a devastating upheaval at home or the death of someone dear. Overwhelming grief could bring it on. Whatever the cause, it was heartbreaking.

When Xing Yue didn't take the sunglasses, the owner thought she disliked them. He gave her a good-natured smile. "They're brand-new. Never been worn. My daughter's in college, and she comes home on breaks to tinker with little things like these and sell them at the night market. These just came in. They sell really well—young people love this style."

Xing Yue pressed a hand over her eyes and shook her head. "Thank you..."

She still didn't take them. With one hand shielding her eyes, she picked up a dumpling with the other. She coated it in layer after layer of peanut butter sauce, but it still tasted like nothing.

The owner didn't understand, but he didn't press her. He quietly left the sunglasses on the table and went back to work.

Xing Yue wanted to finish her dumplings as if nothing was wrong, but her eyes wouldn't let her. Images doubled in her vision, as though hundreds of crows were flying past. She blinked hard. The pain worsened, and soon she couldn't even make out the dumplings.

Realizing her eyes really were damaged, Xing Yue felt her nose sting. She lowered her head and said nothing. At last, she put on the sunglasses. With the glare muted, she felt some relief, but she still couldn't use her eyes like anyone else. For a snake with Iris Membrane Rupture, sunglasses only shielded the eyes from light; they couldn't heal them. Worse, the lenses took away her ability to distinguish colors.

With the sunglasses on, Xing Yue's world was only black and white. Without them, she could see colors like anyone else, but she had to endure the sun scorching her eyes. She couldn't have both.

She looked at the black-and-white dumplings, the black-and-white trees, the black-and-white sky, and felt unexpectedly calm. Perhaps this was how her world ought to be: no sun, moon, or stars, just an overcast sky at every hour of the day...

Before leaving, Xing Yue paid for breakfast and the sunglasses, giving the owner three times the usual price for the latter.

When she got home, an unfamiliar car was parked outside. Luo Zhi had come.

Xing Yue opened the door and let her in, then mechanically poured her a glass of water. She was calm, almost numb.

Luo Zhi took out several contracts and spoke gently. "Please think it over. Under the standard procedure, ending your contract now, on top of the new agreement you signed, means you'll owe compensation to both your old studio and New Shadow Entertainment. The cost will be enormous. The chairwoman wants you to reconsider. Don't end up with nothing at your age—and buried in debt."

She put particular emphasis on the last sentence. Those were the chairwoman's exact words, and Luo Zhi had been sent to deliver them.

If Qiao Rui had come, Xing Yue might have listened. But it was Luo Zhi, so she wouldn't hear a word of it. She couldn't tell whether Madam Bu genuinely wanted her to stay or had sent Luo Zhi to provoke her.

"All right. Give me a deadline. I'll raise the money." Xing Yue showed no emotion. She asked only for time.

Her composure surprised Luo Zhi. "Are you sure you want to breach the contracts? This isn't a small sum. The company won't go easy on you because of your history with Miss Bu."

"Is that so?" Xing Yue said absently. "It's not as if I ever used Miss Bu's favor to get special treatment..."

Luo Zhi made it sound as though Xing Yue had gained so much from dating Bu Yao that she would now try to use their past to beg the company for mercy.

She had never expected anything of the sort. They could follow the proper procedure and charge her whatever she owed.

Xing Yue had never benefited from the Bu Family's influence. Why would she expect anyone to spare her for its sake?

Luo Zhi's expression grew complicated. She thought Xing Yue had lost her mind, making a choice like this. She watched her sign one compensation agreement after another, her brow tightly furrowed.

The total came to 9.2 million. After Luo Zhi left, Xing Yue began tallying her assets.

She had around two million in savings. The house and car might fetch 5.7 million; fortunately, the house had appreciated, though the car would sell at a depreciated price. She might make a small profit on the two-story villa. Her jewelry, bags, and luxury watches could bring in another 500,000, and the Red Camellias in the yard might sell for eighty or ninety thousand.

Even if she sold everything, Xing Yue would still owe a substantial amount. For an online influencer, even a modestly popular one, earning back 900,000 might take only a hard six months.

But once the contracts ended, the company would take back her account. Even if Xing Yue tried to earn money the old way, building a new following from scratch would be difficult. And with her reputation in ruins and the internet full of abuse, she would likely be mobbed the moment she opened an account, let alone make money.

She would have to find other work. An ordinary job might pay ten or twenty thousand a month if it was a good one, or three or four thousand otherwise. How long would it take an ordinary employee to earn 900,000?

Xing Yue sat in silence. She let out a long sigh, allowed herself a brief spell of misery, then started looking for an agent to sell the house and car.

Making money would be harder now, but not impossible. Paying off the compensation was only a matter of time. What hurt was seeing everything she had put into building her life over the years come to this.

A key suddenly turned in the front door. Xing Yue instinctively looked toward the sound, but before she could see who it was, someone wrapped her in a crushing hug. She couldn't breathe, and her sunglasses fell to the floor.

"Waaah, waaah!" Bo Wuxue howled like a Husky, all noise and no tears. She held Xing Yue tight. "A Yue, they're awful! Don't have anything to do with them! Waaah..."

Bo Wuxue had only learned about the whole mess that morning. She had gone out the night before.

The trending stories had made her so furious her head spun. She hired a crowd of paid commenters to defend Xing Yue, but the story had already been spreading for a day and a night. It made little difference.

She put on an anonymous account and personally traded furious insults with other users for hundreds of rounds. Outnumbered, she finally rage-deleted the app.

Those people didn't even know Xing Yue. They heard one audio clip and started hurling abuse, as though they wanted to throw her into a vat of boiling oil. They hadn't spent a cent promoting her. What gave them the right? Reading those vicious comments made Bo Wuxue feel sick.

Even she could barely look at them. She couldn't imagine how Xing Yue felt reading them. It had to hurt worse than being torn apart.

Xing Yue hugged Bo Wuxue back and ended up comforting her instead. "It's all right. Stop howling."

In truth, she cared less about the abuse online than whether she would ever be able to properly admire Bo Wuxue's eyes again. It would be such a shame not to see those Yushi Qing-colored irises.

Bo Wuxue sniffed hard, still nowhere near done venting. "And don't talk to Bu Yao anymore! None of this would've happened without the Bu Family. I knew that old witch was up to no good. Her whole family's rotten to the core! Block Bu Yao right now. Don't ever contact her again!"

If she had known, she never would have held the engagement party, no matter what. That was where Xing Yue had reunited with Bu Yao. Without it, Xing Yue would still be a popular cover singer with lots of fans. People liked her; she had money and talent, and her life had been going well.

Still hugging Xing Yue, Bo Wuxue let out another howl. She even remembered to suggest a new job. "Come model lingerie for me. All my customers are women, and with your figure, they'd praise you every day. I'll give you half the factory's profits. It's just... you wouldn't have to show your nipples, but you'd have to show pretty much everything else. Could you do that, sweetheart?"

"I couldn't." Xing Yue couldn't help laughing softly. She pushed Bo Wuxue's forehead away as Bo Wuxue leaned in, then teased her back. "I want the kind where I do show them. Do you have anything like that? If not, I'm not interested."

Maybe life wasn't so terrible. At least she still had Bo Wuxue. Ever since they were children, Bo Wuxue had been like an angel in her life.

After they fooled around for a while, Bo Wuxue got back to the point. "A Yue, a friend of mine just opened a bar and needs a resident singer. The guaranteed pay is thirty thousand a month for ten songs a day, with extra pay if you sing more. Want to give it a try?"

She couldn't bring Xing Yue into her family's company. Her father wouldn't allow it; he was afraid of damaging their relationship with Ji Wenyan. Her family and the Bus were, unfortunately, old family friends!

But her friend's bar had just opened, and she could ask her friend to look after Xing Yue.

"Okay."

Xing Yue agreed almost without thinking.

The pay wasn't bad. It was excellent, even. She urgently needed to earn enough to pay off the compensation and start over...