The instant the wire snapped.
The corners of Xu Qingyun's lips curved into a V.
Until she saw that Su Mian onstage wasn't panicking at all.
With a spin, she landed firmly on the stage!
The corners of Xu Qingyun's mouth instantly turned into a Λ.
How was that possible!
Onstage, Su Mian finished her Dunhuang flying apsara dance and bowed to the audience with a smile.
Those three years she had spent studying abroad in ancient times hadn't been for nothing.
Her greatest gain had been learning lightness kung fu.
When they had fastened the wire earlier, she had felt it wobbling a little.
But with time running short, she hadn't said anything.
Sure enough, it had snapped.
Fortunately, today's event had gone perfectly.
The video of her flying through the air was posted online, too, and hit the trending searches again within minutes.
#Su Mian, a real Dunhuang heavenly maiden descending!#
#Could Su Mian really be an ancient heroine whose soul transmigrated into modern times#
#Include Su Mian in the national intangible cultural heritage list#
Su Mian busied herself signing autographs for some fans.
By the time her hand ached from signing, Sister Li finally rescued her and took her back to the lounge.
The moment Su Mian closed the door, she asked, "Sister Li, did you check the security footage for me? Who tried to hurt me?"
One look at that wire told her someone had tampered with it.
Thank goodness she knew lightness kung fu.
Otherwise, wouldn't that fall have crippled her?
Sister Li sighed. "I checked, but couldn't find anything. They said it was negligence on the staff's part."
Su Mian was just about to venture a guess...
The door suddenly opened.
Lu Zhou walked in and asked Sister Li whether today's event had gone smoothly.
His face was so dark that Su Mian wanted to open a farm for him and send him off to pick cotton.
Then a young woman walked in.
Slender and delicate, wearing a white dress with long hair reaching her waist, she linked her arm through Lu Zhou's as soon as she entered.
Su Mian searched her mind and found information about her.
The original post had briefly mentioned this person, too: Xu Qingyun, Lu Zhou's childhood sweetheart.
She had always stayed by his side as his "little sister," enjoying the treatment of a girlfriend.
Su Mian clicked her tongue.
Everyone who did bad things wanted to achieve their own ends and get what they sought.
At least Fang Nuonuo sought success and recognition; in her eyes, those men were all stepping stones.
But Xu Qingyun was different. What she sought was a pile of shit.
The pile of shit that was Lu Zhou.
Su Mian suddenly asked Xu Qingyun, "You weren't the one who deliberately damaged the wire, hoping I'd fall to my death, were you?"
Xu Qingyun blinked her innocent eyes, glanced at Lu Zhou, then looked at Su Mian. "Sowwy, I can't understand what you're saying."
Lu Zhou's expression grew even colder as he told Su Mian, "Qingyun grew up overseas. She can only understand a little basic Chinese. Stop coming up with conspiracy theories all the time. That wire was just negligence on the staff's part! Qingyun can barely communicate with people here. How could she bribe anyone to hurt you?"
Su Mian pointed at Xu Qingyun and burst out laughing. "This dumb bitch doesn't understand Chinese! Even tofu has brains, but she doesn't. She looks like a pus-filled infected nail fold, stinking and disgusting..."
Su Mian unleashed a ten-minute tirade without repeating herself once.
Xu Qingyun was so furious she could barely breathe!
But she had only just said she couldn't understand Chinese.
Now she could only listen, unable to talk back at all!
Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. Clutching her heart, she weakly leaned into Lu Zhou's arms.
"Brother Zhou, my heart hurts so much..."
Then she fainted.
Lu Zhou hurriedly picked her up. "I'll take you to the hospital."
As he turned to leave, he suddenly caught sight, out of the corner of his eye, of the deep scars on Su Mian's wrist beneath the lotus pattern.
His heart clenched, and a memory flashed through his mind.
It seemed to have been that time...
Su Mian had been invited to the birthday banquet of one of the industry's top male rappers.
At the banquet, the rapper had gotten Su Mian drunk and tried to sexually assault her.
Su Mian had fought back and hadn't let him take advantage of her.
But the rapper's words carried considerable weight. Afterward, he had ruined several of Su Mian's television drama contracts, leaving her with no choice but to act in melodramatic short dramas.
At the lowest point in her life, Su Mian had hoped that he, her boyfriend, would keep him company.
But on his way to Su Mian's home, he had received a call from Xu Qingyun.
Xu Qingyun had said she wasn't feeling well.
So he had immediately abandoned Su Mian to go to Xu Qingyun, and had even stayed with her for several days.
Only later had he learned that Su Mian had actually slit her wrists that night.
What had he said to Su Mian back then?
"Playing the self-injury card? Work already gives me enough headaches every day. Could you stop making a scene all the time and doing nothing but causing me trouble?"
Lu Zhou suddenly felt an awful ache inside.
In truth, he had come into the lounge just now using questions about Sister Li's work as an excuse, wanting to see whether Su Mian was all right.
Yet he hadn't said a single word of concern, and the moment something happened to Xu Qingyun, he had immediately chosen Xu Qingyun again.
He felt so awful that all strength left his hands.
His grip loosened.
Thud-
Xu Qingyun dropped from his arms onto the floor, gritting her teeth in pain.
But remembering that she was pretending to be unconscious, Xu Qingyun didn't make a sound, no matter how much it hurt.
Lu Zhou turned back, wanting to ask Su Mian whether she had been scared when the wire snapped.
But to his surprise, Su Mian's attention was already completely off him.
Su Mian held her phone, staring at the transfer notification on it.
"You little work slut, I went hard at you for another half a day. Satisfied? Hmm?"
"Hmph, I don't love you at all. If it weren't for making a salary baby with you, I would never lay a finger on you!"
Lu Zhou: "..."
In the end, he still hadn't managed to voice even half a word of concern.
Sister Li took Su Mian away to remove her makeup.
Holding a specialized makeup-removing spray, Sister Li washed off the lotus tattoos painted on Su Mian's body to cover her scars.
When she reached the back of her shoulder, Sister Li said with aching sympathy, "This scar on your back is even deeper than the ones on your wrist. It must have hurt back then."
Su Mian froze. "Wait! You painted the tattoo on my back to cover a scar, too?"
Sister Li said, "Yes."
Su Mian had thought it was to complete the design on her wrist!
That wasn't the point.
Su Mian raised her hand and felt her back.
That length, that width, that shape...
A sword wound!
The scar on her back had been left in ancient times, when she had gone to war alongside Duan Xuanyu and taken a sword strike for him!
All this time since transmigrating, she had assumed that Duan Xuanyu had crossed over with both his soul and his body.
Whereas her soul had transmigrated into this world's Su Mian, turning her into the Su Mian of this world.
But why did she still have a scar from the previous world on her body?
If she had transmigrated bodily, why did she also have the scars left by this world's Su Mian?
Had she transmigrated bodily, or had only her soul transmigrated?
Su Mian immediately questioned the system in her mind!
"System! What exactly is going on!"
"If I transmigrated bodily, where did this world's Su Mian go?"
"And why does my body have marks from both worlds!"
"The more I think about it, the more terrifying it gets!"
For a long time, the system did not respond.
The city library.
Duan Xuanyu was looking through materials on Northern Liang here.
He wanted to find out exactly who his hater was.
Suddenly, without warning, an electronic buzz sounded in his mind.
[Hello, master. I am the system, a mysterious force from a higher-dimensional world.]
[Because you were previously a person from ancient times and would not accept advanced technology so readily, I waited until now, until you had gained a basic understanding of the world, before coming to you.]