Under Berlin's Spotlights, Before the Eyes of the World

The temperature in Berlin that February was minus three degrees, but the moment Su Jin stepped out of the car, she felt as though she were stepping not onto a red carpet, but onto a cloud warmed by the spotlights.

At 6:45 p.m. on February 15, outside the Berlinale Palast, the main venue of the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.

The three-hundred-meter red carpet stretched from the street to the theater entrance, its sides packed with reporters and film fans from around the world. Cameras with lenses long and short formed a dense metal jungle behind the barricades, and their flashes joined into a white, unbroken storm of lightning.

She pushed open the car door and stepped onto the carpet with her left foot first. The silver-white skirt flowed out of the car like a length of silk, folded for too long and finally shaken open, swaying gently in the cold February wind.

She wore a silver-white beaded gown custom-made for her by Chanel's haute couture atelier.

Four hundred hours of work, a design by Virginie Viard, and a cut made by Madame Lefèvre's own hands.

Tiny crystals and pearls were embroidered across the silver-white satin, scattered more thickly in some places than others, from neckline to hem, from shoulders to waist. In places they clustered into galaxies; in others, the expanse was as empty as a deserted wilderness.

The neckline was asymmetrical, with a slender strap on the left and a bare shoulder on the right. The curve from her collarbone to her shoulder blade was fully exposed to Berlin's February wind and the flashes of three hundred cameras, like a carefully composed photograph whose empty spaces held more power than the filled ones.

The skirt was A-line, flaring out from the waist and falling to her ankles. As she walked, the crystals and pearls refracted tiny shards of light, as though the stars covering her body were all in motion.

Her hair was gathered in a low bun, secured with an antique tortoiseshell comb. Several tiny camellias woven from silver wire were tucked into its base, each with a pearl the size of a grain of rice set at its center, trembling gently when she turned her head.

From her ears hung the Chanel diamond tassel earrings Geneviève had selected for her. Two extremely fine diamond tassels, about three centimeters long, dangled from her earlobes. The diamonds were all different sizes, arranged from largest to smallest. The last was as tiny as a grain of sand, yet it still flashed beneath the cameras, like a star scaled down to its very limit.

Geneviève had finished her makeup only ten minutes before she got out of the car.

The foundation was as thin as a veil of mist scattered by the wind, concealing every fine line and pore that should not be seen while preserving the texture and breath of her skin.

A faint pink showed through on her cheekbones, as though it came from beneath the skin itself. It was not blush: Geneviève had dabbed a little lipstick onto the highest point of each cheekbone with a fingertip, then blended it with the warmth of her finger pads, like color rising from the blood vessels after a person had spent a whole day walking through snow, the cold wind bringing it to the surface.

Her whole appearance formed a subtle dialogue between cold and warmth-her shoulders were bare, touched by the wind, cold; her lips were matte, lit by the lights, warm.

She stood at the beginning of the red carpet, three hundred meters of it unfurling before her, the flashes on either side already blazing into a white ocean.

In her right hand she held a small silver clutch; her left hung naturally at her side, fingers slightly spread. Her nails were painted a pale nude pink, nearly invisible unless one looked closely, but under the lights they held a thin sheen, like the inside of a seashell washed by the sea.

She took a shallow breath, the movement of her chest almost imperceptible, and took her first step.

By the time the red carpet reached its three-hundredth meter, the flashes had ceased to make an intermittent "click, click" and had merged into a roar like white noise, like heavy rain beating on a tin roof, or countless moths hurling themselves at a lamp at once.

Su Jin stood halfway down the carpet, her left foot slightly forward, her skirt spreading out behind her. The crystals and pearls on the silver-white satin shone translucent in the tens of thousands of flashes bursting in an instant, each one like a tiny sun set alight.

Her right shoulder was bare to Berlin's cold February wind. The edge of her shoulder blade formed a shallow curve beneath her skin, and her collarbone ran from the hollow of her throat to her shoulder like a riverbank rounded smooth by water.

She did not deliberately pose. She simply stood there, turned her head slightly, and looked toward the row of Italian reporters on her right-and with that one movement, the light carved her jawline into a sharp, almost arrogant angle. The pink on her cheekbones looked even deeper in the cold white flashes, like a flower frozen beneath a sheet of ice, still blooming.

A German photographer later wrote on social media: "I've photographed red carpets for twenty years. I've seen Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Isabelle Huppert.

"I've seen beauty, I've seen presence, I've seen someone stand there and make everyone forget to press the shutter.

"But Su Jin was different. She stood there, and you didn't forget to press the shutter. You pressed it faster.

"Because you were afraid of missing something. You were afraid she'd turn to another angle the next second, and that angle would be even more beautiful than this one.

"You kept pressing, kept pressing, until your finger ached and your memory card sounded a warning. Then you looked back at the photos and found that every one looked like a cover.

"Every one."

Another French reporter stood behind the barricade nearby, clutching a voice recorder he had forgotten to turn on.

He later said in an interview that Su Jin had passed about three meters in front of him, over the course of roughly four seconds, but during those four seconds his mind had gone blank, with only one thought repeating itself: Is this real? Is this person real?

He said he had seen too many faces retouched with photo-editing software, too many stars who looked flawless in painstakingly edited photographs but, standing before him in person, resembled faded posters. Su Jin was not like that.

His naked eye captured her skin directly at a distance of one and a half meters-no soft-focus lens, no filter, no postproduction.

Seen from the side, her brow ridge resembled a wind-carved ridge of rock. The highest point of her cheekbone fell precisely on a line extending vertically down from her pupil, and the turn of her jaw was as clean as if measured with a ruler. He had read about these proportions in textbooks and seen them in Renaissance portraits, but never before had he seen them with his own eyes on a living, breathing face passing in front of him.

After those four seconds, he forgot to turn on his recorder, forgot to ask questions, forgot he was a reporter.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) camera crew had set up a 4K high-speed camera at the end of the red carpet, shooting at 120 frames per second.

They had intended to use it for red-carpet footage, but after Su Jin walked past, the cameraman rewound the footage and watched it. When he finished, he sent it to an editor in London with a message: "Look at this. You could take a screenshot of any frame and use it as a poster."

The editor replied: "Frames eleven through fifteen, those four frames where the wind lifts her hair-I don't want screenshots, I want wallpaper. Four meters by two meters, hanging in my living room."

From frames eleven through fifteen, Su Jin had just reached the last bend in the red carpet when a gust swept in from the theater's portico, lifting a few loose strands at the edge of her bun.

The strands floated in the wind for a fraction of a second. One landed on her cheekbone, caught against it, then bounced up and settled behind her ear.

Another drifted back along her temple, passing through a gap in the diamond tassel on her earlobe, tangling with another strand, then separating.

The whole thing took less than half a second. The high-speed camera broke it into four frames. In those four frames, her expression did not change at all-the corners of her mouth remained slightly curved, her eyes still fixed on a point ahead, not smiling, but not cold either.

The contrast between that stillness and her drifting hair left the United Kingdom editor silent before his screen in his London studio at three in the morning. Then he sent his wife a message: "I saw someone today who made my profession meaningful."

She took a full eight minutes to walk the three hundred meters of red carpet.

She was not deliberately walking slowly. Every few steps she had to stop, letting reporters take photographs and media cameras capture her from different angles.

The flashes were at their most concentrated at that moment, like a thunderstorm with its fast-forward button pressed.

She finished the three hundred meters, stepped onto the theater stairs, and turned at the entrance for one last look at the black Mercedes-Benz sedan at the beginning of the carpet.

The door was already closed, and the driver was turning the car around, preparing to leave.

She turned and walked into the theater.

The premiere of Winter Harbor was scheduled for the evening of the Berlin Film Festival's second day. It was the second film in the main competition, and the screening was in the main auditorium of the Berlinale Palast, which seated two thousand.

Anderson Lau stood waiting for her at the entrance, wearing a black suit. His hair was much longer than it had been in Maine, nearly covering his eyes, but he had not cut it. He had simply let it grow, the way someone might when too lazy to bother with it.

He paused when he saw Su Jin approach. It was not the sort of pause that came from being dazzled, but the kind that came from seeing something familiar and being unable to remember where.

He stared at her for two seconds, then smiled. "You're not Lin,"

he said. "You're Su Jin. Lin wouldn't dress like this. Lin wouldn't bring three hundred meters of red carpet to a halt for her. Lin wouldn't make everyone look at her."

Su Jin stood before him, her silver-white skirt glowing softly under the theater lights. "Then do you regret it? Having me play Lin?"

Anderson shook his head. "No. Lin is part of you, but she isn't all of you.

"The audience will remember Lin when they see the film. Then they'll walk out of the theater, see your photograph, and think, So Lin has this side to her too.

"So she can stand on a red carpet and have the whole world look at her. She doesn't have to stand outside a bookstore looking at the sea."

He reached out and gently clasped her hand. "Go on. They're waiting for you."

By the time Su Jin entered the screening room, the lights had already dimmed.

Her seat was in the middle of the third row, with Anderson and the producer beside her.

She sat down, placed her silver clutch on her knees, and folded her hands over it. Her back straight and her head slightly raised, she looked at the screen ahead.

In the faint light reflected from the screen, her profile had a quiet, focused beauty, like someone waiting for an examination whose result was already known-not nervous, but serious.

The screen lit up.

The first shot of Winter Harbor was the sea.

A gray-blue sea stretched from the left edge of the frame to the right, with no shore, no boats, no birds, only water.

The sound of waves poured from the surround speakers, low and continuous, filling the screening room with a rhythm like breathing.

Then a person appeared on screen.

Lin stood in the doorway of the bookstore, wearing a pale gray linen dress, her hair slightly disheveled by the sea breeze. She held a book and was looking down at it.

The camera slowly moved in, from her back to her profile, from her profile to her face.

When that face appeared on the screen, two thousand people in the auditorium held their breath at once.

That was not an exaggeration. It was a fact.

The editor-in-chief of France's Cahiers du Cinéma later wrote in a review: "I have sat in cinemas for forty years and watched thirty thousand films. Never have I seen an actor's face appear on screen and make an entire auditorium stop breathing at once.

"Su Jin did it. Not because she was beautiful, but because her face was speaking-before any dialogue had been spoken, before the plot had begun to unfold, before she had even begun to 'act,' her face was already telling a story.

"There was a classical quality to that face that did not belong to this age, like a Renaissance portrait kept in a museum at a constant temperature and humidity, except that when you stared at it, the person in the painting blinked.

"That feeling-you knew she was alive, but she lived at a rhythm different from yours.

"You breathed once, she breathed half a breath. You blinked once, she blinked half a blink. Your time was fast, hurried, anxious; hers was slow, unhurried, eternal."

In the scene where Lin arranged the bookshelves in the bookstore, Su Jin had no lines, no change of expression, no dramatic movements of any kind.

She simply stood before the shelves, took a book down, looked at its cover, and put it somewhere else. Take a book, look at the cover, put it down.

She repeated it more than a dozen times.

Only her hands and the book covers appeared on screen, with an occasional glimpse of her profile-just a small part, the curve of her brow ridge, the shadow of her eyelashes, the barely perceptible curve of her mouth.

But a Los Angeles Times critic later wrote in his notebook: "During those four minutes when she arranged the shelves, I forgot I was a film critic. I forgot I had to give a score, write a review, and send in my copy the moment the screening ended.

"I just sat there and watched her move a book from beside a dark blue one to beside a dark green one, then move it back, then move it away again.

"Sometimes her fingers lingered longer on a spine, sometimes for a shorter time. Later I realized she was controlling my breathing. With her fingers. With the length of time her fingers lingered on the spines.

"In forty years of watching films, this was the first time an actor's fingers had controlled my heart rate."

In the scene where she read the letter in the attic, Su Jin sat on the floor with a yellowed letter on her knees.

Outside the window was winter in Maine, bare branches swaying in the wind. Gray daylight poured through the attic skylight and fell across her face.

She looked down at the letter for a long time. Her expression hardly changed-she did not cry, smile, frown, or clench her teeth.

She simply looked at the page, her gaze moving from the first line to the last, then stopping there, at the end of the letter, where it was signed.

Then she turned the page over and looked at the back-there was nothing, only blankness, the texture of the paper and its slightly yellowed edges.

She stared at the blank space for a few seconds, then folded the letter, slipped it back into the envelope, and laid the envelope on her knees. She pressed it with her palm, smoothing the corners that had curled with age.

The critic from Italy's La Repubblica did not go to the press conference after the screening. He sat in his seat until all the lights in the auditorium came on, until the cleaners came in, until the manager came over to ask whether he needed help.

He looked up, his eyes red.

"I've seen Anna Karina shed tears in Breathless, seen Juliette Binoche clench her fist in Blue, seen Huppert bite her lip in The Piano Teacher. Those were all great performances.

"But Su Jin was different.

"She did not shed tears, clench her fist, or bite her lip.

"She turned the letter over and looked at the blank back. That blank page was louder than any line of dialogue.

"At that moment I realized she was not playing Lin. She was Lin.

"Lin was not a character she created, but someone who had always lived inside her.

"She simply let that person come out, walk in front of the camera, sit on the attic floor, and read a letter that would never be sent.

"She did not need to act. She only needed to-not stand in that person's way."

The German magazine Der Spiegel titled its review "She Brought Cinema Back to Its Origins."

The review consisted of a single paragraph: "When cinema was first invented, people went into movie theaters just to see one thing-a face. A strange, living face, magnified countless times.

"Then cinema acquired stories, special effects, sound effects, 3D, IMAX, 120 frames per second.

"People forgot that the essence of cinema was a face.

"Su Jin's performance in Winter Harbor brought cinema back to its origins.

"She made you believe again that one face was enough. One face could make you cry, make you laugh, and make you walk out of the theater two hours later feeling that the world was a little larger than when you came in. A little deeper. Worth staying in a little longer."

The premiere score came out at 11:17 that night.

The Berlin Film Festival's official trade publication, Screen, used a four-star scoring system: four critics each gave a score, and their scores were averaged.

Winter Harbor's premiere score was 3.7-the highest of the festival so far, and the second-highest in Berlin's main competition over the past five years.

One of the four critics gave it the full four stars, with a single line of comment: "I gave it full marks not because the film was flawless. It was because of Su Jin. Every second she was on screen deserved full marks."

When the film ended and the lights came back on, Su Jin heard applause.

It was not the applause of the red carpet, lit by anticipation and accompanied by screams and whistles. This rose from deep among the seats, slow and heavy, rolling toward her in waves like the sea.

Two thousand people sat in their seats, clapping and looking at her.

She rose from her seat in the third row, turned around, smiled, and bowed to everyone, as if telling the applause, "I hear you."

Anderson stood, waved to the audience, and sat down again, his eyes red.

The producer stood up, sat down, then stood up again, like someone who did not know whether to stand or sit.

The press conference after the premiere was held in the briefing room beside the screening room.

The room was not large, with seats for about two hundred, but nearly three hundred reporters had come. Many stood crowded in the aisles, at the entrance, and in the gaps between camera tripods.

Su Jin sat behind a long table onstage, with Anderson in the middle, the producer on the left, and the veteran German actor who played the bookstore customer on the right.

She had changed clothes-the silver-white red-carpet gown had been put away, replaced by the premiere dress Geneviève had prepared for her: a black Dior velvet gown, a reproduction from the 1947 New Look collection. Its fitted waist cinched hers extremely slender, while the skirt spread wide as an overturned flower and fell to her ankles. A deep V-neck plunged to below her chest, exposing a broad expanse of skin and her collarbones. Her hair was down, loose over her shoulders and slightly curled at the ends. She had changed her earrings to Buccellati's Opera earrings, openwork flowers in white gold that glimmered under the briefing room's fluorescent lights.

The first question came from a French reporter, in rapid French with a strong Marseille accent.

"Ms. Su, this is your first film. You are not a formally trained actor; you are not even a professional actor. Do you think you deserve this role?"

When the interpreter translated the question into English, Anderson frowned and reached for the microphone.

Under the table, Su Jin gently pressed his knee.

She picked up the microphone and looked at the French reporter.

"No," she said. "I don't."

The briefing room fell silent for a moment.

The French reporter froze, his pen stopping in midair.

"Then why did you-"

Su Jin continued, "Because Lin didn't deserve it either.

"She didn't deserve that kind of talent, that kind of future, or to do the most advanced research at a top university.

"She thought it was all luck, all a fluke, that fate had given it to the wrong person.

"Every day she waited for fate to discover its mistake and take everything back.

"So she left first.

"Before fate could take it back, she left of her own accord.

"The difference between her and me is that I know I deserve it. Every step I've taken, I earned. No one gave it to me, no one lent it to me, no one handed it to me as charity. I earned it myself."

The briefing room was quiet for a long time.

The French reporter put down his pen, leaned back in his chair, and nodded.

The second question came from a United Kingdom reporter, in English, with a London accent and a deep, clear voice.

"Ms. Su, you studied computer vision at MIT. You won the global championship at the Championship.

"You have an investment company, an entertainment company, a furniture brand, and a private island.

"And you acted in a film selected for Berlin's main competition. Where do you find the time?"

Su Jin picked up the microphone and thought for a moment.

"I don't have time,"

she said. "I only have priorities. Sleep is the lowest priority. Socializing is the lowest priority. Daydreaming is the lowest priority. Dating-"

She paused. "Is also the lowest priority."

Someone in the briefing room laughed.

The United Kingdom reporter did not laugh. He looked into her eyes. "Then what's the highest priority?"

Su Jin looked at him. "Being alive.

"Not the kind of alive where you breathe, eat, and sleep.

"The kind where you wake up every morning knowing what you're going to do that day, knowing it means something, knowing that when it's done, the world will be a little different. That kind of alive."

The press hall fell silent.

No one laughed, no one spoke. Only the whir of camera motors and the click of shutters vibrated in the air.

The third question came from a German journalist, in German, and was translated into English.

"Ms. Su, you play a mathematician who leaves academia in the film. In real life, you're a rising star in academia. Will you leave like Lin?"

Su Jin lowered her head and looked at the microphone on the table for a while. Then she looked up.

"No. Lin left because she felt she didn't deserve it. I know I do. I'll stay.

"I'll do more research, write more papers, create more impossibilities.

"I'll use computer vision in films, in games, in places that let people see a bigger world. I won't leave."

After the press conference, Su Jin left the press hall through a side door.

The corridor was quiet, its warm white lights falling on the gray carpet like a folded passage leading somewhere peaceful.

She stood in the corridor, leaning against the wall, looking down at her shoes. Beneath the hem of her long black velvet dress, the toes of her silver Roger Vivier strappy sandals showed, the slender straps tracing the curves of her feet just right.

She stood there for a while, then pulled out her phone.

Little Golden Egg squeezed out of the air and floated in front of her, its wings fluttering more slowly than usual, like a bird that had flown too long and finally found somewhere to rest.

[Host, this system recorded everything you said at the press conference.

When you said "I deserve it," this system's emotional module nearly overloaded.

Did you know, this system has been with you for more than 130 days, and I've never heard you say those words.

You've kept doing things, kept earning things, kept moving forward. But you've never stopped and said to yourself-I deserve it.]

Su Jin didn't look at it. She kept her head down, looking at the time on her phone screen. 11:17 p.m.

Berlin time. Back home, it was already the small hours of the morning.

[Host, what are you thinking about?]

She thought for a moment.

"What time it is back home. What the news there will say tomorrow. And whether the people who watched the film will think Lin is Su Jin, and Su Jin is Lin."

[That's not true. Lin is Lin. You are you.

Lin would stand outside a bookstore and look at the sea. You would stand on a red carpet and let the whole world look at you. Lin would feel she didn't deserve it. You would say you did. You're different.]

The corners of Su Jin's mouth curved up.

She slipped her phone into her pocket, straightened up, and walked down the corridor toward the exit.

Her heels made no sound on the gray carpet. The silver toes of her sandals emerged from beneath the black velvet hem, one step, then another, then another.

She reached the end of the corridor and pushed the door open. Berlin's night wind blew against her face, cold but not biting.

She stood in the doorway, looking at the Berlin TV Tower in the distance. A red light blinked at its tip, like a heart someone had hung in midair, one that would never go out.

Four

By the time Su Jin returned to the hotel, her phone was blowing up.

Messages poured in through WeChat, Weibo, Instagram, every channel, like three faucets turned on at once. Before she could even close the door, her phone was vibrating so hard she could barely hold it.

She kicked off her heels, stepped barefoot onto the hotel room carpet, and sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at the numbers constantly jumping on her screen.

The top trending topic on Weibo was #Su Jin Berlin Red Carpet#, followed by a purplish-red "explosive" tag, like a red-hot seal stamped onto the end of the topic.

Third was #Su Jin Says "I Deserve It"#, also marked "explosive."

Seventh was #Standing Ovation at Winter Harbor Premiere#.

Twelfth was #Su Jin MIT World Champion#.

Eighteenth was #Su Jin Silver Gown#.

She occupied five of the top twenty trending spots.

Her Weibo followers had increased by four million over the past three hours and were still climbing by ten thousand a minute. Her Instagram followers had risen from thirty-five million to thirty-nine million, and the comments were a jumble of languages from all over the world: English, French, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and Thai and Vietnamese, which she couldn't read.

But the central meaning was the same: who was this woman, why was she standing there, why had she said those things, and why did she make everyone want to be her?

The top comment read: "She stood on the red carpet in Chanel haute couture, wearing bead embroidery that took four hundred hours, walking through Berlin's cold wind. A three-hundred-meter red carpet, and she took eight minutes to walk it. Every second was hers."

The second read: "That French journalist asked if she deserved it, and she said, 'I don't.' The whole room fell silent. Then she said, 'I know I deserve it.'

"At that moment, I cried in front of my phone screen. Not because of what she said, but because she first said 'I don't,' then said 'I deserve it.' She understands Lin.

"She understands everyone who feels they don't deserve it. And then she tells them-you deserve it."

The third read: "She studies computer vision at MIT, won the world championship at the Championship, acted in a film selected for Berlin's main competition, and stood on the red carpet for the whole world to see.

"She's twenty-five. I'm twenty-five too. Today I learned how to boil an egg."

Su Jin looked at the comment, and the corners of her mouth curved up.

She put her phone on the bedside table and went into the bathroom. Hot water poured from the showerhead, washing the silver-white bead embroidery, black velvet, nude-earth lipstick, gray-brown eyeshadow, and the sharp line of eyeliner at the corners of her eyes down the drain.

She stood beneath the stream with her eyes closed, letting the heat steam her skin to a soft, rosy pink.

Her hair was soaked, plastered to her scalp. Drops slid from its ends down her spine, lingered for a moment in the hollows of her lower back, then continued downward.

She washed for a long time, until the water from the heater began to cool, until she felt she could wash away all the gazes, applause, and flashing lights of the day.

She turned off the water, wrapped herself in a bath towel, and stood before the mirror, looking at the face the steam had tinged slightly red. No makeup, no gown, no flashing lights. Just a face.

A twenty-five-year-old face, freshly washed, a little tired and a little satisfied. She smiled at herself in the mirror, then turned and walked out of the bathroom.

Five

Su Jin was awakened by a call from Fang Ying.

It was four in the morning, Berlin time. Fang Ying's voice was taut on the other end of the phone, like a string stretched to its limit.

"President Su, something's happened. Open Weibo."

Su Jin sat up and reached for the bedside lamp.

Its warm yellow light came on in the darkness, casting her shadow long and thin on the opposite wall, like a charcoal drawing that hadn't quite dried.

She picked up her phone and opened Weibo.

The top trending topic had changed.

#Su Jin Kept by a Sugar Daddy# was followed by a purple "explosive" tag, even more purple than the previous one, so purple it was almost black.

She tapped it. At the top was a long Weibo post, and she recognized the poster's name-Wang Siyu.

Her university roommate. The woman who had quarreled with a sales associate at the Hermès store in SKP over the Himalaya.

The woman who, when Su Jin was at her poorest, had booked a French restaurant she couldn't afford, hoping to see her embarrassed when she couldn't pay her share.

The post was very long, complete with pictures and text, written in that falsely objective tone of "I'm only stating the facts."

Its opening lines read: Su Jin and I were roommates at university. She's an orphan. She grew up in a welfare home.

At university, she didn't even have enough money for food. She bought the cheapest dishes in the cafeteria every day, and in winter she only had one padded coat. When she washed it, she had nothing to wear. She was really pitiful back then.

Then came the turn: But after graduation, she suddenly had money. A great deal of money. Luxury cars, mansions, a private jet, a private island.

An orphan, a girl with no background whatsoever, suddenly acquired all of this two years after graduating. Don't you find that strange?

Then came a string of "questions"-where did her money come from? Who was behind her? What had she given up in return?

The final paragraph read: I'm not jealous of her. I just think the public has a right to know the truth. A woman who got ahead by being kept, standing on the red carpet in Berlin and saying "I deserve it"-don't you think that's funny?

The post had been up for an hour and had already been reposted more than a hundred thousand times.

In the comments, some believed it, some didn't, some cursed her, and some spoke up for her.

But the top comments all came from those who believed it: "I knew it. I said it all along-how could an orphan suddenly get so rich?"

"MIT? You can get in if you pay, right? What can't money buy?"

"Who's keeping her? Dig him out."

"Did she buy that MIT championship too?"

After reading the post, Su Jin set her phone on her knees.

The bedside lamp fell across her face, giving her freshly awakened, makeup-free features a pale, translucent quality.

She sat there in her white silk nightgown, her hair still half wet and loose over her shoulders, its ends curling, like someone who had just been pulled from the sea and thrown into an entirely different world before the water on her had dried.

She didn't cry, didn't tremble, didn't bite her lip. She simply sat there, looking at her shadow on the opposite wall.

Little Golden Egg squeezed out of the air and floated in front of her. This time its wings didn't flutter. It hovered there quietly, like a golden planet fixed in place.

[Host, this system has detected fluctuations in your emotions. Your heart rate is sixty-two beats per minute, three higher than usual. Adrenaline slightly elevated. Cortisol normal. You're not angry, you're just-]

"Just what?"

[Just remembering the past.

The welfare home. Having only one padded coat in winter. The cheapest dishes in the cafeteria. That feeling-not being poor, but being seen to be poor. Being seen, and then being looked at that way. That look hurts more than poverty itself.]

Su Jin said nothing.

She lowered her head and looked at her fingers. Her nails were cut short, with no polish on them, and a thin layer of callus had formed on her fingertips from the keyboard.

"Fang Ying," she said, "put me through to Zhao Mingyuan."

Three minutes later, Zhao Mingyuan called.

His voice was alert, not like someone who had been woken up, but like someone who had never gone to sleep.

"President Su, I saw it. The legal team is already here. The PR team is drafting a statement. We traced Wang Siyu's IP address. She's in Beijing. Some of the photos she posted are from your university days, and some were photoshopped. The one with you standing beside a luxury car was taken at the university entrance when you graduated. The car was passing by; it wasn't yours. We have the original."

Su Jin leaned against the headboard and looked at the ceiling.

"Release a statement from the company account. Don't make the wording emotional; just state the facts. Attach the originals, the comparison images, and the authentication report.

"Also, contact MIT and ask Professor Harris to issue a statement for me. My admission, my grades, my competition record-they're all real. Ask him to help verify them."

Zhao Mingyuan fell silent for a second. "President Su, are you sure? MIT generally doesn't get involved in this kind of-"

"He'll help me," Su Jin said. "He's not helping me. He's helping the truth."

After hanging up, she made another call. This time it was Anderson.

"You saw it?" she asked.

Anderson's voice was even more alert than Zhao Mingyuan's, as if he had been waiting for this call.

"I saw it. I'm writing a statement. My film, my leading lady-I believe her. Not because of anything she explained, but because of what I saw on set. She arrived earliest every day and left last. In a Maine winter, she stood barefoot in the sea for forty minutes until her feet turned purple, and she didn't once say she was cold.

"Someone being kept wouldn't act like that."

Su Jin said nothing.

She listened to Anderson's voice over the phone, his English touched with a French accent, like a warm radio broadcast playing from far away in the Berlin hotel room at four in the morning.

"Thank you," she said solemnly.

The third call came from Professor Harris.

His voice was calm, as if he were explaining a problem in class.

"Su, I saw it. I've already asked the department to draft a statement. It'll be released at eight tomorrow morning. Your admission, your grades, your competition record-they'll all be included. Your code is on GitHub; anyone can go and see it.

"That quantum computing problem-you were the only person in the world who solved it. That's not something money can buy."

Su Jin held her phone and listened to his voice.

Outside the window, the Berlin night was deep, the red light on the TV Tower blinking. "Thank you, Professor."

"Don't thank me. Thank yourself. You earned it."

She hung up and put her phone on the bedside table. Outside, the sky began to change, from deep blue to pale purple, then from pale purple to orange-pink.

The sun hadn't risen yet, but you knew it would soon. She sat on the bed, leaning against the pillows, watching the sky change color outside the window.

Little Golden Egg floated beside her without a sound.

Six

At seven in the morning, Huace Starlight's official Weibo account released a statement.

The wording was calm, without emotion, containing only facts. Nine images were attached: the original of the "luxury car photo" from Wang Siyu's post, taken at the university entrance on graduation day, with the car's license plate enlarged; its owner had been verified as a retired teacher with no connection to Su Jin whatsoever;

Su Jin's financial aid records, transcripts, and scholarship certificates from her four years at university;

Her MIT admission letter, visiting scholar invitation, and Championship award certificate;

And a lawyer's letter, already submitted to the court, suing Wang Siyu for defamation.

At eight in the morning, the official account of MIT's computer science department released a statement.

Professor Harris's photo appeared above it. He wore that gray Ralph Lauren crewneck sweatshirt, his expression stern, as though he were looking at a student who hadn't done his homework in class.

"Su Jin is one of the finest students I have ever taught. Her performance in the Championship was the most outstanding I have seen in thirty years of teaching.

"Her code is on GitHub, and anyone can verify it. Her achievements are what she earned herself.

"MIT is proud of her."

At nine in the morning, Netflix's official account reposted Huace Starlight's statement, adding one sentence: "Su Jin is a Netflix shareholder and one of our most important content partners. We believe her."

At ten in the morning, Dior's haute couture atelier posted on Instagram. It wasn't a statement, but a photograph-Madame Lefèvre standing before a worktable, holding a sample of the silver-white gown's bead embroidery.

The caption read: "This gown took four hundred hours of work. Every crystal, every pearl was sewn on by hand. Made for Su Jin. She was worth those four hundred hours."

At noon, Shen Nian posted a photo on Instagram: a sketch of a chair, its walnut curves drawn in a single uninterrupted stroke from the backrest to the armrests. The caption was only one line:

"ME's first chair. Made for her. Before she sat in it, I sat in it first. After she sat in it, I stepped away."

At one in the afternoon, Su Jin's Instagram followers passed forty million.

The comments beneath the post accusing her of being kept had completely turned around.

The top comment now read: "She said she deserved it. Everyone around her came forward to say she deserved it. If you don't believe her, who will you believe?"

"That Wang Siyu was jealous of her at university. Still jealous after graduation. Now the whole world knows she's jealous of her."

"An orphan put herself through university on financial aid, got into MIT through her own efforts, won a world championship, and acted in a film selected for Berlin. And then someone says she was kept. These people aren't bad, they're afraid. Afraid that a woman with no background made it on her own to a place they'll never reach."

Su Jin read the comments, then put her phone on the bedside table.

Outside the window, Berlin's sky had fully brightened. The sun emerged from behind the clouds, turning the tip of the TV Tower into a golden needle.

She stood and walked to the window, barefoot on the hotel carpet, wearing her white silk nightgown, her hair loose and her face bare of makeup.

Sunlight fell on her, illuminating her from head to toe like a white candle set alight.

She stood there, looking at the city of Berlin in the distance-the TV Tower, the glass dome of the Reichstag, the golden angel atop the Victory Column, glittering in the sunlight.

Little Golden Egg floated beside her, its wings fluttering, its golden glow almost invisible in the sunlight, but it was still there.

[Host, you gained another five million followers today. Five million. In one day.]

Su Jin said nothing.

[This system did the math. You have forty-one million followers now, fourteen percent more than yesterday. That growth rate is faster than the appreciation of any of your assets. But this system doesn't think that's the most important thing.]

Su Jin turned to look at it. "What's most important?"

Little Golden Egg floated in the sunlight, its golden body illuminated until it was almost transparent.

[What matters most is-the people who stood up and spoke for you today. They didn't stand up because you're rich. They did it because you're worth it. You earned it. Not with money, but with who you are.]

Su Jin looked at it, the corners of her mouth curving upward.

She turned back and continued looking out the window. Sunlight poured down from behind the clouds, turning the whole city of Berlin into a golden, flowing sea.